Rhozier Brown - DC Noir 2 - The Classics

Bitterman called down to Identification and Records.

“Get me the file on Lufer Timmons. If there’s a picture make a copy for me and send it up with the file. And see if there’s a file on Dantreya Watkins.”

Bitterman sat at his desk awaiting the files, massaging his eyes.

Bitterman had tried to catch a case of racism for years, a really virulent one, but to no avail. He had mumps when he needed anthrax. It would have made his job so much easier. No sadness for the wasted lives, no respect for the courage of the many, no grief for the victims, no compassion for the survivors.

He’d been a homicide cop in a black city for almost his entire adult life. He’d seen every form of violence one person could do to another. He’d seen black women who’d drowned their own babies, and ones who’d ripped their own flesh at the chalk outlines of a fallen son. Men who’d shot and stabbed an entire family, then eaten the dinner off their plates and men who’d worked three jobs for a lifetime, so their children wouldn’t have to. Bitterman just didn’t get it, how anyone could conclude that they were all of a kind, that they were different and less. He wished he could, it saved on the wear and tear.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw the Lufer Timmons file on the desk and a note saying no file on that Watkins. Maybe he was his mother’s pride and joy.

Lufer Timmons had been raised by strangers, starting with his parents and moving on to a series of foster homes, residential treatment centers, detention centers and jails. Now at seventeen, he was well on his way to evening the score with a number of crimes to his credit starting with the attempted rape of his therapist at the age of eleven.

Bitterman studied the picture of Timmons. Six-one and a hundred sixty-eight pounds. He had a long face with deep crevices in his cheeks, thin lips, a thin nose, prominent cheekbones, and bulging froggy eyes. Bitterman pocketed one photo, Xeroxed the page of known associates and family and put the file in his desk drawer. A call to operations yielded the very pleasant news that one of his known associates was currently in custody at the downtown detention center.

Bitterman drove slowly along “The Stroll” looking for Sunshine, as in “put a little Sunshine in your day,” her marketing pitch to the curbside crawlers. Sunshine was a six-foot redhead, natural, with alabaster skin, emerald green eyes and surgically perfected tits. Bitterman had decided that Sunshine was going to be his Christmas present to himself. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to have sex with her. He just wanted to look at her, all of her, without having to hurry, like when she was on display, so he could memorize her beauty. Lately he’d been thinking about what he had to show for forty-five years, and all the fucks of a lifetime hadn’t stayed with him as sharply as his memory of her on a warm summer’s eve, leaning against a lamppost, trying to stay one lick ahead of a fast-melting vanilla cone. Her tongue moving rapidly up the sides of the cone until anticipating defeat, she engulfed the whole mound and sucked it out of the cone. Beauty baffled Bitterman. It seemed fundamental and indivisible. He could not break down his response into pieces or explain it away by recourse to another force or power. Sunshine was perfect and her beauty touched him in a way he couldn’t avoid. He hoped that she wouldn’t be easy to find. He knew that she would turn out to have bad teeth and bray like a donkey.

Lafonzo Nellis was waiting for Bitterman in interrogation room six. Bitterman sat down and the guard left.

“So, Lafonzo. Tell me about Lufer Timmons.”

“Fuck you.”

“Glad we got that cleared up. Let me give you some context, here, Lafonzo, before you get into more trouble than you can get out of. Because it’s Christmas, God gave me three wishes. The first is a known acquaintance of Lufer Timmons in custody, that’s you. The second is to have you locked up but not papered. The third is up to you. See, if you don’t talk to me, that’s okay. I hear that Lufer is a reasonable man, fair with his friends, not likely to do anything rash. I’m gonna leave here, head over to 6th and O and start asking about Lufer, and talking loud about how much help you were to me. The street bull who brought you in hasn’t papered you yet. He can let you go and he doesn’t have to explain a thing. You’re just DWOP: Dropped Without Prosecution. Now, I hear that a lot of your buddies saw you get busted and righteously, too. How you gonna explain being out of here right after we talk? Huh?”

“You ain’t got the juice to make that happen.”

“Oh, yeah. You been around, Lafonzo. Let’s get a reality check here. You know that a street bull’s got two jobs. His shift and court time. Court time is time and a half. You sit on your butt, you drink coffee, you tell lies, you hit on the chippies, nobody’s shooting at you, and it’s time and a half. Now, I just promised that guy I’d list him as a witness on my next two homicide trials. They’re usually three or four days each. Easy time, easy money. What do you got to offer him?”

Lafonzo had a friend who was a cop and he’d pocketed $100,000 in court time and he’d only made three arrests all year. Lafonzo had a vision of trying to ’splain everything to Lufer. Lafonzo made his mind up immediately and forever. “Okay, okay. What do you want to know?”

“We’ll start with the easy stuff. I got a picture of Lufer from his last arrest. Look at it, tell me if he’s changed any.”

He slid the picture across the table. Lafonzo didn’t pick it up. “Yeah, that’s him. He ain’t changed none.”

“Okay, so tell me about him. What’s he like?”

“He’s a crazy man. I mean, what you want to know? He’s in the Crew, 6th and O. You know what that means. I don’t got to tell you. Let’s just leave it at this, if there’s trouble, Lufer fixes it. Period. Understand?”

“We’re getting there. If I was to go lookin’ for him, where would I find him?”

“Dude moves around a lot. See, there’s plenty of other people, like to find him, too, you see what I’m saying. If he has a pad, it’s a secret to me.”

“What kind of car does he drive?”

“A ’Vette, a black one.”

“You know the year, the tags?”

“No, man. Why should I care?”

Bitterman knew he’d find no such car legally registered to Timmons.

“Okay, where does he hang out? I’m gonna put a man at 6th and O with his picture every day from now on. So where else will he show up?”

Lafonzo was running out of room for evasions; a full-blown lie was called for here. But present danger prevailed over the future.

“They’s a few bars he fancies. Nairobi Jones, Langtry’s, the Southeaster.”

“What else can you tell me? Any trademarks, things that he favors?”

“I don’t know. He always wears that long coat. You know, the ones that go down to your boots.”

“A duster?” Bitterman was finally interested.

“Yeah.”

“What color?”

“Dark. Dark red.”

“Like burgundy?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s it made of?”

“Leather. Musta cost plenty.”

“What about a bandana?”

“Yeah, that too. He wears it around his neck, not on his head.”

Glory to God. The red leather duster and the bandana could make him “Johnny-Jump-Out,” wanted in six daylight shootings. Bitterman put what he knew from the files together with Nellis’s information and began to understand his quarry a little better.

“He fancies himself quite a shootist, doesn’t he?” Bitterman began. “No back of the ear, hands tied, in a dark room for him. I admire that. Straight up in your face, shoot and shoot back. He must have quite a reputation in the ’hood. You don’t fuck with Lufer Timmons, do you?”