George Pelecanos - Down By the River Where the Dead Men Go

“So what’s the mystery? You shouldn’t be drinkin’ when you’re writing copy, you know that.”

“That’s some advice,” Lyla said, “coming from a guy who stumbled in this morning after sunup and couldn’t even get out of his own pants.”

“That’s me, baby. It doesn’t have to be you.”

“Anyway, Jack hit me right between the eyes with it. Said I drink too much, that maybe I’ve got a problem. What do you think?”

“You said yourself, I’m not the one to ask. All’s I know, you wanted to be a journalist since you were a kid. I guess you’ve got to figure out what you want more. I mean, fun’s fun, but the days of wine and roses have to come to an end.”

“ ‘The Days of Wine and Roses’?” she said. “The Dream Syndicate.”

“That’s my line,” I said.

Lyla said, “Yeah, I beat you to it. I knew you were going to say it.”

“It only shows, maybe you been with me too long.”

“I don’t think so, Nick.”

“Lyla, I’ve really got to go.”

“You sure there’s nothing wrong?”

“Nothing wrong, Notht="0em" w” I said. “Bye.”

I had a couple of beers and went to bed. My sleep was troubled, and I woke before dawn with wide-open eyes. I dressed and drove down to the river, looking for a crazy black man in a brilliant blue coa t. Nothing. I watched the sun rise, then drove back to Shepherd Park.

After I made coffee, I phoned Jack LaDuke.

“LaDuke!”

“Nick!”

“Get over here, man. Early start today.”

“Half hour,” he said, and hung up the phone.

I found my Browning Hi-Power, wrapped in cloth in the bottom of my dresser. I cleaned and oiled it, loaded two magazines, and replaced the gun in the drawer. Just as I closed the drawer, LaDuke knocked on my front door.

" Nothin’!” LaDuke said as he hung up the phone in my apartment.

We had just called the first prospect from the classified section of D.C. This Week. LaDuke had done the talking, and he had put too much into it in my opinion, his idea of some swish actor.

“What’d he say?”

“Guy turned out to be legit. Some professor at Howard, doing a theatrical feature on street violence in D.C., trying to show the ‘other side,’ whatever that means. He was looking for young blacks males to play high school athletes sidetracked by drugs.”

“All right, don’t get discouraged; we’ve got another one here.”

LaDuke put his hand on the phone. “What’s the number?”

“Uh-uh,” I said. “I’m doin’ this one.”

I checked the number in the ad-this was the photographer, in search of healthy young black males-and pulled the phone over my way. My cat jumped up onto my lap as I punched the number into the grid.

“Yes?” said an oldish man with a faintly musical lilt in his voice.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m calling about an ad I saw in D.C. This Week, about some photography you were doing?”

“That’s a pretty old ad.”

“I was at a friend’s place; he had a back issue lying around. I was browsing through it-”

“And you don’t sound like a young black male.”

“I’m not. But I am healthy. And I’ve done some modeling, and a little acting. I was wonderingNothtght if you were exclusive with this black thing.”

The man didn’t answer. Another voice, stronger, asked him a question in the background, and he put his hand over the receiver. Then he came back on the line.

“Listen,” he said. “We’re not doing still photography here, not really. I mean, you got any idea of what I’m looking for?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think I know what you’re doing.”

“How. How do you know?”

“Well, I just assumed from the ad-”

“An assumption won’t get you in. And like I said, that’s an old ad. You have a reference?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“If you know what’s going on, then someone referred you. No reference, no audition.” I didn’t respond. The man said, “If you’ve got no reference, this conversation’s over.”

I took a shot. “Eddie Colorado,” I said, then waited.

“Okay,” the man said. “You come by tonight, we’ll have a look at you.”

“I don’t think I can make it tonight.”

“Then forget it, for now. We’re shooting tonight, and we only shoot once a week.”

“I’ll be there,” I said. “I’ll make it somehow. You’re down in Southeast, right?”

“That’s right. A warehouse, on the corner of Potomac and Half. The gate looks locked, but it’s not. What’s your name?”

“Bobby,” I said, picking one blindly. “What time?”

“No time. We’ll be here all night.” The phone clicked dead.

I looked somberly at LaDuke. Then I broke into a smile and slapped his open palm.

“You got something?” he said, standing up abruptly from his chair.

“Yeah. Get your shit, LaDuke. We’re going for a ride.”

“Why’d you have the smarts to mention Eddie Colorado?” LaDuke said. We were driving east on M in my Dodge, the morning sun blasting through the windshield. The wind was pushing LaDuke’s wavy hair around on top of his square head.

“No other option,” I said. “He asked for a reference, and that’s the only name that fits with Roland and Calvin. It was a lucky call. Apparently, Eddie’s referring potential movie stars to this guy, whoever he is. Eddie’s been siphoning it off from both ends.”

“Eddie. That mother fucker. I’d like to go back there and fuck him up, too.”

“Relax, LaDuke. Guys like Eddieuyser. I dry up and blow away. We’ve got to concentrate on Roland now.”

“You think this is it?”

“Too many other things are falling into place. Bernie Tobias talked about the Southeast location and the-one-night-a-week shoot. This guy I just talked to on the phone, he confirmed it.”

“Where we going?”

“Check the place out.”

“We goin’ in right now?”

“No. Chances are, even if this is the place, Roland’s not there yet. I want to see it, then we’re gonna find out who owns the warehouse, see if he’s got any information on his tenants.”

I put a cigarette to my lips, hit the lighter. LaDuke, nervous as a cat, nodded at the pack on the dash.

“Give me one of those things,” he said.

“You really want one?”

“Nah,” he said. “I guess not.”

Past the projects, we cut a right off M and went back into the warehouse district that sits on a flat piece of dusty land between Fort McNair and the Navy Yard. It was midmorning. Trucks worked gravel pits, drivers pulled their rigs up to loading docks, and government types drove their motor-pool sedans back toward Buzzard Point. In the daytime, this area of town was as populated and busy as any other; at night, there was no part of the city more deathly quiet or dark.

“That’s it,” LaDuke said, and I parked along a high chain-link fence where Potomac Avenue cut diagonally across Half.

The warehouse was squat, brick, and windowless, as undistinguishable from any of the others I had seen on the way in. A double row of barbed wire was strung around the perimeter, continuing at a sliding gate. One car, a Buick Le Sabre, sat parked inside the gate. Across the street was an almost identical building, similarly fenced and wired, with windows only at two fire escapes set on opposing faces. In front of that one, two white vans were parked, advertising LIGHTING AND EQUIPMENT. Next to this warehouse stood a lot containing a conical structure, some sort of urban silo, and an idling dump truck.

“What do you think?” LaDuke said, pointing his chin toward the warehouse where the Buick sat parked.

“That’s it,” I said. “We know where it is now, and it’s not going anywhere. We’ll come back tonight.”