The Second Girl

by David Swinson

  “So he never asked for sexual favors directly, but you know that’s what he wanted?”

  “Hell yeah, sweetie. That’s what he meant when he said I could trade a little somethin’ for the extra fifty.”

  “You know how to read these mopes. Does it sound like he’ll show?”

  “Fuck yes he’ll show. Like you said, he got a dick that does the thinkin’ for him, but the head be too swollen to think straight.”

  Fifty-six

  These things rarely go the way they’re supposed to. I’m hoping for the best, though. I get to Georgetown just before three, an hour and a half before Playboy’s supposed to show.

  Wisconsin Avenue ends at Water Street. Any further and you’ll find yourself in the Potomac River. I make a right turn onto Water Street from Wisconsin. It’s a small road under the Whitehurst Freeway, and follows the Potomac River on one side and the southern edge of Georgetown on the other. It ends after a few blocks, under the Key Bridge and at the beginning of a busy hiking and biking trail. I don’t drive that far. After a couple of blocks I make a U-turn and drive a few blocks past Wisconsin in the other direction. I don’t see any cars that match the description of Playboy’s Lexus, or anything else that might be suspicious.

  Parking is tough anywhere in Georgetown. I loop around a couple of times until I see someone pulling out of a spot on the south side of Water, about half a block from the intersection at Wisconsin. It gives me a good vantage because more than likely he’ll come in off Wisconsin, like I did.

  I back into the space and park between a nice BMW and a U-Haul van. I’m not concerned about getting made for a cop by the corner drug boys in this location, ’cause you won’t find any corner drug boys around here.

  When I was a cop fresh out of the academy I had to walk a beat, but not in a place as “up-and-coming” as this neighborhood is now. In fact, nothing was up-and-coming when I came on. It was still like it was when I was a kid. Every neighborhood, including Georgetown, was what it was. But things changed. Everything did. Communities like Georgetown eventually lost landmarks like the Biograph, and then the Key Theatre. But all that resulted afterward was that those businesses were replaced by other businesses.

  This city is all about tearing down to build up. That should be DC’s new catchphrase. There’s nothing wrong with progress. Just know what you’re going to do with all the collateral damage resulting from that progress.

  I crack the window and light up a smoke while I still can. It’s doubtful he’ll show up early like I did. In all my experience working idiots like him, they never have; they’ll either show up late or not at all. But then again, none of the drug boys back then were showing up for who they thought would be a cute underage girl on crack. Nothin’ to do now but stand by and play the waiting game.

  I got everything I need in my backpack just in case it turns out the way it’s supposed to, and I get stuck on surveillance through the rest of the day into the night. I can go through the whole night if I have to. Shit, I’ve done it before. I got a strong back and my legs don’t cramp that often.

  When four fifteen rolls around, I snort the contents of a couple capsules, put them back together, and drop them in the pill container. I check myself out in the rearview mirror just in case a bit of that white powder is stuck around my nostrils or the whiskers of my upper lip. I’m clean. Don’t know why I thought otherwise. I’ve been doing this long enough that I’m damn good at hiding it, but the routine checks have become habit.

  It’s a busy Friday, so more than a few cars roll by, but I don’t see the one I’m looking for. Then, as if right on cue, I see a shiny black Lexus occupied by a black male roll up to the stop sign at Wisconsin and Water.

  I recline myself a bit and look through small binos cupped between my hands. He fits the description Justine gave me. He’s looking around, obviously trying to spot her. A car behind him honks. It seems to startle him, and he makes a right turn, heading in my direction. I slide down further below the window, but stay up just enough so I can clock him driving by. I sit up and look over my shoulder as he makes a quick U-turn about a half a block down. I scoot down again as he slowly passes my car and pulls to the curb near the intersection in an illegal spot five cars ahead of me. I have to look around the parked cars, so I only get a glimpse of his vehicle. But that’s all I need.

  He’s got his hazard lights on; it looks like he’s giving my fictional Tamie a little more time.

  Sweet Tamie. She’s worth every bill. And there were a couple hundred of ’em.

