Hell To Pay

chapter 31

ON the stoops of the row houses of Buchanan Street, the jack-o’-lanterns of Halloween had begun to wilt. Time and the weather had mutated the faces carved into the pumpkins, and hungry squirrels had mutilated their features. Gloves and scarves had come out of the closets, and lawn mowers had been drained of gas and put away in basements and sheds. Colors had exploded brilliantly upon leaves, then the leaves had dried and gone toward brown. One holiday was done and another was approaching. Thanksgiving was just a week away.

Strange drove his Cadillac up his block, waving to an old woman named Katherine who was out in a heavy sweater, slowly raking her small square of yard. Katherine had been an elementary school teacher in D.C. for her entire career, put two sons and a daughter through college, and had recently lost a grandson to the streets. Strange had been knowing that woman for almost thirty years.

Strange hooked a right on Georgia Avenue. He looked in his shoebox of tapes and slipped an old Stylistics mix into the deck. Bell and Creed’s “People Make the World Go Round” began with a wintry prologue, Russell Thompkins Jr.’s incomparable vocal filling the car. As Strange drove south on Georgia he softly sang along. At a stoplight near Iowa, he noticed a flyer with the likenesses of Garfield Potter, Carlton Little, and Charles White still stapled to a telephone pole. By now, most of those flyers had been torn down.

Potter and Little had been arrested at their house on Warder Street without incident. They had been arraigned and were now incarcerated in the D.C. Jail, awaiting trial. The trial would not come for another six months. The whereabouts of the missing suspect, Charles White, would continue to be a source of speculation for the local media from time to time. A year and a half later, White’s identity would surface in connection with another murder charge outside of New Orleans. White would eventually be shanked to death, a triangle of Plexiglas to the neck, in the showers of Angola prison. The story would only warrant a paragraph in the Washington Post, as would the violent fates of Potter and Little. As for Joe Wilder, the memorial T-shirts bearing his face had been discarded or used for rags by then. For most metropolitan-area residents, Wilder’s name had been forgotten. “Another statistic.” That’s what hardened Washingtonians called kids like him. One name in thousands on a list.

Strange parked on 9th and locked the Brougham down. He walked by the barber shop, where the cutter named Rodel stood in the doorway, pulling on a Newport.

“How’s it goin’, big man?”

“It’s all good.”

“Looks like you could use a touch-up.”

“I’ll be by.”

He went down the sidewalk and looked up at the logo on the sign hung over his place: Strange Investigations. There were a few dirt streaks on the light box, going across the magnifying glass. He’d have to get Lamar on that today.

Strange was buzzed into his storefront business. Janine was on her computer, her eyes locked on the screen. Ron Lattimer sat behind his desk, a porkpie hat angled cockily on his head. The color of the hat picked up the brown horizontals of his hand-painted tie. Strange stopped by his desk and listened to Lattimer’s musical selection for the day, a familiar-sounding horn against a slamming rhythm section.

“Boss.”

“Ron. This here is Miles, right?”

Lattimer looked up and nodded. “Doo-Bop.”

“See, I’m not all that out of touch.” Strange looked at the paperwork on Lattimer’s desk. “You finishin’ up on that Thirty-five Hundred Crew thing?”

“I’ll be delivering the whole package to the attorneys next week. Major receivables on this one, boss.”

“Nice work.”

“By the way, Sears phoned in. They said your suit’s been altered and you can pick it up any time.”

“Funny.”

“Serious business. The cleaner down the street called, said your suit and shirts are done.”

“Thank you. I got a wedding to go to this weekend. You remember George Hastings, don’t you? His little girl’s.”

“The dress I’m wearing is down there, too, Derek,” said Janine, not taking her eyes off the screen. “Could you pick it up for me?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t mind my saying so,” said Lattimer, “you goin’ to a wedding, you ought to do something about your natural.”

“Yeah,” said Strange, patting his head. “I do need to get correct.”

