The Sweet Forever

by George Pelecanos

  “George,” said Clay. “Keep your voice down, man.”

  “I see dead children, I get emotional, Marcus.”

  “I know it, man. I know.”

  Clay used his muffin to scoop up some of the rest of his gravy and grits. The big man taking cash at the end of the counter yelled to a waitress, “Miss Mary, by the time you serve this gentleman’s food, he’s gonna be done eatin’!”

  Dozier laughed. “That make sense?”

  “To him it did.”

  “Damn, I love this place.”

  “Mmm. Me, too. But those half-smokes ain’t gonna do your ulcer no good.”

  “And I guess that gravy’s gonna go straight to your heart and give it a nice big kiss.”

  Clay pushed his empty plate to the side. Dozier sat straight and loosened his belt a notch.

  Dozier said, “I don’t know, Marcus. Most of the time I can get through all this. But when you see the corpse of a child…”

  “Got to be rough.”

  “How’s your boy, man?”

  “M. J.’s good. Me and Elaine, we’re gonna try real hard to work it out.”

  “My two, I don’t have to tell you how much they mean to me. Couldn’t sleep for nothin’ last night, kept goin’ into their rooms, checkin’ on them and all that.”

  “I had to go give my boy a kiss, too.”

  Dozier turned his knife in the plate. “The Willets boy, got shot in the back? Was clutching this action figure, kind my own kids play with, when they found him in death. Boy had cocaine in his pockets and a toy in his hand. You believe it? Even had a street name; we found out that much from Wallace. Called himself P-Square, whatever that means. His friend Meadows had a street name, too. Called himself Chief.”

  Clay stopped twisting the napkin in his hand. He’d heard that name Chief before and not so long ago. Probably one of the kids who shopped in his store.

  “George,” said Clay. “Don’t ever feel that what you’re doin’ out there isn’t important. ’Cause it is. I’ve always admired you for that.”

  “Thanks, Marcus. But it’s hard. I got fifteen years in already. Another ten and I’ll have my twenty-five. I’m thinkin’, much as I love this city, when I got twenty-five in, I’m gone.”

  “Lot of people I talk to thinkin’ the same way.” Clay looked at his watch. “Got to go, buddy. We open at noon.”

  They signaled the waitress and reached for their wallets.

  “Good food, right George?”

  George Dozier winked and said, “Make you cry.”

  Marcus Clay kept seeing Denice, standing next to him on the U Street sales floor. Someone honked behind him, and he moved on the green.

  It was the conversation he’d had with Denice about Alan Rogers, that’s what it was. Something about driving by them Friday night, seeing them all standing in the street. He could hear Denice’s voice now, see her lips moving slow—

  Tutt and Short Man were arguing…

  Clay swerved to the curb.

  … over some kid named Chief.

  Okay, there it was. Didn’t prove anything, though. So Short Man knew Chief. Didn’t mean he killed that boy.

  Short Man dealt drugs for Tyrell Cleveland. The dead kids were dealing on Tyrell’s turf.

  Tutt and Short Man were arguing over some kid named Chief.

  Tutt and Short Man.

  “Tutt,” said Clay under his breath.

  Tutt wasn’t just a mean cop. Tutt was dirty, too.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Cootch had Young, Gifted and Black, his Sunday morning LP, going on the house stereo, Aretha’s otherworldly voice filling the room, when Marcus Clay entered the store. Dimitri Karras leaned against the front racks, sipping a cup of coffee.

  Clay went directly to Karras and clapped him on the shoulder. Karras did the same. Twenty-five years of friendship had made preliminaries unnecessary. Something was happening; seeing each other would make their thoughts complete.

  “Good to see you, man,” said Clay.

  “Been waitin’ on you.”

  “Cootch?”

  “Yeah, boss.”

  “We’ll be in the back.”

  Clay poured coffee into a WHUR mug and settled into his swivel chair. Karras had a seat on the edge of Clay’s desk.

  “You first,” said Karras.

  “All right,” said Clay. “Just had breakfast with George Dozier. Those kids got killed last night? He’s workin’ the case. Told me one of the kids went by the name of Chief. Denice was with Rogers and Short Man the other night when Tutt, Murphy’s partner, came up on ’em. Denice said Short Man and Tutt were arguing over a kid named Chief.”

