Soul Circus

by George P. Pelecanos

  “Guess he shouldn’t have called ahead.”

  “Yeah, we one step ahead of the motherfucker, for now. He gets her to testify against Phil Wood, we got us a serious problem we got to fix. I’m talkin’ about the girl.”

  Montgomery nodded without conviction. He wasn’t into the way McKinley roughed up the women. Gettin’ violent on women didn’t sit well with him; he’d seen a whole lot of men – if you could call them men – beat on his mother through the years when he was a kid. One of them finally beat his mother half to death. Years later, that man had got his brains blown out across an alley by a gun in Montgomery’s hand. Montgomery’s mother and his younger brother were staying with some relatives now in a suburb of Richmond. He hadn’t seen his mom or the little man for some time.

  They stood in the house on Yuma, McKinley’s great girth filling out the fabric of his warm-up suit. “Monkey Mike” Montgomery’s arms hung loosely at his sides, his hands reaching his knees.

  “What you want to do, for now?” said Montgomery.

  “Grab the Coates cousins off the back stoop,” said McKinley. “Tell them to get over to the apartment where Devra Stokes stays at. Strange told Inez he knew where she stayed, so that’s where he’s off to next. Tell ’em to make sure this Strange knows they’re around.”

  “They took a few shots at the Six Hundred boys last night. You knew about it, right?”

  McKinley nodded. He had heard them bragging on it out back, and he was down with what they had done. Once in a while you had to let the rivals know you were out here and still alive. Except for Dewayne and Zulu Walker, the 600 Crew was light. The one they had shot at, called himself Nutjob, like the name would mean somethin’ just by saying it, he wasn’t nothin’ but a punk.

  “I musta knew somethin’ when I took those cousins on.” McKinley smiled, showing the three silver “fronts” on his upper teeth. “Those boys are ready.”

  “You want them to talk to Stokes, too?”

  “Nah,” said McKinley. “Those two are like a couple of horses, man. I don’t want to be ridin’ them too hard. You and me, we’ll visit the bitch when she gets back to work. In the meantime, let’s roll over to that barbecue place on Benning Road and get us some lunch.”

  Montgomery left the house to give the Coateses their orders for the day. McKinley walked toward the front door, where he’d be far enough away from the others. He dialed a number, got a receptionist, gave her a name that was a code, and was transferred to the man he had asked to speak to.

  “Strange is still on it,” said McKinley. “But you don’t have to worry about nothin’, hear?”

  McKinley ended his call and mopped some sweat off his forehead with a bandanna he kept in his pocket. All this weight he was carrying, it was starting to get to him. He’d been meaning to lose some, ’cause lately he’d been feeling tired and slow all the time.

  McKinley could think about that later, though. Right now, all he could get his head around was lunch.

  AN elderly man wearing a straw boater sat on a folding chair in the shade outside the hair and nail salon, smoking a cigarette. Strange passed by him, nodded by way of a greeting, and received a slow nod in return.

  Strange entered the salon and saw that Devra Stokes was not in, or at least was not in the front of the shop. He went over to the older woman who had been giving him the cold looks the day before, and who seemed to be in charge. Strange guessed her height at four-foot-ten or four-eleven, straddling the line between short and dwarf. Her face was unforgiving, without laugh lines or any other evidence that she knew how to smile.

  “Devra in?” said Strange.

  “She is not.”

  Strange flipped open his badge case and showed it to her for a hot second. His private detective’s license read “Metropolitan Police Department” across the top. It was the one thing that most people remembered, especially if it was shown and put away in a very short period of time.

  “Investigator, D.C.”

  This was his standard introduction. Officially, the description was correct, intended to give the impression that he was with the police. Anyway, it wasn’t a lie.

  “That supposed to mean somethin’ to me?”

  “My name is Strange. I spoke to you on the phone a little while earlier. You said Devra would be in today.”

  “I sent her home early.”

