Shame the Devil

by George Pelecanos

  Stefanos rubbed his thumb along his lower lip. “You going to tell the waiter’s father? How about Stephanie Maroulis?”

  “I’m not going to tell either one of them a thing. Bernie’s found his peace and so has Stephanie. This is for them, too, but they’ll never know. And I’m trusting you to keep it from Bill Jonas — and Boyle. I don’t want to have a thing to do with Boyle.”

  “You’re not going to make it,” said Stefanos. “These guys will kill you before you have a chance. You’re going to die and get Wilson killed, too, and for what? I’m telling you, man, this idea of yours is bullshit. It’s fucked.”

  “All right, you’ve said it. Now leave it alone. You’ve got nothing to do with it, hear?”

  “We’ve got too much history between us for me to leave it alone.”

  “You heard Boyle’s uncle. Your grandfather gave my old man a job when he was a washed-up cripple. My old man stopped those loan sharks from burning down your grandfather’s grill. I’d say our slate is clean. We owe each other nothing.”

  “You’re drunk,” said Stefanos, looking into Karras’s waxed eyes. “Yeah, I’m drunk.” Karras had a swig of beer, keeping his eyes on Stefanos.

  “You better pray to God that you know what you’re doing.”

  “God,” said Karras with contempt. “Now you’re going to tell me you believe in God.”

  “I’m like most men, I guess — that is, if they’re honest enough to admit it. I believe some days and some days I’m not so sure. The truth is, I’m just trying to figure it all out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out. God was invented for children and old people who are frightened to die.”

  “The night I killed that man I thought the same thing. That there was no God. But look around you. There’s too much good in the world, man —”

  “Good? What about slavery? What about the Holocaust and Pol Pot? The Armenian slaughter. The young men who’ve been killed throughout history fighting wars in the name of God. The children who’ve died in this city in the last ten years. What kind of god would allow these things to happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Karras leaned forward. “What did my son do to God? Why did he take my little boy the way he did?”

  “I don’t know,” said Stefanos softly.

  “That’s right, you don’t know. But I know. The answer is, There is no God. Everything’s just an accident. And when it’s over there’s nothing. No existence and no sensation. Nothing at all.”

  Stefanos shook a cigarette from his pack. He put it between his lips and struck a match. “I’m sorry for you, Dimitri.”

  “Sorry,” said Karras. “I’m sorry, too. You know what I’m most sorry about? That I lied to my son about God. That’s right. We were down at Hanes Point in the spring; I think Jimmy was four years old. We were walking around the speedway, and Jimmy said, ‘Dad, how come you can’t see God?’ I said to him, ‘People can’t see God, Jimmy, they can only imagine him.’ And Jimmy said, ‘When you’re dead can you see him?’ And I said yes. Jimmy looked out at the channel and thought for a while, and then he made this flip of his hand and said, ‘Aw, gimme a break!’ ”

  Karras laughed sharply, thinking of his son. He pictured him in the sun at Hanes Point, the skip he put into his walk when he was happy, that flip of his hand, his dimpled smile. While Karras laughed, tears gathered in his eyes. The tears broke and rolled down his cheeks.

  Stefanos handed him a bev nap and looked away. “Here you go, man.”

  Karras wiped at a thread of mucus that had dripped from his nose. He wiped the tears off his face.

  “I was like you,” said Karras, his voice desperate and strained. “I thought there might be a God. I hoped there was a God because I couldn’t believe that death would ever separate me from Jimmy and Lisa. I mean, if you believe that death can do that, then nothing makes sense, right? But when I saw Jimmy in the morgue that day —”

  “Dimitri.”

  “When I saw him in the morgue, Nick, lying there… his body was black all over from the bleeding he’d done inside, and his arms and legs were bent crazy and broken in pieces beneath the skin…. His face was so swollen, man. I knew then that there was no God. I’d known it all along, I guess, in my heart. I shouldn’t have lied to my son.”

  “Dimitri, man. Don’t.”

