DC Noir

Cold as ice by Quintin Peterson

Congress Heights, S.E./S.W.

Seventy-two-year-old Ida Logan was sitting in her rocker on her front porch when the gunman opened fire. She never knew what hit her. Neither did her five-year-old great granddaughter Aaliyah Gamble, who was sitting nearby at her red, blue, and yellow plastic Playskool desk, playing with Legos.

In but a few seconds, more than a half dozen hollow-point 9mm rounds ripped through each of them, their bodies performing the death dance that only the gunfire of automatic weapons can orchestrate, jerking to the staccato of the rat-tat-tat-ta of the machine gun, as though keeping time to the pulsating rhythm of a boogie rap tune.

To eyewitness Rodney Grimes, the carnage seemed to transpire in slow motion; amid the crimson mist of their splattering blood, the bullets appeared to strike the frail old woman and the fragile little girl forever.

The dreadful scene was punctuated, and made that much more grotesque, by Aaliyah’s head exploding, bursting like a ripe melon dropped from a high place. The pink halo of her vaporized brain was visible only for an instant, yet the obscene corona lingered around what little remained of the back of her neatly braided head; a ghastly image frozen in time… emblazoned upon his troubled mind.

Rodney Grimes didn’t think twice about cooperating with the police. His late father had taught him that “evil flourish when good men do nothing.”

Rodney Grimes was a good man, wasn’t he? He liked to think so. And even if he had not truly been good up to that point, couldn’t he be? Could he not rise to the occasion? Evil had been done and he was compelled to do his part to ensure that the gunman did not go unpunished. It was his duty. Voluntarily, he told the police who arrived first at the scene of the crime that he had witnessed the murders and provided them with a detailed description of the suspect, making sure to emphasize that the gunman had long dreadlocks and was very dark-skinned with unsettling bluish-gray eyes; and described the getaway car, a black late-model Ford Crown Victoria, like a cop car. And later that day, he assisted Detective John Mayfield, the lead on the case, by accompanying him to the Violent Crimes Branch headquarters and picking out a photo of a suspect from an array of nine mugshots. He’d also agreed to participate in the viewing of a lineup. “Sure, no problem,” he’d told the detective. “Just let me know.”

However, the day after the double shooting, the courage of his conviction diminished considerably when he looked up from the Spider-Man comic he was leafing through at the newsstand inside of Iverson Mall and noticed the killer with a lion’s mane of long dreadlocks standing next to him, towering above him.

The shooter held the latest issue of Superman, flipping its pages, but not looking at the comic book. Instead, his cold, disconcerting bluish-gray eyes were fixed on him.

Rodney hoped it was just his imagination at the crime scene; that the killer had simply looked in his general direction, not directly at him, directly into his face. But the killer’s presence here before him dashed that hope. The killer had seen him… and evidently knew who he was.

They stood there silent for a moment, an outlandish odd couple, Rodney Grimes’s clean-cut, black yuppie appearance in direct contrast to that of the killer, who looked like a hip-hop Rastafarian.

“Hey,” said the killer, finally breaking the ice, “you look familiar.” He paused, waited for a response. When Grimes did not reply, he continued. “Do I look familiar to you?”

Grimes remained silent.

“No?” the killer said. “I musta made a mistake.” The killer laughed. “I know what it is! Ever see that Eddie Murphy movie… um… Harlem Nights, yeah. Redd Foxx had on big, thick Coke-bottle glasses like yours, made his eyes look all big and shit, like he was wearin’ magnifyin’ glasses. Yeah, that’s it, you probably just reminded me of him.”

Grimes remained silent.

“Say,” the killer continued, “just how good can you see with eyes that bad? I’ll bet you be makin’ mistakes all the time, don’t you? Wavin’ at people across the street, then be like, ‘Oh, shit, that ain’t whoever.’ Yeah, must be hard recognizin’ people with eyes as bad as you got.”

Grimes remained silent.

“You kinda old to be readin’ comic books, ain’t you?” the killer asked. “What, you twenty-one, twenty-two? Sheeit, I gave up readin’ them joints when I was a little kid.” He snickered.

Grimes remained silent. The killer turned his attention to the comic book.

“You know,” the killer mused, “funny thing about heroes, ’specially comic book superheroes, none of ’em wear glasses. Take Superman here. His disguise, his costum, is Clark Kent, all mild-mannered and shit, wearin’ eyeglasses, ’cause Superman, he know that people who wear eyeglasses all weak and geeky and shit, so nobody will mistake him for a hero. So he can have some peace, un’erstand? ’Cause otherwise, people would bug his ass to death! ‘Superman, get my cat out the tree.’ ‘Superman, tow my car to the shop.’ Yeah, it just be Superman do this and Superman do that, all the goddamn time!”

The killer stared directly into Grimes’s magnified eyes and continued: “But the point I was tryin’ to make is, heroes don’t wear them shits. The eyes is the windows to the soul: weak eyes, weak soul. People who wear ’em is just plain weak. It’s a fact. But when it’s time to go to work, Superman snatch off them horn-rims and that Brooks Brothers and show off his Krypton clothes. ‘This is a job for Superman!’ Right? Voice get deep and everything.” The killer paused for a moment to let his point sink in, and then made his message plain. “Thinking your weak ass can take down a super villain could get you and other people you care about in some serious trouble and cause you some real heartache. Don’t make no mistake, Rodney, don’t try to be no hero. Heroes don’t wear glasses.”

Certain his point had been made, the killer put the comic book back on the rack, glared at Rodney Grimes a few long moments for good measure, and then turned and leisurely walked away.

Finally, after having been paralyzed like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi, Grimes returned the Spider-Man to the rack and, on unsteady legs, exited the newsstand.

He fretted and racked his brain, trying to fathom, How did the killer find out who I am? How did he find me?

The thought occurred to him that the killer might still be around, lying in wait to… to do what? Knife him and leave him bleeding on the floor? Gun him down in the parking lot? He looked around, trying to make sure he was not in immediate danger, but he was sure that his nervousness betrayed him.

Warily, his mind reeling, he walked to the escalator leading to the second level of the mall, wondering if being a good man was worth it.

When he got to his car in the front parking lot of Iverson Mall, he found a folded piece of paper under the left windshield wiper of Sweet Georgia Brown, his mint-condition 1970 metal-flake candy-apple-red, black-ragtop-with-black-leather interior Volkswagen Karman Ghia Coupe, which he had painstakingly refurbished personally over the last two years. Her personalized D.C. license tags read, GEORGIA

What with him attending Howard U on a full scholarship as a civil engineering major and only working part-time at various jobs — busboy, waiter, photo technician at Moto-Foto — restoring her had by no means been an easy task, but it had been worth it. Often women mistook it for a Porsche. Incredible! Yeah, Sweet Georgia Brown drew women’s attention that men like him could not otherwise draw, and that was priceless.

Rodney Grimes’s anxiety heightened when he opened the note and read it. The message, which was handwritten in a childlike scrawl, said: Heros don’t wear glasses.

Heros — the ignorant bastard couldn’t even spell heroes Under different circumstances, Rodney would have found this amusing, but nothing was funny about the situation. This was the killer’s subtle way of telling him that he knew not only who he was, but what car he drove. It was a good bet that he knew where he lived, too.

Grimes refolded the note and put it in his shirt pocket. He walked around the car, giving it a once-over to determine if any damage had been done. Satisfied that his sweetheart was still in great condition, he disarmed the alarm system and unlocked her, climbed in, started her up, and headed off.

The drive home to his tenth-floor apartment at the Wingate House East apartment complex on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in far Southwest Washington was no joy-ride. Rodney couldn’t shake the fear and a sense of impending doom he had not felt in years, not since he was in the seventh grade at Hart Junior High School.

When he’d attended Hart, he had been beaten and robbed on a daily basis, by people like the killer, until he fought back one day and maced a thug in the face when he’d attempted to rob him. That had been his last day, since to remain would have meant certain death. His mother had used her cunning by giving her sister’s apartment in a housing project on M Street, S.W. as his home address so that he could attend a school in another part of town, Jefferson Junior High. It had been smooth sailing from there and he had stopped living in fear. Until now.

But what he had experienced at Hart was nothing compared to the terror the killer instilled in him now. The killer had threatened not only him, but also “other people” Rodney cared about, and his concern for the safety of his friends and family was what really terrified him. His actions could cause them harm… but could he live with the consequences of inaction, of not cooperating with the authorities and letting the killer go unpunished? In fact, what would stop the killer from doing him and those he cared about harm once the danger of arrest and prosecution had passed? If something bad happened to April Knight, he’d never forgive himself.

As he parked his sweetie in the front parking lot of Wingate House East, Rodney Grimes could not shake the belief that he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

Detective John Mayfield had seen better days, both careerwise and in his private life. His early years as a homicide detective had been good days. His closure rate was high, the envy of his peers, in fact. His late wife had always been in his corner, even though most homicide detectives’ marriages end in divorce. Understandable. Police work, with its constant shift changes, makes cultivating any meaningful relationship difficult, but this type of assignment, which requires a round-the-clock commitment, makes it virtually impossible. Few people can accept being married to a ghost. But his dear Katherine had put up with it and hung in there. She had deserved better than dying by the hands of a lowlife during a street robbery gone bad. The fact that her murder remained unsolved was a festering wound. To him, every murderer he brought to justice was Katherine’s killer, but the wound would never heal, he knew.

His closure rate seemed to diminish in direct proportion to his failing health, not because he lacked the stamina he once had as some might argue, though he was painfully aware that he did indeed lack the vigor of his youth, but because of obstacles he now had to hurdle to bring the guilty to justice. Nowadays, witnesses were hard to come by. A thug strapped with a MAC-11 can open fire on a crowded street or sporting event or concert hall, and no one sees a thing. If the perpetrators fail to intimidate witnesses, then murder definitely does the trick.

Cases that shocked and outraged the public humiliated the mayor and his “law and order” administration, and the pressure to quickly rectify each situation was passed on to the chief of police. Shit rolls down hill, and this time around Mayfield was at the bottom of the heap. With a caseload of thirty-seven murders for the year, more than half of them unsolved, John Mayfield was under a lot of pressure. As his boss Captain Lynch had put it, “Work better and faster if you want to keep your job!”

Yeah, the good old days of being a superstar homicide detective were definitely long gone as far as Detective Mayfield was concerned. But today would be like the good ol’ days, he mused. Today, he had a rock solid case against the prolific and ever elusive “Teflon Thug,” Isaiah “Ice” Hamilton, the suspect in the double homicide on Chesapeake Street, S.E., not only with strong physical evidence, but with three eyewitnesses: urban pioneer Terri Daulby; pillar of the community Ruthann Sommers; and Whiz Kid Rodney Grimes, some kind of nerdy genius who had risen above the social forces that seemed to conspire to keep black men down by turning them into Ice Hamiltons to become well-educated and gainfully employed. Each of them, separately, had picked Ice out a nine-mugshot black-and-white photo array — black-and-white instead of color so that Hamilton’s cold-as-ice, steely bluish-gray eyes wouldn’t set him apart from the mugshots of thugs of similar age, facial structure, and dark complexion.

The witnesses would stand by in separate waiting areas down the hall in an office just inside the secured, combination-lock doors leading to the lineup room where, one by one, they would see if they could pick out the suspect who had opened fire in broad daylight a couple of days ago on a cool, early September Saturday afternoon while the intended target, Francisco “Big Boy” Longus, was standing in front of 74 °Chesapeake Street, S.E.

Mayfield was driven by a burning desire to see Ice, the cold-blooded perpetrator — alleged perpetrator — of this and other sins before God, put away as soon as possible. But it was also important to him that by closing this case he got off his back the government officials, police brass, and community leaders who were all whipped into fever pitch by an outraged public.

Yes, closing this case swiftly had gotten him out from under not only the victims’ family — he had notified Aaliyah’s mother by phone as soon as the arrest warrant was issued — but from the good captain as well.

Detective Mayfield had arrived at the soot-stained, weather-beaten, and dilapidated municipal center, the Henry J. Daly Building, located at 300 Indiana Avenue, N.W., at around 7:45 a.m. for check-in at the Court Liaison Unit on the first floor, a prerequisite before he could log in at D.C. Superior Court across the courtyard for the long and ongoing “Simple City Massacre” murder trial at which he would testify against codefendants LaVon “Pooty” Kirkwood and Donzelle “Killa” Hilliard… whenever the prosecution got around to him.

After he had checked in to court and was placed on standby, to be paged shortly before they needed him on the witness stand, he’d returned to MPD HQ for his 10:00 a.m. appointment in the lineup room. He was anxious. Finally bringing down Isaiah “Ice” Hamilton had him wired.

Handcuffed and shackled, and escorted by two officers assigned to the Central Cell Block (CCB), the very dark-complexioned Isaiah “Ice” Hamilton, six feet four inches tall and lean but muscular, clad in the standard thug uniform of laceless sneakers, baggy low-riding jeans, and oversized T-shirt, stepped from the private express elevator that ran between the CCB in the basement and the prisoner holding area adjacent to the CID lineup room. Detective Mayfield, Detective Crawford of the Lineup Unit, and five plainclothes officers of similar build, age, and skin color, selected to participate in the lineup, were already there when Ice and his escorts arrived.

