Shame the Devil

FOURTEEN

Nick Stefanos parked his Dodge between the customized Lexus and a black Maxima in the Kennedy Street lot beside Hunan Delite, where Jerry Sun, the partial witness in the Donnel Lawton case, was employed.

Today Stefanos wore his version of a uniform: blue Dickies pants, a blue shirt, and a charcoal waistcoat. He carried a cell phone that he had rigged to an oversize case.

The blue shirt and pants, the phone that looked like a pack set – he wasn’t impersonating a cop, exactly. But he looked enough like the species to give pause to the people he was hoping to talk to on the street.

Stefanos pushed open the door of Hunan Delite. Lunch was over, and there was only one customer, an obese woman in tights and a sweatshirt, in the lobby. She leaned her back on a red eat-in counter and avoided eye contact with Stefanos.

The place smelled of fried food and grease. A speaker mounted in the lobby was set on PGC. Callers to the station were giving their shout-outs to friends, family, and lovers.

Stefanos went to the lazy Susan contraption set in the Plexiglas wall. An old Asian woman came forward and stood before him, spoke through several teardrop cutouts in the glass.

“What you have?” she asked.

Stefanos opened his billfold. Inside was his investigator’s license, a photo ID that simply said “Investigator,” white letters against a red background, barred across the top. He placed the open billfold flat against the glass and spoke into the cutout teardrops.

“I want to speak to Jerry Sun. Could you get him, please?”

The woman left without a word. Stefanos heard a foreign tongue in a raised voice. He waited. A clean-cut young man in a black turtleneck came to the glass. It looked like the same young man Stefanos had seen the night he had driven by.

“Yes?”

“Jerry Sun?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m an investigator working on the Donnel Lawton case.”

“I’ve already talked to the detectives, two times.”

“I have a few more questions, if you don’t mind.”

Jerry Sun looked over his shoulder, then back at Stefanos. “Go around the store and meet me behind.”

“See you there.”

The obese woman studied Stefanos as he walked out the door. Jerry Sun stood against the brick wall beside the rear entrance to the kitchen. As Stefanos approached, he noticed the tail of a rat disappear beneath a nearby Dumpster.

“Nick Stefanos.”

Stefanos offered his hand. Sun took it tentatively.

“Make it, quick, okay? I’ve got to get back inside.”

“You run this place?”

“With my mother.”

A couple of young men passed by on the sidewalk. One of them yelled, “Hey, Jerry-San, whassup?” His friend laughed.

Jerry smiled tightly and half-waved back.

Stefanos said, “You get that much?”

“Sure, all the time. Customers ordering in a Chinese accent. People who make fun of my mother.”

“But you stay.”

Sun shrugged. “I’m the oldest son of six children. It was my responsibility to stay. This place has put three of my siblings through college.”

“Not you?”

“The birth order decided my fate. It was just an accident. But I accept it.” Sun lost his frown. “Don’t get me wrong; it’s not so bad. There are people who mock us, but there are plenty of nice people down here. I grew up in Montgomery County. But in some ways I’ve grown up with a lot of these neighborhood people, too.”

“Known many who’ve died?”

“Yes.”

“Donnel Lawton?”

Sun touched the right stem of his rimless glasses. “I knew him by sight, yes.”

“How about the guy who was accused of killing him?”

“Randy Weston? I knew him as well.”

“Better than Lawton?”

“We played together, right where we are standing, a couple of times when we were children. He showed me how to put a spiral on a football, something my father would not have known. But that was a long time ago. We didn’t speak as adults except when he was giving me a food order or I was taking it. He showed me respect, nothing more.”

“Was Weston in the life?”

“I’ve heard that both Weston and Donnel Lawton sold drugs. But if they did, it was minor. Neither of them was the kingpin down here, this much I know. Listen, I’ve already told this to the police.”

“I’m not the police. I’m working for the lawyer defending Randy Weston.”

“I don’t mind cooperating, but I’ve told the police everything I know.”

“All right, I’ll try not to drag this out. A couple of quick questions here…” Stefanos opened the loose-leaf pad on which he kept his notes. “You told the police you heard gunshots the night of the Lawton murder. That was at what time?”

“Just after nine-thirty at night.”

“How do you know it was nine-thirty?”

“Just after nine-thirty. Because we close then, and I had just locked the door.”

“You recognized the sounds as gunshots?”

“Two gunshots, yes. And I know what that popping sound is.”

“When you heard the shots, were you in the lobby or behind the Plexiglas?”

“In the lobby, sweeping up.”

“So you could see clearly through the front window.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s see… After the gunshots, you say you heard rubber laid on the street, then saw a red Ford Torino blow by.”

“That’s right.”

“The boxy version from the sixties or the more rounded version from the early seventies?”

“Rounded.”

