George Pelecanos - Shoedog

“It’s a good question,” Grimes said from the back of the room. “Answer it.”

“All right,” Weiner said. “Simply put, we are going to rob a bank. For the people of the inner city, the liquor store is the bank. Most African-Americans, Hispanics down there, they aren’t able to open checking or savings accounts-they have no credit, or they can’t afford the charges, or they don’t trust the primarily white banking institutions. So the liquor store is where they cash their checks, get money orders to pay their bills. On the morning of the second Friday of each month-which is this Friday-EZ Time Liquors brings in a hundred and fifty grand via Brinks just to fill those orders. Combine that with the fifty they’ve got stashed, and you’re looking at a possible two hundred, if you hit it just before the noon rush. It’s payday in the ghetto, and the liquor store’s the bank. Only this time, gentlemen, the payday is ours.”

Gorman put his hands together, clapped three times. It was just like Weiner to make a political speech in the middle of a business meeting. So the spades in the ghetto couldn’t get no credit, couldn’t get no jobs, didn’t trust whitey’s banks, blah, blah, blah. Fuck ’em all, anyway.

Valdez stroked the whiskers of his mustache and said, “Now the teams, Weiner.”

“Right.” Weiner used his pointer. “On the Uptown job: Jackson, Polk, and Randolph. On EZ Time: Valdez, Gorman, and Constantine.”

Valdez stood out of his chair, pointed his finger at Constantine’s back. “That green sonofabitch is not gonna be my driver, understand?”

Grimes spoke calmly. “Sit down, Valdez. I picked the teams. You can drop out or you can do it the way I say. Those are your options.”

Valdez sat, lowered his head, shook it slowly from side to side.

“The rest of it’s standard,” Weiner said. “I’d like you gentlemen to drop in on your respective targets between now and Friday, get a feel for the place. We meet here at ten A.M. on Friday morning, pass out guns and ammunition for those not already carrying.”

“I won’t need a gun,” Constantine said.

“Everyone carries,” Weiner said. “Equal responsibilities, equal risks, equal rewards.” Weiner turned to Randolph. “You and Constantine pick out your vehicles, tomorrow morning, nine A.M.”

“Rego?” Randolph said.

“Right. He’ll explain the procedure on the drop.” Weiner cradled the pointer. “Any other questions?”

The room went silent except for the long, heavy exhales of cigarette smokers and the creak of hinged metal chairs. Grimes stood, said, “That’s all, then. Good luck, all of you. Constantine-see me in my office, right after this.” Grimes turned and exited the room.

When the door slammed shut behind him, the men relaxed. Valdez stood once again and kicked his chair back with his heel. Constantine did not look back, knowing that the gesture was meant for him.

Polk put his hand on Constantine’s arm. “I’m sorry, partner. I thought the two of us could ride together on this one.”

“I’ll be all right,” Constantine said, thumb-flicking some ash off his cigarette, noticing the unsteadiness in his hand.

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” Polk said.

“Right.”

Constantine sat in the chair and finished his cigarette, waiting for the others to leave the room. Weiner left last, putting his notebooks and pencils into a battered briefcase, patting Constantine’s shoulder on the way to the door. Eventually, Constantine was alone. He heard their voices out in the hallway-Valdez and Gorman’s anger, Jackson’s simple laughter-and then their heavy footsteps on the marble stairs.

Constantine ground the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray, rubbed his face around with his hand. The gray smoke of the meeting hovered in the center of the room, turning slowly in the light. Constantine got out of his seat and moved through the cloud.

Grimes put his hand to his temple and smoothed back his steel gray hair. He had a seat behind his desk, then randomly rearranged the accessories that sat on the blotter of the desk. He placed his cigar in the lip of his crystal ashtray. His hand came to rest on the mound of magnetic chips piled on the black plastic base. He fingered the chips, listened to the footsteps of the men descending the marble staircase outside his office door.

These meetings exhilarated him but tired him as well. Gorman and Valdez always asked the wrong questions. And Jackson, his own stupidity magnified by his groundless self-confidence, asked no questions at all. But Jackson did as he was told, absolutely, and the value of that was great.

The cleanest of them was Randolph, and with him Grimes never worried; Randolph had always done his job, and done it precisely and without incident. He knew Randolph’s worth, and the importance of keeping him in the fold.

Polk, too, had always been a professional. There was no reason to believe he would not acquit himself well on this one. Still, this would be Polk’s last job. Polk was becoming irrational, careless, dangerously close to spoiling it. He would have to go. Friendship meant little now, its worth receding with time, fading behind the primary concern of self-preservation. Grimes believed in nothing if not protecting the things he valued most.

And there was Constantine. The young man with the long black hair asked the right questions, and kept his mouth shut when there was nothing pertinent to say. Grimes believed he would deliver when things heated up. Constantine’s strengths, though-his lack of emotion, the absence of a moral center-also made him a dangerous man. If Constantine had a weakness, it was the weakness that plagued most men. He had seen it in Constantine’s eyes when Delia had entered the room. But Grimes wouldn’t use it. He would find something else in Constantine, some kind of opening. And then Grimes would break him, like he had broken the others.

Grimes looked at the brown spots on the back of his hand as his fingers moved through the magnetic chips. He had noticed the spots only recently, and then he had noticed the cracks and deep wrinkles around his knuckles, and the thinness of his fingers at their joints. He pictured the brightness in Delia’s eyes when Constantine had touched her hand. He tried to remember the time when Delia had looked at him in that same way.

Grimes heard footsteps approach his door, heard a knock on the door, saw the brass knob begin to turn. He straightened in his chair, softened the tightness that had crept into his face.

Constantine knocked on Grimes’s door, entered.

Grimes sat behind his desk, wearing a canary yellow polo shirt under a blue blazer, his gray hair swept back. He motioned for Constantine to sit in the chair in front of the desk. Constantine walked across the room, had a seat in the chair, and crossed one leg over the other. He waited as Grimes relighted his cigar.

Grimes let some smoke pass from his mouth. “Would you like one, Constantine?”

“I don’t smoke them.”

Grimes looked lovingly at his cigar. “This one’s got a Dominican filler, with a Connecticut Valley wrapper. Assembled in Jamaica. I go for the pyramid tip, myself, though that’s a matter of preference over taste, the way it feels on your lips.” He drew on it, looked back at Constantine. “It’s a shame. You really should be interested in good things. As you get older, your more basic passions decrease. Naturally, your desire for material pleasure gets greater.”

“Possessions only complicate things,” Constantine said. “I can’t fit a sixty-thousand-dollar car into my backpack.”

“Or a woman,” Grimes said.

“No.”

“But you could fit a nice cigar into your pack, couldn’t you?”