The Cut

by George Pelecanos

  “Son,” said Ricardo, regarding his offspring in his off-brand jeans, white T, and billowing windbreaker. The boy had no style.

  “We got a problem,” said Larry.

  “Come on in and set.”

  Ricardo limped across the office and had a seat behind his desk. Behind him, the gun case and the door that led to the second office. There was cash money on the desk, stacks of it in twenties, tens, and fives. Larry eyed it warily.

  “I said have a seat.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Thought you said we were done with those two.”

  “Nance and White? I said we were done with ’em for now. Anyway, they’re here for the same reason you are.” Ricardo’s eyes went to the money, then back to Larry. “To get paid.”

  “I thought they been paid.”

  “You know I like to parse it out a little bit at a time. Y’all might go on a spendin spree, attract some unwanted attention. I wouldn’t like that.”

  “You’re actin like you’re the bank.”

  “I am.”

  “What about the rest of it?”

  “What’s left is safe at my spot. You don’t need to worry. It’ll come to you eventually. Your father ain’t gonna let you starve.”

  “Now you’re my father,” said Larry.

  Ricardo smiled. “You said you had a problem.”

  “We do,” said Larry. “It’s that Lucas dude. The one who’s been camped out on Twelfth? I just saw him walkin down the road, not far from this shop.”

  If Ricardo was shaken he did not show it. “So?”

  “What you mean, so?”

  “What’s he gonna do? He’s not police. You are. You see what I’m sayin?” Ricardo gestured with his hand as if he were shooing away a fly. “I don’t want you to worry over this. You ran his plates. You gave me his address. You did your thing and now I know where to find him. Let me take care of it.”

  “I told you, I don’t want no more violence.”

  “Neither do I. I was thinking of setting up a meet. Whatever Lucas is looking for, it’s got to involve money. That’s true for every man, right? You of all people should know.” Ricardo picked up a rubber-banded stack of cash and tossed it forward on the desk so that it landed within reach of Larry. “Speaking of which.”

  Larry hesitated. He picked up the cash and shoved it inside his windbreaker.

  “Buy something for yourself,” said Ricardo. “Maybe some new vines.”

  Larry looked at Ricardo, Bama material, wearing all black in the middle of the day, rayon shirt and slacks, looking like Zorro, telling him how to dress.

  “Somethin funny?” said Ricardo.

  “Nothin is,” said Larry.

  “You were grinnin.”

  “Don’t lie to me again,” said Larry. He walked from the room, closing the door behind him.

  “Motherfuck you,” said Ricardo, staring at the door. The light had left his eyes.

  LUCAS AND Marquis dropped the rentals off at the lot on Sligo Avenue, then went to their own vehicles, parked near a corner Spanish market. Lucas took the radio and headset from Marquis, stowed it in the back of the Jeep, and pulled two water bottles from the cargo area. He handed one to Marquis. The two of them stood in the street and drank deeply.

  “What’s our next move?” said Marquis, wiping off his chin.

  “You’re out,” said Lucas. “I don’t like where this is going, and I don’t want you involved with it anymore. I’ll settle up with you for today when I get my cut.”

  “That’s not why I asked. I know you’re good for the money. I’m worried about you.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “No doubt. But that look you got right now? I seen that in your eyes before. April twenty-six, two thousand and four, to be exact. In those houses on the edge of the Jolan graveyard.”

  Lucas nodded. “That was some day.”

  “The hajjis was comin in by taxicab and flatbed trucks. Must have been hundreds of ’em, wearing them checkerboard scarves.”

  “Kaffiyehs,” said Lucas.

  “You took point. I see that flashlight attached to the barrel of your M-Sixteen. I see you leading the way into those dark rooms, and the muzzle flash of those AKs, the walls just shredding from the rounds. I still dream all that.”

  And I see you sparing no one, thought Marquis. Emptying your mag into the heads and chests of the ones you put down. But then we all did that. When you kill a man twice, you know he can’t get up and shoot at you again.

