The Cut

by George Pelecanos

  “Send Constance, if you don’t think it’s too dicey. She’s got backbone.”

  “Don’t you know it,” said Petersen, not looking in Lucas’s eyes.

  “I’ll be around. But I need a little time.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for a contact over at Internal Affairs. I remembered that you have someone over there who you speak to.”

  “I do.”

  Petersen, unlike many other defense attorneys, had a decent relationship with the police. He occasionally defended them, successfully, in misconduct cases and alleged wrongful shootings. Unlike others, he did not take high-profile civil suits against the department. He kept himself in reasonable good graces with both criminals and police. He was a forward-thinking man.

  “What happened?” said Petersen. “A police officer fondle you at a traffic stop or something?”

  “Nothing that exciting. I just want to know what they have on a certain someone, if anything.”

  “You’re fishing.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m not even gonna ask.”

  Petersen wiped his mouth with a napkin and reached across the desk. He flipped through the cards of his Rolodex. He was one of a dwindling number of professionals who still used one.

  “You ready?” said Petersen.

  “Yeah.”

  “Guy’s name is Tim McCarthy.”

  Lucas typed it into the Contacts section of his iPhone. “Number?”

  Petersen gave it to him. “Don’t call him, though. Let me. I owe him a phone call on something else anyway. There’s no way he’s gonna talk to you unless I ask him to. And even with that, frankly, I don’t think he’s gonna give you jack. Even though he is one of your stripe.”

  “He served?”

  “McCarthy, I put him at about fifty-four. He missed Vietnam but served in the Corps stateside. Was a patrol cop in the late seventies through the eighties, then did a long stint as an investigator in Six-D. Here’s the kicker: when we invaded Iraq—what was that? two thousand three—he takes a leave of absence from the force and goes over there as a chaplain. He was too old to fight but said he wanted to be with the men. Can you believe it?”

  Yes, thought Lucas.

  “He’s got this photograph of him over there in the desert, got a Bible in one hand and an M-Sixteen in the other, the butt resting on his thigh. McCarthy’s the Burt Lancaster of chaplains.”

  “Why don’t you think he’ll talk to me?” said Lucas. “He doesn’t like investigators?”

  “He likes his job. Man’s a couple of years from retirement. He could get fired if he gives out classified information to a civilian.” Petersen took a last bite of his sub and balled up the white paper on his desk, shoving it into a cylindrical brown bag. “But I’ll call him. Most likely, he’ll get in touch with you. You’ll probably have to meet him somewhere outside of Indiana Avenue.”

  “Thanks.” Lucas got up out of his chair and stretched. “What’s going on with the Hawkins case?”

  “Preparing to go to trial.”

  “Sounds like the Feds have him dead to rights.”

  Petersen said, “We’ll see.”

  LUCAS BOUGHT two bunches of roses from a street vendor, then drove up to 12th Street and parked his Jeep. He crossed the street with a plastic bag in one hand and one bouquet of roses in the other. He went up the steps to Lisa Weitzman’s home and laid the roses, heavily wetted, on her doorstep, along with a note he had written in childish scrawl before getting out of his vehicle. The note was corny and obvious, something about how nice it was to hang out with her. He had no plans to try and see her again, but he wanted to do something respectful for her, at least. Flowers had come to mind. He was a resourceful but not particularly original young man.

  Lucas then went to the Lindsay residence and knocked on its front door. The door soon opened, and a middle-aged man with a sour face and alcohol breath appeared in the frame.

  “What you want?” he said, looking Lucas over in a way that no man likes.

  “I’ve got something for Ernest.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Spero Lucas. I’m the brother of Ernest’s English teacher over at Cardozo.”

  The man closed the door without a word. It wasn’t quite a slam but had a similar effect.

  “Dick,” said Lucas.

  A short while later Ernest came outside. He had an Oreo cookie in his hand, dripping with milk, and he popped what was left of it into his mouth. Lucas waited for him to chew and swallow.

  “Spero.”

  “Got you a couple of books.”

  Lucas handed the bag to Ernest, who took it and pulled out its contents. “Cool.”

