George Pelecanos - The Night Gardener

Ramone had not told Wilkins or any of his other coworkers about the gun. If Wilkins were to enter it into his paperwork, Terrance Johnson could be charged with possession of an illegal firearm. Only police officers, federal agents, and special security types were permitted to own handguns in D.C. Johnson had bought the thirty-eight hot or he had been a down-the-chain recipient of a straw purchase originated in Virginia or Maryland. Legally, he was wrong. But Ramone wasn't going to report it. Johnson had enough to live with. There wasn't a point in piling any more misery on him, his wife, and their last living child.

He wasn't going to be entirely forthcoming with Terrance Johnson, either. Ramone had deduced the identity of Asa's older boyfriend, called RoboMan in the journal. Asa's math teacher had said that Asa had come to him for extra-credit work after school the day of his death. But there were no such papers in Asa's locker, book bag, or bedroom. RoboMan had to be a thinly veiled moniker for Robert Bolton. Ramone had found Bolton extremely defensive on the subject of stereotyping young black men when they had their conversation. But he had been defending Asa. Bolton was in love with him.

Ramone would mention his suspicions to the people who worked in Morals. This kind of thing was out of his bailiwick. He simply didn't know what to do with what he'd found. He wanted to get rid of it.

He intended to keep information from his fellow officers in the MPD. He would keep information from the boy's father. It was like Holiday said: He wasn't so straight.

He got out of the Tahoe, walked up to the Johnson residence, and knocked on the front door. He heard Terrance Johnson's footsteps approaching. Ramone's impulse was to go back to his SUV. But the door opened, and he shook Johnson's hand and stepped into the house.

Dan Holiday Lit a cigarette and tossed the match into the ashtray before him. It sat next to a vodka tonic on the bar. He stood in the middle of a group including Jerry Fink, Bob Bonano, and Bradley West. They were kidding themselves with Bloody Marys. Holiday had no such self-delusions. He needed a real drink.

Leo's was empty except for Leo Vazoulis and the four of them. Fink had just returned from the juke. A strong horn-and-backup-girl intro, and then a husky male vocal came into the room.

'"It isn't what you got, it's what you give,'" sang Fink, doing the girl part.

'The Jimmy Castor Bunch,' said Bradley West, the writer.

'Nah, this was before the Bunch,' said Fink, 'and all that Troglodyte shit. Jimmy Castor was a soul singer before he was a novelty act.'

'Okay,' said West, 'I got the Bunch thing wrong. But here's the five-dollar question. What singer did Jimmy Castor replace in a famous group, way back in his career?'

'Clyde McPhatter,' said Fink. 'From the Drifters.'

'Wrong.'

Fink grinned stupidly. 'Bo Donaldson, from the Heywoods?'

'He replaced Frankie Lymon,' said West. 'As in, and the Teenagers.'

'The little junkie,' said Bonano. His cell phone, sitting on the bar, was playing Ennio Morricone's most famous theme, but Bonano was ignoring it.

'You owe me five,' said West.

'You take credit cards, right?' said Fink.

'Leo does,' said Bradley. 'Just buy the next round.'

'Ain't you gonna answer your phone, Bobby?' said Fink.

'Nah, it's just a customer.'

'Another satisfied client of Home Butchers,' said Fink.

'It's this bitch from Potomac,' said Bonano. 'She doesn't like the way I hung her cabinets. I'll show her something that's hung right.'

'On account of you're Italian,' said West.

'There used to be a natural bridge from the boot to Africa,' said Bonano. 'I ever tell you guys that?'

'Guy's got a vowel on the end of his name,' said Fink, 'he thinks he's Milton Berle.'

'Berle was a Jew,' said Bonano. 'Like you, Jerry.'

'His name ends with a vowel.' Fink wiped vodka and tomato juice off his chin. 'Uncle Milty was hung like a donkey, that's all I was sayin.'

They paused to sing along with the Jimmy Castor tune, light smokes, and sip their drinks.

Fink looked over at Holiday. 'Why so quiet, Doc?'

'No reason,' said Holiday. 'I'm a little self-conscious, is all it is. Listening to you Einsteins, I feel kinda inferior.'

'Tell us a bedtime story,' said West.

'I don't have one.'

'He's just solemn,' said Fink, "cause of all the violent crime we had in the area this weekend.'

'Yeah, that off-duty police that bought it out in P.G. County,' said Bonano. 'You guys read about it?'

'It was in the Post,' said Fink. 'You saw it, didn't you Doc?'

Holiday nodded. He had read about Grady Dunne yesterday. The story said that an off-duty MPD cop had been shot to death in P.G. County, along with two other men. One of them was a fairly well-known ex-offender with drug distribution priors. The other man was only identified as a black male. Romero, something like that. Holiday could not remember his name.

Police were looking for a third suspect who was believed to be the shooter of the police officer. Tellingly, a spokesman gave no explanation for Officer Dunne's presence at the scene.

'Either he was undercover or sumshit like that,' said Fink, 'or he was involved with those guys, as in, he was as dirty as the doo-doo stains on my drawers. What do you think, Doctor?'

'I don't know,' said Holiday.

'Ward Nine,' said Bonano. 'It's like Tombstone out in that motherfucker.'

Holiday had also searched for news in the Post about Cook, and had found it in a single paragraph in Metro's 'In Brief.' He was only identified by his name, a man who had been found in a car in New Carrollton and appeared to have died of natural causes. The longer story would come later, when someone in the newsroom figured out who he was: that old detective haunted by the unsolved Palindrome Murders.

West signaled Leo for a fresh round.

'You in, Doc?' said Bonano.

'No,' said Holiday, swallowing the last of his vodka tonic. He dropped a ten on the bar. 'I gotta get to work.'

'On a Sunday?' said Fink.

'People need rides on Sundays, too,' said Holiday. He gathered his cigarettes and matches and slipped them into his black suit jacket. 'Gents.'

Fink, Bonano, and West watched Holiday walk from Leo's. They listened to the introduction to 'Just a Little Overcome' by the Nightingales and bowed their heads in reverence to the beauty of the song as they waited for Leo to prepare and serve them their drinks.

A half hour later, Holiday sat behind the wheel of his Town Car on a side street of Good Luck Estates. Beside him were T.C. Cook's binoculars, a couple of granola bars, and a bottle of water. On the floor was a large empty cup into which he could urinate if needed. In the trunk of the Lincoln were a jimmy bar, a Streamlight Stinger rechargeable steel-cased flashlight, which could double as a weapon, a friction-lock expandable baton, a set of blued handcuffs, duct tape, a hundred-foot retractable tape measure, a digital camera, which he did not know how to use, and other tools and cop tools.

Several houses away sat the ranch-style, white-sided home of Reginald Wilson. Wilson's Buick was parked in the driveway.

Holiday had no particular plan. Wait for Wilson to slip up in some way. Or break into Wilson's home when he was at work and look for evidence. Toss the shit out of the place until he turned something up. Or plant evidence, if need be. Anything that would open the door to DNA tests that would link Wilson to the murders. Cook had been certain about his guilt, and that was good enough for Holiday.

He was prepared to sit here all day and, if necessary, the next day. Holiday had phoned Jerome Belton, his sole employee, and told him that he would be taking some time off. Now he had no immediate commitments. No family, no friends to speak of, no woman waiting for him at home. He had this. He'd fucked up damn near everything in his life, but maybe he could get this one thing right. He still had time.