George Pelecanos - Hell To Pay

“You datin’ tonight, sugar?”

“I’m taken, baby. My girl’s waitin’ on me inside.”

Her eyes went dead immediately, and Quinn walked on. He took the row house steps and opened the front door, stepping into a narrow foyer. The door closed softly behind him. He looked up a flight of stairs to the second floor. The foyer smelled of cigarettes, marijuana, and disinfectant. He could hear voices above. Footsteps, too.

Quinn’s blood was up. It was a high for him, to be back in the middle of it again. And to be in this place. It reminded him of his own first time with a prostitute, fifteen years earlier, in a house very much like this one, just a few blocks away from where he now stood.

He took the two-way radio out of his pocket and turned the power button off. He didn’t need any gadgets. He didn’t need any “call alerts” or anything else to distract him while he was looking for the girl.

Quinn started up the stairs.

WORLDWIDE Wilson cruised down 14th in his ’92 400SE, midnight blue over palomino leather, the music down low. He had that Isley Brothers slo-jam compilation, Beautiful Ballads, on the stereo, Ronald singing all sweet, talkin’ about, “Make me say it again, girl,” coaxin’ that man in the boat to show himself and drown.

Wilson had the seat back all the way. Still, even with that, his knees were high, straddling the wheel. He switched lanes, cutting the wheel quick to avoid hitting the dumb-ass in front of him who was making a sudden left without using the turn signal God gave him. As he swerved, the little tree deodorizer he had hung on the rearview swung back and forth.

He had recently had the steering wheel covered in fur, but the Arab he’d given the job to up at the detail shop, he’d fucked it all up. Put some cheap shit on there, so that the hairs were always coming off in his hands and flyin’ around the car. Someone didn’t know better, they’d think he owned a cat, some bullshit like that. Teach him to give his business to an Iraqi. And he should’ve known not to trust a man had a girl’s name: Leslie.

Wilson’s given name was Fred. Frederick, Freddie, he didn’t like it any way you put it, what with the kids always callin’ him Fred Flintstone and shit when he was a kid. Till he got the reputation, he would fuck them up good they said it again. Worldwide, that was more like it. He’d given himself that name after he returned from Germany, where he’d served in the army back in the late seventies. He’d put together his first little stable over there. Light-skinned girl with Asian eyes, and couple of blond bitches, too. German girls could lay a stamp on a black man, didn’t even think twice about his color. Another thing he liked about being overseas.

Wilson punched numbers into the grid of the inverted phone he’d installed in the Mercedes. He liked the way the numbers lit the cabin up green at night. This was one pretty car, real classy, not a ride with too much flash, like those wanna-be pimps, just comin’ up, were driving around. The fur steering wheel, that was the only thing he’d added. Oh, yeah, there was a working television and VCR in the backseat, and those stainless steel DNA exhaust pipes he’d recently put on. And the phone. And the Y2K custom wheels he had on this motherfucker. Those rims set the whole joint off right.

Wilson got through on the line and lifted the phone out of its cradle.

“What’s goin’ on, baby?”

“Slow.”

“I’m comin’ in.”

Wilson turned off 14th. He went slowly down the block, checking out the action. Wasn’t much. He passed a shitty old van and a couple other hoopties parked on the street, and went around a double-parked Chevy Lumina, where one of his women stood leaning in the driver’s window. That particular girl, she talked too much, and when she did talk she had nothin’ to say. One of those special-ed bitches, wore his shit out. Time he got that mouth of hers straightened around.

He pulled up in front of his row house, where Carola, another of his girls, his best producer but getting to be on the old side, stood. Wilson hit a button and let the window drop. Carola came over and leaned on the door.

“Where Jennifer at?”

“Schoolgirl’s inside. Trickin’ some old Al Roker-lookin’ sucker.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know. Some white boy just went in. I axed him for a date, but he said he already had a girl. Thing is, I didn’t see him follow no one in.”

“He high?”

“Didn’t look to be.”

“Vice?”

“He wasn’t wearin’ no sign if he is.”

“Okay. Why you standin’ around, though?”

“Told you there wasn’t nothin’ goin’ on.”

“Well, get out there and make somethin’ go on. Get on back to the tracks and get a date.”

“I’m tired.”

“I’m tired, too. Tired of you talkin’ about bein’ tired and not earnin’ shit. Now go on out there and market that pussy, girl.”

“My feet hurt, World.”

“C’mere.” Carola leaned forward to let Wilson stroke her cheek. “You my bottom baby. You know this, right?”

“I know it, World.”

Wilson’s eyes dimmed. “Then don’t make me get out this car and take a hand to your motherfuckin’ ass.”

Carola stood straight and backed up a step. “I’m goin’.”

“Good, baby.” Wilson smiled, showing a row of gold caps. “I’ll give you a foot massage later on, hear?”

But Carola was already off, walking down the block, Wilson thinking, Glad I got me that degree in pimpology. All you had to do was use a little psychiatry on these bitches, worked every time.

He cut the engine on the Mercedes and untangled his frame from the car. Big man like he was, it was a struggle to get out of these foreign rides. But his time in Berlin had given him a permanent love for German automobiles, and, though they were more roomy, he never had liked the way Cadillacs and Lincolns drove.

He stood beside his car, smoothed out the leather on his coat, and adjusted his hat. Before he closed the door of the Mercedes, he put one foot up on the rocker panel, then the other, and buffed the vamps of his alligator shoes with the palm of his hand. What was the point of spending five hundred dollars on a pair of gators if they didn’t have a nice shine? He closed the door and stood straight.

Now he’d have to see what Carola was talkin’ about. See what some white boy was doin’ wandering around in his house without a woman he’d paid to fuck.

“OH, shit,” said Stella, leaning forward, blinking hard behind her glasses. “There go World.”

“Where?”

“That’s his ride right there, the blue Mercedes. He’s talkin’ to Carola, up in the window there.”

Sue Tracy watched the girl step away from the tricked-out car and walk off down the block. Then she watched Worldwide Wilson get out of his car. He wore a full-length leather coat with tooled-out skin, and a hat with a matching tooled band. Wilson stood tall, a good six three, his shoulders filling out the soft cut of the coat. He had the walk of a big cat.

Tracy keyed the mic on the radio in her hand. There was no response.

Wilson walked up the row house steps. He pulled on the front door and moved fluidly through the space. The door closed behind him, and he disappeared into the house.

She tried the radio again and tossed it on the seat beside her.

“ Shit , Terry.”

“What?” said Stella.

Tracy didn’t answer. She ignitioned the van and slammed the tree up into first. She drove to the corner and cut a hard left.

QUINN’S hand came off the shaky wooden banister as he stepped up onto the second-floor landing. The banister continued down a straight, narrow hall. The doors to the rooms, all closed and topped with frosted-glass transoms, were situated opposite the banister. Television cable ran from one room to the other in the hall, going transom to transom. Quinn heard no activity on the second floor. He took the hall to the next set of stairs.