The Way Home

by George Pelecanos

  Ben looked down at his bare feet. It was warm in the room, and a cool vodka drink sounded good. Might be a way to get Lawrence out of this apartment and out of his world. Drive around and sip some, find out what he wanted, then say good-bye.

  “What say you, Big Man?” said Lawrence.

  “Let me get my shoes,” said Ben.

  As Ben went into his bedroom, Lawrence inspected the leather tool belt hanging on a hook by the front door. In one of its pouches he found a razor knife with a hooked end. He replaced it as he heard Ben’s heavy footsteps heading back into the room.

  “Let’s get that drink,” said Lawrence.

  They bought a large bottle of cold grapefruit juice at the 7-Eleven on Kansas Avenue and emptied half of it out in the parking lot. Lawrence drove back down Blair and then North Capitol while Ben filled the bottle from a fifth of Popov vodka. He closed the lid of the juice bottle tightly and shook it, mixing the vodka and grapefruit.

  They passed the bottle back and forth. Lawrence turned left on H Street and drove east. Ben relaxed and sat low in the seat. He kept his arm on the lip of the window and held his hand palm-out to catch the air. The car was an old Chevy Cavalier and it barely contained him. But he felt good. The vodka was working pleasantly on his head.

  “I got this nephew,” said Lawrence Newhouse.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Name of Marquis. My sister’s boy.”

  “Okay.”

  “Sixteen years old. Had a few problems here and there. Loitering, possession, like that. He’s up on charges right now, but they gonna slap his wrist, most likely. He’s not cut out for that business no how. I tried to tell him, you gonna be in the game, at least show some heart. But the boy didn’t listen. Police came up on him and he said, ‘Here.’ ” In illustration, Lawrence touched his wrists together so that they were cuff-ready. “He’s thick like that.”

  Maybe he took a look at you and saw what the life would get him, thought Ben.

  “Kids be hardheaded sometimes,” said Ben.

  “Exactly.” Lawrence looked over at Ben. “Gimme that bottle, man. You hoggin that shit.”

  Ben handed him the bottle. Lawrence drank sloppily, and some of the vodka and juice rolled down his chin. He fitted the bottle between his legs and made a sweeping gesture with his hand toward the street.

  “City don’t look like it did,” said Lawrence. “Got bars and clubs for white people now in Northeast. On H Street. You believe it? Graybeards down by my way talk about H Street burning down during those riots they had, what, forty years ago. Took a while, but now the white folk got their hands in this, too. They were waitin on it to hit bottom all along so they could buy it up cheap. Just like they did on U.”

  As usual, Lawrence had oversimplified the situation and taken the conversation into the realm of conspiracy. There were all kinds of people, owners and customers, in these new bars and restaurants, not just whites. They were young and they dressed better than Lawrence and Ben, and probably had more school. They had a little money and they wanted nice places to sit and hang with their dates and friends. One or two of these nightspots had opened up, and then they started to multiply. It was progress, and people got displaced because of it, and that was a shame, but Ben didn’t feel it was all to the bad. On this street here, there were lights on in windows that had once been dark, and jobs for people who needed work, and folks spending money to keep it going. Anyway, once the ball started to roll, wasn’t anyone could stop it.

  “No Metro on H Street,” said Ben, recalling what Chris had told him earlier in the day. “That’s why it took so long to turn.”

  At 8th, near the bus shelter that was always crowded with locals, a group of young men were running across the street, stopping traffic, yelling at the occupants of cars.

  “It ain’t turned all the way yet,” said Lawrence.

  “What about your nephew?”

  “Right. Ali Carter’s trying to help him out. Ali’s at that place down on Alabama Avenue, Men Move Upstairs, or whatever they call it. He’s workin with at-risk kids, finding them jobs and stuff. I respect that, you know?”

  “So?”

  “He means well, but I feel like he selling my nephew short. Tryin to put Marquis into a Mac-Donald’s or a Wendy’s.”

  “It’s somethin.”

  “But he’s better than that. Boy needs a real job. Like the kind of work you and White Boy do.”

  “What about it?”

