The Cut

by George Pelecanos

  “What do you think?” said Spero, talking on his cell, sitting in his reading chair by the window that gave to a view of Emerson Street. “Should I take the job?”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Leo, speaking from his basement apartment in Logan. “But I wouldn’t do half the shit you do.”

  “Because he’s a dealer?”

  “Because someone with a defective personality probably stole that weed. Because someone like that might not like you looking into it, and they might go and blow your pretty head off.”

  “Hawkins doesn’t seem to play in that kind of arena.”

  “Oh. He deals marijuana as opposed to the hard stuff, so he’s cool.”

  “I’m not claiming that. But he is smart and practical. Not practical, exactly. He looks at his situation from the practical tip based on the facts at hand.”

  “He’s pragmatic,” said Leo.

  “Thanks, teacher. My impression was that he isn’t the violent type. He seems like a straight-up businessman who lost an item out of his inventory.”

  “And you seem like you already made up your mind.”

  “Unless you talk me out of it.”

  “What for? You’ve gone ahead and rationalized it, so there it is.”

  “I’m not trying to judge my clients.”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  “It’s work,” said Spero.

  “Someone’s got to do it,” said Leo. “Et cetera.”

  Spero heard a female voice, deep in the background. She was saying Leo’s name in a singsong way.

  “You’ve got company?” said Spero.

  “No,” said Leo softly. “That’s only a kitty cat.”

  “A talking kitty cat?”

  “Like in the cartoons.”

  “They say it purrs if you scratch it.”

  “Now you goin somewhere you shouldn’t.”

  “It better be a woman, dude. ’Cause if you’re sticking an actual cat, even one that can say your name, I’m gonna be very disappointed in you. And Mom is not gonna understand.”

  “I gotta go,” said Leo, and hung up the phone.

  Spero Lucas sat in his chair, alternately reading a book and looking out the window as darkness caressed the street. He had hit a little herb and was listening to his Trojan Dub Box Set on the stereo. Soon he felt a familiar desire. He wanted the company of a woman, but it would be discourteous to phone Constance or anyone else now, the moral equivalent of a drunk call, and he was not about to troll the bars, something he had always been loath to do. He had already had a good bike ride that day to Hains Point, ten miles down, ten miles back, most of Beach Drive a slight uphill grade on the return. But he wasn’t tired, and decided to go for a walk. He could have gone east into Crestwood, the fine neighborhood across 16th Street, where the mayor lived and where there was little incidence of crime. But when he left the house he headed to 13th, walked in the night through the weedy field of Fort Stevens Park, crossed the dark parking lot of Emory Methodist Church, and went down steps to Georgia Avenue. He found a bar and nursed a beer, then another, sitting quietly among mostly quiet types in their thirties and forties, listening to tunes from a jukebox stocked with deep-soul hits and rarities, not knowing the names of the songs but liking what he heard. Thinking, My brother was right; I’ve decided to take the job. I’d already rationalized it before we spoke. I need the work, I like the money, I like the action. This is what I do.

  When his second beer was done, he settled up his tab and left five on eight.

  The bartender thanked him and said, “You parked on Georgia?”

  “No.”

  “I was gonna warn you, we been had kids breaking into cars lately.”

  “I’m on foot.”

  “Mind yourself out there.”

  “Thanks,” said Lucas. “I’m good.”

  LUCAS DID the Reginald Brooks job for Petersen, extensive witness interviews related to a shooting in Ward 7. It was roughly a week before he could get to the Hawkins matter. He cleared the decks and got to work.

