D. C. Noir 2

by George Pelecanos

  “Nothing,” mumbled Lucus.

  “What you gonna do?” asked Jackster.

  Lucus stood wordless until the Klaxon blared the “All out” for those residents with permission to choose the ninety-minute exterior exercise, general population period.

  The blade rode up Lucas’s sleeve when he slipped into his blue-denim prison jacket. As his cellmates grabbed their jackets, Lucus said: “Nice day out there.”

  The yard.

  Inside the Wall, chop a couple football fields and box them in a square with three mammoth cellblocks, double chain-link fences topped with razor and barbed wire. Build guard towers for snipers. Lay down a running track that circles inside the fence a couple steps from the dead zone trip wire. Pave a dozen basketball half-courts in one corner, stick some rusted barbells and concrete benches beside them. Paint some white lines on a cellblock and call them handball courts. Smack in the center, throw up a water tower surrounded by a chain-link fence. Build chain-link fence funnels from the cellblocks and admin building.

  Loose the animals down those funnels.

  The D-Designates clink out there with their chains for thirty minutes after breakfast. General population gets ninety minutes in the afternoon. A-Designates have lunch to dinner access.

  Institution procedures assign twelve pairs of corrections officers to roaming yard patrol during general population period. The budget that day sent five pairs of jerks out to the yard.

  Several hundred inmates funneled through the tunnels.

  Go to the core, thought Lucus. Go to the center of the yard, where you can watch and be ready to move any which way.

  H.L.S. casually strolled a step behind Lucus’s right side.

  No matter how Jackster shuffled, the old dudes hung behind him a half-step and herded him where they wanted.

  J.C. and a squad paraded toward the concrete chess tables in the best sun. J.C. showed his empty face to Lucus. Manster sent the lone wolf a sneer.

  Lucus thought: The hitters’ll take their time, make sure the play is set.

  Kevin and a handful of his crew entered the yard laughing and looking drunk.

  Count six, thought Lucus. Q Street Rockers supposed to be a dozen strong.

  Barry strolled by with three attentive supplicants under his protection.

  The orange-jumpsuited and blue-jacketed sea of inmates parted for Cooley. The hulk’s beady eyes jumped around the yard, seeking a fish.

  “Yo, Jackster!” An inmate Darnell’s age popped out of the crowd twenty feet away, a worn brown basketball spinning in his hands. “We shooting hoops or what?”

  “Ah …” Darnell looked to his cellmates. “I got a game.”

  “Better win,” said Lucus. And he smiled.

  Darnell got an empty stare from Hard Luck Sam.

  Jackster followed the man with the ball to a half-court.

  Twitch stood by the water-tower fence, alone, an invisible wind roaring around him. His gloves were gone, strips of an old blue shirt were wrapped around his hands. Twitch’s eyes bore through Lucus.

  Lucus used both hands to rub his temples, like to rub away the pain.

  Jerome and a posse of his Orchard Terrace crew, a dozen dudes, strolled into the yard, headed for turf opposite Kevin and his bros. Like nothing was on.

  Looking once at Jerome, the world couldn’t tell him apart from Kevin.

  There, in the crowd on Kevin’s flank, positioning by the dead zone wire: one, two—no, three Orchard Terrace boys, the O.T.s fanning out and holding. Waiting.

  Making the box, thought Lucus. No need to check the other flank, O.T.s would be there too.

  The shiv burned along Lucus’s forearm.

  Across the yard, a b-ball game filled a court, the ball clinking through the chain hoop, bouncing off the backboard.

  Jackster caught a pass, made a fast break to the hoop, and laid the ball up in the air. A teammate tipped it in. Dude on the other team slapped Jackster five and jogged down the court with him, mouths a-working. Time out and the five-slapper waved a sub in for himself. Time in. Standing on the sidelines, a spectator got the word on the game from the five-slapper. Dunk shot. Ball in play. Spectator got bored, strolled away from the courts, through the crowd, cut left, cut right, materialized alongside the O.T. posse. Whispered in the main man’s ear. Got a nod. The main man put his arm around Jerome, leaned in to him.

  Standing beside Lucus, H.L.S. said: “Catch that?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Lucus. Two tan uniformed jerks picked their way through the orange-jumpsuited crowd: Adkins and Tate, a too-lean and too-short combo who always got stuck with yard duty and always walked the same beat. They headed for their shake-the-water-tower-fence-gate check, after which they would angle toward the barbells.