  “I was thinking, you know, White Boy’s father could maybe put Marquis on. Teach him so he learns a trade. So Marquis doesn’t have to take some dumb-ass job where he got to wear a paper hat and get laughed at.”

  “Lawrence, I don’t know. I mean, we got our crews set. I don’t see Mr. Flynn hiring anybody new right now.”

  “You can ask, can’t you? This for my nephew, man.”

  “Yeah, I can ask.”

  “You my boy, B. You know this.”

  They drove down to the new baseball stadium on South Capitol Street. Ben had not yet seen it except in photographs. There was no game that night, but the stadium was lit up and they parked and admired it, and finished what was in the bottle. A security vehicle drove by, and its occupant shone a light in their car, accelerated, and turned a corner up ahead.

  “He gonna come around again,” said Lawrence, cranking the ignition of the Cavalier. “They always got to be funny.”

  Lawrence drove east on M Street and they went past a corporate headquarters of some kind. The road wound and dipped down along the old marinas, where modest powerboats were docked, some sitting beneath colorful Christmas lights strung overhead, tucked in along the banks of the Anacostia River. Lawrence kept on cruising and pulled over near a land leg of the Sousa Bridge, in a spot where old men and kids sat on overturned plastic buckets and fished during the day; it was deserted now.

  Lawrence reached under his seat and found a joint of weed he had freaked in a Black & Mild wrapper, and he slipped it into the breast pocket of his oversize shirt.

  “Let’s walk,” he said.

  They got out of the car and crossed the road. Lawrence used a lighter to fire up the blunt, and by the time they had made it to the railroad tracks it was live. The road down here dead-ended eventually, so if the police were to roll through, which they did often, it would be trouble. But Lawrence only carried enough weed to eat and be done with if need be. The police could make out that you were high, they could smell it on you, they could even see the smoke coming out your mouth, but they couldn’t do shit if you had none on you. Lawrence knew the law, or so he told anyone who would listen. He felt that he was slick like that.

  He offered the blunt to Ben, who took it and drew on it deep. Ben loved to get after it, but he only smoked occasionally with Chris outside work, and sometimes with his girl, Renee. He was careful to get his head right in places where he was comfortable and around people he trusted and felt safe with. Tonight, though, he made an exception. Lawrence was all right. He could be, sometimes. It would be bad manners to turn him down. Also, Ben was near gone on the alcohol. When he got like that, he craved a little marijuana to take him up further and, at the same time, even out his high.

  They walked the tracks and smoked the joint down. Laughing and wasted, they returned to the car. Lawrence got the bottle of Popov from the Cavalier, and the two of them sat on the hood, facing Anacostia Park across the river, watching the lights from the bridge lamps play on the water, passing the alcohol back and forth, drinking warm vodka and feeling its burn.

  “Pretty from here,” said Ben.

  “East of the river?” said Lawrence. “Nicest part of town, you ask me. That’s the high point of D.C. High and green. You ever been on the grounds of Saint Elizabeth’s?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “They got a bench on the top of a hill where you can sit and look down at the whole damn city. I mean, it’s nice.”

  “Why were you there?”

  “I got sent there. Understand, I w
asn’t crazy or nothin like that.” Lawrence looked at Ben, then looked away. “I just didn’t want to be in regular lockup no more. I’m talkin about when I was incarcerated in the adult facility. People always muggin you and, you know, challenging you. I got tired of it. So I acted all messed up.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “It ain’t all that important what I did. Point is, I got moved. They transferred me over to Saint E’s for a little bit. Had some good-ass meds in there, too.”

  Ben reached for the bottle. The lights on the water had blurred, and the bridge split apart and kind of flew off and came back together.

  “Sounds tough,” said Ben.

  “Well, it was better than the joint. But I could only fool them white coats for so long.”

  “Anyway, it’s all behind us.”

  “Yeah, it’s past,” said Lawrence. “I ain’t goin back to none ’a that.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “I just wish shit was easier.” Lawrence took the bottle from Ben’s hand and swigged from it. He wiped vodka from his chin. “I guess I’ll be workin the rest of my damn life. Ain’t gonna be no money tree growin in my yard.”

