George Pelecanos - The Night Gardener

Holiday would come, and they could get to work. The young man carried heavy baggage, but he had energy and fire. Maybe the two of them would turn over the right rock.

Cook went out to his car, a light gold Mercury Marquis with a blue-star FOP sticker on the rear window, and opened the trunk. He suspected that he and Holiday would be working a tail late in the day and that they would take two cars. He knew what was in the trunk, knew he had not moved its contents, but he was a little bit excited and wanted to have a look at his things.

He kept the car maintenance items here, including oil, antifreeze, jumper cables, brake and power steering fluid, shop rags, a tire patch kit, and a pneumatic jack. There was one Craftsman box holding standard tools and another holding a 100-foot retractable tape measure, duct tape, 10 x 50 binoculars, night vision goggles he'd never used, a box of latex gloves, a friction-lock expandable baton, a set of Smith and Wesson blued handcuffs, a variety of batteries, a digital camera that Cook did not know how to operate, and a Streamlight Stinger rechargeable steel-cased flashlight, which could double as a weapon. Also in the trunk was a steel jimmy bar.

All was in place. Holiday would not be by for a while. Cook decided to go back in the house and pull his Hoppe's kit and.38. He had time to clean his gun.

Michael 'Mikey' Tate and Ernest 'Nesto' Henderson sat in a pretty black Maxima, the new style with the four pipes coming out the back, in the lot of a strip mall on Riggs Road in Northeast D.C., not far from the Maryland line. There was a dollar store, pawnbroker, liquor store, Chinese-and-sub shop, check-cashing joint, papusa place, and two hairstyling shops. One specialized in nails and the other, called Hair Raisers, was known for braids and hair extensions. Chantel Richards was employed at Hair Raisers. Henderson could see her through the front window, standing behind a woman in a chair, both of them running their mouths as Richards did her job. It was Henderson who was doing most of the surveillance. Tate was leafing through the latest Vogue.

'Damn, she fine, though,' said Henderson. 'That is a lot of woman,' said Tate, looking up. He was wearing big jeans, a long-sleeved Lacoste shirt, and matching shoes with the little alligators stitched on the sides.

'She tall, too,' said Henderson, who wore a blue Nationals cap, the away game version, not because he followed baseball but because the color matched his shirt. The cap was tilted slightly on his head.

'Her hair makes her look taller than she is,' said Tate. 'Plus, she might be wearing high heels. These fashion girls like to get that height thing goin. Makes 'em look more slim.'

'She fat where it counts.'

'She dresses right for the type of body she got.'

'Where you read that, in that girl magazine?'

'I'm just sayin. She got that effect she was going for.' Tate noticed women's clothing, their shoes and jewelry, how they carried themselves, all that. He was interested, was all it was. But he didn't talk about it much around Nesto, who thought that reading magazines about such things, and indeed reading of any kind, was gay.

'I worry about you, son.'

'I'm just admiring her effort, is all.'

'Yeah, well, we been admiring her long enough.'

'I ain't happy about it, either. My ass hurts from sittin out here, too.'

'Sure it don't hurt from something else?'

'Huh?'

'Has someone been puttin their pork inside you?'

'Fuck you, dawg.'

'You read them fashion magazines all the time; I worry.'

'Least I can read.'

'While you gettin pounded from behind.'

'Go on, Nesto.'

They were coworkers, but they had little in common. Michael Tate had arrived at where he was as a transfer point to someplace else. He was like all those waiters in New York he'd read about, who weren't waiters for real but actors who were on the way to being movie and television stars. That's how Tate thought of himself. He wasn't about working a minimum-wage thing, though, until he blew up. No way was he going to leave out his house without a nice outfit on or money in his pocket, because he was like that. So here he was.

His older brother, William, now incarcerated, had been in the trade with Raymond Benjamin when both of them were young, and when Benjamin had come uptown from prison, he had put Michael on. But Michael Tate was smart enough to know that the money, as good as it was, was just walking-around money compared to what those clothing designers made. If soft-ass rappers could do it, shit, why couldn't Michael Tate?

Question was, how did you go from here to there? He guessed the way to start was to work on getting his GED. But that was a conversation he would have with himself another time.

For now he was stuck with Nesto Henderson, in a shit-on-your-shoe parking lot, keeping an eye on a young woman who probably had hurt no one. Being called a faggy by this Bama who got no pussy himself but who felt the need to call him names because he read magazines. To top it off, his stomach was growling, too.

'I'm hungry,' said Tate.

'Go over there to that slope house and get a steak and cheese, then. Matter of fact, get me one while you're at it.'

'How you so stupid? You don't never buy a sub from a place got Chinese food, too. And you don't never eat no Chinese from a place sells subs.'

'I'm not having no Pedro food,' said Henderson, speaking of the papusa place.

'Look, she ain't goin nowhere for a while. She got her client to take care of, and anyway, it's too early in the day for her to get off. Let's find someplace and eat some real food, come on back later.'

Henderson looked at Chantel Richards, admiring the movement of her hips as she listened to the music they were playing in the shop. 'Shame if we had to kill her. Ain't too many champions walkin around like that.'

'We just supposed to follow her to where she layin up with that Romeo.'

'I'm just sayin, we might have to.' Henderson nodded at the ignition. 'Come on, let's go.'

Tate started the Nissan and pulled out of their space. He stopped at the yellow up on Riggs and was careful to use his turn signal at the intersection beyond. There were live guns under the seats, and he did not want to risk being pulled over by the law.

Nesto Henderson had put work in. Least, he claimed he had. Michael Tate could take care of himself and physically protect Raymond Benjamin if he had to, but he hadn't signed up for the doom squad. After all, Benjamin had told him that he was done with that part of the game himself.

I ain't about to kill no woman, thought Michael Tate. That ain't me.

The box was stuffy, as it always was. Dominique Lyons sat on a stool bolted to the floor. Its seat was deliberately small and would be uncomfortable to sit on for a man of size. Lyons had not been leg-ironed to the stool's base. At this point in the interview Detective Bo Green, seated across the table, was still Lyons's friend. They had been talking for just a short while.

Lyons wore an Authentic Redskins jersey with Sean Taylor's name and number, 21, stitched on the back. The Authentics went for one thirty-five, one hundred forty on the street. The brand-new Jordans on Lyons's feet retailed for a hundred and a half. Lyons's jewelry, a real Rolex, rings, diamond earrings, and a platinum chain, were of five-figure value. When Green asked him what he did for a living, Lyons said that he had a car-detailing business on the street where he lived.

'I see you're a Taylor fan,' said Green.

'Boy's a beast,' said Lyons, tall of trunk and long limbed. He had broad shoulders and an angular, handsome face. His braids were long and framed his cheekbones. His eyes were deep brown and flat, a taxidermist's ideal.