by Otho Eskin
“You mean the fentanyl epidemic?” I ask.
“That’s bad but there’s worse to come. I’m telling you, Armageddon is scheduled to begin next week at six in the morning.”
“I missed that memo.”
“Actually, the end of the world already started this morning. Fort Sumter was fired upon. Didn’t anyone inform you?”
“You’ve lost me.”
“That’s because you don’t pay attention. You don’t listen to the streets. You ought to get out more.” Hal Marshal pushes his massive form back from his scarred desk, his ancient swivel chair creaking under him, and heaves himself to a standing position, walks around his desk, and stands before a large map of Washington, D.C., his feet apart, his fists on his hips. He reminds me of General George S. Patton at the Battle of El Guettar. All that’s missing are the pearl-handled revolvers. And some tanks.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“You homicide dicks are clueless. You, for example, are dealing with the murder in the Reflecting Pool. Am I right?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “A single murder. You miss the big picture. What’s really going on. The true life and death of our city.”
Marshal vastly exceeds the police department’s weight limits, but management prefers to ignore that. Hal is indispensable. He’s been running the gang division for years and he knows every pimp, dealer, whore, killer, thief, thug, and would-be thug in the area. He also knows the name of every bent cop in the city. His job is secure.
“See that?” Marshal points to the map. “That’s the real world, my friend. Not your penny-ante crime scene. For me, the entire city is a crime scene.”
I see an ordinary map of Washington with lots of pins and colored flags and markings and icons written in pencil on Post-it notes. Over the years I’ve come to recognize some of the symbols. Bright red stars mean street homicides, blue for domestic violence, green squares for drug markets. Hal’s even been generous enough to include a black cross showing where my Secret Service agent was killed. The map is thick with multicolored pins showing gang activity. Where I see streets and parks and monuments, he sees the tides of crime. He sees armed men—squads of thieves, battalions of burglars, armies of criminals—moving through the streets of Washington. He studies his map as if it were a large canvas, reading the ebb and flow of violence.
“The black pins, that’s Sister Grace’s territory,” he says, pointing to a black swath covering most of the city. “The red pins represent M30 gangs. There’s a truce between them and Sister Grace. In the last few days, she’s lost almost a block and a half in Southeast Washington to a bunch of Cubans. Meanwhile, in Anacostia, Sister Grace’s people have been pushing out the Guatemalans.”
“And the blue pins?” I ask.
“Some El Salvador gangs trying to cut into her drug business.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“All of this is going to change completely in six days.”
“What happens in six days?” I’ve brought a Styrofoam container of Lipton tea, Hal’s preferred beverage. He stirs in some artificial sweetener. He’s been using artificial sweetener for years in hopes it will help him lose weight.
“The guns.”
“Tell me about the guns.”
“Word on the street is there’s a shitload of weapons—automatic weapons, military grade—coming on the market. A huge buy.”
“How reliable is this ‘word’?”
“Very. The weapons are on their way now and due for delivery in Washington next Thursday at six in the morning.”
“Where do they come from?”
“The immediate source is a major dealer in El Salvador. The weapons originated in North Korea. Where else?”
“Who’s buying?”
“We don’t know. That’s what worries me. Somebody from out of town has contracted for delivery here. But there’s more than one interested party. Sister Grace wants them. Cloud wants them. They’ve both let the word out they’ll pay top dollar to get those weapons. And there are other potential buyers.”
“What happens if Cloud gets them … ?”
“There will be hell to pay.”
“Won’t Sister Grace keep things under control?”
I’ve worked with Hal ever since I made detective and we have a complicated, sometimes fraught, relationship. We both know more about the other than is altogether healthy and we don’t really trust one another. I don’t think we even like one another much. So we get along fine. He knows every bad cop on the force. The ones who take bribes, who are on the payroll of criminal syndicates. He knows I ignore the rules and cut corners. I suspect he even knows something about Billy Walsh and the others. But he knows on important things, I’m clean. I have strict standards. He doesn’t know what these standards are exactly but he senses they exist. He knows when it comes to the important things, I’m reliable. We help one another when necessary and we don’t ask awkward questions. He gives me a heads-up about dangerous people I need to watch out for and I feed him information about certain criminal activities I have no business knowing about.
