George Pelecanos - Right as Rain

'I fired three rounds.'

'From where you stood?'

'They say I walked forward as I fired. That I don't remember.'

'According to the articles, the trajectory of the entrance wounds and the exit pattern of the shell casings for that particular weapon were consistent with your statement. But the three casings weren't found together in a group. Apparently you moved forward and fired the third round into him when he was down. The third casing was found about ten feet from the victim.'

'I don't remember moving forward,' said Quinn. 'I know what they said, and I know about the casings, but I don't remember. And I don't believe I shot him when he was down. He might have been going down, still pointing his gun-'

'Weren't you concerned with hitting the other guy?'

'At that point I was concerned primarily with the safety of myself and my partner. I've already admitted as much.' Quinn glared at Strange. 'Anything else?'

'Okay, Quinn. Take a deep breath and settle down.'

Strange's beeper sounded. He took it from his hip and checked the readout. He said, 'Excuse me, man,' reaching across Quinn to unlock the glove box and withdraw his cellular phone. He punched a number into the grid and spoke into the mouthpiece.

'What's up, Ron?… Uh-huh.' Strange frowned. 'Now, you gonna ask me to do this thing for you because you're down on K Street picking up a suit?… Yeah, I know you can't just pick it up, you got to try it on, too… Uh-huh… No, it's not 'cause I buy my shit off the rack that I don't understand… I do understand… Believe me, it's no thing. I got no problem with it, Ron. I sound like I do? Gimme the data, man.'

Strange took the information, using a pen on a cord, writing on a pad affixed to the dash. He cut the line without another word and dropped the phone in the glove box, shutting the door a little too hard.

'I got something I got to do. Man jumped bail on a B amp;E beef, and there's this snitch we use, been hangin' in a bar this man supposed to frequent. Turns out the bail jumper just walked into the bar.'

'Who was that on the phone?'

'My operative, young man by the name of Ron Lattimer, works for me.'

'You do skip-tracing, too?'

'Ron handles that. I don't like to chase people down. But Ron's busy, see, picking up a suit. So this one goes to me. Shouldn't be too serious. I've seen the sheet on this guy, and he's all of one twenty if he's a pound. It's out of my way, but you want, I'll drop you off.'

'I'll ride with you,' said Quinn. 'You can drop me when you're done.'

'Suit yourself.'

'Hold up a second.' Quinn put his hand on Strange's arm. 'Don't think I didn't notice what you were getting at with your questions there. All that black-aggressor, white-guy, black-this, white-that bullshit. What happened that night, you can try and paint it any way you want if it makes you feel any better. But it had nothing to do with race.'

'Don't tell me,' said Strange. 'Don't tell me, 'cause I'm a black man, twenty-five years your senior, and I know. I'm just trying to get at the truth, and if I hurt your feelings or hit a nerve somewhere along the line, so be it. I didn't drop by to see you today 'cause I was looking for a friend, Quinn. I got plenty of friends, and I don't need another. I'm just doing my job.'

Strange ignitioned the Caprice, engaged the trans, and swung a U in the middle of D.

'One more thing,' said Quinn. 'Knock off that "Quinn" shit from here on in. Call me by my given name. It's Terry, okay?'

Strange turned right on 7th and gave the Chevy gas. He reached for the sunglasses in his visor, chuckling under his breath.

'What's so funny?'

'You got a temper on you,' said Strange.

Quinn looked out the window, letting his jaw relax. 'People have told me that I do.'

'That story about fighting in the alley. How you were shaking, afraid and excited at the same time. You liked the action your whole life, didn't you?'

'I guess I did.'

'What you ended up becoming, that's not surprising. Guy like you, I bet you always wanted to be a cop.'

'That's right,' said Quinn. 'And I was a good one, too.'

The bar was on the end of a strip of bars off M Street in Southeast, surrounded by fenced parking lots, auto repair and body shops, and patches of dead grass. Strange parked and nodded toward the corner business, a brick, two-story, windowless structure. The sign over the door read, 'Toot Sweet: Live Girls.'

'Sign says they got live girls in there,' said Quinn.

'That's so the fellas who like dead ones don't get disappointed once they get inside,' said Strange. 'Should've known from the address Ron gave me it was gonna be a titty bar.'

'They got the bathhouses down here, too, I remember right.'

'They got everything down here for every kind. This particular place, guys come to look at women. Wait out here, you want to.'

'I like to look at women.'

'Suit yourself.' Strange replaced his sunglasses atop the visor. 'Let me do my job, though. And stay out of my way.'

Strange got some papers out of the trunk. As he turned, Quinn noticed the Leatherman, the Buck knife, and the beeper, all affixed in some way to Strange's waist.

'You got purple tights,' said Quinn, 'to go with that utility belt?'

'Funny,' said Strange.

At the door of the club, Strange paid the cover and asked for a receipt. The doorman, a black guy who looked to Quinn like he had some Hawaiian or maybe Samoan in him, said, 'We don't have receipts.'

'Go ahead and create one for me,' said Strange.

'Create one?'

'You know, use your imagination. We'll be over by the bar. When you get it done, drop it by.'

They walked through the crowd. At first Quinn pegged it as all black, but on closer inspection he saw that it was a mix of African Americans and other nonwhites: dark-skinned Arabs and Pakis, taxi-driving types. His partner, Gene, used to call them Punjabis, and sometimes ' pooncabbies,' when they rode together as cops.

The dancers, black and mixed race as well, were up on several stages around the club and stroking the steel floor-to-ceiling poles that were their props. They weren't beautiful, but they were nude above the waist, and that was enough. Men stood around the stages, beers in one hand, dollar bills in the other, and there were men drinking at tables, talking and tipping the waitresses who would soon be dancing up onstage themselves, and there were other men with their heads down, sleeping, dead drunk.

Strange and Quinn stepped up to the unkempt bar, damp and strewn with wet bev-naps and dirty ashtrays. Smoke rose off a live cherry in the ashtray before them, and Strange butted the dying cigarette out. The bar was unventilated and smelled of nicotine and spilled beer.

'Filthy,' said Strange, taking a napkin off a stack and wiping his hands. 'They got a kitchen in this joint, I expect, but damn if I'd ever eat the food.' He glanced over his shoulder. He was searching for one face, Quinn could tell.

Some of the black men down along the bar were looking at the two of them, not bothering to look away when Quinn eye-shot them back. Quinn knew it was unusual, and suspect, to see a black and a white together in a place like this. To the men at the bar, they were either cops or friends, maybe even faggots, the kind of friends who 'played for the other team.' Any way those men looked at it, the two of them together wasn't natural, or right.

The bartender was approaching, and Strange said to Quinn, 'You want a beer?'

'Too early for me,' said Quinn.

'Give me a ginger ale,' said Strange to the bartender, who sported a damp toothpick behind his ear. 'From a bottle.'

'I'll have a Coke the same way.'

Quinn turned and put his back against the bar. He found a dancer he could look at. He was studying her breasts, the color of them and their shape, and wondering if Juana's would look the same. He'd made out with black women but had never had one in bed, not all the way. He was going to see Juana tonight, over at her place. That would give him time to cool down; God help her if he was to run into her right now…