Crime Song

by David Swinson

“Stop there!”

  I hear him talking to the driver again.

  “My name is Frank Marr. I know Fulton. He’s a captain at 3D. Hit him up on the radio.”

  More talking.

  Then: “Now get on your knees.”

  Fuckin’ shit.

  “You have me mistaken for someone else. Have the driver step out. I probably know him.”

  I hear the driver say something unintelligible.

  “On your knees, sir.”

  I go to my knees, reluctantly, but not so reluctantly that he has to ask me twice. I hear him approaching, then he grabs my laced-together fingers resting on my head and squeezes them together. Something I used to do. A lot. He pats me down.

  “Gun!” he calls out to the driver. Odd, because I don’t hear the driver step out, unless he was very quiet. He should be backing this rookie up.

  “Take it easy. I told you I’m a retired DC cop. I have all my creds in my wallet, right rear pants pocket.”

  “I’m doing this for your protection and mine until we figure this thing out, okay?”

  He pushes me forward so I’m kissing the sidewalk. He’s got strength. He takes my right wrist and cuffs it, swings my arm back until I wince in pain. He cuffs me, rolls me to my left side, and pulls out the gun.

  “I got a gun here!” he yells again.

  Still no word.

  “Reach into my right rear pants pocket. You’ll find my credentials, including my H.R. two-eighteen permit to carry.”

  I feel him take out my wallet.

  “Damn,” he mumbles. “Sir, you match the description of a suspect in an armed robbery that just occurred. I see you have a badge and credentials, but you can easily obtain those online.”

  “Officer, why isn’t your partner out here assisting you if I’m a suspected armed robber? He should be here with you.”

  He pats me down thoroughly, finding my medicine vial with the capsules that don’t contain medicine.

  “Careful with that. I need that medication.”

  He sets it on the ground beside my keys, then takes my 9mm mags and cigarettes.

  “Don’t move.”

  I turn my head and can just barely see him as he places the gun on the hood of the car and talks to whoever is inside.

  The driver’s-side door opens. The spotlight washes out his face. He moves toward me and in front of the spotlight so his large body blocks the direct light.

  “Fuck,” I say because I recognize him.

  Jasper.

  “Damn, Frankie. What the fuck are you doing down there? Uncuff him, rookie,” he says.

  He’s in uniform. MASTER PATROL OFFICER embroidered on the right shoulder.

  The rookie obeys.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I was just doing what I was told.”

  I push myself to my knees, grab my stuff, and stand.

  “You this kid’s FTO?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Sorry about this shit, man.”

  “What the fuck is this, Willy? You would’ve recognized me right away. Why did you let me go through that shit? Your rookie here mighta shot me.”

  “No, sir,” the rookie says. “Not unless you pulled your weapon on me.”

  I give him a hard glare, nothing more.

  “I didn’t have my glasses on, Frank, and you did match the description.”

  “You know how many times I used that bogus line to stop people? I can’t count. And I’m certain I don’t fit the profile of any of the suspects committing robberies around here.”

  “What can I say?”

  “You heard when I told this officer here my name, right?”

  “No. I didn’t catch that.”

  The rookie looks at Jasper, eyes wide, but doesn’t say anything. He knows better.

  “What’s with sending this young officer out alone? You never do that shit.”

  “I teach ’em right. Let’s not take this to another level, Frank. We always been good, right?”

  I look straight at the rookie, back to him.

  “What are you doing in 3D anyway? You’re a bit outta your district.”

  “We were grabbing some dinner on Fourteenth, that police-friendly El Salvadoran place. Thought I’d get him familiar with the Third. Real coincidence it was you we ran into, but thanks for participating in the training,” he says, trying to joke. “Stop by the club. Drinks’ll be on the house for the trouble my rookie caused you.”

  I can tell the rookie looks worried, like I might complain or something.

  “I don’t care what your FTO tells you. Never walk up to a suspect alone, without backup, especially if he’s a suspected armed robber. The both of us were getting fucked by your training officer.”