  “It was somethin,” said Lucas.

  “All those bullshit movies about adrenaline-junkie soldiers and marines? I never served with anyone like that.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “It wasn’t about thrill seekers. It was about emotion. We had a bond, man.”

  “We still do.”

  “But you can’t say more than one or two words about it.”

  “What’s to say? We don’t have to talk about it, because both of us were there. To try and talk about it with someone who wasn’t there… what’s the point?”

  “So, again,” said Marquis, “what are you fixin to do?”

  “I’m going back to that detailing shop on my bike. I can slip in there easier on two wheels. Take some photos, shit like that.”

  “You don’t have your squad anymore.”

  “I won’t take any unnecessary chances,” said Lucas. “I want to live.”

  Marquis held out his hand. “Two-One, Luke.”

  “Two-One.”

  They tapped fists.

  SIXTEEN

  LUCAS CHANGED into black shorts, padded in the seat and lined with spandex leggings, a gray poly shirt that wicked, and gray shoes with steel-shanked soles. He carried his bike, an aluminum frame, gray Trek, down the stairs of his apartment and out to his Jeep. He dropped the back bench and slid the bike into the Cherokee, then checked to make sure he had his gloves, sunglasses, helmet, and phone.

  He drove out to Hyattsville, Maryland, via Queens Chapel Road and Hamilton Street, and stopped in the lot of the 38th Street Park, through which ran the paved Northwest Branch trail. He got onto his bike and pedaled southeast, staying in the middle gears, through open fields, past woods, across Rhode Island Avenue, and finally across Alternate Route 1, navigating through fast vehicular traffic. He dipped down onto Tanglewood Drive, entered the industrial district of Edmonston, and cruised at a steady pace.

  Winding around 46th and cutting off of Upshur, he took another high-forty street and crossed through the two-syllable, bottom-of-the-alphabet roads, Varnum, Webster, and Windom. He passed low-slung commercial buildings, many fenced in, many with security cameras mounted on their entranceways and walls. There were no other bikers back here, but with his gray-and-black clothing and gray bike he did not stand out. Also, his face was obscured by his helmet and shades. He slowed as he neared Mobley Detailing, seeing young men working on an SUV in its front lot, seeing no other vehicles. The employees were listening to go-go music coming from the SUV’s open doors and they did not look up as he almost silently rolled by. He went to the end of the road and dismounted his bike. He walked it across the street and laid it down far back and out of sight of the Mobley lot, then he got his iPhone out of the small zippered pack fitted beneath the Trek’s saddle. He walked along the stone wall of an elevated train track, behind a thin line of weed trees and brush, taking photos of the Mobley building and its geography, noting the fence topped with two strands of barbed wire, which could be easily climbed and jumped, noting that there were no cameras mounted on the building’s face or above its front door or bay doors. The employees spoke to one another, joked and laughed, but never looked away from their task, and he made it easily behind the building, which was unfenced and bordered more thin woods and the train track wall, and he took photos of the rear of the building and its fortified back door.

  His breathing was easy. He was in shape and he was calm. He’d barely broken
a sweat.

  INSIDE THE building, in the main office, Ricardo Holley sat behind his desk. Beano Mobley sat on the edge of the desk, a cigar butt lodged in the corner of his mouth. Earl Nance and Bernard White were seated on the couch. They were all having drinks, scotch for Nance and White, cognac for Holley and Mobley. The money had been cut up and distributed, and the atmosphere should have been celebratory, but the mood in the room was far from light.

  “Your boy makes me nervous, Ricardo,” said Nance.

  “Ain’t no need to stress,” said Holley. “He’s in now. He can’t spill to no one and he can’t walk. He don’t even know what’s going on, for real.”

  “Is he gonna get you more business?” said White.

  “We don’t need him to identify anyone else for the time being,” said Holley. “We just gonna milk what we got for now and see how it goes. Make a few more pickups and move it on the wholesale level. There’s cash in that. When it dries up, we’ll regroup.”