Strange passed Quinn’s desk, littered with old papers and gum wrappers, and stopped at Janine’s.

“Any messages?”

“No. You’ve got an appointment down at the jail, though.”

“I’m on my way. Just stopped in to check up on y’all.”

“We’re doing fine.”

“You comin’ to the game this afternoon? It’s a playoff game, y’know. Second round.”

Janine’s eyes broke from her screen, and she leaned back in her seat. “I’ll be there if you want me to.”

“I do.”

“I was thinking I’d bring Lionel.”

“Perfect.”

Janine reached into her desk drawer and removed a PayDay bar. She handed it to Strange.

“In case you’re too busy for lunch today.”

Strange looked at the wrapper and the little red heart Janine had drawn above the logo. He glanced over at Ron, busy with his work, and back to Janine. He lowered his voice and said, “Thank you, baby.”

Janine’s eyes smiled. Strange went back to his office and closed the door.

Lamar Williams was behind Strange’s desk, reaching for the wastebasket as Strange walked in. Strange came around and took a seat as Lamar stepped aside. Lamar stood behind the chair, looking over Strange’s shoulder as he logged on to his computer.

“You getting into that People Finder thing?” said Lamar.

“Was just gonna check my e-mails before I go off to an appointment. Why, you want to know how to use the program?”

“I already know a little. Janine and Ron been showin’ me some.”

“You want to know more, I’ll sit with you sometime. You and me’ll get deep into it, you want.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

Strange swiveled his chair so that he faced Lamar. “You know, Lamar, Ron’s not gonna be here forever. I know this. I mean, good people don’t stay on in a small business like this one, and a fair boss wouldn’t expect them to. I’m gonna need some young man to replace him someday.”

“Ron’s a pro.”

“Yeah, but when he first came here, he was green.”

“He had a college degree, though,” said Lamar. “I’m strugglin’ to get my high school paper.”

“You’ll get it,” said Strange. “And we get you goin’ in night school, you’ll get the other, too. But I’m not gonna lie to you; it’s gonna take a lot of hard work. Years of it, you understand what I’m tellin’ you?”

“Yes.”

“Anyway, I’m here for you, you want to talk about it some more.”

“Thank you.”

“Ain’t no thing. You coming to the game?”

“I’ll be there.”

Lamar walked toward the door, the wastebasket in his hand.

“Lamar.”

“Yeah,” he said, turning.

“The sign out front.”

“I know. I was fixin’ to get the ladder soon as I emptied this here.”

“All right, then.”

“Aiight.”

Strange watched him go. He picked up the PayDay bar he had placed on his desk. He stared at it for a while, and then he shut down his computer and walked out of his office. He stopped in front of Janine’s desk.

“I was wondering,” said Strange, “if Lionel couldn’t just take your car home after the game. I thought, if you wanted to, you and me could go for a little ride.”

“That would be good,” said Janine.

“I’ll see you up at the field,” said Strange.

STRANGE drove down to the D.C. Jail at 1901 D Street in Southeast. He parked on the street and read over the notes he had taken from the news stories he had researched on the Net.

Granville Oliver had recently been arrested and charged in one of the most highly publicized local criminal cases in recent history. He had fallen when Phillip Wood, his top lieutenant, was arrested for murder on an anonymous tip. The murder gun had been found, and Wood was charged accordingly. He had pleaded out and agreed to testify against Oliver on related charges. It was exactly what Oliver had predicted Wood would do when he and Strange had first met.

Oliver had been hit with several federal charges, including the running of a large-scale drug operation and racketeering-related murder. At a recent press conference, broadcast on all the local stations, the attorney general and the U.S. attorney had jointly announced that they would aggressively seek the death penalty in the case. Though the citizens of D.C. had gone to the voting booths and overwhelmingly opposed capital punishment, the Feds were looking to make an example of Granville Oliver and send him to the federal death chamber in Indiana.

Strange closed his notebook and walked to the facility.