  “All right, Frank. Drop it. I was right there. He had backup, and I honestly didn’t know it was you.”

  This is horseshit, but I don’t know him well enough to know whether this was meant to be some kinda joke he was playing on me or the rookie here.

  I don’t want to escalate this, so I say, “No harm. Just got my clothes a little dirty. Advise your rookie that I’m not the type to complain. He seems spooked. And I will take you up on those drinks.”

  “You hear that?” he tells him. “Frank Marr is straight up. Always was. Was also one of the best narcotics detectives on the department a few years before you came on. Why you retired early, I’ll never know.”

  “That’s where I’d like to go, sir,” the rookie tells me.

  I look at him like, What the fuck?

  “I mean Narcotics and Special Investigations Division or Vice,” he says.

  I just nod. “You wanna give me my gun back? I gotta get home.”

  Jasper tilts his big chin, and the rookie grabs the gun from the hood of the car, where it shouldn’t’ve been, and hands it back, muzzle toward the ground. I holster it.

  “You boys be safe,” I say.

  “Sorry for the fucking confusion, Marr,” Jasper says with a smile so broad he’s squinting his eyes.

  “Never apologize,” I tell him, then turn to walk home.

  Twenty-Five

  That scene was seriously weird. Something really off about that whole situation. Dangerous, though it felt like they were both playing roles.

  I’m being paranoid.

  No, I’m not.

  The last thing I look like is a robbery suspect. I might have a little scruff, but other than that I’m a clean-cut guy. Not to mention my nice jeans and Nat Nast shirt. Maybe a bank robber, but not a common street robber. What the fuck? But seriously, the Nast shirt alone is unique in design and color. Who’d be stupid enough to rob someone wearing this shirt?

  Takes some kinda dope to play a joke like that on his rookie. Takes an idiot to play it on me. Even those I know well on the department, like Luna or Millhoff, wouldn’t pull something like that. Hell, maybe Jasper was telling the truth; I’d really like to think he’s just an idiot FTO.

  I go to bed early, fall in and out of sleep for most of the night. When I wake up again, it’s not even 7:00 a.m. Fuck it, I’m up.

  I loaf around, get a call for a job, some guy who needs an employee checked out for possible embezzlement. Said he heard about me through another client. I turn it down. “Unfortunately, I’ll be committed for at least two weeks,” I tell him. “Call back then if you don’t find anyone else.”

  I check my iPhone for the local news, see if there’s anything new. Jeffrey’s mom is all over the place. I need to stay off this thing. It’s just gonna drive me crazy. I half expect Millhoff and company to kick my door in any day. How crazy is that? And then last night. I still can’t shake what happened. And no, I’ll never admit that it scared the living shit outta me. Hell, no.

  I figure, as hard as it is, I’m gonna try to burn that feeling out of my system. I drop to do my push-ups, then the crunches. But for some reason, I just feel more pissed off when I’m done.

  Twenty-Six

  The majority of burglars in DC are crackheads, and the one thing I know about crackheads
is that they’re predictable. They have a habit bound by routine and, after a while, by superstition. They stick to their regular spots and the people they have grown to trust. That goes for where they sell the stolen goods or trade them for drugs, where they have to go afterward to buy the crack and smoke it, and sometimes who they will smoke it with.

  The amount of burglaries a crackhead has to commit on a daily basis depends on how big the habit is. I’ve debriefed guys who were smoking over eight hundred bucks a day. That’s at least three or four solid burglaries a day. My house would be a good hit because of the laptop, the flat-screen, and especially the gun. The laptop is old, so not worth more than fifty bucks on the street. The TV is good for about a buck fifty. The gun, back when I was working—they’d go for three to six hundred on the street, depending on the model. Mine’s a revolver, but a nice one. It should get three bills or more.

