The Turnaround

Twenty-Six

Two men sat in a gray Dodge Magnum that was facing east on Longfellow Street. They had chosen the spot because it was not under a streetlamp. The windows of the Dodge were tinted but not to a degree that would attract suspicion. They were from Maryland, but the car was a hack with D.C. plates. There were police on car patrol in the neighborhood, as the station was nearby, but the law would not bother with two men approaching middle age who were spending the early evening conversing in their vehicle. They looked unremarkable. They looked like they belonged here.

Their names were Elijah Morgan and Lex Proctor. They were in their late thirties, broad shouldered, strong, quick, and slightly overweight. They could have been road workers or hardware store clerks. Morgan had a squarish head, Asian eyes, and a close cap of pomaded hair. Proctor was dark, finely featured, and handsome until he smiled. His teeth were false, looked it, and were cheaply made. In their home neighborhood, in a section of Baltimore south of North Avenue and east of Broadway, they were known as Lijah and Lex.

Morgan sat under the wheel and stared through the windshield at an apartment house on Longfellow. It was a plain brick affair without balconies, its windows backed by blinds. Many of the units on the first and second floors had barred windows. Two stairwells served the building. A sign with white script letters mounted above one of the stairwell openings read Longfellow Terrace. Both of the men had already urinated once into plastic water bottles they had brought along. They had been here since sundown and were unhappy about it. Neither of them had any love for Washington, D.C.

“How we gonna know if it’s him?” said Proctor.

“We’ll say his name. If he react, it’s him.”

“I’m sayin, what’s he look like?”

“Like a straight Bama,” said Morgan. “He ain’t been uptown all that long. Dresses like nineteen seventy-five. Got a long scar on his face.”

“And the white boy?”

“You see many around here?”

“No.”

“He’s white. That’s all you need to know.”

“Why you gotta act the bitch?”

“Okay. The boy got a rack of pimples.”

“On his face?”

“Nah, motherfucker, on his ass.”

“See?” said Proctor. “You always tryin to be funny.”

Proctor leaned forward off the passenger bucket. The thing that was holstered and hanging across his back under his cream-colored shirt was bothering him as it pressed against the seat. He hoped it would not be much longer before the old man or the white boy came outside.

“They got an alley behind this building,” said Proctor, “right?”

“Every street in this city do,” said Morgan.

“First one that comes out, we’ll take him back to it.”

“Okay,” said Morgan, laughing deeply as a thought came into his head.

“Why you so amused?”

“On his face,” said Morgan, shaking his head. “ Shit.”

Charles Baker was seated at the computer, struggling with the letter he was writing to Alex Pappas. He was trying to get the tone right. He was stuck on one line that did not sound correct.

“ ‘Give me what I ask for, and you won’t never hear from me again.’ Is that how you’d say it, Cody?”

“That’s how you’d say it,” said Cody Kruger. “But you’d write it out different.”

“How?”

“Should be ‘you will never hear from me again.’ ”

“Damn, you good,” said Baker, tapping at the keyboard, fixing the mistake. “That’s what I get for not finishin high school.”

“Neither did I.”

“How’d you know that, then?”

Kruger shrugged. He slipped into his lightweight Helly Hansen jacket and put two bagged ounces of weed into its inside pockets. He hadn’t asked about the gauze bandage on Mr. Charles’s neck or the bruise along his jawline. It was just another day of misfortune for him, Kruger supposed, and he didn’t want to aggravate him any further by bringing the subject up.

“I gotta deliver these last two OZs,” said Kruger.

“You hear from your boy Deon?”

“No.”

“Now his mother ain’t pickin up the phone. No matter. We don’t need them anyway.”

“But what’re we gonna do? I’m sayin, Dominique and them haven’t contacted us yet. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“They just figurin on how to come to terms with us, is all. But see, I get this money from Pappas, we won’t need to deal with no marijuana, anyhow. I don’t even like that business, man. I’m thinkin, I get this money, we gonna share it. Not fifty-fifty or nothing like that, but I’ll give you a taste.’Cause you been loyal to me, Cody. You my boy.”

“Thanks, Mr. Charles.”

“You can just call me Charles. You earned that.”

“All right, then,” said Kruger. “I’m out.”

Kruger left the apartment and walked onto the landing and down the steps, his chest swelling with pride. Okay, so Baker was a little bit silly and stupid with his schemes. Writing letters when he could just talk to the man face-to-face. Meeting lawyers for lunch. Trying to move in on the main weed dealer in the zip code. But Baker had thought enough of him, Cody Kruger, to call him an equal. Not fifty-fifty, but still. It meant something to be treated like a friend and a man.

You can just call me Charles. He’d never felt that kind of respect at his home or in school.

Cody stepped out of the stairwell of the building, into the night air. He went to the sidewalk and headed for his car. Two older dudes had come out of a station wagon thing and were walking toward him. They were big but looked to be minding their own. As they neared him, he saw a small gun emerge from one of their jackets.

Not tonight, thought Cody. His knees shook. He wanted to book but could not. They were up on him quick.

“Don’t think about runnin.” One man was in his face, the barrel of the gun pressed against Kruger’s middle.

“Where your car at?” said the other man, who had moved behind him and was talking softly in his ear.

“Take us to it,” said the man with the gun. He had a square head, Chinese eyes, and pomaded hair. “Open all the doors at the same time.”

