Soul Circus (26 page)

“I think he liked you, to tell you the truth. Terry’s carrying some baggage with him, is what it is.”

“Aren’t we all.” Stefanos dragged on his cigarette, looked at it, and hit it again.

“Just so you know, you and me got some similar opinions about guns. I figure, we sat down in a bar together, we might have a lot to talk about.”

“I’m trying to stay out of bars. But I wouldn’t mind hooking up with you sometime.”

“You know, I’m working this death penalty case for a reason.”

“Another thing we agree on. It’s why I’m on the Corey Graves thing. The federal prosecutors were looking to make it a capital case and they just got the go-ahead from the attorney general.”

“I heard.”

“There’s been too much death in this city already, Derek. I’ve had enough of it.”

“I have, too.”

“The neighborhoods you guys work, your partner’s gotta be careful, with that personality of his. He shows some smarts and less emotion, he’s gonna live longer.”

“I tell him all the time.”

“I remember what that guy went through, with the newspapers and television and all, after he shot that other cop. He’s got some shit flying around in his head; it’s understandable. For what it’s worth, I liked him, too.”

“Don’t forget to stop by. Ninth and Upshur.”

“I’ll be around.”

“Thanks for your help, Nick.”

Stefanos shook Strange’s outstretched hand and said, “Right.”

Strange watched him walk toward a Mopar muscle car, a white-over-red Dodge with aftermarket Magnum 500 wheels. He listened to the cook of the Detroit engine and went back into the diner. Quinn was dropping money on the table, a toothpick rolling in his mouth.

“You ready?” said Quinn. “I need to pick up my car.”

Strange nodded. “Let’s go to work.”

BERNARD Walker waited in the idling Benz as Dewayne Durham walked out of the Sixth District substation on Pennsylvania Avenue in Southeast. He could see that screwed-up look on Dewayne’s face, which meant confusion. Trouble, something to do with his family. Often it was his mother, always needin’ something. Money, jewelry, clothes, a ride to church. But today it was that brother of his, who’d fucked up big with that girl. When the police had called him into the station that morning — “You wanna come in, Dewayne, or should we send a car to pick you up?” — they said it had to do with Mario. Somethin’ about an “interesting” new development they had in the case.

“Everything all right?” said Walker, so tall in the driver’s seat that his hair was touching the headliner of the car.

“Mario,” said Durham, as if that were explanation enough. He reached to the radio and turned down the sound.

“Well?”

“The gun he used to kill that bitch? It was the same gun Jerome used on that Coates cousin.”

“Same model?”

“Same exact
gun
.”

“Foreman’s woman said that gun was clean.”

“I know it. Foreman told her it was. He took a gun had a body on it, a murder gun attached to my own brother, and sold it to Long. Why you think he’d want to put me in that kind of situation?”

“Maybe he didn’t know.”

“Could be he didn’t. Or maybe someone wanted to see me get jammed up.”

“You think Foreman would set you up like that? Why?”

“That’s what I need to find out.”

“We better go talk to your brother,” said Walker.

“Nah, uh-uh. I don’t trust what he’ll tell me, scared as he is. And I don’t trust myself to be around him right now. I’m tellin’ you, Zu, I’m about to kill a motherfucker today. I see him and he starts to lie, I might just go ahead and dead my own brother. I don’t want to do that to my moms.”

“We could talk to his fool friend, see if Mario said anything about it to him.”

“Yeah,” said Durham. “Let’s do that.”

DONUT’S apartment was dirty and it smelled like resin and cigarettes. A window air conditioner ran low and kept the smell in the two-bedroom unit. Donut sat on the couch, wires and controllers around him from the PlayStation 2 connected to his TV. Normally these things were on the living-room table in front of the couch, along with his ashtray and other smoking paraphernalia, his cell, and his CD and game cases. But Bernard Walker had kicked the table over on its side as soon as Donut had let him in, and now Donut’s shit was scattered about the room.

“I don’t know nothin’,” said Donut. His hands were between his thighs, and he was scissoring his knees together compulsively while staring straight ahead.

Walker bent his long torso forward so that he could speak softly to the ugly man on the couch. “We ain’t asked you nothin’ yet.”

“Go ahead and ask me whateva. I got no call to lie.”

