Right as Rain

28

'They're comin' out,' said Strange looking through the 500 millimeter lens of his AE-1.

'They weren't in there long,' said Quinn.

'Droppin' off the goods, I expect. Now they're goin' to get their money. Couple of Mayberry R.F.D.-lookin' motherfuckers, too.'

'The short one's got high heels on. You see that?'

'Like I told you, it's the little ones got somethin' to prove. Those the ones you got to keep your eye on.'

Strange and Quinn sat in a rented Chevy Lumina two blocks west of the Junkyard. They had been there for several hours, and Strange had filled Quinn in on everything he'd learned the day before.

They watched Ray and Earl Boone leave the garage, cross the street, and head toward the row house where Cherokee Coleman kept his office. Ray and Earl spoke briefly to a couple of unsmiling young men, who led them up the stoop and through a door.

'Gettin' the royal escort,' said Quinn. 'Wonder how many guns we got out here on this street.'

'They ain't nothin' but kids.'

'Just as deadly as anyone else. Anyone can pull the trigger of a gun.'

'They don't have to be out here, though. They think they do, but they don't. They watch television, they see what everyone else has, what they're supposed to have, they want some, too. But how they gonna get it, Terry?'

'Work for it?'

'C'mon, man, you're smarter than that. 'Cause of some accident of birth these kids came into the world in a certain kind of place. Where they were born, and learnin' from the older kids around them – the only examples they got, most of the time – a lot of these kids, their fate was decided a long time ago.'

'I'll give you that. But what would you do about it now?'

'Two things I would do,' said Strange. 'First thing, I'd legalize drugs. Take away what they're all fightin' over, 'cause in itself it's got no meaning anyway. It's like those MacGuffins they're always talkin' about in those Alfred Hitchcock movies – just somethin' to move the drama along. Legalization, it works in some of those European countries, right? You don't see this kind of crime over there. The repeal of prohibition, it stopped a lot of this same kind of thing we got goin' on right here, didn't it?'

'Okay. What's the other thing?'

'Make handguns illegal, nationwide. After a moratorium and a grace period, mandatory sentences for anyone caught in possession of a handgun. A pistol ain't good for nothin' but killing other human beings, man.'

'You're not the first person who's thought of those things. So why isn't anyone talking about it for real?'

"Cause you put all those politicians down on the Hill in one room and you can't find one set of nuts swingin' between the legs of any of 'em. Even the ones who know what's got to be done, they realize that comin' out in favor of drug legalization and handgun illegalization will kill their careers. And the rest of them are in the pockets of the gun lobby. Meantime, nearly half the black men in this city have either been incarcerated or are in jail now.'

'You tellin' me it's a black thing?'

'I'm tellin' you it's a money thing. We got two separate societies in this country, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is gettin' wider every day. And the really frustrating thing is-'

'No one cares,' said Quinn.

'Not exactly. You got mentors, community activists, church groups out here, they're tryin', man, believe me. But it's not enough. More to the point, some people care, but most people care about the wrong things.

'Look, why does a dumb-ass, racist disc jockey make the front page and the leadoff on the TV news for weeks, when the murder of teenage black children gets buried in the back of the Metro section every day? Why do my own people write columns year after year in the Washington Post, complainin' that black actors don't get nominated for any Academy Awards, when they should be writin' every goddamn day about the fucked-up schools in this city, got no supplies, leaking roofs, and fifteen-year-old textbooks. You got kids walkin' to school in this city afraid for their lives, and once they get there they got one security guard lookin' after five hundred children. How many bodyguards you think the mayor's got, huh?'

'I don't know, Derek. You askin' me?'

'I'm makin' a point.'

'You gotta relax,' said Quinn. 'Guy your age, you could stroke out…'

'Aw, fuck you, man.'

A block ahead, a Crown Vic cruiser rounded the corner and headed east, driving slowly by the Junkyard.

'That our friend?'

'I'd bet it,' said Strange, narrowing his eyes. 'Ain't nothin' I hate worse than a sold-out cop.'

'What did you find out?'

'Just got the pictures back last night.' Strange thought of the packet of photographs Janine had left on his desk and something stirred in his head.

'You gonna run the number?'

'Got a friend working on it now.'

'We better get out of here,' said Quinn. 'He'll be turning around, I expect.'