  Karras sipped his coffee. “You think Short Man did the kids.”

  “George said the kids were small-time dealers on Tyrell Cleveland’s turf. Short Man enforces for Tyrell.”

  “What about Tutt?”

  “Tutt’s dirty.”

  “Denice tell you that, too?”

  “No. Got a strong feeling about it is all.”

  “Murphy?”

  “Just ’cause he rides with the man don’t mean he knows.” Clay looked into his mug. “Ought to call George Dozier right now, let him and IAD sort it out.”

  “Why haven’t you, then?”

  “ ’Cause I’m not sure.”

  “Right. And there’s something else, Marcus.”

  “I thought of that,” said Clay. “There’s the money. And your girl.”

  “That’s right. But there’s more you don’t know. Something’s happened to Donna’s boyfriend, Eddie.”

  “The one took off Tyrell?”

  “Yeah. I went by where he parks his car. A mechanic takes care of his tools, and his were lying around on the ground. He either left in a big hurry or he got taken real fast. He never phoned her last night, and he’s not the type to blow Donna off, not when he’s got her close to where he wants her, the way he does now.”

  “You think Tyrell might have Eddie?”

  “It’s possible. Sending in the cavalry, it might be a good way to get him killed.”

  “They might go on and kill him anyway, they don’t get what they want. Gonna be on your head if they do.”

  “I don’t think so. They need him alive, long as they don’t know where the money is. I just hope he’s smart enough to know that.”

  “You saw the money?”

  “In a pillowcase at Donna’s apartment.”

  “If they’re after it, it means she’s in real trouble, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “Bet you took her mind off it real good last night, Dimitri.”

  “Not the way you think.”

  “No?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Clay set his mug down on the desk. “All of the sudden you goin’ all Galahad on me. Why?”

  “Just trying to do something right.”

  “Been a while. Proud of you, man.”

  Karras said, “Thanks.”

  “So, what’re we gonna do?”

  “Maybe we should talk it over with Murphy.”

  “He’s off today. Said he was comin’ in to see the Maryland game with us. But I want to be sure about Tutt before I start settin’ off the alarms.”

  “How would you do that?”

  “Tutt’s off today, too. If Tutt’s in bed with Tyrell, and Tyrell had anything to do with those murders, then you know the two of them have got to hook up to talk about damage control. Or maybe Tutt’s gonna meet with one of Tyrell’s boys.”

  “Follow Tutt, see where he goes?”

  Clay nodded. “Not us, though. He’s seen us up too close. You know anybody’d want to follow a cop around for a couple of hours today? I’d make it worth his while.”

  “You know where Tutt lives? You know his street vehicle?”

  “Lives in Silver Spring Towers. Drives a baby blue Bronco. Seen it myself.”

  Karras thought it over. “There’s this one guy I know.” He drained his coffee and dropped the Sty
rofoam cup in the trash. “I’ll give him a call.”

  Nick Stefanos chewed on a breath mint and leaned on the cashier’s counter, watching his buddy Johnny McGinnes pitch a nineteen-inch Sharp to a young Indian couple with a baby boy. They had come in for the Sony—a prediction McGinnes had made in his most cartoonish accent as they’d walked into the store—and McGinnes had tried to step them off the Trinitron to the Lynitron, a profit piece carrying a ten-dollar spiff. The couple was slowly edging toward the front door.

  Stefanos looked at McGinnes: hair combed diagonally over his forehead in a Hitler hang, polyesters crisp as sheets blowing in a spring breeze, his hands working the air for punctuation. When he worked the floor, McGinnes was the happiest, most content man Stefanos had ever known. Stefanos envied him for that.

  “What’s goin’ on, Country?” said Andre Malone, the store’s stereo salesman. Malone glided gracefully between the glass cases and drew a Newport from his Italian-cut sport coat.

  “McGinnes is losing them.”

  “Can see that. Where’s our illustrious manager at?”

  “Louie’s up at the Van Ness apartments, visiting his girlfriend.”

  Malone lit his smoke, blew the match out on the exhale. “Brother Lou gonna gyrate, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  Malone eyed Stefanos’s jacket. “Where’d you cop those threads, man, Salvation Army?”