Ice Hamilton had been picked up at about 4:00 a.m. that morning, operating the suspect vehicle described by the three witnesses, a black late-model Ford Crown Vic, and bearing the tag number Ruthann Sommers had jotted down just before the shooter sped from the scene. Remarkable also was that the car had not been reported stolen, which was typically the case for vehicles used in the commission of felony offenses. Ice was pulled over by two Seventh District officers when they spotted him driving the wanted vehicle on Barnaby Street, S.E., a couple of blocks away from the scene of the crime. Luckily, Ice Hamilton had not been able to produce his license, so he was placed under arrest and his vehicle was impounded. As instructed, the arresting officers made no mention of the car being the suspect vehicle in a murder case.

When he got the news, Detective Mayfield had been amazed that the cunning and elusive Teflon Thug had made such a magnificent blunder, and he was still astounded by this development, but rationalized that perhaps Ice wasn’t as smart as he had given him credit for. Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time. Incredibly, pursuant to a D.C. Superior Court warrant issued posthaste through Mayfield’s connections and served within ninety minutes of Ice being taken into custody, the search of the trunk of the Crown Vic had yielded a MAC-11 and two fully loaded magazines, clothes matching the description of that worn by the assailant, and black cotton work gloves of the type the witnesses said the shooter had worn. Furthermore, ballistics tests conducted by the Firearms Examination Section — also conducted posthaste within two hours of the arrest via Detective Mayfield’s connections — had identified the MAC-11 as the weapon in the Chesapeake Street double murder, as well as tentatively linked it to a half dozen other shootings and seven other murders committed in D.C. over the last nine months. The discovery of the weapon and the ammo led to additional holding charges of possession of a prohibited weapon and possession of unregistered ammunition.

By the time Detective Mayfield interviewed Ice briefly in the Seventh District Detectives Office, the latter was only aware that he was being charged with failure to display his operator’s permit, and possession of a prohibited weapon and unregistered ammo. Mayfield nonchalantly inquired as to (1) Ice’s whereabouts on the afternoon of the previous Saturday, and (2) how he had come to be in the possession of the Crown Vic.

Ice’s answers were simple: “Hangin’ wid my boyz” to the first question, “Borrowed it from my boy” to the second. Ice didn’t even bother to ask the detective why he wanted to know. When questioned if he knew that the man he’d borrowed the car from, Carter Washington, was wanted on an arrest warrant charging him with murder, and if he knew Washington’s whereabouts, Ice replied, “Naw, I didn’t know he was wanted. I don’t know where that nigger at.”

At any rate, John Mayfield was certain that he had built a rock solid case against Ice Hamilton for the Chesapeake Street murders. The physical evidence and the statements of the three witnesses who had separately picked him out of a photo array was more than enough for him to obtain an arrest warrant and a lineup order.

Stifling a laugh, Mayfield smiled at Ice, who responded with a smirk.

“Ice,” said Mayfield.

Ice nodded. “Detective.”

“Been behaving yourself?” the detective asked.

Ice snorted. “Don’t matter if I misbehave or not. Rollers always tryin’ to pin somethin’ on me. Tryin’ Like you tryin’ this time.”

Mayfield chuckled. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

Ice glared at him. “My lawyer’ll get me off, like always.” “Oooh,” quipped Mayfield, “I’m shaking. Fact is, your very expensive lawyer, who just happens to be next door waiting to sit in on the lineup, by the way, is very, very good… but Johnny Cochrane couldn’t get you out of this one. You got sloppy this time, Ice. You should stick with knives; guns aren’t your speed.” He nodded at an officer. “Unshackle him.”

One of the CCB officers unlocked and removed the shackles from Ice’s ankles, then stepped back, keeping a sharp eye him.

Hands cuffed behind him, Ice Hamilton eyeballed the plainclothes officers donning cheesy dreadlock wigs meant to mirror his magnificent mane. He chortled and shook his head.

“You know,” said Ice, “even with them cheap-ass wigs, these lineups ain’t fair to me, ’cause of my eye color…”

Mayfield opened a paper bag and took out five contact lens cases (purchased out of his own pocket because they weren’t in the Lineup Unit’s budget). He handed them out to the police officers participating in the lineup. “Put these on, fellows. Nonprescription disposable cosmetic contact lenses. Bluish-gray in color.” He turned to Hamilton. “You were saying?”

Ice smirked and shook his head.

Detective Mayfield was more than confused and more than a little disappointed — he was concerned. He’d taken them in separately, making sure that the witnesses had no contact with each other. First Ruthann Sommers had failed to identify Ice Hamilton in the lineup, then Terri Daulby. What troubled him was how nervous each of them had been, more nervous than witnesses usually are. They were nervous and… apprehensive, yeah, that was it, apprehensive. As though someone had somehow gotten to them, threatened them. But how? How could Ice or his minions know the identities of the eyewitnesses? Certainly not through his lawyer. Ice’s attorney, C.F. Carlton, had just now become privy to this information.

If Rodney Grimes was as nervous and apprehensive as the others and failed to identify Ice, the chances were that Ice, somehow, had gotten to them. If not, Ice would be fingered by at least one of the witnesses, which was better than nothing. If so, then Mayfield would make it his business to find out how.

Mayfield tried to take away his frown and put on his best face. He opened the door to the waiting area where his last witness sat. He assessed the clean-cut and neatly dressed Rodney Grimes for a moment. Rather than apprehensive, Grimes appeared anxious. Grimes’s eyeglasses were not quite as thick as true Coke-bottle glasses, but magnified his eyes just enough for them to be called Coke-bottles, nonetheless.

There was something else, though, a feeling he couldn’t shake since he’d first laid eyes on him: Grimes was oddly familiar to him, as though he’d seen him somewhere before. He just couldn’t place him.

“Mr. Grimes,” Mayfield said, “We’re ready for you.”

Rodney Grimes replied, “Certainly,” as he got to his feet. “How’s it going, Detective Mayfield?”

“Fine,” Mayfield said flatly.

“Really?” said Grimes. “You seem… disturbed.”

Mayfield was taken aback, though he hid it. At least, he tried to. Grimes was very perceptive. “No, no. Just been working long hours. Right this way.”

Grimes followed Mayfield down the hall.

“What’s the suspect’s name?” Grimes asked. “Or is it against the rules for you to tell me?”

“No,” Mayfield said. “First pick him out of the lineup, then I’ll tell you his name.”

“Fair enough,” said Grimes.

To Mayfield’s relief, Grimes passed with flying colors. He picked Ice out of the lineup quickly and with absolute certainty.

C.F. Carlton had smiled when he saw Grimes’s thick glasses, and Mayfield knew for sure that the attorney would bring into question the witness’ vision at the trial, as well as the fact that the other two, who did not wear eyeglasses, had failed to identify Ice. Still, Mayfield had an eyewitness to the crime and a mountain of physical evidence. He had a good case that should do well in trial.

Detective Mayfield escorted Grimes down the hall toward the elevators, passing a number of people who were on the floor seeking copies of police offense reports or police clearance background checks for job applications.

Speaking low so as not to be overheard by passersby, Mayfield said, “The suspect’s name is Isaiah ‘Ice’ Hamilton.”

“Tell me about him,” said Grimes.

“Why are you interested in his background, Mr. Grimes?”

“Just curious,” Grimes answered. “Tell me, detective, did the other eyewitnesses identify Hamilton?”

Mayfield shook his head.

“Is that what was bothering you earlier?” Grimes asked.

Mayfield nodded.

“What,” said Grimes, “you worried somebody threatened your witnesses and made them clam up?”

“Did someone threaten you Mr. Grimes?”

Grimes nodded.

“Who?”

“Ice Hamilton,” Grimes replied.

“Ice Hamilton personally threatened you? When?”

“Sunday,” said Grimes. “He came up to me at the news-stand in Iverson Mall…”

“Sunday? The day after the murders?”

“That’s right,” Grimes said. “He even knew what I was driving because he left me a note on my windshield…”

“A note? Saying what?”

Grimes removed a plastic Ziplock sandwich bag from his pants pocket containing a piece of paper. “See for yourself.”

Mayfield took the plastic bag and could clearly read the note inside. He shook his head.

“I touched it, but as little as possible,” Grimes told the detective. “I put it in the bag just in case you can lift the writer’s prints.”

Detective Mayfield smiled.

“Now that the other ‘witnesses’ are in the clear,” Grimes said, “how do you propose to protect me?”

Detective Mayfield rubbed his chin. “Tell me everything

Ice said to you.”

John Mayfield, dazed and confused, lit a Winston as he stepped from the side entrance of D.C. Superior Court into the courtyard leading to the municipal center. He was absolutely flabbergasted. What had just transpired at Ice Hamilton’s arraignment had been a travesty of justice.

Just as the proceeding was about to begin, Detective Fanta Monroe had rushed in and whispered the disturbing news to him and Assistant U.S. Attorney Dean Hatcher: Carter Washington, the owner of the black Crown Vic Ice was picked up in, had made a videotaped confession to the Chesapeake Street murders. And according to her, Washington could pass as Ice’s brother, right down to the bluish-gray eyes. They were contact lenses, sure, but he said he wore them to emulate Ice, because he admired him for being such a bad motherfucker. She’d produced a color, digital “live scan” mugshot to prove it. Mayfield had to admit the resemblance was striking.

Detective Monroe insisted that she’d been trying to reach Mayfield via pager and cell phone for a couple of hours, but had not been able to get through, which was bullshit. His cell phone and pager were in perfect working order.

Fanta Monroe also informed John Mayfield that Captain Lynch was pissed about his “fuck-up,” having given a news conference at noon in front of the Violent Crimes Branch announcing the arrest of Isaiah Hamilton in connection with the Chesapeake Street murders. Mayfield had seen it broad-cast “live” on Fox 5. The captain planned to recover by having another news conference at 3:30 that afternoon to announce the closure of the case with the arrest of Carter Washington, thanks to the teamwork of John Mayfield and Fanta Monroe. Incredible.

In light of the circumstances, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hatcher asked that Defense Attorney C.F. Carlton, Detective Mayfield, and himself meet with the judge in his chambers. In that meeting, the new development was discussed and C.F. Carlton artfully pointed out that his client had an alibi: The evidence had been found in the trunk of a vehicle that was loaned to him by a man who he resembled, a man who had confessed to the murders; only one of Mayfield’s eyewitnesses, “a man with questionable eyesight,” had picked his client out of a lineup.

Mayfield told Judge Haddix how Hamilton had threatened the witness Carlton spoke of, and showed him the note in the sandwich bag Grimes had given him. The detective asked for time to test the note to find out if Ice Hamilton’s prints were on it. He also conveyed to the judge that he suspected Ice had threatened the other two witnesses who had failed to pick him out of the lineup.

Judge Miles Haddix countered that Mayfield’s argument was purely supposition when it came to the other two witnesses, as they had made no such claims. Furthermore, what the witness claimed Hamilton had said to him didn’t constitute a threat, nor was he satisfied that it was actually Hamilton who had confronted the witness at the newsstand. The man hadn’t identified himself as Hamilton. The man could have been Carter Washington, who, he pointed out by waving the live scan mugshot, bore a remarkable resemblance to Hamilton. He believed that it was more than likely that the witness had simply mistook Carter Washington for Isaiah Hamilton, like he apparently had at the lineup.

“Under the circumstances,” said Judge Haddix, “I have no recourse but to drop the charges against Isaiah Hamilton and release him.”

Ice smirked at Mayfield when the judge announced his decision.

Dean Hatcher tried to console Detective Mayfield by pointing out that the case against the man who had confessed was a slam dunk, that putting away Carter Washington would be a piece of cake and all concerned would be satisfied that justice had been served. But the detective wasn’t having any of it. The Teflon Thug had slipped through his fingers again.

Just before Ice Hamilton left the courtroom, Mayfield observed a look pass between him and the vivacious Detective Fanta Monroe. Sure, it could have simply been a man admiring a beautiful woman — she was a hottie, no doubt — but it was something more than that, Mayfield was sure. He felt it in his gut. Yes, Fanta and Ice were joined at the hip. He didn’t know how or why, but the two of them were connected, somehow. He’d make it his business to find out.

Mayfield tossed his cigarette butt and pulled out his cell phone. He called Rodney Grimes and gave him the bad news. Understandably, Grimes was outraged.

“They’re making a big mistake,” Rodney Grimes protested. “I’m telling you, it was him! He killed that woman and that little girl and he threatened me!”

“I believe you,” the detective assured him. “Trust me, Mr. Grimes, I believe you.”

“What happens now?” Grimes wanted to know.

“Nothing, I hope. But… Ice Hamilton’s been known to hold a grudge.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Grimes. “Protection’s out of the question, I suppose.”

“That’s right, unfortunately,” the detective sighed. “No case, no protection.”

“Looks like I’m on my own.”

After an uncomfortable silence, Detective Mayfield said, “I know this doesn’t mean much, but thank you for coming forward, Mr. Grimes. I wish… I wish…”

“Keep up the good work, Detective Mayfield. Take care of yourself.”

“Listen,” said Mayfield, “I owe you. Let’s discuss your options over a beer. What do you say?” As if you have any options, other than move, Mayfield thought.

“Sure,” Grimes said.

“What time’s good for you?”

“Well, I’ve got to work out tonight…”

Work out? Mayfield thought. Him?

“…How about 9:30, 10?”

“Sounds good,” said Mayfield. “I’ll take you to a police bar so you can feel safe. See you then.” Mayfield closed his cell phone and sighed.

Two more years before he would be eligible for retirement at the age of fifty. Two more years of this shit seemed like an eternity. But what was he going to do when he retired? What else was he fit to do? Hell, what else did he have to live for?

All retirement would mean to him was biding his time, waiting to die in an empty house, trying to fill lonely evenings and sleepless nights by listening to Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Motown showstoppers.

Retire from the force in two years? He doubted it.