Kruger led them to the Honda, hoping to see someone else on the street, hoping, for once, that a police would drive by. But there was no one out, and he opened all four doors with the key fob he had retrieved from his jeans. He was directed to the driver’s seat, and the gun was held on him as he settled into it. The man with the gun got into the backseat and the other one slipped in beside Kruger.

“Put your hands on the wheel and touch your forehead to it,” said the man beside him.

Kruger did it. He farted involuntarily, and the man in the backseat chuckled.

The man beside Kruger gave the chuckling man an evil look, then frisked Kruger while he was in that forward position. He came away with a cell phone and two bags of weed. He told Kruger to sit back and returned his phone and his marijuana.

“Drive to the alley,” said Elijah Morgan from the backseat. When Kruger did not move, Morgan said, “Hurry it up, boy. We just want to talk to you.”

Kruger ignitioned the Honda and drove it behind the building. His teeth were chattering. He thought this only happened to frightened characters in cartoons.

“Keep drivin,” said Proctor, sitting beside him. Kruger went slowly until they came to a spot in the alley where light was not bleeding out from the apartment windows. In this place it was close to full dark.

“Right here,” said Proctor. “Cut it.”

Kruger killed the engine.

“Which apartment you stay in?” said Morgan.

“Two ten.”

“The old man up there now?”

Kruger nodded.

“Is he strapped?”

“No.”

“Is he alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Here’s what I need you to do,” said Morgan. “Call the old man from your cell. Tell him you forgot somethin and you comin back to the apartment to get it. Use your speaker so we can hear the conversation.”

Kruger dialed up Baker’s cell and activated the speaker.

“Yeah, boy,” said Baker.

“I’m on my way back.”

“So quick?”

“I ain’t gone yet. I forgot my iPod.”

“You and your gizmos.”

“I’ll be there soon, Mr. Charles.”

“Thought I told you… All right, use the code.”

“I will.”

Kruger ended the call. Proctor took the cell phone from his hand and slipped it into his own jacket pocket.

“What code?” said Morgan from the backseat.

“He likes me to knock on the door a certain way when I come back home,” said Kruger. “Before I turn the door key.”

“Which key?”

Kruger took the keys out of the ignition and held out the one to the apartment. Proctor took the full ring.

“How does that code go, exactly?” said Morgan.

Kruger’s lip quivered.

“Tell us,” said Proctor gently. “What’s gonna happen to him is gonna happen.”

“Knock pause knock pause knock,” said Kruger.

“Do it on top the dash,” said Morgan.

Kruger rapped it out with his knuckles.

“Like Morris Code, Lijah,” said Proctor, smiling at the man in the backseat.

Now one of them had said the other’s name. Kruger knew what that meant. His bladder emptied into his boxers. Urine slowly darkened his jeans, and the smell of it saturated the interior of the car.

“Aw, shit,” said Proctor.

“I won’t tell nobody nothin,” said Cody Kruger. “I won’t.”

Morgan lifted his Colt Woodsman and shot Kruger in the back of his neck. The. 22 round shattered his C3 bone and sent him to darkness. He slumped to the side, and his head came to rest on the driver’s-side window. There was little blood, and the small-caliber report had not carried far outside the vehicle. Kruger’s Nike Dunks, trimmed in leather and hemp, drummed softly at the Honda’s floorboards.

“Tool up,” said Morgan.

“I’m good.”

“I’ll be in the hack, waitin on you,” said Morgan. “Soon as I wipe this car down.”

“Get there quick. I won’t be long.”

Proctor got out of the Honda and walked down the alley. Coming around to the front of the apartment building, he saw a Fourth District police cruiser coming down the block, its light bar flashing. After it had passed, Proctor pulled a pair of latex gloves from his jacket. As he neared the stairwell, he fitted the gloves onto his hands.

Raymond and James Monroe stood in Gavin’s Garage beside a white’78 Ford Courier. The hood of the minitruck was raised, and shop rags were spread on the quarter panel lip. A can of Pabst Blue Ribbon sat on one of the rags. James Monroe picked it up and took a long swig.

“Alex Pappas gonna be here soon,” said Raymond. “Why don’t you finish the job?”

“I’m close to done,” said James. “What’s he want with us, anyway?”

“He spoke to Miss Elaine. Least, I had Rodney point him that way.”

“Why?”

“Because he did what I asked. Charles Baker threatened Alex’s family, and he didn’t call the law. He did that for you, James.”

James scratched at his neck and had another pull of beer. “What should we do about Charles?”

“I already did it. I went to his group home and got up in his face. I don’t know if he’s smart enough to listen.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

Raymond shifted his weight. “I almost killed him, James. I was carrying that screwdriver Daddy sharpened with the bench grinder he had.”

“I remember it.”

“I swear to God, I was close to pushing the screwdriver straight through his neck.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“’Cause you’re not like that. You’ve got too many people counting on you. That little boy, and your own son, too. Not to mention all those soldiers you’re workin on over there at the hospital.”

“That’s right. I got a lot of reasons to stay right.”

“Charles don’t need killin, anyway,” said James. “He been dead.”

Raymond nodded.

“Go on over there and fetch me a crescent wrench,” said James. “While you’re near the cooler, grab your big brother a cold beer.”

“You’re just as close to it as I am. Why don’t you? ”

“My hip.”

Raymond Monroe walked to the workbench and did as he was told.