Shame the Devil (3 page)

Frank stepped around Vance Walters’s corpse. He put the muzzle of the Woodsman to Greene’s head.

Richard Farrow had heard the gunshots come from inside the pizza parlor, but apparently the black cop had not. He had pulled
away and been gone ten minutes. Richard was relieved at first, but growing shaky again as the time ticked off. He smoked another
cigarette, tapped his hand on the wheel, spun the automatic on the hot vinyl seat beside him.

Richard figured the cop had called in the Ford’s plates. But the plates had been lifted just that morning from Union Station’s
long-term lot. Those Spanish guys in that garage had done them a solid there. Yeah, they’d done good —

Another gunshot sounded from inside the pizza parlor. Then another, and another behind it.

No, brother. God, no…

“Phew,” said Roman Otis. “One of ’em done fouled his britches.”

“Put another round in each one and let’s go.”

“What, you think they gonna walk away?”

“Do it, Roman. Do it and let’s go.”

Yeah, thought Otis, Frank is one smart man. He’s going to tie us together now, forever and for real.

Otis shrugged. He holstered the shotgun and drew the .45.

Richard Farrow left the motor running and got out of the car. He paced back and forth in the street. The heat of the asphalt
came through the thin leather soles of his shoes. He looked down his arm and saw the nine millimeter in his hand. He looked
toward a low-rise apartment building on his left and saw a curtain drop shut.

He heard four more shots.

“We are fucked,” said Richard. He glanced back at the car. No — he
couldn’t
go back to that hot car. Richard began to stumble-walk across the street toward the rear entrance of May’s.

He turned at the sound of a big engine. The black unmarked cop car was blowing toward him on 39th.

William Jonas accelerated when he saw the sweaty white man with the aviator shades standing in the middle of the street, holding
a gun.

“Aw, shit,” said Jonas. The cruiser he had called for hadn’t arrived. No time to think about that now.

He hit the brakes fifty yards from the man, turned the wheel, skidded his car to a stop so that it blocked the street. He
keyed the mic, screamed into it for backup. He dropped the mic to the floor, pulled his weapon, chambered a round, opened
the door, and rolled out of the car onto the street. He got up into a crouch and positioned himself behind the hood of the
car. He straightened his gun arm and rested it on the hood, his head and shoulders clear.

“I’m a police officer!” he yelled. “Throw the weapon to the side! Get down on your stomach and cradle your hands behind your
head, now!”

The man paced a few steps, dizzy with confusion. He looked over at the back of the commercial strip, made a move toward it,
changed his mind and walked back toward the Ford.

“Drop the weapon!” screamed Jonas.

The man looked in the direction of Jonas like he was hearing him for the first time. He opened the door of the Ford.

“I said drop it!” Jonas could hear a siren now. The backup would be here in a hot minute, maybe less. If the guy by the Ford
could only hold onto his shit, then maybe everything could turn out all right.

Frank Farrow looked through the partially opened door as Roman Otis checked his gun and listened to the screech of tires.

“Okay, Richard’s got company.”

“How many?” said Otis.

“One for now.”

“One’s better than two.”

“Richard’s just standing there, out in the street. Goddamnit, I told him… All right, gimme the bag.” Otis tossed the duffel
over to Frank. “How many you got left in that forty-five?”

“Four.”

“I’ve got two in the thirty-eight.” He holstered the .22 — useless at this range — and grasped the handles of the duffel bag.

“You know what we gotta do,” said Frank.

Otis shrugged. “Can’t
do
nothin’ else.” He hand-brushed his hair back behind his ears.

Otis went to the door, yanked it open, and charged out into the sunlight. Frank went out behind him, calling his brother’s
name.

William Jonas watched the man reach for the door handle of the Ford. Someone yelled, “Richard!” The man looked back at the
center of the commercial strip. Two men carrying guns and a duffel bag bolted from a door. Jonas speed-scanned: One of them
was white with gray hair and a gray mustache, the other a tall, dark-skinned man with Las Vegas–looking hair. The image of
them registered as Jonas returned his sight to the man by the Ford. The man by the Ford pointed his gun at Jonas.

He’s scared. He won’t shoot.…

The man by the Ford steadied his gun with both hands.

Jonas thought of his wife and sons. He closed one eye, aimed, and fired his weapon.

Jonas’s first round penetrated the door of the Ford. His second round found its target. The pale white man’s sunglasses went
funny on his face as he crumpled and swung down, his arm hooked around the window frame. Jonas could see a black line running
like a worm down the front of the man’s face.