  “But you knew I was comin’ by.”

  “So?”

  “You’re interfering with an investigation.”

  “So?”

  Strange stepped in close to the woman. He had more than a foot of height on her, and he looked down with intimidation into her stone-cold face. She didn’t back up. Her expression didn’t change.

  “Yesterday,” said Strange, “when I came by here, I got followed on my way out. You know anything about that?”

  “Why would I? And if I did know, why would I care? And why would I care to tell you?”

  “You got a name?”

  “I got one. But I got no reason to give it to you.”

  “I know where Devra lives,” said Strange, realizing it was childish the moment the words left his mouth. “I’ll just go over there now.”

  “You mean you ain’t gone yet?”

  Strange left the shop, muttering something about a tough-ass bitch under his breath.

  He heard the old man in the chair chuckle as he headed toward the parking lot. Strange stopped walking, stared at the old man for a second, then relaxed as he saw the friendly amusement in the old man’s eyes.

  “Little old girl stonewalled you, right?”

  “That’s a fact,” said Strange.

  “You a bill collector? ’Cause if you are, you ain’t gonna get nary a penny out of Inez Brown.”

  “I can see that. She the owner of that shop?”

  The old man dragged the last life out of his cigarette and dropped it to the concrete. He ground the butt out with the sole of his black leather shoe as he shook his head.

  “Drug dealer owns that shop,” said the old man.

  “You know his name?”

  The old man continued to shake his head, smoke clouding around his weathered face. “Big boy, wears jewelry. Got this ring that covers his whole hand. Has silver teeth, too. It ain’t unusual for his kind to put money into these places. Those young boys like to hang out where the young ladies do.”

  Strange nodded slowly. “Can’t blame them for that.”

  “No. You can blame ’em for a lot, but not for that.”

  “You have a good one,” said Strange.

  “Gonna be hot today,” said the old man. “Hot.”

  Back in the Caprice, Strange eyeballed Quinn, who was outside the grocery store, his face close to the face of a young man, both of their mouths working furiously. Even from the distance, Strange could see that vein bulging on the left side of Quinn’s forehead, the one that emerged when he got hot.

  Strange found what he was looking for in the small spiral notebook by his side. He phoned Janine and asked her to run the plate numbers from the Mercedes that had tailed him the day before. He had her look into any priors on an Inez Brown, and he gave her the address of the salon and its name so that she could check on who it was, exactly, who held its lease.

  “Anything else?” said Janine.

  “I got some shirts hangin’ back in my office, need some cleaning.”

  “Thanks for the opportunity to serve you. You want those shirts pressed, too?”

  “Not too much starch, baby.”

  “When you need ’em by?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Consider it done. Now, maybe you got something else you want to say to me.”

  “You mean about how much I appreciate all your good work?”

  “Thought you were just gonna imply it.”

  “You don’t give me a chance, all that sarcasm.”

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  “I do appreciate you. Matter of fact, you’re the backbone of my everything. And I�
��ve been thinkin’ about you, you know, the other way, too. Haven’t been able to get you out of my mind all day.”

  “For real?”

  “I wouldn’t lie.”

  “You’ll be home for dinner, right?”

  “I’ll call you. Me and Terry were gonna stop and have a couple beers.”

  “Let me know.”

  “I will.”

  “I love you, too, Derek.”

  Strange picked up Quinn outside the grocery store. They drove out of the lot.

  “Everything all right back there?” said Strange.

  “Yeah. Guy was wondering how he could join the Terry Quinn fan club. I was, like, giving him the membership requirements. How about you?”

  “Well, Tattoo’s sister wasn’t no help. But I did find out a thing or two.”

  “Must have been that quality detective work you’re always going on about.”

  “Not really. Old man I never even met just went and volunteered all sorts of shit.”

  “Good day at Black Rock,” said Quinn.

  “It happens once in a while,” said Strange. “I didn’t even have to ask.”