  Karras’s mouth twitched up into a frightening smile. “He was wearing a rabbit’s foot that day, Nick. I had given it to him, and I told him to clip it to his shorts. I told him it would bring him luck. Told him it would be lucky if he wore that rabbit’s foot on his shorts…”

  Stefanos smoked the rest of his cigarette while Karras cried. Karras cried freely for a while, and then he wiped his face and got off the bar stool. He tripped on the way to the bathroom and grabbed a chair for support.

  Stefanos made a pot of coffee. He heard Karras vomiting back in the bathroom. He waited for some time and went back to the bathroom and found Karras washing his face over the sink. There was puke on the collar of his shirt, and his face was the color of putty.

  “How do you take your coffee?” said Stefanos.

  “I take it black.”

  The coffee was steaming in a mug when Karras returned. He drank it down and had another while Stefanos restocked the beer cooler and replaced the green netting along the lip of the bar.

  Stefanos dimmed the conicals. The neon Schlitz logo burned over the center of the bar and bathed the room in blue.

  “You about ready?” said Stefanos.

  “Yeah,” said Karras, who had gotten the color back in his face. “Let’s go.”

  They walked to Stefanos’s Dodge. Stefanos stumbled as he stepped off the curb. He reached into his pocket and handed his keys to Karras.

  “Here you go, Dimitri. I’m too gassed.”

  Karras got behind the wheel, fastened his seat belt, and ignitioned the Coronet. He engaged the transmission and drove down 8th toward Pennsylvania. They had been in the bar for hours. The streets were empty and dark.

  “You can’t stop me,” said Karras. “I want you to know that.”

  “I do know it,” said Stefanos. “But I had to try.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  MANUEL RUIZ WAS replacing the headliner inside a ’64 Falcon on Thursday morning when he heard the phone ringing back in the office. He wiped his hands off on a shop rag and walked back to the office and picked up the phone. It was Farrow on the other end of the line. Manuel had been expecting the call.

  Farrow’s voice grew increasingly agitated as he related the story of the cop and the chase through the G. W. campus. Manuel denied that the Mustang’s plates were dirty.

  “Perhaps it was just that you and Roman look suspicious,” suggested Manuel.

  “Perhaps,” said Farrow with annoyance. “But if it happens again —”

  “It will not happen again,” said Manuel. “Those plates are clean.”

  “Okay. But here’s another thing. You gave me a car with bum brakes.”

  “The brakes, they do not work properly?” Manuel winced at the insincerity in his own voice.

  “They’re working better since we dumped fluid into them.”

  “My apologies, Frank. This was our mistake.”

  Jaime Gutierrez entered the office, looking for cigarettes. Manuel pointed at the phone and silently mouthed the word “Frank.” Jaime nodded.

  “Never mind,” said Farrow. “You have my new car ready for me? The one I’m driving’s getting red hot.”

  “Yes. It is very fast.”

  “I’m going to pick it up early Saturday morning. I would say two A.M.”

  “We will wait.”

  “Good. See you then.”

  Manuel cradled the receiver. Jaime found his cigarettes in the desk drawer and struck a match.

  “He is coming to get his new car after midnight tomorrow night,” said Manuel.

  “You haf a car?”

  “No. T. W. says we will not need it.”

&nb
sp; “What if T. W. is wrong?”

  “Then God help us.”

  Jaime dragged deeply on his cigarette. “What else?”

  “He made mention of a problem with his plates.”

  “But it was not enough of a problem.”

  “No,” said Manuel.

  “What about the brakes?”

  “They put fluid in. So I suppose the brakes will not stop them either.”

  “The fluid, it will leak out again,” said Jaime. “The brakes will fail.”

  Jaime tried to say this in a casual way. But he muttered a prayer under his breath, crossing himself quickly as he walked back out to the shop.

  Roman Otis stood behind the house at the edge of the woods in Nanjemoy, practicing his draw. He had his .45 holstered on the left side of his belt line so he could draw with his right hand. He found that his “Back to Oakland” ID bracelet occasionally caught on his belt as he drew the gun. Of course, he could just leave the bracelet or his belt behind for this particular job. But the bracelet was his lucky charm. And he felt it was important for a man to look like something when he left the house for work.

  Frank Farrow came out the back door of the house and walked down a set of wooden stairs to where Otis stood.