A round sparked off the hood in front of Jonas. He blinked, moved his gun arm, fired at the two men who were standing still
and firing at him. He squinted, saw smoke coming from their guns, heard his windshield spider, kept firing even as a bullet
tore into his bicep and another hit his shoulder as he was jerked up and back. He took another bullet high in the chest. It
was like a hot needle going in. He screamed as he fell, firing his weapon into the front quarter panel of his own vehicle,
feeling the shock of his back hitting the hard, hot pavement and the wind blow from his lungs. He stared up at the blazing
sun and listened to the siren grow louder. He fought for breath and got it. He turned his head to vomit. He dropped his Glock
and heard the dull sound it made on the street.

Goddamn plastic gun. Oh, sweet Jesus, I am hit.

Lisa Karras couldn’t believe the heat. She had called the weather service, but the temperature given on the recording didn’t
begin to describe the feeling of actually being outdoors. Not that Jimmy seemed to notice. He was ahead of her, walking faster
even as she slowed her pace.

“Jimmy, honey, c’mon. We’ve got all day. The ice cream store’s not going anywhere.”

He turned around and jogged backward, pointing to his mother with that evil, beautiful smile of his that couldn’t help but
break her down.

“I’m not biting for that,” said Lisa. “I’m telling you, sweetheart, I can’t go any faster than this.”

Jimmy turned frontward and broke into a run. She called out to him weakly, but by now he was out of earshot, charging down
Alton, halfway to 39th. Fireworks sounded from far away.

“Where you goin’, man?”

“I’m going to finish that cop.”

“You hear them sirens? The two of us ain’t gonna make it if we stay. And I ain’t leavin’ you here, you know that.”

“He killed my brother,” said Frank.

“Then we’ll just have to come back at a better time,” said Otis. “Do him the same way.”

Jonas’s unmarked blocked the road. A patrol car skidded into the Wisconsin Avenue turnoff, rolled up 39th, and came to a stop
behind the unmarked. The driver radioed for backup while his uniformed partner crawled out of the car.

Frank and Otis moved quickly to the Ford. Frank picked up Richard and threw him across the backseat of the Ford. He tossed
the duffel bag on top of Richard, ignoring the uniform’s shouted commands, and got under the wheel. Otis was already on the
passenger side of the bench.

Frank yanked down on the tree and fishtailed coming out of the space. Sirens wailed from several directions. They heard the
pop of gunshots behind them, and neither ducked his head.

Otis wiped sweat from his forehead, glanced at the speedometer: fifty, sixty… okay, shit, it would be all right. Frank always
did know how to handle a ride.

“Gonna be a trick to get us out of here,” said Otis. He holstered the .45.

Frank saw a flash of cop car moving toward them on the street called Windom to his right.

“Punch this motherfucker,” said Otis.

Frank pinned the accelerator. The car lifted, and both of them were pushed back against the seat. The Ford blew through the
four-way and caught air coming over a rise.

“Watch it,” said Otis, as something small ran backward into the street ahead. “Hey, Frank, man, slow down.…”

Something was wrong. There were ambulance or police sirens all over now, and Lisa Karras knew something was wrong. She broke
into a run.

“Jimmy!” she yelled, frantic because he was still going toward the intersection of 39th and he was too many steps ahead and
it was too hot. “Jimmy!”

He turned and ran backward. She saw his crooked smile and the flush of his cheeks as he tripped back off the curb. She saw
surprise on his face, but only for a moment. A blur of white car lifted him and pinwheeled him over its roof. He was hinged
at an awful angle as he tumbled over the car.

That is not my little Jimmy,
thought Lisa Karras.

That’s just a broken doll.

Frank Farrow gave the cracked windshield a spray of fluid and hit the wipers. Blood swept away and gathered at the edges in
two pink vertical lines.

Roman Otis turned his head, looked through the rear glass. A woman was in the street, her hands tight in her hair. Her mouth
was frozen open, and she was standing over a small crumpled thing.

Frank gave it a hard right onto Nebraska Avenue, downshifted the automatic to low coming out of the skid, and then brought
it back up to drive. He passed a Jetta on the right and crossed the double line passing a ragtop Saab.

“There’s Connecticut Avenue,” said Otis. “I remember it from the map.”

“I see it.”

“You ain’t gonna make that yellow, partner.”

