Soul Circus

by George P. Pelecanos

  DEWAYNE Durham had gotten the cell message on the way back from Six Flags amusement park informing him of the deaths of Jerome Long and Allante Jones. One of his young men at the elementary school had made the call. Word of the quadruple homicide had spread quickly on the street.

  Durham and Bernard Walker dropped off Durham’s son, Laron, at his mother’s place in Landover. Durham hugged Laron without feeling and sent him into his apartment holding balloons and candy. Durham watched him, thinking, That boy has grown some, not realizing or caring that it had been six months since he had seen him last.

  There were still a couple of balloons in the backseat of the Benz as Durham and Walker drove back into the city. Walker tried to look around them in the rearview as he changed lanes.

  “Boy who called me said Nutjob shot first,” said Durham.

  “I guess Jerome did have that fire in him after all,” said Walker.

  “He ain’t had enough to save his life.”

  “We lost two to get two of theirs. Makes us even, right?”

  “That’s not the way it works; you know that. Some young boy now in Yuma is gonna see this as a way to prove he can put work in. All’s this is gonna do is make the killin’ start.”

  “We’ll be ready, then.”

  “We gonna have to be.” Durham shifted in his seat. “Go on over to Mississippi Avenue. Let’s see what’s up, get the rest of the story from the troops.”

  When they got to the elementary school in Congress Heights, there were few of their people around. Durham could see a kid up by the flagpole, standing back in the shadows, and another boy, a lookout no older than twelve, up there on a bike. The kid rode his bike down the rise to the Benz, which Walker had put beside the curb. He wheeled around to the passenger side of the car as Durham’s window glided down.

  “Wha’sup, youngun?”

  The boy’s face was streaked with sweat, and excitement lit his eyes. A cell phone in a holster lay against his hip. “It was me called you up.”

  “I’ll remember it, too.”

  “Five-O already came by twice, askin’ after you. Same car both times.”

  They heard the whoop of a siren blast then, as if on cue, as an MPD cruiser came down Mississippi.

  “Here they come again,” said Walker.

  “Book, little man,” said Durham, and the kid took off on his bike. He went up the cross street, past the elementary school, and disappeared into an alley.

  “What you want me to do?” said Walker.

  “Kill the engine. You don’t got your gun with you, do you?”

  “You told me not to bring it, ’cause of your son.”

  “We all right, then.” Durham moved to the left so that he could see the Crown Vic cruiser in the rearview, idling behind them with its headlights on, radioing in for backup. He could read the car number, but he suspected that this was more than a routine stop.

  The Maryland-inflected, deep female voice on the cruiser’s loudspeaker told them to put their hands outside the open windows of the car. They did this, then were approached by two officers. One of them had drawn his sidearm, a Glock 17, and was holding it out and pointed at the driver’s window with his elbow locked.

  “Why they’re not waitin’ on more cars?” said Walker.

  Durham said, “They want to talk to me first.”

  The officers separated them outside the car. Walker was led to the side of the cruiser by a tall officer with a thick black mustache. Durham was frisked against the Benz by an eight-year veteran of the force, a wide-bottomed woman with short bottle-blond hair. Her name was Diane Beard.

  Beard pushed on Durham’s head until it was bowed and got close to his ear. “We’re taking you in for questioning soon as the backup gets here.”

  “For what?”

  “The shooting tonight.”

  “I don’t know nothin’,” said Durham, his standard response to any police question.

  “Course you don’t,” said Beard.

  “Why you here?” said Durham, lowering his voice.

  “Jerome Long and Allante Jones are dead. The Coates cousins, too.”

  “Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”

  “Your brother, Mario, is hot.”

  “What?”

  “A woman named Olivia Elliot was found murdered in Oxon Run this afternoon. Mario’s the number one suspect. It just came out over the radio.”

  Durham said, “God damn.”

  His first thought: Couldn’t be. He didn’t believe Mario had murder in him. But then, it fit together. Dewayne had told Mario to find the woman for some get-back. He had only meant be a man. He didn’t mean for the fool to kill the bitch.

