Soul Circus

by George Pelecanos

  “Everything all right?” said Walker, so tall in the driver’s seat that his hair was touching the headliner of the car.

  “Mario,” said Durham, as if that were explanation enough. He reached to the radio and turned down the sound.

  “Well?”

  “The gun he used to kill that bitch? It was the same gun Jerome used on that Coates cousin.”

  “Same model?”

  “Same exact gun.”

  “Foreman’s woman said that gun was clean.”

  “I know it. Foreman told her it was. He took a gun had a body on it, a murder gun attached to my own brother, and sold it to Long. Why you think he’d want to put me in that kind of situation?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know.”

  “Could be he didn’t. Or maybe someone wanted to see me get jammed up.”

  “You think Foreman would set you up like that? Why?”

  “That’s what I need to find out.”

  “We better go talk to your brother,” said Walker.

  “Nah, uh-uh. I don’t trust what he’ll tell me, scared as he is. And I don’t trust myself to be around him right now. I’m tellin’ you, Zu, I’m about to kill a motherfucker today. I see him and he starts to lie, I might just go ahead and dead my own brother. I don’t want to do that to my moms.”

  “We could talk to his fool friend, see if Mario said anything about it to him.”

  “Yeah,” said Durham. “Let’s do that.”

  DONUT’S apartment was dirty and it smelled like resin and cigarettes. A window air conditioner ran low and kept the smell in the two-bedroom unit. Donut sat on the couch, wires and controllers around him from the PlayStation 2 connected to his TV. Normally these things were on the living-room table in front of the couch, along with his ashtray and other smoking paraphernalia, his cell, and his CD and game cases. But Bernard Walker had kicked the table over on its side as soon as Donut had let him in, and now Donut’s shit was scattered about the room.

  “I don’t know nothin’,” said Donut. His hands were between his thighs, and he was scissoring his knees together compulsively while staring straight ahead.

  Walker bent his long torso forward so that he could speak softly to the ugly man on the couch. “We ain’t asked you nothin’ yet.”

  “Go ahead and ask me whateva. I got no call to lie.”

  “Just wanted to come by and thank you for looking after my brother like you did,” said Dewayne Durham, standing beside Walker, his voice friendly and calm.

  “This how y’all thank me?” said Donut, his hands spread toward the mess on the living-room floor.

  “I got a couple of questions for you, is all,” said Durham. “Answer straight, and we’ll be gone.”

  “I’m listenin’.”

  “That gun my brother had, the one he used on that girl. He tell you where he got it from?”

  “That Foreman dude,” said Donut.

  “Good. You doin’ all right. Keep answering fast like that and don’t think too hard before you do. Now, Mario say anything about his conversation with Foreman? When he returned the gun to him, I mean.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, did Foreman know that Mario had used that gun on the girl?”

  Donut nodded quickly. “He said Foreman knew it was a murder gun. He knew.”

  Durham looked over at Walker, who nodded one time. They stood there for a while, saying nothing. Donut guessed they were deciding what to do with him. He knew a lot of shit. He prayed they wouldn’t kill him for what he knew. And now he had put the finger on Foreman, too, that big horse, used to be a cop. But he could worry about Foreman later. First thing was, he needed to get out of this situation right here.

  “Donut?” said Durham.

  “Huh?”

  “Listen close.”

  “I am.”

  “You know where Mario’s at?”

  Donut knew. He knew the address of that girl he was stayin’ with and he knew the phone number, too. It was written down on a pad of paper, lying somewhere on the floor with everything else. Mario had called him that morning, talkin’ about the girl and how her ass looked in her jeans, and also about the trouble he was in. But Donut wasn’t about to tell Dewayne Durham all that.

  “No,” said Donut. “I ain’t talked to him since he left out of here.”

  “That’s good for you,” said Walker. “You need to keep it that way.”

  “You know I will.”

