Hell To Pay

by George Pelecanos

  “You can’t be all that good at findin’ people,” said Potter, “to have all this.”

  “I found you,” said Strange, and he opened the door.

  Beyond the door was just darkness. Potter stared at the darkness, remembering the garage door and its little windows, remembering the light behind the windows as they’d walked toward the house.

  “Dirty,” said Potter, and as he reached into his leather for his.38 he heard steps behind him and then felt the press of a gun’s muzzle against the soft spot under his ear.

  Little was pushed up against a wall, his face smashed into it by a man holding a gun to the back of his head. The man found Little’s gun and took it.

  Potter didn’t move. He felt a hand in his jacket pocket and then the loss of weight there as his revolver was slid out.

  “Inside,” said the voice behind him, and he was shoved forward.

  Strange flicked on a light switch and moved aside as the four of them stepped down into the garage.

  Potter saw a big man in a jogging suit with golden-colored eyes, standing with his hands folded in front of him. A young man in a dress suit stood beside him, an automatic in his hand. On the other side of the big man was a boy, no older than twelve, wearing an oversize shirt, tails out. Other than the people inside of it, the garage was empty. A plastic tarp had been spread on its concrete floor.

  Potter recognized the big man as Granville Oliver. Everyone in town knew who he was.

  Oliver looked over at Strange, still standing in the open doorway.

  “All right, then,” said Oliver.

  Strange was staring at the young boy in the oversize shirt. He hesitated for a moment. Then he stepped back and closed the door.

  A row of fluorescent lights, set in a drop ceiling, made a soft buzzing sound overhead.

  “You Granville Oliver, right?” said Potter.

  Oliver stepped forward with the others. The two who had braced Potter and Little had joined the group. Potter and Little retreated and stopped when their backs touched the cinderblock wall of the garage. One of the men reached out and tore Potter’s skully off his head. He threw it to the side.

  “What is this?” said Potter, hoping his voice did not sound weak. But he knew that it did. Little’s hand touched his for a moment, and it felt electric.

  Oliver said nothing.

  “Look, you and me ain’t got no kinda beef,” said Potter. “I been careful to stay out the way of people like you.”

  The fluorescent lights buzzed steadily.

  Potter spread his hands. “Have I been steppin’ on your turf down there off Georgia? I mean, you tryin’ to build somethin’ up there I don’t know about? ’Cause we will pack up our shit and move on, that’s what you want us to do.”

  Oliver didn’t reply.

  Potter smiled. “We can work for you, you want us to.” He felt his mouth twitching uncontrollably as he tried to keep the smile.

  Oliver’s eyes stayed on his. “You want to work for me?”

  “Sure,” said Potter. “Can you put us on?”

  “Gimme my gun,” said Oliver, and the young boy beside him reached under the tail of his shirt and withdrew an automatic. Oliver took the gun from the boy and jacked a round into the chamber. He raised the automatic and pointed it at Potter’s face. Potter saw Oliver’s finger slide inside the trigger guard of the gun.

  Potter closed his eyes. He heard his friend beside him, sobbing, stuttering, begging. He heard Carlton drop to his knees. He wasn’t gonna go out like Dirty. Like some bitch, pleadin’ for his life.

  Potter peed himself. It felt warm on his thighs. He heard the ones who was about to kill him laughing. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyes were frozen. He thought of his mother. He tried to think of what she looked like. He couldn’t bring her up in his mind. He wondered, did it hurt to die.

  STRANGE walked through the kitchen toward the stairway hall. He slowed his step and leaned up against an island holding an indoor grill.

  Even from here, even with that door to the garage closed, he could hear one of those young men crying. Sounded like he was begging, too. The one with the cornrows, if he had to guess. Strange didn’t even know that young man’s name.

  It wasn’t that one, though, or Potter, who had given him pause. It was the young boy standing next to Oliver. The one he’d seen raking leaves the previous day, the one he’d never seen smile. Like he was already dead inside at eleven, twelve years old. Quinn would say that you should never give up on these kids, that it was never too late to try. Well, Strange wasn’t sure about Potter and his kind. But he knew it wasn’t too late for that boy who’d lost his smile.

