Right as Rain

4

'Where's your car?' asked Juana.

'You better drive tonight,' said Quinn.

'I'm in the lot. We should cut through here.'

They went through the break in the buildings between Rosita's and the pawnshop. They neared Fred Folsom's sculpted bronze bust of Norman Lane, 'the Mayor of Silver Spring,' mounted in the center of the breezeway. Quinn patted the top of Lane's capped head without thought as they walked by.

'You always do that?' said Juana.

'Yeah,' said Quinn, 'for luck. Some of the guys in the garages back here, they sort of adopted him, looked out for him when he was still alive. See?' He pointed to a sign mounted over a bay door in the alley, a caricature drawing of Lane with the saying 'Don't Worry About It' written on a button pinned to his chest, as they entered an alley. 'They call this Mayor's Lane now.'

'You knew him?'

'I knew who he was. I bought him a drink once over at Captain White's. Another place that isn't around anymore. He was just a drunk. But I guess what they're trying to say with all this back here, with everything he was, he was still a man.'

'God, it's cold.' Juana held the lapels of her coat together and close to her chest and looked over at Quinn. 'I've seen you before, you know? And not at the bookstore, either. Before that, but I know we never met.'

'I was in the news last year. On the television and in the papers, too.'

'Maybe that's it.'

'It probably is.'

'There's my car.'

'That old Beetle?'

'What, it's not good enough for you?'

'No, I like it.'

'What do you drive?'

'I'm between cars right now.'

'Is that like being between jobs?'

'Just like it.'

'You asked me out and you don't have a car?'

'So it's your nickel for the gas.' Quinn zipped his jacket. 'I'll get the oysters and the beers.'

They were at the bar of Crisfield's, the old Crisfield's on the dip at Georgia, not the designer Crisfield's on Colesville, and they were eating oysters and sides of coleslaw and washing it all down with Heineken beer. Quinn had juiced the cocktail sauce with horseradish and he noticed that Juana had added Tabasco to the mix.

'Mmm,' said Juana, swallowing a mouthful, reaching into the cracker bowl for a chaser.

'A dozen raw and a plate of slaw,' said Quinn. 'Nothin' better. These are good, right?'

'They're good.'

All the stools at the horseshoe-shaped bar were occupied, and the dining room to the right was filled. The atmosphere was no atmosphere: white tile walls with photographs of local celebrities framed and mounted above the tiles, wood tables topped with paper place mats, grocery store-bought salad dressing displayed on a bracketed shelf… and still the place was packed nearly every night, despite the fact that management was giving nothing away. Crisfield's was a D.C. landmark, where generations of Washingtonians had met and shared food and conversation for years.

'Make any money tonight?' said Quinn.

'By the time I tipped out the bartender… not real money, no. I walked with forty-five.'

'You keep having forty-five-dollar nights, you're not going to be able to make it through school.'

'My student loans are putting me through school. I wait tables just to live. Raphael tell you I was going to law school?'

'He told me everything he knew about you. Don't worry, it wasn't much. Pass me that Tabasco, will you?'

He touched her hand as she handed him the bottle. Her hand was warm, and he liked the way her fingers were tapered, feminine and strong.

'Thanks.'

A couple of black guys seated on the opposite end of the horseshoe, early thirties, if Quinn had to guess, were staring freely at him and Juana. Plenty of heads had turned when they'd entered the restaurant, some he figured just to get a look at Juana. Most of the people had only looked over briefly, but these two couldn't give it up. Well, fuck it, he thought. If this was going to keep working in any kind of way – and he was getting the feeling already that he wanted it to – then he'd just have to shake off those kinds of stares. Still, he didn't like it, how these two were so bold.

'That's not fair,' said Juana.

'What isn't?'

'You been asking about me and you know some things, and I don't know a damn thing about you.'

You been. He liked the way she said that.

'That accent of yours,' he said.

'What accent?'

'Your voice falls and rises, like music. What is that, Brooklyn?'

'The Bronx.' She shook an oyster off her fork and let it sit in the cocktail sauce. 'What's yours? The Carolinas, something like that?'

' Maryland. D.C.'

'You sound plenty Southern to me. With that drawl and everything.'

'This is the South. It's south of the Mason-Dixon Line, anyway.'

He turned to face her. Her hair was black, curly, and very long, and it broke on thin shoulders and rose again at the upcurve of her smallish breasts. She had a nice ass on her, too; he had checked it out back at the restaurant when she'd bent over to serve her drinks. It was round and high, the way he liked it, and the sight of it had taken his breath short, which had not happened to him in a long while. Her eyes were near black, many shades deeper than her brown skin, and her lips were full and painted in a dark color with an even darker outline. There was a mole on her cheek, above and to the right of her upper lip.