He felt like the man with the shovel following circus elephants who, when asked if he couldn’t find a better job, says, “What, give up show business?”

Ice Hamilton pimp-walked up to his 1st Street, S.W. condo complex, unlocked the electronic fence of this “gated community” with a card key, and crossed the courtyard. Using a standard key, he unlocked the front door of his building and entered. A short walk to the second floor and he was at his door. He unlocked it and went inside.

Hamilton had several cribs, but this one, which was in his sister Beth’s name, was decked out entirely in Ikea shit that Danielle, one of his classy ho’s, picked out. The place was slammin’!

He tossed his keys onto the telephone table near the entrance and walked to the kitchen.

Ice took a bottle of Hpnotiq Liqueur from the fridge and poured himself a tall glass of the blue beverage. He drank deeply. Damn, that was good. He walked over to his couch, flopped down, and put his feet on the coffee table. He laughed aloud, recalling the day’s events.

That look on Detective Mayfield’s face. Priceless!

Carter “The Real Deal” Washington owed him big time, and taking the fall for Ice on the Chesapeake Street murders made them even. Of course, promising to kill Washington’s entire family if he didn’t take the fall had helped The Real Deal make the right decision. And, as usual, his baby Fanta Monroe had come through for him with the names and addresses of potential eyewitnesses, an invaluable service for which she had been well compensated, monetarily and otherwise. He’d turned Fanta out long before she’d joined the police force and was glad that she was still a-dick-ted! He laughed at his own pun, one that he had run into the ground over the years and was funny only to him, though others still laughed because they feared him.

No doubt about it, there was no substitute for having whores in all walks of life strung out on his enormous Johnson. Every woman he’d taken had come under his spell because, like Captain Kirk, he had gone where no man had gone before.

Hamilton took another swig and then got serious as he considered the fate of the punk who had dared to speak out against him. He had been ineffectual, sure, but the nerve! His power must be absolute, his reign unopposed. What Grimes had done was bad for business, and he had to pay the ultimate price so that others would know the way of the world: DON’T SNITCH ON ICE HAMILTON. As always, he’d see to it personally. Ordering murders was too risky because underlings who committed the hits might cut a deal with 5-O and rat on him. Besides, he enjoyed killing people.

And, of course, that punk muthafucka Francisco “Big Boy” Longus would get what he deserved, not only for trespassing on his turf, but also for the Chesapeake Street fiasco. Shit, it was Big Boy’s fault that he had missed him and killed that old hag and that kid. Punk-ass should have stood still.

Yeah, that fat bastard was going to get what was coming to him. Soon.

How Big Boy thought that he could get away with peddling smack on the big dog’s turf, Ice would never know. Didn’t matter. People had to know not to step on Ice Hamilton’s toes. He had a lot of turf, but he wasn’t giving up an inch. Crack, weed, crank, ecstasy, or heroin, the new drug of choice (oh, yeah, it had made a comeback with a vengeance!) — whatever, he didn’t care, he had people out there selling it. And nobody was going to take one penny of his profits out of his pocket. Nobody. At the age of only wenty-six, he could buy anything he wanted.

It was also necessary that he send a clear message to the police in general, and to Detective Mayfield in particular, that he was untouchable. He smiled. Yeah, Ice would send his message to Mayfield loud and clear. Tonight.

Breaking in to that sap Rodney Grimes’s tenth-floor apartment was simple. He knocked on the door like a policeman beforehand, to make sure no one was home, then went to work with his locksmith’s tools. He was inside and sitting on the man’s couch inside of two minutes.

To make certain that Grimes would not be alerted to his presence when he returned to the apartment building, Ice kept the lights off and simply used a penlight to maneuver around.

From what he could see of Rodney’s place, it was nice. Shit, Danielle, the ho who had hooked up his place, could have hooked up this one. True, it wasn’t Ikea shit, but it was put together well, sort of an Asian thing going on. Not too much furniture, but it was well placed, and there were lots of plants. Nice artwork on the walls. Nerd-boy had it goin’ on in here.

Ice smiled. He hoped Rodney Grimes had enjoyed this place. He also hoped that he had lived life to the fullest, but he doubted it. Whatever. Today was the last day of that geek’s life.

Isaiah “Ice” Hamilton turned off his penlight and waited in the dark for his next victim to return home.

Rodney Grimes exited the elevator and walked down the hall to his tenth-floor apartment. He unlocked the door and entered, closing it behind him.

He hit the light switch and froze. Sitting on his futon couch was Ice Hamilton.

“Welcome home,” Ice beamed. He flicked open a switch-blade. “You can run if you want to, but I bet I can catch you.”

Rodney just stood there.

“Brave, huh?” Ice chuckled.

Rodney put his gym bag on the floor.

“Been workin’ out?” Ice asked.

Rodney did not reply.

“Well,” Ice said, “let’s see if you can kick my ass.” Brandishing his stainless steel stiletto, he laughed and rose from the futon.

John Mayfield pulled into the front parking lot of the Wingate House East apartment complex at 9:45 p.m. He parked his unmarked police cruiser, a black 2000 Ford Taurus, and just as he lifted himself out of the car, the sound of breaking plate glass drew his attention upward, where he saw a man dangling from the railing of a balcony.

Sweet Jesus,” Mayfield whispered. He bolted toward the apartment building.

Someone began pounding on the front door, yelling, “Police! Open up!”

Grimes realized it must be Detective Mayfield. He owes me a beer, he thought. Wiping his Coke-bottle glasses, he turned and headed for the door.

Detective Mayfield, gun drawn, was surprised to see him. “Who…?”

“Ice,” Grimes replied.

Detective Mayfield passed quickly through the rubble of broken furniture and stepped onto the balcony. He was awe-struck. Isaiah “Ice” Hamilton, battered and bloody, his eyes filled with an odd combination of terror and rage, was struggling to keep hold of the railing with one hand. The other, once-powerful arm, now as limp as a strand of overcooked spaghetti, merely swung back and forth like a pendulum.

“Help me, man!” Ice yelled. “Help me! My fingers is slippin’!”

While the detective considered what to do, Ice lost his grip. He screamed like a white chick in a horror flick all the way down.

Mayfield holstered his service handgun and turned back to Grimes. He was speechless. But as he looked at Grimes without his glasses, it suddenly came to him where he had seen the man before. The trophies toppled over on the bookshelves and the certificates and awards on the walls confirmed it. Rodney Grimes was a Tae Kwon Do champion, a tenth-degree black-belt. Over the past several years while lending his support to fellow officers who were involved with martial arts, Mayfield had seen Grimes compete at tournaments held at the old D.C. Convention Center. Grimes was a dynamo; Hamilton never had a chance. A Herculean effort was required for John Mayfield to conceal his amusement and deep satisfaction.

The detective noted that Grimes was as cool as a cucumber. No. Cold

“Ice needed someone to save the day,” said Grimes. “It’s too bad I couldn’t help him. But, like he said…” He slipped on his glasses and his magnified eyes stared directly at Mayfield.

Recalling the note Ice Hamilton had left on Rodney Grimes’s car, Detective John Mayfield nodded, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

God don’t like ugly by Lester Irby

Edgewood, N.E.

The Fantasy Nightclub used to sit on the corner of 14th and U Streets, N.W., in what was then D.C.’s red-light district. Pimps, whores, players, drug dealers, and every other sort of hustler swarming the deadly streets of the Chocolate City frequented this establishment. Even a sprinkle of lawyers and local politicians wandered through from time to time.

The year was 1970. On a warm and pleasant Friday night in September, the folks inside of this enclave of sinful joy were at their partying best. Drinks were being gulped down at a rapid pace. Coke and “doogie” snorted even quicker, and couples gyrated, cutting the rug as the fiery sounds of the Temptations’ smash hit “Ball of Confusion” heated the mood to an even higher pitch.

At approximately 12:30 a.m. the club was filled to its maximum capacity. A boisterous crowd of latecomers stood outside the club’s front entrance pleading with the muscular bouncers to let them in.

“Look, muthafuckas,” said Granite, one of the several mean men hired by the owner to keep peace in the house. “There ain’t no mo’ muthafuckin’ room in the place, so shut the fuck up and get ta steppin’, fo’ I put a hot-ball inside somebody’s ass.”

Granite had a take-no-shit-off-nobody attitude and reputation. He also had pay-me-for-protection partners feared by many, so certain big-time entrepreneur/hustlers readily hired his crew to keep their businesses moving smoothly.

While Granite and the other bouncers were trying to quiet and disperse the crowd, two gorgeous hookers, one black and the other white, left the dance floor and entered the ladies’ room to cool down and freshen up.

Several minutes later, awful cries for help were heard clearly over the loud music — screams eerily vibrating from within the ladies’ room.

Inside the rest room, the five-foot-eight curvaceous and strikingly beautiful Sarah Ward was discovered dead. She hovered over the toilet with her head completely submerged inside the piss-filled bowl. She had been strangled and drowned, and, according to the pathologist who later performed an autopsy, “beaten unmercifully moments before,” as evidenced by multiple facial bone fractures.

Who tortured and killed this beautiful woman?

My name is Felicia “Fee-Fee” Taylor. I attended the Fantasy Club that night. I am the sister of Raymond “Smooth” Taylor Jr., and I was once the number-one girlfriend of the notorious Zack Amos, the flamboyant yet smart, crafty, and feared drug kingpin of our nation’s capital.

My ex-man and brother play major roles in the story that

I am about to tell you, and they are significantly linked to the murder of Sarah Ward. I too am linked significantly to that terrible tragedy, as is undercover police officer Ted Jenkins, who was also present that night. But before I go into the details of that event, I desire and very much need to share some things about myself. I was raised in the Edgewood section of Northeast D.C. Born January 13, 1952, the youngest of two children, I was spoiled rotten by my parents, Raymond and Patricia Taylor, and even more so by my grandma, Nanny Johnson. Along with my older brother (by four years) Raymond Jr., we all resided at 3618 Bryant Street. Both parents worked. My mother was a teacher at Mott Elementary, which my brother and I both attended. My father worked two jobs, construction four to five days a week and an evening part-time job stacking shelves at the Safeway on the corner of 4th and Rhode Island Avenue. We had a three-bedroom home — actually four, because my parents converted a portion of our basement into another bedroom. That was Nanny’s Queendom and she simply loved her space.

I wouldn’t say that we were a middle-class family during that period, but we were close, and that’s saying something. It was extremely hard for black people to move up the economic ladder in the ’50s, yet we lived very comfortably in what at the time was an integrated neighborhood.

Growing up I idolized my older brother. I can still remember when he walked me to school every day in kindergarten. I felt so happy, safe, and confident. Each day when he dropped me off with my teacher, he’d tell me: “Baby sis, you hang in there girl. I’ll be right down the hall if you need me. And you better not cry.”

Even at home I would follow him all around the place. His little shadow I was. Years later, as I thought about our childhood, I concluded that, periodically at least, I was a pain in his ass. Even when he had his friends over or when they were out playing in the streets doing their boy things, I’d make it my business to be a part of the action.

“No, Fee-Fee, stop!” my brother would shout. “Go play with the girls… No, you can’t play stickball — get yo’ butt outta here before I call Mama!”

Then I’d start to pout and cry and cry, and when I couldn’t cry no more, I’d fake the tears until I got my way. I didn’t realize it then, but my brother really knew how to manipulate people. Where I had it in my little child’s mind that I was going to do exactly what my brother and the boys did, my brother would always talk me into something like an “important cheerleader role.” And with my little dumb-ass self, I’d end up on the sideline shouting out some silly “Rahrah-hip-hip-hooray-for-the-gang” bullshit as they played. Yet still loving every moment of it.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when the high affection for my brother began its decline, but I do remember when he dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and started hanging out on the street with his friends instead of being at home. Both matters led to major arguments between him and my father, which months later erupted into a horrendous fight — right smack in our living room, as me, Mama, and Nanny looked on and begged them to stop.

Daddy ended up knocking Junior to the floor — then started shouting at him: “Nigger, get yo’ ass up and get the fuck outta my house. You don’t wanna go to school, you don’t wanna work. Get the fuck out and don’t come back until you get some sense.”

Junior slowly got up off the floor, walked straight out the door, and I didn’t see him again for months. He was sixteen years old at the time and I’d recently turned twelve.

Junior would drift periodically back into the house. During the few weeks or months that he was home, we’d share some good times. But something was missing. Things just weren’t the same. The streets had taken over Junior, and I could see in his eyes how extremely anxious he was to get back out there to do whatever he was doing.

As I entered my teen years, my life became humdrum. My hero Junior was no longer there to play with, learn from, and help me to stay on course. My father continued to work two jobs and was too tired to do anything other than eat and sleep when he got home, and Mama had become much too strict and demanding for me to try to talk over anything with her. Nanny was rapidly aging. I was still her “precious little pumpkin,” even as early stages of Alzheimer’s set in.

Gradually, boys became the excitement in my life. Boys, boys, and more boys. I had to have them. I had a crush on this particular seventh-grade classmate named Richard Armstrong. This was one cool, ultrafine manchild. His coffee-with-a-splash-of-cream complexion fit so well on his handsome face. And his slim, trim yet muscular physique simply turned me on. Plus, he had this roguish, street-smart attitude and confidence about himself — with a sexy-ass swagger that immediately started my juices flowing whenever I saw him. Every girl in my school, Langley Junior High, worshipped this boy, and rumor had it that an estimated ninety-five percent of the young ladies who were virgins upon entering the school all became virginless within ninety days, and that Richard was single-handedly responsible for a whopping percentage of the deflowering. A fact for sure, though, is that I am a statistic in whatever Richard’s true percentage is, because I happily lost — no, gave — my cherry to him at the ripe age of fourteen.