“Just wanted to come by and thank you for looking after my brother like you did,” said Dewayne Durham, standing beside Walker, his voice friendly and calm.

“This how y’all thank me?” said Donut, his hands spread toward the mess on the living-room floor.

“I got a couple of questions for you, is all,” said Durham. “Answer straight, and we’ll be gone.”

“I’m listenin’.”

“That gun my brother had, the one he used on that girl. He tell you where he got it from?”

“That Foreman dude,” said Donut.

“Good. You doin’ all right. Keep answering fast like that and don’t think too hard before you do. Now, Mario say anything about his conversation with Foreman? When he returned the gun to him, I mean.”

“Like what?”

“Like, did Foreman know that Mario had used that gun on the girl?”

Donut nodded quickly. “He said Foreman knew it was a murder gun. He knew.”

Durham looked over at Walker, who nodded one time. They stood there for a while, saying nothing. Donut guessed they were deciding what to do with him. He knew a lot of shit. He prayed they wouldn’t kill him for what he knew. And now he had put the finger on Foreman, too, that big horse, used to be a cop. But he could worry about Foreman later. First thing was, he needed to get out of this situation right here.

“Donut?” said Durham.

“Huh?”

“Listen close.”

“I am.”

“You know where Mario’s at?”

Donut knew. He knew the address of that girl he was stayin’ with and he knew the phone number, too. It was written down on a pad of paper, lying somewhere on the floor with everything else. Mario had called him that morning, talkin’ about the girl and how her ass looked in her jeans, and also about the trouble he was in. But Donut wasn’t about to tell Dewayne Durham all that.

“No,” said Donut. “I ain’t talked to him since he left out of here.”

“That’s good for you,” said Walker. “You need to keep it that way.”

“You know I will.”

“And you do see him again,” said Durham, “you don’t want to be getting him involved in that dummy bullshit you peddlin’ out on the street.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Aiight, then,” said Durham. “You got my cell number, case you remember anything else?”

“Mario wrote it down. I know where it is.”

“Let’s go, Zu.”

Walker stepped on Donut’s case for NBA Street and broke it on the way out the door.

In the Benz, Dewayne Durham used his cell to phone Ulysses Foreman. Walker listened to Durham question Foreman about the gun. Durham’s voice was cool and controlled. He never raised it once, not even at the end, when he said to Foreman, “We ain’t settled this yet.”

“What’d he say?”

“Said he knew the gun had been fired, but Mario told him he was just testin’ it, like it was the Fourth of July, sumshit like that.”

“So he says he didn’t know.”

Durham nodded. “That’s what he says.”

DONUT looked through the slots of his venetian blinds, waiting for the Benz to leave his parking lot. When he was sure they were gone, Donut phoned his friend.

“Mario.”

“Dough?”

“Your brother was here, askin’ about some shit. That gun you used? Maybe it got used in another murder or somethin’ after you turned it in.”

“I ain’t know nothin’ about that.”

“I ain’t say you did.”

“Why was he buggin’, then?”

“I don’t know. He was just
agitated
and shit.”

Donut listened to dead air. He could almost see Mario, his mouth open, staring into space, walking around the room with the cordless in his hand, the other hand in his pocket, jingling change.

“What else is goin’ on?” said Mario.

“What else? Mario, you wanted for
murder
.”

“I know it.”

“Look here, Mario, those rocks I gave you? Throw that shit away, man. The vials, too, everything. Your brother don’t want you fuckin’ with no dummies.”

“Yeah, okay. Dewayne didn’t rough you or nothin’, did he?”

“Nah,” said Donut. “That Bigfoot-lookin’ motherfucker of his, though, he broke my game case. Just, like,
stepped
on it.”

“Madden?”

“NBA Street.”

“That shits was already broke.”

“That ain’t the point.” Donut rubbed his finger along his jawline. “So how’s that girl Dewayne put you in with?”

“She’s at work.”

“How
is
she, though? Is she fine?”

“Yeah,” said Mario. “I already told you, she got a nice round onion on her, man.”

“I just like thinkin’ about it.”

“Donut?”

“What?”

“Don’t give me up. You know I can’t do no time.”

Donut said, “You’re my boy.”

