Shame the Devil

by George Pelecanos

  Wilson had started dealing to support his habit. He was arrested and charged twice, but the judges were right, the jails were full, and he did no time.

  After a while Wilson figured, if you’re gonna be into it, why not step it up, make some bigger money, get into it for real? So he hooked up with a dealer who controlled the action down around the dwellings at 7th and M in Northwest, and he became this dealer’s mule. Wilson began to make the regular Amtrak run from Union Station to Penn Station and back again. It was safer than being out on the corner, and it seemed to be risk free.

  But Wilson had misjudged the stealth of his dealer’s rivals, who’d gotten the time of his run from a nose-fiend on the street. The cops pulled Wilson and his black leather suitcase off the Metroliner at the 30th Street station in Philly, busted his dumb ass right there on the platform. With Wilson’s priors and the quantity confiscated, he took the big fall. They sent him up to Lewisburg, the federal joint in PA.

  In prison, Wilson got free of his coke jones but collected fateful relationships with many men: Frank Farrow, Roman Otis, Lee Toomey, Manuel Ruiz, and Jaime Gutierrez among them. On the last day of his bit, he promised Farrow and Otis he’d stay in touch.

  When Wilson got out, he vowed to stay straight. But from his muling days he remembered how it felt to have money, real money, in his pocket all the time. His mother had died when he was in Lewisburg, and his uncle Lindo was good enough to hook him up with the hauling job. Lindo was all right to talk to during the day, but Lindo was old-time, and Lindo wasn’t his boy. That distinction would always go to his lifelong friend, Charles Greene.

  One night he and Charles had a couple of drinks and Charles got loose with his tongue. He began to tell Wilson about the pizza parlor where he had been working for some time. How the place was more or less a front for a large gaming operation, numbers and book and the like. How the man who co-owned the joint, Carl Lewin, was his own bagman. How Lewin made May’s the last stop on his run, the same day, same time, every week.

  Wilson thought of the money, then thought of his old acquaintances from Lewisburg, Farrow and Otis. Tough guys, professionals, who made it their specialty to take off other criminals. He had the idea that he could contact Farrow and set this thing up. Get Manuel and Jaime, who had gone into the chop business at a garage in Silver Spring, involved as well. He talked himself into it, and then he talked Charles into it, too. Convinced Charles that this was ill-gotten money anyway, it would just be going from one set of dirty hands to another. His employer would never, ever know. And no one would get hurt.

  After the bloodbath in the kitchen, Wilson did not go to the law and confess his involvement. The atmosphere was lynch-mob heavy in town in the weeks following the murders, and Wilson was… well, Wilson was scared. Much as he had loved Charles, he couldn’t bring Charles back. He didn’t want to go to prison again, and if he did go, Farrow would find a way to reach him on the inside. No, there wasn’t any kind of good that could come out of going to the law. That’s what he thought at the time. And then he went to the meetings, thinking that hearing the stories of the others might ease his pain. There, he became friends with the victims’ relatives, and their pain became his. He hadn’t figured on that. It was like there was a nest of angry spiders now, all the time, crawling around in his head.

  Now Farrow wanted him to set up the cop in the wheelchair, and maybe his sons.

  Wilson approached the lights of the strip shopping centers along the highway side of La Plata. He cracked the window to let in some air. It felt kind of stuffy in the car, and there was a tightness in his chest.

  He knew he was a coward. It was because of his cowardice that things had come this far.

  Once you were in with Farrow and Otis, you were in with them for good. He could follow them or kill them or run. Those were his choices.

  He prayed that when the time came, the Lord would let him be a man.

  TWENTY-SIX

  ON MONDAY MORNING, Nick Stefanos leaned out of the open window of his Dodge at the P. G. Plaza Metro station and snapped photographs of Erika Mitchell meeting her new boyfriend in the parking lot beside his idling Acura. Stefanos steadied the long lens of his Pentax as he shot. He caught Erika and her boyfriend embracing and he got one of them kissing and another of Erika getting into his car.

  Stefanos dropped the roll of film at a shop on Georgia Avenue and smoked a cigarette in his car as he looked over the list Al Adamson had given him, checking the addresses against the detail map he kept in the Dodge. He pulled off the curb and drove over to Hyattsville, to a garage off Queens Chapel Road.