  But like I’ve said a few times before, it’s easier to control your habit when you’ve got a stash at home. I’m talking cocaine for the most part. But whereas coke is a demon, crack is the devil—once you start smoking you never stop. That’s what most of the guys and gals I debriefed have told me. That’s what separates people like me from them, except when the stash has run out. We gotta get more. I’ve never let myself get to that point.

  Wendland opens the store. Wearing the same damn clothing from the last time I saw him. Wouldn’t surprise me if he lied and my flat-screen and laptop are at his home right now. He doesn’t seem like the gun type, so I doubt he has that.

  I crack the window and light a smoke. Another humid day, so it’ll be another day of surveillance and burning gasoline.

  Not even an hour, four cigarettes, and two bumps later, a black old-model Crown Vic cab pulls up to the curb in front of the location. It matches the description Wendland gave me. I write down the tag number in a notebook.

  “Here we go,” I mumble to myself. I especially like when I’m right.

  I grab my binos. A tall skinny man shouldering a bulging knapsack slides out of the rear passenger side. Looks a little scraggly to be Biddy—hair not so trim—but maybe he’s had a rough couple of nights. On the other hand, if Wendland was truthful with his description, I don’t think hair would grow that fast, even on a crackhead.

  The vehicle’s trunk pops open as he makes his way behind it. It looks like a small flat-screen and what might be a large suitcase are loaded in the trunk. I grab a digital camera with a long lens from my backpack. I start snapping pictures of the driver through the closed driver’s-side window and of the scruffy guy pulling out the flat-screen and carrying it to the front door. He returns to grab the large suitcase, struggles to get it out, and when he does he wheels it over to set it beside the TV.

  He opens the door, but before he can enter Wendland appears inside and looks like he’s blocking him.

  Wendland shakes his head and points back to the cab, like he’s refusing to take him in. After dealing with Hurley, and maybe a bit of me, Wendland is smart enough not to buy anything that might be stolen—for a little while, anyway.

  The dude raises his hands in the air and mouths something that I’m sure has the word fucking in it. They go back and forth for a couple of minutes. The scraggly one signals to the cabbie with some inaudible words and a shake of his head. Wendland shuts the door, and that’s the last I see of him.

  The trunk pops back open, and the fiend wheels the suitcase back, then struggles to lift it and stuff it back into the trunk. He gets the flat-screen in, too, slams the trunk, and returns to open the left rear passenger door and slide in.

  I focus with my binos now on the driver. His head is turned back, as they seem to be talking. Can’t really make him out. Shortly after, the cab pulls from the curb. I wait a second, then follow.

  Twenty-Seven

  I’m not sure if that’s Graham Biddy in back, but I’m certain that’s the cab that dropped him off at Thrift World with my property.

  It’s before lunch. Traffic is light. That can work for me and against me. I like another vehicle to hide behind occasionally. Ideally you want a couple more cars when you’re tailing someone; I don’t have that luxury. If you’re solo like me, the only thing you have to worry about is keeping the right distance and not letting the suspect see you twice at different locations. Then again, the suspect has to be paying attention. Lot of these knuckleheads don’t even think about it.

  The cabbie makes his way to U Street, turns left onto 14th, going south. Just before Thomas Circle he hangs a U-turn, slows down, and double-parks in front of a small convenience store. I stay back, pull to the curb next to a hydrant.

  The tired-looking brick convenience store is one of the few survivors left on the lower end of 14th Street, and in all likelihood it is not a welcome neighbor. All the other newer buildings, stores, and restaurants around here, with their well-kept exteriors, make the store look toxic, like something that’ll eventually eat away and destroy a beautiful coral reef.

  Again the passenger exits and pulls out the small flat-screen. He sets it on the pavement between the cab and a parked car. He fiddles with the suitcase, but it doesn’t look like he’s trying to pull it out. Instead he grabs a laptop from inside, closes the trunk. He cradles the flat-screen with his right hand, walks to the store, opens the door with the hand carrying the laptop, and disappears inside.