Word travels quickly, I learned, when a female is promiscuous. My brother was the first in the family to find out about my sexual activities and sneak-off-partying lifestyle. Even though Junior himself had completely adopted sinful ways, he still looked down on me and started to lash out. We would run into each other at various places, and every encounter turned into a fierce battle of nasty exchanges. He even smacked me so hard once that I discovered how a person can literally get the taste slapped out of her mouth. My hero didn’t exist anymore.

My mother and grandmother died the same year, 1966, two months and three days apart. My mother had undetected diabetes — she suddenly fell into a coma and just as suddenly passed away. Nanny died of a heart attack.

After their deaths, nothing inside of the Taylor home was the same. Daddy went into a shell. He quit one of his jobs and merely went through the motions of working the other. We seldom talked or did things together, and it wasn’t long before I was out on the streets nearly all the time, completely falling in love with the games, drugs, and fun. But equally so with a very powerful, handsome, and sexy new man.

I met Zack Amos when I was sixteen years old through my girlfriend Kim, who was his cousin. I knew about him and had seen him on a number of occasions, but we hadn’t actually spoken until the day Kim told me that Zack was interested in meeting me, and that he’d arranged a gathering of four at his favorite club, Evelyn’s. The four would be me, Zack, Kim, and her man, Oje Simpson.

Kim was very street smart and knew just about everybody in D.C., particularly all the major players in the hustling world. She was gorgeous, of the Pam Grier nature. It became very easy for me to function smoothly on the streets after being taken under her wing and taught the tricks of the trade.

Zack Amos was twenty-five then and he had already taken over much of the drug trade in D.C., which he inherited from his uncle, Hazel “Cookie” Ferguson. Cookie had been busted under the Rico Conspiracy Act three years earlier and is now incarcerated at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary serving a life sentence.

Zack stood six-foot-two and had the same glorious physical traits as my former teenage lover, Richard Armstrong. But where Richard was a sexy manchild, Zack was a superman in every way, and I instantly fell in love with him.

Located at the corner of 9th and U Streets, N.W., Evelyn’s Nightclub was a modest facility, unlike its counterpart, the Fantasy, which was a monstrosity of width, height, glitter, and raucous activities. Evelyn’s was a classy spot that catered to a sophisticated and older jazz-loving crowd who also enjoyed a dose of mellow R&B.

By age fourteen, I’d developed a voluptuous, womanly body, and I had little trouble getting into any of the “adult only” places. Where Kim was considered by many to be dropdead gorgeous, I was the star of the show when it came to physical traits. And yes, I proudly flaunted my stuff. Yet I will also admit that the main reason I was always allowed inside of Evelyn’s was because I was the invited guest of “The Man,” as Zack was known in private circles.

Kim and I were driven to Evelyn’s by Oje in his spanking-new, money-green Eldorado Caddy. Oje was a ranking member of Zack’s crew. He was deathly in love with Kim, and wished the feeling was mutual, but that’s another long story and no time for that. Briefly, though, he was not the pretty-boy type that Kim preferred, but she still kept him under lock and key, basically to provide protection. Anyway, Zack was waiting at Evelyn’s when we arrived, sitting at his reserved table in front of the stage.

It was at Evelyn’s that night that I got my first real lesson on jazz. A local group calling themselves Miles’s Boys did several of Miles Davis’s magnetic tunes. Another local song-stress named Brenda Mcphey took my breath away with what Zack later told me was a splendid version of the great Nancy Wilson’s “Guess Who I Saw Today.” That was just the beginning of a lot of things that I would learn from Zack.

I had a wonderful time and told Zack without hesitation that I would be more than happy to join him for a nightcap and whatever else at the Washington Hilton, where he’d reserved a beautiful and cozy room. The confidence and security of that man was amazing.

Zack’s lovemaking sealed it for me that night. Unspeakably perfect pleasure.

I knew from the beginning that I wasn’t the only female in Zack’s life. His womanizing reputation in D.C. was as legendary as his suspected crime involvements. None of that particularly bothered me. I knew what I wanted, what I needed, and where I was going. We talked openly about his desires and his need for multiple partners in his life. Women played major roles in his criminal activities and he needed strong, faithful people to keep things working smoothly. He had a deep yearning to be financially successful, and I envisioned a lucrative future as Zack’s leading lady. I’d fallen madly in love with this fantastic man and nothing would tear us apart.

Zack’s main woman when we first met was the beautiful Sarah Ward. Besides being gorgeous, she was a selfish, greedy, sneaky, no-good bitch. When I came aboard, friction instantly erupted between us. She had her sights on staying number one in Zack’s life and complained constantly to him about me. Always telling him that I couldn’t be trusted and that being involved with the sister of a competitor would eventually hurt him. Once she stole some product from one of Zack’s drug houses and tried to blame the shit on me. Zack investigated the matter and found that one of his workers had seen Sarah take the package. Zack showed her mercy, but she’d fallen way down on his list of people he could rust.

I don’t know exactly when Sarah and Junior started sneaking around. By then my relationship with my brother had deteriorated to the point that we hardly saw each other, and the few times that we did cross paths, we rarely spoke. We had virtually become enemies, and rightly so, because I was now the woman of his hated rival — my Zack Amos!

By the mid ’60s, Junior started to make a big name for himself. He’d formed a crew of stick-up boys who robbed banks, jewelry stores, and out-of-town drug dealers. Junior and his crew were nearly as feared as Zack and his organization.

In the spring of 1969, one of Zack’s drug houses got knocked off by several masked men. Over $100,000 in cash and drugs were taken, and a few workers were badly pistol-whipped. There was no evidence of who the robbers were, but Zack kept saying that he had a gut feeling Junior was responsible. Zack kept his calm, though, and simply took it as a loss.

When word got around that Junior and Sarah had been seen partying at the famous Cecilia’s Restaurant & Club at 7th and T Streets, N.W., adjacent to the Howard Theater where all of the major singers and comedians performed, Zack erupted with harsh words: “That bitch and brother of yours is crazy! Think that they can keep chumpin’ me and get away with it. Gonna fix their asses,” he told me.

Zack and I had recently visited Cecilia’s for a night of fun. In popped Junior and Sarah, accompanied by several of my brother’s crew. Men like Zack and Junior hardly ever traveled outside of their safe zones without protection, and Zack had his guys positioned throughout the club.

Neither man acknowledged the other at first, but as Junior, Sarah, and their entourage passed our table, the bitch looked down at me and had the nerve to say, “Whatcha lookin’ at, ho?”

For some reason I had a flashback to that day Junior smacked me so hard I momentarily lost my taste. I jumped up before Zack could say or do anything to stop me, but instead of smacking this heifer with my palm, I balled up my fist and knocked the living shit out of her. I tell you, the bitch went straight out.

That nearly led to a major confrontation right there between Zack and Junior, but the club’s security stepped in and defused the matter. Plus, Zack had high respect for Cecilia and didn’t want further mess to spread.

Junior cut menacing eyes our way, but didn’t say a thing, he just helped bring Sarah back to consciousness. Zack decided it was best for us to leave, and as we made our exit, he hollered back at Junior: “You get a pass this time, nigga. Best you keep yourself and tramp in line!”

Chemically, blood is thicker than water, but in the case of me and my brother, a series of painful experiences had transformed that chemistry. Our hearts became harder and the blood diluted behind our sufferings. In our respective pursuits of foolish material gain, we had lost the love and care.

The year is now 1975, five years since the murder of Sarah Ward. Perhaps this is a shocking revelation to the reader, but I am writing this story from prison. A reporter named Frances Parker from the Washington Post contacted me and asked me to tell my story — she said she would cowrite it and turn it into a short story for her magazine. She also offered me a handsome fee. As I told Frances when I first met her, money is no longer important to me. At this stage of my life, I only want to clear my conscience and be granted God’s forgiveness for all of the evil that I’ve done. I’ve grown close to Frances Parker since our first meeting of a year ago when she came to this prison and asked me to do a story. Initially I said no, but she kept coming back. A story to generate income for herself had been her original reason for contacting me, but after a year of really getting to know each other, we have become good friends. She has encouraged me to lift my burden and let the folks in D.C. and the rest of the nation know exactly what happened that night inside the Fantasy Club.

The night that Sarah was murdered, she had accompanied my brother to the Fantasy. Zack had invited them to this gathering under the pretense that a truce and the possible joining of crews would make all of our lives better. I was a willing accomplice to this deception.

Unknown to anybody other than Zack and myself, an undercover D.C. police officer was planted in the club. He was a personal friend of Zack’s and one who was very well paid to be there that night. His name was Ted Jenkins.

Zack and I were sitting at our reserved table at the Fantasy that night, sipping drinks and watching the dancers move creatively to the beat on the dance floor. The DJ was playing high-energy sounds to keep up with the lively and frantic mood.

Junior and Sarah entered around midnight, extending greetings to those they knew as they made their way across the dance floor to our table. Zack rose and shook hands with Junior, and both he and Sarah gave me slight nods of greeting. A round of drinks was ordered as the two men began to make small talk over the booming rise of the music. Moments later, Zack and Junior told me and Sarah to split while they talked over some business.

Immediately, I asked Sarah to join me inside the ladies’ room. “We girls need to do some talking and mending ourselves.”

Two women were coming out as we approached the rest room. Drunkenly laughing and poking fun at each other, they purposely paused in front of the entrance so that we could hear them. This sort of plump-bodied but cute, short-afro-wearing woman said to her frail ugly-duckling-type girlfriend: “Girl, I just pulled this nigga tonight who is spendin’ money like crazy. He’s packin’ meat, if you know what I mean. Child, I’m gonna spend his money, then fuck his brains out.”

As they passed, Sarah and me entered the bathroom and moved to the far end by the wash basins and toilets. Large mirrors were positioned on the walls above the sinks, which had stools under them. We sat next to each other and began to chat.

I told her that I was sorry for all that had happened between us, that since she was my brother’s woman we were sisters in a way, that none of us should be at each others’ throats. It would take time for everything to mend properly between all of us, but me and Zack were willing to forgive and make a new start.

Then I got up slowly, patted her on the shoulder, and told her that I’d be right back — I had to get my purse for a few items I needed to freshen up.

As I dodged around the frantic dancers on my way back to our table, I turned to gaze back at the ladies’ room entrance. At that instant, undercover officer Ted Jenkins darted inside the rest room without anybody other than me noticing. I proceeded to our table.

“Back in the nick of time, baby. Where’s Sarah?” Zack asked.

“She’s still in the rest room waiting for me to come back,” I responded. “Came back to get my purse. Need to freshen up to keep looking good for you, Daddy. How’s it going with you and Junior?”

“We’ve reached an agreement,” Zack said. “But Junior needs to tell you something, so hold tight for a second. Run it, Junior.”

I could see the hatred for me in Junior’s eyes. But he spoke with remarkable calm. “Let’s get one thing straight, Fee-Fee. I’m only here to prevent a stupid war between Zack and me. Fighting will only cost the loss of lives on both ends, and the loss of a whole lot of money. None of us need this shit, so Zack and me have agreed to stop going at each other. Sarah won’t be going at you anymore and I expect you to stay clear of her. Another thing: I got what I want, you got what you want. We ain’t brother and sister no more, and it’s best that we keep it this way. Do I make myself clear?”

As I listened to my brother, I saw Ted Jenkins exit the ladies’ room and lose himself in the crowd.

Before I could get a word out in response to Junior, all hell suddenly broke out. Screams of terror could be heard coming from within the rest room. The music and dancing abruptly stopped and the crowd rushed to see what had happened. Junior sprang from the table and ran toward the rest room.

Moments later, a squad of D.C. police were on the scene, directing the crowd away from the crime area. Three other officers led by Ted Jenkins hurried over to where Junior was trying to muscle himself through the crowd to the club’s entrance. With their guns drawn, two officers grabbed Junior, slung him to the floor, and quickly handcuffed him.

The crowd went silent as Junior yelled out at his captors, “What the fuck is going on? Get the fuck off me, you pieces of shit. I ain’t did nothing!”

“You are under arrest for the murder that just took place,” Jenkins announced. “You have the right to an attorney…” and so forth, his words drowning beneath the chatter of the confused crowd, watching as the cops swiftly moved Junior outside to the waiting police car.

A year later, after a series of court hearings, Junior was tried and convicted of murdering his fiancée, Sarah Ward. Undercover officer Ted Jenkins told the court that he had been there at the club doing surveillance work and had witnessed a heated argument between the two in front of the rest room entrance before they both entered. That was right at the time of the murder. He hadn’t thought that the argument would carry over to something violent.

“Couples are always arguing, then quickly making up,” Jenkins concluded. “I just feel so bad that I probably could have prevented that fool from killing her.”

Zack and I were summoned to the grand jury to state what we knew or saw. We both emphatically claimed that we didn’t see, hear, or know anything.

Junior was convicted and given a sentence of twenty years to life. Throughout the entire process he insisted that he was being framed. He’d figured out that Zack and I set him up, but he didn’t call names. Lacking evidence, it wouldn’t have helped him anyway.

With Junior and Sarah out of the way, Zack was very much on cloud nine. He completely ran the city again, and we were loving the good life.

Junior had my father visit him in prison. He told him that Zack and I had killed Sarah and set him up. Immediately, my father tried to get in contact with me. For months I avoided him, then finally agreed to sit down and talk. He told me what Junior had said. I denied everything and said that Junior had lost him mind.

