George Pelecanos - Shoedog

Jackson pushed his shades up on the bridge of his nose, straightened the Hoyas cap on his head, and glanced once more at the sign over the doors: Uptown Liquors. So this was the motherfucker he was going to hit on Friday.

He pocketed the ignition key and got out of the car, walked across the sidewalk to the doors, pushed on the doors, and stepped inside. The first thing he thought, the way the aisles lined up, the big selection, the bright tags, die cashier stand with the conveyer belt to move the juice along: this was a supermarket for booze.

Jackson stepped around the maze of wine displays in the center of the store, barrels filled with bottles capped by neon tags. The liquor racks ran behind the wine displays, and past the liquor a wall of glass-fronted coolers stocked with beer. He headed for the brown liquors in the center aisle, passed bourbon and scotch, and settled in on the brandies. He pretended to study the brandy bottles, looking over the top of his shades to the sales counter against the wall.

Three men stood behind the counter, speaking loudly to the customers and each other, ringing sales on two old-fashioned registers. Shelved behind them: miniatures and pints, expensive champagnes, cordials, and liquor in seasonal, decorative decanters. An old women in a red sweater stood at the front cashier station, ready to ring, but the store action centered on the counter.

The way it worked, the customers came in, stepped up to the counter, ordered from one of the loud men, and the men-Jews, Jackson guessed, two old and one young-would bullshit about the quality or the price, maybe suggest something else, and then the men would scream the order toward the entrance to the back room, at the end of the counter. After that a black man would carry the order out to the counter, dolly it out if it was more than one case of beer, and when the customer had paid the tab the black man would take it out to the customer’s car. The customers came to Uptown Liquors for that ritual. Jackson could see that they came here for the show.

The two older men, with their double-knit pants pulled high over their soft bellies, they would be no problem. The younger one, with his Rolex and diamond pinky ring, he had nothing, a cocky strut and a big mouth, but nothing underneath. The brother, the one the others called Isaac-“A case of long-neck Buds up front, Isaac, we need it now, the gentleman’s in a hurry!”-he’d be the one to watch.

Jackson studied Isaac-the steady eyes, the solid walk-and decided he’d seen enough. Jackson did not step up to the register, where the lenses of two wall-mounted video cameras remained focused. He turned away from the brandies and walked down the aisle, negotiated the wine displays, and exited the store.

Jackson fed the meter and sat in his car for the next half hour. Sometime around one o’clock Isaac walked out the front door of Uptown Liquors and into the small garage. A minute later Isaac drove his Monte Carlo out of the garage and headed downtown. Jackson pulled away from the curb and followed.

Jackson sat low and relaxed in the driver’s seat, stayed two cars back. This liquor store thing, it looked easier now than he had first imagined. If this boy Isaac fell in line, then the whole deal would be down. Maybe nobody, except of course the old man, would get hurt. Jackson would be a hero, might even get off the hook with Grimes, even things out after Grimes had bailed him out on his card game debt. Not to mention the thirty grand. The thirty grand was nothin’ but sweet.

Jackson tailed Isaac east, across town to 13th Street, south on 13th to Fairmont. Isaac drove to the middle of the residential block and parked. Jackson stopped at the top of the street and pulled over. Fairmont Street consisted of row houses sectioned off into apartments, glass and litter, young men wearing beepers, and children playing ball on the blacktop. It was exactly the kind of dead-end bullshit Jackson had come back to after Vietnam, before he got hip to the B amp; E and then the fencing business. Those had been the best days, the seventies, when it had all been business-before the cocaine and the cards.

Jackson was through with gambling now and he had kicked the freeze, and maybe with this job he’d take his thirty and be through with Grimes. He watched Isaac cross the cracked concrete sidewalk, walking toward his place-the raggedy-ass motherfucker had a job, and he still had to go home and eat his lunch-and he thought, yeah, if this brother comes around, and this job goes down clean, I’m out of the life. Out of it, in a large way.

Constantine looked across the buckets, over at Randolph. The man sat low, pressed jeans and a pressed cotton shirt, one arm straight out on the wheel, the other at his side, his free hand stroking his black mustache. They had not spoken since Randolph had driven them east on Pennsylvania Avenue, straight out of the city on Route 4.

“That skinny guy,” Constantine said, cutting the chill. “He called you Shoedog.”

“Just a name,” Randolph said.

“He told you to pick up your ‘thirty-fours.’”

“Yeah. ‘Thirty-four,’ as in ‘three-four, out the door.’ Those the shoes left over from the bitches who didn’t buy. The bitches who walked out the door. I let ’em pile on up. It gets the other boys all

… emotionally distracted, and shit. Makes ’em forget what they’re doin’.”

Constantine checked out the T-Bird’s cockpit. The Detroit R amp; D men had turned an American original into a Jap lookalike, an imitation rice rocket. “You like the car?” Constantine asked.

“It’s all right,” Randolph said, his eyes ahead.

Constantine offered, “I never been much of a Ford man.”

“For city cruisin’, it’ll do.” Randolph shifted in his bucket. “You know somethin’ about cars?”

“A little.”

“What else you know? You know why Grimes called me out?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“How about fillin’ me in.” Randolph turned smoothly onto the unmarked two-lane.

Constantine looked out the window at the wild dogwoods dotting the woods. “Two liquor stores. Day after tomorrow.”

“You in?”

“Yes,” Constantine said, thinking of the woman. “I’m in.”

“As what?” Randolph asked.

“A driver.”

Randolph shook his head thoughtfully. “Man, you greener than a motherfucker.” He added, “Grimes does like ’em green, though.”

“What about you?” Constantine said.

“What about me.”

“What do you do?”

Randolph ran his hand along the top of the dash. “I’m a driver, too, man.”

Constantine looked at Randolph’s pressed clothes, the man’s style. “I don’t get it. I mean I watched you back there, in the store. You’re already hooked up, man. You don’t need it.”

Randolph laughed sharply. “You ought to know better than that, Constantine. What’s Grimes got on you, anyway?”

“Nothing,” Constantine said, still thinking of Delia.

“Grimes got something on everybody.”

“What’s he got on you, Randolph?”

Randolph slowed the car, stopped it between the pillars of the black iron gate. He turned, stared into Constantine’s eyes. “Look, man, you seem all right. But you don’t know me all that well to be askin’ those kinds of questions. Okay?”

Constantine nodded, looked away. The gate opened in and Randolph drove through, up the drive to the parking area in front of the house. A few more cars now stood in the group.

Randolph parked next to the Caddy. The two of them climbed out of the T-Bird and walked up the steps to the house. Constantine turned the knob without a knock and walked into the marble foyer. Randolph walked behind him.

Gorman stood on the landing above, leaning over the railing, his face drawn and gray. “You’re late,” he said, directing it down to Randolph.