Shame the Devil (27 page)

Otis did it, and Farrow turned to the page representing Northeast.

“You said Jonas lived in Brookland, right, T. W.? Well, here’s Hamlin Street, smack in the middle of the Brookland neighborhood,
right here.” Farrow dropped the detail map back on the desk. “Funny how easy it was to find Jonas. I walked into a Seven-Eleven
this morning and got the information out of a book just like this in a minute flat. You know, he was in the phone book all
the time.”

“I didn’t think to look in the directory, Frank,” said Wilson, trying to put some levity in his voice. “I mean, who
would
have thought —”

“You didn’t think. Or maybe you were just trying to avoid more trouble.” Farrow stood and walked over to Wilson. Wilson seemed
to shrink before him. “I know you don’t like conflict, T. W. But when I ask you to do something, I expect it to be done.”

“Listen, Frank —”

“Don’t let it bother you, all right? Wouldn’t want your nerves to get the better of you.” Farrow removed his black-rimmed
nonprescription glasses. “Now. How’s it going on our upcoming prospects?”

“Working on that,” said Wilson. “Been out in the clubs, listenin’ to people talk. Gonna find something real good for the two
of you, you’ll see.”

“You been clubbin’, huh?” said Otis. “Must be gettin’ a lot of pussy, too, with that up-to-the-minute look you got goin’ on.”

“Find something soon,” said Farrow. “We don’t want to be here any longer than we have to.” Farrow checked his watch. “Come
on, let’s see how they’re getting along out there.”

“I’ll just wait here,” said Otis, “let my legs straighten out for a while.”

Farrow and Wilson walked back out to the garage. Going around the corner, they nearly bumped into Manuel and Jaime and a man
in a brown leather jacket they were talking to. The man’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of Wilson.

“Hey,” said the man in a friendly way.

“How you doin’?” said Wilson.

“Nick Stefanos,” said the man, extending his hand. “Remember?”

Wilson remembered. It was that investigator, Dimitri’s friend, the one from the meeting last Tuesday night.

Nick Stefanos found the street called Selim in downtown Silver Spring and parked his ride outside Hanagan’s Auto Body behind
a late-model Chrysler product. He rang the bell beside the door of the unmarked bay located between Hanagan’s and Rossi Automotive,
and zipped up his leather as he waited. The door opened and a short, black-haired, Indian-featured Hispanic stood in the frame.
The name “Manuel” was stitched across his uniform shirt.

“Yes?”

“Nick Stefanos. I’m an investigator with the District of Columbia.” Stefanos flipped open the leather cover and let Manuel
inspect his ID. “Do you have a minute? I have a couple of questions.”

Manuel looked over his shoulder and back at Stefanos. He knew Stefanos was not a cop, but the investigator tag had raised
the red authority flag in his mind. This was Stefanos’s intent. If this Manuel was like most people, he’d let Stefanos have
his minute, if only to get rid of him for good.

“What is this?”

“A case I’m working on for the courts.”

“A court case?”

Stefanos decided to cut right to it. This one’s shell looked hard enough.

“It’s not about you or your business,” said Stefanos. “I’m not IRS and I’m not immigration. I’m just trying to locate a particular
car.”

“What kind of car?”

“A Ford.” Stefanos blew into his hands. “Look, can I come in and warm up?”

Manuel looked him over. “Come on. But I have much work to do today, okay?”

“I’ll be quick.”

As they entered, Stefanos saw a mechanic in the back of the garage quickly pull a tarp over an early-seventies, muscled-up
Mustang. Stefanos only saw the car for a couple of seconds, but the lines were unmistakable. Stefanos walked toward the mechanic,
whose obvious, urgent action had sparked his curiosity. Manuel walked beside him.

“You’re Manuel Ruiz, right?”

“Yes,” said Manuel, clearly perturbed. “How do you know this?”

“Al Adamson. You know Al, don’t you?”

“
Si
. The Continental man.”

Stefanos kept walking. The mechanic met them past an entrance-way to a hall of some kind. All of them stepped around a corner.

“You must be Jaime Gutierrez,” said Stefanos. He noticed the teardrop tattoos on the side of Jaime’s bony face.

“Yes,” said Jaime, glancing nervously at his partner.

“I won’t keep you guys. I’m trying to locate an old Torino. A special-edition Ford called the Twister, red —”

Jaime spoke Spanish to Manuel, and then Manuel said, “We know of no such car.”

