“I know it.”
“You don’t give up much.”
“That’s true.”
“When we started seeing each other, I couldn’t foresee that it was going to get as deep as it did. In the beginning, I was looking for a break from my routine, not more complication. After a while, you were all I thought about. I thought about you at work, I thought about you when I was with my husband…You were taking up too much space in my head. What was happening between us scared me.”
“And you felt you had to end it. Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”
“I didn’t know how you’d react.”
“Shit,” said Lucas.
“No, listen. You want me to be honest with you, so let me say it.”
“Go ahead.”
“My husband is a steady guy. Maddeningly so. I told you this from day one. But with that came a stability I could rely on. I started to think, I should meet him halfway. Initiate more intimacy instead of just waiting for him to make a move. Make him go out on dates, or book weekends out of town. Talk to him more. Try to recapture what we had when we first met. Try. Because I wasn’t going to leave him.”
“Leave him for me, you mean.”
“For anyone. I didn’t mislead you about that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Truthfully, I never stopped caring for him. And if I was going to stay with him, I knew I was in for a long world of hurt and frustration if I just allowed things to stay the way they were.”
“So my intensity made you appreciate your husband’s steady personality. Is that it? You’re saying being with me drove you back to him?”
“In a way. You were a bridge.”
“Glad to be of service.”
“Please, don’t be that way.”
“Charlotte, what’s going on? For real.”
“My husband and I are taking small steps. That’s all I know for now. As for you and me…” She wrapped her fingers around his biceps and this time he let her. “Spero, I’m sorry.”
In his movie, he saw her asking him if he’d like to go up to her room, one last time. He’d consider it, because she was beautiful, and he knew how it would be between them, and he loved her. She’d ask, and he’d turn her down. He’d be the one to drive the final nail in, not her. Walk from the bar unscathed, with his head up.
But Charlotte didn’t ask him. Instead, she told him that she needed to get home. She reached for her wallet, but he stopped her and paid the tab in cash.
Out by the valet stand, waiting for his Jeep, he looked down at the palm of his hand. The wormy, crescent-shaped mark, pale red and pronounced, had settled into the shape of a C.
Lucas laughed.
C for Charlotte. He’d wear her scar for the rest of his life.
One evening in October, as the sun began to set, Lucas dressed in black shorts, a black T-shirt, and bike shoes, and put some items into a backpack. His face was grim as he worked.
Lucas had checked D.C. Homicide Watch daily to see if there had been any movement on the Cherise Roberts case. There had been none.
On three occasions, Lucas had surveilled Percy Malone, who always left his apartment at the same time for his walk and liquor store run. Lucas had waited weeks for nightfall to coincide with Percy’s habitual behavior. In August, when Lucas had first followed him, there had still been daylight as Percy had stepped out his front door. Now Percy left at night.
There was no internal debate. Lucas put his bike on his shoulder and carried it downstairs. With his bag slung over his back, he pedaled down to Park View in the gathering dark.
Percy Malone stepped out of his apartment at the usual time. He stood on his stoop and eyed the street like a sick, hungry animal emerging from the woods. Lucas was at the bottom of Princeton Place, leaning on his bike. He watched Percy go east on foot toward Warder. He watched him stop to light his weed, and then he waited as the spidery man moved on. Percy was walking his smoke.
Lucas followed, granny-gearing up the hill. At Princeton and Warder he saw Malone turn right past the rec center, onto Otis. Lucas took his daypack off and from it removed his lead-filled sap, wrapped in black electrician’s tape. He slung the pack over his shoulder and held the sap loosely in his right hand. He got back on his saddle and pedaled to Otis, where he cut right and went down to 6th. There he made another right into the short stretch of alley. It was full dark.
Lucas waited. Percy Malone would now be walking south on the alley that ran behind Princeton. Lucas heard the deep bark of a large dog coming from a yard. He proceeded to ride. He took the short stretch and turned left at Princeton’s alley. He coasted now and let his momentum take him down the hill. Percy was halfway down the alley, walking. He turned his head at the sound of Lucas’s bike, turned his head back, and stepped slightly to the right to let the white-boy biker pass, and as the bike came alongside him, its rider swung the sap violently. It made a wet sound as it connected to the back of Percy’s head. Percy fell forward, unconscious on his way to the alley floor. The dog, a dark figure moving about excitedly in a nearby yard, continued to bark, but no one came outside.
Lucas leaned his bike against a chain-link fence and slid the sap into his shorts. From his pack, he quickly removed his Berretta, the silencer screwed into its threaded barrel. He released the safety, chambered a round, and stood over Percy, who was lying facedown. His tightly curled hair was matted with blood. A lit joint was lying beside him, its ember glowing orange.