  Durham’s second thought: Mario would be hidin’ out with that boy Donut. And the police would be talking to their moms straightaway. But she wouldn’t give Mario up. No one would. They knew who his brother was, after all.

  More squad cruisers converged on the scene. Officer Beard yanked up on Durham’s arms, which she held behind his back, and pulled him away from the hood of the Benz.

  “Little rough, ain’t you?”

  “Gotta make it look good,” said Beard, a small degree of pleasure in her voice.

  “I ain’t payin’ you to make it look that good,” said Durham.

  Beard pushed him along. Pocket-cops, thought Durham. They hate everyone. Most of all, they hate themselves.

  Chapter 22

  “THE police gonna want to talk to us,” said Mike Montgomery.

  “I ain’t hidin’,” said Horace McKinley.

  And I ain’t worried, neither. The police can’t touch me.

  “Too bad about the cousins, though.”

  “Find that boy we see down by the liquor store. The one makes them T-shirts?”

  “I know his sister.”

  “Find him. Get some T-shirts made up for the cousins. ‘RIP, We Will Not Forget,’ sumshit like that. You know what to do.”

  “They ain’t had no family or friends.”

  “It ain’t for them. We need to show the street, the Yuma honors their own.”

  “I’ll get it done.”

  They sat in the abandoned house at a card table, beer and malt bottles strewn about the scarred hardwood floor and the stairs leading to the second floor. The lights were on in the house. McKinley smoked a cigar.

  “Gonna be a war for a while,” said McKinley, admiring the Cuban in his hand. “We gonna need some guns.”

  “We’ll go see Ulysses, then.”

  “Six Hundred gonna want to have some go. You know this.”

  “They ain’t but across the alley.”

  “Then that alley’s gonna be one of those DMZs you hear about.”

  “Right,” said Montgomery. He didn’t know what McKinley was talking about. He didn’t know if McKinley knew.

  “Phil Wood’s takin’ the stand tomorrow,” said McKinley.

  “You told me.”

  Montgomery reached into his pocket. He had walked out of the hair salon with one of those little wrestling figures by mistake. He’d been using the figure to play one of those hide-and-go-seek games with that boy Juwan. It had been fun hangin’ out with him. Relaxing. He was tired of this life he was leading, and that boy had reminded him, in a pure kinda way, that not everyone out here was involved in this drama that always ended in death. That boy had been friendly, and not because he was afraid of Mike or knew who McKinley was or nothin’ like that. That boy was nice.

  “Phil’s gonna be up there for a couple of days.” McKinley drew on his cigar and exhaled a cloud of smoke that further fogged the room. “So we need to watch the Stokes bitch for a little while longer.”

  “Okay.”

  “I think she got the message today, but you never know. Girl had some fire in her eyes, I’ll give her that. She don’t respond to the way I put it to her, next thing is, we gonna have to squeeze her little boy.”

  Montgomery fingered the plastic wrestler in his pocket.

  “Mike?” said McK
inley.

  “What.”

  “You heard me, right?”

  “I heard you,” said Montgomery.

  But I ain’t gonna do nothin’ to hurt that kid.

  STRANGE drove uptown in his Cadillac, Greco beside him on his red cushion, War’s “Lotus Blossom” coming from the box. War was one of those groups Strange always went back to when he wanted to think and breathe. They were known as a jam band, but it was their ballads that really cooled him out.

  Kids were out on Georgia’s sidewalks, like they always were. There wasn’t any curfew anymore, like there had been for a while in D.C. The curfew hadn’t worked because the responsibility for the children had been put in the wrong hands. It never should have been up to the police to raise other people’s kids.

  Strange thought of Mark Elliot, now an orphan. And he thought of Robert Gray, living with that junkie aunt of his and her equally damaging boyfriend.

  Strange drove by a church set back on Georgia. He saw a banner outside of it, read, “Member: One Kid, One Congregation.” He knew of the program and had once met the man who ran it. He made a mental note to give that man a call.

