George Pelecanos: What It Was

“Loverboy,” said Vaughn, with sarcasm and pride.

“Stop.”

He kissed her again, this time on her cheek, wondering idly what she was going to do all day. He left their master bedroom and headed down the stairs, noticing a line of dirt along the baseboards of the living room as he grabbed his raincoat out of the foyer closet. Olga tried, but she wasn’t much for housekeeping. Their place hadn’t been spick-and-span since they’d lost their maid, Alethea Strange, just after the ’68 riots. He’d driven her to her row home in Park View, right through the thick of it as the city burned, and though it was unsaid, he knew she would never return to their house as a domestic. It had been so. Vaughn bringing her up in his mind, feeling a stir, thinking, That was some kind of woman.

He left their house, a split level off Georgia Avenue between downtown Silver Spring and Wheaton, and drove toward D.C., his mood brightening considerably as he rolled over the District line, nearing the action, the final passion that moved his blood.

VAUGHN HADrecently bought a new Monaco from the Dodge dealership in Laurel, Maryland. The Monaco was a middle-aged man’s car, gold with a brown vinyl roof, a four-door with power steering, power windows, and power brakes, but heavy, with too little power under the hood. He missed his white-over-red ’67 Polara with thnlara wie 318 and cat-eye taillights, and he missed the decade it came from. Those had been violent years, volatile, sexy, fun.

Vaughn drove down 16th Street, came to a stop at a red light, nodded to a couple of patrolmen in a squad car idling alongside him. That was something he wouldn’t have seen five years ago, two blacks in uniform, riding together in the same car.

The MPD had integrated fully now, the ratio of black cops to white more accurately reflecting the population makeup of the city, which, post-riot white flight, had settled to near 80 percent colored. Vaughn had to watch that, you couldn’t call them colored anymore, or Negro for that matter. Olga told him time and time again, “They’re African American, you big ox.” Vaughn had no major problem with the designation, but he figured, if they’re going to call me white, and sometimes whitey, I’m just gonna go ahead and call them black. That is, if I can remember.

Okay, Olga?

Vaughn parked in a lot beside the Third District headquarters at 16th and V. No more precincts, but districts now. He checked in, sat at his desk and made a couple of calls, left the building, and headed back to his Monaco. Under its dash he had installed a two-way radio. He rarely kept it turned on.

A young uniform saw Vaughn in the lot and said, “How’s it hangin, Hound Dog?”

Vaughn said, “Long and strong.”

He lit an L amp;M and pulled out of the lot.

Vaughn parked the Dodge on 13th Street, near the corner of R, and entered the apartment building with the extinguished gas lanterns where Bobby Odum had resided and been chilled. There was music bleeding out into the hallway, but it was not coming from the unit he was headed for. He went there straightaway and with his fist he cop-knocked on the front door.

The door opened shortly thereafter. A young black woman with a big Afro stood in the frame. She had on high-waisted slacks and a macrame vest over a sky-blue shirt. She was compact, but her rope wedge shoes gave her altitude. Her eyes were deep set and intelligent, and he imagined that they could be welcoming if directed at the right individual. Directed at Vaughn, they were ice cool.

“Janet Newman?”

“Jan ette .”

“I’m Detective Vaughn,” he said, flipping open his badge case and replacing it quickly in the flap pocket of his jacket. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“I don’t have much time.”

“I won’t take much. May I come in?”

She stepped aside and allowed him to pass through. The place was neat and clean, with brown carpeting and what Vaughn thought of as African decor on the walls. Masks, wood carvings, shit like that. Least there weren’t any spears. The Mother Country stuff was the rage with these young ones.

A stick of incense burned in a ceramic holder formed as a mibuirmed asniature elephant, set on a living-room table near a sofa-and-chair arrangement. The room’s sole window had its curtain drawn.

Janette Newman did not close the door. She stood beside it and folded her arms across her chest. Vaughn guessed that he would not be offered a beverage, nor would he be asked to have a seat. It was hard to think straight or have a conversation, what with the music bleeding into the hall. He knew where it was coming from. He had interviewed the unit’s occupants, a mother with a job and her son, a doper who had no plan to get one. Kid listened to music all day long. What Ricky would call soul-funk. It was all Zulu-jump to Vaughn.

“You’re a hard woman to pin down,” said Vaughn.

“I work,” said Janette.

“You teach over at Tubman, right?”

“Correct. There was a flood, so they closed the school today.”

“Kind of young to have a teaching position, aren’t you?” He thought his words complimentary until he saw her eyes harden.

“I have a degree from Howard. Would you like to see my diploma?”

“No disrespect intended,” said Vaughn. “I meant, you know, you’re doing well for such a young woman.”

Janette looked him over. “You had some questions?”

“You stated over the phone that you weren’t here at the time of Robert Odum’s murder.”

“I was in my classroom when it happened.”

“Did you know him?”

“Not to speak to, past a nod or a ‘good morning.’ ”

“He had people visit him from time to time, didn’t he?”

“Most folks do.”

“Was there one by the name of Maybelline Walker? Light-skinned woman, young, attractive…”

“If I saw visitors I don’t remember them.”

“Not a one.”

“I said no.”

“Do you recall if Odum had a job?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Vaughn already had Odum’s work address, as he’d found a pay stub in his apartment. He was testing her. She was withholding information, and probably lying, but not because she had anything to do with Odum’s death. Some folks just didn’t care for white people or police.

“You sure about that?” said Vaughn.

He gazed at her for a long moment until she became uncomfortable and looked away. He liked her backbone, and he didn’t even mind her attitude, buen attitudt she wasn’t in his physical wheelhouse. If he was going to go black, he’d go for a specific look: cream in the coffee, white features. A Lena Horne type.

“You’re staring at me,” she said.

“I was thinking.”

“Of what?”

“My case.”

“Don’t you have any leads?”

“I can’t speak on that at this time.”

“Be nice if the police told us something so we could rest easy in this building. I’m not tryin to get myself killed around here.”

Vaughn reached into his inside pocket. “Here’s my card. Anything comes to mind, give me a call.”

Vaughn walked out of her apartment without another word and heard the door close behind him. Jan ette was not a person of interest. Just another name he could cross off the list.

He went through the hall, the bass still coming from the adjoining unit, the glass door of the building buzzing from it as he pushed on its surface, exiting to breathe fresh air.

Outside, a man, an addict or alcoholic from the used-up look of his eyes, sat on a nearby retaining wall, smoking a cigarette. Vaughn approached and showed him his badge. The man did not seem impressed. Vaughn offered him ten dollars, and the offer was waved away. Then he offered to buy him a bottle in exchange for his time. The man declined. Vaughn asked him a couple of questions, got nothing but shrugs.