  Devra Stokes lived off Good Hope Road in an apartment complex where “Drug-Free Zone” signs were posted on a black wrought-iron fence. Strange pulled into the lot and cut the engine.

  “You coming?” said Strange.

  “I’m not really into the Free Granville Oliver movement,” said Quinn. “So I think I’ll hang, you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll leave the keys,” said Strange, “case you want to listen to some of my music.”

  “You got that one about lame men walkin’?”

  “It’s in the glove box. Help yourself.”

  Quinn watched Strange cross the lot and disappear into a dark stairwell.

  JUWAN Stokes sat on the floor of Devra Stokes’s apartment, playing with some action figures, while Strange and Stokes sat at the dining-room table. The apartment, filled with old furniture and new electronics, was in disarray and smelled of marijuana resin and nicotine. Devra apologized, explaining that her roommate, a young woman who worked in another salon, had recently brought an inconsiderate, no-account man into the place against Devra’s wishes. This man was unemployed, liked to burn smoke and drink at all hours, and was responsible for the mess.

  “Not too good for the boy, I expect,” said Strange.

  “We’re looking to get out.” As she said it, she looked out the apartment’s large window.

  “I can help you, short-term.”

  “How you gonna do that?”

  “Defense has witness relocation capabilities, same as the prosecution.”

  “Like Witness Protection?”

  “Not really. You don’t change your name, and you don’t have anybody looking after you. Basically, they have funds set aside that can get you into a place, an apartment like this one, in another part of town.”

  “The Section Eights, right?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “I’m not movin’ Juwan into no Section Eights.”

  “Maybe we can do better than that. We can try.” Strange leaned forward. “Look, I think you know things that would help out our case. You were with Phil Wood back when the murder of Granville’s uncle went down. Phil must have talked to you about it then.”

  “He talked about a lot of things,” said Devra. “But listen, Phil and Granville and their kind, all of ’em been into some serious shit. None of them’s innocent. This is the Lord, now, giving them their due. I don’t want to get in the way of that. I don’t want to be involved.”

  “I can subpoena you, Devra.”

  “Nah, hold up.” Devra Stokes raised one hand and her lovely eyes lost their light. “I don’t like to be threatened. That’s something you’re gonna find out, you get to know me better. When Phil started taking a hand to me, that’s when we broke up. But it wasn’t the physical thing so much as it was what was coming from his mouth. ‘Bitch, I will do this’ and ‘Bitch, I will do that.’ I was like, Do it, then, motherfucker, but don’t be threatenin’ me. That’s when I filed charges against him. I just got tired of all those threats.”

  “But you dropped the charges.”

  “He paid me to. And I had no reason to hurt him that bad. It was over for us anyway by then.” Devra looked down at her son. “That life is behind me, forever and for real. I got no reason to go back there. None.”

  “Mama,” said Juwan, “look!” He was flying an action figure, some hillbilly wrestler, through the air.

  “I see, baby,” said Devra.

  “This isn’t personal,” said Strange. “But you need to understand: I am going to do my job.”

  “Ain’t personal with me, either. But I’m not lookin’ to get involved, and I’ve told you why. Now, I need to get back to work.”

  “Thought Inez gave you the day off.”

  “Not the whole day. She told me that it was slow and to take a couple of hours of break and then come back.”

  “I see,” said Strange. “Inez doesn’t own that place, does she?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who does?”

  Devra nodded, cutting her eyes away from Strange’s. “Horace McKinley.”

  “McKinley. Wears one of those four-finger rings, got silver on his teeth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s a drug dealer, right?”

  “That ain’t no secret. Plenty of these salons down here got drug money behind them. Same way with the massage parlors all over this city, too.” Devra stood, picked up Juwan, and held him in her arms. “Look, I gotta clean him up and get back to work.”

  “There’s plenty you haven’t been telling me, isn’t there?”

  “Seems like you’re doing all right without my help.”

