George Pelecanos: Shame the Devil

“Get him out of here.”

“Thanks. I was thinkin’ I’d drive him up to D.C. today. Put him on one of those cross-country buses they got.”

Farrow said, “Fine.”

He turned and walked back up the stairs.

Otis breathed out slowly. He hadn’t been certain that Frank would let Gus book. The thing was, he didn’t like the sound of this card game heist and he sure didn’t want to make a widow of his sister. Young boys playin’ gangster. Shoot, any kind of drama could go down there. And then there was Frank on his revenge trip. Taking stupid chances, playing with that cop over the phone, following his kin. Now he wanted to go to the man’s house after the job and fuck with his family and shit. None of it felt right.

Well, at least Gus would get out clean. As for Otis, he’d stay with Frank, despite the funny feeling in his gut about their future. Ice-cold as he was, Frank had always watched out for him, even saved his life one time in Lewisburg. Once you made the decision to partner up with a man, whoever he was, it just wasn’t right to walk away.

Roman Otis went around to the front of the house. Kendricks and Lavonicus were by the stand of tall pine near the Mark V, parked alongside the ’Stang.

“You don’t have to tell me that you played for the Spirits,” said Kendricks, “ ’cause I know. But I’m tellin’ you that you don’t know what the fuck you talkin’ about. They used to call Marvin Barnes ‘B. B.’ on account of that nigger had one tiny-ass head. Had a head on him small as one of those BBs you load into an air pistol, man.”

“I’m telling you, ” said Lavonicus.

“I’m telling you, ” said Kendricks, mimicking the monotone and laughing.

Lavonicus’s ears turned pink. “Listen. B. B. stood for ‘Bad Boy.’ Marvin ‘Bad Boy’ Barnes, get it? I don’t care what your friends say because I was there.”

“Aw, go ahead,” said Kendricks.

“Hey, Gus,” said Otis. “Come in the house with me for a minute, will you?”

Lavonicus walked across the yard with Otis.

“What’s up, Roman?”

“You’re goin’ home. How’s that sound to you?”

Lavonicus gave Otis his clown’s smile as he ducked his head under the door frame and entered the house.

Gus Lavonicus packed a bag quickly and said good bye to Farrow, who was standing in the kitchen, drinking a glass of red wine and smoking a Kool.

“Be back in a few hours, Frank,” said Otis.

Farrow said, “Right.”

Lavonicus and Otis left the house. Kendricks was still out in the yard. He smiled at Lavonicus as he came down the steps. Lavonicus and Otis walked toward the Bill Blass Mark V.

“Where you off to, Stretch? Takin’ a trip or somethin’?”

“I’m goin’ home,” said Lavonicus.

“I’m goin’ ho-ome,” said Kendricks.

“I’m just droppin’ him off in D.C.,” said Otis.

“Goin’ back to see your woman?” Kendricks cackled. “The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice, right, Gus?”

“See you later, Booker,” said Otis.

“Hey, maybe I’ll ride with y’all.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Otis, but Kendricks got ahead of them and stepped along toward the car.

“So, you like the sisters, huh, Gus? You prefer ’em to your own kind, that’s what it is?”

Lavonicus said nothing.

“How’s a big man like you do it with a little thing like my cousin Cissy, you don’t mind my askin’? I mean, what you do, bounce her all around in your lap and shit? Or do you hit it from behind, man, hog-slap that thing…?”

They were nearing the stand of pine by the car.

“What’samatter, Gus, you done lost your tongue?” Kendricks looked over his shoulder and up at Lavonicus and laughed. “You got some red-ass ears on you, too.”

Lavonicus grabbed Kendricks by the neck and slammed his face into the trunk of a pine. Blood erupted, and pieces of bark flew from the tree. Lavonicus released Kendricks. Kendricks’s arms pinwheeled, and he fell back and lay still.

Lavonicus’s mouth dropped open. “Did I kill him, Roman?”

Otis looked down and studied his cousin’s face. “Naw, man, he gonna be all right. C’mon.”

They got into the Mark V and started down the long drive that cut through the woods to the two-lane. After a bend in the drive, Otis snapped his fingers and cut the engine.

“Hold up, Gus. I forgot my driver’s license at the house. Gonna walk back and pick it up.”

“We could just back up the car.”

“Need to stretch my legs before that long trip we got. Be right back.”

Otis got out of the car and walked toward the house. When he got to the yard, he looked in the front window. He did not see Frank. He went to Kendricks and grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him into the woods. Kendricks was slight and easy to move. His head bounced on rocks and a tree stump, and his body swept a path in the dirt. Otis took him down a grade to a gully of brush and dried leaves.

Otis stood over Kendricks. His forehead was caved in and cracked open. Otis could see a part of his cousin’s brain through all the blood.

Otis recited a brief and meaningless prayer. He had known Booker’s mother, and she would have liked him to say a few words over her son.

“So long, cuz,” said Otis. “You done gone and talked yourself to death. Now these animals out here gonna do you like you been doin’ them.”

He went back to the car.

Out on 301, Lavonicus fiddled with the radio dial.

“Want you to take care of my sister now, Gus, you hear?”

“I will.”

“Ain’t gonna lose that temper of yours with her, are you?”

“I’d never raise a hand to Cissy, Roman. You know that.”

Lavonicus lit on a song and saw Otis smile.

“You like this one?” said Lavonicus.

“ ‘Love Won’t Let Me Wait,’ ” said Otis, “by Major Harris. That’s a bad motherfucker right there.”

Nick Stefanos locked the front door of the Spot from the inside and went back around the bar. He rotated a few cold beers out of the cooler, stocked a couple of cases of warm in the bottom, and put the cold bottles back on top. He took a bottle of Bud that he had buried in the ice chest and popped the cap.

“Thought you weren’t going to drink tonight,” said Alicia Weisman, who sat at the bar.

“I said that?”

“After how you felt this morning, remember?”

“Just gonna have one to take the edge off,” said Stefanos with a tired wink. He tilted the bottle to his lips.

Alicia watched him. “Want to see some music? Nashville Pussy’s playing at the Cat.”

“The only pussy I want to see is right here in front of me.”

“You silver-tongued devil.”

“I make the language of seduction an art.” The phone on the wall rang. “Excuse me.”

Stefanos picked up the receiver. It was Boyle on the other end of the line.

“How’s it going?”

“We’re sittin’ here watching that show set in the emergency room. The doctors got personal problems and I give a fuck.”

“Anything?”

“Not a word. Bill feels better me bein’ here and all, but if we don’t hear anything by the weekend, I’m gone. He misses his family, and my old lady’s complaining I’m not around. What’s up with you?”

“Not much,” said Stefanos.

“All right. Keep in touch.”

Stefanos went back and stood in front of Alicia.

“So,” she said. “What do you think? Do you want to go out?”

“Let’s just go back to my crib, okay? I might be getting a call there.”

“You working on something?”

“I just need to be near my phone.”

Stefanos lifted his beer bottle and Alicia took it gently from his hands. She set it down on the bar.