Shame the Devil

TWENTY-ONE

Nick Stefanos stood on the platform of the Fort Totten Metro station at seven-forty-five in the morning, blowing into his hands to warm them against the cold. He looked out into the parking lot at the blue Volvo pulling into the Kiss and Ride lane. He knew Terrence Mitchell would be right on time – he was that kind of man. Erika Mitchell stepped out of the passenger side, shut the door behind her, and walked across the lot.

Stefanos leaned against the side of a wind shelter as Erika emerged onto the platform. Her skin was dark, and she wore bright red lipstick on her ample mouth. She was a big-legged girl with big, straightened hair.

The lights at the edge of the platform blinked as the Green Line train approached. Erika boarded the train, and Stefanos took his time walking into the same car. She took the first seat by the doors; he had a seat three rows behind her.

“George Clinton,” said the recorded voice as the doors closed.

Stefanos settled in for the ride. Greenbelt was four stops away, and the trip would take a little while. But Erika got out of her seat two stops shy of Greenbelt and exited the car at the Prince George’s Plaza station. Stefanos followed her down to the parking lot and hung back at the newspaper racks as a chromed-up, ice-green Acura pulled alongside her.

The driver stopped the car so that it blocked traffic. He got out, walked over to Erika, and put his hands gently on her shoulders. He was tall and lean, midtwenties, wearing wide-leg jeans and a Nautica shirt with an unbuttoned thigh-length leather over the shirt. He wore his hair in a blown-out, seventies-style Afro. Erika and the tall man kissed, and then she got into the shotgun seat of his ride. The driver pulled away.

In the time that Randy Weston had been held on the murder charge, Erika Mitchell had found a new man. Or maybe he had been there all along. Even a control freak like Terrence Mitchell, thought Stefanos, couldn’t stop a young man and woman from getting together. He wondered if Erika Mitchell even had a job.

Stefanos checked his watch. He returned to the station and caught a train back to Fort Totten.

Stefanos fired up his Dodge and drove east, down Michigan Avenue and along the north-south railroad tracks of Brookland. He parked on the street, found the bay with the green door that he was looking for, and rang the bell. The door opened. A man stood in the frame, wiping his hands on a pink shop rag.

“Al Adamson?”

“That’s right.”

“Nick Stefanos. I phoned yesterday, remember? Marcus Clay sent me.”

Adamson’s biceps filled out the sleeves of his coveralls, and his upper body strained the fabric at his chest. He was shaved bald with a full beard and wore small rimless glasses. His face was deeply lined. Stefanos put him in his early fifties.

“Come on in,” said Adamson.

Stefanos followed him into the bay. A drop light hung over the open hood of a triple-black Mark III. Adamson went right to the car, grabbed a wrench off a cloth laid out across the top of the front quarter panel, and got to work.

“You can talk to me while I do this,” said Adamson. “I got to get this water pump out and replaced by noon.”

“Like I said, Marcus put me onto you. Well, Elaine, really. I do investigative work for her, down at the courthouse.”

“I called Marcus after you called me. He said you were all right. Said you gave Dimitri Karras a job.”

“Yeah, he’s doing well.”

“Damn shame about his son.” Adamson stopped working for a moment. “I lost my kid brother to violence back in nineteen seventy-six. You never forget, not really.” Adamson loosened a bolt. “Karras still wearin’ those Hawaiian shirts?”

“Not that I know of.”

Adamson chuckled to himself.

Stefanos said, “I’m looking for the name of a specialty Ford mechanic. Someone who might work on a Torino from the early seventies. One of those Twisters they had, limited edition.”

Adamson looked up. Light flashed off the lenses of his glasses. “I don’t recall that car.”

“Like I say, limited. Real limited. Fast car, but stock. Maybe a restoration job.”

“Restoration, huh? There’s a few guys I can turn you on to. Guys I’ve run into over the years. You’re lookin’ for D.C. boys, right?”

“Inside the Beltway ought to do it.”

Adamson backed up and stood. “Be right back.”

Stefanos smoked a cigarette, waiting for Adamson to return. He crushed the smoke under his shoe as Adamson came back into the bay. Adamson stared at the butt flattened on the concrete.

“I tell you you could do that in here?”

“No.”

Adamson glared at Stefanos. Stefanos picked up the butt and dropped it in the pocket of his work shirt.

“Here you go, man,” said Adamson. He handed a slip of note-paper to Stefanos. “Had to transpose that out of my Rolodex.”

Stefanos read off the names. Adamson’s handwriting was like a doctor’s – nearly illegible. “Clewis?” he said.

“Supposed to be C. Lewis. As in Charlie. Has a shop over in Hyattsville.”

