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

“Mr. Stefanos.”

“Samuels.”

“My God, what happened to your face?”

“Your people,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Well.”

I dragged on my cigarette, flipped it out, where it arced to the asphalt. “No one knows you’re here?”

“No. Of course, you phoned today when my secretary was out. No, no one knows but you and me.”

“Good.”

Samuels relaxed his shoulders. “I’ll tell you, I’ve had one hell of a day. The police came to me first thing this morning. And the insurance people have been swarming all over me. What with you bringing Vice down on me last week, it’s not going to be long before this whole thing blows up in my face, and yours. I’m not waiting around to find out how it plays out. I assume you’ll be leaving town, too, after we settle things.”

“You’re pretty casual about all this, Samuels.”

“Just practical.” He spread his manicured hands. “I’m a businessman, after all. I’ve always known when to cut my losses. Surely you would understand. I mean, that’s what this is about, isn’t it?” I stared ahead. “Now, your partner, the one who you brought along to my office? He didn’t understand at all. He let his emotions get in the way of what is, after all, a process of logic. I assume that he died with my men. His emotions were what killed him, isn’t that right?”

I gripped the steering wheel, watched the blood leave my knuckles. “How does a man like you get involved in all this, anyway?” foning to beSamuel’s wet red lips parted in a weak smile. “Simply put, I saw the demand in the market. In the world I traveled in, in the 1980s, it seemed as if every commercial broker in D.C. was driving around town in his three-twenty-five, a one shot vial of coke lying within easy reach. I thought, Why don’t I get some of that action? It wasn’t difficult to locate and establish a relationship with a supplier, and soon afterward I was in business. Then cocaine went out of white-collar fashion-for the most part, anyway-and the market went from powder to rock. I simply made an adjustment. My supplier put me in touch with some gentlemen who could deal with the rougher situations, and I moved the powder straight into the inner city. I had the space to run it through-”

“Your real estate holdings. And your profit centers-you make movies; you own the equipment, and the lights. You said yourself, the first time I met you, that you favored control all the way down the line.”

“Yes. And I had the manpower to make it work. My own hands never touched the stuff. It was going beautifully, in fact, until you intervened.”

“You made a mistake. You had a couple of innocent kids killed.”

“Innocent? Mr. Stefanos, don’t be naive. I’m not happy at how it turned out for them, but-”

“Don’t. I know all about you, Samuels.”

Samuels stared off balefully in a theatrical gesture of remorse. He looked into his lap and spoke softly. “I can’t help the way I am, any more than you can change your own proclivities. The decision I made was a business decision, as are all of my decisions. As this is, right now.” He straightened his posture. “Which brings us to the real reason we’re sitting here.”

“Let’s get to it, then.”

“All right. How much?”

“What?”

“How much do you want? What is it going to take to make you go away?”

“Samuels,” I said, reaching beneath my seat, “I think you’ve misunderstood me.”

His eyes widened as I brought up my sap. He tried to raise his hands, but he was too old and way too slow. I swung the sap sharply, connecting at his temple. He slumped forward, his forehead coming to rest against the glove box.

I checked his breathing, then pulled everything else up from beneath the seat. I tied his hands behind his back and covered his mouth with duct tape. A wool army blanket lay folded in the backseat. I arranged Samuels fetally and covered him with the blanket.

I eased out of the lot and headed east.

I parked in the clearing that faced the river and cut the engine. The lights of the Sousa Bridge shimmered on the river’s black water. Through the trees, Christmas lights glowed colorfully, strung along the dock of the marina. Country music and the laughter of a woman lifted off a pontoon boat and drifted in on the river breeze.

I took the blanket off Samuels and sat him up. His silver hair was soaked in sweat, his complexion pale and splotched. I pulled the duct tape away from his mouth, let the tape dangle from his face. His eyes blinked open, then slowly closed. I poured some bottled water on his lips and poured some into his open mouth. He coughed it out, straightened up in his seat, opened his eyes, kept them open as he moved to make himself comfortable. Samuels stared at the river.

“Untie me, please,” he said quietly.

“No.” I reached over and loosened the knot of his tie. He breathed out, his breath like a long deflation.

“Please,” he said.

“No. And don’t think of screaming. I’ll have to tape your mouth again. All right?”

Samuels nodded blankly. I slipped my cigarette pack from the visor and rustled it in his direction. He shook his head. I lit one for myself. I smoked some of it down.

Samuels said, “ Why? I don’t understand this. I can’t believe… I can’t believe we can’t make some sort of deal.”

I exhaled smoke and watched it fade.

“I just don’t understand,” he said.

Some birds glided down from the trees and went to black against the moon. A Whaler passed in the river, the throttle on full, its wake spreading in a swirl of foam and current. I thought of my grandfather and closed my eyes.

Samuels turned in my direction. “Do you ever wonder where dead men go, Mr. Stefanos?”

I didn’t reply.

“What I mean is, do you believe in God?”

The woman from the party boat screamed and then there was more laughter, her laughter drunken and mixed with the wolfish shouts of men.

“No,” Samuels said. “Of course you don’t. Everything is black and white with people like you. People like you can’t even see the possibility of a higher power. No, I’m certain that if you were asked, you’d say that there is no God.” Samuels’s face turned childish, impudent. “ I believe in God. You’re saying to yourself, There’s a contradiction here, a man like this believing in God. But you know, I pray for myself every day. And do you think I could have sent those boys to their deaths if I didn’t believe that I was sending them to a better place? Do you think that?” He chewed at his lip. “I’m sorry. I’m talking quite a bit, aren’t I? I’m nervous, you know.”

I stabbed my c igarette out in the ashtray.

“Talk to me,” he said, a quiver in his voice. “Why don’t you say something to me, please.”

I fixed the tape back over his mouth and stepped out of the car. I went around to the other side, opened the door, and pulled him out. He fell to his side, tried to stay down. I yanked him back to his feet. Samuels bugged his eyes, made muffled moani mut sng sounds beneath the tape.

I pushed him along the graveled clearing, his feet dragging, stirring up dust. We got to the bulkhead, where the river lapped at the concrete. Beyond the bulkhead, the Whaler’s wake splashed against the pilings and slipped over the rusted window frames of the sunken houseboat.

Samuels’s hands squirmed against the rope. I turned his back to the water and kicked him behind the legs. He fell to his knees. I ripped the duct tape off his face.

“Oh, God,” he said as I drew the Browning from behind my back.

“There isn’t one,” I said, and shoved the barrel into his open mouth. “Remember?”

I buried uncle Costa in the fall. His grave was next to Toula’s, just twenty yards from my grandfather’s, in Glenwood Cemetery, off Lincoln Road in Northwest. It was an immigrant’s graveyard, unofficially sectioned off, with a special section for Greeks, many of them Spartans, the grounds run down at times, littered with beer bottles and cartons, but clean now and live with the reds and oranges of the maples and poplars on the hills.