  Strange walked back the way he’d come. He opened the door leading to the garage without a knock. He stepped down onto the plastic tarp and entered the cold room. All heads turned his way.

  Granville Oliver was holding an automatic to the face of Garfield Potter. Saliva threads hung from Potter’s open mouth, and his jeans were dark with urine. The smell of his release was strong in the garage. The one with the cornrows was on his knees, tears veining his face. His eyes were red rimmed and blown out wide.

  “You ain’t got no business back in here,” said Oliver.

  “Can’t let you do this.”

  Oliver kept his gun on Potter. “You delivered our boys here. Now you’re done.”

  “I thought I was, too,” said Strange. “Can I get a minute?”

  “You got to be playin’.”

  Strange shook his head. “Look at me, man. Do I look like I’m playin’ to you? Gimme one minute. Hear me out.”

  Oliver stared hard at Strange, and Strange stared back.

  “Please,” said Strange.

  Oliver’s shoulders loosened and he lowered the gun. He turned to the man in the suit, Phillip Wood, standing beside him.

  “Hold these two right here,” said Oliver. To Strange he said, “In my office.”

  Strange said, “Right.”

  A phone chirped as Strange sat in the chair before Granville Oliver’s desk. Oliver reached into his jacket for his cell.

  “That’s me,” said Strange, slipping his cell from its holster. “Yeah.”

  “Derek, it’s Lydell. We got his statement.”

  “Whose?”

  “Ray Boyer, the craps player. Said the boy who broke his nose did it with a three fifty-seven snub-nose.”

  “He remember the boy’s name?”

  “Garfield Potter. They’re runnin’ the name right now, should have a last-known on him any minute.”

  “Potter’s the one.”

  “What?”

  “I can give you his address,” said Strange, looking over Oliver’s shoulder through the office window to the street, where Potter had parked. Potter’s car was gone. “But he ain’t there just yet.”

  “What’re you talkin’ about, man?”

  “Here it is,” said Strange, and he gave Blue the Warder Street address. “It’s a row house, got nothin’ on the porch. They ought to be there in about a half hour. Both Potter and his partner, the one with the cornrows. Potter’s driving a Ford Tempo, blue, late eighties. The third boy, I can’t tell you where he is. I believe he’s gone.”

  “How you know all this, Derek?”

  “I’ll explain it to you later.”

  “Trust me. You will.”

  “Get all your available units over there, Ly. Ain’t that how they say it on those police shows?”

  “Derek-”

  “How’d practice go?”

  “Say what?”

  “Practice. The kids all right?”

  “Uh, yeah. The boys all got home safe. Don’t be trying to change the subject, man-”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “I’m gonna call you later, Derek.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” said Strange.

  Strange hit “end,” made a one-finger one-moment gesture to Oliver, and punched in Quinn’s number. Quinn had turned his cell off. Strange left a message
and stared at the dead phone for a moment before sliding it back in place.

  “You done?” said Oliver.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, what you did tonight ain’t gonna change a thing in the end. Those two are gonna die. I’ll make sure of that.”

  “But not tonight. Not by my setup. Not in front of that little boy you got workin’ for you.”

  “Yeah, okay. We been all over that already.”

  “I just want that boy to have some kind of chance.”

  “So you said. But what would you have done if I had said no?”

  “I was counting on reaching your human side. You proved to me that you have one. Thank you for hearin’ me out.”

  Oliver nodded. “Boy’s name is Robert Gray. You think I been ruinin’ him, huh?”

  “Let’s just say that I don’t see him hookin’ up with your enterprise as an opportunity. You and me, we got a difference of opinion on that.”

  “Strange, you ought to see what kind of conditions he was livin’ in when I pulled him out, down there in Stanton Terrace. Wasn’t nobody doin’ a goddamn thing for him then.”

  Strange leaned back and scratched his temple. “This Robert, he play football?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Can he play?”