'I was thinkin' the same thing. Those rednecks, when they leave, most likely they'll be drivin' out of here the same way they came.'

'I'd go back over to North Capitol and park it there.'

Strange ignitioned the Chevy and said, 'Right.'

Quinn sipped coffee from the cup of a thermos and stared out the windshield. Strange uncapped a bottle of spring water and drank deeply from the neck.

'Me and Juana,' said Quinn. 'We broke up.'

'What's that?' said Strange. He had been thinking of Janine and Lionel.

'I said, me and Juana are through.'

'That's too bad, man.'

'She told me I was too intense.'

'Imagine her thinkin' that.' Strange shifted his position behind the wheel. 'That's a wrong move, lettin' a together young lady like that get away from you. It have anything to do with your color difference?'

'It did.' Quinn tried to smile. 'Anyway, like my old man used to say, women are like streetcars; you miss one and another comes along sooner or later. Right?'

'It sounds good. You're puttin' on a good face, but you don't see too many streetcars rollin' down the street lookin' like Juana. And you don't find too many with her heart, either.'

'I know it.' Quinn looked across the bench at Strange. 'Since you're givin' me the benefit of a lifetime of wisdom-'

'Go ahead.'

'When are you gonna marry Janine?'

'Marry her? Shit, Terry, I'm long past thinkin' about marrying anybody.' Strange capped his bottle and looked down at his lap. 'Anyway, she deserves better than me. But thanks for the advice, hear?'

'Just tryin' to help.'

'So you got a father. You know, that's one of the first personal things you've told me in the time I've known you. He alive?'

'My parents are both dead,' said Quinn. 'I got a brother out in the Bay Area who I almost never hear from. What about you?'

'It's just my mom now.'

'No brothers or sisters?'

'I had a brother. He's been gone thirty-one years.'

'That was about the time you left the force, right?'

'That's right,' said Strange, and he didn't say anything after that.

'Here they come,' said Quinn, as the Ford Taurus approached from the east.

'Pa and Son of Pa Kettle.'

'You got a full tank?'

'Yeah.'

'They don't exactly look like they're from around here,' said Quinn. 'I got a feeling we're in for a long ride.'

They drove out of the city to the Beltway, then hit 270 north. The Taurus, a nondescript vehicle to begin with, had the same basic body style as half the other cars on the road. The driver of the Taurus did the speed limit, and Strange stayed ten car lengths back, unconcerned that they would be burned. The heavy traffic was their cover.

'Don't you have one of those homing devices in this thing?' said Quinn.

'Yeah,' said Strange. 'Let me just go ahead and bring up their vehicle on the Batscreen.'

'I figured, you know, that you got everything else. All those things you hang on your belt line, and those night-vision goggles you got in that bag back there. You get those out of a cereal box or somethin'?'

'Don't go makin' fun of my NVDs, man.'

'What're we gonna do when we get there?'

'Wherever they're goin', that's where we're gonna find Chris Wilson's sister.'

'Because some junkie snitch told you?'

'You go with what you got.'

The traffic lessened as cars got off the highway at the exurban exits of Gaithersburg, Germantown, and Darnestown, the innermost fringes of the new megalopolis that was Washington, D.C. Strange eased off the gas and kept the Lumina farther back than it had been. Ten miles later, he saw the right-turn signal flare on the Ford up ahead. Strange took the off-ramp, keeping the Taurus in sight.

'We lose 'em?' said Quinn.

'I don't think so,' said Strange. They were on a long curve that ran along open country and then dense forest. When they came out of the curve and hit a straightaway, the Taurus was up ahead. The driver had parked it at a gate of some kind on a gravel path cutting a break in the woods.

'Drive past 'em,' said Quinn. 'Don't even slow down.'

'I look like Danny Glover to you? Do I look like white America's pet African American sidekick, man? I'm in charge of this investigation, Terry, case you've forgotten.'

'Drive past 'em,' said Quinn. 'Punch it, man.'

'What the fuck did you think I was gonna do?'

They blew past the Taurus. The short one, standing at the wooden gate and putting a key to a padlock, glanced up as they passed, giving them a brief and unfocused hard look.

'Boy is cross-eyed,' said Quinn. 'You see that?'

'Uh-huh. Noticed when I was looking at 'em through the lens. The older one has the same look, too. Got to be his daddy, right?'