Lucas crouched down and rolled Percy over on his back. He was breathing through his open mouth. Lucas slipped the suppressor into Percy’s mouth and put his finger inside the trigger guard of the gun.
Lucas eyed him clinically.
The gas jolt would bug his eyes. A little barrel-smoke would curl out of his mouth. Funny. It would look like Percy was smoking a cigarette.
You are me, fella.
Lucas’s finger slipped on the trigger. His hand felt slick. He was dizzy. He stood up. There was sweat on his forehead and he wiped it off.
Lucas put the gun in his daypack and walked to his bike. He swung onto its saddle and rode uptown.
In his apartment he had a shower, then took a seat in his favorite chair. Next to the chair sat a lamp and a small side table that held books. The Berretta and its silencer lay there, atop a thick biography. Lucas intended to unload and disassemble the weapon, and put it back in the toolbox under the false floor of his closet. But there was something he needed to do first.
He phoned Tim McCarthy, his contact at the MPD. He got a recording, left a message, and waited for Tim to return his call. He didn’t have to wait long.
“What’s going on, Marine?”
“I’ve got something for you, Tim. It’s a homicide case. The Cherise Roberts murder.”
“You mentioned that one before.”
“I know you’re IA. It’s not your department, but I have no one else to call.”
“Whatever you give me, I’ll pass it along.”
“A guy named Percy Malone killed Cherise. In effect, he was her pimp. Percy confessed to a fellow named Josh Brown when both of them were incarcerated in the D.C. Jail. Brown’s still in. Percy’s out on the street.”
“A jailhouse confession.”
“Hear me out.”
“What’s Brown in for?”
“Manslaughter.”
“Lovely.”
“He’ll testify. A guy named Calvin Bates will back him up.”
“That’s all you got?”
“The killer left semen in Cherise’s rectum and on her face. You pick up Percy and DNA him, you’re gonna get a match.”
“Spell all those names for me.”
Lucas did it, and gave up Malone’s address.
“I’ll let you know if this pans out.”
“It will.”
“You doin all right?” said McCarthy.
Lucas said, “I’m fine.”
He ended the call.
He sat in his chair and t
hought of the dead. He looked at the gun lying on the table beside him. He picked up the gun and held it in his hand. He pulled back on the receiver and eased a round into its chamber. He turned the gun in the light.
I’ve killed. I’ll kill again.
To what end? What good has it done?
Lucas stared at the gun.
I could stop this now.
“Fuck it,” he said. He put the gun back on the table.
Lucas got up, walked into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator door. He grabbed a Stella and uncapped it. Standing in the dim light of a forty-watt bulb, he drank the shoulders off the bottle. The beer was good.
I’m all right, thought Lucas.
I’m fine.
Acknowledgments
This novel references and honors the work of John D. MacDonald, Charles Willeford, and Don Carpenter. Those authors, and many others, were influential in the creation of Spero Lucas and The Double. Many thanks to Jon Norris, Joe Aronstamn, Andy Moursund, and Natalie Hopkinson for their help during the research phase. Thanks go out as well to Michael Pietsch, Marlena Bittner, Tracey Williams, Betsy Uhrig, Keith Hayes, Heather Fain, Karen Torres, and all at Little, Brown. My editor and friend, Reagan Arthur, worked this into shape. I’m blessed to have her on my side. Sloan Harris, gentleman lit agent, raconteur, and sportsman, did what he does best. Alicia Gordon and Greg Hodes represented on the film and TV side. Finally, my sincere thanks to the readers. Long live traditional publishing, long live books.
About the Author
George Pelecanos is the author of several highly praised and bestselling novels, including The Cut, What It Was, The Way Home, The Turnaround, and The Night Gardener. He is also an independent-film producer, an essayist, and the recipient of numerous international writing awards. He was a producer and Emmy-nominated writer for The Wire and currently writes for the acclaimed HBO series Treme. He lives in Maryland.
george-pelecanos.com
Also by George Pelecanos
The Double
What It Was
The Cut
The Way Home
The Turnaround
The Night Gardener
Drama City
Hard Revolution
Soul Circus
Hell to Pay
Right as Rain
Shame the Devil
The Sweet Forever
King Suckerman
The Big Blowdown
Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go
Shoedog
Nick’s Trip
A Firing Offense
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Welcome
Epigraph
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by George Pelecanos
Newsletters
Table of Contents
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2013 by George P. Pelecanos
Cover design by Keith Hayes.
Cover photograph © Loungepark / Getty Images.
Author photograph by Max Hirshfeld.
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
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First ebook edition: October 2013
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN 978-0-316-25591-2
Table of Contents
Title Page
Welcome
Epigraph
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by George Pelecanos
Newsletters
Table of Contents
Copyright
The Double Page 23