“Remember one thing, girl,” my father warned me, “God don’t like ugly. If you had anything to do with the murder of that woman and the jailing of your brother, you will pay a terrible price for your sins. And God be my judge, I’ll be the first to rejoice over your suffering if you did what your brother said you did.”

My father’s words have stayed with me, surfacing frequently and torturing me badly. They were spoken nearly four years ago, shortly after Junior’s conviction. My father never found out what really happened, nor did he know that his words had weakened me and that he was one hundred percent right — that I would pay a terrible price for my sins. A month after talking with me, my father died in his sleep of heart failure. But I know that he really died of a broken heart.

Zack noticed my change instantly when I returned from the visit with my father, as well as my deepening depression after my father died. He did what he could to try and cheer me up, but I was locked into despair. The tough, selfish girl that I had been was gone.

Two weeks after my father’s death, Ted Jenkins was gunned down by two masked men as he left his house on Longfellow Street, N.W. He was about to get in his car when the men pulled up and unloaded twelve .38 Special bullets into his body at point-blank range, four head shots killing him instantly. The newspapers reported that the motive could be revenge from loyal members of Junior’s crew, but street rumor had it that Zack might be responsible.

Even in my lethargic condition, I found strength to question Zack about the officer’s murder. He told me that he didn’t have anything to do with it — that Junior probably had it done and that we had to be careful because his crew might be plotting in on us as well.

“You need to snap out of this shit you’re going through, woman! We need each other, and I need you at your best,” he’d tell me daily.

Approximately a month after the Jenkins murder, Junior was found stabbed to death in the mop room of his jailhouse unit. No witnesses to the crime, no one picked up for the murder.

I knew then that I was next.

Two days after I received word about Junior’s death, I put six bullets inside of Zack Amos’s head. I used his own gun, which I’d taken from his shoulder holster in the closet. Just for that night I found the strength to be my old self again — cunning and manipulative.

Zack had been in bed, waiting for me to come out of the bathroom and join him. He was so happy to have his baby back. I could tell that he was ready for a great night. I left the bathroom and entered the bedroom wearing the purple negligee that he liked best. He flung off the covers so that I could get a good look at his rock-hard, throbbing dick.

“Come get it, baby — come to Daddy,” he said.

With the gun behind my back, I moved seductively toward the bed. I shot him immediately.

Then I called the police. Told them that I’d just killed my lover. Pleaded guilty in court and was sentenced to fifteen years to life.

I’ve told my story. To some degree it’s been a cleansing process. I now feel straight with the street. Yet I may never be straight in the eyes of God.

Coyote hunt by Ruben Castaneda

Mount Pleasant, N.W.

Cort DeLojero sauntered past the torched police cruisers, past wary cops in full riot gear gathered in groups of four and five.

He picked his way through hundreds of broken beer bottles strewn about the street.

A riot cop caught the forlorn look on Cort’s face and cracked, “You missed the party.”

Cort grimaced. He walked past a burned-out cruiser that had been driven by a deputy chief and muttered, “Goddamnit.”

Cort was the night cops reporter for the Washington Tribune He’d spent most of the night sitting in a company sedan in a parking lot at Bethesda Naval Hospital, working a deathwatch on President George H.W. Bush.

President Poppy was laid up with an irregular heartbeat. Night editor Chuck Ross caught the disappointment on Cort’s face when he dispatched him. Chuck had said, “Think what a big story it’ll be if the president croaks.”

Cort had given Chuck a thin smile. They both knew that if Poppy croaked, the big guns from National would elbow them out.

Cort had been working on his fourth magazine when Chuck paged him at 1:30 a.m. They could slam stories into the paper as late as 2:00. Cort pulled the brick-sized company cell phone from his tan canvas satchel and punched in Chuck’s number.

Chuck ordered Cort to ditch the deathwatch and get to Mount Pleasant. “There’s been a riot. A black cop shot a Latino man, and there’s rumors the man was handcuffed. They’ve torched about a half dozen cop cars on 16th Street, near Lamont. Didn’t you hear it on the scanner?”

Cort’s eyes flickered down to the silent black police scanner mounted under the car radio. He groaned. The riot was a guaranteed front-page story.

Chuck sighed. “I don’t blame you. I would’ve sent you, but we needed to keep someone at the hospital.”

Now, with his tan canvas satchel slung over his right shoulder, Cort walked slowly, absorbing the scene. The rain had quit, and the night was warm and humid.

To Cort’s left, two dozen spectators, mostly Latino adults, stood in front of the faux-marble pillars at the top of the concrete steps of Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

The damage was concentrated in a three-block strip of 16th Street, dominated on both sides by medium-and low-rise apartment buildings.

On one corner, a lean, thirtyish, sandy-haired Franciscan priest in a thick brown robe talked with a group of officers. Father Dave Lowell, a Sacred Heart priest.

A few months before, Cort had written a feature story on the church, focusing on Father Dave, who’d worked at a parish in Guatemala. Cort shadowed Father Dave as poor immigrants streamed into his office.

A teenage girl who’d been raped by a family friend was distraught that she’d sinned. Father Dave gently assured her she’d done nothing wrong, and convinced her to call the police. Another woman brought in her toddler son for a special blessing; the kid had an infected eye. Father Dave blessed the kid, then had a church worker drive the woman and her son to a health clinic.

Father Dave was the real deal. Cort had grown up in a church where the parish priest dished out hellfire and brim-stone, when he wasn’t boozing it up. Cort had lost touch with his faith a long time ago. But he believed in Father Dave.

A month after the piece ran, an old girlfriend was visiting from California when she got word that her father had died in a car wreck. She cried all night. At daybreak, Cort took her to see Father Dave. He spent an hour with her while Cort waited outside the office. She emerged feeling better. Cort was grateful.

Cort waved to Father Dave. The priest trotted over.

“Cortez, I thought I might see you tonight. How are you?”

“Fine, Father.” He looked around. “How’d this happen?”

“It’s been brewing for a while. There’s so much tension between Latinos and the police. The shooting was like a flame to a tinderbox.”

Cort nodded. “What about the shooting?”

Father Dave shrugged. “I’ve probably heard what you’ve heard. The police say the man pulled a knife. There’s rumors that he was handcuffed. There’s probably a lot of misinformation going around.”

Cort suppressed a chuckle. Driving over, he’d tuned in to an all-news station. A radio reporter had breathlessly noted that the violence erupted on the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, and speculated on a connection. Mount Pleasant was Salvadoran territory, with Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans mixed in.

Cort said, “Yeah, bad information. Thanks, Father. I’ve got to roam now.”

“Good to see you, Cortez. Drop by anytime. You’re always welcome at Mass.”

Cort stepped away, surveying the aftermath of the bedlam. His stomach churned as the dimensions of the missed opportunity sunk in.

“Goddamnit.”

Even with the city clocking nearly 500 murders a year, Cort had to hustle for a byline. For every ten murders, one would yield a story, usually a fifteen-inch quickie buried inside Metro.

A yuppie victim was guaranteed decent ink. But a black or Hispanic homey gunned down in the hood? Well, that’s what the Briefs column was for.

Cort reached the end of the riot zone, hooked a right, and ambled north on Mount Pleasant Street.

The street featured dollar stores, bars, greasy carryouts, liquor stores, old apartment buildings, and Heller’s Bakery, which arguably produced the finest cakes in the city.

The MacArthur Park section of Los Angeles was Little El Salvador, and Mount Pleasant was its East Coast counterpart. Inside Haydee’s, a Salvadoran restaurant, former Marxist guerillas drank beer with ex — Salvadoran Army soldiers as they argued over soccer games playing on a TV behind the bar. Nearby, Salvadoran day laborers stood outside 7-Eleven, or “El Seven,” as they called it, waiting for work. Salvadoran vendors with metal carts dotted the street, hawking fresh mangos.

To the west, a series of quiet, tree-lined residential streets with row houses sloped down toward Rock Creek Park and the National Zoo.

The street was unscathed, except for El Seven. A window had been shattered and a store worker swept glass off the sidewalk.

Cort pulled out the cell phone and punched in Chuck’s number. “Everything’s quiet now. I’m heading back.” He clicked off, muttering, “Goddamnit.”

He was three blocks from the office when a high-pitched screech rang out from the police scanner.

A woman dispatcher said, “Attention units paged. Third District officers at a stabbing at an apartment building, the corner of Park Road and Mount Pleasant Street. Homicide requested.

Cort pulled over to the curb. Mount Pleasant Street dead-ended at Park Road, three blocks north of 7-Eleven, one block over from 16th Street.

A murder on the edge of the riot zone? Huh.

Cort pulled out the cell phone and called Chuck.

“Yeah, I heard it,” Cort said. “I’m heading back. Maybe it’s connected to the riot. I’ll call as soon as I know.”

The brick apartment building was four stories high, with a fading, chipped white paint job and a well-manicured lawn decorated with shrubs and small shade trees.

A concrete walkway stretched thirty yards from the side-walk to the glass double-doors at the front entrance. From the entrance, the building jutted out on both sides out to the sidewalk, in a half H configuration. A short, black iron fence surrounded it. Yellow crime scene tape was draped across the width of the fence.

The victim was halfway down the walkway, lying on his back, his head turned away from the street.

He was a stocky Hispanic man, in his early twenties, wearing faded blue jeans, a yellow polo shirt, and black canvas sneakers. The chest area of his shirt was stained a dark crimson. His right arm was crooked at an angle above his head, and his left arm was parallel to his body. Wooden crutches lay on either side of him.

Two crime scene technicians in navy-blue uniforms worked around the body. One leaned down and shot photos. The other, wearing disposable latex gloves and holding a flashlight in her left hand, was on her hands and knees, looking for evidence.

A uniformed sergeant Cort knew from previous shooting scenes stood just inside the front gate. An unmarked sedan and a squad car were parked in front of the building. The detective was probably inside the building, interviewing witnesses.

To the right, a handful of spectators had gathered on the sidewalk. A local TV newsman, Brad Bellinger, chatted them up while a cameraman rolled tape on the body.

Across the street, to the left, three young Latino men in jeans and battered sneakers stood underneath a streetlight in front of the Argyle convenience store. Two of the men looked anxious, they kept looking from the body to the third man and back again. The third man, slightly older, in his late twenties, leaned against the lamppost, his gaze steady on the body. He looked like he was doing a slow burn.

Cort soaked it all in as he walked deliberately toward the crime scene, his satchel slung over his right shoulder.

He stopped at the gate and asked the sergeant, “This related to the riot?”

“Unlikely.” The sergeant nodded over his shoulder, toward the body. “Victim has an MS-13 tat on his forearm, my money’s on a gang beef. The guy from Homicide’s inside, he’ll be out soon.” MS-13 was a Salvadoran gang.

“Thanks.”

Cort turned and sauntered toward the three Latinos. Maybe they’d seen something.

One man was wearing a white and red Budweiser T-shirt and a chain with a silver cross around his neck. The guy next to him wore a soccer shirt emblazoned with the light-blue and white Salvadoran flag. The older man wore a red Chicago Bulls T-shirt.

They clammed up when Cort got within earshot.

“Buenas noches,” Cort said.

Tentatively, the two younger men responded in kind. The older man gave Cort the once-over. In Spanish, he said, “Who are you?”

“Periodista,” Cort replied. In Spanish, Cort identified himself: “My name is Cortez DeLojero, I’m a reporter for the Washington Tribune.” He gestured toward the murder scene. Continuing in Spanish, he said, “Can you help me with what happened? Is this about the riot?” He kept his notebook and pen holstered; bringing them out too soon spooked some civilians.

The two younger men looked at their shoes.

The older man peered at Cort a long moment, then said, “This isn’t about the riot.”

Budweiser said, “His name was Roberto Arias. He deserved better.”

No riot angle. Probably a gang beef. He could hear Chuck say, dismissively, “Brief it.”

Cort put his palms out. “So, what happened?”

Chicago moved off the lamppost and squared up to Cort. “He was murdered by a coyote. He was behind in his payments, because he was hurt, and the son of a bitch killed him.”

Cort felt an adrenaline surge. This was interesting.

“How do you know?”

Chicago pointed to an apartment building adjacent to the murder scene. “The three of us live there, we share an apartment. Roberto lives, lived, next door, with his sister. We were walking home, Roberto was going to his place. He screamed. We ran over — Gato was standing over him. He pointed his knife at us and said, ‘This is what happens to people who don’t pay.’ Then he wrapped the knife in a bandana and ran that way.” Chicago pointed west, toward the neighborhood of row houses.

Halfway into the account, Cort had pulled out his note-book and pen, and was writing furiously. He jotted “Bud,” “Sal,” and “Chi,” respectively, next to each man’s statement.

“Did Roberto say anything?” Cort asked.

“He couldn’t. He gasped, and he was gone,” Chicago said.

A death scene — outstanding. Cort walked them through the evening.

Chicago said they’d been playing soccer at a nearby schoolyard. Roberto watched. When the game ended, the riot was raging. They went to a friend’s apartment and waited it out. They had a few beers and walked home after calm was restored.

Cort nodded as he took down the account. “And why did Gato kill him?”

Budweiser explained: Four months before, Gato and two other men had driven the four of them and eight others in a van from their village near San Salvador across the Mexican border into California, then to D.C. Each man owed $1,800. Each man had to start paying off his debt two weeks after arriving in D.C.

Roberto had been working steadily in construction, and paying, until he fell off a second-floor scaffolding and broke his hip. A week after Roberto missed his first payment, his mom in El Salvador was kidnapped by the coyote crew. Gato told Roberto he needed to come up with a thousand dollars.