  “And you do see him again,” said Durham, “you don’t want to be getting him involved in that dummy bullshit you peddlin’ out on the street.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Aiight, then,” said Durham. “You got my cell number, case you remember anything else?”

  “Mario wrote it down. I know where it is.”

  “Let’s go, Zu.”

  Walker stepped on Donut’s case for NBA Street and broke it on the way out the door.

  In the Benz, Dewayne Durham used his cell to phone Ulysses Foreman. Walker listened to Durham question Foreman about the gun. Durham’s voice was cool and controlled. He never raised it once, not even at the end, when he said to Foreman, “We ain’t settled this yet.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Said he knew the gun had been fired, but Mario told him he was just testin’ it, like it was the Fourth of July, sumshit like that.”

  “So he says he didn’t know.”

  Durham nodded. “That’s what he says.”

  DONUT looked through the slots of his venetian blinds, waiting for the Benz to leave his parking lot. When he was sure they were gone, Donut phoned his friend.

  “Mario.”

  “Dough?”

  “Your brother was here, askin’ about some shit. That gun you used? Maybe it got used in another murder or somethin’ after you turned it in.”

  “I ain’t know nothin’ about that.”

  “I ain’t say you did.”

  “Why was he buggin’, then?”

  “I don’t know. He was just agitated and shit.”

  Donut listened to dead air. He could almost see Mario, his mouth open, staring into space, walking around the room with the cordless in his hand, the other hand in his pocket, jingling change.

  “What else is goin’ on?” said Mario.

  “What else? Mario, you wanted for murder.”

  “I know it.”

  “Look here, Mario, those rocks I gave you? Throw that shit away, man. The vials, too, everything. Your brother don’t want you fuckin’ with no dummies.”

  “Yeah, okay. Dewayne didn’t rough you or nothin’, did he?”

  “Nah,” said Donut. “That Bigfoot-lookin’ motherfucker of his, though, he broke my game case. Just, like, stepped on it.”

  “Madden?”

  “NBA Street.”

  “That shits was already broke.”

  “That ain’t the point.” Donut rubbed his finger along his jawline. “So how’s that girl Dewayne put you in with?”

  “She’s at work.”

  “How is she, though? Is she fine?”

  “Yeah,” said Mario. “I already told you, she got a nice round onion on her, man.”

  “I just like thinkin’ about it.”

  “Donut?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t give me up. You know I can’t do no time.”

  Donut said, “You’re my boy.”

  STRANGE sat behind the wheel of his Caprice in the parking lot of the St. Elizabeth’s McDonalds, the Aiwa minirecorder in his hand barely making a sound as the tape whirred, recording the conversation in the car. Devra Stokes was beside him on the bench. Her son, Juwan, sat in the back, diligently working on a cup of soft chocolate ice cream, humming to himself from time to time. It was hot inside the car; Strange had kept the windows rolled up most of the way in an effort to reduce the ambient noise.

  “And he said this where?” said Strange.

  “This one time?” said Devra.

  “This tim
e you distinctly remember.”

  “Me and Phil were in his car, the Turbo Z. The one Granville had bought him? We were out in the lot of Crystal Skate. Back around then, that used to be where the mob liked to hang. I liked to roller-skate then, and so did Phil. Phil was good.”

  “Do you have a date on this?”

  “Not exactly. It was, like, a few days before Bennett Oliver got murdered in his Jag.”

  “Why do you remember that so clearly?”

  “’Cause when it happened, I thought of Phil right away.”

  “Why?”

  “This night at the skating park, Phil had drunk some wine and had a little smoke. We was in his Z that night, just talkin’. Phil said to me that Bennett had been caught on a wiretap. He said that Granville believed his uncle was gonna flip on him to the Feds, one of those plea-outs they do.”

  “And?”

  “Phil said that Bennett needed to be got.”

  “To be murdered, right?”

  Devra nodded.

  “Answer for the tape, please, Devra.”

  “Yes, to be murdered.”

  “Did Phil say he was going to do it himself?”

