George Pelecanos - Hard Revolution

“You want your gage?” said Dennis, cutting his eyes away from Jones’s.

“You bring it?”

Dennis patted the pocket of his slacks. “Right here.”

“Lemme see.”

Dennis found a bag in his pocket and handed Jones the ounce he had asked for. Jones opened it and smelled the contents. He hefted the bag to feel its weight.

“It’s right,” said Dennis.

“How much?”

“Thirty.”

“For this here?”

“Didn’t grow in no alley.”

“Okay. But I’m a little light this evening. I don’t have the full amount on me, see?”

“You don’t have it on you, huh. You gonna get it, though, right?”

“What, you don’t trust a brother? You, who’s always goin’ on about unity, now you gonna act like that?”

“I trust you,” said Dennis, hating his weakness and the lie.

“Look here.” Jones made a show of glancing around, making sure Lula was not anywhere nearby. “This woman I know, she gonna front me for it.”

“When?”

“We’ll go over there right now. She’s gonna have to write you out a check, though.”

“My man don’t take checks.”

“He gonna have to take one tonight. It’s Sunday, man. What you think, they gonna open up the banks just for this girl?”

“Check better be good.”

“This girl is square,” said Jones. “You can believe that.”

Dennis stared at Jones, then looked away.

“Somethin’ you wanted to talk to Dennis about?” said Willis.

“We gonna do that on the way.”

Jones got up out of his chair and took a hat, a black sporty number with a bright gold band, off a coat tree by the door. He put the hat on his head and cocked it right.

“Thought you was stayin’ in with Lula tonight,” said Willis.

“I already fucked the bitch,” said Jones. “Ain’t no need to stay in now.”

SO WHICH ONE was the Bad?” “Van Cleef. The guy they called Angel Eyes.”

“See, I thought the little Mexican dude could have been the Bad, too. What was his name?”

“Tuco.” Strange smiled. “Otherwise known as the Rat.”

“Yeah,” said Darla Harris. “Him.”

“Tuco was the Ugly.”

“But he was bad, too.”

“Not exactly,” said Strange. “He was more like the dark side of Blondie. Someplace in between the Bad and the Good.”

“I like it better when you can tell who the good guy is and who the bad guy is.”

“Like, white hat, black hat, you mean. John Wayne and all that.”

“Well, yeah.”

“That’s over, baby. The movies finally be gettin’ around to how the world is. Complex.”

“I don’t get it.”

I know you don’t, thought Strange. Which is one reason why you and me are never gonna connect all the way.

They were headed east on Irving, coming from the Tivoli Theater on 14th and Park. Strange was under the wheel of his ’65 Impala, a blue clean-line V-8 he’d purchased used at Curtis Chevrolet. He liked the car, but it was no Cadillac. Like his father, he’d always wanted a Caddy. Like his father, he didn’t know if he’d ever have the means.

“We always go to the movies,” said the woman.

“Gives me peace. Sit in a dark theater, forget about what I see out here every day.”

“We always go to the movies and the movies are always westerns.”

“Tell you what,” said Strange. “You like that guy Coburn, right?”

“You mean Flint?”

“Him.”

“That’s a sexy man right there.”

“He’s in this new movie, playin’ at the Atlas, thought we’d check it out later this week.”

The woman raised an eyebrow, looked at Strange with skepticism. “What’s the name of it?”

“Waterhole #3.”

Darla, who was a dark, cute, Northeast girl, slapped Strange on the arm and laughed. “You are pushin’ it now.”

“C’mere,” said Strange, patting the bench seat. Darla slid over so that her thigh, exposed from her short skirt, was touching his. It was a nice thigh, tight and compact like the rest of her. Strange put his hand on the inside of it and gave it a little rub.

They had been together for a few months. Strange didn’t love her, but they were compatible and fit together in bed. He had never pledged fidelity to her, and she hadn’t asked him to. If she had, he would have run. Strange often had other women on his mind; there was one in particular who’d been haunting his thoughts for a long time. Anyway, he and Darla got along fine. She didn’t make him want to pick flowers for her or write a song in her name or anything like that. What they had was just all right.

“My mother’s out with her man,” said Darla.

“She gonna be out all night?”

“I expect.”

“I’ll drop you, then come back over later, if that’s all right.”

“You got plans right now?”

“You know I always have Sunday supper with my parents.”

“Okay.” She kissed him behind his ear. “You get some food in you, then come on by.”

“Go ahead and find something on the box,” said Strange, putting his right arm around Darla’s shoulder, settling into his seat.

She turned on the dash radio. At WWDC, she came upon a symphonic instrumental and recognized the theme.

“That’s from the movie.”

“The bullshit version,” said Strange.

Darla got off of 1260. At all-news WAVA the announcer said that President Johnson would address the nation that night. She spun the dial, went right by a rock-and-roll tune, then stopped for a moment on WOOK. Strange caught a couple lines of an Otis Redding, which he recognized as “Chained and Bound,” before Darla went past it. She found WOL at 1450, took her fingers off the dial, and sat back.

“Girl, you got a quick hand.”

“Tired of listening to that ’Bama.”

“He was from Georgia.”

“Same thing to me. Anyway, you play him all the time at your crib.” Darla smiled as “Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone” came up through the shelf speaker. “This is more like it right here.”

Just another thing gonna drive me away from her eventually, thought Strange. Woman runs by Otis to get to the Supremes.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” said Darla, looking at the frown on Strange’s face.

“Motown,” said Strange dismissively.

“So?”

“Ain’t nothin’ but soul music for white people, you ask me.”

ALVIN JONES, KENNETH Willis, and Dennis Strange sat in the green Monterey across from a corner store, parked under a street lamp. Dusk had come and gone. The children of the neighborhood and most of its adults had gone indoors. The men had been there, and had been in strong discussion, for some time.

“Go on in, boy,” said Jones to Dennis.

“Told you I don’t need nothin’.”

“Go on.”

“And do what?”

“You the detail man. Use your eyes. Come on back and tell us what you see.”

“Why would I?”

“’Cause me and Kenneth here are fixin’ to rob this motherfucker,” said Jones. “What you think?”

They were on a single-digit street off Rhode Island Avenue, in LeDroit Park. The market was just like many others serving the residential areas of the city. It catered to the needs of the immediate neighborhood in the absence of a large grocery store. A green-and-gold sign hung over the door. The door was tied open with a piece of rope. The lights were on inside.

“Go on in your own self, then,” said Dennis.

“Can’t do that,” said Jones. “It would ruin the surprise we got planned for later on.”

“Well, you gonna have to find someone else to do it,” said Dennis Strange. “’Cause this kind of thing, it ain’t me.”

“You could use the money, right?” Jones, on the passenger side, looked in the rearview at Dennis, alone in the backseat, his book in his hand. Jones’s eyes smiled. “You damn sure look like you could.”