King Suckerman

Nineteen

Marcus Clay told Elaine to take the Riviera back to their row house in Mount Pleasant, that he’d meet her there. He and Karras left Vivian Lee at the Trauma Arms and jogged the two blocks to the store.

Clay and Karras were let through the police barricade and into the shop. Red light flashed intermittently on the cinder-block walls from the cherry-tops parked out on the street. A big man with a ruddy face stopped Clay as he came through the door. The man wore a plain khaki raincoat, though it was neither raining nor cool. The grip of his .38 curved out from beneath the coat’s wide lapels.

“You Marcus Clay?”

“Yeah.”

“Farrelly. Homicide.”

“How’d y’all find me so quick?”

“You got an employee list posted in the back with numbers. We tried you at your home number first, couldn’t get an answer. Tried a Mr. Cheek next, got him. He said you might be with Karras. Cheek gave us Karras’s number.” Farrelly moved his chin toward Karras. “That Karras?”

“Yeah.”

“He work here?”

“No.”

“Then he needs to stay out of everybody’s way. Tell him not to leave, though. Might want to have a few words with him myself.”

Karras heard Farrelly’s instructions. He stepped back against the nearest wall. He didn’t move.

Farrelly said to Clay, “You up for this now?”

Clay said, “Yeah.”

“Over here.”

Clay followed Farrelly toward the center island. He noticed but did not stop to touch the overturned displays and damaged inventory spread about the floor. Cheek was in a corner of the store, his shoulders jerking, tears running down his face. A uniformed cop stood next to him staring straight ahead.

They were through the opening and in the island now. Farrelly got down on one knee and pulled back the sheet. He looked up and into Clay’s expressionless eyes.

“Rasheed Adamson,” said Clay.

“Your employee?”

“Right.”

“Matches his wallet ID,” said Farrelly. He stood up and nodded shortly toward a small man in a gray suit wearing rimless bifocals. “Okay. Cover him up.”

Farrelly said to Clay, “You want a coffee?”

“Don’t drink it.”

“I’m gonna get me one,” said Farrelly. “I’ll meet you in the backroom in five. Okay?”

“Sure. You through with Cheek over there?”

“Yeah, he’s done.”

“I’m gonna tell him to get on home.”

“Fine. Five minutes, Clay.”

“Right.”

Clay went over to Cheek, put his arm around him, moved him away from the uniformed cop, talked to him, got him settled down. Cheek left the store without a word.

Clay saw a cop he had come up with in Shaw, a muscular guy named George Dozier, standing in street clothes by himself in the middle of the Jazz aisle. He went over to Dozier and the two of them shook hands.

“George.”

“Marcus. You all right, man?”

“Yeah. What you doin’ here, George?”

“Heard the call on my police-band at home, recognized the address. Came over, wanted to make sure... make sure it wasn’t you.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Ain’t no thing.”

“You in homicide now?”

Dozier shook his head. “Doin’ an undercover thing.”

“You can find shit out, though, right?”

“I hear things, Marcus, yeah.”

“Keep your ears open wide for me, man.”

“You comin’ to church on Sunday?”

“I’ll be there.”

“All right, then, Marcus. I’ll see you in church.”

Clay sat in his chair at the desk where he did his paperwork in the backroom. Detective Farrelly sat on the edge of the desk. Farrelly held a lit filterless Chesterfield in one hand and a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee in the other.

“Rasheed Adamson,” said Farrelly. “Good kid?”

“Yes.”

“Better than good, I’d say. He’s clean as hell. We checked him out.”

“Rasheed was good all the way.”

“No enemies, I guess.”

“None.”

“How about you?”

“How’s that?”

“Enemies. You got any?”

“No.”

“Wilton Cooper,” said Farrelly.

Clay’s heart kicked. He tried to keep his face from twitching. “Say what?”

Farrelly studied Clay’s face. “We found a handwritten note out there on the floor, right in the middle of a bunch of papers that had been blown off the counter. The note said that a Wilton Cooper had gone by Dimitri Karras’s mother’s house today, lookin’ for you. The same Karras who’s out there right now, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Just checking.” Farrelly cleared his throat. “The note was signed by Rasheed. I guess Karras’s old lady called the store.” Farrelly hotboxed his Chesterfield, stared down at Clay through his exhale. “So, Wilton Cooper. You know him?”

“No.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes. I don’t recognize the name. And I know he ain’t no friend of mine. Must be some salesman, or a bill collector, maybe, somethin’ like that.”

“You got trouble paying your bills?”

“Every small businessman I know’s got trouble with his payables.”

“I’ll give you that.” Farrelly drained his coffee. “Well, we’ll check on this Cooper. See about priors, or if he’s got any outstanding paper on him. If Cooper comes up goose eggs, then it looks like we’re talking about a simple armed robbery gone wrong. The register and the cash box in the floor were emptied out. I assume you got insurance.”

“Yeah.”

“How much you normally keep in that box?”

