George Pelecanos - Shame the Devil

“He likes it,” said Farrow as the cop car accelerated and sped off.

“You drive a red car, it’s gonna attract some attention.”

“You heard Manuel. Everything checks out, and he wouldn’t lie to me. Besides, I’ll keep to the speed limit, Roman.”

“I know that, Frank. Always did feel comfortable with you behind the wheel.”

Otis found HUR on the FM dial. The DJ was starting into the Temptations’ “A Song for You,” a beautiful track from their late period. Otis did his best with all the vocal parts. He wasn’t too solid on the highs, but he thought he sounded pretty good.

“Where we headed now, Frank?” said Otis when the song was done.

“Gonna see if Detective Jonas is home,” said Farrow.

Otis studied the detail map he had lifted from the office. “You ain’t thinkin’ of doin’ that cop today, right?”

“Just want to say hello to his sons if they’re around.”

“That’s what you got in mind,” said Otis, “you want to be makin’ a left at the corner up ahead.”

“Mr. Lynch,” said Nick Stefanos. “If you could just give me a minute here -”

“Keep talkin’,” said Lynch. “I can listen to you while I’m workin’.”

Lynch had his head in the engine of a ’71 Torino. The engine was a 351 Cleveland; the car was green with a white roof. Lynch turned a wrench with a thick, scaly hand.

“I’m trying to locate a red Torino,” said Stefanos.

“I know, I know, you already -”

“A Twister, special edition. Red.”

Lynch backed up and stood to his full five-feet-two. He was a pink-faced, froggish man with a hops belly and a comb-over of blond-gray hair.

“Why didn’t you say so?” said Lynch. “For God’s sake, you could have saved me all this talk.”

“You know the car?”

“Ain’t but one like it in the area. And yeah, I know it. I restored the sonofabitch myself.”

Stefanos felt a tick in his blood. “You have the name and address of the person who owns it?”

“I have the name. Have an address and a phone number, too, but both of them are worthless. I’m tellin’ you the truth ’cause I found out the hard way, see? This black bastard, he stiffed me for two grand. He’s the reason I got that sign posted over there.”

Lynch pointed to a “No Checks, Cash and Charges Only” notice posted by the register.

“What’s this guy’s name?”

“Forjay. Sean Forjay. Young buck with one of those big Afros they all used to wear.” Lynch regarded Stefanos strangely. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” said Stefanos, thinking of Forjay, the top-of-the-heap dealer down on Kennedy.

“Yeah,” said Lynch, “Forjay’s one of those niggers, you never want to see him again, just loan him some money. Hey, where you goin’ so fast, buddy?”

Stefanos walked quickly through the open bay door. On the way to his car he lit a smoke.

“Who was the man in the leather jacket?” said Manuel Ruiz.

“Friend of a friend,” said Thomas Wilson. “An investigator for the public defender’s office, downtown.”

“He knows nothing about us?”

“No. He’s only looking for a car. Thanks for covering me there.”

“We need no more trouble with Frank.”

“That’s right. We all want to get out from under Farrow. We’re together on that, right?”

Manuel glanced at Jaime. “That is right. I prayed that we would never see Frank again after what happened at the pizza parlor. He killed your friend, those other people… that child. Now he has killed a man of God. We are thieves but not murderers. And we have children of our own.”

“Maybe he’ll just go away,” said Wilson.

“And maybe,” said Manuel, “we can help him to go away.”

Jaime patted his breast pocket for his pack of cigarettes. The pocket was empty, and he frowned.

“What’d you do, Manny?” said Wilson.

“The tags on that Mustang. I stole them myself last night, from a luxury car in Forest Heights. You can be sure that the owner was outraged. The tags are on the hot sheet, I am certain, as we speak.”

“Red muscle car with hot tags,” said Wilson. “Man could get pulled over real fast, drivin’ one of those.”

Manuel nodded at Jaime and said, “That is not all.”

Wilson said, “What else?”

“Jaime is an expert brake man. He fixed the master cylinder on the Mustang so that the brake fluid would leak out. The brakes will fail on that car for sure. I would say in the next four or five days, they will fail altogether.”

“What about the idiot lights?” said Wilson. “That’ll tip Frank off.”

“I fix the idiot light,” said Jaime.

“Aren’t you two afraid?” said Wilson.

“Yes,” said Manuel, “we are afraid. The way men in war are afraid.”

Wilson said nothing, staring at Manuel. Then he looked at his watch. “I better be goin’. Meeting my uncle Lindo down at his warehouse.”

“You go,” said Manuel.

“I’ll keep you two up on things,” said Wilson.

“Please,” said Manuel.

They shook hands with Wilson and watched him walk from the garage.

“Will he give us up?” said Jaime.

“I don’t think so,” said Manuel. “He is stronger than he knows.”

“What about the man in the leather jacket?”

“What Wilson said was true. He was only looking for a car.”

“I hope we are right,” said Jaime, “to try and cross Frank.”

“He is a devil,” said Manuel. “So we have to try.”

Jaime reached into his pocket, remembered that he was out of cigarettes.

“I need to buy smokes,” said Jaime.

“You have a fresh pack in the offi,” said Manuel.

“You said ‘offi,’” said Jaime with a tight smile. “But you meant ‘office,’ right?”

Roman Otis turned up the volume on the radio. WHUR was playing the Floaters’ “Float On,” and the hypnotic instrumental intro was filling the car.

“Aw, shit, Frank,” said Otis. “They’re playin’ the long version, too. If I lived in this town I’d have my radio dial locked on this station right here.”

They were parked on Hamlin, a few houses down from the house of William Jonas. Farrow looked through the windshield at the bay window of the detective’s split. He could see vague outlines moving behind the window. Well, that couldn’t be Jonas; Jonas was a cripple confined to a chair.

Farrow tried to block out Roman’s voice. He didn’t care for music, especially when he was working, but Roman did, and he let him listen to it, and sing, to his content.

“Libra,” said Otis, “and my name is Charles. Now, I like a woman that’s quiet…”

As Otis mimicked the spoken verse, he noticed the dash of the car. Usually, when you were listening to the radio with the ignition off, a red light came on in the dash. Otis figured maybe this old model didn’t have that feature. Or maybe it did and the light was broke. The truth was, Otis knew dog shit about the workings of cars.

Farrow turned the volume on the radio down a notch.

“How do you think Gus is gonna work out with us?” said Farrow, keeping his eyes on the house.

“I don’t know. Gus is all heartsick over my sister, you want to know the truth.”

“Will he pull his weight when the time comes?”

“Gus has a temper, that’s a fact. My cousin Booker needs to get with that.”

“But will Gus kill if he has to?”

“As far as unnecessary mayhem goes, uh-uh, I don’t think he’d go for that.”

Farrow squinted. “You think this is unnecessary, Roman?”

Otis thought carefully before he spoke. He was about as close to Frank as any man could be, but he didn’t want to get on his wrong side, just the same. Long as he’d known him, Frank had been a violent man. No conscience, either, which could be a positive in their profession. That no-conscience thing was what often kept men like them alive. But the way he’d run over that kid after the pizza parlor kill, that had been extra cold, even for Frank. And killing that churchman out in the country? Otis could not see where that had been justified. Frank had always been ice. Lately, though, it seemed like he was enjoying the bloodletting a little too much.