  Stefanos looked down at the sleeve of his gray-checked Robert Hall, first sold in 1956. “Classic Clothing, out on Benning Road.”

  “Like I said, Salvation Army.”

  “We can’t all be stylin’ like you.”

  “Tell you somethin’ I do know. You never gonna see a brother wearing dead man’s clothes, no matter how low he gets.” Malone smiled. “Check out our boy now.”

  McGinnes had the couple backed up near the door. “Remember,” he said, grinning stupidly, “the Sharp’s only going to be on sale for so long. So, so long.”

  “So long,” said the husband.

  “Come here,” said McGinnes, bending toward the stroller and pinching the baby’s cheek a little too roughly. The boy’s eyes bugged out in surprise. “Cutelilcocksucker you got there. You know it?”

  “Thank you,” said the husband.

  “Thank you,” said McGinnes, still smiling.

  McGinnes went to the counter to take his medicine from his friends while the couple left the store.

  “Putz,” said McGinnes.

  “Nice close,” said Malone.

  “You couldn’t close your fly when you first came to work here—that is, till I put you through school.”

  “Now I close it real good. Woulda closed those punjabi mothafuckers, too, if you hadn’t gone and taken my up.”

  “It might have been your up, if you hadn’t been dialing up one of your freaks from the Sound Explosion back there.”

  Stefanos closed his eyes. He was nursing an alcohol-heavy cokeover, and he didn’t feel much like joining in. Their bickering, it was putting a dull ache to his head. That and the electric orange-and-gold signage hung throughout the store.

  Stefanos answered the phone ringing on the wall.

  “Nutty Nathan’s, the Miser Who Works for You. Nick Stefanos speaking.” He listened and said, “Dimitri, how you doin’, man?”

  By the time Stefanos got off the phone, Andre Malone had drifted and McGinnes was putting fire to a one-hit stash pipe he used on the floor. McGinnes took a deep draw, held it in, and blew the smoke into a refrigerator by the cashier’s stand.

  “Who was that?”

  “Guy I know named Dimitri Karras. Called to see if we’d shadow some off-duty cop. Follow him, see where he’s going, report back, like that. There’s a C-note in it for us. You interested?”

  “Yeah, but I gotta make a few deals here first.”

  “And I want to see the game.”

  “Maryland?”

  “Yeah. You know that kid Freddie, always standing out on the sidewalk, watching ball on the sets in the window?”

  “Kid wears that bandanna?”

  “Yeah. He’s a big Bias fan. I told him he could come inside today, watch it with me.”

  “This Karras guy say it was okay to get to it later?”

  “He said it was cool.”

  “You got the address of the tail?”

  Stefanos patted his breast pocket. “Right here.”

  “I’m in.” A middle-aged black man approached from the Connecticut Avenue sidewalk. “You don’t mind if I take this jive turkey, do ya, Jim? One of my B-backs, anyway.”

  “To hear you tell it, they’re all your B-backs, Johnny.”

  “I’m serious. Was in here a month ago looking for a set. You know I never forget a customer’s face.”

  “Yeah, I know. Go ahead.”

  Stefanos watched McGinnes greet the man, lead him quickly to the Sharps. He’d start the customer on a high-end piece, step him down, tell him he didn’t need “that much set,” become his friend and confidant. Maybe it would work and maybe not. Stefanos knew one thing: McGinnes would sell someone a Sharp television set before the day was done.

  “You say this TV’s got a good picture?” said the black man.

  “Good ain’t the word,” said McGinnes, smiling broadly. “Ass-kickin’, booty-whippin’ be more like it.”

  “Your boy up for it?” said Marcus Clay.

  “He and his partner have work to do first. Gonna be a few hours till they can get to it. I told him we’d drop the hundred off at the store later on.”

  “You know where the store is?”

  “Yeah.”

  It’s right across the street from where I cop my blow.

  Karras put his arms through the sleeves of his jean jacket. “I’m outta here for a while, Marcus. Check back in with you later.”

  “Where you off to, man?”

  “See my mom.”

  “Tell her I said hello.”

  Karras said, “I will.”