Chicago gestured to his friends. “We all pitched in, others too. Roberto paid, and his mother was freed. But two days later, Gato told Roberto that was just a tax, he needed to keep up his payments.”

Budweiser made a circular motion with his index finger near his head — the universal loco gesture. “Gato smokes PCP.”

Jackpot.

Most victims were drug slingers, bandits, or enforcers. Editors didn’t break a sweat over them. But this was what the Homicides called a real murder. This had front-page potential.

Cort said, “Describe Gato.”

Chicago said, “He’s about your size, but bigger, like he lifts weights. He’s about twenty-five. His hair is short, slicked back.”

“Anything else? A scar, anything like that?”

Chicago shrugged. Budweiser rubbed his chin.

Salvadoran flag said, “Yeah, the tattoo.”

“What tattoo?”

“He has a big tattoo of a dollar sign on his left bicep. He always wears tank tops or T-shirts with the left sleeve cut off to show it off,” Salvadoran flag said. Chicago and Budweiser nodded in assent.

“Just on his left arm?”

“Yes,” Salvadoran flag said.

Cort wrote it down. “How can I find him?”

Chicago said, “He shows up at Don Juan’s every Monday, around 7:00. To collect from a waitress.”

“You sure?”

“She’s my girlfriend.”

Nice. Cort figured he had all he needed. He looked at the three and said, “So, what are your names?”

Budweiser and El Sal looked at Chicago. Chicago thought about it and said, “Michael Jordan.”

Budweiser said, “Michael Jackson.”

El Sal said, “George Bush.”

Cort smiled. He thanked them and started walking back to the apartment building. He’d taken one step when it hit him. He pivoted. “Have you talked to the police?”

The three men shook their heads. Michael Jordan said, “No, the paramedics shooed us away. I tried to tell them, but they didn’t speak Spanish.”

Cort allowed himself a quick smile. He’d score a bucket load of chits from Homicide if he handed them eyeball wit-

His eyes swept across the three men. “Would you be willing to talk to a detective?”

Silence. Finally, Michael Jordan said, “We don’t want any problems.”

“Problems” meant immigration. Cort said, “The police are only interested in who killed Roberto.”

Michael Jordan said, “How do we know?”

“You can trust me.”

Michael Jordan cocked his head to the side. “Maybe, maybe not.”

Cort looked at the other two men. No give in either of their faces. The cross around Michael Jackson’s neck gave him an idea. “When you all went to Mass this morning, it was at Sacred Heart, right?”

The three men nodded.

Cort thought about asking them to wait, decided it might spook them. “Thanks.” He turned and began jogging east on Park Road, toward 16th Street.

Brad Bellinger hustled onto the street and held up a palm. With his dark wavy hair, blue eyes, and square jaw, Bellinger bore an unsettling resemblance to a full-sized Ken doll.

Cort pulled up. Bellinger said, “Get anything good from those guys?”

Each of the local TV news outfits had a cheesy promotional slogan. The slogan for Bellinger’s station was, “We report to you!

Cort pointed his index finger at Bellinger. “You report to me!”

Bellinger’s eyebrows went up in surprise. Cort turned and resumed jogging.

“I promise, if you help the police, no harm will come to you,” Father Dave said in Spanish. A sheen of perspiration covered his forehead. Father Dave and Cort had sprinted over together.

The three men said nothing.

Cort chimed in, “The police want the killer. And they wouldn’t dare do anything against you if you’re…” he paused, trying to find the right word, “represented by Father Dave.”

Father Dave put a hand on Cort’s shoulder. “You can trust Cortez. He wrote that article about the church.”

At Father Dave’s request, a church secretary had typed a translation of the piece, Xeroxed hundreds of copies, and distributed them to parishioners.

Michael Jordan’s eyes flashed with recognition. “You wrote that?”

“Yes.”

Michael Jordan nodded. “Okay.”

Cort said, “Good. I’ll get the detective.” He ambled across the street, pleased with himself. He’d earn beaucoup chits with Homicide for hooking them up with the key witnesses.

His editors would suffer massive strokes, then fire him for violating journalistic ethics as they dropped to the floor, if they ever learned about half the deals he cut on the street. They had no idea. Cort knew if he played strictly by the book, he’d end up parroting useless press releases.

He was halfway across the street when a stout, fiftyish man in a tight tan suit, white shirt, brown tie, and brown loafers stepped out of the building.

Detective Rocky Piazza — two hundred and twenty pounds of grief.

Cort stopped in his tracks and groaned.

Piazza was built like a fire hydrant. Unfortunately, he was about as intelligent as one. He had curly, sandy-colored hair, chubby chipmunk cheeks, and brown eyes that were set a little too close together. Piazza’s ruddy complexion turned beet red when he was riled up. Cort knew because Piazza turned beet red every time their paths crossed.

In two years on the beat, Cort had encountered all of the Homicides. Most were cordial. Some were indifferent. A few had become sources. Piazza, however, was overtly hostile. They’d first met at a murder scene in Columbia Heights. When Cort introduced himself, Piazza had snarled, “I know who you are. You’re like a fucking cancer.”

Halfway down the walkway, Piazza paused to say something to the crime scene techs, then continued toward the front gate.

Cort thought about it. Not even Piazza was dumb enough to turn his back on three eyeball witnesses…

He hit the sidewalk as Piazza pulled the yellow crime scene tape over his head and stepped through the gate. “Detective Piazza, I have something—”

Piazza looked at Cort as if he was something he’d scraped off the bottom of his shoe. “Call PIO,” he grunted — the department’s Public Information Office. Cop-speak for “fuck off”; the boys in PIO worked bankers’ hours.

“I have some—”

Piazza chested up to Cort as his face went beet red. He pointed a stubby index finger in Cort’s face, fury in his eyes.

“I said, call PIO. I’m not talking to you, understand?” Piazza pivoted and marched to his sedan.

Plaintively, Cort said, “But I’m trying to help you.” Piazza ignored him. As the detective slid into the car and slammed the door shut, Cort cried out, “I’ve got witnesses!”

Piazza pulled away from the curb.

“Goddamn moron,” Cort muttered as the sedan rolled away. He looked over and saw Father Dave turn up his palms in a “What’s going on?” gesture. Michael Jordan and his friends looked puzzled.

Slowly, Cort walked toward them, marveling at the purity of Piazza’s stupidity, wondering what he’d tell Father Dave and the witnesses, wishing that Phil Harrick was there.

Harrick. He was working midnights this week.

Cort pulled his cell phone out of his satchel and punched in the numbers to Harrick’s pager, which he’d memorized. He put the phone to his ear and the pager chirped. Cort punched in the number to his cell phone, punctuated it by hitting 9-1-1, then sent the page as he reached Father Dave.

The priest said, “Is there a problem? The officer didn’t look too happy.”

“No problem,” Cort replied, nonchalantly. “That detective has to get back to headquarters, but I just paged another investigator. One of the best on the force, and he’s bilingual.” To the workers, in Spanish: “Don’t worry, the detective’s on his way. He’s Latino, he’ll speak to you in Spanish.

Father Dave said, “Well, okay.” The workers nodded. Cort threw them a tight little smile.

Three minutes later, Cort’s cell phone rang. He stepped just out of earshot of the others. “Phil, thanks for calling back so quickly. Where are you?”

“I’m on Georgia Avenue, I’ve been working my network all night. I’m headin’ over to see my girl Darlene now. What’s up?”

Phil was a detective with NSID, the citywide Narcotics and Special Investigations Division. His network consisted of winos, dope fiends, hookers, gamblers, and street-level crack slingers, along with legitimate business owners and straight-arrow residents. His wife and five-year-old daughter were at home in Arlington.

Darlene was a slender redheaded Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted gang conspiracies. She lived in Capitol Hill. Darlene was Phil’s side dish.

“I’m in Mount Pleasant, and I’ve got a situation.”

Cort explained quickly, about the murder, Father Dave and the three witnesses, and Piazza.

“Rockhead Piazza,” Phil said. “Imbecile.”

“Felony-stupid,” Cort agreed.

“They still there?”

“Yeah, Father Dave too. But I don’t think they’ll be hanging around long. I don’t think they’ll cooperate if they’re not interviewed tonight.” Cort paused, letting the idea sink in. Then, “Look, I know you’re not Homicide, but could you take their statements. They saw the killer. This could be a quick lock-up.”

Phil sighed.

Cort said, “Come on, this is a real murder. The victim and one of his buddies have gang tattoos, but they’re working guys now. This doesn’t vibe gang beef.”

Phil thought about it.

Cort said, “I’ll get good play on this one.”

Phil was Cort’s best source. Phil liked press. In a resigned tone of voice, he conceded, “All right. I’ll call over to Homicide and smooth things out with Rockhead or whoever’s running the shift. I’ll tell them I got a tip. Can you keep those witnesses there for five minutes?”

Cort looked over to Father Dave and the three witnesses and gave them a thumbs-up. The four men nodded back.

“Yeah.”

“Darlene’s been waiting up. She’s gonna be pissed.”

Phil killed the flashing cherry light on the dash of his unmarked sedan and pulled up across from the corner where Cort, Father Dave, and the three witnesses were waiting.

Cort ambled over and met him as he stepped out of the sedan.

Phil was a little taller, a little leaner, and, at forty, seven years older than Cort. His black hair was tinged with gray and thinning on top. He had thick eyebrows, brown eyes, and a neat mustache. His mother was Costa Rican, his father was Dutch, and Phil was fair-skinned.

Cort was five-foot-nine, with olive skin, brown eyes, and wavy black hair. If Phil were darker, or if Cort were lighter, they might have passed for brothers.

Phil wore white canvas Converse high-tops, faded blue jeans, a yellow polo shirt, and a thin blue nylon jacket. The get-up made him look like a suburban dad.

Cort knew otherwise; the front of the jacket covered Phil’s shoulder rig, which contained his department-issued Glock 9. The back of the jacket concealed the leather-covered metal sap and handcuffs that were always clipped to the back of his waistband. A .32 Smith & Wesson revolver was strapped to his right ankle.

“You know Father Dave?” Cort said as they crossed the street.

Of him.”

“I’ll introduce you. I told the witnesses that you aren’t interested in their immigration status.”

Cort made the introductions. Phil shook hands with everyone.

Father Dave said, in Spanish, “These gentlemen would like to help the investigation. But they don’t want to bring any legal trouble onto themselves.”

In impeccable Spanish, Phil responded, “I want to find the killer. There won’t be any problems.”

Father Dave nodded. Chicago nodded. Phil pulled a notebook and pen from his jacket.

Cort said, “Excuse me, I need to check in with the office.” He walked across the street, pulled the cell phone out of his satchel, and pretended to make a call. He didn’t want to be within earshot of Phil’s interviews. It could boomerang.

Cort had met Phil a year before, at a drug raid in the Barry Farms public housing project in Southeast. Two weeks later, Phil invited him to a drug raid in the Trinidad section of Northeast. Phil and his squad were decked out in Ninja outfits and bulletproof vests. He told Cort to stay close. Phil’s squad stormed a two-story row house. Three slingers surrendered. A fourth ran upstairs. Phil, another cop, and Cort chased him. They found him inside a bedroom, straddling a window ledge. The punk tried to worm his way off the ledge. Phil holstered his Glock, flew across the room, and grabbed his ankle; the other cop dropped his shotgun, sprinted over, and grabbed the other ankle. Cort stepped close and took notes. The punk pulled a piece from his waistband and, hanging upside down, squeezed off two shots. Wood and plaster exploded. Phil pulled his Glock and shot the punk’s one off. The slinger dropped his piece and screamed. Phil and the other cop pulled him inside. The punk’s foot spewed blood like a small geyser. Phil tied his ski mask around the toe stump. The punk spit at Phil. Phil picked up the shotgun and slammed the butt into the punk’s groin. Phil said, “Listen, Tyrone you don’t ever shoot at the po-lice.” Phil then looked up and saw Cort scribbling. He saw his fellow cop eyeballing Cort, looking real nervous. Phil braced Cort and led him into the hallway. “For the record, I fired my weapon to protect you, my partner, and myself. And that groin shot was off-the-record.” Cort snapped to the Big Picture. He could nail Phil. Write one great story. And no cop would ever talk to him again. He slipped his notebook inside his black leather jacket. “What groin shot?”

A week later, Toeless Tyrone’s public defender hit Cort with a subpoena. The P.D. wanted Cort to validate Tyrone as a civil-rights victim. The Trib’s in-house attorney stiff-armed the subpoena with a blizzard of motions. Cort sweated it for a month. A hearing was held. The judge sided with the Trib Toeless Tyrone pleaded out to a gun violation and assault on a police officer.

Cort learned a valuable lesson: Keep some distance from the story. Don’t put yourself in position to be jammed up.

Cort watched Phil wrap up his interviews. Phil would have let him listen. But suppose Gato’s defense attorney found out? He’d ask what Cort had heard. He’d ask if he knew how a narcotics man ended up on a homicide. He’d expose Cort’s role. Better not to take that chance.

Phil slipped his notebook and pen inside his jacket and shook hands with the witnesses and Father Dave. The priest accompanied the Salvadorans as they walked toward their building.

Cort ambled over to Phil. “What do you think?”

“Gotta get this lowlife motherfucker.”

Cort’s eyebrows went up. He’d never seen Phil take a case personally. “You seem ticked off.”

“I am. I don’t think this is a gang beef. These guys seem straight. Gato knows they can’t retaliate because they’re undocumented. He’s a parasite, victimizing his own people. I’ve got more respect for a hit man. A hitter knows someone might come back.”

Cort licked his upper lip. “Do you have to hand this off to Rockhead?”