  “Thought you’d like them. I know you’re into Leone, and Kings of the Bs is one of the best film books I’ve ever read. I was lucky to find it. It’s been out of print for a while.”

  “That’s what’s up,” said Ernest, genuinely touched.

  “Read ’em in good health.”

  “Was that man rude to you?” said Ernest, jerking a finger over his shoulder.

  “Who is he?”

  “My mother’s boyfriend,” said Ernest, with unmasked disgust.

  “Is your mom home?”

  “She’s still at work. That man’s tryin to stay here all the time.”

  “If you need me for anything,” said Lucas, “you call me, hear?”

  Lucas gave him his number and Ernest entered it into his own phone.

  “Thanks for these.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Lucas walked to his Jeep. Ernest sat on the porch glider and began to look through the books.

  On the way home, Lucas stopped at Glenwood Cemetery to see his father. He laid a bouquet of red roses on his grave, did his stavro, and said a silent prayer.

  LATE THAT night, the phone rang in Lucas’s apartment. He crossed the room and turned down the Ernest Ranglin CD he was listening to on the box. He’d smoked a little weed, and the sinewy instrumentals had been doing it to his head.

  Constance was on the line. He asked her if she wanted to come over, and she said that she was tired and was looking at an early day. He reminded her that they had a dinner date in the future, and she said that she hadn’t forgotten. She’d phoned him because she had made the call they had discussed. She’d found the name of the police officer who had driven car number 4044 on the day and time Lucas had given her.

  “What’s the name?” said Lucas.

  “Lawrence Holley,” she said, and spelled it. “I imagine he goes by Larry.”

  The name meant nothing to Lucas. But it would.

  THIRTEEN

  LARRY HOLLEY, in street clothes, drove his personal vehicle, a black Escalade tricked out with aftermarket rims, over the District line into Prince George’s County, Maryland. He was on Bladensburg Road, Fort Lincoln Cemetery on either side of him. Then he passed through a low-slung retail strip of barbers, beauty salons, pawnshops, independent eateries, and the usual fast-food death-houses, the town of Cottage City on his right, Colmar Manor on his left. He went over the upper Anacostia River, the Peace Cross monument in sight, and where Bladensburg became 450, which most called Annapolis Road, Holley hung a left onto an industrial-commercial road in an area known as Edmonston. He passed the famous Crossroads nightclub and drove on.

  The radio was set on a hip-hop station that often played go-go at night. Because it was lunchtime and an older crowd was listening, the DJ was doing an eighties mix of first-gen rap, heavy on effects. But Larry Holley was paying no attention to the music, which would have sounded corny to his young ears. He had things pressing hard on his mind.

  He wore a blue windbreaker. Underneath it, holstered to his belt, was his service weapon, a Glock 17.

  Holley drove by legitimate businesses, building suppliers, tire and muffler discounters, countertop makers, parts yards, pipe and steel works, automotive service shops, and electrical supply houses, most surrounded by chain-link fences
topped with razor wire. Some of these places were guarded at night by German shepherds and Rotts. He turned off on a cross street, Varnum, and then took another turn down one of the high-forties streets, and at the end of the road came to an establishment, Mobley Detailing, that also had a fence and an open gate and was the last place on the block before woods and wall topped with elevated track. He pulled the Escalade into its lot.

  A large one-story, gray-cinder-block building sat back on the property, fronted by several closed bay doors and barred windows. A few young men were in the lot, washing, waxing, rim-shining, and tire-wetting the exteriors of some SUVs. One vehicle’s doors were open and an old Rare Essence blared from inside, where a man was applying a special solution that cleaned leather and promised to return the new-car smell. Holley, phone to his ear, walked past the workers without acknowledgment. He told the person on the other end of the line that he had arrived, and when he came to the front door of the building, the door opened and he walked inside. A man was waiting for him.

  “Aw’right,” said the man, short, well into middle age, still muscled, with an unlit cigar butt lodged in the corner of his mouth. His name was Beano Mobley. His face was compressed and featureless. He wore a cheap guayabera shirt that he had bought at the PG Plaza mall and a Redskins ball cap, the profile with feathers, on his head.

