The Turnaround

by George Pelecanos

  “I know it. I know. Billy was . . .” Alex tried to find the word. “Billy was crippled, man. His father made him that way. It wasn’t even hate, because he didn’t have that kind of thing in him. He was a good friend. He was looking out for me, even at the end. I really believe that he would have turned out fine. If he had lived, if he had gotten out of that house and into the world, on his own, he would have been fine. He’d be sitting with us here today, having a beer. He would. If he had only lived through that day.”

  “What about you?” said James. “What’s your story?”

  “My brother’s sayin, why were you with them?” said Raymond. “Because we’ve talked about it. And both of us remember that you were just sitting in the backseat. You didn’t yell anything and you didn’t throw anything. So why were you there?”

  “I wasn’t an active participant,” said Alex. “That’s true. But it doesn’t absolve me. I could have been stronger and told Billy to stop what he was about to do. I could have gotten out of the car at that stoplight, up at the entrance to your neighborhood. If I had just done that and walked home, I wouldn’t be carrying this goddamn scar. But I didn’t. The truth is, I’ve always been a passenger, riding in the backseat. That’s no excuse. I’m telling you, it’s who I am.”

  James nodded, his eyes unreadable. Raymond stared down at the stones in the alley.

  “What about you guys?” said Alex. “Anything you want to say?”

  Raymond looked at James, imposing and implacable in his chair.

  “Okay,” said Alex. “I’ll just keep going, then. You know the other night, when we were in the garage? The night I met you, James. You and your brother were revisiting your lifelong argument, the Earl Monroe versus Clyde Frazier thing. Raymond, you were talking about it, and I saw a shadow cross your face.”

  “That was just a tiny shadow,” said James, forcing a smile. “That was the little man Gavin walking into the garage to give me hell. Man throws dark on all of our worlds, doesn’t he, Ray?”

  Raymond Monroe did not respond.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” said Alex, “at the time. But then I got thinking further. I’m talking way back, to when I was a teenager. In the seventies, you couldn’t buy replica jerseys like you can today. Maybe upper-class kids could, but I don’t recall seeing any. We used to make our own, with Magic Markers. Put the name and numbers of our favorite players on the front and back of our white T-shirts, go to the courts, and play ball like we were those players. I know you guys did the same thing. I had one I made with Gail Goodrich’s name on it. Small shooting guard for the Lakers.”

  “White boy out of UCLA,” said James. “They called him Stumpy. Had a nice jumper, too.”

  “Yeah,” said Alex. “Goodrich wore number twenty-five. I also made an Earl Monroe jersey. He was number fifteen when he played for the Knicks.”

  “We know that,” said Raymond. “Why don’t you tell us where this is going?”

  “I got hold of the partial court transcripts from the trial,” said Alex. “The transcript said that the shooter was wearing a T-shirt at the time of the murder.”

  “So?” said James. “I was wearing the shirt when I got arrested. That’s no secret.”

  “I’m not finished,” said Alex. “Miss Elaine told me that the boy with the gun was wearing a T-shirt had a number that was hand-printed across it. She has very good long-term memory, despite her stroke. She said that the number on the shirt was the number ten.”

  “Say what’s on your mind,” said Raymond.

  “You might have been wearing that shirt when you were arrested, James. But there wasn’t any way you would have put on a Clyde Frazier T-shirt when you got up that morning. You were an Earl Monroe man all the way. You still call him Jesus. I’m talking about Earl when he played for the Knicks and wore the number fifteen.”

  “Make your point,” said James.

  “You didn’t shoot Billy Cachoris,” said Alex. His eyes went to Raymond. “You did.”

  “That’s right,” said Raymond Monroe evenly. “It was me who killed your friend.”

  Twenty-Nine

  EVERYTHING HAPPENED quick,” said James Monroe.

  “James had this gun he’d bought hot,” said Raymond. “I had just found it the night before. Charles tipped me off. That morning, I had put it in my dip, with the Frazier T-shirt hanging over the butt. A boy finds a gun, he’s got to hold it. My father never kept one in the house for that very reason. He knew.”

  “When y’all came back up the block,” said James, “and Charles knocked your friend’s teeth out and then stomped you on the ground, Raymond’s fever got up.”

  “I was young and hotheaded,” said Raymond. “And being young, and a boy, I looked up to Baker. He was dangerous and slick, everything I wanted to be at that point in time. I pulled the gun out and pointed it at your friend. James didn’t even know I had it. He pleaded for me to stop. But Charles kept pushing me, man. He won out, and I shot your boy in the back.” Raymond chewed on his lower lip to stem the tears that had come to his eyes. “When I saw what I’d done, I got sick inside. James took the gun out of my hand and pulled me away. We ran back to my parents’ house’cause they were at work. We got ourselves into our bedroom, and that’s where we made a plan. I was outta my mind. . . .”