  “Go ahead and take care of your son,” said Strange. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Strange went over to the large window that gave to a view of the lot. A beige Nissan with a spoiler mounted on its rear was driving very slowly behind the Caprice, where Quinn waited in the passenger seat. The bass booming from the vehicle vibrated the apartment window. Strange studied the Nissan, sun gleaming off its roof, as it passed. He knew that car.

  Chapter 17

  IT took Devra a while to get herself and the boy ready. Strange waited for her to do whatever a woman felt she had to do and saw Devra and Juwan to her Taurus. As he walked back to his Caprice, he noticed that the car seemed to be in the general area where he had left it, but there was something off about how it was parked. Strange guessed it was the way it was slanted in its space; he didn’t remember putting it in that way.

  Quinn was impassive, leaning against the passenger door as Strange got behind the wheel.

  “You see that Nissan,” said Strange, “was cruising slow behind you, little while back?”

  “Saw it and heard it,” said Quinn. “They passed by twice. I could see them smiling at me in my side mirror. My pale arm was leaning on the window frame the second time they went by. They must not have liked the look of it or something. That’s when they split.”

  “You make the car?”

  “Early nineties, Nissan Two Forty SX. The four-banger, if I had to guess.”

  “You could hear the engine over the music?”

  “The valves were working overtime.”

  “Okay. How those boys look to you? Wrong?”

  “All the way. But that could just be me, profiling again.”

  “Once a cop,” said Strange.

  “Tell me you know ’em,” said Quinn.

  “I do. Those two rolled up on me at a light yesterday. Both of them had those bugged-out eyes.”

  “Like Rodney Dangerfield and Marty Feldman got together and made a couple of babies.”

  “They could be brothers. One of ’em made the slash sign across his throat. Another car, a Benz, was trying to hem me in from behind.”

  “Sounds like it was planned.”

  “A classic trap,” said Strange. “And you
know that gangs hunt in packs. Anyway, I thought I was imagining this shit at the time, but I don’t think so anymore. They’re trying to warn me off of talking to Stokes.”

  “You want me to, I can show you where they went.”

  “You followed them, didn’t you?”

  The lines around Quinn’s eyes deepened, star-bursting out from behind his aviators. “I figured, loud as they were listening to that music of theirs, they wouldn’t make me, that is if I played it right. And if they did make me, so what? I stayed behind other vehicles, five or six car lengths back, the whole way. Just like you taught me, Dad.”

  “Thought there was something different about my car from where I’d left it.”

  “I parked it one space over.”

  “Knew it was something.”

  “Was wondering if you were gonna catch it. They stopped at another apartment complex, not far from here.”

  “Nice work,” said Strange, pulling his seat belt across his chest. “Let’s run by the parking lot of those apartments.”

  “I need to eat something,” said Quinn. “And I could use a beer.”

  “I could, too,” said Strange.

  MARIO Durham took a shower at Donut’s apartment, then dressed again in the clothes he’d been wearing the past two days. He had some fresh clothes over at his mother’s house, but he didn’t want to go there just yet. The Sanders jersey and his Tommys, they were a little ripe but not awful. He had put his nose to them and they didn’t smell all that bad.

  Mario needed to talk to Dewayne when the time was right, kind of ease him into the events of the night before, then wait for Dewayne’s instructions. But not yet; he’d just hang back for today. He was looking forward to seeing that shine in Dewayne’s eyes, though. He was thinking Dewayne was gonna be proud to have a big brother who finally went and stepped up.

  Mario Durham’s whole outlook had changed since he’d killed Olivia. He had taken a life, done what he’d only heard others talk about. Sure, Mario was scared of getting caught, but he was high on the fact that he now belonged in the same club as his brother and Zulu and all the others who bragged about killing around the way. The gun in his hand had changed everything he’d been before. It had made him a man. He was happy to be rid of that gun, but it would be good to get another. He’d do that in time, too.