  Lucas met Tavon Lynch and a young man named Edwin Davis at the Florida Avenue Grill, at 11th and Florida, for breakfast. Locals called it the Grill, as if there were only one, and in their heads it was so. It was the old city’s soul diner, the warmest spot for a real southern breakfast, owned and operated by the son of the original owners, in business for almost seventy years. Autographed head shots of former mayors, movie stars, comedians, Howard Theater headliners, and singers, many in Jheri curls, lined the walls. Customers typically wore Redskins gear, bled burgundy and gold, had deep knowledge of high school sports, worked every day, spoke of their mothers with reverence, attended some kind of church, listened to HUR, PGC, or WKYS for their music and John Thompson’s show on 980 AM for sports talk, and would have elected 88.5’s Kojo Nnamdi for mayor if only he would run. The people behind the counter were friendly if you wanted them to be but not intrusive or overly familiar. The conversations were spirited and often poetic. Some came here for the atmosphere. For Lucas, that was a part of it, but he returned repeatedly for the value and the food.

  He normally sat at the counter, but because they were three they took a booth. Lucas had a plate of grilled half-smokes split under onions, grits, two eggs over easy, biscuits, and butter. He’d work that off later on his bike. Tavon had been served pork chops and eggs, and Edwin ate eggs and corned beef hash, hot apples, and toast. Only Lucas was drinking coffee.

  “This is good right here,” said Tavon, using his fork to point at his plate.

  Like his boss, Tavon wore his hair in braids. He was around twenty, had sensitive eyes and an open manner. He wore a T-shirt showing Bob off the cover of Kaya and white perforated-leather Lacoste high-tops. Edwin Davis was around the same age as Tavon, average height, with prominent cheekbones. He rocked LeBrons and a Rapteez T. His ears were almost comically elfish, softening the effect of his muscular build. Edwin was soft-spoken to the degree that Lucas could barely hear him. They seemed tough enough, but neither of them were thugs, nor did they pretend to be. Lucas imagined they liked girls, fashion, cars, video games, sports except for hockey, and getting their heads up. They were typical urban young men who happened to make their living in the marijuana trade.

  “You got the bomb breakfast,” said Tavon.

  “I been dreamin on these half-smokes,” said Lucas.

  “Them shits repeat on me,” said Edwin, breaking one egg and letting its yolk run into the hash.

  “Everything you put in your mouth does,” said Tavon. “Stinkpot like you.”

  They ate for a while, grunting and sighing in pleasure but barely speaking. Lucas didn’t feel the need to rush into their business and he believed that meals were close to sacred. When he had sopped up the last of the egg with his biscuit, he pushed his plate aside and let the waitress refill his coffee mug.

  “Anwan said I’d be meeting with you,” said Lucas, looking at Tavon. “He didn’t say you’d be bringing anyone along. I’m not being confrontational. I just want to know who I’m dealing with.”

  “Understood,” said Tavon, glancing at his partner. “I don’t know you, either, but I got told to be straight with you.”

  “You can be.”

  “When Anwan said you’d be seein me, he meant me and Edwin, ’cause that’s how we do. The two of us are, like, equal. If we had one of those organization charts, Anwan would have a square at the top, and then, under him, there’d be lines to me and Edwin. Us alone, on the same level, and everyone else below us.”

  “I get it.”

  “Anwan tells us what we need to know,” said Edwin. “But it stops there.”

  “You must have security,” said Lucas.

  “We don’t need it,” said Edwin.

  “You sayin this is the inner circle right here?”

  “You gotta understand how our operation works,” said Tavon. “This ain’t no corner thing. We got no turf or real estate to protect. We’re all over the city. In the clubs, in the workpl
ace, in all kinds of neighborhoods. Selling to all different kinds of people. Customers who don’t have jobs and some who make six figures. But not selling direct. Got a network of people who move it for us just so they can have some walkin-around money and free weed to smoke. Once we repackage it and move it on to our dealers, we don’t even touch it.”

  “Repackage it how?” said Lucas.

  “We dime it out,” said Tavon. “That’s where the profit comes from.”

  “Lotta work.”

  “Lot more upside, too.”

  “You sound confident,” said Lucas.

  “We are,” said Tavon.

  “You know the law’s gotta be watching you.”

  “No doubt,” said Tavon. “But me and Edwin take precautions. We got no use for guns. We won’t even get near ’em. No landlines, either, and we only use disposable cells. Every time I go to my car, I check underneath it for tracking devices before I get in. Drive around for a while, take our time, before we even start to go to where we need to be at. We know what we’re doin.”

