George Pelecanos - Right as Rain

'They for sale?'

'Sure. He turns them over all the time.' Tibbs saw something in Quinn's eyes. He smelled blood and straightened his posture. 'That's a high-performance sixty-seven right there. Three-fifty twelve bolt.'

Tibbs pointed to a red model with black stripes. 'There goes a seventy-two. Got a cowl induction hood and Hooker headers, man.'

'What about that one?' said Quinn, chin-nodding to the last car in the row, a blue-over-black fastback beauty with Cregar mags.

'That's a pretty SS right there. Three ninety-six, three hundred and fifty horses. Four-on-the-floor Hurst shifter, got those Flowmaster mufflers on it, too.'

'What year is that?'

'Nineteen sixty-nine.'

'The year I was born.'

'You ain't nothin' but a baby, then.'

'Pop the hood on it, will you?'

Quinn got under the hood. The hoses were new, and the belts were tight. You could pour a holsterful of french fries out onto the block and eat off the engine. He pulled the dipstick and smelled its tip.

'Clean, right?' said Tibbs. 'You don't smell nothin' burnt on there, do you?'

'It's clean. Can I take it for a ride?'

'I got the keys inside.'

'How much, by the way?'

'I'm gonna go right to the bottom,' said Tibbs, 'seein' as how you don't like to haggle.'

'How much?'

'Sixty-five hundred. That's grand theft auto right there. Boss finds out I sold it for that, I might have to just go ahead and clean out my desk.'

'Sixty-five hundred is right for this car?'

'Sixty-five?' said Tibbs, pursing his lips and bugging his eyes. 'It's right as rain.'

Quinn chuckled.

'What's so funny?'

'Nothin',' said Quinn. 'This car rides as good as it looks, you got yourself a deal.'

Quinn met Strange for breakfast on Monday morning at Sweet Daddy's All Souls Paradise House of Prayer, occupying much of M Street between 6th and 7th in Northwest. The church was a modern, well-funded facility serving the community through religious and outreach programs, with a staff of motivated individuals who kept an eye on the grounds in what was a marginal neighborhood at best. Quinn parked his Chevelle in the church-owned, protected lot, and went to the cafeteria on the ground level of the complex.

Uniformed and plainclothes police, community activists, businessmen, parishioners, and local residents ate here every morning. The portions were generous and the prices dirt cheap. The staff's cheer and pleasant manner were fueled by religion.

Quinn built a tray of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and grits, and had a seat across from Strange at a long table where several other chairs were occupied by people of various colors and economic backgrounds. Strange was working on a plate of scrapple, eggs, and grits.

A white guy with a friendly smile named Chris O'Shea came over to the table and had a brief conversation with Strange.

'You take it easy now, Derek,' said O'Shea.

'All right then, Chris,' said Strange. 'You do the same.'

Quinn noticed that everywhere they went in D.C., people knew Strange.

'You ready to go to work?' said Strange, pushing his empty tray aside.

'What've you got lined up?'

'We'll hang out near Ricky Kane's house this morning. He lives with his mother out in Wheaton. If he leaves, we'll follow him, see how he fills up his day. Here.' Strange slipped a cell phone out of his jacket along with a slip of paper. 'Use this, it's Ron's. My number is on there and so is yours.'

'No two-way radios?'

'This is easier, man. And unlike a two-way, no one double-takes you these days if you're walking down the street talking on a phone.'

'Like all the other dickheads, you mean.'

'Uh-huh. You got yourself a car, right?'

Quinn nodded. 'Think you're gonna like it, too.'

Out in the lot, Strange laughed when he saw the Super Sport Chevelle with the racing wheels.

'Somethin' wrong?' said Quinn.

'It is pretty.'

'What, then?'

'You youngbloods, always got to be drivin' something says, Look at me. Ron Lattimer's the same way.'

'That Caprice you got looks exactly like a police vehicle. We got less chance of gettin' burned in mine than in yours.'

'Maybe you're right. Anyway, we'll take both of 'em, see how things shake out.'

Ricky Kane's mother owned a small house, brick based with siding, off Viers Mill Road on a street of houses just like it. The builder who'd done the community in the 1960s had showed little ambition and less imagination. From the activity he'd observed in the last hour or so, Strange could see that the residents here were what was left of the original middle-class whites and America's new working-class immigrants: Spanish, Ethiopian, Pakistani, and Korean.

Strange phoned Quinn, who was parked down the street at the next corner.

'You still awake?'

'I got coffee in a thermos,' said Quinn.

'Bet you gotta pee, too.'

'Now that you mention it.'

'You see our boy when he came out?'

'I saw him.'

'Another little punk with a big dog.'

Kane had walked his tan pit bull halfway down the block an hour earlier while Strange took photographs with his long-lensed AE-1. Kane, medium height, blond, and thin, was wearing a thermal vest under a parka, a knit watch cap, and oversized jeans worn low on his hips. He had a hint of a modified goatee on his bony face.

'Tryin' to be an honorary black man,' said Strange.

'He looks like every other white kid I see in the suburbs these days.'

'Yeah, till they figure out what it means to be a black man in America for real.'

'But this guy's got to be close to my age.'

'Uh-huh. He sure doesn't look like the same guy was on the TV interviews, does he?'

'Check out that car of his, too. Kane got rid of that shit-wagon Toyota.' There was a new red Prelude with shiny rims and a high spoiler sitting in the driveway of Kane's house.

'I see it. He did get a settlement.'

'Yeah. That could be it.'

Quinn took a sip of coffee from the thermos. 'I tell you how much we enjoyed meeting Janine the other night?'

'She's cool. Hell of an office manager, too. You got yourself a fine young lady there as well.'

'I know it,' said Quinn.

'All right, here comes our boy.'

Kane was coming out of the house with a gym bag in his hand. He opened the trunk of the Prelude and dropped the gym bag in, closing the lid and locking it.

'Goin' to work out,' said Quinn. 'You think?'

'Maybe.'

'I'll go first,' said Quinn.

'Yeah,' said Strange. 'Wouldn't want him to burn me or nothin' like that.'

Strange and Quinn circled the block while Kane went into a 7-Eleven for coffee and smokes, then picked him up again as he headed south into D.C. They hung back several car lengths, as Kane's red car was easy to track. He took 13th Street all the way downtown, cutting over to 14th and pulling into a Carr Park garage down past F.

'Should I follow him into the garage?' asked Quinn.

'Park on the street,' said Strange into the phone. 'Park illegal if you have to; I'll pay the ticket.'

Quinn curbed the Chevelle. Strange did the same to the Caprice, a half block south.

'What now?' said Quinn.

'Elevators in that garage go up into that building to the left of it. Unless he's got business in that building – and I don't think he does – he'll be coming out those double glass doors right there in about three or four minutes.'

'Why don't you think he's going up into the building?'

"Cause he's goin' to that restaurant, the Purple Cactus, across the street.'

'Want me to follow him?'

'He knows what you look like, but not since you grew that lion's head of hair you got. So go ahead. You got shades?'

'Sure.'

'Wear 'em. Only kind of disguise you'll ever need without overdoin' it. And when you're following a man, use the city, Terry.'