He was staring at her now and she was staring at him, and then her lips turned up on one side, a kind of half smile that she attempted to hold down. It was the same thing she had done back at Rosita's with her mouth, and Quinn chuckled under his breath.

'What?'

'Ah, nothin'. It's just, that thing you got going on, your almost smile. I just like it, is all.'

Juana retrieved her oyster from the cocktail sauce, chewed and swallowed it, and had a swig of cold beer.

'How do you know Raphael?' she said.

'He came in the shop one day, looking for Stanley Clarke's School Days on vinyl. Raphael likes that jazz-funk sound, the semi-orchestral stuff from the seventies. Dexter Wansel, George Duke, like that. Lonnie Liston Smith. I knew zilch about it, and he was happy to give me an education. I call him when we buy those old records from time to time.'

'You always worked in a bookstore?'

'No, not always. What you want to know is, am I educated, and if so, why haven't I done anything with it. I went to the University of Maryland and got my criminology degree. Then I was a cop in D.C. for eight years or so. After I left the force, I thought I was ready for something quiet. I like books, a certain kind, anyway

'Westerns.'

'Yeah, and there's nothing quieter than a used book and record store. So here I am.'

She studied his face. 'I know where I've seen you now.'

'Right. I'm the cop that killed the other cop last year.'

'It's the hair that's changed.'

'Uh-huh. I grew it out.'

Quinn waited, but the usual follow-up questions didn't come. He watched Juana use her elbow to push the platter of oyster shells away from her. While he watched her, he drank off an inch of his beer.

'How about me?' asked Juana. 'Anything else you want to know?'

'Not really. What I know so far I like.'

'Not a thing, huh?'

'Can't think of anything off the top of my head right now.'

'Let me go ahead and get it out of the way, then, all right? My mother was Puerto Rican and my father was black. I'm comfortable in a few different worlds and sometimes I'm not comfortable in any of them.'

'I didn't ask you that.'

'You didn't ask me that yet.'

'What I mean is, I don't care.'

'You don't care tonight. Tonight there's only attraction and do we connect. But this world we got out here and the people in it, right now, they're not gonna let us not care. Like those two guys over there, been staring at us all night.'

'How about we deal with it as we go along?' Quinn signaled the barrel-chested man with the gray mustache behind the bar. 'Sir? You wanna shuck us a dozen more?'

'Thanks, Tuh-ree,' said Juana.

Tuh-ree. He liked the way she said that, too.

On their way out the door, Juana noticed Quinn glance over his shoulder at the two men who had been staring at them all night and give them both a short but meaningful look.

Out on the street Juana put her arm through his as they walked to her black Beetle, parked in the lot of a tire store. She was cold and it warmed her to be close to him, and it felt natural to touch him, like they had moved past something and were onto something else. He was easy to talk to and he listened, didn't seem to be the type of man who was always thinking of what he'd say next. He didn't boast, either, didn't talk about his big plans, hadn't tried too hard to impress her in any way, in fact, which had made an impression in itself.

'Where do you live?' she asked.

'I got a place down off Sligo Avenue. What about you?'

'I'm over on Tenth Street in Northeast. Near Catholic University?'

'You mind dropping me off before you head back?'

'What're you, kiddin'?'

"Cause I could walk.'

'Yeah, I heard you like to walk at night.'

'Raphael told you, huh?'

'And that you like westerns. He said you were reading one the first time he went into your shop, and every time since.'

'So what was all that "It's not fair, I don't know a damn thing about you" stuff?' Quinn laughed. 'You're a liar!'

'All right, I lied,' said Juana. 'But I promise you, I'll never lie to you again.'

She stopped the Volkswagen out front of his place, a small brick apartment building, and let it idle. A convenience store and beer market sat closed and dark across the street, and boys in parkas were standing around outside its locked front door. The apartment units were dark as well.

'Here we are,' he said.

'Thanks for everything. It was nice.'

'My pleasure. I'll see you around, okay?'

'Okay.'

He squeezed her hand and it felt like a kiss. Then he was out of the car and crossing the unlit street, his jacket black and flat against the night.

She drove home listening to a Cassandra Wilson tape, thinking of him all the way.

Quinn washed and got under the covers of his bed. He tried to read a Max Evans sitting on his nightstand but found it hard to concentrate on the plot. He turned off the light, thinking of Juana, trying not to expect too much, hoping it could work.

Just before dawn he dreamed that he had gotten into a violent argument with a black man in a club. Punches were thrown and a gun was drawn. Then there were screams, blood, and death.

When he woke he was neither startled nor disturbed. He'd been having dreams like this for some time.