  I start my car up.

  It’s almost four forty.

  The undercover cell in the center console rings. I take it out. It’s Playboy trying to call Tamie. It rings through to voicemail. I wait for it, but he doesn’t leave one. It rings a second time. Again, no message. He rolls out a couple seconds after that call attempt and makes a left on to Wisconsin. I quickly maneuver my way out and follow.

  By the time I turn onto Wisconsin he’s almost at the canal. Another car makes a left turn onto Wisconsin from Grace, cutting in front of me. That’s a good thing. Now I’m two cars behind him and that makes for better cover. I cross over the canal and notice that he hit the red light at M Street, but it looks like he’s staying on Wisconsin. The undercover phone rings a third time. Boy’s sprung, he won’t give up on her. I pull to the curb just before the cut that leads to Blues Alley and wait for another car to pass me before I continue to follow him. I change to his lane, but stay two cars behind.

  The light turns green and he continues traveling north on Wisconsin. It’s getting pretty congested, everyone making their way home early on a Friday. We get caught up in crawling traffic before we hit N Street. I’m still two cars behind.

  Traffic clears after the signal. He merges into the left lane and takes a right on Q Street. No more calls on the cell. I think he’s given up at this point. I take the right on Q, but slow down to let him get far enough ahead of me so he won’t notice my car. If he sees it once I’d better make sure he doesn’t see it twice or I’m done, especially if it’s going to be a long tail and a possible surveillance afterward. Tailing someone with just one vehicle is tough. You gotta have a minimum of three cars to do it right. I’ve had a lot of practice, so I’m still pretty confident in my skills.

  I allow another car to pull out of a parking space and get in front of me, then hope he travels at a decent speed so Playboy doesn’t get too far ahead.

  He makes a left on 23rd, crosses Massachusetts Avenue, bearing right onto Florida, headed toward Adams Morgan. Hits a signal at 18th Street and puts on his left-turn blinker, but once the signal turns, instead of heading north on 18th, he crosses it and bears left to stay on Florida. He hangs another and I can see the Third District station on the right. A couple of marked units are parked half a block up.

  At this point I’m fairly confident where he might be headed. If it were the area of 16th and Park, where José and his boys used to hang, then he probably would have continued east on Florida to 16th and made that right. Traveling this direction, I’m guessing he’ll be headed in the vicinity of 17th and Euclid.

  I’m almost a block behind him when he hits Kalorama. The boy’s good about obeying the traffic laws. He makes a full stop. By the time I get across Kalorama he’s got his right-turn signal on for Euclid Street. I speed up a bit so I can catch up, but hang back when I notice he’s moving slower, like he’s checking out his ’hood. I double-park on Euclid at the intersection with Ontario and watch him make a left on 17th. I continue slowly and notice him park along the curb on the east side just a few feet from the intersection. Halfway down the block I double-park again. A couple of cars pass me on the left, having to merge into the other lane.

  I notice some players hanging on the northwest and northeast corners. Very likely slingin’. A couple of them look like lookouts, so I drive slowly like I’m looking for a parking spot. I got good tint on my car, other than the front windshield, but still I’m not worried so much about be
ing seen once I park.

  Playboy steps out of the driver’s side, turns to acknowledge one of the players on the northwest corner. He walks between another parked car and the front of his vehicle to the sidewalk. One of the boys, who I make for one of the lookouts, and another boy, walk toward him and they do some handshake shit and start talking.

  I make my move and find a space between two cars on the south side of the street, in front of a row house connected to other row homes on the west and a newer three-story condo building where there used to be a mom-and-pop market, on the east. Most of these homes on the south side are good homes. The market used to be run by a Korean family when I last worked the area. I know this area well. It’s controlled by Cordell Holm. We used to hit it on a regular basis when I worked narcotics, but despite the arrests and all the drugs and guns we managed to seize, we had little to no impact. It’s cleaned up a little, but there’s still deals that go down on the streets or the cuts between the school on 17th, and sometimes the lobby area or halls of an apartment complex on Euclid called the Ritz. A lot of the homes in this area are dirty, but nothing I’d want to hit nowadays. And yes, I have thought about it on more than one occasion. Problem is it’d be rare for any of them to be unoccupied for the amount of time I’d need to get in and out. It’s nothing like the boys on Kenyon. They didn’t do their business on their own block.