  Lucus saw the O.T. posse adjust their cluster, the flankers anticipating the patrol, not letting anybody use the guards to outmaneuver the game plan.

  Adkins, the lean guard, swung the keys retracto-chained to his belt. Shorty Tate kept his eyes on the ground, like he was looking for something. Everybody knew his eyes were in the dust so the cons wouldn’t see his fear. As if they needed to see it. Fear hung like smoke over the small man, who wished yard officers were armed and he didn’t have to rely on the wall snipers.

  Adkins swung his keys and complained about the union and the World Series. Tate locked his eyes in the dust, thinking about how after checking the gate to the water tower, they’d only need to—

  Twitch threw a punch smack between Tate’s shoulder blades, and the small guard crashed into the dust.

  Adkins dropped his keys and the retracto-chain snapped them back to his belt. But before he could whirl around, Twitch was on his back, sliding a thick strip of old shirt around the guard’s neck. One end of the strap was tied to Twitch’s wrist. He looped it around his hand, cinched it tight so the shiv in his fist was locked with the point digging into the guard’s neck.

  “Nobody move!” screamed Twitch. “Anybody moves, I cut his head off and let the mice run out! Nobody moves!”

  The cons cared zero about Adkins, but Twitch’s play stunned them into stillness.

  On the ground, Tate gasped, but managed to push the button on his belt radio.

  Twitch backed toward the water tower, hugging Adkins in front of him with the knife pinned at the base of his skull.

  Guards ran through the jumpsuited crowd, yelled into their radios.

  “Nobody come any closer! Nobody move!” Twitch yelled to the charging guards. “Don’t you clear the yard! You clear the yard, I cut off his head and let the mice run out! Swear to Jesus, you clear the yard, you come at me, he’s dead! Dead! Mice! Ain’t gonna let you clear the yard! No Attica! No clean shots!”

  The guard captain reached the inner ring of spectators near Lucus and called out: “Everybody hold your positions! Everybody! No prisoner moves! Officers stay back! … It’s okay!” he shouted to Twitch as the inmate kept backing toward the water-tower fence. The captain’s words flew over Tate, who stayed facedown in the dust and prayed that the snipers’ aim was true. “You’re okay!”

  A react squad of guards charged out of the admin building. Shotguns, man, buckshot loads bouncing on SWAT belts. They formed a skirmish line facing the cons to be sure nobody tried to cop a point in this psycho drama.

  On the wall, snipers ran to position. Lucus saw sunlight glint off a scope.

  Twitch kept yelling, “Nobody move!” He made Adkins unlock the water-tower gate, stayed pressed against the guard. The Klaxon blared.

  Higgins, radio in hand, moved next to the captain as Twitch maneuvered himself and his hostage up the spiral steel staircase along the outside of the water tower.

  “What the hell is he doing?” asked Higgins.

  “We can’t get a clean shot,” said the captain.

  “Nobody move down there!” yelled Twitch. “Nobody move or we’ll all die!”

  Higgins radioed a report to the warden.

  In his mind, Lucus saw the state police ca
rs in the town a mile beyond the wall, cops choking down donuts and slurping coffee as they turned on their red-and-blue spinning party lights and roared toward the prison.

  Somewhere, Lucus knew, a TV news camera crew was racing to their helicopter.

  Standing on a metal ledge fifty feet above the yard, knife against the guard’s spine, Twitch screamed down: “Don’t move! Kill him if you do! Mice!”

  Radios crackled.

  The dudes started to buzz, whisper, but stood still cause the admin had turned out the shotguns and snipers.

  Higgins’s radio squawked; it was the warden: “What does he want?”

  Cool and careful, Lucus stepped forward.

  “Administrator Higgins!” yelled Lucus, going for the man in charge. “I can do it!”

  “Freeze and stow it!” yelled the captain. A guard swung a shotgun toward Lucus.

  “I can do it!” pleaded Lucus.

  “Do what?” asked Higgins.

  “Get your man down from there alive. Twitch, he thinks I’m, like, one of him. You know I’m the only guy in here who he believes.”

  Captain said: “What the—”

  “He’s crazy, sir,” said Lucus. “But he ain’t stupid.”

