The Night Gardener

CHAPTER 25

Reginald Wilson's not our man,' said Ramone, seated in the back of the Lincoln. 'Not on this one, anyway.'

'Who'd you talk to?' said Cook.

'The owner-slash-manager. Guy named Mohammed.'

'And he said what?'

'Wilson pulls various shifts. That night he was working the ten p.m. to six a.m. He was working the night Asa was killed.'

'This Ach-med, he actually see Wilson on the job?' said Holiday.

'He did see him, until midnight, when Mohammed went home. But even if he hadn't, there's visual proof. He keeps a security camera running all the time in the place. Says he's been robbed a couple of times. I looked at a sample tape. The way he's got the camera placed, whoever's working the register is always in the frame, as long as they're behind the counter. If Wilson had left the job site, it would have showed up.'

'Sonofabitch,' said Cook.

'I can find his parole officer,' said Ramone, 'confirm his work schedule, all that. But I don't think it's necessary, do you?'

Cook shook his head.

'What now?' said Holiday.

'I'm gonna need a statement from you at some point,' said Ramone. 'Nothing to worry about. You're clear.'

'I wasn't worried,' said Holiday.

'Least you can rest easy, Sarge,' said Ramone.

Cook said nothing.

'Let's get a beer or somethin,' said Holiday.

'Drop me at my car,' said Ramone.

'C'mon, Ramone. How often do we see each other? Right?'

'I'll have a beer,' said Cook.

Ramone looked over the bench at Cook. He seemed small, leaning against the door in the front seat of the car.

'Okay,' said Ramone. 'One beer.'

Ramone was finishing his third beer as Holiday returned from the bar with three more and some shots of something on a tray. Ramone and Cook were seated at a four-top near a hallway leading to the restrooms, listening to Laura Lee singing 'Separation Line' from the juke. They were in Leo's, which was fine with Ramone, as it was close to his house. Hell, if it came to it, he could walk. But he hoped it wouldn't come to that. He had picked up his Tahoe from the garden on Oglethorpe, and he intended to drive it home.

'What is that?' said Ramone, as Holiday set the shot glasses down on the table crowded with empty bottles.

'It ain't Alizé or Crown or whatever they're moving these days in this place,' said Holiday. 'Good ol' Jackie D, baby.'

'Been a while,' said Cook. 'But what the hell.' He threw his shot back without waiting for a glass-tap or toast.

Ramone had a healthy sip. The sour mash bit real nice. Holiday downed his completely and chased it with beer. He and Cook were drinking Michelob. Ramone was working a Beck's.

'What time is it, Danny?' said Cook.

Holiday looked at the clock on the wall, within easy sight of all of them. Then he remembered the schoolhouse clock in Cook's house, off by several hours. It came to him that Cook wasn't wearing a watch. The reason being, he couldn't read the time.

'You can't see that?' said Holiday.

'I still got some trouble with numbers,' said Cook.

'I thought you could read.'

'I can read some. Newspaper headlines, and the leads if I work at it. But I couldn't get my numbers back.'

'You had a stroke?' said Ramone, knowing the answer from Cook's appearance but trying to be polite.

'Wasn't too serious,' said Cook. 'Knocked me down some, is all it did.'

'How do you use a phone?'

'It's hard for me to make outgoing calls. My daughter spent a few hours programming my speed dial on my home phone and cell. And then there's the call-back button. I also have this El Salvador lady, comes once a week to do things for me I can't do myself. Her visits are part of my veteran's benefits. She makes appointments for me, writes checks, all that.'

'They have, like, voice-activated phones available, don't they?' said Holiday.

'Maybe they do, but I don't wanna go down that road. Look, all a this bullshit is frustrating, but I've seen people got more health problems than I do. I go down to the VA hospital for my checkups, there's a lotta dudes in there way worse off than me. Younger than me, too.'

'You're doin okay,' said Holiday.

'Compared to some, I'm fine.'

Holiday lit a Marlboro and blew the exhale across the table. He was no longer self-conscious about having a cigarette in front of Cook. The bar was already thick with smoke.

'Felt good working today,' said Cook.

It felt the same for Holiday. But he wasn't about to admit it in front of Ramone.

'You were one of the best,' said Ramone, pointing the lip of his shot glass at Cook.

'I was the best, in my time. That's not braggin, it's fact.' Cook leaned forward. 'Lemme ask you something, Gus. What's your closure rate?'

'Me? I'm up around sixty-five percent.'

'That's better than the department average, isn't it?'

'It is today.'

'I was closing almost ninety percent of them in my best years,' said Cook. 'Course, it wouldn't be that high now. I read the writing on the wall when crack hit town in eighty-six. I could have worked a few more years, but I got out soon after that. You know why?'

'Tell me.'

