Джордж Пелеканос - The Sweet Forever

“Well, Georgetown beat Texas Tech yesterday,” said Clay. “And we got Duke and Syracuse, Louisville and Navy, too — Mr. Robinson’s in his neighborhood, and I do believe he came to play.”

“Had thirty against Tulsa.”

“ All my teams made it through. We got us a tournament now.”

“Looking forward to the rest of the games—”

“After you get your ass out there to the stores. Need you to look in on Arlington today.”

“Shit, Marcus, you know I can’t deal with Northern Virginia on a Friday afternoon. Might as well park my car out there on Sixty-six.”

“You’re my GM, man, you got to deal with it, hear?” Clay turned, looked up at Karras. He narrowed his eyes. “Dimitri, you don’t mind my saying so, your jaws are lookin’ kind of tight.”

“Been grinding my teeth is all.” Karras felt his forced smile. “The pressure of working under you.”

“You ain’t been hittin’ that freeze back in the bathroom, have you?”

“ Fuck no, man. Besides, you know I’m just a weekend warrior.”

“We’re damn near right up on the weekend now.”

“I said I wasn’t using,” said Karras, moving his eyes away from Clay’s.

“All right, man, I’m just checking.”

Karras moved toward the entrance to the showroom. He could hear the new Cameo coming from the sales floor.

Clay said, “Hey,” and Karras turned.

“What?”

“You read the Post today?”

“Haven’t got around to it yet.”

“Houston let John Lucas go. Man went and failed his second drug test.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, it is too bad. Lucas could play. Was a role model, too. I remember seein’ him when he was at Maryland, wearin’ those crisp tennis whites. He was one of those Gold Coast brothers. Young black men in this town could look up to him, ’cause he had it all in front of him, see? Now he’s just another one who went and threw it all away on some powder.”

“It’s a damn shame.”

“Go on and mock it. But I’m just tellin’ you because...” Clay stood out of his chair and waved his hand. “Ah, forget it, man.”

Karras looked at Clay standing in front of his desk, handsome with his close-cut hair and thick mustache. Even if it was out of style now, even if it had been a gay look for years now, Clay wouldn’t have shaved off that mustache for anyone but himself. He wouldn’t have shaved it because Marcus Clay knew who he was. Karras had never felt that kind of peace.

“Don’t worry, Marcus. I got it under control.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“If you say you do,” said Clay, nodding, “then I guess you do.”

Karras and Clay went out to the sales floor, where Clarence Tate, Clay’s controller, was talking to the new store manager, a guy who went by the name of Cootch. Cootch smoked Newports and wore long-sleeved Oxford shirts year round to hide his skinny arms. He claimed the girls liked him better like that, covered up, until they got surprised by the rest of him later on. Cootch had a big smile reflecting his positive disposition and a solid work ethic to go with it; Clay had recently promoted him from his six-month stint as a clerk at the Dupont Circle store.

Tate stood behind the new register and explained the order-entry system, once again, to Cootch. Clay watched Tate’s face, the sidelong looks he gave Cootch as he tried to keep a lid on his impatience. All right, Cootch was a little slow on the uptake. But he loved music, had a deep knowledge of it, and was pleasant with the customers. Tate had to understand; not everyone caught on as fast as he did with this computer shit. But everyone did have their strengths, which was why Clay had Karras out in the stores, hiring and firing and dealing with personnel, and why he had Tate, who was a man who could deal better with numbers than with people, behind a desk.

You had to give Clarence Tate credit, though. While working full time for Real Right he had done six years of night school and gotten his accounting degree. All that and he had raised young Denice, too, all by himself. Clay had been lucky to find Tate, and keep him, after that bad shit they had all got wrapped up in back in ’76.

“Yo, boss,” said Cootch. “Wha’sup?”

“Cootch,” said Clay. “How you doin’ with that, man?”

“He’s gettin’ it,” said Tate, who picked up a tabloid-sized newspaper off the counter as he moved out from behind the register stand. Tate was as tall as Clay, but his schedule through the years had kept him away from any kind of exercise. Unlike Clay, he had let himself spread out.

“Clarence,” said Karras.

“Dimitri.”

“Any beeswax?” said Karras. Not that he cared much about the numbers, but the coke pulsing through his blood was pushing him to conversation.

“Huh?” Tate seemed distracted. He kept glancing over to the window fronting the store, where his daughter, Denice, stood looking out across the street, her book bag over her shoulder.

“The business,” said Karras. “We doin’ any?”

“Never enough,” said Tate, his standard answer. He turned to Clay, held up the newspaper. “Course, we might be doin’ better if we were in City Paper this week—”

“Had a full-page grand opening ad in there last week,” said Clay. “Can only afford two of those a month.”

“What you gotta do, then,” said Tate, “is run a half-page every week. Got to be in that joint every single week, Marcus.”

Karras looked at the two of them. They had this same argument every Friday, usually right about this time.

“I like those big ads, Clarence. Keeps the competition on their toes. Makes us look like somethin’.”

“It’s like they always told us in my marketing classes,” said Tate, “when they were teachin’ us print advertising: Frequency beats size, Marcus, every time.”

“That’s what she said,” said Karras, and no one responded. Well, Cootch did give him a charitable, lopsided grin.

Clay rubbed his face. “Cootch, turn that music down a touch, will you, man?” The music always got to Clay first, even more so in the last few years, as he neared the end of his thirties.

“This one’s gonna be big, Marcus,” said Karras, nodding at the wall-mounted speakers where the eight-piece funk was coming through.

“Bigger than the moonwalk,” added Cootch.

“Yeah, I know.” Clay hadn’t paid much attention to this group since Cameosis in ’80, but even he still knew a hit when he heard one. “Word Up” was going to be the bomb in D.C.

“Better be big,” mumbled Tate. “We brought in enough units, man. And too many on the wax side, if y’all don’t mind my sayin’.”

“The twelve-inch on this one,” said Clay, “is going to go large.”

Karras had been hoping the conversation wouldn’t go in this direction. The product mix had been the most heated debate subject for the last six months. Lately, they had been bringing in about 80 percent vinyl and cassette, 20 percent CD. No one seemed to know for sure the way the software was going to shake out. On top of that, the rumor mill had the national chains headed toward town. It was a crazy time to be in the music business. And a really crazy time, thought Karras, to be opening new stores.

“Hey, Neecie,” shouted Tate across the store. “Come away from that window, now, hear?”

Tate knew who she was looking at: that boy leaning against the Z, looked like some kind of drug boy to him, across the street. His girl was too young to be fraternizing with young men. She was especially too young to be checking out young men like that one. Far as he was concerned, she’d always be too young.