George Pelecanos: Shame the Devil

Jimmy ran down the concrete steps as she locked the front door of the colonial. She watched him bolt across the sidewalk and head toward the street.

“Jimmy!” she yelled.

Jimmy stopped short of the street at the sound of her voice. He turned, pointing at her and laughing, his eyes closed, his dimples deeply etched in a smooth oval face.

Mrs. Lincoln, the old woman next door, called from her porch, “You better watch that boy!”

Lisa smiled and said cheerfully, “He’s a handful, all right.” And under her breath she added, “You dried-up old crow.”

As Lisa got down to the sidewalk of Alton Place, Jimmy said, “What’d you say, Mom?”

“Just saying hello to Mrs. Lincoln.”

“You mean Mrs. Stinkin’?”

“Now, don’t you ever say that except in our house, honey. Daddy was just kidding when he made up that name for her. It’s not nice.”

“But she does smell funny, though.”

“Old people have a different smell to them, that’s all.”

“She smells.”

“Jimmy!”

“Okay.”

They walked a bit. They stopped at the corner of 38th Street, and Jimmy said, “Where we goin’ for ice cream, Mom?”

“That store next to the pizza parlor.”

“Which pizza parlor?” said Jimmy.

“You know,” said Lisa Karras. “May’s.”

Roman Otis went in first, putting a hard shoulder to the door. Frank Farrow stepped in next, cross-drawing the. 22 and the. 38 revolver at once. He kicked the door shut behind him as Otis drew the sawed-off and pumped a shell into the breech.

“All right,” said Otis. “Don’t none a y’all move.”

Charles Greene, the pizza chef, stood still behind the kitchen’s stainless steel prep table and raised his hands. Mr. Carl, a short man with a stub of unlit cigar wedged in the side of his liver-lipped mouth, stood to the side of the table. On the tiled floor beside him sat an olive green medium-size duffel bag, zipped shut.

“What is this?” said Mr. Carl, direct and calm, looking at the armed white man with the gray hair.

Frank up-jerked the. 38. “Raise your hands and shut your mouth.”

Carl Lewin raised his arms very slowly, careful not to let his sport jacket spread open and reveal the. 32 Davis he carried wedged against his right hip on pickup day.

“Against the wall,” said Frank.

Greene and Mr. Carl moved back. Frank holstered the. 22, stepped over to the duffel bag, and opened it. He had a quick look inside at the stacks of green: tens, twenties, and hundreds, loosely banded. He ran the zipper back up its neck and nodded at Otis.

“Okay, pizza man,” said Otis. “Who we got in the front of the house?”

Charles Greene licked his dry lips. “The bartender. And the day waiter’s out in the dining room, setting up.”

“Go out there and bring the waiter back with you,” said Otis. “Don’t be funny, neither.” Greene hesitated, and Otis said, “Go on, boy. Let’s get this over with so we can all be on our way.”

Greene had a look at Mr. Carl before hurrying from the kitchen. Mr. Carl stared at the gray-haired white man without speaking. Then they heard footsteps returning to the kitchen and a chiding young voice saying, “What could be so important, Charlie? I’ve got side work.”

The waiter, who was named Vance Walters, entered the kitchen with Greene behind him. At the sight of the men and their guns, Walters nearly turned to run, then swallowed and breathed out slowly. The moment had passed, and now it was too late. He wondered, as he always did, what his father would have done in a situation such as this one. He raised his hands without a prompt. If he’d just cooperate, they wouldn’t hurt him, whoever they were.

“What’s your name?” said Frank.

“Vance,” said the waiter.

“Over there against the wall with your boss,” said Frank.

Otis watched the waiter with the perfect springy haircut hurry around the prep table. One of those light-steppin’ mugs. Vance with the tight-ass pants. Otis knew the look straight away. Marys like Vance got snatched up on the cell block right quick.

“I’ll get the bartender,” said Frank to Otis.

Frank Farrow left the kitchen. Otis pointed the shotgun at each of the three men against the wall in turn. He began to sing “One in a Million You” under his breath. As he sang, he smiled at Mr. Carl.

Detective William Jonas cruised up Wisconsin in his unmarked and made the turn up 39th. The cold air felt good blowing against his torso, and for a change he was fairly relaxed. It wasn’t often that he rolled on the clean, white-bread streets of upper Northwest’s Ward 3. Most of his action was in neighborhoods like Trinidad, Pet-worth, LeDroit Park, and Columbia Heights. But this morning he had an interview with a teenage kid who worked at the chain video store over near Wilson High. The kid lived in Shaw, and he had grown up with a couple of young citizens charged with beating a pipehead to death outside a plywood-door house east of 14th and Irving. Jonas hated to roust the kid at work, but the young man had been uncooperative on his home turf. Jonas figured that the kid would talk, and talk quick, at his place of employment.

William Jonas had two sons at Wilson himself. They took the bus across town from Jonas’s house on Hamlin Street, over in Brookland.

It wouldn’t be too long before he had his boys in college and could retire his shield. The money was already put away for their schooling. He’d been saving on an automatic-withdrawal plan since they were boys. Thank the good Lord for blue chips. With his pension and the house damn near 75 percent paid off, he and Dee could enjoy themselves for real. He’d be in his middle fifties by then – retired and still a relatively young man. But it was a little early to be dreaming on it. He had a few years left to go.

As he went slowly up 39th, Jonas noticed a parked car on his right, looked almost like an old cop car, with a man behind the wheel, sitting there with all four windows rolled down. The man was pockmarked and sweating something awful; his sunglasses slipped down to the end of his nose as he bent forward, trying to put a match to a cigarette. Looked like his hand was shaking, too, and… damn if he wasn’t wearing some kind of rubber gloves. As Jonas passed, the man glanced out the window and quickly averted his eyes. In the rearview Jonas saw Virginia plates on the front of the car – a Merc, maybe. No, he could see the familiar blue oval on the grillwork: a Ford.

Veazy Street, Warren, Windom… Now that had to be the only car he’d seen all morning with the windows down on a hotter-than-the-devil day like today. Everyone else had their air-conditioning on full, and what car didn’t have air-conditioning these days? And the man behind the wheel, white like everyone in this neighborhood but still not like them, had seemed kind of nervous. Like he didn’t belong there. Wearing those gloves, too. Twenty-five years on the force and Bill Jonas knew .

He had a few minutes before his interview with the video-store kid. Maybe he’d cruise around the block, give that Ford another pass.

Richard Farrow hotboxed his smoke while watching the black car hang a left a few blocks up 39th. Any high school kid with an ounce of weed in his glove box would have spotted the unmarked car. And the driver, some kind of cop, had given him the fish-eye as he passed.

The question was, Was the black cop in the black car going to come around the block and check him out again?

Richard touched the grip of the nine millimeter tucked between his legs. The way he had it, snug up against his rocks and pressing on his blue jeans, it had felt good. But now the sensation faded. He grabbed the Beretta and tapped the barrel against his thigh. He dragged hard on his cigarette and flicked the butt out to the street.