Hell To Pay

chapter 21

STRANGE stopped by Morris Miller’s and bought a six. He opened one as he hit Alaska Avenue and drank it while driving south on 16th. Dusk had come. He didn’t know where he was headed. He kept driving and found himself on Mount Pleasant Street. He parked and went into the Raven, a quiet old bar he liked, not too different from Renzo’s, to get himself off the road. There, seated in a booth against the wall, he drank another beer.

When he came out he was half drunk, and the sky was dark. He said “hola” to a Latino he passed on the sidewalk and the man just laughed. Strange’s beeper sounded. He scanned the readout and looked for a pay phone. He had brought his cell with him, but he didn’t know where it was. Maybe in the car. He didn’t care to use it anyhow. He knew of a pay phone up near Sportsman’s Liquors, run by the Vondas brothers. He liked those guys, liked to talk with them about sports. But their store would be closed this time of night.

Strange walked in that direction, found the phone, and dropped a quarter and a dime in the slot. He waited for an answer as men stood on the sidewalk around him talking and laughing and drinking from cans inside paper bags.

“Janine. Derek here.”

“Where are you?”

“Calling from the street. Somewhere down here… Mount Pleasant.”

“I been trying to get up with you.”

“All right, then, here I am. What’ve you got?”

“You sound drunk, Derek.”

“I had one or two. What’ve you got?”

“Calhoun Tucker. You know how I been trying to finish out checking on his employment record? I finally got the word on that job he had with Strong Services, down in Portsmouth? They were no longer operating, so I was having trouble pinpointing the nature of the business-”

“C’mon, Janine, get to it.”

There was a silence on the other end of the line. Strange knew he had been short with her. He knew she was losing patience with him, rightfully so. Still, he kept on.

“Janine, just tell me what you found.”

“Strong Services was an investigative agency. They specialized in rooting out employee theft. He worked undercover in clubs, trying to find employees who were stealing from the registers, like that. Which is how he moved on into the promotion business, I would guess. But my point is, at one time, Tucker was a private cop. He might have done other forms of investigation as well.”

“I get it. So now that completes his background check. Anything else?”

There was another block of silence. “No, that’s it.”

“Good work.”

“Am I going to see you tonight, Derek?”

“I don’t think so, baby. It’d be better for both of us if I was alone tonight, I think. Tell Lionel… Janine?”

Somewhere in there Strange thought he’d heard a click. Now there was a dial tone. The line was dead.

Strange stood on the sidewalk, the sounds of cars braking and honking and Spanish voices around him. He hung the receiver back in its cradle. He walked back down toward the Raven and tried to remember where he had parked his car.

STRANGE parked in the alley behind the Chinese place on I Street and got out of his Caddy. The heroin addict who hustled the alley, a longtime junkie named Sam, stepped out of the shadows and approached Strange.

“All right, then,” said Sam.

“All right. Keep an eye on it. I’ll get you on the way out.”

Sam nodded. Strange went in the back door, through the hall and the beaded curtains, and had a seat at a deuce. He ordered Singapore-style noodles and a Tsingtao from the mama-san who ran the place, and when she served his beer she pointed to a young woman who was standing back behind the register and said, “You like?”

Strange said, “Yes.”

HE walked out into the alley. He had showered and he had come, but he was not refreshed or invigorated. He was drunk and confused, angry at himself and sad.

A cherry red Audi S4 was parked behind his Cadillac. A man stood beside the Audi, his arms folded, his eyes hard on Strange. Strange recognized him as Calhoun Tucker. He was taller, more handsome, and younger looking up close than he had appeared to be through Strange’s binoculars and the lens of his AE-1.

“Where’s Sam at?” said Strange.

“You mean the old man? He took a stroll. I doubled what you were payin’ him to look after your car.”

“Money always cures loyalty.”

“Especially to someone got a jones. One thing I learned in the investigation business early on.”

Tucker unfolded his arms and walked slowly toward Strange. He stopped a few feet away.

Strange kept his posture and held his ground. “How’d you get onto me?”

“You talked to a girl down in a club on Twelfth.”

“The bartender.”

“Right. You left her your card. She was mad at me the day she spoke to you. She ain’t mad at me no more.”

The alley was quiet. A street lamp hummed nearby.

“You’ve been easy to tail, Strange. Especially easy to follow today. All that drinkin’ you been doing.”

“What do you want?”

“You got a nice business. Nice woman, too. And that boy she’s got, he seems clean-cut, doesn’t look like no knucklehead. Living up there on Quintana. You spend the night there once in a while, don’t you?”

“You’ve been tailing me awhile.”

“Yeah. Let me ask you somethin’: Does your woman know you get your pleasure down here with these hos like you do?”

Strange narrowed his eyes. “I asked you what you wanted.”

“All right, then, I’ll get to it. Won’t take up much of your time. Just wanted to tell you one thing.”

“Go ahead.”

Tucker looked around the alley. When he looked back at Strange, his eyes had softened.

“I love Alisha Hastings. I love her deep.”

“I don’t blame you. She’s a fine young lady. From a real good family, too. You got yourself a piece of gold right there. Somethin’ you should’ve thought of when you were runnin’ around on her.”

“I think of her all the time. And I plan to be good to her. To take care of her on the financial tip and be there for her emotionally, too. This is the woman who is gonna be the mother of my children, Strange.”

“You got a funny way of preparin’ for it.”

“Look at yourself, man. Is it you who should be judging me?”

Strange said nothing.

