Neely Tucker - Murder, D.C.

“This right here,” said Sly, not even turning from the front seat, putting the window back up, “is Curious George Ferris. I think y’all done met.”

Lionel eased down Capitol Hill, the building itself on the right, then turned left on Washington Ave., heading toward the Bend.

“How does this work again?” Sully said. “George here is the Hall brothers’ chief ass-capper and-”

“Curious works for me,” Sly said.

“ Now I do,” Curious said, that raspy voice. “Now I do.”

“When did that start?” Sully said. “Down there at the track you-”

“Recently,” said Sly. “Recently he started for me. The Hall brothers, he hasn’t gotten around to telling them about his new employment opportunity.”

Sully looked over at Curious, who was looking at him, then back at Sly in the front.

“He’s your new mole,” Sully said, “is what you’re saying.”

“If you like to say it that way.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Curious George had a broad, expansive face, his dreads perfectly maintained, the tips dyed reddish copper, the brown eyes looking hard at Sully. Nineteen, possibly twenty, could be twenty-one.

“After Dee Dee got popped?” Curious rasped. “Sly, then he approached me.”

“Approached?” Sully said. “He approached you?”

“Don’t get cute back there,” Sly said. “We got business. Now, look here. T-Money, he’s got no idea we’re about to roll up. This how it’s gonna work. Me, Curious, and you get out the ride. That’s gonna look like me, the Hall brothers’ enforcer, and the out-of-town money, all united. Shit. He gonna think we all done ganged up on him.”

The car, now on South Cap, rolled them under the overpass, the McDonald’s on the left, the park on the right, Southwest in all its paint-peeling, dime-bag glory. Lionel turned left again, east now, putting them in the South Caps’ domain. At the stop sign, the ratty little row houses began, window units hanging ass out of the upstairs windows, men on porches, looking.

“Up here, right around the corner,” Lionel said softly.

“Here we go,” Sly said. “Nobody talks but me. We go inside, I talk with T-Money, nice and friendly, Lionel stays put in the ride.” He turned to Curious George. “You got that Gat, yeah?”

Curious nodded, tapping the pouch of his hoodie.

“Keep that outta sight. Keep your hands out your pockets where everybody can see. Somebody bucks? I take my glasses off and wipe the lens? You see that, you open that Gat right the fuck up. Get whatever motherfuckers are at the door, between us and Lionel here. I’ll take out T-Money and whoever’s next to him.” He looked at Sully. “You got that piece you carry? That thing from the war?”

Sully shook his head, no.

“That’s too bad. Shit jumps off, you just run. I hope you quicker than you look.”

T-Money’s headquarters was a sagging brick row house, seven or eight guys out front on the sidewalk in the early May air, the dim orange glow of blunts and smokes in the gloom. When the Jeep pulled up at the curb, they converged, dropping smokes, grinding them underfoot. Two guys materialized from a parked car, three or four came off the porch, backs squared, baseball caps skewed to the side.

Sly got out and it looked like the freaking Red Sea. The guys on the sidewalk parted, the surprise registering on their faces, the man instantly recognized, feared.

“Hey now, hey now,” Sly said, a toothpick working at the side of his mouth, pushing up the glasses on his nose, reaching out to slap palms. Then he stopped, stretched onto his toes, raising his hands up, stretching like he’d just driven in from Detroit, and unleashed a long, loud yawn.

“What is up , people,” he said, bringing his hands down and pushing the car door closed. Curious got out of the back door, everybody recognizing him, too.

Sully pushed open his door on the street side and got out, the men sizing him up, the only white guy in twenty blocks, riding with Sly motherfucking Hastings.

When Sully got to the sidewalk, a chubby dude with an untucked flannel shirt was already bullshitting with Sly, like it was no biggie that Sly had rolled up unannounced in a place where he had no business and was not welcome. Chub Man looked over at Sully, furrowing his brow, saying to Sly, “Hey, fuckface over there-he rollin’ with you, too?”

Sly nodded.

“What up,” said Chub, still looking at Sully. “That face you got-what the other nigga look like?” And he broke up, killing himself here.

“He don’t say much, speak the English,” Sly said. “Nigga’s from Yugoslavia, where they got that war? That shit’s real over there, bombs and shit. Just look at him. I think somebody did that to him with a knife.”

“Ah shit,” Chub said, looking over at Sully. “No foul, though? Right?”

Sully nodded, hunching his shoulders.

“So, okay,” Chub said. “Let’s go see T-Money. Hey, Sly, brother, I know he wants to see you.”

In the front room, the television was the only illumination, a pale blue glow falling over a sagging-ass couch, a couple of chairs, a beat-to-shit coffee table. By the time Sully edged through the crowd and got inside, the sound was off-it was some sort of rap music channel-and T-Money was sprawled on the couch, a black T-shirt pulled over his bulk, baggy basketball shorts, the man looking like Heavy D, making Chub look like a lollipop.

His legs were open, knees moving back and forth, a bowl of popcorn in his lap, a blunt on the sad-ass end table, smoke just barely smoldering off the end. Cans of Steel Reserve 211, the twenty-four-ounce things, littered the table. There were two women at the back of the room, moving off to the kitchen, when Sully finally got past the crowd.

T-Money looked up at him, the features registering at some level.

“Who this here?” Looking at Sully, but directing the question to Sly.

Sitting on the edge of the coffee table, pushing a pizza carton to the side, Sly turned and looked, like he had forgotten who all was with him.

“He’s with me,” Sly said.

T-Money looked at Sully, munching on some popcorn. “Does he talk?”

“When he’s pissed.”

“Hunh,” said T-Money.

“So what I was saying,” Sly said, “is that I understand. That’s what I came to tell you. Dee got to being a real asshole. So I got no problems with him getting capped, you hear? None.”

T-Money rolled his eyes back to Sly, the man high as a goddamn kite.

“We moving a little new product in from my skinny white Balkan brother over there,” Sly continued. “I’m working with Tony and Carlos on it. It’s all cool. But Dee, right? He started sampling product, couldn’t handle the shit. Somebody had let me know about it, I’d taken care of it myself.”

“Okay,” T-Money said.

“I was thinking Tony and Carlos was on top of things,” Sly said.

“Okay.”

“So, what I’m saying is, I came down here-was getting dinner right up there on the Hill?-to make sure you knew I wasn’t taking it as any disrespect or anything. You boys popping Dee. I got no beef. Full, straight-up respect.”

T-Money blinked. “The fuck you talking about?”

“Dee. Don’t be simple. Got popped two weeks ago in the Bend.”

“I heard that , Negro. I asked, why you think I canceled his ass?”

“Come on, T,” Sly smiling now, his manner easing, looking around the room, trying to draw a smile out of Curious, Sully, somebody. “Boy’s car got shot up coming out of Splash, like, the week before he got capped. That’s your turf-”

“Jordy, stick your hand up,” T-Money said. “See Jordy over there? He plugged the car. Dumb-ass Dee was moving product in the Mickey D’s, which is this side of the street. Jordy gave him a friendly little Gat to help him remember what’s what.”