  C. Lewis, the seasoned-leaning-to-elderly owner of the shop, had no knowledge of the red Torino, mentioning only that it was “one beautiful car.” He added that there had been fewer than a hundred manufactured of that particular model, so locating it shouldn’t prove to be all that difficult. Stefanos thanked him, and Lewis said, “Say hi to Al.”

  Stefanos drove back into Northwest, to a garage named Strange Auto near 14th and Arkansas. Go-go music was pumping from the open bay as Stefanos approached.

  The owner, Anthony Strange, informed Stefanos that “the only thing I’ll touch here is Mustangs. Torino ain’t nothin’ but an overgrown Maverick, and I ain’t even gonna tell you what I think of them.” His mechanic, a very young man with a black knit cap pulled low on his forehead, laughed and turned up the Back Yard CD he had coming from the box.

  Out on the sidewalk, Stefanos looked at the next name on his list. The place was just up over the District line. He wasn’t far from there now.

  Thomas Wilson was standing in the back of the garage, talking to Manuel and Jaime, when the bell rang from the front of the bay.

  “That would be them,” said Wilson.

  “Yes,” said Manuel.

  Jaime Gutierrez dropped his cigarette to the concrete and ground it under his boot as Manuel Ruiz went to the bay door. He hit a red button beside the door; the door lifted, and a Ford Ranger rolled into the garage. Manuel lowered the door as Frank Farrow parked the pickup beside a two-tone Falcon.

  Farrow and Roman Otis stepped out of the pickup. Otis stretched his long frame and followed Farrow to where Wilson and Gutierrez stood. Manuel met the group, and Farrow shook his hand.

  “Damn,” said Otis, rolling his head so that his neck muscles relaxed. “Tall man like me can’t take a long journey in a truck that size, for real. Got used to the size of that Mark you hooked me up with, Man-you-el.”

  “I am pleased that you like it.”

  “Goddamn right I like it. That’s a beautiful car.”

  “What’ve you got for me?” said Farrow.

  “Is over here,” said Manuel, and they followed him as he led the way. Farrow looked at the red Mustang with the Formula tires with raised white lettering and the black scoop on the hood.

  “A Mach One?”

  “Yes,” said Manuel. “Nineteen seventy-three, three fifty-one automatic. Original white interior. Beautiful.”

  “It’s red.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Does it run?”

  “It is very straight.”

  Jaime nodded in agreement and lit another cigarette.

  Farrow ran his finger along the waxed surface of the hood. “You have clean tags for it, amigo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Put them on. And get rid of that Ranger any way you see fit. It’s on the hot sheet by now.”

  “Okay, Frank,” said Manuel. “You can sit in the offi while we put on the tags, if you wish.”

  “You said ‘offi,’” said Otis, showing his gold tooth. “But you meant ‘office,’ right?”

  Manuel smiled thinly.

  “Come on with us, T. W.,” said Farrow.

  Wilson said, “Right.”

  The office was small, and many of the papers on its cluttered desk were smudged with grease. Otis had a seat on a wooden slat-back chair and put his feet up on the desk. Farrow sat on the edge of the desk and put fire to a Kool.


  “So, T. W. Any progress on finding Detective Jonas?”

  “Not yet.”

  Farrow looked at Otis. “Gimme that phone book over there, Roman. The D.C. edition.”

  Otis handed him the directory that was on the desk. Farrow flipped through the pages, found the one he was looking for, and folded the book open so that Wilson could see it.

  “Here’s Jonas, right here,” said Farrow. “On Hamlin Street. Now give me that detail map over there, Roman.”

  Otis did it, and Farrow turned to the page representing Northeast.

  “You said Jonas lived in Brookland, right, T. W.? Well, here’s Hamlin Street, smack in the middle of the Brookland neighborhood, right here.” Farrow dropped the detail map back on the desk. “Funny how easy it was to find Jonas. I walked into a Seven-Eleven this morning and got the information out of a book just like this in a minute flat. You know, he was in the phone book all the time.”