Hal shakes his head mournfully. “For years, Sister Grace kept things under control. If there were territorial problems, she’d intervene. She might have some troublemaker whacked from time to time but things would soon settle down.”
“And now?”
“Maybe she’s getting old. What is she, a hundred and fifty? She doesn’t seem to be able to keep her people in line anymore.”
“You think she’s not running the show?”
“Looks to me like no one’s running the show. I’m not sure she can do that anymore. Her organization’s falling apart.”
“You talk about war,” I say. “What kind of war?”
“A war for the control of the city. Cloud’s boy Lamont is challenging Cloud. You heard about the shooting at the schoolyard? That was Fort Sumter. Lamont’s already been operating independently, cutting into Cloud’s drug operations. He’s cut out Cloud completely in certain parts of the city. Lamont operates out of a warehouse in Southwest where he stores his drugs and runs whatever illegal activities he’s doing. Until today, Cloud tolerated Lamont’s independent activities.”
“Until today?” I ask
“This morning Lamont crossed the line and challenged Cloud directly. Lamont tried to eliminate one of Cloud’s lieutenants—tried to shoot him down in that schoolyard. Cloud’s guy got away. You heard what happened to the bystanders. Now it’s open war between Cloud and Lamont. There’s no going back.”
“Tell me about Lamont.”
Marshal returns to his desk, sinks into his creaking chair, and drinks some tea.
“Lamont likes killing people. His father disappeared when Lamont was like five or six or something. His mother was a crack addict. When Lamont was about ten, a dude named Tyshan moved in. Tyshan was a real piece of shit. One day Lamont goes out and gets himself a gun. Tyshan comes home, drunk as usual, and Lamont shoots him dead. Right there in the living room. Ten rounds. Pow! Pow! Pow!”
“Was Lamont arrested?”
“The kid was ten years old, for Christ sake. Nobody wanted to send the boy to prison. He was given probation and counseling.”
“I take it that didn’t help.”
“He murdered his counselor. By that time, he was thirteen and he already had a reputation for extreme violence. There were witnesses to his murders, but when it came time to testify, everybody remembered to forget. One time we even had Lamont on tape for another killing. He walks into a liquor store in Northeast, holds up the place, and then, for no reason except because he feels like it, he shoots the owner dead. Maybe he don’t like Koreans. At the trial, fifteen people swear he was playing craps someplace across town at the time of the shooting. Understand, people are scared to death of Lamont. Want to know what I think?”
“What do you think?”
“What I think is, Lamont’s a fucking psychopath. Why are you asking about Lamont? He involved in one of your
cases?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Don’t expect to get a conviction if he is. Nobody’s going to testify against either Cloud or Lamont. There’s one rule on the streets: Snitch and you’re dead. Snitch on Cloud or Lamont and your family’s dead, too.”
“I have no plans to arrest either Cloud or his buddy.”
“Now it’s your turn. What have you got for me?”
I’m silent for a moment, thinking carefully about how to answer. “Sister Grace and Cloud are on the verge of open war.”
“Elaborate.”
“Sister Grace knows Cloud wants to take over her organization. And she knows she’s in danger from him. Sister Grace thinks Cloud plans to kill her. So she plans to kill him first.”
“And you know this how?”
I don’t bother to answer. This naturally aggravates Hal. He’s been running the gang division for years, but he has never laid eyes on Sister Grace—never seen a picture of her—isn’t even sure where she lives. Yet here I am with what seems to be inside information.
“Do you know how Sister Grace intends to do a this?” Hal asks.
Tricky question. I have no good answer. So I stay quiet.