He checked in and spent a long half hour in the waiting room. He was then led to the interview room, subdivided by Plexiglas partitions into several semiprivate spaces. There were two other meetings being conducted in the room between lawyers and their clients. Strange had a seat at a legal table across from Granville Oliver.

Oliver wore the standard-issue orange jumpsuit of the jail. His hands were cuffed and his feet were manacled. Behind a window, a guard sat in a darkened booth, watching the room.

Oliver nodded at Strange. “Thanks for comin’ in.”

“No problem. Can we talk here?”

“’Bout the only place we can talk.”

“They treating you all right?”

“All right?” Oliver snorted. “They let me out of my cell one hour for every forty-eight. I’m down in Special Management, what they call the Hole. Place they put the high-profile offenders. You’re gonna like this, Strange: Guess who else they got down there with me.”

“Who?”

“Garfield Potter and Carlton Little. Oh, I don’t see ’em or nothin’ like that. They’re in deep lockup, just like me. But we’re down there together, just the same.”

“You’ve got more to worry about right now than them.”

“True.” Oliver leaned forward. “Reason I’m telling you is, I got contacts all over. Last couple of years I made friends with some El Ryukens. You know about them, right? They claim to be descended from the Moors. Now, I don’t know about all that. What I do know is, these are about the baddest motherfuckers walkin’ the face of this earth. They fear nothing and take shit from no man. They got people everywhere, and like I say, me and them are friends. Wherever Potter and Little go, whatever prison they get sent to? They will be got.”

“You don’t need to tell me about it, Granville.”

“Just thought you’d like to know.”

Strange shifted his position in his chair. “Say why you called me here.”

“I want to hire you, Strange.”

“To do what?”

“To work with my lawyers. I got two of the best black attorneys in this city.”

“Ives and Colby. I read the papers.”

“They’re going to need a private detective to help build my case against the government’s. It’s routine, but this case is anything but.”

“I know how it works. I do this sort of thing regularly.”

“I’m sure you do. But this here ain’t the usual kind of drama. It’s life and death. And I’ll only have a black man working on my case. You do good work, so there it is. What those lawyers are gonna need is some conflicting testimony to the testimony the government is gonna get out of Phillip Wood.”

“In a general sense, what’s he saying?”

“I’ll tell you specifically. He’s gonna get up on the stand and say that I ordered the hit on my uncle. That I gave Phil the order directly, and he carried it out.”

“Did you?”

Oliver shrugged. “What difference does it make?”

“None, I guess.”

Oliver turned his head and stared at one of the room’s blank white walls as if it were a window to the outside world. “They got Phil next door, you know that? In the Correctional Treatment Facility. He’s in one of those low-number cells, like CB-four, CB-five, sumshit like that. The special cells they got reserved for the snitches. Phil got punked out the first stretch he did. Got ass-raped like a motherfucker, and he can’t do no more prison. That’s what all this is about. Course, he could be got the way Potter and Little gonna be got. But that would take some time, and time is something I do not have.”

“Told you I don’t need to know about that.”

“Fine. But will you help me?”

Strange didn’t answer.

“You wouldn’t want to sit back and watch someone kill me, would you, Strange?”

“No.”

“Course not. But they got me on these RICO charges, and that’s what they aim to do. You remember that photo I showed you, that promo shot I did for my new record, with me holding the guns? The prosecution’s gonna use that in court against me. You know why? Do you know why they picked me to execute, the only death penalty case in the District in years, instead of all the other killers they got in D.C.? Well, that picture says it all. They got a picture of a strong, proud, I-don’t-give-a-good-fuck-about-nothin’ black man holding a gun. America’s worst nightmare, Strange. They can sell my execution to the public, and ain’t nobody gonna lose a wink of sleep over it. ’Cause it’s just a nigger who’s been out here killin’ other niggers. To America, it is no loss.”

Strange said nothing. He held Oliver’s stare.