  Cordell’s got family members in several of these homes, cousins and probably grandparents, so it’s not anything I’d take a chance on. Doesn’t matter how much shit I think I might get out of hitting the right one.

  I back in tight and tilt my seat back, but not so much that I don’t have a good view ahead of me. I’ve got a good distance, here.

  Playboy meets up with another male subject on the sidewalk in front of a three-story row house with an English basement near the corner. Kid looks like he’s twelve years old. After a short chat, Playboy walks the few stairs to the stoop of one of the redbrick row homes and enters. I don’t know that home. There used to be a lot of Latino worker-types that rolled in and out of a couple of the houses there a few years back, so I always figured it was either an illegal rooming house or gambling or both.

  I grab bottled water from the floor behind the passenger seat and then my flask and palm-size binos outta my backpack. I take a swig from the flask and sit back. I might have to sit for a bit.

  Fifty-seven

  Crackheads walking up to the corner like clockwork. The boys taking them down to a cut behind the row home on the corner across from me to do the deal. Every hour or so a marked unit rolls through, making its rounds. It’s a unit working the evening shift, occupied by two young officers who look like they’re fresh outta the academy. The drug boys don’t even disperse when they see them. Couple of them simply spit on the ground before the unit passes, showing the cops they ain’t nothin’. I look at them and think about all the ways I can hurt them—physically. These two officers think they’re hurting these boys by stepping out once or twice, writing up parking tickets on a couple of cars (including Playboy’s), or squarin’ up with a couple of them, probably advising them to move on, but all the kids do is walk a few feet, spit on the ground, and find a stoop to sit on. Never did like that spitting-on-the-ground shit. It’s disrespectful; but then that’s why they do it.

  Eighteen hundred hours. I can see northbound and southbound gridlocked traffic on 16th from this distance. Steady traffic making its way up 17th too. Probably commuters thinking they can trim a few minutes off their commute. They cross Euclid, heading toward Columbia Road. Every so often a couple of cars will pull to the corner curb along the crosswalk behind Playboy’s car. They make their deals and roll. Not even that obvious. It looks something like a brief conversation between two unlikely friends, followed by a handshake. These boys know a lot of people. A lot of them with Virginia and Maryland tags. I use my binos and note the tags with Virginia plates. A large majority of them are regular-looking people, like they’re just getting off work. After all, it is Friday.

  A lot of the same type of people, mostly men, are starting to walk up, too. Some of them are wearing suits or looking like they just got off a construction site; the majority of them are walking south on 17th from somewhere farther up the street. A lot of them are taking the stairs to the row house Playboy stepped into. They knock a couple of times and get let in. Some step back out after about fifteen minutes and others after about thirty. Looks like Cordell and crew got themselves into the brothel business.

  Most of the parking spots have been taken up by residents of this area, so these folks who are walking either live within walking distance or find parking a couple blocks away, maybe at the parking lot behind the school. There’s a driveway that’s out of my sight, just a few steps north of the row house, and that leads to the lot behind the school. Police need to run an op here again. Light up some of these mopes. They’re so close to a school that the sentence can be double the time. I scan the area, see if I can mark any sign of an op, but then I remember those two officers rolling through like clockwork, and realize maybe not. But then again, when we were running something, we’d never tell anyone. Let everything look like business as usual. Those drug boys spot that marked unit long before it rolls up to the corner.

  Evening eventually settles in, and the sky darkens. The streetlamps flicker in unison, with little electric crackles, then settle into a dull, yellowish glow.

  The row house has had steady traffic, like there’s a previously set-up time for the clients. I don’t see some of them exiting, so I’m thinking either they might have some gambling going on or these guys are leaving through a rear door. There’s a cut behind those row homes that leads to the driveway and the school lot and the rear of the Ritz.

