George Pelecanos - Soul Circus

The driver scowled. “Fuck is this shit?”

Mario’s heart beat hard in his chest. “What’s wrong with it?”

“This looks like a hundred dollars’ worth, not fifty. Fuck you tryin’ to pull?”

“I’m new on this strip,” said Mario. “Just tryin’ to be generous so I can get some of that repeat business.”

The driver studied Mario’s face. “This shit better be right.”

“It is,” said Mario, nodding his head quickly.

The driver paid Mario with a ten and two twenties. The bills were damp.

“Pray you ain’t fuckin’ with me, Deion ,” said the driver. His friend was laughing as the Toyota pulled away.

Yeah, okay, thought Mario. I’ll fuck with you anytime I want. ’Cause I am gone up out of this piece, soon as things cool down. And you ain’t never gonna see my face again.

“Bitch,” he said under his breath.

He puffed out his chest, feeling bold right about then. But soon he began to lose his nerve and he walked back toward the woman’s apartment, his head down low. He could come out later, he wanted to, and sell a little bit more. In the meantime, he’d go and kick back on that girl’s couch. See if there was anything worth watching on the box. Maybe take a shower, he had time.

QUINN pulled over on Naylor behind a new red Solara, tricked out with gold-accented alloys. He let the car idle as he looked up to the three-story, bunkerlike structure that sat atop a rise of dirt and weeds. The pipes on his Chevelle were sputtering and loud, and the young men on the front stoop all turned their heads at the sound. Quinn cut the engine and let himself relax, but not to the point of inaction. He knew if he deliberated too long, if he was sensible, he’d just pull away.

Do your job.

He grabbed the manila folder on the seat beside him and got out of the car. He locked it down and walked up the steps to the apartment unit.

There were chuckles and comments as he neared. All of them were staring at him now. He sensed that they hadn’t moved since the afternoon. A halogen light that hung from the building cast a yellow glow on the stoop. The light bled to nothing as the hill graded down. Quinn stopped walking ten, fifteen feet away from the group.

A couple of them were drinking from brown paper bags. The air smelled of marijuana, but none was going around; a faint fog of smoke hung in the light. The young men’s eyes, pink and hooded, told him they were up.

“Terry Quinn.” He flashed his license, which looked like a badge. “Investigator, D.C.”

A couple of the young men looked at each other, smiling. He heard someone mimic him, “Terry Quinn. Investigator, D.C.,” in the voice of a game-show announcer, and there was low laughter then, and movement as several of them adjusted their positions. One of them, wearing a napkin bandanna and smoking a cigarette, leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs. He was bone skinny, no older than thirteen, with the flat eyes of a cat.

“I remember you,” said a heavyset young man with a blown-out Afro, his shirttails out over his jeans. Quinn remembered him, too. He was the smiling one from earlier that afternoon.

“I was looking for a girl named Linda Welles,” said Quinn. “I’m still looking. Last time she was seen was in this neighborhood. Her family’s worried about her. She’s fourteen years old.”

He removed a flyer from the folder and held it out to the heavyset young man. The young man looked at it, and his eyes flared, but just as quickly lost their light. Quinn knew with certainty then that this one could help him find the girl.

“Take it,” said Quinn, still holding out the flyer. But the young man left his hands at rest. He hadn’t moved at all since Quinn had come up on the group.

It was quiet now. They were all staring at Quinn, and even the drinkers were holding their bags still between their knees.

“You know where the girl is, don’t you?” said Quinn.

The young man said nothing.

“You don’t tell me now, I’m gonna come back.”

“Why you gonna come back?” said the young man. “You here now .”

“I’m gonna come back,” said someone in that same announcer’s voice, and another voice said, “With the cavalry and shit.” Quinn heard chuckling and an “Oh, shit.”

The heavy young man pulled back the tail of his shirt and let it drop back against his waist. The butt of an automatic, stainless with black grips, rose out of his waistband and lay across the elastic of his boxer shorts. Quinn couldn’t seem to move. His face was hot. He was frozen there.

“You know why I remember you?” said the young man. “Wasn’t because of no girl.”

“What was it, then?” said Quinn.

“I remember you ’cause you were so little, and so white. Mini-Me, comin’ up here, acting so tough. ’Cause you knew that we wouldn’t hurt no white boy down here, bring all sorts of uniforms to our neighborhood. And you were right, the first time around. I don’t want to do no time over some miniature motherfucker like you, don’t mean shit to me no way. But you keep on standing around here, I might just go ahead and take my chances.”

Quinn could feel his free hand shaking and he balled it up to make it stop. He stood straight and kept his eyes locked on the heavy young man’s.

“You want somethin’ else?”

“I’m comin’ back,” said Quinn.

“Yeah, okay. But for now? Walk while you still can.”

Quinn turned and headed back toward his car. He heard someone say, “Mini-Me,” and a burst of laughter, and the slapping of skin. It was like he was a kid again, cutting through the woods at night. His humiliation was chasing him like something horrible, a screaming, maggot-covered corpse with an upraised knife. He was ashamed, and still he wanted to run.

Quinn dropped into the bucket of his car. It would be different if he still had the street power of a cop. But he knew he’d never have that kind of power again. He turned the ignition key and drove away from the curb.

Quinn wished he’d brought his gun.

THE salon was dark inside when Strange arrived. On the glass door was a hand-painted sign that gave the store hours. That Inez Brown had gone and closed the store up two hours early, but Devra had said she’d be working till closing time.

Strange paced the sidewalk while he phoned Devra from his cell. She wasn’t in, or wasn’t answering. He left a message on her machine.

Strange looked around. Where was that old man, the one who’d given him the information yesterday, when he needed him? The real question was, where the fuck was Quinn?

Even as he was thinking it, he watched the Chevelle pull into the lot, easing into a space beside the Caprice. Strange dropped off the sidewalk to the asphalt and walked to the driver’s side of the car. He put his palm on the roof as he leaned in the open window.

“Where’s Devra?”

“She’s not in there?” said Quinn. He looked through the windshield at the darkened shop.

“God damnit , Terry, I told you to keep an eye on her.”

“You said it was my call,” said Quinn, his face pale and taut. “Looks like I shit the bed.”

Strange studied Quinn’s troubled eyes and doughy complexion. “What’s wrong with you, man?”

“I found some guys who know where the Welles girl is, but I got nothin’ out of them. Matter of fact, I let myself get punked out.”

“Shit, that’s all this is?” Strange shook his head. “Terry, I let people out here disrespect me every day . It’s part of how we do our job. Let them have their little victory and get what you can.”

“It was worse than disrespect.”

“Besides, you come down here gettin’ violent on people, how long you think you’d be able to work these neighborhoods? You’d be a marked man, and it doesn’t even matter if the people you fucked with got put away. They have friends and relatives, and those people never forget. I started shakin’ down people like I was wearin’ a uniform again, I’d be out of business. Get it through your head, man, you’re not a cop.”