George Pelecanos - What It Was

“He was doing sixteen on an armed robbery when he busted out.”

“We gonna make him a murderer, too. But I’m gonna need your help.”

Coco stubbed her Viceroy out in the ashtray after a hungry last drag. “What you want me to do?”

“Ask Shay to hook up a meet. Tell her I want to talk to her boy, but I want it to be a surprise. Not so she’d have cause to be suspicious. You know how to do it. Me and Fonzo will take care of the rest.”

“Anything else?”

“Pick up the phone,” said Jones.

He gave her instruc [e hthetions. She dialed the Third District station house and asked for Detective Vaughn. The voice on the other end of the line told her Vaughn was not in.

“Let me leave a message, then.”

“What’s your name and location?”

“Never mind that,” said Coco. “This about the Robert Odum murder, over there at Thirteenth and R. I know who downed the dude. The killer’s name is Dallas Butler. Dallas like the football team, Butler how it sounds.”

She hung up the phone.

Jones smiled and got up out of his seat. “You did good.”

“Where you goin?”

“Out.”

“Don’t forget about the show. It’s comin up.”

“What show’s that?”

“Donny and Roberta at the Carter Barron. You copped the tickets, fool!”

“Oh, yeah.” He wasn’t excited about it. Music for females and pretty boys. It was weak.

“Come here.”

He bent into her kiss. Standing to his full height, he patted the side of his unkempt natural and let her admire him.

“I’ll be around, Coco.”

“I know you will.”

Frank Vaughn and Derek Strange sat at a lunch counter on Vermont Avenue owned and operated by a Greek named Nick. The diner seated twenty-seven: fifteen stools covered in blue vinyl and three blue vinyl booths that each fit four. Old photographs of the village were hung on the blue-and-white tiled walls, as well as formal-suit portraits of the owner’s immigrant parents. Near the front door stood a D.C. Vending cigarette machine with copies of the Daily News tabloid set upon it. Beside the machine was a pay phone.

Nick Michael was born Nick Michaelopoulos in Sparta, came to America as a toddler, and was a veteran of the infamous Battle of Peleliu in the Pacific theater. Like many marines who had fought, Nick had settled into a peaceful life of hard work during the day and quiet relaxation at night. He had shot and bayoneted many Japanese soldiers, and seen the deaths of many friends, but except for the USMC tattoo on his inner forearm, there was nothing about his manner or appearance to suggest his violent war experience. He had come out of the Corps at a lean 145, was now fifty-one years old, went 180, and had a respectable paunch that was slightly visible beneath his apron. He sported a full head of hair, black on top, silver on the sides, and a pleasant, confident smile.

“Anything else I can do you for?” said Nick.

“You can warm up these coffees,” said Vaughn.

Nick put his hands around Vaughn’s cup and, with great exaggeration, rubbed it. “How’s this?”

“That gag’s got gray hair on it,” said Vaughn.

“Like us.”

Nick picked up their cups and saucers, went to one of his big urns, flipped down the black valve-style lever, and poured fresh coffee. He served Vaughn and Strange, emptied Vaughn’s ashtray, and put it back in front of him. Vaughn promptly lit an L amp;M with his Zippo and placed the lighter atop his newly opened pack.

“I like this place,” said Vaughn.

“It’s all right,” said Strange.

They had just eaten a breakfast of scrapple and eggs. The food was on the bland side by design, as the diner catered to white-collar whites. The crew behind the counter, hot station, cold station, waitress, and dishwasher, were black. The woman working hots had fried some onions and pepper into the eggs for Strange and he had further spiced up the plate with Tabasco. Strange’s father had been a grill man for the Three-Star, a place on Kennedy Street very much like this one. Darius Strange had also worked for a Greek, Mike Georgelakos, who had dropped dead of a massive heart attack in 1969.

“So you’re looking for a ring,” said Vaughn.

“Maybelline Walker’s. You met her.”

“Nice-looking lady. Teacher, I recall.”

“She’s a math tutor.”

“Right.” Vaughn dragged on his cigarette. “I don’t think she cared much for me. I wouldn’t let her look around Odum’s apartment.”

“She had a key. Let herself in after y’all closed the scene.”

“The resourceful type. What’s so special about the ring?”

“Has sentimental value, she says. Costume jewelry. Says she and Odum were friends. Odum was gonna get the ring assessed for her, to see if it had any value. Stones were a cluster of glass but the body of it was gold. She says.”

“You don’t believe her.”

“She hired me to find the ring. Don’t much care about the why.” Strange looked at Vaughn, who was exhaling a thin stream of smoke over the Formica-covered counter. “You didn’t happen to see it, did you?”

“A ring? No. There was some women’s jewelry we found in his bedroom dresser. A bracelet and a necklace, too, if I remember right.”

“Real shit?”

“I wouldn’t know. Bobby used to do Burglary Ones, years ago. Said he lost his ambition after he fell in love with smack. Maybe the trinkets in the bedroom were some old pieces he was holding on to.”

“What happened to that jewelry?”

“Property’s got it,” said Vaughn. “You think Odum’s killer took the ring?”

“Or one of the uniforms on the scene slipped it in his pocket.”

“It happens. But I’d put money on the one who chilled Odum.”

“You got a suspect?”

Vaughn showed Strange his choppers. “You’re cute. You know it?”

“We might be able to help each other out.”

“That’s what you said on the phone. But I haven’t heard a goddamn thing yet.”

“Show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” said Strange.

Vaughn chuckled. “For a nickel I will.”

It was an old vulgar joke about a colored girl. Vaughn was indelicate. Vaughn’s kind were about to be extinct. He was the type of man Strange’s mother would charitably call “a product of his time.” Strange knew that Vaughn was that way. He was also good police.

“What I got for you is real,” said Strange. “That’s a promise.”

“Now you’re gonna bargain.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You always were smart. It’s a damn shame you left the force.”

“I had to,” said Strange.

Vaughn tapped ash off his cigarette. “I like a guy named Robert Lee Jones for this one. Goes by Red.”

“Red Jones.”

“You heard of him?”

“Sure.”

“Got a nice long rap sheet. Relatively small stuff up till now. Agg assaults and shit like that.”

“You have a description?”

“Tall, light-skinned black. Reddish hair.”

Strange took this in. “That would explain his street name.”

“You’d think. Wears an Afro like you, but his is all fucked up. I’ve seen his latest mug shot. Looks like Stymie gone wrong.”

“What’s the motive?”

“Contract hit. Odum was one of my informants; he tipped me on a homicide I’d been working. The guy we arrested and charged probably arranged the murder-for-hire from inside the jail.”

“I know Odum washed dishes up at Cobb’s. What’s that pay, dollar sixty-two car p han hour? You say he was your CI, but even with that, how did he afford that apartment and his heroin habit?”

“He was a tester, so the jolts were free. Could be he was living off his old B-Ones. Bobby always found a way to make it. Career criminal, but no violence.” Vaughn dragged on his L amp;M and let the smoke out slow. “He was a good egg.”