“Nah, Rockhead won’t care, so long as he gets credit for the clearance.”

“What now?”

Phil turned and pointed at Don Juan’s Restaurant. “Our boy makes a regular pickup every Monday from a waitress at Don Juan’s. Always shows between 7 and 7:30. I’ll talk to the waitress and stake out the place. Nail him there.”

“Okay if I hang out inside Don Juan’s tomorrow?”

“It’s a public place.”

“One more thing. If you get him—” Phil shot Cort a look. “I mean, when you get him, could you play up the coyote angle in the charging document?”

Chuck Ross might balk at publishing the shakedown scenario from three unnamed sources. But a police charging document was golden.

Phil caught the drift. “I’ll write it in haiku if you want.” He broke into a wide grin. “What?”

“I just realized — this is my first coyote hunt.”

Cort stood on Mount Pleasant Street across from Don Juan’s fifteen minutes before 7:00, thinking, Uh-oh

A dozen young men were trashing and torching a fried chicken joint a block south of the restaurant. Another angry horde was milling about nearby, itching for action.

Most of the young men wore bandanas across their mouths. Some were swigging from beer bottles. A TV cameraman on the sidewalk zeroed in on the burning chicken joint.

Tension from the previous night’s riot had been percolating all day, and now it was boiling over. Cort had assumed the cops would lock down the neighborhood with a massive show of force. Three other Tribune reporters and a photographer were roaming around the area. Cort figured the scene was covered and he’d be free to shadow Phil.

Cort figured wrong. On the way over, he had listened to a radio interview with the new mayor. She said that showing too much force might be provocative.

A block south, a Metro bus paused at a stop sign on its way across Mount Pleasant Street. A dozen men rushed the bus, pelting it with bricks and bottles. Someone yelled, “Fuck the police!”

Cort reached into his satchel for his cell phone as his pager went off; Alonzo Reed’s number came up. Alonzo was the City editor. Cort punched the digits.

“Where are you?”

“Mount Pleasant Street, about a block from the fried chicken place.”

“It’s on TV. What’s happening now?”

A block south of the besieged bus, eighty cops in gas masks and full riot gear materialized. The mob gravitated toward the cops. Some of the rioters wielded long metal rods like spears: yanked-out street signs.

“A mob’s forming. There’s cops in riot gear out here now. Looks like they’re about to square off.”

“Stay with the mob.”

“What?”

“No matter what, stay with the mob until it’s over.”

Cort couldn’t argue. “Will do.”

He clicked off, and started to punch in Phil’s pager number. Maybe they could devise an alternate plan. He’d hit three digits when a riot cop with a bullhorn announced, “You are unlawfully assembled. Disperse now.”

From behind, Cort heard a handful of voices chanting, gently, “Paz, queremos paz.” Peace, we want peace. Cort turned. Father Dave was leading a half dozen church people on a march into the bedlam. They were holding hands, with the priest at one end.

Cort slipped the phone into his bag and hustled over. Ten cops loaded their tear-gas shotguns. In his mind’s eye, he flashed on a mug shot of Ruben Salazar. Salazar had been a prominent Los Angeles Times columnist in the 1960s. He was shot dead by a sheriff’s tear-gas projectile after covering an antiwar march. Tear-gas projectiles were basically ten-inch bullets.

“Father, they’re about to fire tear gas. Maybe you all should veer off.”

Without breaking stride, Father Dave braced Cort on the shoulder. “I appreciate your concern, Cortez. Sometimes, you just gotta have faith.”

Cort turned in time to see the riot cops level their shotguns at the mob. To his left, he spotted a short brick wall on the side of a corner apartment. He thought about Ruben Salazar. He sprinted and dove behind the wall as the cops fired.

Chaos: The rioters and Father Dave and his group turned and hightailed it away from the thick, dark smoke.

Cort was on his knees, the tear gas burning his eyes, his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. He stumbled to his feet. Choking, gagging, he weaved his way one block west, to 16th Street. He paused and bent at the waist. He wiped his eyes and jogged north for one block on 16th, then hooked a left back onto Mount Pleasant Street. Had to stick with the mob.

Half the mob had scattered, the rest were now in the street. Someone lit a Molotov cocktail. Someone else tossed a brick through the front windshield of a Toyota sedan. The Molotov flew into the sedan; the interior went up in flames. A TV cameraman backpedaled on the sidewalk.

Cort was reaching into his satchel for his notebook when he noticed a muscular Latino wielding a metal spear over his right shoulder in the middle of the street, thirty feet away. The man had a blue bandana over his mouth. He wore jeans and a black tank top. His hair was slicked back and he had a tattoo on his left bicep: a big dollar sign.

Gato

Cort scanned the street, looking for Phil, for a random uniformed cop. No Phil, no uniforms, just turmoil.

The sunlight dimmed. Twilight was descending.

Word would get around the neighborhood that a cop was looking for Gato. He might even know already. Gato would be in the wind the next day, on his way to El Salvador.

“Goddamnit.”

This half-assed, adrenaline-drenched, crazy idea popped into Cort’s head: Maybe he could get a quote from Gato. A proforma denial. Maybe delay him. What’s the worst that could happen?

Cort yelled, “Gato!”

Gato turned, looked at him. “Gato!” Cort held up his hand.

Gato cocked his head to the side, studying Cort now. Three seconds later, he looked away, turned his attention back to the street.

Something inside Cort snapped: “Hey, Gato. Asesino.” Assassin.

Gato’s head snapped toward Cort like an agitated cobra. His face went dark. He started sprinting toward Cort, clutching the metal rod like a lance, rage in his eyes.

Cort’s heart skipped a beat, maybe two.

Gato was closing fast. He got within twenty feet, fifteen, en…

Cort quickly slipped his satchel off his shoulder — maybe if he timed it just right he could sidestep the rod and slam Gato in the head, knock him off balance. Maybe.

Gato closed in. Cort locked in on the sharp tip of the rod — it was aimed at his chest, there would be no chance to even take a swing at Gato…

He half-closed his eyes, started to throw up a truncated Hail Mary.

He saw a flash of movement on the right. He heard a thump, then another. He braced for the tip of the spear. It never came. He opened his eyes.

Gato was sprawled facedown on the street, the rod clanging on the sidewalk at Cort’s feet.

Phil Harrick stood over Gato, clutching his leather-over-metal sap in his right hand. Phil put his knee into the small of Gato’s back. Smoothly, quickly, he slipped the sap into the back of his waistband, brought out the cuffs, and snapped them on.

Cort said, “Where’d you come from?”

Phil stood up. “I was tracking Gato in the crowd, waiting for my chance. Then you called him out. Good thing I had the angle. Ballsy move.”

Cort was about to say, “Stupid move.” Instead, he said, “Sometimes, you just gotta have faith.”

Jeanette by Jim Beane

Deanwood, N.E.

I should’ve listened to Pop. He warned me off Jeanette right away, said she was nothing but trouble, but I was too far gone from the first time I saw her to ever listen. “Jackie, she’s a snake pit,” Pop said, like she was the bottom of evil.

Last fall, Pop and I painted the office where Jeanette worked. That’s when we met. Her boss, a guy named Olivet, operated a chop shop in the far Northeast corner of the city, in Deanwood. Olivet kept two steps ahead of the law and two steps behind Jeanette. Before I knew her a week, she told me she hated him, hated his hands always trying to touch her, hated his eyes undressing her.

“Quit,” I told her, like I knew what to do.

“And do what?” she fired back.

I couldn’t say.

She called herself a secretary, but I never saw her type one word. Olivet spent his days yakking on the phone, and watching Jeanette’s ass. He leaned his chair back, propped his feet on his cluttered desk, plastered the phone to his ear, and followed every move her hips made with reptile eyes. If Jeanette bent over at the file cabinets, he moved, but only for a better view. Her body made your mouth water.

The first day on the job, Pop dropped a daub of paint on the corner of Olivet’s desk, and the slob let him have all hell. Jeanette slid between me and Olivet, before I acted stupid, and held her finger to her lips, for my eyes only. She strolled across the room to the files, opened the bottom drawer, bent at the waist, and swelled inside her skirt. And Olivet gasped. Jeanette swayed her hips to the music piped in through speakers mounted in the ceiling. And Olivet forgot all about Pop. I thanked her when she brushed past me. She blew me a kiss.

“Call me,” she whispered.

Pop stared at me the whole ride home.

“She wants more than you got,” he said in the alley behind our house on 12th Street. He’d already had too many beers. After my mother ran off, he soured on all women.

“You don’t know her,” I said.

“A slut’s a slut, it don’t matter what you feel below your belly.”

Nothing he said could change her lips blowing that kiss.

Nothing.

Jeanette started bringing me fresh coffee every morning when we got to the job.

“Jesus Christ, he can’t work when you do that,” Olivet said.

“I take care of those that take care of me,” she replied, glancing at me to make sure I heard.

After a few dates and a Christmas ring, she started in about Olivet.

“He don’t deserve all that money,” she said, “his boys in the garage do all the work. He just counts it, the fat prick.” She laid her open hand on my inside thigh.

By Valentine’s Day, she was talking about Olivet’s money like it should be ours.

“Think about us with that money, Jackie,” she said. “We could get away, baby, far away.” It didn’t take her hand long to convince me

“We can’t live without that money, Jackie.”

“I don’t know how to get it.”

“Find somebody who can.”

I turned away from her.

“Or I will,” she said, and drew her hand away.

A couple of days later, I told her I knew a guy could take that money, you know, trying to impress her, like I was connected to more than a lousy paint brush. I dropped Michael Fannon’s name, a guy from my brother’s old gang.

“Call him,” she said.

I didn’t contact him right away, Michael wouldn’t remember me. I tried to ignore her. But she stayed after me. Call him. Call him. Call him.

When I did, he didn’t know me, but then I mentioned Richie, and he pretended to remember me. I told him about Olivet, the chop shop, the money, and Jeanette. He got interested, fast.

“Ripping off criminals works best,” he said. “Less chance getting caught, and they deal in cash. I’ll get back to you.” He hung up without a goodbye.

He called me back a month or so later, on Friday night, my twenty-first birthday, April 5, the day after some cracker killed King in Memphis and the blacks set fire to the city.

“Now’s the time,” he told me, “the cops got their hands full.”

Jeanette and I had big plans for my birthday, but they went to hell like everything else when King got shot.

“Come by anyway,” she told me on the phone, “we’ll do something.” She didn’t need to ask me twice.

“Keep out of downtown,” Pop said when I left the house. He glued himself to the TV and muttered about the welfare sons-of-bitches burning his old stomping grounds.

I drove Pop’s van to Jeanette’s apartment around 10:00. Her straight black hair shimmered in the hall light when she opened her apartment door. She wore a skirt the size of a hand towel. All her leg showed. Pink fuzz stood out from her sweater like she was electrified, and when she knew I was staring, she pulled the sweater down so tight I had to look away. A half-assed picnic dinner sat on her counter top, and she said we should go to McMillen Reservoir, park on Hobart, in front of Pop’s old place, and celebrate my birthday.

“Forget about everything but us,” she said, and she got close to me and reached her hand around my ass.

Pop was right, you can’t think below your belt.

I figured the reservoir was safe. The blacks wouldn’t burn anything near Howard University. We found an empty spot in front of the house where Pop grew up, and parked. Jeanette pointed at the mirrored moon reflected on the reservoir.

“Romantic,” she said. Compared to Edgewood Terrace, where she lived, and Michigan Park, where I lived, she was right. We hadn’t known much else.

Jeanette piled Pop’s paint tarps flat on top of each other, covering the floor of the van, and tucked a clean sheet around the outside corners, like a real bed. She laid two pillows and an old quilt on top, then shed her clothes and stripped off mine. Pop’s van had no windows in the back. We crawled under the quilt. She pulled at me, impatient, wild, and when she was ready, she pushed me flat on my back and guided me inside her. She made me swear to do anything for her love. Swear. And swear. And swear.

When we dressed, we sat in the front seat and rolled the windows down. An orange glow lit the sky above Howard. Smells, like fire jobs before new paint, drifted through the van. Smoke leeched from between Howard’s big brick buildings and rolled across 5th Street, smothering McMillen’s still surface like cemetery fog. I cracked two beers, lit a smoke and another off it, and clicked on the radio. I searched for that new Smokey Robinson song, but the shit going down all over the city screamed out on every station. I was wrong about Howard. 7th Street burned as hot as 14th.

Jeanette’s eyes glazed over.

“I got to get out of here” she said. “I’ll die here.” She waved her hand across the windshield. “We’ll all die here.” We stayed on Hobart until 4 a.m. The fires never went out, and I never mentioned Michael’s call.

The next morning, Pop and I loaded the van for work, and he told me that Michael had called after I left. He wanted to know why Michael “that piece of shit jailbird” was calling after me. Pop made it real clear, when Richie enlisted, that he didn’t want to see any of Richie’s gang again.

“What, that scumbag wants to sing you Happy Birthday?” Pop said.

My only brush with crime, shoplifting from the five-and-dime on Monroe Street, had been dealt with swift and sure. One of the clerks, who had a crush on Richie, ratted me out. I was in third grade at Saint Gertrude’s.

Richie beat my ass and said he’d do worse if he caught me again. From then on, my criminal activity stayed limited to stealing Pop’s change. High school ended and I signed on with Pop’s paint crew. A couple of years passed and Pop dumped his crew. From then on, it was just me and him and the sick smell of paint.

I didn’t tell Pop that I’d called Michael first. Pop would never understand. I called Michael because I promised I’d do anything for her love. I hoped he’d never call back.