STRANGE sat behind the wheel of his Caprice in the parking lot of the St. Elizabeth’s McDonalds, the Aiwa minirecorder in his hand barely making a sound as the tape whirred, recording the conversation in the car. Devra Stokes was beside him on the bench. Her son, Juwan, sat in the back, diligently working on a cup of soft chocolate ice cream, humming to himself from time to time. It was hot inside the car; Strange had kept the windows rolled up most of the way in an effort to reduce the ambient noise.

“And he said this where?” said Strange.

“This one time?” said Devra.

“This time you distinctly remember.”

“Me and Phil were in his car, the Turbo Z. The one Granville had bought him? We were out in the lot of Crystal Skate. Back around then, that used to be where the mob liked to hang. I liked to roller-skate then, and so did Phil. Phil was good.”

“Do you have a date on this?”

“Not exactly. It was, like, a few days before Bennett Oliver got murdered in his Jag.”

“Why do you remember that so clearly?”

“ ’Cause when it happened, I thought of Phil right away.”

“Why?”

“This night at the skating park, Phil had drunk some wine and had a little smoke. We was in his Z that night, just talkin’. Phil said to me that Bennett had been caught on a wiretap. He said that Granville believed his uncle was gonna flip on him to the Feds, one of those plea-outs they do.”

“And?”

“Phil said that Bennett needed to be got.”

“To be murdered, right?”

Devra nodded.

“Answer for the tape, please, Devra.”

“Yes, to be murdered.”

“Did Phil say he was going to do it himself?”

“Yes. Phil said he was the one that would put the work in.”

“Clarify, please.”

“Phillip Wood told me that he was gonna kill Bennett Oliver.”

“Why him? Why not Granville?”

“Phil said it would be good for him to do it. Good for his career, I mean. It would remove another person above him, make him closer to Granville. In Granville’s eyes, it would make him his main boy.”

“Were there other instances where Phil talked about this plan?”

“I guess. But I don’t remember, like, specific. The night at Crystal Skate, it sticks in my mind.”

“And what happened next?”

Devra shrugged. “Bennett got shot.”

“Did Phil Wood say he’d done it?”

“No. After, he never said nothin’ about it again. And I didn’t ask. I just thought, you know, since he’d told me he was gonna do it, that he’d been the one. I figured it was better I didn’t know for sure. I’d seen what happened to some other people, knew too much.”

Strange shut off the recorder. “Thank you, Devra. That’s good. That’s exactly what we need.”

“Will I testify?”

“Yes, I think you will. My wife will have the subpoena today. It’s not that we’re against you; it’s only to make it official.”

“And then what?”

“I talked to Ray Ives. They’re going to get you and Juwan into an apartment, probably over in Northwest. Not the Section Eights. A step or two up.”

“What, I get a new name or somethin’?”

“No, it’s not like that. You keep your name and you’re not under any kind of guard. Witnesses are relocated in this city all the time. Long as you’re in another quadrant and you go about your life quietly, usually it’s fine.”

“Usually.”

“Right.”

“You know, living here in Southeast, you hear all about what happens to people who are hot. That Corey Graves thing?”

“I’m familiar with it,” said Strange.

“They got him charged with a whole lot of stuff besides the drug business he was runnin’. Witness intimidation. Hiding witnesses. Not to mention all the beef murders he did.”

“I’m not gonna lie to you. I know it’s risky, and so do you. Question is, why are you being so courageous?”

Devra looked out the window. “ ’Cause that motherfucker threatened me. He threatened my
son
, Mr. Strange. He talked mad shit about my mother, too. And he did things to me he shouldn’t have done.”

“Horace McKinley.”

“That’s right.”

“
What
did he do?”

Devra turned her head so that she faced him. “He put his hand on my privates and rubbed it there. He pinched one of my nipples until it hurt so bad I wanted to cry out. But I didn’t cry out. I kept it in. That fat man with his
ci
gar breath, up in my face. I could have killed him then, I had a way. I had so much hate in me.”

“Where does he stay at?” said Strange. He heard a catch in his voice and swallowed, checking his anger.

“I don’t know. He hangs with his boys over on Yuma, the six hundred block, in a house, looks like a crack house with all that plywood in the windows, during the day.”