George Pelecanos - Shame the Devil

Stefanos’s call came through while he was finishing his second round.

Thomas Wilson bought a. 38 Special from this guy he’d seen at the Hummingbird and the Jamaican Breeze and a couple of the other clubs out on the avenue. The dude was a skinny rock-fiend from the neighborhood, all angles and nerves. They did the transaction in Wilson’s car. Wilson passed him three hundred-dollar bills for the strap and a box of shells. The bluing had rubbed down on the barrel, but the gun dry-fired fine and looked otherwise sound. The skinny cat, guy by the name of Raymond Allison, went away, his head jerking left and right as he quick-stepped down the street, and Wilson went in the opposite direction, to a dark bar named Sandy’s, over near Princeton Place.

Wilson was already a little high from a double cognac, but he had another as he sat alone at the bar. “Dazz,” an old Brick single, was playing on the stereo. He used to like this one, but he was distracted and wasn’t paying much attention to the song.

He’d taken a few steps tonight. He’d acted. That was something for him. He’d called Farrow down at the house in southern Maryland, planted the card-game scheme in his mind. He’d bought a gun. All right, so he’d done a couple of things. Question was, he got Farrow and Otis into that warehouse, what would he do then?

A couple of guys down along the bar laughed loudly at something one of them had said, and when Wilson looked over, the smaller of the two stopped smiling and gave him a real hard look. Wilson’s blood moved, but he turned away and looked into his drink. If anything started he knew he’d get punked out. Knowing this was hard for Wilson, for any man, to accept.

Wilson sipped his cognac. It felt funny, sitting here this early on a Tuesday night. Usually, about this time, he’d be in the meeting with the rest of the group, drinking coffee, talking, telling jokes. But they’d all decided to cancel, as Bernie was down in the country on vacation and it wouldn’t be right to do the thing without Bern.

Wilson went to the pay phone back by the rest room. He phoned Bernie’s house and left a message on his machine, telling Bernie he hoped he was resting up real good down on his “plantation.” Country-lovin’ fool didn’t even have a phone down there on that property. Wilson would have liked to have heard Bernie’s voice right about now.

A young woman approached him on her way to the rest room. Wilson patted his fade and said, “What’s goin’ on, girl? You look fine, too.” The woman went right on by without a word.

Wilson phoned his place for messages. His uncle Lindo had called to talk about Dexter Manley, whom he’d seen on the Glenn Harris show on channel 8. And Dimitri’s friend, that investigator named Stefanos, had called as well. What was up with that? Wilson dialed the number Stefanos had left on the machine. A woman answered and then Stefanos got on the line. Sounded like Stefanos was in a bar his own self.

“What can I do for you, man?” said Wilson.

“I know about you, Thomas,” said Stefanos. “I know about Lewisburg and the men in the garage. Maybe we better have a talk.”

Wilson didn’t answer.

“Thomas?” said Stefanos. “I’ll see you in a half hour.”

“Where?” said Wilson.

“The Spot,” said Stefanos. “Out on the street.”

Dimitri Karras and Stephanie Maroulis had dinner at the Thai Room on Connecticut and Nebraska, then went back to Stephanie’s place and watched that cop show everyone liked on TV. Karras noticed that every time they ran out of ideas, the writers would send the main character into a bar so that he could fall off the wagon again for an episode or so. But he liked the show all right. It was something to pass the time.

“This is the kind of night married people have,” said Karras.

And Stephanie said, “What’s wrong with that?”

They got undressed and folded their clothes neatly and made love quietly, and she fell to sleep with his fingers stroking her hair. This is also how it is for married people, thought Karras. And then he thought, It was just like this with Lisa. It’s not so bad.

He woke up in the middle of the night and looked at the night-stand to check the time on the clock radio. He noticed that the photograph of Steve Maroulis was no longer there.

Nick Stefanos crossed 8th Street and walked to the Dodge Intrepid idling at the curb. He opened the passenger door and climbed inside. He handed Thomas Wilson a can of beer and opened one for himself.

“Drive uptown,” said Stefanos. “You can drop me at my place in Shepherd Park.”

Wilson drove along the Southeast business district, around the Capitol and into Northwest. He went west on Pennsylvania Avenue and cut north on 14th Street. As he drove, he confessed. “That’s it,” said Wilson. “If I changed things to go in my favor, I didn’t mean to. I’ve told it to you as straight as I could.”

Stefanos nodded. He had drunk his beer quietly while Wilson talked, and he had interjected nothing.

Wilson shifted in his seat. “You got no comment?”

“You covered it.”

“All right, then. How’d you get hip to me, man?”

“I marked you as a con the first time I met you. Did a background check and Lewisburg came up. That murderer – what’s his name?”

“Farrow. Farrow and Otis.”

“Farrow would be the man I saw at the garage.”

“Yes.”

“Farrow shot his mouth off to Bill Jonas when he was threatening his family. Told him that he was an alumnus of several institutions, including a federal facility. Lewisburg’s a federal joint. Jonas’s son Chris saw the same red Mustang I saw at Ruiz and Gutierrez’s shop. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots.”

“I been waitin’ for this for two and a half years,” said Wilson. “Dreading it and welcoming it at the same time. Can you understand at all what I mean?”

Stefanos looked out the window, nodded toward a lit storefront at 14th and S. “That used to be my grandfather’s place, right there. Nick’s Grill. You’d never know how much pride went into that place from the way it looks now. Funny how you live in this town long enough, all these old buildings hold memories of some kind.”

“Ain’t you got nothin’ more to say than that?”

“No,” said Stefanos. “And don’t look for any sympathy from me, either.”

“Yeah, okay.” Wilson’s hand tightened on the wheel. “You wanna know somethin’, man?”

“What?”

“Been many a night I wanted to kill myself. Just do it quick and check on out.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“When it came time, I couldn’t do it. And there was another thing I couldn’t do: Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t tell my friends that I had set their loved ones up to die. In the end I couldn’t do either one of those things. I was just plain paralyzed. I guess that makes me a coward, right?”

“Yes,” said Stefanos. “You’re a coward.”

They drove through the U Street intersection and up into Columbia Heights and beyond. The light from the street lamps above crawled across their laps. Past Arkansas they climbed a hill and neared Colorado Avenue.

“Couple more streets and you’ll be making a left,” said Stefanos.

“What’re you gonna do?” said Wilson. “You fixin’ to turn me in?”

“I haven’t told anyone a thing. You want to know the truth, that’s not what you need. The law can’t do any more to you than what’s been done.”

“What, then?”

“Left here.” Stefanos killed his beer and dropped the can on the carpet. “I’m going to give you a little time to sort it out. We’ve got Bill Jonas under protection, but only for a few days. You need to make your peace with Dimitri and the others. Then we’ll see.”