  “Hey, Frank,” said Otis. “Tell me what you think of this here.”

  Otis raised his arms above his head and rotated his hands at the wrist. Gravity and the action made the ID bracelet slip down beneath the cuff of his shirt. Otis’s right hand flashed down to the grip of the .45. He drew it and dry-fired into the woods.

  “Why all that?” said Farrow.

  “When I raise my hands and shake ’em,” said Otis, “it’ll be like my signal for you to let go.”

  “Okay, Roman,” said Farrow, who had given up on trying to figure out the peculiarities of his partner. “Whatever you say.”

  They heard the cackle of Booker Kendricks coming from the front yard, and underneath it the booming monotone of Lavonicus.

  “Booker just won’t let up on Gus,” said Otis.

  “Your cousin’s an amateur,” said Farrow.

  “He’s fuckin’ with the wrong man,” said Otis.

  “Well, after tomorrow night we’ll never see him again.”

  “We all set?”

  Farrow nodded. “The card game’s at midnight at an industrial park in a place called Upper Marlboro. T. W. says it’s all young brothers flush with drug money, playing pinstripe gangster like they seen in the videos. Gonna be a whole lot of dirty greenbacks there, Roman.”

  “And guns, I expect.”

  “There could be, yes. We’ll just have to go in hard and fast. And this time we’ll have an advantage.”

  “How’s that?”

  “T. W. got the key to the place. We’re gonna go in a couple of hours early, before the players arrive, and check everything out. The layout, the exit route… everything. Make sure there’s no surprises.”

  “How’d T. W. get the key?”

  “Paid off a man who works in that space during the day.”

  “Another inside thing. Don’t that boy ever learn?”

  “He’s scared. He just wants us out of town. It’ll be all right.”

  “We will be leavin’ town after the job. Right, Frank?”

  “I figure we’ll pick up the car from Manny, slide on over to Detective Jonas’s house in the middle of the night, do a little mayhem there. Then we’ll leave town.” Farrow looked closely at Otis. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you, Roman?”

  “I’m with you,” said Otis carefully. “You know that.”

  “What I wanted to hear.”

  “There is something else I wanted to talk to you about, though.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Gus. He don’t belong with us, man. The man’s plain lovesick over my sister. I brought him with me from Cali ’cause I wanted company on the ride. He wouldn’t do us no good —”

  “Get him out of here.”

  “Thanks. I was thinkin’ I’d drive him up to D.C. today. Put him on one of those cross-country buses they got.”

  Farrow said, “Fine.”

  He turned and walked back up the stairs.

  Otis breathed out slowly. He hadn’t been certain that Frank would let Gus book. The thing was, he didn’t like the sound of this card game heist and he sure didn’t want to make a widow of his sister. Young boys playin’ gangster. Shoot, any kind of drama could go down there. And then there was Frank on his revenge trip. Taking stupid chances, playing with that cop over the phone, following his kin. Now he wanted to go to the man’s house after the job and fuck with his family and shit. None of it felt right.

  Well, at least Gus would get out clean. As for Otis, he’d stay with Frank, despite the funny feeling in his gut about their future. Ice-cold as he was, Frank had always watched out for him, even saved his life one time in Lewisburg. Once you made the decision to partner up with a man, whoever he was, it just wasn’t right to walk away.

  Roman Otis went around to the front of the house. Kendricks and Lavonicus were by the stand of tall pine near the Mark V, parked alongside the ’Stang.

  “You don’t have to tell me that you played for the Spirits,” said Kendricks, “ ’cause I know. But I’m tellin’ you that you don’t know what the fuck you talkin’ about. They used to call Marvin Barnes ‘B. B.’ on account of that nigger had one tiny-ass head. Had a head on him small as one of those BBs you load into an air pistol, man.”

  “I’m telling you,” said Lavonicus.

  “I’m telling you,” said Kendricks, mimicking the monotone and laughing.

  Lavonicus’s ears turned pink. “Listen. B. B. stood for ‘Bad Boy.’ Marvin ‘Bad Boy’ Barnes, get it? I don’t care what your friends say because I was there.”

