George Pelecanos - Right as Rain

'Listen,' said Quinn. 'You guys remember a few years back, this black cop pulled over a drunken white woman, coming out of Georgetown or somewhere like it, late one night?'

'That's the girl that cop handcuffed to a stop sign,' said Lattimer, 'made her sit her ass down in the cold street. Some photographer happened to be there, caught a picture of the whole thing.'

'Right,' said Quinn. 'Now, Derek, tell me what you thought about that incident, the first time you read it.'

'I know what you're gettin' at,' said Strange. 'That the police officer, he didn't just do that to that girl for no reason. That she must have said something to him-'

'Like what?'

'I don't know. How about, "Get your hands off me, you black bastard," somethin' like that.'

'Or maybe she even called him a nigger,' said Quinn.

Lattimer looked up from his bowl. He didn't like to hear that word coming from a white man's mouth, no matter the context.

'Maybe she did,' said Strange.

'The point is, whether it happened that way or not, those kinds of conversations go on in the street every night between cops and perps and straight civilians. And what's said, it never sees the light of day.'

'You goin' somewhere with this?' said Strange.

'Yeah,' said Lattimer, 'I was kind of wondering the same thing.'

'All right,' said Quinn, leaning forward, his forearms resting on the four-top. 'You want to know what happened that night? As far as my role in it, it's in the transcripts and the news reports. There's nothing been left out, no secret. A man pointed a gun at me, and as a police officer, I reacted in the manner I was trained to do. In retrospect, I made the wrong decision, and it cost an innocent man his life. But only in retrospect. I didn't know that Chris Wilson was a cop.'

'Go on,' said Strange.

'Why was Chris Wilson holding a gun on Ricky Kane? Why did Wilson have that look of naked anger that I saw that night on his face?'

'The official line was, it was a routine stop,' said Strange. 'Must have just degenerated into something else.'

'An off-duty cop takes the time to pull over and hassle a guy for pissin' in the street?'

'Doesn't make much sense,' said Strange. 'I'll give you that. But let's suppose Wilson did just pull over and decide to do his job, whether he was wearin' his uniform or not.'

'We don't know what happened between Wilson and Kane,' said Quinn. 'We don't know what was said.'

'We'll never know. Wilson's dead, and all we've got is Kane's version of the event. Kane's got a clean sheet. Kane didn't shoot Wilson, so there wasn't any reason for the inquiry to be directed toward him.'

'I'm not tellin' you guys how to do your jobs,' said Quinn. 'But if it was me got hired to make Wilson's memorial look better, I'd start by talking to Kane.'

'I plan to,' said Strange.

'But Kane's got no incentive to talk to anyone,' said Quinn.

'It's gonna be difficult, I know.'

'And he sure as hell's not gonna talk with me around,' said Quinn.

'That's not why I picked you up today.'

'Yeah? Who we goin' to see?'

'Eugene Franklin,' said Strange. 'Your old partner. We're meetin' him in a bar in an hour or so.'

Quinn nodded, then placed his napkin on the table and went to the small bathroom next to the restaurant's karaoke machine.

Lattimer drank off the remaining broth from his bowl and sat back in his chair. 'You gonna drop me off at the office on the way to that bar?'

'Sure,' said Strange. 'What do you think?'

'The man is troubled,' said Lattimer. 'But what he's saying, it makes sense.'

They split the check and went to the car. Driving down Georgia Avenue, they passed the Fourth District Police Station, renamed the Brian T. Gibson Building in honor of the officer who was slain in his cruiser outside the Ibex nightclub, shot three times by a sociopath with a gun. Officer Gibson left a wife and baby daughter behind.

Down on 2nd Street, blocks away from the District Courthouse and the FOP bar, was a saloon called Upstairs at Erika's, located on the second floor of a converted row house, across from the Department of Labor. The joint had become a hangout for cops, cop groupies, U.S. marshals and local and federal prosecutors. Next door was another bar and eatery that catered to rugby players, college kids, government workers, and defense attorneys, most of them white. There was business enough for both establishments to exist side by side, as the clientele at Upstairs at Erika's was almost entirely black.

Strange got a couple of beers from the bartender, a fine young woman favored by the low lights, tipped her, and asked for a receipt. When she returned with it he asked her to put some Frankie Beverly and Maze on the house box. He'd met a woman for drinks here one night, not too long ago, and he knew they had it behind the bar. Maze was a D.C. favorite; though recorded years ago, you still heard their music all over town, at clubs, weddings, and at family reunions and picnics in Rock Creek Park.

'Which one you want to hear?' asked the bartender.

'The one got "Southern Girl" on it.'

'You got it.'

He carried the two bottles of beer back toward a table set against a brick wall, where he had left Quinn. Quinn was standing and giving a hug to a black man around his age, the both of them patting each other on the back. Strange had to guess that this was Eugene Franklin.

'How you doin'?' said Strange, arriving at the table. 'Derek Strange.'

'Eugene Franklin.' Strange shook his hand, but Franklin's grip was deliberately weak, and the smile he had been sharing with Quinn began to fade.

Franklin was the size of Strange, freshly barbered and fit but with a face with features that did not quite seem to belong together. Strange thought it was the buck teeth, pronounced enough to be near comic, and Franklin's large, liquid eyes; they did not complete the hard shell he was trying to project.

'You want a beer, somethin'?'

'I don't drink,' said Franklin.

They sat down and spent an uncomfortable moment of silence. A couple of guys with the unmistakable look of cops, a combination of guard and bravado, walked by the table. One of them said hello to Franklin and then looked at Quinn.

'Terry, how you doin', man?'

'Doin' okay.'

'You look good, man. Long hair and everything.'

'I'm tryin'.'

'All right, then. Take it light, hear?'

Strange saw the other man give Quinn a hard once-over before he and his partner walked away. He figured that Quinn still had some friends and supporters on the force and that there were others who would no longer give him the time of day.

'You gonna be all right in here?' said Strange.

'I know most of these guys,' said Quinn. 'It's cool.'

Strange glanced around the bar. By now word had gotten around that Terry Quinn was in the place, and he noticed some curious looks and a few unfriendly stares. Maybe Strange's imagination was running wild on him. It wasn't any of his business, and he wasn't going to worry about it either way.

'You called,' said Franklin, 'and I'm here. Not to rush you, but I'm due for a shift and I don't have all that much time.'

'Right.' Strange pushed a business card across the table. As Franklin read the card, Strange said, 'I appreciate you hookin' up with us.'

'You said you were working for Chris Wilson's mom.'

'Uh-huh. She was concerned about her son's reputation. She thought it got tarnished in the wake of the shooting.'

'The newspapers and the TV,' said Franklin, with a bitter shrug. 'You know how they do.'

'I'm just trying to clear things up. If I can take away some of that shadow that got thrown on Wilson… that's all I'm trying to accomplish.'

'It's all in the transcripts. You're a private investigator' – Strange caught the kernel of contempt in Franklin's voice – 'you ought to have a way of getting your hands on the files.'