“And now,” said Oliver, “the attorney general wants to help me right into that chamber where they’re gonna give me that lethal injection. She and the government gonna help me now. Wasn’t no government lookin’ to help me when I was a project kid. Wasn’t no government lookin’ to help me when I walked through my fucked-up neighborhood on the way to my fucked-up schools. Where were they then? Now they’re gonna come into my life and help me. Little bit late for that, don’t you think?”

“You had it rough,” said Strange, “like a whole lot of kids. I’m not gonna deny you that. But you made your own bed, too.”

“I did. Can’t say I’m ashamed of it, either.” Oliver closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again. “Will you work for me?”

“Have your lawyers call my office,” said Strange.

Strange signaled the guard. He left Oliver sitting at the table in chains.

“HOW y’all feel?”

“Fired up!”

“How y’all feel?”

“Fired up!”

“Breakdown.”

“Whoo!”

“Breakdown.”

“Whoo!”

“Breakdown.”

“Whoo!”

The Petworth Panthers had formed a circle beside the Roosevelt field. Prince and Dante Morris were in the center of the circle, leading the Pee Wees in calisthenics. Strange and Blue and Dennis Arrington stood together in conference nearby, going over the roster and positions. Lamar and Lionel tossed a football to each other on the sky blue track.

In the stands, Janine sat with the usual small but vocal group of parents and guardians. Among them were the parents and guardians rooting for the opposing team, the Anacostia Royals.

Arrington noticed a white man and white woman walking slowly across the field, the woman’s arm through the man’s, where two refs stood conferring at the fifty-yard line. Arrington nudged Strange, who looked across the field and smiled.

“Terry,” said Strange, shaking Quinn’s hand as he arrived. “Sue.”

“Hey, Derek,” said Sue Tracy, pulling an errant strand of blond away from her face.

“Runnin’ a little late, aren’t you?” said Strange.

“Had a meeting with my attorney,” said Quinn. His cheek was bandaged. His jaw line was streaked yellow, the bruise there nearly faded away.

“They’re not gonna drop the charge?” said Strange.

“Assault with intent,” said Quinn, nodding. “They got to charge me with something, right?”

“Well,” said Strange, a light in his eyes, “wasn’t like Wilson came to your apartment and kicked your ass.”

“Right,” said Quinn. “But with Stella’s testimony, he’s gonna do some time.”

“Soon as they take those straws out his nose and rewire his jaw.”

“It’ll keep him off the stroll for a while, anyway. As for me, my lawyer says, I get sentenced at all, it’ll be suspended.”

“The authorities don’t want no one mistaking you for a hero.”

“I’m no hero,” said Quinn. “I got a temper on me, is all.”

“You think so?” said Strange. He nodded to Quinn’s cheek. “Still need that bandage, huh?”

“All these scars, I look like Frankenstein.” Quinn grinned, looking ten years older than Strange had ever seen him look before. “I don’t want to scare the kids.”

“Bring it in!” said Blue, and the teams ended their six-inches drill and jogged over to their coaches, where they took a knee.

“Glad you could make it,” said Arrington, looking Quinn over as they met the boys.

“I’m like you,” said Quinn. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Just doing God’s work,” said Arrington, and he shook Quinn’s hand.

Quinn and Blue went over positions and told the boys what they expected of them. Arrington led them in a prayer, and Strange stepped in to give them a short talk as Dante, Prince, and Rico, the designated captains, went out to the center of the field.

“Protect your brother,” said Strange. “Protect your brother.”

The game began, and from the start the contest was fierce. Many times when one of the black teams from D.C. played a primarily white suburban team, the contest was over before the first whistle. White boys taught by their parents, indirectly or directly, to fear black boys sometimes gave up and lay down the moment they saw black players running onto the field. That fear of the unknown was the seed of racism itself.