  “Boy can jook. He can hit, too.” Oliver grinned, looking Strange over. “You’re somethin’, man. What, you tryin’ to save the whole world all at once?”

  “Not the whole world, no.”

  “You know, wasn’t just my human side convinced me to let those boys walk out of here.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “I’m gonna need you someday, Strange. I had one of those, what do you call that, premonitions. Usually, when I get those kinds of feelings, I’m right.” Oliver pointed a finger at Strange. “You owe me for what I did for you tonight.”

  I owe you for more than that, thought Strange.

  But he just said, “I do.”

  Strange drove back to the city in silence. Coming up Georgia Avenue, he tried to reach Quinn again on his cell but got a recording. He passed Buchanan Street and kept driving north, turning right on Quintana and parking the Cadillac in front of Janine’s. She let him into her house and told him to have a seat on the living room couch. She joined him a few minutes later with a cold Heineken and a couple of glasses. The two of them talked into the night.

  chapter 30

  QUINN had been parked along the curb for half an hour when Worldwide Wilson’s 400SE came rolling down the street. Quinn watched the Mercedes glide up in his rearview and he tucked his chin in and turned his head a little as it passed. The Mercedes double-parked, flashers on, as the driver’s-side window came down. A woman Quinn recognized, the black whore who’d asked him for a date the night of the snatch, leaned into the frame. A minute or so went by, and Wilson stepped out of the car.

  He wore his full-length rust-colored leather over a suit. He wore his matching brimmed hat and his alligator shoes. He walked toward his row house, and the black whore got under the wheel of his Mercedes and drove off to find a legal parking spot for her man’s car. Worldwide Wilson moved like a big cat onto the sidewalk. He went up his steps and entered his house.

  Quinn ignitioned the Chevelle and drove down the street, hooking a left at the next corner, and then another quick left into the alley. He parked the car in the alley along a brick wall. His headlights illuminated several sets of eyes beneath the Dumpsters. He cut the lights and in their dying moment saw rats moving low across the stones of the alley. He killed the engine and listened to the tick of it under the hood. He counted units and found the row house, lit by a single flood suspended from the roof. He saw a light go on in the sleeper porch on the second floor.

  Quinn stepped out of the car and walked fast toward the fire escape. Dim bulbs lit the third-floor hall. He could see the third-floor window, but his long sight was gone, and he could not determine if the window was ajar.

  He turned off his cell, got on the fire escape, and began his ascent. He could hear music from behind the wood walls of the sleeper porch as he climbed the iron mesh steps. The music grew louder, and he was grateful for that as he went low along the porch’s curtained windows and kept going up. As he neared the third floor he could see the hall window clearly and he could see now that the window was open a crack.

  He raised the sash and climbed into the hall. He could feel his sweat, and his blood pumping in his chest. The hall smelled of marijuana, tobacco, and Lysol. Behind one of the doors he heard thrusts and bedsprings, and the sounds of a man reaching his climax, and Quinn went on.

  He moved down the hall, his hand sliding along the banister, and at the end of it he looked down the stairs to the second floor. The music, mostly bass, synthesizer, and scratchy guitar, was emanating from below. The music was loud and it echoed in the house. He started down the stairs. The music grew louder with each step he took.

  WORLDWIDE Wilson sat on a couch covered in purple velvet, swirling ice in a glass of straight vodka, listening to “Cebu,” that bad instrumental jam ending side two of that old Commodores LP, Movin’ On. Wilson had owned the vinyl, on the Motown label, for over twenty-five years. He still had all his wax, racked up here in this finished porch, where he liked to kick it when he wasn’t at home. At his crib he listened to CDs, but here he kept his records and turntable, and Bang & Olufsen speakers, and his old tube amplifier, made by Marantz. Box had a lotta clean watts to it, the perfect vehicle for his vinyl. You just couldn’t beat the bottom sound of those records.

  Wilson tapped some ash off his cigarette. He drank down some of the vodka, now that it had chilled some, and let it cool-burn the back of his throat.