  Lionel was out on Quintana, standing under a street lamp, the hood up on his car, as Strange parked the Brougham. Lionel had a rag in his hand and he was using it to wipe oil off a dipstick.

  Strange got out of the Caddy. He waited for Greco to jump out before he closed the door. Greco stayed with him every step of the way as Strange came up on Lionel.

  “Hey,” said Strange.

  “Pop. Rough night, huh?”

  “I’m still standin’.”

  “Mom kept some food on.”

  Strange brought Lionel to him and held him close.

  “Don’t stay out here too long, hear?”

  Lionel nodded, somewhat embarrassed by the affection, somewhat confused. Strange let him go and walked toward the house, Greco’s nose bumping at his calf. Janine was waiting for him behind the screen door. Strange wondered where he had found the luck to have all this, when others had none at all.

  DURHAM and Walker were taken to the Sixth District substation on Pennsylvania Avenue, Southeast, and interviewed separately by homicide detectives working the shootings outside the market. Predictably, both said that they knew nothing about the event. Detective Nathan Grady entered the interview room where Dewayne sat and asked him about the whereabouts of his brother, Mario. Dewayne gave him nothing except for the address of his mother, which he knew they could easily find or already had. There was nothing to hold them on, so Dewayne and Walker were told they could leave. Their car was waiting for them out on Pennsylvania.

  Back in the Benz, Dewayne called his mother. She was crying and said that the police had already been to her town house. She told Dewayne that she didn’t know where Mario could be. Their mother was smart enough not to mention Mario’s friend Donut while talking on the cell.

  Dewayne Durham told his mother not to worry. He’d stop by later and bring along some sweets that he knew she liked, truffles he could get in a late-night market by her place.

  “Drive over to Valley Green, Zu,” Durham said to Walker. “Make sure we don’t get followed.”

  Down in Valley Green, near the hospital, they cruised a cluster of streets: Blackney Lane, Varney Street, and Cole Boulevard among them. Durham was looking for Donut’s car, a silver blue Accord, as he didn’t know exactly where Donut lived. But then they saw Mario, wearing that stupid-ass Redskins getup, standing on a street corner up ahead. Mario stood with one hand in his pocket, slouched, just looking around. Looked like he was waiting for something, he didn’t know what. Just like he’d been doin’ his whole sorry life.

  “Fool,” said Dewayne under his breath. “Pull over, Bernard.”

  Dewayne got out of the car and crossed the street to the corner where Mario stood. Mario kind of puffed out his chest then, like he was one of his brother’s kind. But he saw Dewayne’s eyes and deflated himself quick.

  “What you doin’ out here, huh?” said Dewayne.

  “Nothin’,” said Mario.

  He had some fake crack in his pocket, a whole rack of dummies, but he hadn’t sold a dime’s worth yet. He didn’t think his brother wanted to hear about it now.

  “Don’t you know you wanted on a homicide?”

  “They found her, huh?”

  Dewayne took a deep breath and let it out slow. “Who you stayin’ with? Donut?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Where he live at, man?”

  Mario told him.

  “You got your cell on you?” said Dewayne. At Mario’s nod, Dewayne said, “Give it to me.”

  Mario handed Dewayne his cell. Dewayne dropped it on the concrete and stomped on it savagely, breaking it into pieces. He kicked the various shreds into the worn grass and street.

  “They can find you like that, trace your ass right through your phone when you be usin’ it. Don’t you know nothin’?”

  Mario looked up into Dewayne’s eyes. “Don’t be mad at me, D.” Dewayne didn’t respond.

  Mario said, “You told me the bitch needed to be got.”

  “Stupid motherfucker,” said Dewayne. His hand flew up and he slapped Mario’s face.

  The blow caught them both by surprise. Mario rubbed his cheek and slowly turned his head back to face Dewayne. Mario’s eyes had welled up with tears and his bottom lip shook.

  “Why’d you do me like that?” said Mario, a tremor in his voice. “You my kid brother, man.”