  “Yes. Phil said he was the one that would put the work in.”

  “Clarify, please.”

  “Phillip Wood told me that he was gonna kill Bennett Oliver.”

  “Why him? Why not Granville?”

  “Phil said it would be good for him to do it. Good for his career, I mean. It would remove another person above him, make him closer to Granville. In Granville’s eyes, it would make him his main boy.”

  “Were there other instances where Phil talked about this plan?”

  “I guess. But I don’t remember, like, specific. The night at Crystal Skate, it sticks in my mind.”

  “And what happened next?”

  Devra shrugged. “Bennett got shot.”

  “Did Phil Wood say he’d done it?”

  “No. After, he never said nothin’ about it again. And I didn’t ask. I just thought, you know, since he’d told me he was gonna do it, that he’d been the one. I figured it was better I didn’t know for sure. I’d seen what happened to some other people, knew too much.”

  Strange shut off the recorder. “Thank you, Devra. That’s good. That’s exactly what we need.”

  “Will I testify?”

  “Yes, I think you will. My wife will have the subpoena today. It’s not that we’re against you; it’s only to make it official.”

  “And then what?”

  “I talked to Ray Ives. They’re going to get you and Juwan into an apartment, probably over in Northwest. Not the Section Eights. A step or two up.”

  “What, I get a new name or somethin’?”

  “No, it’s not like that. You keep your name and you’re not under any kind of guard. Witnesses are relocated in this city all the time. Long as you’re in another quadrant and you go about your life quietly, usually it’s fine.”

  “Usually.”

  “Right.”

  “You know, living here in Southeast, you hear all about what happens to people who are hot. That Corey Graves thing?”

  “I’m familiar with it,” said Strange.

  “They got him charged with a whole lot of stuff besides the drug business he was runnin’. Witness intimidation. Hiding witnesses. Not to mention all the beef murders he did.”

  “I’m not gonna lie to you. I know it’s risky, and so do you. Question is, why are you being so courageous?”

  Devra looked out the window. “’Cause that motherfucker threatened me. He threatened my son, Mr. Strange. He talked mad shit about my mother, too. And he did things to me he shouldn’t have done.”

  “Horace McKinley.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What did he do?”

  Devra turned her head so that she faced him. “He put his hand on my privates and rubbed it there. He pinched one of my nipples until it hurt so bad I wanted to cry out. But I didn’t cry out. I kept it in. That fat man with his cigar breath, up in my face. I could have killed him then, I had a way. I had so much hate in me.”

  “Where does he stay at?” said Strange. He heard a catch in his voice and swallowed, checking his anger.

  “I don’t know. He hangs with his boys over on Yuma, the six hundred block, in a house, looks like a crack house with all that plywood in the windows, during the day.”

  Strange touched Devra’s forearm. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I admire you, the way you stood strong.”

  “I’m ashamed for what I did when I was younger. Who I hung with, too. But that will never be me again. Just to do nothing, try to put it behind me, it’s not enough. I figure, sometimes you got to do something. Isn’t that right?”

  “You’re a brave young woman.”

  “Not really. Maybe I’m just foolish, like I always been.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Anyway, what should I do now? Just go back to work?”

  “Yes, for right now. How long you on for?”

  “Till closing time. She stays open till ten o’clock.”

  “You don’t want anyone to think anything’s wrong. I’ll call you later at your place and tell you about the next step and the arrangements we’ve made.”

  “Mom,” said Juwan, “this ite cream’s good.”

  “I know it, baby,” said Devra, looking over the seat and smiling at her son.

  “You’re keeping him with you?” said Strange.

  “Yes.”

  “What did you tell Inez today when you left?”

  “That I was taking a break.”

  “She wouldn’t follow you?”

  “She was the only one in the shop. She wouldn’t leave it for nothin’; that shop is everything to her.”

