Drama City

FIFTEEN

Lorenzo Brown opened his eyes. He stared at the cracked plaster ceiling and cleared his head.

Jasmine’s warm snout touched his fingers. Lorenzo rubbed behind her ears and breathed out slowly. It was time to go to work.

He did curls with forty-pound dumbbells while listening to Donnie Simpson on PGC. Simpson was playing an old EWF, “Keep Your Head to the Sky.” It was a song released well before Lorenzo’s time but one that he was familiar with and loved. The newsman came on and talked about the war and a helicopter downed by a rocket and the death of three young servicemen. He talked about some people who had been in charge of the local teachers’ union and how they’d stolen from out the pension fund. He mentioned briefly a double murder in Northwest.

Lorenzo finished his workout. He showered, ate his breakfast, changed into his uniform, and walked Jasmine. He left food and water for her, directed the fan toward her bed, and got on his way.

Cindy, the dispatcher, was just settling in behind her desk as he entered the Humane Society office. He could hear the sound of one dog barking down in the kennel.

“Mark in yet?” said Lorenzo.

“Downstairs,” said Cindy.

Lorenzo found Mark in the basement, wrapping a bandage around his hand. He was standing beside the cage of the pit bull rescued from behind the storefront church.

“Lincoln get you?” said Lorenzo.

Mark nodded, his face colored with embarrassment. “I didn’t think he’d bite me.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Lorenzo. “You can’t trust him. I mean, he don’t trust nobody himself, after what got done to him.”

“I know it.” Mark stared at the blood seeping through the gauze on his hand. “I was trying to get through, is all. Irena’s getting ready to sign off on him.”

“She has to. That dog’s not adoptable. You see that, right?”

“Yes.”

“Some animals just got to be put down, Mark. Not every one of ’em can be saved.”

Lorenzo stepped over to Mark, unwrapped the gauze, and examined his hand.

“He didn’t go deep.”

“I’m fine.”

Lincoln had backed himself to the rear of the cage. He looked up at Lorenzo shyly.

“What’ve you got today?” said Mark.

“Gonna check my answering machine first. Take a cat back to some old lady. Make some follow-up calls. I’m gonna try to catch a meeting round lunch time. You know, see how the day goes.”

“I’ll be out on calls too,” said Mark. “You need me, you can get me on the radio.”

“Leave me the Tahoe,” said Lorenzo.

“Yeah, all right.”

“I mean it, man. I know you like that CD player, but you can listen to the radio for a change. I’m tired of gettin’ bounced around in that Astra.”

“I said I would.”

Mark went up to the lobby area. Lorenzo stayed behind and crouched in front of Lincoln’s cage. He whistled softly and put his knuckles near the grid. Lincoln moved forward, snapped at Lorenzo’s hand, growled for a few seconds, and stepped back. The other dogs in the kennel began to bark.

“You can’t help who you are, can you, boy?” said Lorenzo, looking into Lincoln’s eyes. “It’s gonna be better soon.”

Up in his office, Lorenzo sat at his desk and washed down two ibuprofens with house coffee while he checked his messages. A man named Felton Barnett had called the day before to complain about a dog barking in an apartment in his building. He had phoned Lorenzo directly because he had dealt with him on “another matter” and been satisfied with the service. Also, the old lady off Kennedy Street had called about her cat.

Jerry, a huge multitattooed Humane officer who had a desk nearby, dropped the Metro section of the Post on Lorenzo’s desk without comment before walking heavily from the room. In the morning, Jerry left the newspaper for Lorenzo, section by section, as he finished it. Lorenzo automatically went to Metro’s page 2, where they had the Crime and Justice feature, which many called the Roundup and some cynical types still called the Violent Negro Deaths. Lorenzo read this feature religiously, even in prison, back when it was just called Around the Region. There, under the heading The District, and then under the subheading Homicides, he read the following:

A twenty-four-year-old man and a seventeen-year-old youth were found fatally shot in an alley off the 500 block of Crittenden Street, N.W., late last night. Police said the man, DeEric Green, and the youth were both pronounced dead at the scene. The identity of the youth is being withheld until notification of relatives. Police are treating both fatalities as homicides.

Lorenzo dropped the paper on his desk. He reached for his coffee cup but did not lift it. He moved the cup in small circles.

He didn’t have Nigel’s number anymore. But he did still have his mother’s memorized. Lorenzo picked up the phone and punched her number into the grid.

“Hello.”

“Miss Deborah?”

“Yes.”

“Lorenzo Brown here.”

“Lorenzo! My goodness, it’s nice to hear your voice.”

