George Pelecanos - What It Was

Strange nodded. “Sometimes, in my line of work, it’s just easier to lie.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m doing a background check on Maybelline Walker for a client,” said Strange, telling another lie. “I’m an investigator on the private side.”

“Let me see some identification.”

Strange pulled his ticket from his wallet and handed it to her. “You didn’t call the police, did you?”

“No, but I should have.” She dropped the license in front of him on the glass table. “Please go.”

“Want me to use the servants’ exit?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m sayin, Maybelline did better than I did. Least she got through the front door.”

Strange pictured Dayna on some college campus, not too long ago, an enthusiastic participant in the revolution. And now, living this good life in Chevy Chase, D.C., seeing that this capitalism thing was not all that bad, but still trying to hold on to her ideals. That white guilt thing had to be heavy on her shoulders.

Strange’s implied accusation cut but didn’t soften Dayna. Color came to her face.

“Bullshit,” she said. “Don’t lay that crap on me.”

“I apologize for coming here on false pretenses,” said Strange.

Dayna, exasperated, sat back down in her chair. “What do you want, really? What’s this about? ”

Strange leaned forward. “You said something happened.”

Vaughn drove over the Anacostia River, went north on Minnesota Avenue, and turned right on one of the single-syllable streets running alphabetically across the grid of central Northeast. The block ended in a circle, with a stand of thin woods split by a ribbon of creek. Boxy brick apartment buildings, housing residents on government assistance, were visible on the other side of the woods.

Vaughn parked his Monaco in front of one of several wood-framed, dilapidated single-family homes, took his hat off the seat beside him, and placed it on his head. He walked up a buckled, weeded sidewalk to the house whose address he had written in his notebook. A woman was on the porch in a folding chair, a sweated can of Schlitz in her hand. He could see, even in her seated position, that she was tall and long of leg. Her hair hung straight. She wore a shift with open buttons up top, and her bust was full and sat high and natural. Her feet were bare. A country girl gone hard in the city.

Vaughn stopped just shy of the porch steps. “Ma’am. I’m looking for a Monique Lattimer.”

Her eyes went from his head to his feet, slowly. “What kind of police are you?”

“Homicide. The name’s Frank Vaughn.”

“I ain’t see no badge.”

Vaughn showed her his shield and slipped the case back into his jacket. He could tell from her manner that courtesy would be a waste of time. Like the lawyers said, he’d have to just go ahead and treat her as hostile.

“Are you Monique?”

“Monique is me,” she said, and took a swig of beer. “You got a cigarette?”

Vaughn produced his deck, shook two out of it, and made a chin motion to her porch. “I can’t light you from down here.”

“Come on up, then.”

He took the steps to her porch. Used his lighter to fire up her cigarette, then his own, and snapped the Zippo shut. He carefully leaned his weight against a wood post that seemed to be rotting at its base.

Monique took a drag off the L amp;M and as she exhaled looked at the cigarette with distaste. Making it obvious that it wasn’t her brand.

“According to the DMV,” said Vaughn, “you’re the registered owner of a sixty-eight Buick Electra.”

“Yeah, it’s mine.”

“Gold deuce-and-a-quarter. Drop-top, right?”

“Hard.”

“I don’t see it.”

“That’s ’cause it’s not here.”

“Where is it, Miss Lattimer?”

She stared at the cigarette burning between her long fingers. “My brother took it this morning for a brake job.”

“Took it where? A garage, something?”

“I wouldn’t know. Said he had a friend was gonna work on it.”

“What’s your brother’s name?”

“Orlando.”

“Lattimer?”

“Roosevelt. Like the high school.”

“Where can I find him?”

“Huh?”

“Does your brother have an address?”

“He stays with a girl over in Seat Pleasant, but I don’t know where she live at, exactly.”

“He got a phone number?”

“I expect he does.”

“Okay,” said Vaughn, taking a deep breath. “Where’s your place of employment?”

“I’m between jobs at the present.”

“How long you been out of work?”

“Two years, somethin like that.”

“High-end Electra will run you, what, five, six thousand?”

“I bought it secondhand.”

“Four grand, then. Where’d you get the bread for that much car if you’re not working?”

Monique shrugged and smiled a little, as if he had said something stupid. “I got a good deal on it.”

“Where?”

“Used-car lot.”

“Where?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Marlow Heights?”

“The dealership name would be on the title.”

“Damn if I know where I put that piece of paper. It’s in the house somewhere.”

“Maybe I could come in and help you find it.”

“If you had a warrant, you could.”

“I can get one.”

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“Then get one.”

Vaughn dragged on his cigarette and blew smoke toward Monique. It shattered when it reached her, and she did not blink.

“You know an Alfonzo Jefferson?” said Vaughn.

“Can’t say I do.”

“How ’bout Robert Lee Jones? Tall, light-skinned fella, goes by Red.”

“Sorry.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me what this is about?”

“I would if I gave a fuck.”

Vaughn grinned, took a last hit off his cigarette, and flicked it out onto her yard. “See you around, Monique.”

“Any time.”

Vaughn, energized, went back to his car and got in the driver’s seat. He had a look around the street, the woods, a makeshift playground with rusted equipment, the apartment buildings on the other side of the creek. Wouldn’t be hard to set up a stakeout here, but the watcher would have to be a black officer in plainclothes to blend in. Man or woman, didn’t matter, but it could be done.

Vaughn smiled at Monique as he drove away, and damn if she didn’t smile back. God, did he love his job.

Strange went over to Park View, drove his Monte Carlo down an alley, and parked behind the kitchen entrance to Cobb’s, the fish place on Georgia. Cobb, in his bloodstained apron, was sitting on an overturned milk crate, smoking a cigarette. Strange walked through the long shadows of late afternoon, noting with satisfaction that he had put much work in today.

He approached the aged but still hard proprietor and stood beside him.

“Mr. Cobb. My name’s Derek Strange. You remember me?”

Cobb squinted against the low sun. “Refresh my memory.”

Strange said that he was the detective who had recently visited Cobb and asked about his former dishwasher, Bobby Odum, now deceased. Strange was wondering if Odum had ever been visited on his job site by a young woman. When Strange described her, Odum’s eyes came alive.

“Yeah, that young lady came by a couple a times.”

“When I stopped by before, you said you didn’t recall any of his relatives or friends.”

“You ain’t mention her, though,” said Cobb, flicking his hot ash toward a feral cat that was crossing in front of him in the alley. The cat, keeping low to the ground, darted away. “Girl like that’s hard to forget.”

“What do you remember about her?”

“Her bumps. The way she walked. How her big ass jumped around in her dress.” Cobb chuckled Cobighat Strange’s amused expression. “That’s right, young man. I might have some years on me, but that right there was choice.”