“You guys specialize in Ford restorations, right?”

“We do not know this car,” said Manuel. “I do know of a Torino man, though. On Route One in Laurel.”

“Who is it?”

Manuel gave him the man’s name and the location of his garage. Stefanos was writing it down when he heard the voices of two
other men, and then the men, one white and one black, were right upon them as they turned the corner.

Stefanos recognized the black man. It was Thomas Wilson, one of the guys from Dimitri’s group.

“Hey,” said Stefanos.

“How you doin’?” said Wilson with a shaky smile.

“Nick Stefanos. Remember?”

“I forgot something in the office,” said the white man, walking back around the corner.

Stefanos speed-scanned the man before he turned: medium height, solid build, flat eyes, thin lips, a Cassavetes type with
dyed-black hair and Clark Kent glasses on his lined face.

“What you doin’ here, man?” said Wilson in a friendly way.

“I’m working a case. How about you?”

Wilson spread his hands. “Gettin’ my car checked out.”

“Thought you drove a Dodge,” said Stefanos, realizing then that it was Wilson’s car he had parked behind out on Selim. “This
is a Ford shop, isn’t it?”

Wilson forced a grin. “Yeah, but my boys here… they make an exception when it comes to my short.”

“Okay.” Stefanos closed his notebook. “Well, I’ve gotta run. Thanks for your time, Manuel. Take it easy, Thomas.”

“Yeah, man, take it light.”

Stefanos shook Manuel’s hand. He nodded to Jaime and Wilson and walked from the garage.

Driving back into D.C., he thought of the teardrop tattoos on Jaime’s face: prison tats, or those from a gang. He thought
of the odd, hard man who had rushed off. He thought of Thomas Wilson, a Dodge man, getting his car done in a Ford restoration
shop. He wondered what Wilson was doing hanging around these men. And he had that crazy feeling again, the same feeling he’d
had the night of the meeting: the feeling that something was not right.

AFTER THE MAN
in the brown leather jacket had gone, Frank Farrow and Roman Otis emerged from the office and crossed the garage.

Farrow said to Thomas Wilson, “Who was that?”

“Ask Manuel,” said Wilson with a clumsy shrug.

“You knew him,” said Farrow. “I’m asking you.”

“I met him at a party last week,” said Wilson. “Seeing him here today was just one of those accidents.”

“He was looking for a car,” said Manuel.

Jaime dragged hard on his cigarette and stared down at his boots.

“He looked like some kind of cop,” said Farrow.

“I don’t think so,” said Manuel. “He was only looking for a car.”

Farrow regarded Manuel and said, “All right. How much to use the Mustang for the week?”

“Seven hundred,” said Manuel.

“You’ve raised your rates.”

“The car was bought from the
Old Car Trader
. It is all legal, down to the plates.”

“Here.” Farrow counted out seven hundred-dollar bills. “Have something ready for me that I can buy when I bring the Mustang
back. I want it clean and fast.”

“You will have it,” said Manuel.

“’Bout ready, Frank?” said Otis.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

“See you later, Man-you-el,” said Otis. “Jamey.”

“Stay in touch, T. W.,” said Farrow.

Wilson said, “Right.”

Farrow and Otis went to the Mach 1 and settled into its white buckets. Farrow cooked the ignition; the rumble echoed in the
garage. He looked across the buckets and smiled at Otis. Otis took his .45 from his coat and slipped it beneath his seat.
Farrow put the automatic in gear.

They drove south on Georgia Avenue. A cop car passed them on the right, its uniformed driver slowing down to have a look at
the Mach 1.

“He likes it,” said Farrow as the cop car accelerated and sped off.

“You drive a red car, it’s gonna attract some attention.”

“You heard Manuel. Everything checks out, and he wouldn’t lie to me. Besides, I’ll keep to the speed limit, Roman.”

“I know that, Frank. Always did feel comfortable with you behind the wheel.”

Otis found HUR on the FM dial. The DJ was starting into the Temptations’ “A Song for You,” a beautiful track from their late
period. Otis did his best with all the vocal parts. He wasn’t too solid on the highs, but he thought he sounded pretty good.

“Where we headed now, Frank?” said Otis when the song was done.

“Gonna see if Detective Jonas is home,” said Farrow.

Otis studied the detail map he had lifted from the office. “You ain’t thinkin’ of doin’ that cop today, right?”

“Just want to say hello to his sons if they’re around.”