  “There is such a thing, though. For real.”

  “Shit.”

  “I saw one. Wasn’t no tree, though. It was a bag.”

  “Fuck you talkin about, man?”

  “I found a bag of cash today,” said Ben. “Me and Chris did, on the job.”

  “How you gonna lie like that?”

  “I’m not. I counted it myself. And I put it back where it was my own self, too.”

  “What, you just left it there?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “For what reason?”

  “There were fifty thousand reasons to take it. Right now, I can’t say why I didn’t. But that ship sailed out the harbor. Can’t do anything about it now.”

  Lawrence handed Ben the bottle. “Where was that at, B?”

  Ben told him the story, and the row house address, and, because Lawrence deftly and gently prodded him, every other detail that he could remember. And when he was done talking, realizing that he was too drunk and high, and that he had to be up for work early in the morning, he asked Lawrence to drive him home.

  Lawrence grinned and said he would.

  FIFTEEN

  COME DOWN here,” said Thomas Flynn. “Dream with me.”

  Thomas Flynn was in the home of Eric and Linda Wasserman. He was on his knees in their living room, pitching carpet. A large book of samples was open beside him.

  Linda Wasserman, a blonde in her midthirties, stood over Flynn, her arms crossed. Her husband was at work and their child was at sleepaway camp. She had a toned body, a perfect dye job, immaculately pedicured feet at rest in designer sandals, and lovely skin. Flynn reckoned she spent a great deal of time working out and getting worked on. He was in the presence of new Potomac money.

  “Come on down here,” said Flynn again.

  “Should I?”

  “Absolutely!”

  Linda Wasserman got down on all fours. She was looking to replace her living-room carpet with something nicer. The Wassermans had recently bought the house and inherited its shag carpeting and scuffed-up floors.

  Flynn was there to guide her and make a sale. He was trying not to concentrate on her tight, perfect ass, which was small enough to fit into one of his hands. It would be like palming a basketball. You could actually carry her around the house, thought Flynn. She’s light enough. Put her in one hand and rest her on your hip, hold a beer in the other, and walk her to the bedroom.

  What’s wrong with me? thought Flynn. And in his head he heard a reply: Nothing that isn’t wrong with any other man.

  “Now what?” said Linda Wasserman.

  Flynn had his fingers deep in one of the samples, and he was kneading it while looking into her eyes.

  “Put your hand on this,” said Flynn. Meaning the sample.

  She reached out and stroked the carpet sample. As she leaned forward, her breasts became pendulous beneath her pullover blouse, one of those jobs with an oval cutout and a little string tied at the scoop of the neck.

  “Plush pile,” said Flynn. “It’s sheared several times to give it a velvety sheen. Imagine walking on this. You’re not going to want to wear shoes in this room, I can tell you that. Neither are your guests.”

  “We don’t actually use the living room much.”

  “Perfect. This is low-traffic carpet.”

  “It is nice,” she said. “Is it expensive?”

  “Yes,” said Flynn. With her, the high cost would be a positive. But not too high. They weren’t stupid rich. “It’s not overextravagant, mind you. It’s the Benz of carpet, rather than the Ferrari.”

  “Hmm.” She caught him glancing at her breasts and quickly got to her feet. “I’m going to have to discuss this with my husband, Mr. Flynn.”

  “Of course,” said Flynn, standing more slowly than she because of his aging knees. “My wife and I always talk about these kinds of purchases before we come to a decision. Let me just size this out and give you an estimate.”

  While he was measuring the room, his cell rang. He read the caller ID, prepared himself mentally, and answered. With one finger he made an “excuse me” sign to Linda Wasserman, then he walked out of the room.

  “Thomas Flynn speaking.”

  “Mr. Flynn, this is Mindy Kramer.”

  “Hello, Mindy—”

  “I need to see you down at the job site right away.”

  Clearly she was agitated. But with these aggressive, hard-charging types, it could be nothing more than a few drops of soda spilled on a hardwood floor by a worker, or a piece of the old carpet left behind on the site. A negotiating ploy to get the price of the job down.

  “Is there a problem?” said Flynn.