  “He’s a dead man!” snapped the captain.

  “Drop him, your guy falls too,” said Lucus, adding: “Sir. Hell to pay for that. Hell to pay even if you just kill Twitch. TV cameras coming. Ask the warden what he wants on the 6 o’clock news.”

  “Resident,” snapped the captain, “you’re ass—”

  “How will you do it?” said Higgins.

  “Careful, sir. Real careful. I can do it, I promise you that. But,” added Lucus, “I’m gonna need something from you.”

  “We don’t—” started the captain.

  “What?” interrupted Higgins, who knew the true priorities.

  “I can’t bargain Twitch down off of there with just Be nice bullshit,” said Lucas.

  “That man’s crazy!” barked the captain.

  “Dead on, sir. And there’s nothing you can threaten him with that he don’t already do to himself in his cell. But you let me tell him he can get transferred to a state hospital—”

  “The courts put him in here as sane,” said the captain.

  “Wasn’t that a smart move.” Lucus jerked his thumb toward the men on the water tower. “You can administratively transfer him to the state hospital for a ninety-day evaluation. Hell, they get him in there. Unless you or his lawyer squawks, they’ll keep him on an ‘indefinite treatment term.’ No doctor gonna risk his state job turning loose a man with a knife talking about mice.”

  “Why would that work?” asked Higgins.

  “Cause I’ll sell Twitch the truth. Hospital is co-ed. Nurses. Better drugs, better beds, more sun, people who treat him like he is. He might be crazy, but he ain’t no fool … Course, there is one more problem.”

  “What?” chorused the captain and Higgins.

  “Why risk my ass doing that? Long climb up that tower. Long fall down.”

  “You get my man back,” ordered the captain, “or—”

  “Or what—sir? My lockup order don’t make me a hostage negotiator. I get punished for being a no-volunteer, some lawyer will make the admin eat it big-time.”

  “What do you want?” asked Higgins.

  “Nothing much,” said Lucus. “A righteous deal—admin breaks its word on this, it’ll get brutal in here, then real soon admin will need credibility with us residents to save something or somebody else.”

  “What do you want?” repeated Higgins.

  “That little matter we talked about earlier will do.”

  Captain said: “What?”

  Higgins pushed his steel eyes against Lucus. Lucus didn’t fold. Higgins bargained in the radio with the warden.

  “That a TV news helicopter I hear chopping close?” said Lucus.

  Higgins lowered his radio. Told Lucus: “Go.”

  Sam, Kevin, and Darnell, Cooley and J.C. and Manster, Jerome and the O.T. posse, Barry, Higgins, and the admin—everybody watched Lucus. Heard him yell to Twitch that he was coming up. Heard him talking about deals, making it cool. Watched Lucus climb that spiral staircase as his words faded in the October wind. Watched three men on a platform high above the yard. Watched them with cold eyes and sniper-scoped rifles—for maybe ten minutes: Nobody took their eyes off the three men to time it.

  A helicopter chopped the air above the institution.

  Movement on the ledge—a sliver of glistening steel tumbled down through the sky to the yard.

  Guard Adkins scurried down the water-tower steps.

  Higgins, into the radio: “No fire! Repeat, no fire!”

  Half a dozen guards grabbed Twitch when he reached the bottom of the stairs, handcuffed him, and led him away. Everybody knew the guards would use rubber hoses on him inside, but even the meanest jerk knew the deal had to stand.

  Lucus walked toward Higgins and H.L.S.

  Higgins said something to the captain, who frowned, but nodded when the message was repeated as a command.

  The captain and two of his shotgun boys marched through the crowd of prisoners. Marched up to Kevin.

  “You!” yelled the captain. “Let’s go!”

  “Me?” said Kevin as the shotguns swung his way. “Hey! What’s this shit? I didn’t do anything! I didn’t do anything!”

  And as the guards hustled him away to pack his personal gear, the yard watched.

  Higgins nodded to Lucus, went home to his family.

  The Klaxon sounded “Return to cells.” Shotguns on the yard watched everybody shuffling back inside.

  J.C. was lost in the crowd.

  For a heartbeat, Lucus glimpsed Jerome and the O.T. posse.

