George Pelecanos: DC Noir

“Neither am I.”

“Then you better go somewhere for a while.”

“Why would I do that?”

Leticia said nothing.

“You give me up, Leticia?”

Leticia cut her eyes away from mine. “Flora,” she said, almost a whisper. “She told him ’bout some skinny, older-lookin’ dude who was standin’ in the alley the day I took her for bad.”

“You gave me up?”

Leticia shook her head slowly and pushed the door shut. It closed with a soft click.

I didn’t pound on the door or nothing like that. I stood there stupidly for sometime, listening to the rumble of the bass and the argument still going between the woman and man. Then I walked out the building.

The snow was coming down heavy. I couldn’t go home, so I walked toward the avenue instead.

I had finished the rest of my vodka, and dropped the bottle to the curb, by the time I got down to Georgia. A Third District cruiser was parked on the corner, with two officers inside it, drinking coffee from paper cups. It was late, and with the snow and the cold there wasn’t too many people out. The Spring Laundromat, used to be a Roy Rogers or some shit like it, was packed with men and women, just standing around, getting out of the weather. I could see their outlines behind that nicotine-stained glass, most of them barely moving under those dim lights.

This time of night, many of the shops had closed. I was hungry, but Morgan’s Seafood had been boarded up for a year now, and The Hunger Stopper, had those good fish sandwiches, was dark inside. What I needed was a beer, but Giant had locked its doors. I could have gone to the titty bar between Newton and Otis, but I had been roughed in there too many times.

I crossed over to the west side of Georgia and walked south. I passed a midget in a green suede coat who stood where he always did, under the awning of the Dollar General. I had worked there for a couple of days, stocking shit on shelves.

The businesses along here were like a roll call of my personal failures. The Murray’s meat and produce, the car wash, the Checks Cashed joint, they had given me a chance. In all these places, I had lasted just a short while.

I neared the G.A. market, down by Irving. A couple of young men came toward me, buried inside the hoods of their North Face coats, hard of face, then smiling as they got a look at me.

“Hey, slim,” said one of the young men. “Where you get that vicious coat at? Baby GAP?” Him and his friend laughed.

I didn’t say nothing back. I got this South Pole coat I bought off a dude, didn’t want it no more. I wasn’t about to rock a North Face. Boys put a gun in your grill for those coats down here.

I walked on.

The market was crowded inside and thick with the smoke of cigarettes. I stepped around some dudes and saw a man I know, Robert Taylor, back by where they keep the wine. He was lifting a bottle of it off the shelf. He was in the middle of his thirties, but he looked fifty-five.

“Robo,” I said.

“Verdon.”

We did a shoulder-to-shoulder thing and patted backs. I had been knowing him since grade school. Like me, he had seen better days. He looked kinda under it now. He held up a bottle of fortified, turned it so I could see the label, like them waiters do in high-class restaurants.

“I sure could use a taste,” said Robert. “Only, I’m a little light this evenin’.”

“I got you, Robo.”

“Look, I’ll hit you back on payday.”

“We’re good.”

I picked up a bottle of Night Train for myself and moved toward the front of the market. Robert grabbed the sleeve of my coat and held it tight. His eyes, most time full of play, were serious

“Verdon.”

“What?”

“I been here a couple of hours, stayin’ dry and shit. Lotta activity in here tonight. You just standin’ around, you be hearin’ things.”

“Say what you heard.”

“Some boys was in here earlier, lookin’ for you.”

I felt that thing in my stomach.

“Three young men,” said Robert. “One of ’em had them silver things on his teeth. They was describin’ you, your build and shit, and that hat you always be wearin’.”

He meant my knit cap, with the Bullets logo, had the two hands for the double l’s, going up for the rebound. I had been wearing it all winter long. I had been wearing it the day we talked to Flora in the alley.

“Anyone tell them who I was?”

Robert nodded sadly. “I can’t lie. Some bama did say your name.”

“Shit.”

“I ain’t say nothin’ to those boys, Verdon.”

“C’mon, man. Let’s get outta here.”

We went up to the counter. I used the damp twenty Barnes had handed me to pay for the two bottles of wine and a fresh pack of cigarettes. While the squarehead behind the plexiglass was bagging my shit and making my change, I picked up a scratched-out lottery ticket and pencil off the scarred counter, turned the ticket over, and wrote around the blank edges. What I wrote was: Marquise Roberts killed Rico Jennings. And: Flora Lewis was there.

I slipped the ticket into the pocket of my jeans and got my change. Me and Robert Taylor walked out the shop.

On the snow-covered sidewalk I handed Robert his bottle of fortified. I knew he’d be heading west into Columbia Heights, where he stays with an ugly-looking woman and her kids.

“Thank you, Verdon.”

“Ain’t no thing.”

“What you think? Skins gonna do it next year?”

“They got Coach Gibbs. They get a couple receivers with hands, they gonna be all right.”

“No doubt.” Robert lifted his chin. “You be safe, hear?”

He went on his way. I crossed Georgia Avenue, quick-stepping out the way of a Ford that was fishtailing in the street. I thought about getting rid of my Bullets cap, in case Marquise and them came up on me, but I was fond of it, and I could not let it go.

I unscrewed the top off the Night Train as I went along, taking a deep pull and feeling it warm my chest. Heading up Otis, I saw ragged silver dollars drifting down through the light of the streetlamps. The snow capped the roofs of parked cars and it had gathered on the branches of the trees. No one was out. I stopped to light the rest of my joint. I got it going, and hit it as I walked up the hill.

I planned to head home in a while, through the alley door, when I thought it was safe. But for now, I needed to work on my head. Let my high come like a friend and tell me what to do.

I stood on the east side of Park Lane, my hand on the fence bordering the Soldier’s Home, staring into the dark. I had smoked all my reefer and drunk my wine. It was quiet, nothing but the hiss of snow. And “Get Up,” that old Salt-N-Pepa joint, playing in my head. Sondra liked that one. She’d dance to it, with my headphones on, over by that lake they got. With the geese running around it, in the summertime.

“Sondra,” I whispered. And then I chuckled some, and said, “I am high.”

I turned and walked back to the road, tripping a little I stepped off the curb. As I got onto Quebec, I saw a coming down Park Lane, sliding a little, rolling too fast. It was a dark color, and it had them Chevy headlights with the rectangle fog lamps on the sides. I patted my pockets, knowing all the while that I didn’t have my cell.

I ducked into the alley off Quebec. I looked up at that rear porch with the bicycle tire leaning up on it, where that boy stayed. I saw a light behind the porch door’s window. I scooped up snow, packed a ball of it tight, and threw it up at that window. I waited. The boy parted the curtains and put his face up on the glass, his hands cupped around his eyes so he could see.

“Little man!” I yelled, standing by the porch. “Help me out!”