  “Where they at?” said Larry Holley.

  “In the office,” said Mobley, his voice all rasp. He looked over the tall, thin young man with amusement as he followed him toward the back.

  They passed Mobley’s Aztec gold Cadillac DTS, the black Tahoe owned by Bernard White and Earl Nance, and a ’79 Lincoln Mark V, landau roof, double-white-over-blue-velour, opera windows, and wide whitewalls, which was the pride of Larry’s father, Ricardo Holley.

  The cars took up much of the bay space, lit by fluorescent drop lamps. One tubular light flashed. No one had thought to change it.

  In the back of the space was a large office area, previously glassed in, now enclosed in wood panels so that any activity within could not be seen by those out in the work area. Larry Holley came to a wooden door and tried the knob. It was locked. Beano Mobley unlocked it with a key and stepped aside as Larry entered the office. Mobley went in behind him.

  It looked like an office outfitted for business, violence, and pleasure. In it were a large desk, several chairs, a green leather couch, and file cabinets against one wall. A calendar showed photographs of women looking over their shoulders, posing in thongs stretched tight over large behinds. There was a bar on a wheeled cart holding a bottle of Popov vodka, a nondescript rum, King George scotch poured into an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, a fifth of unopened Canadian Club, and various cognacs and brandies. Behind the desk, beside yet another door, against the rear wall, was a freestanding steel gun cabinet, eight felt-lined compartments above for pistols, five vertical compartments below for rifles. Each compartment had a lock. Ricardo Holley kept the keys in his desk drawer. The contents of the cabinet changed week to week. Mobley had been in the illegal-firearms business for a long while.

  Earl Nance and Bernard White were seated on the couch. Nance’s wide-set eyes, psoriatic skin, flat face, and coiled little build gave him the look of a snake. He seemed to lack eyelids, which furthered that impression. He wore his wooden crucifix out over a rayon shirt. Bernard White was large and strong, but his eyes looked passive and he did not appear aggressive. Massive muscles in his shoulders bunched against his neck. When White stood beside Nance he dwarfed him.

  Ricardo Holley was seated behind the desk. He wore a lavender shirt buttoned high with a bolo, beltless black slacks, and the kind of sharply pointed dress shoes favored by Africans. On his fingers he wore several stolen rings that featured emeralds. He had cinnamon-colored skin, light eyes, a comically long nose, and reddish hair he wore in an unfashionably puffy, loose Afro. He looked like a pimp who’d stayed too long. He was forty-six.

  Larry Holley, with the same skin and hair color, nose, and build as Ricardo Holley, was twenty-five. Larry did not like the curl in his hair and had always kept it close to the scalp. To look at them together was to erase any doubt that they were father and son. But Ricardo had done nothing to raise, support, or nurture Larry. In fact, Ricardo had only come back into Larry’s life in the past year.

  “My boy,” said Ricardo, rising up out of his chair. He crossed the room with a pronounced limp and gave Larry the half-hug-and-back-pound that feigned affection.

  “Ricardo,” said Larry. He had stopped calling him “Dad” long ago.

  Nance and White glanced at each other. Mobley, who had taken a place on the edge of the desk, one foot on the floor, one dangling, shifted the cigar butt in his mouth and stared impassively ahead.

  “Why’d you call me in?” said Larry, easing into his cop stance, feet planted comfortably apart.

  “Thought it was important we get together in person,” said Ricardo. “Talk about where we’re at.”

  “Talk, then,” said Larry. “I got my shift to get to.”

  “You want a drink, somethin?”

  “No.” Not with y’all.

  Ricardo nodded his head and returned to his desk. It was uncomfortable for him to be on his feet for too long. Larry remained where he was. He preferred to stand over them.

  “So,” said Ricardo. “What’s the status of the investigation?”

  “I don’t know,” said Larry. “I’m in Narcotics, remember?”

  “You can’t look into it?”

  “Homicide’s working outta One-D now. You expect me to walk into that station and start talkin random shit to those detectives?”

  “Thought you mighta heard something, is all.”

  Larry let them wait. He had heard things. He knew what was going on because it was easy for any MPD officer to get information on an ongoing investigation without arousing suspicion. At roll call alone you could get up on most any case.

