King Suckerman

by George Pelecanos

  “Why are you being so evasive? You got something going on with Dimitri, is that it?”

  Clay stopped at the door. “Look. I told you, I’m going out. That’s all I got to say.”

  Elaine stood a few feet away, her arms folded across her chest. “Listen to me, Marcus. You and me made a promise to be together on everything from here on in, and for a long, long time. I want a future with you. I want to have your babies—”

  “That’s what I want, too.”

  “And now you’re walkin’ out of here all mysterious, with some kind of purpose in your step, you can’t even tell me where it is you’re off to. I’m no fool, Marcus; don’t go treating me like one. This has something to do with Rasheed’s death, doesn’t it? You’re on some kind of revenge trip, isn’t that right?”

  “Not revenge.” Clay put his hand on Elaine’s arm. “Look, baby…”

  Elaine pulled her arm out of Clay’s grasp. “Don’t ‘baby’ me. Don’t you soft talk me. You’re gonna stand there and disrespect me like that, not even give me a chance to plead my case? Look at me, Marcus!”

  “I am.”

  “You’re never going to get as fine a woman as the one standing before you right now. I swear to you Marcus, you go out this door like this, I am not gonna be here when you come back.”

  “I love you, Elaine,” said Clay. “You know I do. And I want all the things you want, for the both of us. That’s what I’ve been workin’ so hard for, and that’s what I’m gonna keep workin’ for, hear? Now, whatever you decide to do, that’s up to you. But I’ve got to go now.”

  “Marcus—”

  “Don’t say nothin’, baby. I’ve got to go.”

  He left the house, closed the door behind him. At the bottom of the steps he turned and looked at the light in the second-story window. He went to the Riviera, opened the door, and dropped the chain cutters behind the front seat.

  Clay turned the ignition key, pulled out of his space. He drove down to Newton, hung a right. Coming out of the turn, he saw a white man with shoulder-length black hair and a black handlebar mustache, leaning against a small car. Clay slowed the Riviera to stop, put his head out the window.

  “Hey,” said Clay.

  “Hey.”

  “Come to say good-bye?”

  “Comin’ with you.”

  “Decided to step up, huh?”

  “That’s right. Cooper made a play on my mother. And there’s no way, Marcus…”

  “What?”

  “There’s no way I’m lettin’ you go up against him alone.”

  Clay eyes softened. There was pride there, and admiration, too. It had been a long time since Karras had seen Clay look at him like that.

  “Well,” said Clay, “get in.”

  “We takin’ your ride?”

  Clay nodded. “We’re gonna take a real car tonight. Besides, tall as you’re lookin’ right now, you’d have trouble squeezing into that toy of yours.”

  Karras walked around to the passenger door, dropped into the shotgun bucket. He looked across the seat at Clay.

  “What now?” said Karras.

  “Gonna even up the odds.”

  “We got a few more comin’ with us?”

  “Don’t need a few more,” said Clay. “Just Al.”

  Marcus Clay pulled back on the shift, put the Riviera in gear.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Wilton Cooper carried the suitcase holding the money and the drugs. Bobby Roy Clagget followed him down the stairs, a duffel bag in one hand, the other hand holding the banister for support. Clagget wore the coffee-stained pleated white baggies with a clear blue plastic belt cinched tightly at the waist, his blood-smudged baby blue rayon shirt patterned in navy blue seashells, and multicolored stacks with four-inch heels. Cooper, who felt that a man on his way to a gun party needed to be styling, had gone dark and classic: a maroon polo shirt tucked into reverse-pleated black slacks with canvas jazz oxfords on his feet.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and stood in the foyer of the house. Open doors gave to a cheaply furnished living room, where the Thomas brothers sat with their cousin Doretha and her two kids. Cooper and Clagget entered the room. Doretha brought the children into her arms at the sight of them, sat straight in her chair, managed to force a trembling smile.

  “Ronald?” said Cooper.

  “Yeah, Coop?”

  “You and your brother get your shit together. We checkin’ out.”

  Ronald and Russell rose from their seats simultaneously. Russell stabbed his Kool out in an ashtray and picked up a gym bag with an Adidas logo printed on its side.