“I’m a young man,” said Tucker. “I am young and I have not taken that vow yet and until I do I am gonna freak. Because I am only gonna be this young and this free one time. But, you got to understand, that ceremony is gonna mean somethin’ to me. I saw a bond between my mother and my father that couldn’t be broken, and it set an example for me. For my brothers and sisters, too. I know what it means. But for now, I’m just out here having fun.”

“George Hastings is a friend of mine.”

“Then be a friend to him. I’m lookin’ you in the eye and telling you, there is nobody out here who is going to love and respect his daughter, for life, like I know I am going to do.”

“I can only report your history and what I’ve seen.”

“You’re not listening to me, Strange. Hear me and think about what I’m telling you. I love that girl. I love her fierce enough to make me do something I don’t care to do. You want to take me down, fine. But you’re gonna go right down with me.”

“You threatenin’ me?”

“Just telling you how it’s gonna be.”

Strange looked down at his feet. He rubbed his face and again met Tucker’s eyes. “Whatever I’m gonna do with regards to you, young man, I am going to do. You standing there talking bold, it’s not gonna influence me either way.”

“Course not.” Tucker looked Strange over. “You got principles.”

“You don’t know me that well to be talking to me that way.”

“But I do know your kind.”

“Now wait a minute-”

“Let me put it another way, then. This is all about what kind of husband I’m gonna be to Alisha, right? Well, I can promise you this: I ain’t gonna end up like you, Strange. Sneakin’ around down here in your middle age, paying to have some girl you don’t even know jack your dick. Out here tellin’ on others when you got a fucked-up life your own self. So do whatever you think is right. I’ve said what I came to say. You want to listen, it’s up to you.”

Tucker walked back to his car, got behind the wheel, and lit the ignition. Strange watched the Audi back out of the alley. Then it was just Strange, standing on the stones under the humming street lamp, alone with his shame.

JANINE Baker came down the stairs and unlocked the front door of her house at a little past one in the morning. She had been lying awake in bed and had recognized the engine on Strange’s Cadillac as he had cruised slowly down her block.

He was out there on the stoop, one step down from the doorway. She looked down on him, rumpled and glassy-eyed, as she stood in the frame.

“Come on in. It’s cool out there.”

“I don’t think I should,” said Strange. “I just came by to apologize for being so short with you on the phone.”

Janine pulled the lapels of her robe together against the chill. Behind her, Strange could see Lionel coming down the staircase. He stopped a few steps up.

“Tell him to go back to bed,” said Strange softly. “I don’t want him seeing me like this.”

Janine looked over her shoulder and directed her son to return to his room. Strange waited for Lionel to go back up the stairs.

“Well?”

“I’m all turned around,” said Strange.

“And you’re trying to say what?”

“I just don’t feel… I don’t feel like I’m right for you now. I know I’m not right for the boy.”

“You’re looking to give up on us, is that it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I haven’t given up on you.”

“I know it.”

“Even while I knew how you been cheatin’ on me these past couple years.”

Strange looked up at her. “It’s not what you think.”

“Tell me what it is, then. Don’t you think I been knowin’ about your, your problem for a while now? I might be forgiving, but I am human, and I still have my senses. Smelling sweet like lilacs or somethin’ every time you come back from seeing her. Smelling like perfume, and you, a man who doesn’t even wear aftershave.”

“Listen, baby-”

“Don’t baby me. Derek, I can smell it on you now.”

Her voice was almost gentle. It cut him, Janine being so steady with him, so strong. He wanted her to raise her voice, let it out. But he could see she wasn’t going to do that. It made him admire her even more.

Strange shifted his feet. “I never loved another woman the whole time I been lovin’ you.”

“That supposed to mean something to me? Should I feel better because you only been, what, cattin’ around with hos?”

“No.”

“What about respectin’ me? What about respecting yourself?”

Strange cut his eyes. “When my mother was dying, that whole time… that was when I started. I couldn’t face it, Janine. Not just her passing, but lookin’ at my own death, too. Seeing that my turn was coming up, not too far behind.”

“And now Joe Wilder’s been killed,” said Janine, completing his thought. “Derek, don’t go dishonoring that little boy’s memory by connecting the one thing to the other. All these bad things out here ought to lead you to the ones who love you. In the face of all that, family and your faith in the Lord, it’s what keeps you strong.”

“I guess I’m weak, then.”

“Yes, Derek, you are weak. Like so many men who are really just boys on the inside. Selfish, and so afraid to die.”

Strange spread his hands. “I love you, Janine. Know this.”

Janine leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. It was a soft kiss, not held long. As she pulled back, Strange knew that the feel of her lips on his would haunt him forever.

“I won’t share you anymore,” said Janine. “I am not going to share you with anyone else. So you need to think about your future. How you want to spend it, and who you want to spend it with.”

Strange nodded slowly. He turned and walked down the sidewalk to his car. Janine closed the door and locked it, and went into the hallway and leaned her back against the plaster wall. Here she was out of sight of Lionel and Strange. For a very short while, and quietly, she allowed herself to cry.

TERRY Quinn sat naked in a cushioned armchair set by the window. His bedroom was dark, and outside the window the streets were dark and still. He stared out the window at nothing, his fist resting on his chin. He heard a rustling sound as Sue Tracy moved under the sheets and blanket. Her nude form was a lush outline as she brought herself to a sitting position in his bed.

“What’s wrong, Terry? Can’t you sleep?”

“I’m thinking about Derek,” said Quinn. “I’m worried about my friend.”