  “A very serious problem.”

  “With the product or the installation?”

  “The installation. Maybe the product. I don’t know.”

  “So I should send my guys down.”

  “I’d like you here, too. Frankly, I have no faith in them at this point.”

  “Can you just elaborate a little bit so I know what we’re talking about here?”

  “I don’t have time. The police are here, Mr. Flynn, and I have to go. On top of the subpar work that was done by your men, this house was broken into last night.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Okay. I’ve got to finish up here, but it won’t be long.”

  “I’ll see you shortly.”

  Flynn phoned Chris and asked him if he knew the nature of Mindy Kramer’s malfunction. Chris, on a Northwest job with Ben, told him that the install at her row house had been clean and error free. Flynn caught a bit of hesitation in Chris’s voice that did not comfort him.

  “Finish up what you’re doing,” said Flynn, “and meet me down at the house.”

  Flynn gave Linda Wasserman her estimate, deliberately not allowing his eyes to drop below her chin as he explained the pricing and terms. He shook her hand and headed back down into the city.

  FLYNN SPOTTED a Third District cruiser on the street as he pulled up near Mindy Kramer’s row house. He went through the unlocked front door and followed the sound of Mindy Kramer’s distinctive voice to the kitchen at the rear.

  The kitchen door opened to a small deck whose steps led down to the alley. Mindy Kramer and two young uniformed officers, a woman and a man, were standing on the deck. Mindy was smoking a long, thin white cigarette, gesturing with it as she spoke to the two rather uninterested-looking police.

  “I don’t have an alarm system,” Mindy Kramer was saying, as Flynn joined the group. “I’m flipping this place, so I’m not going to invest in one. And you don’t want to try and sell a home with bars on its windows. I mean, the house is unfurnished, so what’s there to steal?”

  “Whoever broke in didn’t know that till he got inside,” said the female officer.

  “That’s right,” said Flynn, just t
o inject himself into the conversation.

  The female police officer looked at Flynn. “And you are?”

  “He’s here for something else,” said Mindy Kramer, by way of both introduction and dismissal, waving at him with her cigarette, waving him away.

  The male officer drifted and eyed the severely splintered doorjamb. It looked to Flynn as if a jimmy or crowbar had been taken to it. It had been an unprofessional and successful effort.

  “It could have been kids,” said Mindy Kramer. “Or a junkie. I don’t care who it was. But you’d think the neighbors would have heard something. A couple of people on this block have dogs, for God’s sake.”

  “We’ll knock on some doors,” said the female officer. “See what we can find out.”

  “Aren’t you going to dust for prints?” said Mindy Kramer.

  The female officer looked at Flynn for a moment and light danced in her eyes. They could “dust” the whole house, but, short of walking into the 3D station himself and confessing to the crime, this particular perpetrator, who apparently had stolen nothing, would not be brought to justice.

  “First thing, I’m gonna need to fill out a report,” she said.

  “Ach,” said Mindy Kramer, rolling her eyes. It was as if the officer had told her that she was about to be strip-searched.

  “Excuse me,” said Flynn. “About that problem.”

  “Go have a look at it,” said Mindy Kramer. “You’ll see what I’m talking about right away. I have to stay here and help her fill out a report.”

  Flynn exchanged another commiserating look with the officer before moving away.

  He was not in love with the police, but he was empathetic about the job they did and the people they had to deal with every day. He had never once regretted his decision to leave the MPD, but he was glad he had experienced that life, if only for less than a year. The brevity of his tenure aside, the man in blue had never left his blood entirely.

  He owned a .38 Special, which had been the MPD sidearm in his day, before the force switched over to the Glock 17. Though it probably wasn’t true that all police felt naked without a gun after their retirement, it happened to be true for Flynn. Despite the District handgun ban, recently lifted, he had bought the revolver hot from one of his installers and kept it loaded in the nightstand beside his bed. He liked knowing that there was a firearm within reach. Given the relative safety of his neighborhood, his decision to own an illegal gun was emotional rather than rational. He realized he’d pay a heavy price if he was caught with it, but he was willing to take the risk.