King Suckerman

Twenty-Three

In all of Marcus Clay’s twenty-seven years, he had never seen so many Maryland and Virginia license plates on a Sunday morning in the District. As he drove his Riviera across town to church, it seemed that every suburban family and carload of college kids was headed into D.C. The Metrobuses were full, too, and people of all ages and colors were walking down the streets, carrying coolers and blankets folded under their arms. The big celebration had begun.

At the All Souls Baptist Church, the pews were all occupied, but as soon as the service ended the parishioners headed out quickly, eager to change into shorts and T-shirts and get their spots on the Mall or settle into the choicest picnic areas of Rock Creek.

Outside the church, Clay saw George Dozier head down the polished concrete steps to his ride, a brown Mercury Marquis, parked out front on the street.

“Hey, George!” called Clay.

Dozier stopped, turned around. “Marcus.”

Clay went down to where Dozier stood, his keys in his hand. “George, man, I been looking for you.”

“Here I am. But I’m kind of in a hurry. My mom put me in charge of the barbecue today.”

“Shoot, George, everyone’s in a hurry today. I need to talk to you, man, about Rasheed’s case. You told me—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Look, George, I tell you what. We’re just a couple of blocks from U Street, right? How about I buy you lunch at Ben’s?”

Dozier thought it over. “I can’t spare more than fifteen, twenty minutes, Marcus. Don’t want to get Moms upset.”

“I won’t keep you, man. Let’s go.”

Clay knew that Dozier couldn’t resist a free lunch at Ben’s Chili Bowl. What kind of real Washingtonian could?

“So — pass me that hot sauce, George — the other night, you said you were working some undercover thing.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” George Dozier looked down the counter at Ben’s, packed with folks in church clothes and others who were casually dressed. “Been working on something right here in Shaw the last six months or so.”

Clay used a knife and fork to cut a portion out of his chili burger. Dozier had a couple of chili dogs on a plate in front of him. He picked one up and took a healthy bite.

“Mmm,” said Dozier.

“What kind of thing you got goin’ on?”

Dozier wiped his mouth. “Been runnin’ this citywide scam down on these thieves. Got a storefront operation set up on Twelfth, between U and V. Call it G and G Trucking Service. A bunch of us cops in plainclothes sit behind a long counter, take the walk-in trade. You wouldn’t believe it, man: Once the word got out on the street, everyone in this town who had stolen goods to sell started coming in to see us. They think we got a high-end fence operation going on. We tell ’em we work for some Jew, but the Jew, he’s out of town. All kinds come in: office burglars, home burglars, pickpockets sellin’ credit cards, stickup boys, junkies, you name it. Lot of ’em selling guns. Chief Cullinane says half of them’s recidivists—”

“Recidivists?”

“Repeat offenders, back on the street.”

“How you know that?”

“We got their names, numbers, addresses, all that. Been runnin’ this operation for the last six months. Next week we’re gonna shut it down, go to their homes or where they’re stayin’, arrest them then.”

“Now wait a minute, George. How’d you get this cast of characters to give up their names and addresses to a bunch of plainclothes cops?”

Dozier was finishing up his first dog. He swallowed, then gave Clay a wide grin. Clay could picture the same exact smile on little George Dozier’s face back when the two of them were alley-running kids.

“Here’s the beauty of it, Marcus. We held a raffle.”

“A raffle?”

“Yeah. You believe that shit? Raffled off an El Dorado, man, and don’t you know that damn near every man walked in that joint filled out a card. Called it the GYA raffle.”

“What’s GYA stand for?”

“Got Ya Again. You remember back in February, when those white cops grew their hair kinda long, impersonated Mafia dons, ran a similar operation down? It was all over the papers and the TV, called it the Sting?”

“Sure, I remember.”

“Well, this here’s the same kind of thing. So we decided to use those initials: GYA, for Got Ya Again.”

“Funny so many would fall for it the second time around.”

“That’s what a lot of the brass in the department said, that it wouldn’t work. And there was that unspoken thing, since it was all brothers runnin’ this operation, that we wouldn’t have the brains or the wherewithal to pull it off. But we are pulling it off. Got over a million dollars in goods already recovered, Marcus.”

“Congratulations, George.”

“Yeah, I’m proud. Gonna be a boost for my career, and for a lot of other good brothers, too.”

Clay ate his burger and waited for Dozier to finish his second chili dog. Dozier used the rest of the bun to mop the fallen beans and sauce off the plate.

“George?”

“Yeah.”

“You hear anything on Rasheed?”

Dozier nodded shortly, looked down at his clean plate. “Heard plenty, Marcus.”