  “I didn’t think to look in the directory, Frank,” said Wilson, trying to put some levity in his voice. “I mean, who would have thought —”

  “You didn’t think. Or maybe you were just trying to avoid more trouble.” Farrow stood and walked over to Wilson. Wilson seemed to shrink before him. “I know you don’t like conflict, T. W. But when I ask you to do something, I expect it to be done.”

  “Listen, Frank —”

  “Don’t let it bother you, all right? Wouldn’t want your nerves to get the better of you.” Farrow removed his black-rimmed nonprescription glasses. “Now. How’s it going on our upcoming prospects?”

  “Working on that,” said Wilson. “Been out in the clubs, listenin’ to people talk. Gonna find something real good for the two of you, you’ll see.”

  “You been clubbin’, huh?” said Otis. “Must be gettin’ a lot of pussy, too, with that up-to-the-minute look you got goin’ on.”

  “Find something soon,” said Farrow. “We don’t want to be here any longer than we have to.” Farrow checked his watch. “Come on, let’s see how they’re getting along out there.”

  “I’ll just wait here,” said Otis, “let my legs straighten out for a while.”

  Farrow and Wilson walked back out to the garage. Going around the corner, they nearly bumped into Manuel and Jaime and a man in a brown leather jacket they were talking to. The man’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of Wilson.

  “Hey,” said the man in a friendly way.

  “How you doin’?” said Wilson.

  “Nick Stefanos,” said the man, extending his hand. “Remember?”

  Wilson remembered. It was that investigator, Dimitri’s friend, the one from the meeting last Tuesday night.

  Nick Stefanos found the street called Selim in downtown Silver Spring and parked his ride outside Hanagan’s Auto Body behind a late-model Chrysler product. He rang the bell beside the door of the unmarked bay located between Hanagan’s and Rossi Automotive, and zipped up his leather as he waited. The door opened and a short, black-haired, Indian-featured Hispanic stood in the frame. The name “Manuel” was stitched across his uniform shirt.

  “Yes?”

  “Nick Stefanos. I’m an investigator with the District of Columbia.” Stefanos flipped open the leather cover and let Manuel inspect his ID. “Do you have a minute? I have a couple of questions.”

  Manuel looked over his shoulder and back at Stefanos. He knew Stefanos was not a cop, but the investigator tag had raised the red authority flag in his mind. This was Stefanos’s intent. If this Manuel was like most people, he’d let Stefanos have his minute, if only to get rid of him for good.

  “What is this?”

  “A case I’m working on for the courts.”

  “A court case?”

  Stefanos decided to cut right to it. This one’s shell looked hard enough.

  “It’s not about you or your business,” said Stefanos. “I’m not IRS and I’m not immigration. I’m just trying to locate a particular car.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “A Ford.” Stefanos blew into his hands. “Look, can I come in and warm up?”

  Manuel looked him over. “Come on. But I have much work to do today, okay?”

  “I’ll be quick.”

  As they entered, Stefanos saw a mechanic in the back of the garage quickly pull a tarp over an early-seventies, muscled-up Mustang. Stefanos only saw the car for a couple of seconds, but the lines were unmistakable. Stefanos walked toward the mechanic, whose obvious, urgent action had sparked his curiosity. Manuel walked beside him.

  “You’re Manuel Ruiz, right?”

  “Yes,” said Manuel, clearly perturbed. “How do you know this?”

  “Al Adamson. You know Al, don’t you?”

  “Si. The Continental man.”

  Stefanos kept walking. The mechanic met them past an entrance-way to a hall of some kind. All of them stepped around a corner.

  “You must be Jaime Gutierrez,” said Stefanos. He noticed the teardrop tattoos on the side of Jaime’s bony face.

  “Yes,” said Jaime, glancing nervously at his partner.

  “I won’t keep you guys. I’m trying to locate an old Torino. A special-edition Ford called the Twister, red —”

  Jaime spoke Spanish to Manuel, and then Manuel said, “We know of no such car.”

  “You guys specialize in Ford restorations, right?”

  “We do not know this car,” said Manuel. “I do know of a Torino man, though. On Route One in Laurel.”

  “Who is it?”

