George Pelecanos - Hell To Pay

“I’m sorry, Stella.”

“Ain’t no big thing,” she said, a catch in her voice. She turned her face away from him and stared out the window.

They sat awhile longer, watching the uniformed cops moving in and out of the station. A minivan pulled into the lot. A man and a woman got out of it and hurried inside. Stella laughed joylessly, watching them.

“I love happy endings,” said Stella. The hard shell had returned to her face.

“You don’t have to go back to working for Wilson. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know. Damn right, I am somebody, and all that.”

“I’m serious. And we both know it’s not safe. One of these days he’s gonna find out you been playin’ him for the middle.”

“You didn’t give me up to him back there, did you? You didn’t say my name or nothin’ like that.”

“No.”

“Course not. There wasn’t nothin’ in it for you.”

“That’s not the only reason people do or don’t do what they do,” said Quinn.

“Yeah, okay, whatever.” Stella lit another cigarette. “Just so I get paid.”

A half hour later Tracy emerged from the station. Stella climbed into the back and Tracy took the shotgun seat.

“Everything go okay?” said Quinn.

“The parents have her,” said Tracy. “They’re taking her home. I can’t tell you if it’s going to stick.”

She drank a beer and Quinn drank another as they drove back into D.C. Quinn parked the van on 23rd, alongside the church.

Tracy gave Stella five hundred-dollar bills, along with her card.

“It was a pleasure doin’ business with y’all,” said Stella. “You want your smokes back?”

“Keep ’em,” said Tracy. “I got another pack. And, Stella, you need to talk, anything like that-”

“I know, I know, I got your number right here.”

“Stay low for a few days,” said Quinn.

Stella leaned forward from the backseat and kissed Quinn behind the ear. Then she was out of the van’s back door and walking across the church grounds. They watched her move through the inky shadows.

“Where do you suppose she’s going?” said Quinn.

“Don’t think about it.”

“I shouldn’t even care, right? I mean, she’s steering girls over to Wilson so he can turn them out.”

“Stella’s a victim, too. Try to think of it like that. And remember, we got Jennifer off the street.”

“So how come I feel like we didn’t accomplish shit?”

“You can’t save them all in one night,” said Tracy. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Quinn looked back to the church grounds. Stella was gone, swallowed up by the night. Quinn put the van in gear, rolled to the corner, hooked a left, and headed uptown.

SUE Tracy invited herself into Quinn’s apartment. He was relieved that she took the initiative but not surprised. He snapped on a lamp in the living room, gathering up newspapers and socks as he moved about the place, and told her to have a seat.

Quinn went into the kitchen to put the beer in the refrigerator, opened two, and brought them back out to the living room along with an ashtray. Tracy was on her cell, talking to her partner, telling her what had gone down. Karen, it went fine, and Karen this and Karen that. He heard Tracy say where she was, then listen to something her partner said. Tracy laughed, saying something Quinn couldn’t make out, before she ended the call.

Tracy lit a smoke and tossed a match in the ashtray. “Thanks. You don’t mind if I smoke in here, do you?”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

Quinn was by his modest CD collection, trying to figure out what to put on the carousel. It struck him, looking to find something that would be appropriate, that most of the music he owned was on the aggressive side. He hadn’t really noticed it before. He settled on a Shane MacGowan solo record, the one with “Haunted” on it, his duet with Sinéad. Good drinking music, and sexy, too, like a scar on the lip of a nice-looking girl.

Quinn had a seat on the couch next to Tracy. She had taken off her Skechers and tucked her feet under her thighs.

“To good work,” she said, and tapped her green can against his. They drank off some of their beer.

“What were you laughing about on the phone there. Me?”

“Well, yeah. Karen bet me I was gonna spend the night here. I took the bet.”

“And?”

“I told her I’d pay up the next time I saw her.”

Tracy stamped out her smoke and pulled the Scunci off her ponytail. She shook her head and let her hair fall naturally past her shoulders. Some strays fell across her face.

“Do I have anything to say about it?” said Quinn.

“Both times we’ve been together, you’ve been staring at me like you were from hunger. And Terry, I’m not as obvious as you are, but I’ve been looking at you the same way.”

“Christ, you got some balls on you.”

“It’s not like I make a habit of this.” She unfolded her legs and swung them down to the hardwood floor. “But, you know, when it’s so obvious like it is right here, I mean, why dance around it?”

“You talked me into it.”

Tracy leaned into Quinn. He brushed hair away from her face and she kissed him on the mouth. Their tongues touched and he bit softly on her lower lip as she pulled away.

“Let’s have another beer,” said Tracy. “Relax a little, talk. Listen to some music. Okay?”

“You’re in charge.”

“Stop it.”

“No, it’s cool.” Quinn breathed out slow. “Relax. That sounds nice.”

They drank their beers and Quinn went off for two more. Tracy was lighting a cigarette when he returned. He sat close to her on the couch. Quinn had downed three beers and was working on his fourth. His buzz was on, but he was still amped from the grab.

“Thought you were gonna relax.”

“I am.”

“You got your fist balled up there.”

“So I do.”

“Forget about what happened tonight with Wilson, Terry. He pushed my buttons, too. But he’s history and we got the job done. That’s the only thing that matters now, right?”

Quinn nodded. He was thinking about Wilson. Sitting here drinking a cold beer with a fine-looking woman he liked, ready to go to bed with her, and not able to stop thinking of the man who had punked him out.

“What makes you think I had Wilson on my mind?”

“I asked around about you, talked to a couple of guys Karen knew in the MPD.”

“Yeah? What’d they say?”

“Well, everyone’s got a different opinion on what happened the night you shot that cop.”

“That black cop, you mean. Why didn’t you just ask Derek? He did his own independent investigation into the whole deal.”

“That how you two hooked up?”

“Yeah.”

“The department said you were right on the shooting.”

“It’s more complicated than that. You know what I’m sayin’; you were a cop yourself. But a whole lot of cops I come across, they’re not too willing to forget about it. Some guys still think that shooting was a race thing. By extension, that I’m some kind of racist.”

“Well?”

“Sue, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that I have no prejudice. For a white guy to say he sees a black man and doesn’t make some kind of assumptions, it’s bullshit, and it’s a lie. And the same thing goes in reverse. Let’s just say I’m no more a racist than any other man, okay? And let’s leave it at that.”

“You know, even the ones who had that opinion of you, they also admitted that you were well-liked, and a good cop. You did have a reputation for violence, though. Not bully violence, exactly. More like, if anyone pushed you, you weren’t willing to let it lie.”

Quinn drank deeply of his beer and stared at the can. “You always background check the guys you’re interested in?”