'The job changed from what it was. The feds threatened to turn off the money faucet to the District unless the MPD put more uniforms on the streets and started making more drug arrests. But you know, locking people up willy-nilly for drugs doesn't do shit but destroy families and turn citizens against police. And I'm not talking about criminals. I'm talking about law-abiding citizens, 'cause it seems like damn near everyone in low-income D.C. got a relative or friend who's been locked up on drug charges. Used to be, folks could be friendly with police. Now we're the enemy. The drug war ruined policing, you ask me. And it made the streets more dangerous for cops. Any way you look at it, it's wrong.'

'When I started out in Homicide,' said Ramone, 'there were twenty detectives working four hundred murders a year. That's twenty cases each year per detective. Now we got forty-eight detectives on the squad, each working four or five murders a year. And it's a lower closure rate than when I came in.'

'No witnesses,' said Holiday. 'Not unless the victim is a kid or elderly. And even then, it's not a given that anyone will come forward.'

'No one talks to the police anymore,' said Cook, tapping his finger on the table. 'That's what I'm sayin. Neighborhoods are only safe if the people who live in them work with the law.'

'That's over,' said Holiday. He took a long swig of his beer. He dragged on his smoke and tapped off the ash.

They had another round the same way. Ramone was feeling the alcohol. He hadn't gone this deep in a bar in a long time.

'"Monkey Jump,'" said Cook, as an instrumental came strong out of the Wurlitzer. 'Junior Walker and the All-Stars.'

'This place is all right,' said Ramone, looking around at the different age groups and types in the room.

'Gus loves all the peoples,' said Holiday.

'Shut up, Doc.'

'One thing about Leo's, you can meet some ladies in here,' said Holiday. 'Just look at that thing right there.'

A young woman came out of the hall and crossed the barroom floor. She was tall and had back on her that many men in the bar were in the process of appreciating.

'I'd kill that,' said Holiday.

'Nice way of puttin it,' said Ramone.

'I'm just a man who likes his licorice. Nothin wrong with that.'

Ramone drank beer down to the waist of the bottle.

'Whatsa matter, Giuseppe, did I offend you? Or is it that you don't think a woman of color would want to get with a man like me?'

Ramone looked away.

'Gus is married to a sister, he tell you that?' said Holiday to Cook.

'Shut the fuck up, Holiday,' said Ramone in a tired and unthreatening way.

'You say he married your sister?' said Cook, trying to cut the chill.

'My sister's dead,' said Holiday. 'She died of leukemia when she was eleven years old.'

'It's a joke,' said Ramone to Cook. 'He played that one on me when we were in uniform. It wasn't any funnier then.'

'I'm not joking,' said Holiday.

Ramone and Cook waited for the rest, but nothing came.

Cook cleared his throat. 'So, you're married to a black woman, Gus?'

'Last time I checked.'

'How's that working out?'

'I guess she's gonna keep me.'

'No bumps in the road?' said Holiday.

'A few,' said Ramone.

'Just a few?' said Holiday. 'Rumor was you were having, what do they call that, fidelity issues a while back.'

'Fuck your rumors. Who told you that, your boy Ramirez?'

'I don't remember. It could have been him. It was just something that was going around.'

'Bullshit.'

'Johnny said you dropped in on him today at the academy.'

'Yeah, I saw him. Ramirez was wearing his pink belt. Teaching recruits how to block a punch. The proper stance and all that. Another guy who rose to the bottom.'

'You mean like me.'

'I didn't say that.'

'You could work another twenty and you'd never be the police that I was.'

'You shouldn't drink so much, Doc. Your mouth overloads your asshole when you do.'

'What's your excuse?'

'I gotta take a leak,' said Ramone, and he got up out of his chair. He went down the hall.

Cook had watched and listened as they went quietly back and forth through forced smiles and tightened jaws. And now Holiday was relaxed, his hand wrapped loosely around the bottle of beer.

'You were pretty rough on him,' said Cook.

'He's got thick skin. He can take it.'

'You know his wife?'

'I met her a long time ago. She was police for a short while. Nice-looking woman. Smart. I hear they've got a couple of good-looking kids, too.'

'So what's the problem?'

'There isn't one. I just like to aggravate him. Guy marries a black woman, he thinks he's Hubert H. Humphrey and shit.'

'He didn't bring the subject up. You did.'

'I'm just having a little fun with him,' said Holiday. 'That's all it is.'

Ramone came back from the head but did not sit back down or touch what was left of his beer or shot. He pulled his wallet and dropped twenty-five dollars on the table.

'That ought to cover me,' sad Ramone. 'I'm out.'

'I'm just curious,' said Cook. 'You never did say if you had any suspects.'

'I don't know much of anything yet,' said Ramone. 'That's the God's honest truth. But listen, you guys are done with this, right?'

Holiday and Cook both nodded lamely. It was hardly an oath.

'Pleasure to spend some time with you, Sarge,' said Ramone, reaching out to shake Cook's hand.

'You, too, Detective.'

Holiday put his hand out. Ramone took it.

'Gus.'

'Doc.'

