Right as Rain

26

Terry Quinn sat at the bar at Rosita's, on Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring, waiting for Juana Burkett to finish her shift. While he waited, Quinn read a British paperback edition of Woe to Live On and drank from a bottle of Heineken beer. Juana had smiled at him when he came through the door, but he had lived long enough to know that it was a smile with something sad behind it, and that maybe things between them were coming to an end.

As the last of the diners left the restaurant, Juana came out of the women's room, still dressed in her wait outfit but washed and combed, with a fresh coat of lipstick on her mouth.

'I tipped the busboy out extra to finish my side work. You ready?'

'Yeah,' said Quinn, slipping the paperback into the back pocket of his jeans. 'Let's go.'

Raphael, sitting at a deuce and putting dinner tickets in numerical order, waved them good-bye as they were going out the door.

'Got something in today you'd like,' said Quinn. 'An old George Duke – from the Dukey Stick days.'

'"Talk to me quick,"' said Raphael. 'Hold it for me, will you? I'll be in to pick it up.'

Quinn walked with Juana down Georgia to where the Chevelle sat parked under a street lamp. It shone beautifully in the light.

'This is me,' said Quinn. 'What do you think?'

'For real?'

'C'mon. Let's go for a ride.'

Quinn headed into Rock Creek Park, driving south on the winding road that was Beach Drive, Springsteen coming from the deck. The night was not so cold, and Quinn rolled his window down a quarter turn. Juana did the same. The wind fanned her hair off her shoulders and bit pleasantly at her face.

'Now I know what you like to listen to,' said Juana.

'It speaks to the world I came up in,' said Quinn. 'Anyway, you buy a new ride, you got to christen it with Darkness on the Edge of Town. There is no better car tape than that.'

'I like this car,' said Juana.

Juana's hands were in her lap, and she was rubbing one thumb against the knuckle of the other. Quinn reached over and separated her hands. He took hold of one and laced his fingers through hers.

'I'm gonna make this easy on you,' said Quinn.

'Thanks.'

'I got all this baggage, Juana. I'm aware of it, but I don't know what to do about it. If I didn't care about you I'd say, I'm gonna stick around and let her work it out. Because I'd stay with you as long as you let me, you know?'

Juana nodded. 'I thought when we met that it could work. But then, out in the world, when other guys were staring at us, making comments when we were walking down the street, I could see that you couldn't handle it. And it's not like it was going to go away. In this wonderful society we got here, no one is ever going to let us forget. There were times, I swear to God, it seemed like you wanted the conflict. Like the promise of that was what got you interested in me in the first place. I never wanted to be your black girlfriend, Tuh-ree. I only wanted to be your girlfriend. In the end, I wasn't sure what was really in your heart.'

'I'll tell you,' said Quinn. 'Maybe, in the beginning, you were some kind of symbol to me, a way to tell everyone that, inside, I was right. But I forgot about that, like, ten minutes after we were together. After that, in my heart, there was only you.'

'It's too intense with you,' said Juana. 'It's too intense all the time. Even sometimes when we're making love. The other night-'

'I know.'

'I'm young, Tuh-ree. I got my whole life to deal with the kinds of relationship problems that everyone has to face eventually. Money problems, infidelity, the death of love… but I don't want to deal with those things yet. I'm not ready, understand?'

'I know it,' said Quinn, squeezing her hand. 'It's all right.'

Quinn turned left on Sherril Drive and headed up the steep, serpentine hill toward 16th. He downshifted and gave the Chevy gas.

'Nice night,' said Quinn. 'Right?'

Quinn drove back into Silver Spring and parked on Selim. He said to Juana, 'You up for a little walk?'

They crossed the pedestrian bridge over Georgia and came to the chain-link fence.

'I'll give you a leg up,' said Quinn.

'You said a walk, not a climb.'

'C'mon, it's easy.'

On the other side of the fence, they walked by the train station and along the tracks. A Metro train approached from the south. Quinn stopped and embraced Juana, holding her tight to his chest. He looked over to the traffic lights, street lamps, and neon of Georgia Avenue.

'It's beautiful, isn't it?'

Her fingers touched his face.

'Don't forget me,' said Quinn.

