George Pelecanos - Shame the Devil

“Run through it again,” said Karras.

“I’m meeting them behind a Texaco that’s been out of business a couple of years. We’ll be passin’ it in a mile or so. After I get you settled, I’ll leave my car there and come in with them.” Wilson swallowed. “Afterwards, we’ll clean the warehouse, drive them back, and dump ’em behind the station. Get back into my car and split.”

“It’s simple. I like that.”

“Yeah, it’s simple. ’Cept the killin’ part.”

“You shouldn’t have any problem with that. Just try to remember what they did to your friend.”

Wilson’s face was grim and strained in the glow of the dash lights. “Only God should do what we’re plannin’ to do tonight.”

“You’re scared,” said Karras, “that’s all. Don’t cloud this up with talk about God.”

“Yes, I’m scared. I don’t want to die.”

“Neither do I.”

“You don’t have to worry,” said Wilson. “I’m gonna go through with this. But don’t you tell me not to think of God or whether this is right or wrong. If I live through this, I plan to beg forgiveness every day for the wrong I’ve done. Knowing it’s wrong is what separates me from Farrow and Otis.” Wilson looked across the bucket. “What separates you?”

“Nothing. I hope to be just like them. I hope to kill them the way they killed my son.”

Wilson spoke quietly. “You’ve lost your faith, I know. But if you make it tonight, believe me, you’re gonna need to have something to help make you right. I was you, I’d look to God. Promise me you’ll try.”

“All right, Thomas,” said Karras, staring straight ahead. “I promise that I’ll try.”

The road darkened as they went past the town. Wilson pointed to a boarded-up gas station with a pay phone out front. Then there was more dark road and signage for an industrial park. Wilson turned right, took the asphalt road that went along rows of squat red-brick warehouses starkly lit by spots.

Wilson drove straight to the back of the deserted park. He made a tight turn at a green Dumpster and went through the long narrow alley to the wide parking lot that ended at another set of identical red-brick structures. He parked in the middle of the strip, cut the engine, and removed the tarps from the trunk.

“What’re those for?” asked Karras.

“Gonna try to keep my uncle’s place clean. We’ll roll ’em up in these when we’re done.”

Karras waited while Wilson opened the warehouse door and hit the lights. The two of them stepped inside. Fluorescents flooded the space with an artificial glow. A single ceiling lamp flashed over a cheap desk.

Karras looked at the desk. “Doesn’t this place have a phone?”

“My uncle uses a cell.”

Wilson and Karras unfolded the blue plastic tarps and spread them out on the concrete floor. The warehouse was cold, and their labored breath was visible in the light.

“I better get goin’,” said Wilson when they were done. “They’ll be there pretty soon.”

“Go ahead.”

“Remember: You’re the man who made me the key. You’re looking for a payoff before they do the job. Don’t complicate it more than that.”

“I won’t.”

“Shoot Farrow quick.”

“All I want is to look in his eyes.”

“Don’t waste no time, Dimitri. Shoot him quick, hear? I’ll take care of Otis.”

“All right.” Karras shook Wilson’s hand. “You all set?”

Wilson nodded. He turned and walked out the door. Karras heard the Intrepid drive away.

It was suddenly quiet. Karras stood on the blue tarp in the center of the warehouse and listened to the low, steady buzz of the fluorescent lights.

“You got the directions?” said Farrow.

“Got ’em,” said Otis.

They walked across the yard to their cars.

“Smells like something died out here,” said Farrow.

“Well, we are in the woods.”

“Be glad to get back to civilization.”

“I heard that, ” said Otis, dropping behind the wheel of his Mark V. Otis put the car in drive. He hit the CD player, rotated the disks to Slow Jams, Volume 2.

“Oh, zoooom,” sang Otis, “I’d like to fly away…”

Otis turned onto the two-lane. Farrow followed in the Mach 1.

Thomas Wilson sat in the idling Intrepid behind the Texaco station. He turned off the heater. He could smell his own sweat coming through his clothes.

He looked at his watch. Farrow and Otis would be way up 301 by now. Another half hour, they’d be pulling into the lot.

He’d been all chest out when he was with Dimitri, talking about how he was going to “go through with this,” saying it strong, like there wasn’t any kind of doubt in his mind. But now that he was alone, the fear had slithered back in. Truth was, if he was to pull a gun right now, it would slip right out of his hands.

And then there were Farrow and Otis. They had that way of theirs that made him feel small and weak, even back in Lewisburg, when they pretended to be his friend. Otis sometimes referred to him as his boy. Errand boy was more like it. He never was one of them, and they had always let him know it, too.

The. 38 dug into the small of his back. He shifted in the bucket.

He and Karras needed help. There wasn’t any sense in denying it anymore. Maybe Karras was strong and crazy enough to pull it off on his end. But Wilson knew he couldn’t do it. He’d be punked out like he’d always been punked out. He’d get the both of them killed.

Wilson was out of the car and walking around the side of the gas station. He was walking to the pay phone, telling himself that this was not another betrayal, that he wasn’t being a coward, that he was trying to help his friend. He was talking to himself, sweating and shivering in the cold, when he dropped the coins and dialed, and he was still muttering something when the phone rang on the other end and the line went live.

“Hello.”

“It’s Thomas Wilson.”

“Thomas -”

“Ain’t got no time to bullshit, Nick. I need your help.”

Jonas handed the phone to Dan Boyle. “It’s Stefanos again. For you.”

Boyle put the phone to his ear and listened intently. Jonas watched his face as Boyle nodded and spoke excitedly.

Boyle said, “See you then,” and handed Jonas a dead phone.

“What’s up?” said Jonas.

“I’m goin’ out.”

Boyle went back to the guest bedroom, grabbed a pair of gloves from his overnight bag and shoved them in the pockets of his khakis. He unzipped a canvas gym bag, drew his Python, and checked the load. He holstered the Python, reached into the bag, and withdrew his throw-down, a. 380 double-action Beretta with a thirteen-shot magazine. He examined the magazine, slapped it back into the butt, and dropped the gun in the side pocket of his Harris tweed. He looked over his shoulder, then went back into the gym bag and extracted a Baggie holding confiscated snow-seals of powdered cocaine. He slipped the Baggie into the other pocket of his jacket and walked back out to the living room with the holstered Python in his hand.

“You gonna tell me what’s goin’ on?” said Jonas.

“When I get back. You got your piece?”

“It’s in the drawer over there.”

“Get it,” said Boyle, lifting his wrinkled raincoat off a chair. “Until you hear from me, you keep it in your lap.”

The two-tone Continental and the red Mach 1 pulled into the back lot of the Texaco station. The Mustang skidded on gravel as it came to a stop. Otis killed the engine on the Mark V, stepped out, and walked to the Intrepid. Wilson opened his door.

“T. W.,” said Otis.

“Roman.” His mouth spasmed as he tried to smile.

“Come on, man. We’ll go in Farrow’s short.”