  “I wasn’t,” said James. “I knew what had to be done. Raymond was too young to go to prison. I knew he couldn’t jail, not even juvie hall. My father had charged me with looking after him, and I did. I wiped that gun down good and made sure my own prints were on it before I put it back in my drawer. I took that bloody T-shirt from Raymond and I put it on my own self. That’s how the police found me when they came through the door.”

  “Charles Baker was in on it, too,” said Alex.

  “Sure,” said James. “It turned out good for him. He flipped on me and made a deal with the prosecutors. Because of that, he only drew a year.”

  “That’s why he thinks you owe him,” said Alex. “That’s why he keeps coming back.”

  “Like a penny you can’t spend,” said James.

  “You went along with it,” said Alex, looking at Raymond.

  Raymond nodded, his eyes wet in the light.

  “I was persuasive,” said James. “The way an older brother can be.”

  “How did you all keep the secret?” said Alex.

  “Wasn’t hard,” said James. “Miss Elaine was the only one who had seen Raymond holding the gun. But she couldn’t say under oath who it was specifically. ‘It was one of the Monroe brothers’ is what she said on the stand. Back then, even with our three-year age difference, we damn near looked like twins. Same height. Even wore our hair in the same kind of blowout. She testified that the shooter’s T-shirt had a number on it, but no one knew what the number meant except us.”

  “And your parents,” said Alex.

  “Yeah, they knew,” said James. “When I was in holding, my father and I discussed it deep. It hurt him to let it go to trial like that, but I convinced him that it was for the best.” James looked at Raymond. “And it was, Ray. It was. I mean, look how you turned out.”

  “And look how it turned out for you,” said Raymond.

  “Don’t put that on yourself,” said James. “If I had handled my incarceration better, it might have been all right. I thought I’d do a couple of years and get bounced for good behavior. But prison, it even makes a clean man dirty. Those hard boys tried to take me for bad in there, and I felt I had to defend myself or die. One awful decision followed another, and when I came out I got mixed up with Baker again. I just made some real bad choices, I guess. Anyway, here I am. I can’t change those things now.”

  “You’re talking like it’s over,” said Alex.

  “Not all the way,” said James. “But I sure can see the finish line.”

  “Before all this happened,” said Alex. “I’m sayin, when you were eighteen years old. Isn’t there something you wanted to accomplish up the road?”

 
; “You mean, like a goal?” said James. “There were things I had my sights on. But there ain’t no point in talking about that now.”

  “So you got all this information,” said Raymond. “What do you plan to do with it?”

  “Nothing,” said Alex. “We’ve all suffered enough.”

  A long-haired cat crossed through the shadows of the alley. James watched it as he drank off more of his beer.

  “That’s it?” said Raymond.

  “Not quite,” said Alex, turning to the big man in the chair. “You feel like going for a ride, James?”

  “Where to?”

  “I’ll show you when we get there.”

  “A girl gonna jump out a birthday cake, somethin?”

  “Better,” said Alex. “Come on.”

  THEY STOOD in the empty space of the brick building off Piney Branch Road. Alex had turned on all the fluorescents inside and the spots out in the parking area. He was making comments and gesturing, talking more to James, letting James think on it, letting him see it.

  “Here you go,” said Alex, removing the Craftsman measuring tape that he had clipped to his belt, handing it to James. “Check it out yourself. It’s wide enough to fit two cars with space for two guys to move around them and work.”

  “Two guys?” said James, taking the tape and going to the left wall, limping a little as he made his way. Raymond followed him, then held the end of the tape to where the concrete floor met the cinder blocks, so that James could walk the tape to the right wall.

  “Right,” said Alex. “You’re gonna need help. An apprentice, like. You can’t work on two cars at a time.”

  “Okay,” said James to Raymond, after James had noted the width of the space. Raymond released the tape and joined his brother in the center of the room.

  “We can install a couple of lifts,” said Alex. “Beef up the electric service. Get you updated on tools. Get one of those, what do you call that, diagnostic machines they hook up to cars now.”

  “Like a computer, James,” said Raymond. “I’ve seen mechanics use laptops now.”

  “I know what they do,” said James, rubbing at his cheek. “But I don’t know how to do all that stuff. All these rice burners out here, the German and Swedish cars, and I can’t work on’em. I don’t have the experience.”