  Dewayne brought him into his arms. Mario was right. He had punked his brother, shamed him in front of Walker, who had surely seen it from his spot in the Benz. And that was wrong.

  “Come on,” said Dewayne, leading Mario across the street, one arm around his shoulders. “We got to put you underground.”

  “Where I’m goin’?”

  “To stay with this girl I know who owes me.”

  “That gonna be all right with her?”

  “It’ll be all right if I tell her it will. C’mon.”

  From behind the wheel, Bernard Walker watched as Dewayne led his retard, no-ass, no-job-havin’ brother toward the car. As they neared, Walker noticed the blood-stained shoes on Mario’s feet. Yesterday he had had one “ordan,” and today he had him a whole pair. Walker thinking, That’s progress, to him.

  TERRY Quinn and Sue Tracy were fucking like animals in Quinn’s bed when Strange called. Quinn reached over and swept the phone off the nightstand without missing a stroke. Fifteen minutes later Strange called again. Quinn had put the receiver back in its cradle, and Sue was in the bathroom washing herself when the phone rang. Quinn sat up naked on the bed and answered the call.

  “What’s goin’ on?” said Tracy, coming out of the bathroom, seeing Quinn’s pale, drawn face.

  “It was Derek,” said Quinn, nodding toward the phone. He repeated, briefly, the details Strange had given him. She asked some questions, but he waved her off and got up from the bed. He dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, and got into his leather.

  Quinn stood dumbly in the center of the room and stared at his bureau. His Colt was in there. He took a step toward his dresser and stopped. What would he do with his gun now? The gun was his crutch, he knew. Violence was his answer, had always been his answer, to every conflict, threatened or imagined, he’d ever had. But there wasn’t even a target now. Not unless you counted that pathetic little man in the Deion jersey. No, it was Quinn who had gotten that boy’s mother killed.

  He walked from the bedroom. Tracy heard him pacing the living room and then a crash. It was the sound of a toppled chair. He came back in, and the vein was up on his face.

  “I’m going out.”

  “Where?”

  “For a walk.”

  “I’ll come.”

  Quinn’s eyes cut away from Tracy’s. “No.”

  He walked up Sligo Avenue, past houses and apartments and the Montgomery County Police station, the 7-Eleven and the bus station on Fenton, and then along the
car repair garages and auto parts stores lining the strip. The closed-mouth kiss of gentrification and the replacement of mom-and-pops by national chains had not yet reached this far south in Silver Spring. Quinn generally stayed in this part of town.

  He turned left on Selim, crossed the street at the My-Le, the Vietnamese restaurant there, and went over the pedestrian bridge spanning Georgia Avenue that led to the commuter train station and the B amp;O and Metro tracks. He stood on the platform and looked down Georgia, his nearsighted eyes seeing only the blur of headlights, street lamps, and streaks of neon. He turned toward the tracks, hearing the low rumble of a freight train approaching from the south. It reached him eventually. When it did, he reached his hand out so that he almost touched the train and could feel its wind. He closed his eyes.

  Now he was away from his world. Enemies and allies were easily distinguished by hats of black and white. Honor and redemption were real, not conceptual. Justice was uncomplicated by the gray of politics and money, and, if need be, achieved at the point of a gun.

  Quinn knew he was out of step. He knew that his outlook was dangerous, essentially that of a boy. And that it would catch up to him in the end.

  He opened his eyes. The train still rumbled by. Up on Selim, his Chevelle was idling outside My-Le. He crossed back over the bridge and went to the open passenger window. He leaned into the frame. Sue Tracy was behind the wheel, her right hand moving the Hurst shifter through its gears.

  “Thanks for checkin’ up on me, Mom.”

  “Look, I don’t know what you dream about up here, cowboy, but it doesn’t get anything solved.”

  “In my mind it does.”

  “Okay. But it sounds to me like you’ve got some work to do tomorrow. I just wanted to make sure you got some sleep tonight.”

  “What you wanted was to drive my sled.”