But King got killed, the cops got busy, and Michael got hungry.

“Perfect,” Jeanette said when I finally did tell her, “Olivet’s stashing more money than ever. He’s fencing for the looters. They been bringing stuff since they torched downtown. The safe under his desk is fat with cash.”

“Where are the cops?” I said.

“You think the squares from out in the burbs would come by at night shopping for their wives and girlfriends if cops were a problem? And Olivet keeps counting that money, alone, late, after midnight, when everybody’s stopped coming around. Big money, Jackie, for everything we want, and all the cops across the river.”

I called Michael back and told him what Jeanette said, and about the alley that Pop and I used to get into Olivet’s back lot. Olivet’s lot filled the triangle between the train tracks and Kenilworth Avenue, where they almost collided, and stretched alongside the back fences of Deanwood’s gasoline alley garages.

“Smart girl,” he said. “I know her?”

I didn’t answer.

Deanwood’s a quiet place, street after street filled with squat brick and cinderblock duplexes, and none too nice apartments. Pop called Michigan Park a move up from Hobart Place. Nobody moved up to Deanwood, that was clear. The only single houses were country shacks thrown up by the colored farm boys who came looking for city jobs, money jobs. Everything looked beat.

Olivet’s alley lay half hidden behind brush grown wild around the tracks. It dead-ended into Olivet’s back lot. He didn’t bother with a gate or fence. He wasn’t worried about keeping anybody out. I told Michael that the whole time Pop and I worked painting Olivet’s office, we never saw a soul use that alley, coming or going.

“Tonight’s the night,” Michael said on Saturday when I got him on the phone, “the city’s still hot. Get the key from your girl and meet me at Chick Hall’s.” Honky-tonk whites gathered at Chick Hall’s Surf Club, a shitty storefront bar just over the line in P.G. County. Jeanette loved Chick Hall’s.

I told her the plan and she handed me the key to Olivet’s back door. She kissed me on the mouth and said she knew the safe was full. Then her eyes narrowed and she asked, “When do I meet Michael?”

“Hasn’t come up,” I said. I didn’t like how quick she was to ask that.

“How about tonight, how about I ride with you to the meet? I’ll drive Pop’s van home and pick you up after it’s over.”

“Michael might not go for it,” I said, hedging.

She closed her fingers around my arm and pulled me tight to her. On tiptoes, she kissed me again and let my hands

“C’mon, Jackie, we’ll have some fun later,” she said, and pushed me off, playing. Her fingertips grazed across my zipper. She was driving Pop’s van to Chick Hall’s that night around 11:00. She always got her way.

On our way there, we passed a group of kids hanging out at the intersection of Bladensburg and South Dakota, in front of Highball Liquors, too late for kids so young to be out. They were yelling at each car passing by. I felt better. With cops around, no kids do that.

When we turned through the light, the kid nearest my window screamed, “Honky!” He flipped me the finger and pumped his fist in the air. Jeanette pushed the gas a little harder.

Chick Hall’s was near Peace Cross, in a strip of crummy stores on Bladensburg Road. Ten miles past Chick’s was all country.

We pulled into the lot, behind the bar, and I glanced over at Jeanette. The glare from an alley streetlamp sprayed across her face. She slid the tip of her tongue between closed lips and moved her head side to side, searching the stretch of empty lots.

She picked a spot next to the dumpster, in the darkest corner, and cut the engine. A dark sedan, hidden in the night shadows, blinked its lights once, and the doors sprung open. Michael and two strangers spilled out.

Jeanette watched Michael lead his crew across the lot toward us. They looked like killers, dressed in black from head to toe. Jeanette licked her lips.

“He’s handsome,” she said. She wouldn’t take her eyes off Michael, and leaned forward in her seat.

“Michael said alone,” I reminded her. She looked at me like she’d forgotten who I was.

“Does it matter?” she said. I wished my brother Richie was one of them. Jeanette jumped from Pop’s van, slammed the door, and propped herself against the front fender. I moved quick, to be by her side. Michael walked right up to us without saying a word. The two with him split apart and flanked us. Michael glanced at me, then nodded his head to the guy near my shoulder.

“That’s Ray,” he said, and the guy’s face pinched together like a smile hurt him. Michael called the other guy his boy, and said his name was Dee. A thick rope of scar cut through Dee’s right eye.

“You the smart girl?” Michael said to Jeanette. He moved closer like he might sniff at her, like some dog.

“Maybe,” she said, “smart enough.” Michael’s eyes traveled from her ankles to her eyes.

“Surprised I hadn’t noticed you before,” he said.

“That’s okay, I’ll be around.”

“Cut the shit, Romeo,” Ray said to Michael, “we got work to do.”

A noise, like a laugh, came from Dee. Jeanette looked at Ray like I’d seen her look at bugs.

“You got the key?” Michael said to me, but still stared at Jeanette. She reached into her pocket to retrieve it. Her jack t opened and she drew in a deep breath and pushed her breasts out. Michael didn’t miss a thing. She held the key between her thumb and index finger and extended her hand toward Michael. He held his hand still, palm up. When the key came close, he touched the side of her hand with his fingers, and she dropped the key.

“Be careful,” she said. I wanted her talking to me, but she wasn’t.

“Don’t worry,” Michael said.

I sneaked my arm around Jeanette’s waist and pulled her closer to me. Michael didn’t blink. She couldn’t keep from staring.

“Let’s go,” he said.

I tried to kiss Jeanette, but she tilted her face away, like she did with fresh makeup, and blew a kiss. I followed the three of them across the lot to the dark sedan.

Michael tossed me the keys. He jumped in the front seat and motioned me behind the wheel. Ray perched in back. Dee stared at me from the rearview mirror. The scar jagged through his eye and left his eyeball milk-white, like a boiled egg. He shifted in the seat and the twin barrels of a sawed-off shotgun poked out between the buttons of his overcoat. He took his time covering them up.

“See what you want, boy,” he said.

Michael motioned me to start the car. “Do the speed limit and don’t run any lights.”

“I thought you weren’t worried about cops,” I said.

“I’m not. Just drive and shut the fuck up. I’ll do the thinking.”

Pop called it right about Michael, he was no friend, but it was too late. Richie wasn’t around this time to bail me out. I took Bladensburg to Kenilworth heading toward the city, and passed commercial buildings and scrap joints left stranded on empty streets. I thought about Jeanette’s sweet lips against mine and mashed down on the gas.

“Easy,” Ray said. Hot breath laced with stale booze pushed against the back of my ear. I let off the gas and he settled into the backseat. I scoped every intersection for law, but no cops were in sight.

At the D.C. line, I turned off Kenilworth onto Eastern Avenue and headed into Deanwood. Before we came to the tracks, I turned right onto Olive Street and slowed down to a crawl. Olive dead-ended into Polk, and Olivet’s alley opened across the intersection. All the houses and apartments sat dark, like everyone had turned in, like real people, like Pop.

I glanced again in the rearview mirror and saw Dee’s milk eye blink once, slow motion, then his good eye zeroed into mine. The shotgun lay across his thighs.

“Eyes on the road,” Ray said, nudging me in the shoulder.

We stopped at Polk, facing the alley. To the left, a walk-way disappeared under the tracks into a concrete tunnel, black from soot off the overhead trains. The last garage in gasoline alley was half a block to my right. The streetlights were out

“Let’s go,” Michael said.

I cut the lights and coasted across Polk onto the gravel alley. The night swallowed us up. I kept my foot off the gas, careful not to tap the brakes, afraid of the red glare. Loose stones grumbled beneath the sedan’s weight. The weeds from the tracks side of the alley swept against my side of the sedan, grabbing, like living things trying to hold me back.

I steered a little closer to the fences that separated us from the garages. Nothing stirred.

“There’s his light,” I said, and pointed ahead to the familiar white-washed building that appeared from the darkness like a ghost.

“Stop here,” Ray said.

I touched the brakes and winced, waiting for the red glare.

“Ray disconnected the lights,” Michael said, and chuckled to himself. Ray said something about me under his breath.

“Make a U-turn,” Michael directed. I looked up at the little patch of yellow light shining through the door that led to Jeanette’s and my future.

“Face out the alley and keep the engine running,” Michael said, “we won’t be long.”

I adjusted the rearview so I could watch the landing at the top of the metal stairs and the door with the light. Olivet’s Cadillac snugged close against the side of the building, hiding beneath the stairs.

Michael swiveled in his seat and faced the others. Dee slipped a shell in each barrel and snapped the shotgun closed. The hair at my neck stood up. They lingered outside the car for a second, talking too soft for me to hear, then I watched them creep across the lot to the bottom of the stairs.

I could’ve started the car and taken off. If I waited until they climbed the stairs and went inside, I could’ve hauled ass. They couldn’t stop me.

But Jeanette wanted Olivet’s money, bad, and if I took off, she and I turned to shit. The air inside the sedan drew close, hot. I opened the window for relief. Don’t run, I repeated to myself, over and over.

Michael led the way up the metal stairs. He held the key in his left hand, extended. A handgun dangled from his other, I could see the chrome. Ray raised his own gun. Dee followed, two steps behind, the sawed-off cradled against his chest.

“Port arms,” Richie called it, when he showed off his army drills. He used a broomstick instead of a rifle, but Pop and I got the idea. Maybe Dee was in the army, maybe that’s how he got that scar. Maybe he knew Richie.

Michael stopped at the last step, below the landing, and pushed the key into the lock. He lay flat against the building, hidden from the square of light in the door. When the door opened, they shoved inside.

My hand reached for the shifter, I pumped the clutch once, but couldn’t put it in gear. Not without Jeanette.

I leaned across the seat to roll Michael’s window down, and a loud sound, like a cannon, exploded the night. I buried myself into the seat, low, and peeked over the back to see out the rear window. Michael burst through the door at the top of the landing and charged down the flight of metal stairs. A bulging sack swung from his gunless hand. Ray came right behind him, fast, and Dee so close he nearly fell over Ray. All three hit the drive running and moved across the lot toward me.

The smell of burnt gunpowder came off them when they piled into the sedan.

“Go, go, go!” Michael yelled, and I punched the gas. We lurched down the alley, tires squealing, and left rubber on Polk where the gravel drive ended. I took a screeching left, and pulled on the headlights.

“Take Kenilworth,” Michael said, and I smashed the gas pedal to the floor. Dee broke the sawed-off open and dumped the cartridges into his hand. He caught me watching him in the rearview.

“Mind your business, boy,” he said. Michael and Ray stared out their side windows, unsmiling, nodding their heads slow, like they were in a trance.

Thoughts of Jeanette raced through my brain during the ride to Chick’s. Olivet’s money. Her money. Fuck the money. All I cared about was Jeanette. She loved me, not the money.

Jeanette was waiting for us in Pop’s van. The lots were empty. She’d parked in the same spot beside the dumpster. I pulled in next to her.

She slunk out of the van into the glare of our headlights. Her skirt hiked up and showed the whites of her thighs. I climbed out of the sedan fast, but she looked right past me, even as I moved beside her.

“How’d it go?” she asked Michael.

“Why you asking him?” I said.

“Good.” Michael held up the fat sack.

He didn’t look at anyone but Jeanette when he spoke. He handed her the sack and she unrolled the top and looked inside. She touched the sleeve of Michael’s coat.

“They shot him,” I said, grabbing at her attention, and Ray told me to shut the fuck up. I lost Dee behind me in the shadow of the dumpster.

Jeanette glanced at me, but spoke to Michael. “You shot Olivet?” She sounded pissed, like Michael had deliberately disobeyed.

“Let’s go, Jeanette,” I said and grabbed her wrist. Forget Michael’s sack of money, we needed to be gone. I tugged her arm. Cops don’t wait to track down killers, no matter how long the city fires burned.

She didn’t move.

“Let’s go,” I said. I tried to make my voice strong, but even to myself I sounded weak.

“Get your hands off me,” she said, and jerked away. She looked like the sight of me might make her sick.

Michael reached out to her and she went to him. He pulled her close.

“You shot him?” she said, her voice bedroom soft.

“The fat slob wouldn’t open the safe.” Michael lifted his arm and Jeanette cozied into his chest beneath it. She put her open hand on his belly. “Smart girl,” he said. His eyes burned right through me.

My heart closed down, I couldn’t breathe, I lunged toward Jeanette with both hands. Jeanette. My Jeanette.

“Who does he think he is?” she said, shrieking, dodging me. Something drove into the side of my skull and I sank to the lot like rocks in water.

All three men came on me like vultures. I couldn’t do anything.

“Fucker came after my girl,” Michael said.

The first kick caught me below the ribs, and I felt myself lift off the asphalt parking lot. I saw the shotgun stock coming and it caught me on the bridge of my nose and felt like it tore half my face away. Then the blood, my blood, spraying everywhere, and the smell of copper filled my head. I tried to stand but couldn’t make myself move. A boot heel crushed the fingers of my left hand, and I screamed, but no sound came. My teeth were gone and my tongue filled my mouth. A jumping foot snapped my forearm like a dried stick. Dee lifted my head by my hair and looked into my face. I saw the blur of Jeanette tight against Michael’s chest.

“You still living, motherfucker,” Dee said, and let my hair go. My face thudded hard against the asphalt, splashing in my own blood. He stomped my jaw, twice, and my body shuddered. Then, all sense was gone.

Olivet lived. So did I.

He fingered Michael’s gang and they fingered me, to cut down their own sentences. It cost me four on a three-to-five.

Visitor days came and went. I got some calls. Pop came once a month, my public defender twice in four, but not Jeanette.

Never Jeanette.