  Roll up on that boy next yard time, thought Lucus. Brace him, but let him back down. His posse won’t be so hot to dance with me, and he’ll know it. The Word will advise him to keep his cool: The chump he wanted ain’t around no more, the beef is over, and a respected, evil dude like me … Word is, don’t mess with Lucus.

  Walking beside Lucus, like he was reading the man’s mind, H.L.S. said: “What about our spy boy Darnell?”

  “Oh, I’ll think of something for Jackster.”

  “Hard luck,” said Sam.

  As they strolled to the tunnel, other dudes kept a respectful distance from the two old cons.

  Sam said: “I gots to know. Just exactly what did you tell Twitch to make him drop the blade and climb down from there?”

  Lucus whispered: “Same thing I said to make him grab the guard in the first place.”

  THE DEAD THEIR EYES IMPLORE US

  BY GEORGE PELECANOS

  Chinatown

  (Originally published in 2002)

  Someday I’m gonna write all this down. But I don’t write so good in English yet, see? So I’m just gonna think it out loud.

  Last night I had a dream.

  In my dream, I was a kid, back in the village. My friends and family from the chorio, they were there, all of us standing around the square. My father, he had strung a lamb up on a pole. It was making a noise, like a scream, and its eyes were wild and afraid. My father handed me my Italian switch knife, the one he gave me before I came over. I cut into the lamb’s throat and opened it up wide. The lamb’s warm blood spilled onto my hands.

  My mother told me once: Every time you dream something, it’s got to be a reason.

  I’m not no kid anymore. I’m twenty-eight years old. It’s early in June, 1933. The temperature got up to one hundred degrees today. I read in the Tribune, some old people died from the heat.

  Let me try to paint a picture, so you can see in your head the way it is for me right now. I got this little one-room place I rent from some old lady. A Murphy bed and a table, an icebox and a stove. I got a radio I bought for a dollar and ninety-nine. I wash my clothes in a tub, and afterwards I hang the roocha on a cord I stretched across the room. There’s a bunch of clothes—pantalonia and one of my
work shirts and my vrakia and socks—on there now. I’m sitting here at the table in my union suit. I’m smoking a Fatima and drinking a cold bottle of Abner-Drury beer. I’m looking at my hands. I got blood underneath my fingernails. I washed real good but it was hard to get it all.

  It’s 5, 5:30 in the morning. Let me go back some, to show how I got to where I am tonight.

  What’s it been, four years since I came over? The boat ride was a boat ride so I’ll skip that part. I’ll start in America.

  When I got to Ellis Island I came straight down to Washington to stay with my cousin Toula and her husband Aris. Aris had a fruit cart down on Pennsylvania Avenue, around 17th. Toula’s father owed my father some lefta from back in the village, so it was all set up. She offered me a room until I could get on my feet. Aris wasn’t happy about it but I didn’t give a good goddamn what he was happy about. Toula’s father should have paid his debt.

  Toula and Aris had a place in Chinatown. It wasn’t just for Chinese. Italians, Irish, Polacks, and Greeks lived there too. Everyone was poor except the criminals. The Chinamen controlled the gambling, the whores, and the opium. All the business got done in the back of laundries and in the restaurants. The Chinks didn’t bother no one if they didn’t get bothered themselves.

  Toula’s apartment was in a house right on H Street. You had to walk up three floors to get to it. I didn’t mind it. The milkman did it every day and the old Jew who collected the rent managed to do it too. I figured, so could I.

  My room was small, so small you couldn’t shut the door all the way when the bed was down. There was only one toilet in the place, and they had put a curtain by it, the kind you hang on a shower. You had to close it around you when you wanted to shit. Like I say, it wasn’t a nice place or nothing like it, but it was okay. It was free.

  But nothing’s free, my father always said. Toula’s husband Aris made me pay from the first day I moved in. Never had a good word to say to me, never mentioned me to no one for a job. He was a sonofabitch, that one. Dark, with a hook in his nose, looked like he had some Turkish blood in him. I wouldn’t be surprised if the gamoto was a Turk. I didn’t like the way he talked to my cousin either, ’specially when he drank. And this malaka drank every night. I’d sit in my room and listen to him raise his voice at her, and then later I could hear him fucking her on their bed. I couldn’t stand it, I’m telling you, and me without a woman myself. I didn’t have no job then so I couldn’t even buy a whore. I thought I was gonna go nuts.