  “Aw, go ahead,” said Kendricks.

  “Hey, Gus,” said Otis. “Come in the house with me for a minute, will you?”

  Lavonicus walked across the yard with Otis.

  “What’s up, Roman?”

  “You’re goin’ home. How’s that sound to you?”

  Lavonicus gave Otis his clown’s smile as he ducked his head under the door frame and entered the house.

  Gus Lavonicus packed a bag quickly and said good bye to Farrow, who was standing in the kitchen, drinking a glass of red wine and smoking a Kool.

  “Be back in a few hours, Frank,” said Otis.

  Farrow said, “Right.”

  Lavonicus and Otis left the house. Kendricks was still out in the yard. He smiled at Lavonicus as he came down the steps. Lavonicus and Otis walked toward the Bill Blass Mark V.

  “Where you off to, Stretch? Takin’ a trip or somethin’?”

  “I’m goin’ home,” said Lavonicus.

  “I’m goin’ ho-ome,” said Kendricks.

  “I’m just droppin’ him off in D.C.,” said Otis.

  “Goin’ back to see your woman?” Kendricks cackled. “The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice, right, Gus?”

  “See you later, Booker,” said Otis.

  “Hey, maybe I’ll ride with y’all.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Otis, but Kendricks got ahead of them and stepped along toward the car.

  “So, you like the sisters, huh, Gus? You prefer ’em to your own kind, that’s what it is?”

  Lavonicus said nothing.

  “How’s a big man like you do it with a little thing like my cousin Cissy, you don’t mind my askin’? I mean, what you do, bounce her all around in your lap and shit? Or do you hit it from behind, man, hog-slap that thing…?”

  They were nearing the stand of pine by the car.

  “What’samatter, Gus, you done lost your tongue?” Kendricks looked over his shoulder and up at Lavonicus and laughed. “You got some red-ass ears on you, too.”

  Lavonicus grabbed Kendricks by the neck and slammed his face into the trunk of a pine. Blood erupted, and pieces of bark flew from the tree. Lavonicus released Kendricks. Kendricks�
�s arms pinwheeled, and he fell back and lay still.

  Lavonicus’s mouth dropped open. “Did I kill him, Roman?”

  Otis looked down and studied his cousin’s face. “Naw, man, he gonna be all right. C’mon.”

  They got into the Mark V and started down the long drive that cut through the woods to the two-lane. After a bend in the drive, Otis snapped his fingers and cut the engine.

  “Hold up, Gus. I forgot my driver’s license at the house. Gonna walk back and pick it up.”

  “We could just back up the car.”

  “Need to stretch my legs before that long trip we got. Be right back.”

  Otis got out of the car and walked toward the house. When he got to the yard, he looked in the front window. He did not see Frank. He went to Kendricks and grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him into the woods. Kendricks was slight and easy to move. His head bounced on rocks and a tree stump, and his body swept a path in the dirt. Otis took him down a grade to a gully of brush and dried leaves.

  Otis stood over Kendricks. His forehead was caved in and cracked open. Otis could see a part of his cousin’s brain through all the blood.

  Otis recited a brief and meaningless prayer. He had known Booker’s mother, and she would have liked him to say a few words over her son.

  “So long, cuz,” said Otis. “You done gone and talked yourself to death. Now these animals out here gonna do you like you been doin’ them.”

  He went back to the car.

  Out on 301, Lavonicus fiddled with the radio dial.

  “Want you to take care of my sister now, Gus, you hear?”

  “I will.”

  “Ain’t gonna lose that temper of yours with her, are you?”

  “I’d never raise a hand to Cissy, Roman. You know that.”

  Lavonicus lit on a song and saw Otis smile.

  “You like this one?” said Lavonicus.

  “ ‘Love Won’t Let Me Wait,’ ” said Otis, “by Major Harris. That’s a bad motherfucker right there.”

  Nick Stefanos locked the front door of the Spot from the inside and went back around the bar. He rotated a few cold beers out of the cooler, stocked a couple of cases of warm in the bottom, and put the cold bottles back on top. He took a bottle of Bud that he had buried in the ice chest and popped the cap.