He kissed her on the mouth as the train went by, and held the kiss in the storm of dust and wind.

Strange was starving, and he decided he could handle another beer. He left the Purple Cactus and drove over to Chinatown. He parked in an alley, behind a strip on I Street, between 5th and 6th. There was a hustler in the alley, and Strange gave him five dollars to watch his car, promising another five when he returned.

Strange entered the back door of an establishment that fronted I. He went by a kitchen and down a hall, passing several closed doors, and on through a beaded curtain into a small dining room that was sparsely decorated and held a half dozen tables. Several young Chinese women and an older one were working the room. A single white guy sat at a four-top, looking about as much like a tourist as a man could look, drinking a glass of beer.

'Gonna have some dinner, mama,' said Strange to the older woman. She rattled off something to one of the young ones, who led him to a table.

'You like drink?' said the girl.

'Tsingtao,' said Strange.

She brought him a beer and a menu while the other young women tried to catch his eye. There was a slim one with a little bit of back on her that he had already picked out; he had noticed her when he'd walked in.

One of the girls was talking to the tourist sitting at the table, who had set one of those booklet maps next to his beer.

'Whassa matter,' said the young woman to the tourist. 'You neeby be ray?' The other girls laughed.

Strange ate a dish of sesame chicken and white rice, with crispy wontons and a cup of hot-and-sour soup. He drank another beer, listening to the relaxing string music they were playing in the place. When he was done he broke open a fortune cookie and read the message: 'Stop searching forever, happiness is right next to you.'

Strange dropped the message on his plate. He signaled the older woman and told her what he wanted and who he wanted it from.

'Whassa matter,' said the young woman to the tourist, who now looked somewhere between confused and frightened. 'You neeby be ray?'

Strange left money on the table and got up from his chair. The tourist said, 'Excuse me,' and Strange went over to his table.

'Yeah?'

'Do you know what they're trying to ask me?' said the tourist.

'I think she's sayin', ain't you never been laid.' Strange went through the beaded curtain, muttering 'stupid' under his breath. He opened one of the closed doors in the hall and entered a series of rooms.

Strange undressed and took a hot shower in a tiled stall. Then he went to a clean white room, dropped the towel he had wrapped around his waist, and lay down nude on a padded table. The young woman he had chosen came into the room and began to give him a full massage. He felt her bare breasts brush his back as she straddled his hips, and he became aroused. She asked him to turn over. It was a relief to lie on his back, as he had a full erection now.

The young woman pumped her fist a couple of times and smiled. Strange said, 'Yes, baby,' and squeezed one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. She rubbed lotion on her hands and jacked him off. Afterward, she cleaned him with a warm wet towel.

Strange dressed and dropped forty dollars into a porcelain bowl set by the door. The young woman gave him a look of disappointment, and made a clucking sound with her tongue. But Strange was unmoved; he knew that forty was the price.

Out in the alley, he handed the hustler another five on the way to his car.

'All right,' said the hustler.

Strange said, 'All right.'

Strange drove north and parked his Caddy on 9th, directly in front of his business. He turned the key in the front door, went inside, and flicked on the lights. He walked toward his office, glancing at the neatness of Janine's desk. The woman just didn't go home until she had taken care of all the details of her day. He kept on walking to the back room.

In his office, he had a seat at his desk. Janine had picked up the packet of photographs he'd taken down off Florida Avenue. He went through the pictures: Ricky Kane had come out clearly, as had the numbers on the bumper and side of the police cruiser parked out on the street.

Strange reached for the phone. He called his old friend Lydell Blue and left a message on his machine. He didn't want to leave the cruiser's identifying number on Lydell's tape. He phoned Quinn, got his machine, told him they had work to do the next day, told him where and when he'd pick him up.

It was going to be an early day. I shouldn't have drunk so much tonight, thought Strange. I shouldn't have…

'Ah, shit.'

Strange saw a PayDay bar sitting on a piece of paper on the corner of his blotter. He lifted the bar and looked at the paper. Janine had drawn a little red heart on the paper, nothing else. Strange looked away and saw the Redskins figure, the one Lionel had painted for him, staring at him from the back of the desk.

'You all right, Derek,' said Strange. But his voice was unconvincing, and the words sounded like a goddamn lie.