But this was not the case here. Today there were two teams from the inner city, a Northwest-Southeast thing, kids battling not for trophies but for neighborhood pride. You could see it in the charging style of play, in the hard eyes of the defenders, the way it took three kids to bring one kid down. And you could hear it in the ramlike clash of the pads, echoing in the bowl of Roosevelt’s field. By halftime, Strange knew that the game would be decided not by one big play, but by one fatal mistake. With the score tied in the fourth quarter, with the Petworth Panthers controlling the ball and threatening on their own twenty, that was exactly how it went down.

On one, Prince snapped the ball to Dante Morris, who handed off to Rico, a simple Thirty-two play, a halfback run to the two-hole. The Petworth linemen made their blocks and cleared an opening. But Rico positioned his hands wrong for the handoff and bobbled the ball as he tried to hit the hole. He ran past the ball, leaving it in the air, and the fumble was recovered by Anacostia. The play broke the Panthers’ spirit. It took only six running plays for Anacostia to score a touchdown and win the game.

At the whistle, the boys formed a line at center field and congratulated their opponents. To their counterparts, the coaches did the same.

“Take a knee!” said Lydell Blue.

The boys formed a tight group, the parents and guardians, along with Lamar, Lionel, Janine, and Sue Tracy, standing nearby. Blue looked at Arrington, and at Quinn, visibly upset. Quinn chinned in the direction of Strange. Strange stepped up to address the boys.

He looked down into their faces. Turf was embedded in their cages, and some of their helmets were streaked with blue, the color of Anacostia’s helmets. Dante was staring at the ground, Prince on one knee beside him. Rico was crying freely, looking away.

“All right,” said Strange. “We lost. We lost this one game. But we didn’t lose, not really. You don’t have to be ashamed about anything, understand? Not a thing. Look at me, Rico. Son, look at me.”

Rico’s eyes met Strange’s.

“You can hold your head up, young man. You made an error, and you think it cost us the game. But if it wasn’t for your running out there, the courage and the skill you showed, we wouldn’t have even been in this game. That goes for all a y’all.”

Strange looked down at the boys, trying to look at each and every one of them, holding his gaze on them individually, before moving on.

“We had a tough season. In more ways than one, it was so tough. You lost one of your fellow warriors, a true brother. And still you went on. What I’m trying to tell you is, every so often, every day, you are going to lose. Nobody is going to give you anything out here, and you will be knocked down. But you got to stand back up again and keep moving forward. That’s what life is. Picking yourself up and living to fight, and win, another day. And you have done that. You’ve shown me what kind of strong character you have, time and time again.”

Strange looked over at Lionel. “You know, I never did have a son of my own. But I know what it is to love one like he was mine.”

Strange’s eyes caught Janine’s as he returned his attention to the team kneeling before him.

“You are like my own.”

Rico ran the back of his hand over his face. Dante held his chin up, and Prince managed a smile.

“I am so proud of you boys,” said Strange.

STRANGE left Prince, Lamar, and Janine sitting in his Cadillac, said good-bye to Blue and Arrington, and walked toward Quinn, who was beside Sue Tracy, leaning on his Chevelle. Leaves blew across Roosevelt’s parking lot, pushed by a cool late-afternoon wind that had come in out of the north.

Strange greeted Tracy and kissed her on the cheek. “Sorry I didn’t get to talk to you much today.”

“You had your hands full,” said Tracy.

“So,” said Strange. “You gonna throw us any more work?”

“I had the impression,” said Tracy, “you didn’t want to get involved with this prostitution thing.”

Strange looked at Quinn, back at Tracy. “Yeah, well, I had some personal issues I had to take care of with regards to that subject. I believe I’ve got it worked out.”

“There’s always work,” said Tracy. “We did get Stella back to her home in Pittsburgh. We’ll see how long that lasts.”

“What about the one you snatched away from Wilson?” said Strange.

“Jennifer Marshall. She left home again, and she’s missing. So far, she hasn’t turned up.”

“Gotta make you wonder sometimes, why you keep trying,” said Strange.