  “They got nothin, far as I know,” said Larry. “Evidence techs did their jobs. Autopsies been done. Right about now this case is getting cold. If Homicide had witnesses… that is, if they had any idea who the killers were, your boys would be in the box right now.” He pointedly did not look at Nance and White.

  “So they got jack nothin,” said Nance.

  “That’s ’cause the work was clean,” said White.

  “Y’all were paid to do good work,” said Mobley.

  Ricardo looked at White. “Beano sayin, there ain’t no need to boast.”

  “When you got a big dick,” said Nance, “you wear tight pants.”

  “Let’s cut all this bullshit,” said Larry to Ricardo.

  “What’sa matter, Officer?” said Nance. “You uncomfortable around men who do their jobs?”

  “Your ventriloquist dummy better check himself,” said Larry, speaking to White.

  “All right, Earl,” said Ricardo. “That’s enough.”

  Nance and White fancied themselves professional hitters. They were auto service technicians who had met at the luxury import dealership where they both worked. Tired of the economic struggle and grease under their fingernails, they had done a murder-for-hire together, ten thousand dollars each, after reaching out to the minions of a drug dealer, up on homicide charges, who frequently brought his E Class into their shop. Nance and White’s first kill was a potential witness. They were thorough and also indiscriminate. They killed women and those outside the game if they were asked to. The fact that one of them was black and one was white was attractive to clients. Either of them could go into certain neighborhoods without arousing suspicion. As their rep grew, they did several murders a year. They had no criminal records and had never been suspects. They thought they were smart and good at their work. They had merely been lucky.

  “Sorry, Larry,” said Nance, and White smiled.

  “We do have an issue,” said Ricardo.

  “Say it,” said Larry.

  “I think you know what it is,” said Ricardo. “Before Earl
and Bernard destroyed those boys’ cells, they checked their incoming and outgoing phone calls and text messages and they wrote those names and numbers down. The Lynch boy had been in contact with that man Spero Lucas the night we took him out. Tavon texted him the number of your squad car.”

  “I know that,” said Larry. “We been through this already.”

  “What if Lucas ties you into this? Ties you to us.”

  “He ain’t tied nothin yet. I been watching him.”

  “Yet,” said Ricardo. “You willing to risk your career on that?” Ricardo made a sweeping motion with his hand. “Willin to risk all this? All I done worked for?”

  “Tavon’s brother’s name was on that call list. His mother. Bunch a girls, too.”

  “So?”

  “What you gonna do?” said Larry. “Kill everyone whose name was on that list?”

  “Don’t get smart with me, boy,” said Ricardo. “I don’t like it when you do.”

  Earl Nance chuckled.

  “There’s another matter, too,” said Beano Mobley. “The youngun on Twelfth.”

  “What’s his name again?” said Ricardo.

  Larry didn’t say it. He wished he had never mentioned the boy. He knew the young man had seen him the day Tavon had put the package in the trunk of his cruiser. And Larry had seen Lucas trying to talk to him outside his residence. But he wasn’t about to encourage any more killing. He hadn’t signed up for it. His so-called father had brought him into this, but he hadn’t told him they’d be doing this kind of hard dirt.

  “It’s Lindsay,” said Ricardo. “Right?”

  “We can take care of it, you want,” said Nance.

  “Hold up,” said Larry.

  “Problem?” said Ricardo.

  “I need to speak with you alone.”

  There was a long silence. Larry did not look at the others. He held his gaze on his father.

  “In the back,” said Ricardo.

  Larry followed Ricardo through the door beside the gun cabinet and closed it behind them. They entered a smaller room than the office, one that carried no air of business at all but was rather a play pad that Ricardo and Beano Mobley used for sexual activities with women and, if they could get them, girls. There was another bar on a rolling cart, a stereo, a small refrigerator, more chairs, a table, and two double beds. A coke mirror and photos of women on the wall. Two windows, barred on the outside, curtained on the inside, and a locked door that led to the rear of the building. Outside the door was a small area of gravel and dirt. Past it, weed trees and brush.