“You got friends in Homicide?”

“Yeah, but they’re careful about givin’ out too much. No, I found out what you were lookin’ for by talking to the FBI and ATF boys we got working with us on the GYA thing. Got close to a couple of them these last six months.”

“The Feds are involved?”

“Uh-huh, and those Federal boys work fast. Turns out the group that robbed your store are wanted for a whole lot of shit, and not just in D.C.”

“Like what?”

“There was this shotgun murder at a drive-in this past week, down in North Carolina. A car registered to a Wilton Cooper was seen driving the suspect, white boy named Bobby Ray something-or-other, away. Then on Friday was that slaughter up in Marriottsville, near Baltimore. You read about that, right?”

“I read it.”

“Whoever did it burned the place down, but they got the tire markings, the shells, and some shot patterns, and they matched the double-aught loads. Same as the Carolina kill. Same prints, too.” Dozier looked Clay square in the eyes. “Same everything as in your shop.”

“Damn.”

“Uh-huh. This Cooper is one bad nigger, on the for real side. Was some kind of king inside the walls of Angola. One of the suspects, got a yard-long record on him, was incarcerated with Cooper down there. This suspect’s got a brother, and they think he’s with them, too.”

“What about the white boy?”

“No paper on him, but everyone makes him as the main triggerman. Way it appears, he just plain likes to kill. Question is, what connects them, motivewise, to you? Or was it something they had against Rasheed?”

“Rasheed was good. I don’t know why they picked my store, George. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

“Well, they’re gonna get ’em.”

“Got a good lead, huh?”

“Shoot, man, they left a trail so bright, blind man could see it. Had this girl they asked directions to the night of the murder, she described the car they were drivin’ down to wraparound stripes on the rear quarter panel. I saw the girl myself on Saturday, giving her statement in the station. Dark-skinned girl, looked like Carol Speed.”

“Carol Speed. She the one played with Pam Grier in that prison movie set down in the Philippines?”

Dozier nodded. “The Big Bird Cage. Anyway, the way she described the ride, it was like they picked out the most noticeable set of wheels they could. Like they were lookin’ to get caught.”

“What were they drivin’?”

“Chrysler product with a big-ass spoiler on the back.”

“Plymouth Superbird?”

“The sister version, by Dodge. Daytona Charger. Kind you usually see Chinese boys drivin’.”

“So everyone thinks they’re still in town?”

“Yeah. They found Cooper’s original vehicle, a red Challenger, stashed in a wooded area in Bladensburg, someplace like that.”

“Should be easy to spot ’em.”

“All the local law enforcement’s got the description of the men and the car now. Like I say, they’ll get ’em. I just hope to God they do before those boys hurt someone else.” Dozier looked at Clay, Clay’s eyes fixed and staring ahead. “You all right, Marcus?”

“Yeah, George, I’m fine. Thanks for looking into it, man.”

“I don’t know what you can do with it.”

“Can’t do nothin’. Just tryin’ to make some sense out of all this, for my own piece of mind.” Clay took his wallet from his back pocket, signaled the aproned teenager who stood beside the grill.

“Hold on, Marcus.” Dozier spoke to the grill man. “Young fella? How about another one of these chili dogs.”

“Damn, George. I thought Moms was waitin’ on you to get the barbecue going.”

“She is. But I don’t get in here as much as I used to. You come to Ben’s, you might as well go ahead and fill it on up.”

“Good dogs,” said Clay.

“Like to make you cry.”

Marcus Clay crossed Connecticut Avenue on foot, hit the sidewalk, walked north against the flow. He stepped around a tourist carrying a miniature American flag mounted on a stick, and bumped into her husband, who wore plaid shorts and athletic socks pulled up to the knee.

“Pardon me.”

“Excuse me,” said Clay to the tourist, and that’s when Clay saw Clarence Tate standing in front of the locked door of Real Right Records.

Clay went to his storefront, stood eye to eye with Tate. “You lookin’ for somethin’, man?”

“What all good people are lookin’ for,” said Tate, spreading his hands palms out. “Peace.”

“I don’t need no abstracts. I’m askin’ what you’re doin’ here for real.”

Tate shrugged in a loose way. “Came to talk to you, Marcus, that’s all. Figure we got a mutual interest in working this thing out.”

Clay looked around him, past the loiterers and the pedestrians. Traffic inched along amidst a shimmering heat mirage in the street. “Cooler and quieter inside,” he said, motioning his head toward the store entrance.

“You askin’ me in?”

Clay unlocked the door and said, “Come on.”