“Color?”

“Red.” Stefanos saw a light in Sun’s eyes. “Like I already told the real cops.”

“What about tags?”

“No tags.”

“You mean you couldn’t make out the state?”

“I mean the car had no tags on it. That much I could see.”

“Okay. I’m not gonna keep you, Jerry.” Stefanos handed Sun his card. “Mind if I call you if I think of something I missed?”

“Sure.” Sun’s eyes lit with amusement once again. “Just call information and ask for Hunan Delite.”

Stefanos grinned. “This city’s probably only got, what, a hundred or so of those in the phone book?”

“Yeah, it took a long time for my family to come up with the name.”

“You spelled ‘Delight’ wrong. You aware of that?”

“You’re very funny.”

“I’m trying.”

“The thing is, we barely sell any Chinese food. Some fried fish, and then the rest is steak and cheese. ‘Steak and cheese everything,’ that’s what I hear all day.”

“Thanks for your help,” said Stefanos.

“That your Dodge parked next to my Lexus?” said Sun.

“Yeah.”

“Those pipes. You put them on yourself?”

“They’re Borlas. I bought ’em through Hot Rod and had them installed.”

“Nice.”

“Take care, Jerry.”

Sun waved and walked away.

Stefanos walked across the street to the Brightwood Market and stopped the least threatening looking young man he could find. He identified himself as an investigator and asked the man if he had been acquainted with either Donnel Lawton or Randy Weston. The young man shook his head. He asked him if he had heard anything on the street or had any knowledge at all about the murder. The man walked off without a word.

Stefanos had spoken loudly in hopes of getting a blind response to the names from the other men who stood around outside the market. He heard an obscenity muttered and looked around: A couple of the men stared at him with smirking eyes. He asked them as a group if any of them had known Donnel Lawton or Randy Weston. They ignored him completely.

In the year he had worked for Elaine Clay as an investigator, he had been threatened several times in a benign way, slapped across the face by a woman on the doorstep of her row house, and chased down the street by a clubfooted drunk wielding a butcher knife. There had been no serious incidents. This was as much due to luck as it was to the precautions he had taken in his manner and dress.

And there was something else, too. A black man could seriously injure or kill another black man in town and get a tepid response from the police and the press. When a black attacked a white, though, the cops and the media came down hard on both the perpetrator and the neighborhood. It had always been that way. As a white investigator in a predominantly black city, Stefanos had an edge.

There was nothing here for him today. He hadn’t expected there to be. He glanced at the market’s windows and down along the concrete landscape as if he were looking for something in particular, and then he walked back to his car.

Ronald Weston lived with his mother and younger sister in an apartment on 9th, between Missouri and Peabody, about a mile northwest of 1st and Kennedy. The radio towers of the Fourth District Police Headquarters rose behind the roofline of the complex, a half dozen boxy units with screened porches in the rear.

Stefanos parked on 9th. He had phoned Ronald Weston early that morning, and Weston had told him to come on by.

Weston opened the door to the apartment. He was a thin boy, not past his mid-teens, wearing an oversize T-shirt, extrawides, and unlaced Timberland boots. His ears were too long for his face. He had large brown eyes and crooked teeth. He gave Stefanos a casual nod, reaching for hard.

“Nick Stefanos. I called.”

“Come on in.”

Stefanos followed him back through a hall. Go-go music grew louder as they entered a living room. A Nintendo 64 was hooked up to a large-screen television in a cheap hutch set against the wall. Fast-food wrappers littered a glass-top table, and a Big Gulp soda sat half full amid the wrappers.

A phone rang. Ronald Weston found the cordless beneath a Taco Bell bag. He activated the phone, said something to the caller, said to Stefanos, “Hold up,” and walked away. Stefanos could see him in the kitchen, hand gesturing as he spoke. From Weston’s shy smile Stefanos guessed that he was talking to a girl.

Stefanos went to a portable stereo, saw a Northeast Groovers CD atop a nearby stack. He turned the volume down to conversation level as Weston came back in the room.

“All right, man. Had to talk to this jazzy girl I know. I’m all done with that.”

Stefanos had a seat on the couch and pulled out his pad and a pen. Weston chose a hard-armed chair beside the glass table. He kept the phone held loosely in his hand.

“So Ronald -”

“Yeah.”

“Like I told you on the phone, your brother Randy’s trial is coming up. We’re still working on his defense, and I need to ask you some questions.”

“They gonna put me up there on the stand?”

“I don’t think so.”

“’Cause whatever I said, they’d say I would lie for my brother, right?”

“Would you?”

“To keep him out of jail? Goddamn right I would.”

“Okay, but do me a favor. Just don’t lie to me today.”

Weston looked Stefanos over. “You get paid, right?”

“Yes.”

“They pay you good?”