They watched him walk from the bar, a slight list in his step.

'He knows more than he thinks he knows,' said Cook. 'It just hasn't come to him yet.'

'Still wouldn't mind beating him to it,' said Holiday.

'Well, we didn't exactly say we'd stay out of it.'

'Did he ask a question? I was just nodding my head to the music.'

'So was I.'

'You want another beer?'

'I've had my limit,' said Cook, watching the same woman Holiday had remarked upon, now talking to a man at the bar. 'You go on. I'll just sit here and dream.'

Ramone negotiated the side streets leading to his home. He drove the Tahoe a little recklessly, taking turns abruptly, going way too fast. Some were more careful when they had a few beers and liquor in their system, but Ramone on alcohol had always been both aggressive and sloppy. Fuck it, let some 4D uniform pull him over. He'd badge him and go.

Ramone wasn't angry at Holiday. The comments about his wife were weird and cheap, but they hadn't been directed toward Regina. Rather, he'd been insinuating that Ramone had married a black woman to make some kind of statement. Which couldn't have been more off the mark. He'd fallen in love with Regina by accident. They had been lucky in their compatibility, like any couple who made it, and their marriage had survived.

Ramone hadn't even thought too deeply about their color difference in a long time, certainly not since the birth of their children. Diego and Alana had erased anything having to do with that. It wasn't that Ramone didn't 'see color,' that most ridiculous of claims that some white people felt they had to make. It was just that he didn't notice it in his kids. Except, of course, to notice how handsome they were in their skin.

It was true that in the late '80s, when they had married, they had run into some of that old negativity at holiday gatherings and around town. Early on, Ramone and Regina had agreed to jettison any family members and so-called friends who gave off that vibe, neither of them having any desire to reach out to or 'understand' folks who were still that way.

Not that the two of them were untainted. Ramone freely admitted to having remnants of racial prejudice inside him that would never go away, as did Regina. They were products of their upbringing and time. But they also knew that the upcoming generation would be much more liberated of those prejudices, and because of that it was likely that their family would be strong and fine. And it seemed to be so. It was rare for Ramone to catch anyone in the D.C. area double-taking him when he was out with his wife and kids. And when they did, it didn't dawn on him immediately that his family was being noticed because of their different shades. His first thought was, Is my zipper down? or, Do I have something stuck between my teeth?

It didn't mean his kids weren't going to face racism out in the world. He saw evidence of it damn near every day. It was hard for him to sit on his hands when his son got slighted due to his blackness or the way he dressed. Because what could you do, put every convenience store clerk up against a wall who had told his son to get out the shop, or threaten every township-quality cop who tried to bust Diego down? You had to choose your spots. Otherwise you'd go crazy behind the rage.

Ramone wasn't trying to make any statements. It was difficult enough just to get through his day-to-day.

He pulled to a stop in front of his house. Regina's Volvo was parked in the driveway, and she had left the porch light on as well as the light in the upstairs hall. Alana slept better knowing the hall was lit. He looked up at the light in Diego's window. Diego was probably still awake, lying in his bed with his headphones on, listening to music. Thinking of a girl he liked or day-dreaming of catching the long ball as the seconds ticked off the clock. All was good.

He sat behind the wheel of the SUV. He was close to drunk and as confused as he had ever been about Asa's death. He had seen something that day, or heard it in an interview. It was glancing at him like a flirtatious woman. Now Ramone was waiting on the kiss.

His cell phone sounded. He read the name on the caller ID. Ramone hit 'talk' and put the phone to his ear.

'What's goin on, Rhonda?'

'Got something, Gus. You know that ballistics test I ordered?'

'Talk about it.'

'The markings on the slugs recovered from the bodies of Asa Johnson and Jamal White are a match.'

'You sayin-'

'Yeah,' said Rhonda. 'They came from the same gun.'

Five minutes later, Ramone entered his house. He locked up his badge and gun, went up the stairs, checked on Alana and Diego, and then walked into his bedroom, locking the door behind him. He went to the bathroom, gargled mouthwash, brushed his teeth, and swallowed a couple of aspirin. Back in his bedroom, he stumbled while taking off his pants and heard Regina stir in bed. He removed his boxers as well and dropped them on the floor. He turned off the bedside lamp and slipped naked under the sheets. He got close to Regina and kissed her behind her ear. In the darkness, he kissed her neck.

'Where you been, Gus?'

'Place called Leo's.'

'You drunk?'

'A little.'

Ramone slid his hand under the elastic band of Regina's pajama bottoms. She did not resist him. He began to stroke her and she guided his fingers to a better place, and when he found it she made a small sound and opened her mouth. Ramone kissed her cool lips. She pulled her bottoms down further and kicked them away. He got up on one elbow, facing her, and she took him in her hand and rubbed him against her inner thigh and as she turned into him she pressed the head of his cock onto her warm, flat belly.

'Remember me?' said Ramone.

'You do feel familiar.'

That night, they made love intensely.