  The cabbie rolls down his window, takes a puff of a cigarette, exhales out the window. He looks to be in his early sixties. He has a round, friendly face, a well-trimmed beard, salt-and-pepper medium-length hair, and he wears glasses. Looks like a well-seasoned cabbie.

  I call Luna using my car’s Bluetooth.

  “What’s up, Frankie?” He greets me right away.

  “Are you at your desk?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Just a little love. Can’t I miss my ex–work wife?”

  “Fuck you. You’re the bitch in this relationship.”

  “Maybe now, but not then.”

  “Just give me the name you want me to run and tell me you’re not doing anything stupid.”

  “Actually, a tag, and no, I’m not. I’m working a new gig.”

  I hate lying all the time. Especially to him.

  “Go on.”

  I give it.

  “A cab?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He piss you off or something? Or is this really actual work?”

  “Both.”

  “Doesn’t have anything to do with the murder of your cousin, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Hold on,” he says.

  I hear his fingers working the keyboard.

  Seconds later: “I get caught doing this shit for you it could mean my job.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “Ready to copy?”

  “Go.”

  I ready my pen and notebook.

  “Robert Diamond, black male, DOB 09/07/45. It’s an indie cab that comes back to an address in NE.”

  He gives me the address.

  “No record?”

  “Hold on.”

  More typing.

  “He’s clean. I can go deeper, but WALES shows no record.”

  “Naw, that’s good enough for me, bro. Appreciate it.”

  “I know you do, ’cause you got no one else.”

  “I do, but I love you best.”

  “All right, now.”

  “I owe you a lunch.”

  “Drinks and a cigar at Shelly’s.”

  “Good enough. I’ll give you a call when I get through this shit.”

  “Be safe.”

  “You, too, brother.”

  I tap the screen to disconnect.

  Robert Diamond. No record. You’re gonna be my new friend.

  Twenty-Eight

  Not even ten minutes inside and the crackhead comes out sipping a bottle of orange soda.

  He walks to the rear passenger-side window. Diamond leans toward him. They’re across the street and down a bi
t, but I can make out the cash transaction between the two with my binos. Diamond appears to pocket the money after. The trunk pops open. A few more words between the two, and the mope pulls the suitcase from the cab and walks back into the store. Diamond rolls up his window, and I can tell he’s about to pull out. Their deal is done.

  I have to make a quick decision, and it doesn’t take more than a second to figure Robert Diamond is the one I’m gonna follow. He’s an easier mark, with a lot more to lose, and I got a feeling I can break him easier than I can break a violent, possibly dangerous crackhead. Even if the crackhead is Biddy, Diamond will lead me back to him. If I play him right.

  I stay a couple of cars behind the cabbie as he drives south on 9th Street. I need to stay back as best I can. The cab is easy to make out from a distance, but I don’t want to get too far back and chance getting jammed up in traffic or stuck at a light.

  Diamond pulls up to the curb at the southwest corner of 9th and I Streets for a young lady trying to hail him over. She has a purse and a small wheeled carry-on suitcase. She puts it in the rear seat and hops in. Damn. I think about going to the address Luna gave me for him, but then what if it’s a bad address? I can’t risk losing him. Just have to stick with it.

  He drops her off at Union Station. Luckily for me, he doesn’t go around the semicircle again and park with the line of cabs waiting to pick up fares. Instead he makes his way to Mass Avenue and to E Street, where he heads west. This might be a long fucking day. I check my fuel level. Three-quarters full. That should do it if that’s what it becomes.

  Twenty-Nine

  I tailed him into the evening. Nothing but a few fares. Nothing suspicious, but I did get some good intel, especially when I followed him home and confirmed he lives at the address Luna gave me.

  Can’t take it for granted anymore when I enter my home. My shirt is tucked behind the grip of my gun with my hand firmly on the grip. I close the door behind me. Quietly. Lock it, scan as I move toward the kitchen. All as it should be, but still can’t relax. Damn—burglary, murder, who knows why or what they’ll do next? Not even ten o’clock, and I’m gonna hit the sack.