  “So did Anwan,” said Lucas.

  “Someone snitched him out,” said Edwin.

  “Ain’t a whole lot you can do to stop that,” said Tavon.

  “Cost of doing business,” said Lucas.

  “Right,” said Edwin, missing Lucas’s edge.

  Tavon worked a toothpick into his mouth and gave Lucas a long go-over with his eyes. “Anwan said you were some kind of badass marine. I was expecting… I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly. But it wasn’t you.”

  “I feel the same way about y’all,” said Lucas. He signaled the waitress for their check.

  Lucas settled up at the register. Out on the street, Tavon pointed to his car, a black Impala SS with 22s, custom rims, and extended pipes. It was the kind of ride that would be remembered.

  “You or me?” said Tavon.

  “Me,” said Lucas.

  THE DROP-OFF spot was up on 12th, a one-block residential stretch between Clifton and Euclid. Nine brick row houses on each side of the street, eighteen houses in all, close to the local public high school. On the east side, alleys ran along the end homes. The houses all had porches set on brick bases, some with round columns, some with square. Concrete steps and stoops, painted metal awnings. Several had District-signature turrets and pronounced window boxes. Blue trash cans and recycling bins sat on many of the small front lawns. Some of the houses needed paint. Some were clean and maintained. A couple of them had been completely refurbished and lovingly detailed.

  Lucas was behind the wheel of his Jeep, parked on 12th, facing north. There were few other cars parked on the street. Tavon was beside him in the shotgun bucket, Edwin on the rear bench. Lucas had his hands out the window, taking preliminary photos of the houses.

  “Which one?” said Lucas.

  “Across there, halfway down,” said Tavon, pointing to the east-side row of homes. “One with the green trim.”

  Lucas saw it, a house trimmed in lime green with a white metal awning over the porch and a lime-on-white window box. It was set in the middle of the twenty-five hundred block. Even numbers on the east side, and he counted back from the southernmost home and noted the address, recording it in his phone’s voice memo app. He then entered into the record the number of every house, east and west sides, in succession.

  “Twenty-five twelve, twenty-five fourteen, twenty-five sixteen…”

  When he was done, Tavon looked at Lucas’s iPhone and said, “That your main piece of equipment?”

  “It is now. I used to carry a camera and a tape recorder, but I don’t need them anymore. I have a notebook I use for sketches. Got some tools in the back of the truck as well.”

  “Low overhead,” said Edwin.

  “Uh-huh,” said Lucas.

  “Notice how this street be real quiet?” said Tavon. “I mean, you don’t see no one walkin around, right? That’s why we picked it. This time of day, before noon? It’s a dead zone, man.”

  “Folks on this street go to work,” said Edwin.

  “Not all of them,” said Lucas.

  “Nah, not all,” said Edwin. “But me and Tavon sat here a coupla days and just, you know, checked out the situation. Even knocked on a few doors where there wasn’t no action at all.”

  “That house there?” said Tavon. “A lady left for work about seven thirty in the morning, on foot. After that? No one came in and out it, not once, till she returned about six at night. During the day, no one ever answered our knock.”

  “This the first time you had the package shipped to this location?”

  “We used this house three times,” said Edwin. “It got good to us, man.”

  “When’d you lose the package?” Tavon told Lucas the date. Lucas said, “What time?”

  “In the day? Right about now.”

  “So you tracked the delivery time on the Internet,” said Lucas. “If you knew it was coming, say, around eleven, how long from the time the delivery was made to the time you picked it up off the porch?”

  “Say, five minutes,” said Tavon. “I was parked over there on Kenyon, beside the elementary school.”

  “You had a laptop in your car?”

  “I tracked it on my phone. You ain’t the only one got a handheld computer.”

  “The elementary school would be Tubman,” said Lucas. “Near Wonderland, right?”

  “Yeah, that bar y’all got,” said Tavon, and in the rearview Lucas saw Edwin grin.