“Yours too. I’m trying to reach Nigel. I was hoping you could give me his number.”

“Nigel kinda funny about that, Lorenzo.”

“I understand. Let me give you mine, then. Maybe he can get up with me, he has the time.”

He gave her his cell number and listened to her chewing on something as she wrote it down. The woman loved to eat. She enjoyed feeding guests, especially kids, too. She’d filled him with plenty of good food in that warm kitchen of hers when he was a boy.

“Thank you, Miss Deborah.”

“Come visit, Lorenzo.”

“Yes, ma’am. I will.”

Lorenzo gathered his files and accessories, put them in a backpack, and went downstairs. Queen, the old lady’s calico, had been delivered by the spay clinic to the cat kennel, situated behind the lobby. The cat was docile, lying on her side in a cage. Lorenzo took her out and found a portable carrier.

“You ain’t so frisky now, are you?” he said, placing her in the handled box. “Don’t fret. You goin’ home.”

Passing the pegs by the back door, Lorenzo saw that the keys to the Tahoe were gone. He mumbled under his breath and took an Astra key off the peg. He stepped out into the alley with Queen in hand, going up the small hill to Floral Place. Mark was there in the court, standing in front of the Tahoe, grinning, swinging the keys from his bandaged hand.

“Looking for these?”

“You had me cursin’ your name, Boy Scout.”

Mark and Lorenzo exchanged keys. Lorenzo threw a soft right to Mark’s head. Mark dodged the punch.

“You’re not mad, are you?”

“Nah,” said Lorenzo, “I’m straight.”

Driving south on Georgia a few minutes later, Lorenzo thought of Green and Butler, and how Nigel was going to carry their deaths, and the waste. Lorenzo had a pretty good idea who was involved in the killings. He realized that he could have called the police with the information first thing. Instead, he had tried to call Nigel.

Straight.

I’m a long way from straight.

• • •

Rachel Lopez had two assistants on staff charged solely with handling the paperwork related to her caseload. Rachel had planned on finishing her field calls but decided to drop by the office first to see how the assistants were coming along and to check her messages. It had been a struggle to get out of bed and out of her apartment. She could not even think of food and had not smoked her usual morning cigarette. A shower had revived her, but not by much.

Rachel had a door on her office, an undecorated room with nothing on the walls, and a window that gave to a view of the nearby garden apartments. This morning, after briefing her young assistants and listening to their complaints and concerns, she kept her door closed. She normally left it open, but she was trying to get her physical self together in private. A knock on the door and Moniqua Rogers’s musical voice told her that her solitude would be short-lived.

“Come in.”

Moniqua entered, bringing her strawberry perfume along with her. She was a correctional officer with almost as many years in as Rachel. Their styles could not have been more different. Moniqua dressed loudly in big-legged pantsuits, laughed easily and deeply, and never brought her job home to her husband and three kids. She wore plenty of makeup. She carried a gun. Rachel was her opposite in nearly every way. None of this stopped the two of them from liking each other. Because Moniqua had a family and Rachel did not, and because of their cultural differences, they rarely saw each other outside work. But they were friends.

“Damn, girl,” said Moniqua. “Look what the cat thought twice about draggin’ in.”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Were you tossin’ or getting yourself tossed? The latter, I hope.”

“Nothing that exciting. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Okay.” Moniqua parked an ample ass cheek on the edge of Rachel’s desk. “Look, I got a new offender coming in this afternoon for his initial consult. But my oldest is in some swim meet thing at the pool and she wants me to be there. Can you cover for me?”

“No.”

“Didn’t even have to think on it, huh?”

“I’m gonna be out in the field. I didn’t finish my calls yesterday, and I can’t get behind.”

“Are they good calls or bad calls?” said Moniqua.

“A couple of gentlemen I could do without. But I’m gonna see Eddie Davis today, one of my success stories. That’s always good.”

“What about your boy, what’s his name, the dog man -”

“Lorenzo Brown. I met with him yesterday.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“He’s got potential.”

“I know he’s one of your favorites. And don’t try and act like you don’t have favorites. Shoot, I like my baby boy more than I like his older sisters. I can admit it.”

“Lorenzo’s good. But you got to love ’em all, right? Even the bad ones.”

Moniqua patted the. 38 holstered in the belt clip on her hip. “You keep one of these on you, you don’t never have to worry about the bad ones.”

“I’d probably hurt myself,” said Rachel. “Anyway, you pull that thing, you’re gonna have to use it. I don’t want to shoot anyone.”

