Drama City

SIXTEEN

Rachel drove into town. She was looking for a man named Carlton Sims and a bottom-feeder named Tyrone Meadows. Both stayed in the same facility, a halfway house in Northeast.

The halfway house was not a house, but rather a warehouse with a couple of trailers grouped around it, off New York Avenue in an area that was zoned for commercial as well as residential use. It was run by a private contractor based in Michigan and funded by the federal government through the Bureau of Prisons. Men and women just out of the joint used facilities like this one to get acclimated to the world for the first two or three months of their straight life.

The contractor had been under fire from neighborhood residents since the facility had opened, quietly, the previous year. The city had approved the site, and the mayor and the police chief had been briefed, as required by law, but no one had thought to consult the neighbors. Every day, kids walked by the halfway house, now referred to as a “community corrections center” by its contractor, on their way to school. They stood at the same bus stop and frequented the same corner market as the offenders, some of whom had rape and molestation charges in their jackets. A similar facility had been blocked in wealthy Ward 3, but in the relatively poorer sections of town, citizens had less power. Rachel Lopez understood the concern but also wondered where these people would stay, in the absence of family or friends, if programs such as this one went away.

Rachel entered the greeting area of the main facility, a former storage structure now sectioned into dorm-style sleeping quarters, cafeteria, lounge and recreation room, and administrative offices. She badged a security guard and asked to speak with Millie Gales, the facility’s manager. As she waited, she watched the occupants milling about in the dim light of the cafeteria, talking guardedly, palming one another smokes, moving slowly. It reminded her of a prison dayroom.

Millie came out of her office in short order and met Rachel by the sign-in, sign-out counter. She was a big woman in her fifties, dark-skinned, high of hip, with strong arms and muscular legs. She was missing three fingers on her right hand. A large gold crucifix hung outside her dress.

“Hey, girl,” said Millie.

“Millie.”

They hugged. Millie’s eyes lost a little light as she stepped back and studied Rachel. Rachel wondered if she looked as bad as she felt. Maybe she reeked of last night’s alcohol.

“Who you here to see?” said Millie.

“Carlton Sims, for one,” said Rachel.

Millie picked up the clipboard on the counter. “Carlton signed out of here at four forty-five a.m.”

“For work, I hope.”

“Oh, yeah. Carlton working most every day. He got hooked up with Darius Wood, has that landscaping business?”

“Darius Wood. Isn’t he an ex-offender?”

“Uh-huh. I met him at my church originally. He comes by and picks up men now, around dawn. So far, Carlton’s doing all right.”

“What about Tyrone Meadows?” said Rachel. “He in?”

“Tyrone’s most definitely in,” said Millie. “He ain’t even looked for work since he been here.”

“Can I speak to him?”

“I’ll get him,” said Millie, then put her two-fingered hand on Rachel’s arm. “You want some water, something? You look kinda pale.”

“It’s just the heat. Thanks, I’m all right.”

Rachel Lopez and Tyrone Meadows sat outside at a picnic table so that Tyrone could smoke. Meadows was a hustler who lived off women and had a history of domestic abuse to go with his felony drug charges. He was thin and wiry, with Omega tattoos burned via hot wire into both biceps. He had a radiant smile that clashed with his cruel eyes.

They sat directly in the sun, among other offenders who had come out here to catch air and cigarettes. It was not yet noon, but the temperature had climbed to ninety degrees.

“So what you want to know?” said Meadows. He dragged hard on a live menthol and looked at her with smiling eyes.

“I want to know when you’re going to start looking for work,” said Rachel, meeting his stare. Her eyes were all business.

“Soon,” he said. “Need to find me some presentable clothes, though, before I go out on that job search. Man like me, it’s important I look good. I’d be disappointing a lot of ladies if I just stepped out in these old khakis, right?”

“You go down to that corner there at sunup, you’re gonna find work. You don’t need dress clothes for that.”

“That’s chain gang bullshit right there. I ain’t accustomed to no common labor.”

“You better get accustomed to it,” said Rachel. “You need to find work. Any kind of gainful employment. The Seven-A form that you signed requires it.”

“Oh, it requires it, huh?” Meadows hit his cigarette, let out some smoke, and French-inhaled the same smoke. “What y’all gonna do, send me back?”

“If you don’t look for work -”

“Look, it don’t make all that much difference to me. I’m a survivor, darling.”

“It’s Miss Lopez.”