“This is bad,” Hal continues. “With Cloud and Lamont at war with one another and now the old lady going to war with Cloud and his people and now these guns coming on the market, I tell you, six days from now at six thirty in the morning, that’s when the shit hits the fan. That’s the end of the world.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“YOU HAVE COMPANY, Marko.” Roberta places a glass with Van Winkle in front of me.
Arora Lovelace is standing next to me. She’s made an effort to comb her hair. It has not done much good.
“Good evening, Miss Lovelace,” Roberta says. “Delighted to see you back.”
“Good evening, Roberta. May I have one of your lovely whiskey sours?”
“Of course.” Roberta glides away.
“And a good evening to you, Detective.” Arora settles herself on the barstool next to me.
I smile at her. “You said you’re getting interference in your investigation. Tell me about that.”
“I’m running into major obstruction. As soon as I begin to get into Sandra Wilcox’s background—her family and friends, people she knew—what her life was like—I get shut down. That includes by the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security, even the Army has stopped cooperating on anything to do with Sandra Wilcox. Phone calls and emails are not returned.”
“Can you tell where this is coming from?” I ask.
“No idea at all. Or why.”
“Have you learned anything in your investigation?”
“We’re checking US Army records and getting a fix on Tony Wilcox, Sandra’s brother. He was in the Army assigned to Delta Force. He was trained as a sniper and apparently was very proficient. He served in Iraq and later in Afghanistan. He’s married and has one child. He had medical issues during his Afghan tour and was sent home and medically discharged. He spent some time in a VA hospital. There may have been some suicide incidents, but the Army is being coy about that.”
Roberta places a chilled old-fashioned glass in front of Miss Lovelace and fills it from a frosted shaker.
“You know where Tony Wilcox’s wife lives?” I ask.
“North Carolina, I believe.”
“What’s the FBI’s theory about Sandra Wilcox’s murder?”
“We think Tony Wilcox or somebody within the Brotherhood murdered Sandra Wilcox.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say.
“Why ridiculous? It makes perfect sense to me.”
“It makes no sense to me.” I remove from my pocket the note I found in Sandra Wilcox’s bedroom and place it on the bar. “I want to show you something. Somebody sent this to Sandra Wilcox at her home. Very recently.”
Arora Lovelace studies the note carefully, front and back, reading the handwritten inscription several times.
“You didn’t think to tell me about this?”
“I didn’t know whether I could trust you.”
“Of course, you can trust me,” she says hotly. “I’m with the FBI. We’re on the same team.”
“Are you so certain?”
She studies the note again. “Expensive stock. Expensive perfume.”
“Does the inscription mean anything to you?”
“It’s a quote,” Arora says. “I seem to remember it from some college seminar I took years ago. The course was called something like ‘Love in the Western World,’ would you believe? What’s that got to do with Sandra Wilcox’s murder?”
“I have no idea but I’m certain there’s a connection.”
“I don’t see it.” She’s upset because I didn’t share a piece of evidence and because I’m trying to derail the FBI’s theory. “Leave the investigation into the Brotherhood to us. That’s what we do. And we’re good at it.”
“Then why did Carla Lowry want you and me to collaborate? Why did you want to talk with me if I’m supposed to stay out of your investigation?”
“Our main focus must be on this Brotherhood and their plans,” she answers. “But there are still questions about the murder of Sandra Wilcox. We thought you could help us with loose ends.”
“Sandra Wilcox is not a loose end.” I try to hide my irritation. “She’s a victim.”
“Don’t lecture me!” She drinks her whiskey sour. “And don’t patronize me! If we’re going to cooperate, we need to be honest with one another.”
“I’m being honest.” I try to keep my voice calm and reasonable, but it’s not working. This is getting out of hand. We’re both becoming angry.
“How about dinner?” I ask, trying to break the tension. She pushes her glasses onto the bridge of her nose and looks thoughtful. I can almost see the gears spinning in her head. Is he hitting on me? Would it be appropriate to accept? Rude to refuse? Unprofessional to have dinner with a police detective working on the same case?