  “I’m going to send you to classes,” said Alex. “You need to quit Gavin’s and start preparing yourself. I’m transitioning myself out of the coffee shop, so there’s going to be six months, a year maybe, before we can open up. I’ll put you on a salary right away.”

  “What kinda salary?”

  “We’re gonna work it out,” said Alex. “Whatever the going rate is for mechanics. And, oh yeah, music. I plan to bring in satellite radio. There’s this station you’re gonna like, it’s called Soul Street. They play the good stuff you can’t hear on the regular radio anymore. Bobby Bennett’s the host.”

  “The Mighty Burner?” said James, his eyebrows raised.

  “Him,” said Alex.

  “You don’t mind my asking,” said Raymond, “where is all the money coming from?”

  “Don’t worry, I have it,” said Alex. “When my father died, he left me and my brother insurance money off a policy he had bought from a guy named Nick Kambanis. I put it in blue chips, like my dad would have done, and left it alone. My intention was to pass it on to my sons. Well, Gus was killed, and I just handed Johnny the business. So I’m going to draw from it for this.”

  “You said before we can open up,” said Raymond. “What’s your role gonna be in all this?”

  “I don’t know anything about cars,” said Alex. “But I know how to market and run a small business. That’s my specialty. I’m going to bring people through the front door, keep them coming back, and have them tell their friends, because of your good work, James, and because we’ll be providing good service. I’ll do flyers in the neighborhoods around here, place ads in the local papers to get us started, that kind of thing. My wife, Vicki, will be our accountant.”

  “But what’s the arrangement going to be?” said Raymond. “Forgive me for looking the gift horse straight in the mouth, but I’m thinking about the welfare of my brother.”

  “We’re gonna be partners,” said Alex. “You and me, James. I own the real estate; that’s always going to belong to me and my family. But after your salary, any profits will be split even, fifty-fifty. The equity in the business will be shared the same way.”

  “You’re comin off thirty-some-odd years in that diner,” said Raymond.

  “Why would you want to jump right back into something like this?” said James, completing his brother’s thought.

  “Because that was never mine,” said Alex. “It was my father’s, and I never had his passion for it. It was only a vehicle to provide for my family. I’m ready to take control of this and make it happen.”

  “Man does have fire,” said Raymond to James.

  “Come outside with me,” said Alex.

  Raymond and James exchanged a look before following Alex out into the lot lit by floodlamps in front of the building.

  “We can stage cars out here,” said Alex. “The guy who had this space before enlarged this for customer parking. And I was thinking we’ll mount a basketball hoop up there. I always wanted one at my place of business.”

  “Do I look like I can ball with this hip?” said James.

  “You could if you did your exercises like I told you,” said Raymond.

  “It’s way past that and you know it,” said James.

  “You’re gonna have health insurance now,” said Alex. “Up the road, we get this thing going, maybe you can have that operation they do, to correct it.”

  “Ain’t nobody gonna cut into my hip with a chain saw,” said James.

  “A surgeon does that procedure,” said Raymond. “Not a landscape crew.”

  “And look,” said Alex, hyped now, pointing to the space above the open bay door. “That’s where we’re going to mount the sign. I was thinking about the name of the business. You ready? Monroe the Mechanic.”

  “Does have a ring to it,” said Raymond.

  “That’s’cause it’s got the double M’s,” said James. “That’s why it sings. It’s called alliteration, Ray.”

  “I knew that,” said Raymond. “Why you always have to school me?”

  “’Cause you’re stupid.”

  “So what do you think?” said Alex.

  James looked at the wall where the sign would be. He looked into the space through the bay door.

  “I suppose you want a hug or something,” said James.

  The lines around his scar deepened as Alex grinned.

  “Me and James need to talk a little,” said Raymond, thanking Alex with a nod.

  “Go right ahead,” said Alex.

  He watched them walk back into the building. They stood in the fluorescent light, bantering, arguing, touching each other on the shoulders and arms as they made their points.

  “Man’s got his head in the clouds,” said James with a smile.

  He’s talking about me, thought Alex. John Pappas’s son.

  The dreamer.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Gail Moore of the Army Wounded Warrior Program (AW2) and the staff and patients of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Sushant Sagar, Mark Tavlarides, and Henry Allen added to my memories of the Stones at RFK. In addition, thanks go out to Reagan Arthur, Michael Pietsch, Marlena Bittner, Betsy Uhrig, Sophie Cottrell, Heather Rizzo, Karen Torres, Tracy Williams, and all my other friends at Little, Brown; Jon Wood, Gaby Young, and the rest of the staff at Orion in the UK; Sloan Harris and Alicia Gordon; and my parents, Pete and Ruby Pelecanos. As always, love to Emily and my crew.

 

 

 
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