  Wilson loved his potato vodka. He bought that brand in the frosty white bottle, with the drawing of the bare tree on it, up there at the store on the District line. He was different from all those other brothers, felt they had to drink Courvoisier and Hennessy just because everyone else did, because the white man told you to. Shit was just poison. There was a word for it, even: carcino-somethin’. Gave you cancer, is what the word meant. And the Man pushed that bad shit into the ghetto, through billboards and bus ads and ads in Ebony and Jet, the same way they pushed death through cigarettes. Well, Wilson did like his tobacco, but the point was, he wasn’t buyin’ into all that, ’cause he was his own man all the way. His brother, who read a lot, had explained this all to him once after they’d smoked some Hawaiian at his mother’s house on Christmas Day. So he wasn’t into no con-yak. But he did love his expensive vodka. He’d gotten a taste for it overseas.

  This room was nice. He’d insulated the room and put radiator heat in it for the wintertime. He had it carpeted with a remnant, hung some Africa-style prints he’d picked up at a flea market on the wall, and bought those thick curtains for the windows. The curtains gave him privacy and made him feel as if he was in his own private club. He’d brought in the furniture and even had a chandelier, had a couple of bulbs missing but it looked good, up in this motherfucker. You could bring a young country-type bitch up here, straight off the bus, and impress her in this room. Girl got a look at all this, you could turn her out quick.

  Wilson put his feet up on the table and dragged on his cigarette. He looked at the windows and thought he saw some kind of shadow pass out there beyond the curtains. He had another sip of vodka, moved his head some to the sounds coming from the stereo, and finished his cigarette.

  Wilson got off the couch, went to the windows, and spread the curtains. He looked out, down the fire escape, and then up to the third floor. Wasn’t nothin’ out there he could see. But he thought he’d go out to the hall for a minute, have a look out there. Never did hurt to double-check.

  QUINN had reached the bottom of the stairs and was standing on the landing when the door to the sleeper porch swung open at the end of the hall. Worldwide Wilson stood there, a drink in his hand, wearing a light green suit over a forest green shirt and tie. A look of perplexity creased his face
. Then a smile of recognition broke upon it. His chuckle was long and low.

  “Damn if it ain’t Theresa Bickle,” said Wilson. “You come to knock me for another woman? That why you came back? ’Cause I am fresh out of young white girls, Theresa.”

  Quinn moved quickly down the hall.

  “Guess you ran into your friend Stella. Shame what that bitch made me do to her, huh?”

  Quinn broke into a run.

  “Now what?” said Wilson. “You gonna rush me now, little man?”

  Quinn’s stride reached a sprint, and he put his head down as Wilson dropped the glass and tried to reach into his jacket pocket. Quinn hit him low, wrapping his arms around Wilson and locking his fingers behind his back, and both of them went through the open door and into the room.

  Quinn ran Wilson through the room and slammed him against the window. The window shattered behind the curtains, and shards of glass fell as Quinn whipped Wilson around, still holding on. Wilson was laughing. Quinn ran him into a stand holding a turntable, and as they toppled over the stand, Quinn’s hands separating, there was the rip of needle over vinyl and the music that was pounding in their heads suddenly came to an end.

  Quinn and Wilson stood up, six feet apart. Quinn saw blood on his hands. The glass from the window had opened up one of them or both of them. He didn’t know which.

  “You fucked up my box,” said Wilson, incredulous.

  “Let’s go,” said Quinn with a hand gesture, seeing the slice along his thumb now, seeing that it was bleeding freely and that the slice was deep.

  Wilson stepped in. Quinn put his weight on his back foot, tucked his elbows into his gut, and covered his face with his fists. He took Wilson’s first blows like that, and the punches moved him back and the pain of them surprised him. He took one in the side and grunted, losing his wind, and Wilson laughed and hit him in the same spot again. Quinn dropped his guard. Wilson hit him in the jaw, and the blow knocked Quinn off his feet. He rolled and came up standing. He moved his jaw, and the pain was a needle through his head. Wilson smiled, and his gold tooth caught the glow off the chandelier.