George Pelecanos: Shoedog

Randolph laid the shoeboxes on the carpet. He went to the bathroom in the back of the store, vomited in the toilet. He put his hand on the sink, leaned over, finished vomiting. He found some mouthwash in the metal vanity, gargled, and spit into the sink. He splashed some water on his face and rubbed his hands dry on his pressed jeans.

Randolph left the bathroom, picked up the two pairs of shoes, and walked out of the stockroom, onto the sales floor, into the light.

Weiner checked his watch: five minutes past one o’clock. He switched to the left side of the moving steps, felt the ache in his calves as he walked up the long escalator out of the Dupont Metro. Behind him, at the bottom of the escalator, a boy in a white corduroy coat held up a stack of newspapers and repeated, “Washington Times, twenty-five cents. It ain’t the best, but it ain’t the worst.” Standing next to the boy, a shirtless man in overalls sang “A Change Is Gonna Come.” The richness of the singer’s voice resonated in the honeycombed concrete of the well.

At the top of the escalator, Weiner dropped change in the plastic cup of a pleasant froggish man who stood in the same spot every day, saying “Thank you and have a nice afternoon” to everyone who passed. Weiner headed south on 19th, dodged business people, passed an acoustic guitarist, a food vendor, and a man selling caps and cheap silk ties. He saw the blue neon sign for Olssen’s, went to the doors, pushed on one, and walked inside.

Inside, Weiner moved straight through the book section, moved past the sandals-and-eyeglasses crowd. A microphone came on in the store, and then a young woman’s tired voice: “I need a manager at the front register, please.” Weiner stopped, checked his reflection in a round security mirror hung and angled down above a blind corner of the fiction department.

He looked okay. The mirror added ten pounds, maybe fifteen, that much he knew. The thing was, any extra weight the black shirt would hide. The paisley ascot was a nice touch too. Weiner tipped his brown beret a little off-center, used his thumb and forefinger to groom his goatee. He turned and walked into the music section of the store.

A couple of employees, guys with lavish hair, stood in the back, talked and laughed. A pop song-strings and drum machines and girl-group harmony-played in the shop, and the more willowy of the two employees put his arms up and closed his eyes and swayed back and forth in an approximation of the beat. Weiner did not know the song.

Weiner hit the jazz section, flipped through the CDs. He looked into the back room as he pretended to inspect the titles, absently running his fingers through the pack. He could see Nita back there, talking to a thin young man. Nita held a cup of coffee in her hand, and the young man said something, putting his hands together as in prayer, and Nita laughed. She happened to look out onto the floor, and Weiner caught her eye. She stopped laughing, and just smiled.

Weiner smiled back, put his hand in the pocket of his Sansabelt slacks, and touched the paper wrapped around the small box that held the ring. He straightened his posture, sucked in his gut.

Nita came out onto the floor, a black sweater over black tights, and walked toward Weiner. He checked out her hips, then the rest of her, and he felt a small stab in his chest. Nita had a full, plainish face, and she was on the heavy side-he knew that-but in her own way, the way those hips moved, the youth in her eyes, the freshness of the whole package, God, she was gorgeous. He’d die happy, and with a Cheshire smile on his face, if only he could touch it.

“Hello, Weiner,” she said, stopping on the other side of the rack.

“Nita,” Weiner said. “You look lovely.”

“Thank you,” Nita said, bowing her head, her black hair falling across her face. “Can I help you, sir?”

Weiner glanced at the two employees in the rear of the store, joined now by the young man Nita had been laughing with in the back room. The three of them were smiling alternately at Nita and Weiner. When Weiner looked at them, they looked away. So they were her friends, and something was funny. Was this chick putting him on?

“Excuse me, sir,” Nita said, getting his attention. “I said, can I help you?”

“Possibly,” Weiner said, feeling sweat above his lip but not moving to wipe it away. “Yeah, I think you might be able to help me.” In his pocket, he put his fingers around the ring.

“Well?” Nita said.

“Well, I’ve got this itch, see?”

“An itch?”

“That’s right. I’m itching-I’m hot, sweetheart, to hear some saxophone. Specifically, some Sonny Rollins-type saxophone. Are you with me?”

“You’ve got a hot itch,” Nita said.

“Like I said,” said Weiner.

Nita pulled hair off her face, grinned, pushed her chin out at Weiner. “What else have you got?”

“Well,” Weiner said, “by coincidence, I have these two tickets, happen to be to the Sonny Rollins show. Down at One Step-”

“That it?” said Nita.

Weiner shifted his feet, began to withdraw the ring from his pocket. “There is something else-”

“We don’t need anything else, Weiner.” Nita smiled, laughed a little with the smile. He could see in her eyes that the boys in the back of the store were only boys, and that all of this was real.

“The show’s really going to cook, sweetheart. I mean, it’s really going to cook.”

“I’m sure the show will be fine,” Nita said. “But what I’m really looking forward to is the company.”

Weiner loosened his fingers. He let go of the ring, let it drop back into his pocket. The first thing he thought: had he kept the receipt?

Weiner concentrated, tipped his beret back on his head. “You’ll go with me, then?”

“Yes,” Nita said. “I’d love to go with you, Weiner.”

He smiled, getting a picture now, seeing the receipt in the wooden box on the top of his dresser. He’d return the ring, get the three C notes back, maybe take the money to the track. He’d take the money, and he’d parlay it.

“I’ll swing by, pick you up at closing time.”

“I’ll be here,” Nita said.

Weiner looked at Nita and said, “Beautiful.”

Constantine turned off Indian Head Highway, found the decaying commercial strip at the end of the short road, went behind the strip. The T-Bird and the Fury were gone. Constantine parked the Road Runner between the Super Bee and the Caddy. He cut the engine. In the backseat, Gorman picked chips of glass from his hair.

“Leave the keys in the ignition,” Valdez said. “Gorman, you drop the shotgun back there on the floor. Constantine, lay the. 45 under your seat.”

“It’s clean,” Constantine said. “I never touched it.”

“Leave it anyway,” said Valdez.

“What about your guns?” Constantine asked.

“These guns are mine,” Valdez said.

Constantine slid the. 45 beneath his seat. He looked out across the weedy field. A thin man in a blue zip-up jacket got out of a late-model sedan parked near the row of Cape Cods, and walked toward them, across the field.

“That’s Rego’s man,” said Valdez. “Come on.”

“Polk and Randolph,” Constantine said. “I guess-”

“They’ve come and gone,” Valdez said. “The Fury’s on the way to the chop. You take the Dodge and meet us at the house. Let’s go, Gorman. Grab the bags and let’s go.”

Valdez and Gorman took the money to the Cadillac, drove out of the lot. Constantine got into the Super Bee. He found the key in the ignition, where the old man had left it.

THE black iron gate was open at the Grimes estate. Constantine drove between the squat brick pillars, headed down the asphalt drive, parked the Super Bee next to the Caddy. To the right of the Caddy was the Olds 98. Parked next to that, Delia’s Mercedes.