“Like you told the kids,” said Tracy. “Live to fight another day.”

“We’re getting a beer, Derek,” said Quinn. “You and Janine want to join us?”

“Thank you,” said Strange. “But I need to get up with her alone on something, you don’t mind.”

“Some other time.”

Strange shook Quinn’s hand. “It was a good season, Terry. Thanks for all your help.”

“We did the best we could.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Looks like I’m picking up a big case, and I might need your help. You gonna be at the bookstore?”

“I’ll be there,” said Quinn.

They watched Strange cross the lot and climb into his Brougham.

“I told Karen, the first time we met him,” said Tracy, “that he was gonna work out fine.”

Quinn put his arms around Tracy, drew her in, and kissed her on the mouth. He held the kiss, then pulled back and touched her cheek.

“What was that for?” said Tracy.

“For being here,” said Quinn. “For sticking around.”

AFTER dropping Prince and Lamar, Strange stopped by Buchanan, going into his house to pick up Greco while Janine waited in the car. They drove up to Missouri Avenue, turned left, and continued on to Military Road. Strange parked in a small lot on the eastern edge of Rock Creek Park.

Strange leashed Greco and the three of them walked onto the Valley Trail, up a rise along the creek. Strange held Janine’s arm and told her about his meeting with Granville Oliver while Greco ran the woods through bars of light. They returned to the car as the weak November sun dropped behind the trees. Greco got onto his red pillow in the backseat and fell asleep.

Strange kept the power on in the car so they could listen to music. He played some seventies soul, and kept it low.

“You going to take the Oliver case?” said Janine.

“I am,” said Strange.

“He represents most everything you’re against.”

“I know he does. But I owe him.”

“For what he did with Potter and them?”

“Not just that. The way I see it, most all the problems we got out here, it’s got to do with a few simple things. There’s straight-up racism, ain’t no gettin’ around it, it goes back hundreds of years. And the straight line connected to that is poverty. Whatever you want to say about that, these are elements that have been out of our hands. But the last thing, taking responsibility for your own, this is something we have the power to do something about. I see it every day and I’m convinced. Kids living with these disadvantages already, they need parents, two parents, to guide them. Granville Oliver was a kid once, too.”

Strange stared through the windshield at the darkening landscape. “What I’m saying is, Oliver, he came out of the gate three steps behind. His mother was a junkie. He never did know his father. And I had something to do with that, Janine.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I knew the man,” said Strange. “I killed his father, thirty-two years ago.”

Strange told Janine about his life in the 1960s. He told her about his mother and father, and brother. He recounted his year as a uniformed cop on the streets of D.C., and the fires of April 1968. When he was done, gray had settled on the park.

Strange pushed a cassette tape into the deck. The first quiet notes of Al Green’s “Simply Beautiful” came forward.

“Terry gave me this record,” said Strange. “This here has got to be the prettiest song Al ever recorded.”

“It’s nice,” said Janine, slipping her hand into Strange’s.

“So anyway, that’s my story.”

“That’s why you brought me here?”

“Well, there’s this, too.” Strange pulled a small green jewelry box from his leather and handed it to Janine. “Go on, take a look at it. It’s for you.”

Janine opened the box. A thin gold ring sat inside, a diamond in its center. At Strange’s gesture, she removed the ring and tried it on.

“It was my mother’s,” said Strange. “Gonna be a little big for you, but we can fix that.”

“You planning to ask me something, Derek?”

Strange turned to face her. “Please marry me, Janine. Lionel needs a father. And I need you.”

Janine squeezed his hand, answering with her eyes. They kissed.

Strange kept her hand in his. They sat there quietly in the Cadillac, listening to the song. Strange thought of Janine and of her heart. He thought of Joe Wilder, who had fallen, and of all the kids who were still standing. Outside the windows of the car, the last leaves of autumn drifted down in the dusk.

Deep fall had come to the city. It was Strange’s favorite time of year in D.C.