George Pelecanos: The Cut

“Come back,” said Lucas to Constance, outside the first-floor door to his apartment.

“I will.”

He kissed her and watched her go to her car, a ’99 Civic that might as well have had “student” imprinted on its plates. When she was safely in and her engine had turned over, he went back inside. He had things to do in the next couple of days before he went to visit Anwan Hawkins. For one, he needed to get to the library, check out the newspaper morgue material on the man, and gather any intel on him from Petersen. He also had plans to meet his brother for dinner, down around U. Visit some of the soldiers up at Walter Reed, drop off some books. And he needed to get by his mother’s house in Silver Spring to cut her grass. Matter of fact, he thought as he went up the stairs, I should call Mom soon as I get in my room.

Tell her I love her, tell her good night.

On detail maps it was identified as the D.C. Central Detention Facility, but locals-citizens, inmates, and law alike-called it the D.C. Jail. The holding facility sat at 19th and D, in the Southeast quadrant of the city, on acreage that included the old D.C. General Hospital and RFK Stadium. The jail complex was large, ugly, and bleak. Inmates liked to say that they lived on waterfront property, as several of the east-facing cells gave to a view of the Anacostia River.

In the security area, Lucas signed the book, gave up his driver’s license in exchange for a pass, went through a metal detector, and was patted down and wanded. He was the only male visitor who wasn’t obviously an attorney or some kind of police. Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, girlfriends, and one nun waited in line. The younger women were led into a closed room where they were instructed to shake out their bras. One woman, wearing shorts and a scoop-necked shirt showing ample cleavage, a double violation of the dress code, was turned away. She exited loudly.

Now Lucas sat on a plastic chair in the visiting room, among women visiting men and several guards. Across from him, behind glass, sat Anwan Hawkins, wearing orange. Hawkins was very tall, lean, and freakishly broad shouldered. He was in his thirties. His long braids framed a chiseled face. One of his front teeth had been capped in gold. His facial hair was haphazardly arranged and ungroomed. It stayed where it grew.

They were speaking into telephones. Though they were spitting distance from each other, the telephone connection made them sound continents apart.

“Thank you for helping my son,” said Hawkins, his voice low and husky.

“I did my job.”

“Mr. Petersen said you do it well.”

“He must like my work. He keeps me around.”

Hawkins appraised him. “You look like you can handle yourself out there.”

“I just try to show people respect.”

“I feel the same way.” Hawkins dipped his head. “My man said you fought in the Middle East.”

“I was there.”

“You kill anyone?”

Lucas did not reply.

“Okay, then,” said Hawkins. “I understand.”

Lucas waited.

“My son David is no gangster,” said Hawkins. “Nothin like that. What he did, taking that vehicle, that was just a crime of opportunity right there.”

“It seemed that way to me.”

“Incarceration wouldn’t have taught David nothin he didn’t already know. He was raised right.”

“By you?”

“His mother did all the heavy lifting. I’m not proud of that. I never intended to have a baby and not be there in his life. I wanted my marriage to last. But sometimes a man and a woman just can’t make it.” Hawkins chucked his chin up in Lucas’s direction. “You married?”

“No.”

“His mother and I don’t stay together, but I always gave her support. I feel like, now, it’s extra important that I get out of here, so I can be there for him, to set the right example.”

“I can’t help you there, Mr. Hawkins.”

“I got the best criminal lawyer in town. I don’t need more legal help.”

“Well?”

“You wanna get to it.”

“We only have a half hour. We’ve burnt a piece of it already.”

“How you say your name, exactly?”

“Spero.”

“ Spee -row. We gonna speak freely, right?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Petersen told you about my charges.”

“He didn’t have to. You were involved with one of the largest marijuana seizures in D.C. history. I read about it in the paper.”

“Damn right you gonna read about it. Over a million dollars, wholesale. You know they gonna try and put me away for a long time. Actin like I’m Rayful Edmond and shit. But I never sold cocaine or heroin. I wouldn’t.”

“In the eyes of the law it’s all illegal.”

“And it’s gonna stay illegal. ’Cause that’s how they fill up the facilities and generate the construction of more jails. Hire more guards. More administrators, guard unions. The aim is to keep this big prison industrial complex rolling. When I was a kid, the majority of people in lockup was in for violent crime. Now most of the people in prison are in for nonviolent drug offenses.”

“There’s violence attached to it.”

“Don’t I know. That stash you got up in your bedroom drawer, somewhere down in Juarez they be cutting someone’s head off behind it. If it was legal, that shit wouldn’t be happenin.” Hawkins leaned forward. “It’s a prop, man. Don’t matter what the thing is, exactly. You make, I don’t know, possession of milk against the law, you gonna give birth to an underground economy where people be sellin milk on the corner or behind closed doors. And some people gonna kill behind that carton of milk. But not me. I’m not about that.”

Lucas looked into his eyes. “Say why I’m here.”

“I lost something,” said Hawkins. “I understand you specialize in recovery.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Do you know how I used to bring in my product?”

“Mexicans out of California drove it into D.C. in tractor trailers. They’d stop on the side of the road and transfer it into your own trucks. Sometimes they’d even stop on the Beltway or the B-W Parkway.”

“You did your homework.”

“Again, I read about it. That’s a story you don’t forget.”

“Sounds bold or stupid, depending on how you look at it. But actually it worked out fine for a long time. Thing is, we didn’t get busted out on the highway. Someone weak got put under the hot lights and snitched me out. Doesn’t matter who. In my line of work you know that day is gonna come. Once I became a person of interest, it was just a matter of time. The police didn’t want my shipment, they wanted me. The law GPS’d one of my trucks, let it make its run, and followed it back to my storage facility. I had this spot off Kansas Avenue, up there by Lamond, where they got a whole rack of warehouses.”

“I know the area.”

“I was there the day the truck rolled in. And now I’m here.”

Hawkins folded his hands on the table, paused for effect. He was a showman.

“Go on.”

“Even though I got locked up, I couldn’t close my business. I mean, I got employees to take care of, not to mention my legal fees. My second, a young man name of Tavon, continues to bring in product, only now he’s doing it in a different way. You know about the FedEx method, right?”

“Yeah,” said Lucas. “And so do the police.”

“Even with that, it’s hard to stop it. The supplier FedExes a bunch of packages to residences that we identify as unoccupied during the day. We track the packages on the Internet so we know damn near when they’re about to arrive. We intercept the pickups and no one’s the wiser.”

“Except that it’s been in the news lately, in a big way.”

“Uh-huh. First you had that incident out in Maryland where the SWAT boys shot the dogs of those suspects who turned out to be innocent. And then that article they had in the Post, where those people took in that package and discovered it was multiple pounds of weed. Made it sound like it was some kind of new phenomenon and shit.”