“Okay. And what’s this? Manul Rulz and -”

“Manuel Ruiz and Jaime Gutierrez. Two mechanics up in Silver Spring, right over the District line. They specialize in Ford restorations.”

“Okay. I think I can figure this out.”

Stefanos uncovered a stick of gum from its foil wrapper and began to put the gum in his mouth.

“I tell you you could do that?” said Adamson.

“What?”

Adamson half grinned. “Just kidding you, man.”

“I knew that.” Stefanos relaxed his shoulders. “Say, I’m no Ford expert, but I remember when Lincoln-Mercury was putting out some really strange models. Didn’t there used to be a Cartier-edition Lincoln, way back?”

“Yeah, had the Landau roof with the opera window cutout. New York Cartier gauges on the dash, too.”

“And there was this other model they had, two-tone job, came out in the late seventies -”

“The Mark Five Bill Blass.” Adamson smiled. “All the brothers who thought they were stylin’ had to have that one.”

“Well, I’ll let you get back to it.”

“Yeah, I better.”

Stefanos looked Adamson over. “You know, you don’t mind my sayin’ so, the shape you’re in, you could put the fear of God into Mike Tyson. You ever do any kickboxing, anything like that?”

Adamson adjusted his glasses. “Never had to.”

“Right. Thanks a million, hear?”

Adamson nodded and got back under the hood of the Mark.

At five-thirty in the evening, Stefanos sat behind the wheel of his Dodge in the parking lot of the Prince George’s Plaza metro station, waiting for the tall man in the Acura to drop Erika Mitchell off. A couple of minutes later, the car arrived. Stefanos wrote down the Virginia plate numbers as he watched the man and Erika in silhouette through the Acura’s back window.

The Acura pulled out of the lot. Stefanos put the Dodge in gear and followed.

The driver of the Acura took East West Highway to Riggs to New Hampshire, cutting off on Kennedy. Stefanos stayed back a quarter mile. The Acura drifted off Kennedy and went up First Place, pulling over to the curb in front of a row house there. Stefanos parked his Dodge a half block south.

Two young men came from the row house and walked to the Acura as the driver let down his window. One of the young men handed something to the driver. Darkness had fallen now, and Stefanos could not see what had transpired. The young men stood around talking to the driver, and then the driver pulled the car off the curb and rolled north. Stefanos followed.

As he followed, Stefanos considered what he had just seen. A young black man who did not appear to have worked that day was driving a thirty-thousand-dollar car. He briefly met with two other young black men, who passed him something through his window.

If the young driver had been white and living in Potomac or Ward 3, Stefanos might have come to a different conclusion, or no conclusion at all. After all, you could drive by Churchill High School or St. Alban’s in the middle of the day and see a parking lot filled with Acuras and BMWs.

But this wasn’t Ward 3, and Stefanos had to make the leap: Erika Mitchell had a history of going with young men who flirted with the drug trade. Now she was hooked up with the driver of the Acura, most likely also a drug dealer.

Stefanos pushed a tape of the Getaway People, a mix of old-school funk and Beck-style hiptronics, into the deck. “Does My Colour Scare You?” came forward, and he turned it up.

The Acura cut up Blair Road and went north along the west side of the railroad tracks. It turned left on Rittenhouse. Stefanos waited, hung a left onto a residential street of modest, proudly maintained homes, watched the glow of the Acura’s taillights flare as the driver braked. The Acura swung right into a driveway.

Stefanos drove slowly down the block, checking the addresses. He neared the spot where the Acura had turned, and he cut the Dodge to the curb. He got out of the car and walked down the sidewalk.

The driver of the Acura was stepping out of his car as Stefanos approached the house, a small, clapboard, single-family home. The Acura was parked in front of a detached, locked-down garage.

Stefanos kept walking. He was reading the address and making a mental note of it when he bumped into a man.

“Fuck you think you doin’?” said the young man, low slung with a stoved-in nose. He made a sweeping motion with his hands.

“Sorry,” said Stefanos. “I wasn’t watching -”

“Gotdamn right you sorry. You about the sorriest motherfucker I seen all day.”

Stefanos walked around the man and kept on, glancing back over his shoulder. The young man was standing there studying him, giving him the requisite hard look. The driver of the Acura stood by his car. He had heard the exchange and was studying Stefanos now, too.

Stefanos quickened his step. He made a right on 2nd, another right on Sheridan, and circled the block. He got into his Coronet, U-turned it, and gave it gas.

He stopped at Blair Liquors up the road. He bought a can of Budweiser and a pint of Old Crow. He sat in the car and had a deep drink from the bottle. He drank some more. He opened the can of beer and lit a cigarette. He was breathing normally now, and he headed for home.