Stefanos looked down at his pad. “Your brother – did he deal drugs?”

Weston laughed and shook his head. “Damn, you go right to it, don’t you?”

“Did he?”

“Why you think I’m gonna tell you that?”

“Look, I’m not going to pass on any information that would hurt your brother. Like I told you, I’m working for the woman that’s defending him. I’m just trying to find out what happened, okay? So let me ask you again: Did Randy deal drugs?”

Weston licked his lips. “He had a little thing goin’ on, yeah.”

“Rock?”

“Uh-uh. Powder. He didn’t fuck with no rock.”

“How big was his operation?”

“Wasn’t no operation, man. He just had a little somethin’ personal goin’, like I said. Little extra on the side to put next to his other money.”

“What other money? He had a job?”

“No. Not since last year.”

“But he did have his own apartment down the street from here, and a nice car. And a girlfriend, too. So his business must have been bigger than what you’re describing.”

Weston looked past Stefanos. “He had a couple of younguns runnin’ for him, that’s all. No gunslingers, no kind of drama like that.”

“Down around First and Kennedy?”

“Yeah. But it wasn’t no thing. Boy name of Forjay runnin’ the shit down there, and Randy always made sure to step out of Forjay’s way. Randy, he just gettin’ a little bit of it for his own self.”

“Okay. What about Donnel Lawton?”

“I didn’t know him personal.”

“Lawton was a known dealer down in that neighborhood. Did Randy ever talk about him?”

“Not that I know.”

“Witnesses saw your brother and Lawton arguing the day of the murder.”

“Look, Randy was doin’ business down there. Maybe Lawton was lookin’ to shake out on Randy’s strip. Man tries to do you like that, you got to step to him, know what I’m sayin’?”

Stefanos said, “Your brother own a gun?”

“No.”

“Never owned a Beretta ninety-two?”

“He never did own any kind of gun.”

“The cops found a ninety-two in your brother’s apartment. The markings on the slugs taken from Lawton’s corpse matched that gun.”

“Maybe they did, I ain’t gonna argue it. But if they found the murder gun there then somebody put it there and framed my brother up good. My brother was hard when he had to be, but he wasn’t down with no guns.”

“Let’s go on to something else. Your brother’s girlfriend.”

“What about her?” said Weston distastefully.

“I’m talking about Erika Mitchell.”

“I know who you mean. And fuck that bitch.”

“You don’t like her.”

“Bitch was with Randy the night Lawton got doomed. Randy told me they went to some movie together down at Union Station.”

“Which show?”

“That Bruce Willis joint, out in space? Randy said it was the nine-forty-five.”

“If that’s true, then Erika could testify that the two of them were there.”

“She could. But now she won’t alibi my brother. She be changin’ her story now, say she wasn’t with him that night.”

“Why would she do that?”

“You need to be askin’ her.”

“I will.”

“And while you’re at it, maybe you ought to be talkin’ to her pops. She live with him out there in Chillum. Randy always had to pick her up there, get the treatment from her father, like where you be takin’ my little girl and shit. So I know her father saw the two of them go out together the night Lawton was killed.”

Stefanos made a notation. “One more thing. What kind of car does your brother drive?”

“Late model Legend. Cherry red with limo tints.”

“He ever drive a red Ford Torino?”

“One of those old-time cars?”

“Yes.”

Weston shook his head and pursed his lips. “Naw, man.”

“He know anyone who owns one?”

“Even if he did, Randy wouldn’t be drivin’ no hooptie and shit.”

The phone rang, and Ronald answered it. He said, “See you then, girl,” and cut the connection.

“Your girlfriend?” asked Stefanos, trying to get through Weston’s shell.

“Just some girl I know. She on her way over here now.” Ronald smiled. “Gonna hit it like a girl like it to be hit, too.”

Stefanos rubbed his eyes. He wanted to tell the kid that he didn’t have to prove anything. He wanted to tell him that he was tired of it, that he just didn’t care.

“What’re you, Ronald? Fifteen?”

“I’m sixteen. Why?”

“No school today, I guess.”

“Half day.”

“Teachers’ meetings or something?”

Ronald grinned. “You caught me, Mr. Investigator. Gonna take me in?”

Stefanos closed his pad. He stood and zipped up his jacket. “Thanks for talking with me. If I have any more questions, I’ll give you a call.”

Stefanos went down the hall. Weston followed and put a hand around Stefanos’s arm. Stefanos stopped and turned.

“You gonna help my brother? ’Cause my brother can’t do no hard time.”

“I’m gonna try.”

“Look here,” said Weston. “I know Randy. My brother didn’t kill nobody, man, for real.”

“I believe you,” said Stefanos.

Outside the apartment building, Stefanos lit a cigarette and crossed the street to his Dodge.