  “That’s a bad little woman right there. My wife works for me, and she did some checking on Inez Brown. Assault priors, check kiting, everything.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Devra’s eyes took all of him in. It was an unexpectedly uncomfortable moment, and Strange shifted in his seat. “So you’re gonna look after me yourself?”

  “Me and my partner. A guy named Terry Quinn.”

  “Where’s he at?”

  “Here in Southeast. We’re workin’ on a couple of things today.”

  “You ever lose a witness?” said Devra.

  “I’ve made mistakes,” said Strange, thinking of Olivia Elliot. “But I’m not gonna lose you.”

  FROM her car on the street, a forest green Hyundai, Inez Brown watched the parking lot of McDonald’s. She had put the Hyundai along the curb just right, so she could see the white Caprice, its tail facing her. She could see Strange and the girl, and the top of the boy’s head in the backseat. But she figured, the way she was behind him, way back on the street, he’d be awfully lucky to notice her car, if Strange even knew what kind of car she drove.

  Devra had said she was goin’ out for lunch and some ice cream for the boy. That’s where she’d fucked up. ’Cause Inez knew the little kid, ran that mouth of his all day long, liked that Golden Arches ice cream best.

  Inez sat on a couple of cushions so she could see over the wheel. She had good eyes. She could see the two of them, the fake cop and the girl, lippin’ in the front seat of his car. That’s all the fat man had asked her to do: find out if these two were still talking, even after she’d been warned. Stupid little bitch, with her young ass, too.

  Inez checked her watch. She’d done her job and now she needed to get back. She didn’t like to be away from her business, not even for a few minutes. No telling the customers she’d lost, doing this thing right here. She’d head back to the salon now. Phone Horace when she got there, tell him what he wanted to know.

  chapter 26

  QUINN put time in out front of Mart Liquors, talking to some of the men and women who were entering and leaving the shop. He spoke to the regulars who hung outside the place as well. Quinn asked them about Mario Durham and a guy named Donut. He showe
d them the flyer of the missing teenager, Linda Welles. Some answered politely and some were bordering on hostile, and a few didn’t bother to respond to his questions at all. He got nothing from any of them. They had made him straight off as some kind of cop.

  He tried the Metro station. He tried the phone banks at the gas stations and accompanying convenience marts. He received the same nonresponse.

  Quinn drove the neighborhoods next. He had no plan. He cruised Stanton Road, passing liquor stores and squat redbrick structures surrounded by black iron fences. He went down Southern Avenue, then got on Naylor Road. On Naylor were more liquor stores, Laundromats, and other service-oriented businesses. Around 30th Street, on a long hill, were the Naylor Gardens apartments, a complex as well tended and green as a college campus. Farther along, up past Naylor Plaza, the apartments abruptly went from clean and pampered to ghetto grim. And farther still were a couple of stand-alone units like those Quinn had visited several times before.

  He slowed his Chevelle and idled it on the street. This was the complex that Linda Welles’s brothers had recognized in the sex video. The party had been held in one of these units. It was where she had last been seen.

  Quinn looked up a rise of dirt and weeds to a three-story bunker of brick. On the stoop sat several young men wearing wife-beaters and low-hung jeans revealing the elastic bands of their boxers, skullies and napkin bandannas. They were passing around a bottle in a brown bag. They looked down at the street, where Quinn’s engine rumbled. One of them, a heavyset young man with blown-out hair, looked directly at Quinn and smiled.

  Quinn pulled off from the curb. He had tried to interview that group earlier, remembered the smiler and his hair. He had had the sense then that they knew something about the fate of Linda Welles, but he hadn’t pushed it. He hadn’t done his job. He remembered feeling weak and punked as he’d driven away from them the last time. And he felt that way now.

  Quinn drove over to the area of Valley Green. He pulled the Chevelle up along some street-side kids on their bikes. He asked about Mario Durham and “a dude named Donut.” He got some shrugs and smart remarks, and watched impotently as the kids rode away, doing wheelies, laughing, cutting on one another and the white man in the old car.