George Pelecanos - Shame the Devil

Farrow rolled his window down as they neared the car. “These brakes are shot again,” said Farrow. “If you just push the pedal in, you get nothing. You got to pump the hell out of these things to bring it to a stop.”

“Booker put the fluid in,” said Otis. “I seen him do it.”

“I’m tellin’ you, Roman, they’re fucked.”

“Let me drive over to the joint, man, so I can see my own self.”

“Suit yourself.”

Farrow did not greet Wilson as he stepped out of the car. Wilson climbed into the backseat, and Farrow went around to the passenger side. Otis got under the wheel and put the car in gear.

“Where to, T. W.?”

“Pull out,” said Wilson, “and make a right onto the road.”

Otis tested the brakes both ways as they hit the asphalt. He pumped the pedal and managed to bring the Mustang to a stop.

“You’re right, Frank. These brakes are fucked. Have to use the Mark when we do the job for real.”

Farrow looked over his shoulder to the backseat. “What’s wrong with your face, T. W.? How’d you get marked?”

“Got stole in the face in a bar,” said Wilson.

“Let yourself get stole, huh?” said Otis. “Imagine that. You look a little tight, too.”

“Got a minor problem, is all it is.”

“What’s that?”

“The inside man, the one who got me the key? He thought about it and now he wants an extra grand.”

“He’s already been paid,” said Farrow.

“I told him as much,” said Wilson, noticing a catch in his voice, wondering if they noticed it, too.

“And what happened?”

“Couldn’t talk him out of it,” said Wilson.

“I guess I need to talk to him myself,” said Farrow.

“You’re going to,” said Wilson as they neared the industrial park sign. “He’s waitin’ on us at the warehouse right now.”

Come on,” said Boyle.

Nick Stefanos used his foot to tap on the high beams. The car ahead of them cleared out of the Beltway’s left lane.

“That’s right, buddy,” said Stefanos. “Get out of the way.”

“Can’t you make this piece of shit move?”

Stefanos floored the accelerator. Boyle grabbed the armrest as the Coronet surged forward from a flood of gas. Stefanos swerved into the middle lane, passed an import on the right, got back into the left, and kept the pedal nailed to the floor.

“How long?” said Boyle.

“Fifteen minutes, I’d say.”

Boyle reached into his pocket and brought out the. 380. “Take this.”

“I’m done with that,” said Stefanos. “I told you once before.”

Boyle dropped the Berreta back in his pocket. He shook a smoke out of his hardpack for himself and rustled the deck in the direction of Stefanos.

Stefanos put a cigarette between his lips and pushed in the lighter on the dash.

“Describe all the players to me,” said Boyle. “I don’t want to shoot the wrong guy.”

The lighter popped out of the dash. Stefanos lit his smoke and handed the lighter to Boyle.

“Looks like you done fucked up again, T. W.,” said Otis. “You should’ve been more firm with that key man. Ain’t you learned yet about these inside jobs?”

Otis turned into the industrial park and drove along the red-brick buildings.

“Man’s taking a risk,” said Thomas Wilson. “He just wants a little extra.”

“I’ll just have to explain it to him,” said Farrow. “If he pushes it, he’s gonna get hurt.”

“Hope he takes it better than that other inside man T. W. had,” said Otis.

“The pizza chef?” said Farrow.

Otis and Farrow exchanged a glance. Wilson saw the eye contact and thought he saw a brief smile crease Otis’s face. They were fuckin’ with him, he knew. Trying to keep him weak. Wilson’s blood jumped at Otis’s smile. But the feeling he had was not familiar. It was not a feeling of fear.

“You talkin’ about Charles?” said Wilson.

“Whatever his name was,” said Otis. “He didn’t take it in a very masculine way when he saw what we had to do. The bartender, that light-steppin’ waiter… shoot, man, you can believe that those two were afraid to die. But even that sissy waiter took it like a man compared to your pizza chef. You remember the way he begged us, Frank?”

Farrow nodded. “He cried like a girl.”

“Screamed like one, too,” said Otis.

Wilson felt tears come to his eyes.

Lord, give me strength to kill these men.

“Charles was a man,” said Wilson, surprised at the force in his own voice.

Otis’s eyes smiled in the rearview. “Listen to T. W., Frank. Gettin’ all ma-cho on us now.”

Wilson swallowed hard. “Make a left into that alley, where that Dumpster is.”

Otis made the turn and drove slowly between the buildings. The brick walls were very close to the sides of the car.

“Damn, this is a tight squeeze,” said Otis.

“Thought you liked tight things,” said Farrow.

“You know I do,” said Otis, smiling in the mirror, giving his gold tooth a lick.

The Mustang came out of the alley and then there was the wide-open lot and the strip of warehouses fronting the creek.

“Park in the middle,” said Wilson, “by that door right there.”

Otis pumped the brakes. The Mach 1 came to a stop.

Dimitri Karras heard the rumble of a muscle car as it cleared the alley. He drew his. 45, pulled back on the receiver, and jacked a round into the chamber. He slipped the automatic barrel-down into the holster, behind the belt line of his jeans and against the small of his back.

He reached behind him, drew the. 45, and replaced it once again.

Karras heard car doors slam and voices as the men approached. He thought of Bernie. He tried to recall Bernie’s advice from that day in the woods. He couldn’t remember what Bernie had said.

He was cold. He hadn’t worn a coat so that he would not fumble the gun. His teeth were chattering, and his hands had grown numb. He tried to raise spit and he could not.

He looked around the empty warehouse and backed up so that he was near the cheap desk. He heard the key turn in the lock and he backed up another step. The door swung open, and Karras stood still.

Farrow, Otis, and Wilson stepped out of the Mustang. Wilson watched Otis twirl the car keys on his finger and drop them in the pocket of his slacks. Otis examined his ID bracelet in the light of the spot lamps hung on the exterior of the warehouse walls.

“What’s the key man’s name?” said Farrow.

“Dimitri,” said Wilson. It was meaningless to lie about it now.

Farrow drew his. 45 from his belt line and chambered a round. He looked at Otis and Otis did the same. They holstered their guns and walked toward the warehouse door.

Wilson looked over his shoulder to the alley before putting the key to the lock. He guessed it wasn’t any use in stalling. Stefanos wasn’t going to make it. Wilson had waited too long to call for his help. Just another fuckup in a lifetime full of them.

“Need help with that, T. W.?” said Otis.

Roman, always with that thing to his voice. Wilson turned the key roughly and opened the door. He went in first. Farrow and Otis followed.

Frank Farrow saw a gray-haired man without a coat, standing by a desk in the back of the warehouse. A defective fluorescent light set above the desk flashed continuously across the man’s face. The warehouse was bathed in fluorescence, and the insect sound of the lights filled the room.

Farrow, Otis, and Wilson moved forward. They walked onto a series of blue plastic tarps that had been spread out on the concrete floor. Farrow looked into the man’s strange eyes as they approached him. There was something familiar about the eyes.