  Cooper withdrew a roll of green from the pocket of his slacks, counted out three hundred-dollar bills in an elaborate manner. “Here you go, baby.” He dropped the bills on a particle-board lamp stand next to her seat.

  “Thank you kindly,” said Doretha, a thin, spidery woman with glaucomic eyes.

  “ ’Preciate your hospitality. Hope we didn’t put you out.”

  “Oh, no,” said Doretha. “No trouble at all.”

  “We’ll be leavin’ town tonight,” said Cooper. “Don’t expect we’ll be seein’ you again. But just so we don’t misunderstand each other—”

  “I don’t know you no way,” said Doretha, nodding her head, not looking into Cooper’s eyes. “I never laid eyes on you in my life.”

  Cooper smiled, gave Doretha a little bow. “Was a pleasure makin’ your acquaintance.”

  Ronald said, “See you around, Dodo. Say hello to Uncle Lee for us, hear?”

  Russell nodded to Doretha and the children. All the men left the room and exited the back door of the house.

  Doretha held her younger daughter, who had begun to cry, tightly against her chest.

  “Let it out,” said Doretha, patting the girl’s back.

  At the end of the alley, two boys watched while another boy lit an M-80 and rolled it under an overturned trash can. The boys ran away, the trash can lifting from the force of the explosion. In a nearby yard a family of four held Roman candles and marched in a wide circle. A string of firecrackers went off two blocks away; over the sound, Cooper and his men heard a drunken man screaming at a woman and the woman’s pathetic, sobbing reply.

  “Ain’t nothin’ but a house party tonight,” said Russell.

  “There it is,” said Ronald.

  Cooper jerked his head toward the car. “Get it uncovered,” he said.

  Ronald rolled the canvas tarp back off the Daytona. He and Russell folded the tarp and dropped it over the fence into Doretha’s yard.

  Cooper placed the suitcase in the Charger’s trunk, retrieved Clagget’s hunting vest, shut the lid. He tossed the vest to Clagget and the keys to Ronald.

  “Want me for the wheel man?” said Ronald.

  Cooper nodded. “Y’all sit up front. Me and B. R. gonna chill in the back.”

  They got into the car. Clagget set the duffel bag between him and Cooper. He unzipped the bag, reached in, passed Ronald his short-barreled .357 and Russell his revolver. Ronald checked the load, wrist-snapped the cylinder back in place. Russell opened the Adidas gym bag, pulled out the Baggie of cocaine. He dipped his pinky nail into the blow, did two jolts, fed Ronald the same way.

  “Bad freeze,” said Russell.

  “Who you tellin’?” said Ronald, and the two of them touched skin. Cooper strapped both holsters under his arms, checked his .45s, fitted them, drew them quickly, fitted them again. Clagget thumbed shells into the sawed-off, slipped four more through the loops of his vest.

  “Kick it over, Mandingo,” said Cooper.

  Ronald brought the car alive.

  They drove down the alley, the sputter of the dual exhaust cutting the air. Russell reached into the sun visor, pulled free a fresh pack of cigarettes. He packed the smokes against his palm, then tore a hole in the bottom of the deck.

  “Gimme one of them double-O’s,” said Ronald.

  Russell Thomas withdrew two Kools. He lit Ronald’s, lit one for
himself.

  Marcus Clay took Irving Street and then Michigan Avenue across town. The traffic thinned considerably as they headed east, though in all the neighborhoods through which they passed people had gathered on porches and others stood in groups, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, leaning against cars in the street. Around Brookland, Clay slapped in a cassette that kicked off with “Little Child, Running Wild,” his favorite Mayfield jam. By the time the song ended, they had parked in front of an open garage in a small commercial strip at the edge of the residential district near the north-south railroad line. Clay and Karras got out of the Riviera and walked across the street.

  Al Adamson was under the hood of a canary yellow, suicide-door Continental, one droplight illuminating his cluttered double-bay garage. He stood up straight, cleaning his hands on a rag, and walked toward them.