“I know.”

Frank shot the red; a car three-sixtied as they went through the intersection and down a steep grade, Frank’s hand hard on
the horn. Vehicles ahead pulled over to the right lane.

Otis breathed out slowly, checked the backseat, looked across the bench.

“Look — about your brother.”

“Forget it.”

“Your brother did good, man. Remember it. He kept that cop busy and he did
good.
”

Frank was expressionless.

“Frank.”

“I said forget it. Where’s the switch?”

“Tennyson at Oregon. About a mile up ahead.”

Otis closed his eyes. Frank’s brother was dead, stretched out under a bag of money. Otis and Frank had just killed five —
four whites and a black — including a kid. Maybe even killed a black cop, too. Be hard to find a jury of any racial mix that
wouldn’t give the two of them that last long walk. And here was Frank, colder than the legs on Teddy Pendergrass, barely breaking
a sweat.

Well, no one would ever accuse Frank of being too human. One thing was certain, though: There wasn’t anyone else you’d want
to be riding with when the death house was calling your name.

FRANK FARROW PARKED
behind an LTD on a residential street named Tennyson, near Oregon Avenue at the edge of Rock Creek Park. To their right a
long stand of trees bordered a huge old folks’ home, and across the street to their left stood a row of identical split-level
houses.

Farrow got out of the Ford, eye-scoping the houses on his left as he went quickly to the LTD and found its key under the driver’s-side
mat. He popped the LTD’s trunk, went back to the Ford, and leaned into the open window.

“I’ll get Richard and put him in the trunk. Clean the interior out and follow with the bag. Dump your guns in the trunk, too,
and we’ll split.”

“Any curtain action from those houses?”

“None that I could see. Come on.”

They drove through the park, cruised by upper-class houses with Jags and Mercedes parked in their driveways, and passed over
the Maryland line into Silver Spring. Otis found HUR, the station he had discovered in his motel room, on the dial.

“You are,” sang Otis, “my starship; come take me out tonight.…”

Farrow took East West Highway across Georgia Avenue and made a sharp left down a street of cinder-block garages set beside
the railroad tracks. They parked in front of an unmarked bay between Rossi Automotive and a place called Hanagan’s Auto Body.
Farrow gave the horn two sharp blasts; the bay door rose, and Frank drove the LTD through.

The garage was cool, clean, and dimly lit. A Hispanic in a blue workshirt with the name “Manuel” stitched above the breast
pocket dropped a hose to the smooth concrete and walked over to the LTD. Another Spanish, Jaime, rubbed his hands on a ruby
shop rag and eyed the men inside the car.

“Where’s our gear?” said Farrow to Manuel.

“In the offi.”

“You said ‘offi,’” said Otis. “But you
meant
‘office,’ right?”

Manuel nodded and smiled thinly, careful to mask any displeasure at the remark. He had straight black hair and slanted eyes,
making him look like a brown-skinned Asian. The other one, Jaime, had bony, unmemorable features, except for a line of tattooed
teardrops dripping from his right eye.

Farrow said, “Bring our stuff here.”

Manuel returned with two large packs and dropped them at the feet of Farrow and Otis, who had gotten out of the car. Farrow
and Otis removed their gloves and tossed them on the concrete. Farrow had retrieved the duffel bag from the trunk, leaving
the lid open.

“You listen to the news, amigo?” said Farrow.

“Is on the radio already,” said Manuel. “You have trouble, eh?”

“My brother’s dead,” said Farrow, noticing a nerve twitch in Jaime’s cheek. “He’s in the trunk of the LTD.”

“What you goin’ to do about that?” said Manuel.

“I’m not going to do anything,” said Farrow. “You are.” Farrow picked up his pack and the duffel bag and went into the office.
Otis hoisted his pack and did the same.

Farrow changed his clothes quickly — plain work pants, a lightweight short-sleeved shirt, and oilskin shoes. While Otis changed,
Farrow took his shaving gear to the office bathroom, placed his Swiss Army knife, his Norelco electric, and a glass tub of
black Meltonian Shoe Cream on a steel shelf welded below the mirror. He used the knife’s scissors to cut off the bulk of his
mustache, then shaved his upper lip clean with the razor. He dipped his fingers in the shoe cream and massaged it into his
hair until his hair was no longer gray. He looked five years younger — at least. He found a pair of nonprescription black-rimmed
glasses in his shaving kit, put them on, and looked in the mirror: Now he was a different man.