“That’s what you got in mind,” said Otis, “you want to be makin’ a left at the corner up ahead.”

“Mr. Lynch,” said Nick Stefanos. “If you could just give me a minute here —”

“Keep talkin’,” said Lynch. “I can listen to you while I’m workin’.”

Lynch had his head in the engine of a ’71 Torino. The engine was a 351 Cleveland; the car was green with a white roof. Lynch
turned a wrench with a thick, scaly hand.

“I’m trying to locate a red Torino,” said Stefanos.

“I know, I know, you already —”

“A Twister, special edition. Red.”

Lynch backed up and stood to his full five-feet-two. He was a pink-faced, froggish man with a hops belly and a comb-over of
blond-gray hair.

“Why didn’t you say so?” said Lynch. “For God’s sake, you could have saved me all this talk.”

“You know the car?”

“Ain’t but one like it in the area. And yeah, I know it. I restored the sonofabitch myself.”

Stefanos felt a tick in his blood. “You have the name and address of the person who owns it?”

“I have the name. Have an address and a phone number, too, but both of them are worthless. I’m tellin’ you the truth ’cause
I found out the hard way, see? This black bastard, he stiffed me for two grand. He’s the reason I got that sign posted over
there.”

Lynch pointed to a “No Checks, Cash and Charges Only” notice posted by the register.

“What’s this guy’s name?”

“Forjay. Sean Forjay. Young buck with one of those big Afros they all used to wear.” Lynch regarded Stefanos strangely. “Hey,
what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” said Stefanos, thinking of Forjay, the top-of-the-heap dealer down on Kennedy.

“Yeah,” said Lynch, “Forjay’s one of those niggers, you never want to see him again, just loan him some money. Hey, where
you goin’ so fast, buddy?”

Stefanos walked quickly through the open bay door. On the way to his car he lit a smoke.

“Who was the man in the leather jacket?” said Manuel Ruiz.

“Friend of a friend,” said Thomas Wilson. “An investigator for the public defender’s office, downtown.”

“He knows nothing about us?”

“No. He’s only looking for a car. Thanks for covering me there.”

“We need no more trouble with Frank.”

“That’s right. We all want to get out from under Farrow. We’re together on that, right?”

Manuel glanced at Jaime. “That is right. I prayed that we would never see Frank again after what happened at the pizza parlor.
He killed your friend, those other people… that child. Now he has killed a man of God. We are thieves but not murderers. And
we have children of our own.”

“Maybe he’ll just go away,” said Wilson.

“And maybe,” said Manuel, “we can help him to go away.”

Jaime patted his breast pocket for his pack of cigarettes. The pocket was empty, and he frowned.

“What’d you do, Manny?” said Wilson.

“The tags on that Mustang. I stole them myself last night, from a luxury car in Forest Heights. You can be sure that the owner
was outraged. The tags are on the hot sheet, I am certain, as we speak.”

“Red muscle car with hot tags,” said Wilson. “Man could get pulled over real fast, drivin’ one of those.”

Manuel nodded at Jaime and said, “That is not all.”

Wilson said, “What else?”

“Jaime is an expert brake man. He fixed the master cylinder on the Mustang so that the brake fluid would leak out. The brakes
will fail on that car for sure. I would say in the next four or five days, they will fail altogether.”

“What about the idiot lights?” said Wilson. “That’ll tip Frank off.”

“I fix the idiot light,” said Jaime.

“Aren’t you two afraid?” said Wilson.

“Yes,” said Manuel, “we are afraid. The way men in war are afraid.”

Wilson said nothing, staring at Manuel. Then he looked at his watch. “I better be goin’. Meeting my uncle Lindo down at his
warehouse.”

“You go,” said Manuel.

“I’ll keep you two up on things,” said Wilson.

“Please,” said Manuel.

They shook hands with Wilson and watched him walk from the garage.

“Will he give us up?” said Jaime.

“I don’t think so,” said Manuel. “He is stronger than he knows.”

“What about the man in the leather jacket?”

“What Wilson said was true. He was only looking for a car.”

“I hope we are right,” said Jaime, “to try and cross Frank.”

“He is a devil,” said Manuel. “So we have to try.”

Jaime reached into his pocket, remembered that he was out of cigarettes.

“I need to buy smokes,” said Jaime.

“You have a fresh pack in the offi,” said Manuel.

“You said ‘offi,’” said Jaime with a tight smile. “But you meant ‘office,’ right?”