“Whatever the day’s take was.”

“So what, a grand?”

“Less on most days. Three, four hundred.”

Farrelly breathed out slowly. “Well, the perps left plenty of prints, that’s for sure. Made a lot of noise, left a lot of prints, drove out of here like bats out of hell in a bright yellow car. We’re talkin’ to some witnesses right now. Funny, this crew didn’t seem to give two shits about leaving clues behind.”

“You think you’ll get ’em, then.”

“Hard to tell. The easy ones end up being hard, and the hard ones sometimes go the other way.” Farrelly put his hand on Clay’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“The forensics guy out there, Snipes, he was lookin’ at you when you IDed Rasheed. Noticed how unemotional you were. Pointed it out to me when I was getting my coffee, like it meant something. Like maybe you were involved. An insurance scam, something like that. I didn’t answer him because I knew he wouldn’t understand. Snipes was never in the service.”

“So?”

“You were.”

“How’d you know that?”

“I was in the Big One myself. And my son did a tour of Nam. You get so’s you can look at a man and tell if he’s served or not. Fellow your age, that would place you in Vietnam. Am I right?”

“Yeah.”

“What branch?”

“Look—”

“It’s not important. It’s okay.” Farrelly got off the desk, straightened his raincoat. “After a while — after you’ve seen all that death, I mean — it gets to be like you’re wearing a mask. But it’s still just a mask. The fear and the turning in your gut, they’re still there. So, anyway... I was just asking to make sure you were doing all right.”

“Thanks, Detective.”

“Make it Doc.”

“Okay, Doc. Thanks.”

“I’m going to talk to your friend for a few minutes, then you can go. We’ll secure the premises for you. You go straight home, hear? Mix yourself a stiff one—”

“I will.”

“And try to get some sleep.”

Detective Doc Farrelly found Karras standing against the wall. While Farrelly was questioning him, Karras noticed Clay emerge from the backroom and walk with purpose to the Rock section of the store. He saw Clay lift several records out of the H bin and carry the records over to Soul. He watched Clay file them carefully in place.

“That’s all,” said Farrelly.

“What?” said Karras.

Farrelly said, “You can go.”

Karras and Clay drove through Rock Creek Park, the top down at Marcus’s request. They listened to the rush of the wind, the buzz of the small engine working from the back of the car, nothing else. Neither of them spoke. The air was thick with humidity, dampening the seats and filming the windshield. Karras gave the wipers a swipe to clear the glass as he turned off Beach Drive and headed toward Arkansas Avenue. Just before Arkansas he hooked a right, downshifted, took the winding hill up to Mount Pleasant.

Karras stopped in front of Clay’s row house on Brown. A light shone in the second-story window that faced the street.

“Marcus?”

“What.”

“That detective told me about the note. It was Cooper—”

“I know.”

“Cooper was in my house. With my mother, man.”

“I said I know.”

“I didn’t let on to that detective that I knew who Cooper was.”

“Neither did I.”

They listened to the crickets and the hiss of tires running north and south on 16th, one block east.

“Marcus?”

“What.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

“Shut up, Dimitri.” Clay turned to Karras, spoke softly. His eyes were moist in the light. “Just shut your mouth, man. Don’t want to hear about who’s sorry, whose fault it was. Don’t want to hear none of that. You can’t undo death. The only thing that matters is what happens next.”

“Marcus—”

“I don’t want to talk about a damn thing tonight. Just want to close my eyes and hold on to my woman. I just want to do that, and think.”

“Okay.”

Clay shook Karras’s hand. “You take it light, hear?”

“Yeah. You, too.”

Karras watched Clay take the steps up to his house. He waited for Marcus to go inside, but Clay stopped on the porch and stood in the light of a yellow bulb and did not move. Karras waited a little while longer and drove away.

When the VW was out of sight, Marcus Clay had a seat on the top step of his porch. He cried until he couldn’t any longer, then wiped his face clean with the tail of his shirt. After a while Clay stood up, straightened his shoulders, and walked into the house.

Dimitri Karras entered his apartment. Vivian had thrown away the empty beer cans and washed out the glasses, dumped the ashtrays and wiped the place clean. There was nothing to suggest that a party had been thrown here earlier in the night. Karras had crashed immediately at the sight of the cop standing in the door; now he was completely straight.

He extinguished the lights and went through the hall to his bedroom. Vivian Lee lay beneath a single cover, her bare shoulders visible, the curves of her nude body defined against the thin cotton fabric, her hair black as ink spilled out atop the white of the sheet.

Karras stripped naked and got under the sheet. He reached over and clicked off his bedside lamp. Vivian turned her body so that it touched his. He felt the weight of her breasts against his back.

Pearl slats of moonlight fell into the room. Karras listened to the tick of his wristwatch and studied the light inching across the floor. Time passed like this. He thought he might remain awake all night. But as the sky outside his window began to lighten, his eyes grew heavy, and Karras went to sleep.