They went into another long curve running beside more woods. Strange pulled over on the shoulder, cut the engine, and grabbed his day pack off the backseat.

'Let's go,' he said.

They walked into the woods, dense with oak and pine, past a No Trespassing sign affixed to a tree and peppered with buckshot.

Quinn said, 'This way,' and pointed northeast. There seemed to be a trail of sorts, and they followed it.

'Looks like there's a break in the woods up ahead,' said Strange.

'I see it. But we can't get too close to 'em, if that's where they are. This time of year there's no foliage on these trees. We got no cover.'

'Right.'

'And watch where you walk. Don't go snapping too many branches, 'cause the sound travels in the open country. This isn't the city, Danny. I mean, Derek.'

'Funny,' said Strange.

Quinn looked over his shoulder and made a halting sign with his palm. Both of them stopped walking. Quinn looked around and motioned with his chin to a deer blind that had been built in the low branches of an oak. He pointed to the blind, and Strange nodded his head.

Quinn went up first, using the ladder of wooden blocks that had been nailed to the trunk of the tree. Strange tossed his bag up to Quinn and followed. The platform was narrow and shifted a little under their weight.

'This gonna hold us?' said Strange, keeping his voice low.

'I guess we'll find out.'

They looked through the trees to a clearing, about one hundred and fifty yards away. They could see the father and son getting out of the Ford, parked between a pickup and a motorcycle in a cluttered yard. Past the vehicles was a large barn with a ramshackle house beside it. Strange looked through the lens of the AE-1, snapping photographs of the son as he took a gym bag from out of the trunk.

'I can't see anything,' said Quinn. 'My eyes are going on me, man.'

'Got a set of ten-by-fifty binos in the bag. Help yourself.'

Quinn dug the binoculars out and adjusted them for his nose and eyes.

The two men headed for the house, the son carrying the gym bag, looking back once into the woods before both of them stepped onto the leaning porch and went through the front door.

Strange squinted. 'She's in there, I expect.'

They waited, listening to the call of crows, twigs snapping, the wind moving the tops of the tall trees. Squirrels chased each other in the high branches of the oaks. They waited some more and neither of them spoke. A doe crashed through brush and went by them, disappearing down a rise that dropped west of the blind.

'Here they come,' said Strange.

The two men came out of the house. Sondra Wilson was beside the father.

'That's her,' said Strange.

The father took her arm as they descended the porch steps. Even at this distance, Strange could see that she was near death. Beneath the coat she wore, her shoulders were like garden shears, and her eyes were hollowed out above sunken cheeks.

Now they were all standing in the yard, and the son was gesturing wildly toward the woods, the anger in his voice carrying through the trees, reaching Quinn and Strange. The older man was talking to his son in a quiet way, trying to calm him down. Then the son grabbed hold of Sondra Wilson's arm and shook her violently. Her head kind of flopped around on her shoulders, and that was when the father took three steps forward and shoved the son in the chest, sending him down to the gravel and dirt.

The son got up slowly, not saying a word, not looking at his father anymore or at Sondra. The father took hold of Sondra gently and walked her back into the house.

The son waited until they were inside. He pulled a gun from beneath his jacket and began firing in the direction of the tree line. His face was twisted into something between a grimace and a smile. Strange blinked with each shot, the rounds ricocheting metallically into the woods.

'What the fuck did we just see?' said Quinn.

Strange was thinking about the photograph packet on his desk, once again. He pictured himself in Chris Wilson's room, the items on his dresser and in his cigar box. He saw himself talking to Wilson's mother, the pictures hung on his wall, one picture…

'Derek?'

'Sorry, man. Was thinkin' of something.'

'What?'

'Wilson had a stub from a grocery store, a Safeway, I think, in the cigar box on his dresser. There was a camera on that dresser, too.'

'So there are some pictures he never got around to pickin' up.'

'Uh-huh. Also, if he was trying to find his sister… if we been covering the same tracks he was makin', I mean, then he probably has some kind of documentation related to what he was doin'. I'm thinkin' that maybe I know where that is.'

'What are we waitin' on, then?'

'It's just that I hate to leave her,' said Strange. 'You got a look at her, man, she doesn't have much time.'

'We can't do anything today. Not unless you want to pull that Buck knife off your hip and wave it at that guy with the automatic'

'You're right,' said Strange. 'But I'm coming back.'