George Pelecanos: Hell To Pay

“You ain’t got no business back in here,” said Oliver.

“Can’t let you do this.”

Oliver kept his gun on Potter. “You delivered our boys here. Now you’re done.”

“I thought I was, too,” said Strange. “Can I get a minute?”

“You got to be playin’.”

Strange shook his head. “Look at me, man. Do I look like I’m playin’ to you? Gimme one minute. Hear me out.”

Oliver stared hard at Strange, and Strange stared back.

“Please,” said Strange.

Oliver’s shoulders loosened and he lowered the gun. He turned to the man in the suit, Phillip Wood, standing beside him.

“Hold these two right here,” said Oliver. To Strange he said, “In my office.”

Strange said, “Right.”

A phone chirped as Strange sat in the chair before Granville Oliver’s desk. Oliver reached into his jacket for his cell.

“That’s me,” said Strange, slipping his cell from its holster. “Yeah.”

“Derek, it’s Lydell. We got his statement.”

“Whose?”

“Ray Boyer, the craps player. Said the boy who broke his nose did it with a three fifty-seven snub-nose.”

“He remember the boy’s name?”

“Garfield Potter. They’re runnin’ the name right now, should have a last-known on him any minute.”

“Potter’s the one.”

“What?”

“I can give you his address,” said Strange, looking over Oliver’s shoulder through the office window to the street, where Potter had parked. Potter’s car was gone. “But he ain’t there just yet.”

“What’re you talkin’ about, man?”

“Here it is,” said Strange, and he gave Blue the Warder Street address. “It’s a row house, got nothin’ on the porch. They ought to be there in about a half hour. Both Potter and his partner, the one with the cornrows. Potter’s driving a Ford Tempo, blue, late eighties. The third boy, I can’t tell you where he is. I believe he’s gone.”

“How you know all this, Derek?”

“I’ll explain it to you later.”

“Trust me. You will.”

“Get all your available units over there, Ly. Ain’t that how they say it on those police shows?”

“Derek-”

“How’d practice go?”

“Say what?”

“Practice. The kids all right?”

“Uh, yeah. The boys all got home safe. Don’t be trying to change the subject, man-”

“Good. That’s good.”

“I’m gonna call you later, Derek.”

“I’ll be waiting,” said Strange.

Strange hit “end,” made a one-finger one-moment gesture to Oliver, and punched in Quinn’s number. Quinn had turned his cell off. Strange left a message and stared at the dead phone for a moment before sliding it back in place.

“You done?” said Oliver.

“Yeah.”

“You know, what you did tonight ain’t gonna change a thing in the end. Those two are gonna die. I’ll make sure of that.”

“But not tonight. Not by my setup. Not in front of that little boy you got workin’ for you.”

“Yeah, okay. We been all over that already.”

“I just want that boy to have some kind of chance.”

“So you said. But what would you have done if I had said no?”

“I was counting on reaching your human side. You proved to me that you have one. Thank you for hearin’ me out.”

Oliver nodded. “Boy’s name is Robert Gray. You think I been ruinin’ him, huh?”

“Let’s just say that I don’t see him hookin’ up with your enterprise as an opportunity. You and me, we got a difference of opinion on that.”

“Strange, you ought to see what kind of conditions he was livin’ in when I pulled him out, down there in Stanton Terrace. Wasn’t nobody doin’ a god damn thing for him then.”

Strange leaned back and scratched his temple. “This Robert, he play football?”

“What’s that?”

“Can he play ?”

“Boy can jook. He can hit, too.” Oliver grinned, looking Strange over. “You’re somethin’, man. What, you tryin’ to save the whole world all at once?”

“Not the whole world, no.”

“You know, wasn’t just my human side convinced me to let those boys walk out of here.”

“What was it, then?”

“I’m gonna need you someday, Strange. I had one of those, what do you call that, premonitions. Usually, when I get those kinds of feelings, I’m right.” Oliver pointed a finger at Strange. “You owe me for what I did for you tonight.”

I owe you for more than that, thought Strange.

But he just said, “I do.”

Strange drove back to the city in silence. Coming up Georgia Avenue, he tried to reach Quinn again on his cell but got a recording. He passed Buchanan Street and kept driving north, turning right on Quintana and parking the Cadillac in front of Janine’s. She let him into her house and told him to have a seat on the living room couch. She joined him a few minutes later with a cold Heineken and a couple of glasses. The two of them talked into the night.

QUINN had been parked along the curb for half an hour when Worldwide Wilson’s 400SE came rolling down the street. Quinn watched the Mercedes glide up in his rearview and he tucked his chin in and turned his head a little as it passed. The Mercedes double-parked, flashers on, as the driver’s-side window came down. A woman Quinn recognized, the black whore who’d asked him for a date the night of the snatch, leaned into the frame. A minute or so went by, and Wilson stepped out of the car.

He wore his full-length rust-colored leather over a suit. He wore his matching brimmed hat and his alligator shoes. He walked toward his row house, and the black whore got under the wheel of his Mercedes and drove off to find a legal parking spot for her man’s car. Worldwide Wilson moved like a big cat onto the sidewalk. He went up his steps and entered his house.

Quinn ignitioned the Chevelle and drove down the street, hooking a left at the next corner, and then another quick left into the alley. He parked the car in the alley along a brick wall. His headlights illuminated several sets of eyes beneath the Dumpsters. He cut the lights and in their dying moment saw rats moving low across the stones of the alley. He killed the engine and listened to the tick of it under the hood. He counted units and found the row house, lit by a single flood suspended from the roof. He saw a light go on in the sleeper porch on the second floor.

Quinn stepped out of the car and walked fast toward the fire escape. Dim bulbs lit the third-floor hall. He could see the third-floor window, but his long sight was gone, and he could not determine if the window was ajar.

He turned off his cell, got on the fire escape, and began his ascent. He could hear music from behind the wood walls of the sleeper porch as he climbed the iron mesh steps. The music grew louder, and he was grateful for that as he went low along the porch’s curtained windows and kept going up. As he neared the third floor he could see the hall window clearly and he could see now that the window was open a crack.

He raised the sash and climbed into the hall. He could feel his sweat, and his blood pumping in his chest. The hall smelled of marijuana, tobacco, and Lysol. Behind one of the doors he heard thrusts and bedsprings, and the sounds of a man reaching his climax, and Quinn went on.

He moved down the hall, his hand sliding along the banister, and at the end of it he looked down the stairs to the second floor. The music, mostly bass, synthesizer, and scratchy guitar, was emanating from below. The music was loud and it echoed in the house. He started down the stairs. The music grew louder with each step he took.

WORLDWIDE Wilson sat on a couch covered in purple velvet, swirling ice in a glass of straight vodka, listening to “Cebu,” that bad instrumental jam ending side two of that old Commodores LP, Movin’ On . Wilson had owned the vinyl, on the Motown label, for over twenty-five years. He still had all his wax, racked up here in this finished porch, where he liked to kick it when he wasn’t at home. At his crib he listened to CDs, but here he kept his records and turntable, and Bang & Olufsen speakers, and his old tube amplifier, made by Marantz. Box had a lotta clean watts to it, the perfect vehicle for his vinyl. You just couldn’t beat the bottom sound of those records.