She shrugs. “Okay. But no shop talk.”
* * *
We are seated in the dining room by one of the Serbian brothers who claims his name is Dumont. Like many criminals in their dealings with the police, he is both cautious and overly solicitous. He is clearly consumed with curiosity about Miss Lovelace, uncertain whether she is in law enforcement or, like him, a thief. The brothers have not made up their minds about me.
The lights are dim, the menu is handwritten in purple ink. Charles Aznavour sings plaintively in the background.
The man claiming to be Dumont bows himself away, disappearing into the kitchen where he is doubtless conspiring with his brother. We order an overpriced dinner and an adequate California Chardonnay then talk generalities, each probing the other to get a fix on who we really are. She asks about my past, about my experiences in the police, what I did before I joined the force. I tell her a little, some of it true.
“Did you always want to become a policeman?” Arora asks me. An innocent question. But maybe not entirely innocent.
“Not at all. When I was young, I wanted to join the circus. I wanted to be a trapeze artist.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I’m afraid of heights. How about you, Agent Lovelace?”
“Call me Arora.”
“Then it’s Marko for me.”
“I’m an Army brat,” she says. “I lived all over. Germany. Korea. New Jersey.”
She tells me anecdotes about her experiences in the FBI. She makes no reference to a husband, present or past, or to any love life, present or past. I decide to let that go until a better time. Instead, I tell her an amusing anecdote about my recent trip to Hamburg. Although I normally avoid having sex with FBI Special Agents on a first date, I consider making an exception with Arora and think about asking her back to my place for a drink. We’re having coffee.
Then she goes and spoils the mood. “You’re wrong about the Sandra Wilcox murder. From what we’ve learned, Sandra had no enemies. She
hardly knew anyone in Washington.”
“It only takes one.”
“There had to be some connection to this terrorist militia.”
“I don’t believe it. This was a carefully planned murder. Not the actions of some middle-aged loonies with fantasies of revolution.”
“Have it your own way.” She takes her purse and leaves.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I’M TWO BLOCKS from the restaurant and I’m in serious trouble.
Ahead, a black SUV pulls directly toward me at high speed, headlights dark. Going the wrong way down a one-way street. In my rearview mirror, I glimpse a white van bearing down on me. In seconds, they’ll box me in.
It’s a residential section of Georgetown—mostly old brick buildings, in Federal Style, narrow streets lit faintly by tasteful lamps. There is no traffic here this time of night. The Jag is fast. But not that fast. I have no way to outrun them.
I jam hard on the accelerator and the Jag surges ahead. I turn, tires squealing, at the next corner. I take another left, switch off my headlights, and pray I don’t run into some good citizen out walking her dog. I turn a sharp left, where I fishtail on a patch of cobblestones then speed ahead. Directly in front of me is a twelve-foot-high iron gate and a seven-foot-high brick wall. I jam the breaks hard, skidding to one side of the street, stopping half on the sidewalk.
And I’m out. The wall encloses Potomac Gardens, an oasis of trees and shrubs, flowers and sparkling fountains during the day, a sanctuary of peace and tranquility in the heart of a busy and frenetic city, populated normally by bird watchers and young mothers pushing strollers. And people like me looking for peace.
I know the gate is locked after dark. The lock is an old iron affair and not hard to open with time and the right tools. None of which I have. Behind me there is the sound of racing cars, and I make a wild run for the wall and at the last second leap. And just make it. I grasp the top of the wall and jerk myself up on the top.
I hear a crack. The unmistakable sound of a high-powered rifle at close distance. And then another. I feel no impact. No pain. It’s sloppy shooting. Before I disappear over the edge, I catch an instant glimpse of the shooter. A man stands next to the SUV in dark shadows aiming a long gun. The shooter is within easy range. Either an amateur or he’s firing fast and doesn’t take the time to set up the shot. The next shot will be well placed.