George Pelecanos - Hell To Pay

“Wanted to ask you something. My mother used to tell me, You can’t trade a bad life for a good. Do you think that’s right, Janine?”

“Do I think it’s right? I don’t know… Where are you, Derek? You don’t sound right.”

“Never mind where I’m at.” Strange shifted his weight on the bench seat. “I love you, Janine.”

“Us lovin’ each other is not the issue, Derek.”

“Good bye, baby.”

Strange cut the call. He stared up the street at the row house. If he was going to do this, then he had to do it now. He found his notepad beside him, and on the top sheet, the phone number of the house. He punched the numbers into his cell. As he did, he went over in his head what he had planned. It was all risk, a long play. He couldn’t waver or stumble now.

The phone rang on the other end. A silhouette moved behind the curtains of the row house window.

“Yeah.”

“Garfield Potter?”

“That’s right.”

“Lorenze Wilder. Joe Wilder. Those names mean anything to you?”

“Who?”

“Lorenze Wilder. Joe Wilder.”

“How’d you get my number?”

“Not too hard, once you find out where a person lives. I been followin’ you, Garfield.”

“Man, who the fuck is this?”

“Derek Strange.”

“That supposed to mean somethin’ to me?”

“If you saw me, you’d remember. I was coachin’ the football team that little boy played on. The boy you killed.”

“I ain’t kill no boy.”

“I’m the one you and your partners were crackin’ on, callin’ me Fred Sanford and shit while I was walking to my car. Y’all were smokin’ herb in a beige Caprice. You and a boy with cornrows, and another boy, had a long nose. Remember me now? ’Cause I sure do remember you.”

“So?”

Strange heard a crack in Potter’s voice.

“I followed Lorenze and the boy the night you killed them. I was responsible for that boy, and I followed. Only, you weren’t riding in a beige Caprice that night. It was a white Plymouth with a police package. Isn’t that right, Garfield?”

“White Plymouth? That shit was on the news, any motherfucker own a television set gonna know that. You got somethin’ serious you want to say, then say it, old-time.”

“Maybe you want to say something, Garfield. You kill a boy-”

“Told you I ain’t killed no kid.”

“You kill a boy , Garfield, and you got to have somethin’ to say.”

Save yourself. If you want to live, young man, then now’s the time.

“What, some young nigger dies out here, I’m supposed to cry? I be dyin’ young, too, most likely; ain’t nobody gonna shed no tears for me.”

Strange spoke softly as he closed his eyes. “I want to get paid.”

“What? I just told you-”

“I’m tellin’ you , I was a witness to the murders. I saw the event with my own eyes.”

Strange listened to the hiss of dead air. Finally, Potter spoke. “You so sure of what you saw, why ain’t you gone to the police? Get your reward money and slither on back into that hole you came out of?”

“Because I can get more from you.”

“Why you think that?”

“Drug dealer like you, all that cash you got? Told you, I been followin’ you, Potter.”

“How much more?”

“Double the ten they’re offering. Make it twenty.” Strange squinted. “Since you been insulting my intelligence, might as well go ahead and make it twenty-five.”

“Ain’t even no murder gun no more. And I know you ain’t gonna try and play me the fool and claim you got photographs or sumshit like that.”

“Not photographs. A videotape. I own an eight-millimeter camera with a three-sixty lens. I was parked a whole block back from that ice-cream shop on Rhode Island, but with that zoom the tape came out clear as day.”

“Tape can be doctored. Bullshit like that gets thrown out of court every day. Truth is, you can’t prove a thing.”

“I can try,” said Strange.

More silence. “Aiight, then. Maybe we should hook up and talk.”

“I don’t want to talk about nothin’. Just bring the money. I’ll give you the tape and we will be done.”

“Where?”

“I got a house I keep as a rental property; it’s unoccupied right now. Figure you’re not stupid enough to try somethin’ in a residential neighborhood. I got some business I got to take care of first, so it’s gonna take me about an hour, hour and a half to get out there.”

“Where is it?”

Strange gave Potter the directions. He repeated them slowly so that Potter could write them down.

“You still drivin’ that black Cadillac that was parked outside Roosevelt?”

“You do remember me, then.”

“You still drivin’ it?”

“Yeah.”

“I see any kind of police-lookin’ vehicles outside that house, I am gone. I don’t want to see nothin’ but that Caddy, hear?”

“Bring the money, and come with your two partners. I want to keep my eye on all of you at once.”

“Ain’t but two of us now,” said Potter.

“Hour and a half,” said Strange. “I’ll see you then.”

Strange ended the call, ignitioned the Chevy, and put it in gear. He drove quickly up to Buchanan, where he washed his face, changed his shirt, and fed Greco.

Back on the street, Strange walked toward his Brougham. Quinn had parked his car behind the Cadillac earlier that morning. The Chevelle was gone.

THE guns Garfield Potter had bought were a six-shot.38 Special and a.380 Walther, the PPK double action with the seven-shot capacity. The revolver, a blue Armscor with a rubber grip, was for Potter. He stayed away from automatics, fearing they would jam.

Potter checked the load on the.38. He jerked his wrist and snapped the cylinder shut. He had been practicing this action in the mirror just this afternoon.

“You ready, Dirty?”

“Uh-huh,” said Little.

He was sitting on the couch, thinkin’ on Brianna, how if she was here now how good it’d be to bust it out. He was flyin’ like the eagle behind some hydro he’d just smoked, and his eyelids were heavy. He was happy. Hungry, too. He didn’t really want to go out, but Garfield did. So there it was.

Little looked down at the automatic he held loosely in his hand. The grip was checkered plastic and had the Walther logo on it, the word written inside a kind of flag, like, looked like it was blowin’ in a breeze. The safety was grooved, and there was this thing on the side, like a little sign, showed you when you had put one in the chamber, in case you forgot. Walther, they made a pretty gun.

“Dirty? You with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on, then,” said Potter, fitting his skully onto his head. He picked up two pairs of thin leather gloves off the table, one pair for him and one for Little. He knew Carlton would not think to bring a pair himself. “Let’s get this done.”

Little got up off the couch and looked in a mirror they had over a table by the stairs. His cornrows were lookin’ raggedy and fucked. He wondered if maybe he ought to do those twisties in his hair, the short tips, like he’d seen the fellas around do. Little realized he had been staring at himself for a while and he chuckled. It sounded like a snort.

“Let’s go , Dirty.”

“Yeah, aiight.”

Little got into his leather and holstered the Walther under his shirt. Potter put his leather on and dropped the.38 in its side pocket. He looked at Little and smiled.

“Damn, boy, you just smoke too much of that shit, don’t you?”

“It’s good to me, D. Wish you had a player in that hooptie you bought, though. We could listen to some beats on the way out the county.”