  Adamson wore a black fishnet T-shirt tucked into black plain-front flares. The flares ended an inch shy of his oilskin work shoes, revealing black thick-and-thin socks. Adamson’s arm muscles rippled as he wiped his hands clean; his deep brown smoothly shaved dome shone in the light.

  Adamson glanced at Karras’s Hawaiian shirt, his eyes momentarily lighting with amusement. When he looked over at Clay his eyes had hardened and his mouth was set tight.

  “Marcus.”

  “Al.”

  “You found the ones killed my brother?”

  “On our way to meet ’em right now.”

  Adamson said, “I’ll just go ahead and get my shit.”

  He went into a room at the back of the garage. Clay and Karras stood by the Lincoln, not speaking, listening to the tick of an STP clock mounted on the cinder-block wall. Karras didn’t have to ask what Al Adamson had gone to retrieve; he already knew. The knowledge frightened him and excited him at the same time.

  Adamson returned with an olive green pack. He set it on the tool bench against the far wall. Karras and Clay went over to the bench.

  “Got two forty-fives and a thirty-eight Special,” said Adamson.

  “You and me on the automatics,” said Clay. “Give the revolver to Karras.”

  “Here you go, man.” Adamson handed Karras the .38. “It’s ready to go.”

  “That’s it, huh?”

  Adamson nodded. “Point and shoot.”

  Karras held the gun loosely. He stared at it, turning it in his hand.

  Clay took a .45 from the pack, released the magazine, dry-fired toward the wall. He palmed the mag back in the butt and holstered the Colt behind his back.

  Adamson holstered his the same way. He lifted a sheathed Ka-bar knife from the pack, got down on one knee, used the knife to rip his pant leg open six inches up the seam. He resheathed the knife, put his foot up on the bench, grabbed a roll of duct tape, tore off a strip. He taped the sheath tightly to the side of his calf, put his foot back down, shook his pant leg over the knife.

  “That’ll do it,” said Adamson.

  “You bring gloves?”

  “Three sets, in the pack.”

  Clay said, “We best be on our way.”

  Adamson reached up, steadied the droplight, counterclockwised the bulb a half turn. Karras was still staring at the gun in his hand, like he was wondering how it had gotten there, when the garage went to black.

  By nightfall over a million people had converged on the Mall. Traffic below Pennsylvania Avenue, from 12th to 23rd, had come to a stop hours before, and the gridlock had begun to spread north. Motorists parked their cars and abandoned them on the 14th Street bridge, blocking a major route to and from Virginia; many Metrobuses stopped running, stranding riders well into the night; children’s faces, and the faces of their parents, were smashed up against the windows of the packed, newly opened Metro trains. A thousand boats floated in the Potomac River, their occupant’s eyes fixed on the darkening sky.

  On 16th Street, the horns and raised voices of exasperated drivers could not make the traffic move.

  “Better get over to Fourteenth,” said Karras. “Go south, then come on up Fifteenth to the Heights.”

  Clay said, “Right.”

  It took fifteen minutes to get around the block. Then they were on 15th and going up the hill, going slowly so as not to hit the pedestrians standing in the street. They heard a crack like summer thunder and saw a color mix reflected in the windshield’s glass.

  “Fireworks have started,” said Karras.

  “Yes they have,” said Clay.

  “That’s the fireworks,” said Karras. “Isn’t it, Marcus?”

  Clay said, “Relax.”

  Clay stopped in front of Meridian Heights, let the motor run. People moved in and out of the shadows in the park to their left, laughing and shouting; sparklers sailed through the air, died before they hit the ground. On their right, the entrance to the condo building was lit and empty.

  “That it over there?” said Adamson from the backseat as he tightened a pair of black driving gloves over his hands.

  “That’s the place,” said Clay.

  “Where you gonna park the Buick?”

  “Be up a ways, on the street.”

  “Anything else you need to tell me ’bout the setup?”

  “I think I covered it.”

  “I’ll be goin’ in first.”

  “Figured you would.”

  “Get that door opened for you.”

  “Chain cutters are on the floor, Al.”

  “Got ’em. Where you gonna be?”