“I ain’t never had to pull it, honey. They put their eyes on it, they mind their manners.”

“I gotta get going,” said Rachel, getting up out of her seat. “Sorry I couldn’t cover for you.”

Moniqua looked her over. “You sure you’re not sick?”

“What if I am? Can I stay home from school, Mommy?”

“Go ahead, girl,” said Moniqua. “You’re long past school.”

• • •

Lorenzo Brown found Deanwood to be the most country of all neighborhoods in D.C. Many of the houses, though gone to seed, were on large plots of land holding vegetable gardens, tall trees, and all variety of vines. In the summer, older residents sat on open and screened-in porches and conversed in Deep South accents.

Because of their origins, some of the folks in Deanwood still clung to country ways. A few kept goats, and more than a few had chickens and roosters caged or running about their yards. Owning livestock and fowl was illegal in D.C. After the standard warning, Brown would return to find the chickens gone. He assumed they were killed and eaten. He did not know or ask how the goats were disappeared.

Lorenzo was not checking on unusual violations today. He was following up on a caging call he had made the week before to a woman named Victoria Newman, who lived with her dog, a rottie named Winston.

Lorenzo parked in the alley and walked through Victoria Newman’s yard. He passed Winston, standing in his cage beside his igloo-style doghouse, quietly eyeing Lorenzo. The cage was in the shade of a magnolia tree. Winston was healthy, well fed and watered, and had a clean, shiny coat that was fly free. There were minimal droppings on the cage’s concrete floor.

Winston barked one time at Lorenzo and, having done his job, opened his mouth to let his tongue drop out the side.

Victoria Newman answered the door after parting the curtains on the ground floor. She wore a bathrobe over a low-cut nightgown; both barely contained her lush figure. She was light skinned, green eyed, and had big features that suited her. She leaned on the door frame as Lorenzo reintroduced himself.

“You again,” she said in a not unfriendly way.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Lorenzo. “Just doin’ a follow-up on… It’s Winston, right?”

“That’s my boy. He lookin’ good, isn’t he?”

Her eyes were unfocused. That and the sound of her television and stereo system both playing at once told Lorenzo that she was high. But a blind man could have seen that, as she stank of weed. The cigarette burning between her fingers did not hide the smell.

“No doubt, he looks fine,” said Lorenzo. “But we still got the same problem I spoke to you about last month. That space you got him in is too small. He needs to be in an enclosure that’s at least eight by ten, not including the shelter within it.”

“You mean the house where he sleep at?”

“Exactly.”

“Eight by ten, that’s the parameter.”

“Yes,” said Lorenzo, seeing no point in correcting her.

“Wasn’t like I disregarded what you told me,” said Victoria. “I’m in the process of takin’ care of it right now.”

“You need to do it.”

“I been waitin’ on this handyman I know to come over here to make the cage larger, only he been busy.”

Lorenzo filled out an Official Notification form on his clipboard.

“Winston’s healthy, though,” said Victoria.

“Yes, he is.”

She dragged on her cigarette. “You healthy too.”

“I’m hangin’ in there,” said Lorenzo.

He held out the form. She touched his thumb and gave him a hungry smile as she took it.

“You must be thirsty, all this heat. I got some cold water inside.”

“I got water in my truck,” said Lorenzo.

But I’d love to loosen the belt on that robe of yours. You keep talkin’, I might. I’m just a man.

“You sure?” said Victoria.

“Thank you for asking,” said Lorenzo. “Take care of Winston for me, hear?”

Driving away, his dick semihard, his mind a mixture of relief and regret, Lorenzo thought about Victoria Newman, high at nine-thirty in the morning, alone in that house, not yet out of her bedclothes on a workday. All the people he met in the city on his daily runs, and all those he didn’t know but saw, standing on corners, drinking out of paper bags, lighting their cigarettes, all of them with nothing, absolutely nothing, to do. He didn’t know how folks like that got up in the morning and faced the day.

The speaker below the dash crackled. He listened to the voice on the other end. It was Cindy, from the dispatch desk, informing him of a call.

“A Felton Barnett, in Anacostia. Dog’s been barking in one of the apartments he manages. Says it’s been going on for the last two days.”

“Congress Heights,” said Lorenzo. “Man already left a message on my machine.”

“You gonna take it or should I call Mark?”

“You can call Mark, you want to,” said Lorenzo. “But I’m gonna take it. Matter of fact, I’m on my way now.”

He replaced the mic in its cradle. He did not notice the silver BMW parked on the corner of 46th and Hayes as he passed.

Lorenzo squinted and reached for his shades. His headache had returned.