  Manuel gave him the man’s name and the location of his garage. Stefanos was writing it down when he heard the voices of two other men, and then the men, one white and one black, were right upon them as they turned the corner.

  Stefanos recognized the black man. It was Thomas Wilson, one of the guys from Dimitri’s group.

  “Hey,” said Stefanos.

  “How you doin’?” said Wilson with a shaky smile.

  “Nick Stefanos. Remember?”

  “I forgot something in the office,” said the white man, walking back around the corner.

  Stefanos speed-scanned the man before he turned: medium height, solid build, flat eyes, thin lips, a Cassavetes type with dyed-black hair and Clark Kent glasses on his lined face.

  “What you doin’ here, man?” said Wilson in a friendly way.

  “I’m working a case. How about you?”

  Wilson spread his hands. “Gettin’ my car checked out.”

  “Thought you drove a Dodge,” said Stefanos, realizing then that it was Wilson’s car he had parked behind out on Selim. “This is a Ford shop, isn’t it?”

  Wilson forced a grin. “Yeah, but my boys here… they make an exception when it comes to my short.”

  “Okay.” Stefanos closed his notebook. “Well, I’ve gotta run. Thanks for your time, Manuel. Take it easy, Thomas.”

  “Yeah, man, take it light.”

  Stefanos shook Manuel’s hand. He nodded to Jaime and Wilson and walked from the garage.

  Driving back into D.C., he thought of the teardrop tattoos on Jaime’s face: prison tats, or those from a gang. He thought of the odd, hard man who had rushed off. He thought of Thomas Wilson, a Dodge man, getting his car done in a Ford restoration shop. He wondered what Wilson was doing hanging around these men. And he had that crazy feeling again, the same feeling he’d had the night of the meeting: the feeling that something was not right.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  AFTER THE MAN in the brown leather jacket had gone, Frank Farrow and Roman Otis emerged from the office and crossed the garage.

  Farrow said to Thomas Wilson, “Who was that?”

  “Ask Manuel,” said Wilson with a clumsy shrug.

  “You knew him,” said Farrow. “I’m asking you.”

  “I met him at a party last week,” said Wilson. “Seeing him here today was just one of those accidents.”

  “He was looking for a car,” said Manuel.

  Jaime dragged hard on his cigarette and stared dow
n at his boots.

  “He looked like some kind of cop,” said Farrow.

  “I don’t think so,” said Manuel. “He was only looking for a car.”

  Farrow regarded Manuel and said, “All right. How much to use the Mustang for the week?”

  “Seven hundred,” said Manuel.

  “You’ve raised your rates.”

  “The car was bought from the Old Car Trader. It is all legal, down to the plates.”

  “Here.” Farrow counted out seven hundred-dollar bills. “Have something ready for me that I can buy when I bring the Mustang back. I want it clean and fast.”

  “You will have it,” said Manuel.

  “’Bout ready, Frank?” said Otis.

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  “See you later, Man-you-el,” said Otis. “Jamey.”

  “Stay in touch, T. W.,” said Farrow.

  Wilson said, “Right.”

  Farrow and Otis went to the Mach 1 and settled into its white buckets. Farrow cooked the ignition; the rumble echoed in the garage. He looked across the buckets and smiled at Otis. Otis took his .45 from his coat and slipped it beneath his seat. Farrow put the automatic in gear.

  They drove south on Georgia Avenue. A cop car passed them on the right, its uniformed driver slowing down to have a look at the Mach 1.

  “He likes it,” said Farrow as the cop car accelerated and sped off.

  “You drive a red car, it’s gonna attract some attention.”

  “You heard Manuel. Everything checks out, and he wouldn’t lie to me. Besides, I’ll keep to the speed limit, Roman.”

  “I know that, Frank. Always did feel comfortable with you behind the wheel.”

  Otis found HUR on the FM dial. The DJ was starting into the Temptations’ “A Song for You,” a beautiful track from their late period. Otis did his best with all the vocal parts. He wasn’t too solid on the highs, but he thought he sounded pretty good.

  “Where we headed now, Frank?” said Otis when the song was done.

  “Gonna see if Detective Jonas is home,” said Farrow.