  Dimitri Karras drove slowly down winding lanes cutting through closely cropped acres of lawns and parked his car along the curb toward the rear of the grounds. He got out and walked across the grass, careful not to step on the stone markers or the freshly filled graves. The names on the markers went from Irish to Italian to almost exclusively Greek. It took a little searching, as it always did, but soon he found his parents, separated for so long but now lying next to each other in death. A joint marker memorialized their lives.

  Karras took the daisies he had purchased from a roadside stand and placed them in a shallow cup set above Eleni Karras’s name. She had always kept fresh flowers in their kitchen, cut from the narrow garden she maintained in their backyard. Karras pictured her standing in the kitchen, her back against the sink, her arms crossed, a crooked smile on her face as she watched him eat. There’s no greater pleasure for a Greek mother, thought Karras, than to feed her only son.

  Karras spread the daisies and used his hand to brush brown grass shavings off her name. He closed his eyes and pressed his thumb to his two adjacent fingers, touched his forehead, his right shoulder, his left shoulder, and his chest. When he was finished doing his stavro he said a silent prayer.

  “Oh, yeah, Ma,” said Karras, opening his eyes. “Marcus says hey.”

  He brushed debris away from his father’s name. His father, Peter Karras, was killed in 1949, shot to death while killing others in the office of a loan shark named Burke. Dimitri, a baby at the time, remembered nothing of his father, not even his smell. When Eleni realized she was dying from the tumor eating at her brain, she asked Dimitri to exhume her husband’s body from the Brentwood Cemetery in Northeast, where Spartan-Americans were buried in numbers, and bring the remains out to Montgomery County’s Gate of Heaven, this clean, green place with the pruned, shade-giving trees, where there were no malt liquor bottles and used rubbers strewn about the grounds. Toward the end, holding her bird-claw hand, he had promised that he would.

  He had made other promises as well. T
hat he would find a nice yineka, marry her, have children, discover the riches of parenthood that she claimed she had found while raising him. That he would go back to school, become a professional, be a good anthropos, set down roots.

  He hadn’t kept those promises, of course. And now he didn’t know if he could.

  Instead, he’d sold his mother’s Northwest home for a healthy profit and received a nice insurance disbursement as the sole beneficiary of her will, gone out and bought the BMW, taken a Hawaiian vacation, and purchased his apartment. Spent money freely in bars, and on clothes and girls and cocaine. He still had plenty, enough to keep a single man with no attachments flush for a very long while.

  Karras ran a hand above his lips, wiped at something running from his nose. He looked at the blood smudged on his forefinger and rubbed it off on his jeans.

  Karras turned and walked across the grass toward his car, the navy blue Beamer shining in the sun.

  Andy Murphy lived in a brick rambler off upper 14th, near the Walter Reed Hospital. In his front yard a group of miniature stone angels faced a small Jesus statue encircled by a wire halo, the word Son written in cursive across a wreath. Murphy kept fresh flowers year round in a squat vase behind the shrine.

  Murphy stood in the kitchen, basting a chicken while greens cooked in a tall pot atop the gas stove. He was expecting his son Kevin and Kevin’s wife, Wanda, for dinner; he’d spent the morning and afternoon reading the Sunday Post, attending services at his Baptist church, and preparing the meal. They’d come over, recite the Twenty-third Psalm with him, and all of them would sit down to eat.

  Cooking for three, it wasn’t so difficult. Not like when Teddy, his older son, used to bring his wife and children by, too. Teddy was a reverend and a fine young man, steady and strong of will. The lymphoma had taken him three years back, and shortly thereafter his wife had gone off with a slick young insurance man, gone and left without a word to some town up in New Jersey. Andy Murphy had received a card and photograph from his grandchildren that first Christmas and nothing since.

  He often thanked the Lord that he still had Kevin and Wanda. Cooking for them once a week, it gave him a little something to do. And it seemed to comfort Wanda. He expected it wouldn’t be long before God called him home to be with his wife, Paulette, gone ten years. But until then, a man needed distractions to pass the time. Maybe he shouldn’t have retired so quickly—he’d been an engineer at the old Brown Building on 19th, between M and N, for the last fifteen years of his career—but you had to step aside eventually, make room for the young. It was their world, after all. He was only renting a small piece of it now.