  “Me and Karras will be at the top of the stairwell, waitin’ on Cooper.”

  “And I’ll be on the roof, backin’ you up.”

  “Al?”

  “No need to say nothin’, Marcus.”

  “Go ahead, then, man.”

  “Gonna get some,” said Adamson, clapping Karras on the shoulder before exiting the car.

  They watched him move across the street, quick and low as a cat, the chain cutters in his hand, the asphalt beneath his feet flaring yellow from the fire of a rocket overhead. And then Adamson had vanished into the building just as quickly as he had sprung from the car.

  “He can really move,” said Karras, the sound of his own voice calming his nerves. “I guess it came in handy for him over there.”

  Clay stared at the entrance to Meridian Heights. “Yeah, he can move. Was always the first one in the jungle, too. Volunteered for the point every time. Never wanted to depend on no one else, I guess. You can’t fault him for it, though. I mean, after all, he managed to do something a lot of others didn’t do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He came back alive.”

  Karras looked at Clay. “You know something, Marcus? That’s the first time you ever talked to me about Vietnam.”

  Clay shrugged. “First time you asked.”

  He gave the Riviera gas and headed up 15th.

  Marcus Clay parked the Riviera in front of a hydrant two blocks north. He killed the engine, slipped his hands into the black driving gloves, touched the handle of the door.

  “You gonna leave it in a fire zone?” said Karras, gloving his own hands.

  “Fuck it,” said Clay. “Ain’t no cop gonna bother with a parking violation tonight. Come on.”

  They jogged down the block, took the steps up through the entrance to Meridian Heights. The lobby was quiet and buzzed with fluorescence. Clay noticed the security guard’s empty desk and chair; Tate had delivered on his promise.

  “The elevator, Dimitri. Let’s go.”

  They went through the open doors. The light was yellow in there, or it appeared that way, reflecting off the yellow walls, and the car bounced slightly as they stepped inside. Karras pushed the button for the top floor. The doors closed.

  “It’s slow,” said Karras as the car ascended to the second floor.

  “Counting on that,” said Clay, looking at his watch.

  Karras drew the gun from behind his back. He hefted it in his hand.

  “Marcus?”

  “What?”

  “I don
’t even know what to do with this.”

  “Like Al said, point it and shoot. And don’t be pullin’ that trigger or yanking back on it. Squeeze that trigger, hear?”

  “When?”

  “I’ll tell you when.”

  The elevator came to a stop. Walking out into a gray-carpeted hallway, they came to a door with a flat black sign on it that read, “Roof.” Clay pushed on the door, and Karras followed.

  They stood on a landing in a darkened stairwell. The stairwell ran floor to floor, descending to the ground level and beyond to the basement. Up above, on another landing at the end of a short flight of stairs, the door had been opened to the roof. Through the door they saw sparkling fingers of green and red reach out and then fade into the night.

  “Up there,” said Clay.

  They took the stairs up to the last landing. Clay found a light switch behind the door, flipped it. A forty-watt bulb washed anemic light onto the landing.

  The padlock and broken chain lay coiled on the concrete. Clay kicked the chain against the wall.

  “Where’s Al?” said Karras.

  Clay said, “On the roof.”

  A heavy sound echoed in the stairwell from far below, and then the indecipherable voices of two men.

  “Get behind the door,” said Clay.

  “Marcus,” said Karras. “I’m—”

  “I know it, man,” said Clay. Before he extinguished the light he added, “I am, too.”

  Ronald Thomas eased up on the accelerator as he neared Meridian Heights on 15th.

  “Park this bitch on the street,” said Cooper.

  “Right here?”

  “Park it.”

  Ronald double-parked beside a tricked-out Chevelle, hit the blinkers. Russell dumped a mound of blow onto the crook of his thumb, hit it all at once. He laid out a mound for his brother, and Ronald took it in. Russell wiped blood off his upper lip and stuffed the Baggie in the glove box.

  “Y’all ready?” said Cooper.

  “Readier than a motherfucker, man,” said Russell. His eyes were jittery and bright.

  Cooper said, “Let’s take it to the bridge.”