  “So, from the time the package dropped, in the five minutes it took for you to get to the house, someone else stepped in and took it off the porch.”

  “Seems that way,” said Edwin.

  “Was it both of you doing the pickup?” said Lucas.

  “Just me that day,” said Tavon.

  Lucas turned his head to face Tavon. “Any idea who took it?”

  “No.”

  “Edwin?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Could your source be involved in this?” said Lucas.

  “Huh?”

  “Is it possible the people you’re buying from are stealing it back from you?”

  “We don’t know who the connect is,” said Tavon. “Only Anwan does.”

  “For real,” said Edwin.

  “Okay,” said Lucas. “Let’s check out the back.”

  He ignitioned the Jeep and turned it around. Across Clifton Street the high school, Cardozo, took up the entire block.

  “It takes hair to choose this street.”

  “Why?” said Tavon.

  “Squad cars are parked in front of that school often,” said Lucas. “MPD uniforms are inside, working security every day.”

  “How you know all that?” said Edwin.

  “My brother teaches there,” said Lucas.

  “Well, we never had no problem,” said Tavon.

  “Until you got boosted,” said Lucas.

  He entered the alley that cut west to east on the Clifton end of the block and drove very slowly. The passage was narrow and widened considerably as he turned right and went behind the houses on 12th Street. Many cars were parked in driveways and in the open garages of the backyards. Lucas stopped, took photos, and proceeded to the end, where he hung a right and passed through another narrow alley, landing once again on 12th.

  “All right,” said Lucas. “I’ll drop you guys back at the Grill.”

  “That’s it?” said Tavon.

  Lucas nodded. “I’ll be in touch.”

  FOUR

  LATE IN the afternoon, on the way out to his mother’s house, Lucas drove over the District line and stopped by the Safeway on Fenton Street, where he said hello to his friend C.J., who was stocking canned goods in the soup aisle, and bought some vitamins. In the parking garage he ran into Cory Wilson, a guy he had wrestled with in high school, and they talked for a while about where guys they had known were at in their lives, and then Lucas headed off in his Jeep.

  He lived in the District, but in his head he was nev
er far from his boyhood home, just over the line in Maryland. He ate and drank here frequently with his brother, dates, and friends, and took his coffee at Kefa Café on Bonifant because he liked to visit with the lovely sisters, Lene and Abeba, who owned the shop. Wasn’t ever a day he came out here that he didn’t see folks he knew, the barbers up at Afrikuts; the Hispanic men standing beside their beloved 4Runners; the Wanderer, a guy who walked with a staff and wore a flowing robe; and the women who stood at Silver Spring Avenue and Thayer and yelled at passing cars. He’d see dudes he’d played basketball with at the courts on Sligo or more serious hoops on the Chicago Ave courts, over by Montgomery College. And there were those people he didn’t see but were spoken of, young men and women who had gone off to college, become professionals of some sort, and never returned; others who were in lockup in places like Clarksburg or, if they had done their dirt in D.C., prisons in North Carolina or Illinois.

  The moving pictures flickered through his mind constantly when he walked and rode these streets. He saw his brother Leo in his red vest, working his first job with the Gross boys up at the hardware store; and his brother Dimitrius, on his skateboard by the library park, strung out on speed and scary thin; and his sister, Irene, sullen, wearing black, catching smokes with her black-clad friends; and his mom, always gregarious, stopping to talk to neighbors as she walked her dogs. Mostly he saw his father, Evangelos “Van” Lucas, everywhere he looked. In the Safeway, exchanging Christmas cards with the grocery store employee and elder martial artist Mr. Vong; gassing up his Chevy truck outside the Texaco; on Selim, bullshitting with the auto body guys; in the breezeway where the Fred Folsom bust of Norman Lane, “the Mayor,” a fondly remembered, now-deceased homeless man, was on display; in the alley behind Bell Flowers where his father had often walked; at the homeless shelter where he had dropped off his old clothing; and on the ball fields where he had watched Spero and Leo compete.

  Lucas had been away. Now staying close to home was a comfort.