  Hell yeah, Cordell’s got himself a good spot to work his dirty deeds. I’m just hoping I’m right that one of those deeds is running teens. I got nice circumstantial shit with Playboy and his connection to Justine, and her friendship with Edgar and, of course, her best friend, Miriam.

  Several primary and secondary sirens wailing nearby. Hearing them in the distance takes me back. Stirs up the adrenaline, but only a tiny bit. I need a snort to make me feel better, so that’s what I do.

  Primary unit being drowned out by all those secondary units. They whoosh close by, sounding like they’re on Columbia Road, heading toward 18th. It’s the center of Adams Morgan, where all the restaurants and nightclubs are. Might be just a couple of drunks getting started early, or maybe a good street robbery. The lookouts positioned on the corner look in the direction of the sirens; then it’s quickly back to business.

  I’m starting to feel like the binos are getting suctioned to my eyes. Every so often I break away to check my surroundings. There are a few brave (clueless) people who I make as residents walking by, but I see mostly drunks and homeless crackheads—your basic assortment of street lepers. I’m once again grateful for the windows’ nice tint; no one notices shit. I got everything I need in hand’s reach, so there won’t be any real movement.

  I notice a young boy riding a bike south on 17th. He hops off his bike in front of the row house. The corner boys don’t seem to acknowledge him. The kid rolls his bike to the steps and leans it against the railing. He walks up the stairs, and before he enters, one of the corner boys yells something at him, and he turns. I can’t hear well enough to know what he yells back, but I can make out the kid’s face. He’s Latino and sure as hell looks like the kid at 16th and Park who always held the parking spot for Angelo.

  I grab my notes from my pack and find the names Edgar gave me, including those of the other boys who rolled with Angelo. I find the kid’s name: Manuel, but they called him Little Manny.

  Fifty-eight

  The sky turns gray and the darkness darker. Night is coming earlier. Fall is a welcome season. Let it bring some of that breezy cool air through this city, so I can roll down the windows on occasion.

  Tonight, it’s bringing a light rain, but I can’t use the wipe
rs. Fortunately, it’s not a downpour, so it doesn’t obstruct my view through the front windshield. I turn the key in the ignition so I can crack the window open just enough to keep my breath from fogging up the windshield.

  I don’t know why, but I start thinking about Leslie and wonder what she’s got going for the weekend. Usually one, sometimes two of those days would include me. I’m really hoping it will again someday. Not much can bring me down, but this situation with her definitely is. Didn’t know I could feel this way. It’s like my heart has turned into an aching muscle—poetically speaking. And now since that occasionally overwhelming passion for Leslie has been realized and gone unfulfilled, that pain has found its way to my brain. I think they call it heartsickness, something I have been avoiding for a long time. I’m brave, except when it comes to those “affairs of the heart.” I take another swig from the flask, see if that’ll help suppress this sensitive side of me.

  I focus my attention back on the house. The patio light either has a low-watt bulb or the fixture is dirty as shit, but it’s bright enough for me to make out some of the faces as they exit. One of them is Little Manny. He’s carrying a white plastic grocery bag with what looks like “Safeway” written on it. He hops down the stairs, scoops up his bike, and rides south on 17th to Euclid. I watch him until I can’t see him anymore, as he cuts left in the direction of the Ritz.

  I check my watch for the time.

  It’s rolled by.

  Almost twenty-two hundred hours.

  Little late for a kid that young. Parents might forgive it if he’s bringing home a little something that helps with the food and rent, though. He’s carrying something good in that bag. Probably money that’s going to Cordell. Narcotics Branch or 3D Vice has gotta know about this place. The chief more than likely has them working on petty shit, like what most of the residents with money are complaining about most. In Adams Morgan that can be anything from panhandling to public drunkenness. I know they’re not getting into any long-term drug investigations nowadays. That’s what Luna complains about most. The department’s definition of long-term is anything that’ll take more than twenty-four hours. No one works cases anymore.