Meadows chuckled. “Okay. I’m a survivor, Miss Lopez. You can send me back if you feel the need to. I don’t even like stayin’ up in this motherfucker, see? The food’s plain awful, for one. Least I had some privacy in the cut. Three-hots-and-a-cot is lookin’ pretty good right now, you want the truth.”

Keep talking, Slick, thought Rachel. I could arrange it for you, if that’s what you want.

“But,” said Meadows, “since it’s you askin’-”

“I’m not asking.”

“Damn, you feisty. ”

“You need to find work, Tyrone.”

“Listen, I’m feelin’ like you and me, we got a problem.” Tyrone leaned forward, glanced at her chest, smiled, and looked back up into her eyes. “You know, they got a motel, walking distance from here, on New York Avenue? You and me could settle this right now.”

“And I could violate you. Right now.”

“Why you got to act like that?” said Meadows, genuine hurt appearing on his face.

“One more thing,” said Rachel. “You need to get over to the clinic and drop a urine.”

“Damn.”

“I’m gonna check back with you soon,” said Rachel, getting up off the picnic bench and walking abruptly to her car. She felt dizzy and faint.

Rachel drove down the block. Out of sight of the halfway house, she pulled over to the curb and cut the engine. She smelled gas fumes, broke into a cool sweat, and dry-heaved into her lap. She rested her head back and closed her eyes. Sitting there in the Honda, with the passenger window barely open, she fell asleep in the August heat.

Lorenzo Brown got a call on his cell while climbing the hill toward Saint Elizabeth’s, on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, in Anacostia, Southeast. He turned down the Tahoe’s radio and picked up his phone from out of the console’s cup holder.

“Brown here.”

“Renzo. My mother said you called.” Nigel Johnson’s voice was hoarse. His tone was weary.

“Right,” said Lorenzo. “I read in the newspaper about Green and the boy. That was Michael Butler, right?”

“Yeah,” said Nigel.

“You okay?”

“You know how this go. It’s all in the game.” It was something they had said to each other many times in the past. Nigel did not sound as if he believed it anymore.

“This line safe?”

“I’m on a disposable. You can talk.”

“After I left you yesterday, I passed by a silver BMW parked on Georgia, near your shop. The two inside the car were watching us-watching you, I expect. Last night, Joe said he saw the same ones from the BMW, havin’ some kind of verbal confrontation with Green and Butler out in the middle of the street, right on Otis Place. Green drives that black Escalade, doesn’t he?”

“He did. You know who was in the BMW?”

“Melvin Lee. Also, a hard-lookin’ kid he ride with, name of Rico.”

“How’d you recognize their car?” said Nigel.

“I had my own thing with them earlier in the day. Somethin’ to do with my job.”

“Lee works for Deacon. He been back with Deacon since he came uptown.”

“What I heard,” said Lorenzo. Passing between the brick walls of Saint E’s, he continued driving south on MLK.

“None of this is no surprise,” said Nigel after a long silence.

“You knew?”

“I knew DeEric fucked up.”

“How so?”

“Green came up on some kid retailing on one of Deacon’s corners. He told this kid to step off, thinking the corner was mine. Made a dumb mistake, is all. Deacon’s people came back at him, I guess.”

“Was Butler with Green when he made the mistake?”

“No. I only had him ridin’ with DeEric to pick up the count, watch how we do. I wanted Michael to learn. That was my fuckup there. Michael wasn’t cut out for that kind of drama.”

“You think Deacon ordered the hit?” said Lorenzo, turning down Mississippi Avenue, going along the park known as Oxon Run.

“I don’t know,” said Nigel.

Lorenzo drove through the open gate of a fenced complex and parked the Tahoe in the lot of a group of squat brick apartment buildings on Mississippi.

“I got work to do, Nigel.”

“So do I. But look here: This the last conversation we gonna have about this.”

“No question.”

“I don’t want you involved.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I mean it, Lorenzo.”

“So do I.”

“You need me again, for anything, you call me direct. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

Nigel said his phone number; Lorenzo wrote it on the notepad clipped on the dash of the truck.

“You didn’t tell my mother about the killing, did you? I don’t like to upset the old girl.”

“I didn’t say a thing.”

“Take care of yourself,” said Nigel, and he cut the line.

Lorenzo radioed Cindy and told her he had arrived at the location of the complaint. He then got out of the Tahoe, leaving the motor running and the air conditioning on full, and locked the door with his spare key. He went up the hill toward the apartment building to make his call.