George Pelecanos - What It Was

“Have someone call me before he gets tossed. All right?”

“Sure thing, Frank.”

Vaughn had marked Arrington as prey as soon as he laid eyes on him. He was pretty certain that Bowman had done the same thing.

Strange knocked on Carmen’s door, a narrow row home off Barry Place that had been cut into two apartments. Hers was on the ground floor.

The house was a wood-shingled affair, fronted by a small stoop more common to Baltimore than D.C.

A cone of yellow light hit the stoop. Carmen opened the door but did not come through the frame. She was still in her dress. A bit of mascara had run down her face.

Strange began to go up the steps. She held up her palm and said, “No.”

“Look, I apologize.”

“For what?”

“Leaving you like tingiv›

“They had plenty of taxicabs in the lot.”

“Bet you had an easier time than I did,” said Strange, trying out a smile. He told her about his pursuit of Jones, leaving out the high-speed chase and the chances he took. Said he got pulled over for “barely” running a red and that Lydell had to come to the scene and convince the young police officer not to arrest him.

“You made a mistake,” she said.

“Yes,” said Strange, knowing they had moved on to something else. He could control some of the damage right now by admitting to his indiscretion. But all he did was lower his eyes.

“Look at me, Derek.” He raised his head. Carmen had folded her arms across her chest, and her jaw was set. “You got the smell of a woman on you. Don’t you know by now that you can’t get that off you? And you have that young-boy’s face you get when you know you been wrong.”

Strange said nothing.

“Why’d you do it?” said Carmen. “Am I not giving you something you need?”

Strange spread his hands. “Look, I didn’t… I’m sayin, it didn’t go to where you think it did.”

“You mean you didn’t fuck her. And I’m supposed to, what, give you credit for that?”

“I’m sorry,” said Strange.

“Too many times, Derek.”

“Let me come in out this night and talk to you.”

“You gonna tell me you learned, right?”

“Please.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said, and stepped back into her apartment. The door closed and the light went off. Strange stood in the darkened street.

A half hour later, Strange was in his apartment, sitting in his living room with no lights on, drinking scotch on ice, when the phone rang. Vaughn was on the other end of the line.

They filled each other in on the details of their day. Vaughn told Strange about the beating and robbery of Sylvester Ward, the shooting death of Roland Williams at Soul House, the arrest of the would-be assassin Clarence Bowman. Strange told Vaughn what he had learned about his client, Maybelline Walker, his sighting of the bold Red Jones and his tall, striking woman at the Carter Barron amphitheater, the subsequent chase, and his near arrest.

“That officer did you a favor by pulling you over,” said Vaughn. “If you had caught up with Jones, no telling what he might have done. He never even gave Roland Williams a chance.”

“Man needs to be got.”

“I’m about to take care of that.”“You are, huh?”

“I could use your help.”

“I was you, I’d take a whole lot of backup instead. Besides, I don’t even have a gun.”

“I’ll give you one.”

“I don’t use ’em anymore. Don’t even want to touch one.”

“You want that ring, though, don’t you?”

“Look, I checked out Coco at the concert. If she had it, she would have been wearing it. I reckon it was stolen by those guys who tossed her place.”

“Maybe. But there’s something else. Four years ago, I walked the extra mile when you needed me. You know what I’m talking about.”

Vaughn was speaking of their shared secret. April 1968. Strange sipped his drink and looked through his open French doors to the lights of the city spread out below. “Is there a plan?”

“I’ll call you first thing in the morning.”

“You sayin you know where Red’s at.”

“Not yet,” said Vaughn. “But I will.”

Lou Fanella and Gino Gregorio sat in their black Continental, the morning sun beating down on the roof and heating its leather interior. On 14th, telephone company employees walked in and out of a nondescript building and folks in need of breakfast stood in a line outside a nearby mission. Fanella was smoking a cigarette and sweating into his shirt.

“I feel like shit.”

“Those chicks liked to party,” said Gregorio. He had not overdone it the night before. He was rested and content, a man who’d had his ashes hauled after a long drought. It did not bother him that he had paid for it. Gregorio had no rap, so much of his physical experience with women and girls, going back to his army days, had been with whores.

“My stomach is still messed up,” said Fanella. “We shouldn’t have ate that Mexican.”

“Quit complaining,” said Gregorio. “You got laid, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I got laid. How ’bout you?”

“Cindy? Damn straight.”

“Was he good?”

“What do you mean, ‘he’?”

“Why not just fuck a boy if that’s what you want?”

“I’ll fuck you with a baseball bat.” Gregorio’s acne s0em

“Aw, look at you, you’re all mad.” Fanella laughed. “I swear you’re a homo.”

They grew quiet and reflective. Fanella pitched his cigarette out to the street. He looked up at the big windows of Coco Watkins’s office and bedroom. He didn’t expect to see her. They had already driven around the block and through the alley and had seen no Fury.

“The big lady’s not in there,” said Gregorio.

“I know it,” said Fanella. “But she’s gonna want last night’s take. I’m betting one of her whores is gonna deliver it right to her. When that happens, we’ll find Mr. Jones and our money. Get out of this shithole town and get back to Jersey.”

They had gathered their things quickly and checked out of the motel. Fanella had not inspected his suitcase when he had hastily packed it. He didn’t know that the ring he’d stolen was gone.

“There’s someone,” said Gregorio, noticing the figure of a young black woman moving about in Coco’s office.

Fanella squinted against the sun. “Could be our girl.”

Vaughn and Strange sat in the Monaco, idling on the north end of Mount Pleasant Street. The Dodge’s recently charged air conditioner blew cool against them. Vaughn was in a light-gray Robert Hall suit; Strange wore bells, a loose-fitting shirt, and suede Pumas in natural.

The block was the commercial strip of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, and there was much activity. Puerto Ricans, Hungarians, Greeks, blacks, mixed-race couples, and young residents of all types in post-hippie group homes made up the scene. The road still carried streetcar tracks, but the old line was inactive, and buses came through regularly. Henry Arrington had taken a D.C. Transit north on 16th after he had been bounced from lockup. Vaughn and Strange had tailed him as he got off and walked to his destination. Arrington had just stepped into the liquor store near the end of the block.

Vaughn and Strange watched as Arrington, along with a couple of other juicers, waited for F and D to open their doors at ten a.m.

“We gonna go in and get him?” said Strange.

“They got a phone in that place,” said Vaughn. “I’m guessing he’s gonna buy his bottle and make a call. When he comes out, we’ll brace him.”

“Little early, isn’t it?” said Strange.

“Not for Henry. He likes his breakfast fortified.”

“There he goes.”