  Holley and Mobley shared a look. Holley was being deliberately vague with the two hitters. They were on a need-to-know basis. Just like Larry.

  “Larry don’t like it that we did those boys,” said Nance.

  “He likes money,” said Holley.

  “What are we gonna do about that other thing?” said Nance. Holley had told him about Lucas when he’d poured them their drinks.

  “What do you think we should do?” said Holley.

  “Are you worried?”

  “I’m not worried about him going to the police. He’s motivated by cash. But that don’t make him any less relentless. I don’t think he’s gonna stop comin.”

  “If you want,” said Nance, “we’ll just take care of it.”

  “Shit just got all complicated when we got into this marijuana thing,” said Mobley in his gravelly voice. “I told you, Ricardo—”

  “I know you did.”

  “Gun business just simpler. We should have stuck to it.”

  “Still, we got a problem,” said Holley. “Hindsight ain’t gonna make it disappear.”

  “It’s about to be Saturday night,” said Nance, fingering the wood crucifix hanging outside his shirt. “Young man like Lucas, you know he’s gonna step out.”

  “You nominating yourself?” said Holley.

  “Just me,” said Nance. “Bernard might scare him off, seein as how he’s a black dude with all that size.”

  “And you with no size,” said White, amused. “He might not even notice your ass at all.”

  “Why you gotta say that, Bernard?” said Nance.

  “ ’Cause you a pimp-squeak.”

  “It’s pipsqueak, dumbass.”

  “See? You said it yourself.”

  “I don’t want this getting back to Larry,” said Holley. “We might still need his services.”

  “He won’t know shit,” said Nance. “I’ll do it subtle. I won’t even make any noise.”

  “Bernard?” said Holley.

  “Man’s got something to prove,” said White. “Let him prove it.”

  The room went silent. Mobley glanced over at his partner, whose face showed no emotion.

  “Well?” said Nance.

  Ricardo Holley nodded. “Do what you do.”

  BACK ACROSS the street, from the side of an electrical supply house, Lucas watched as the bay door opened and a black Chevy Tahoe emerged. Behind the Tahoe, two figures followed on foot from the darkness of the interior bays: Ricardo Holley and a short, muscular, middle-aged man wearing a cap. Through the windshield of the Tahoe, Lucas saw a big black man behind the wheel, all neck and shoulders, and a much smaller white man in the passenger bucket, his face barely clearing the dash. As they drove out of the lot, Lucas took photographs. He could only hope that the stills would capture the plates. He watched as the short man said a few words to the employees and gestured at the SUV they were working on. Obviously this was a man in charge. Perhaps it was Mobley himself.

  Ricardo and the boss went back inside the building. Lucas picked up his bike, fitted his left foot into the toe clip, swung his right leg over the saddle, and took off.

  AS SOON as Lucas got back to his apartment, he sat down at the kitchen table and studied the photographs on his phone. He spread his fingers on the screen to make the photos larger. He opened his notebook and with a pen he sketched the Mobley Detailing building from various vantage points. He did not know how this helped him exactly, but it was habit, and sometimes when he looked at sketches he found that he could “see” things he could not see in photographs. But this did not happen now.

  He got up and paced the room. He was amped up. He wanted a woman. He went into his bedroom and lay down on a camping mat and stretched and did crunches until his abs ached. He did six sets of pushups on his rotating stands, twenty-five reps, three sets normal hand-width apart, three sets wide stance. He did pull-ups on the bar set high in the door frame. He took a shower and dressed in jeans and a fitted black T-shirt; he felt clean, strong, and relaxed. He went out to his living room and sat in his reading chair and looked out the window. Dusk had arrived.

  What did he know? He realized that he knew little for certain, but he had some ideas.

  Larry Holley was in with his father, Ricardo, and the others at the detailing shop. Larry was in the Narcotics squad and had probably been tapped by his father to identify persons of interest and shake them down. Tavon and Edwin, under suspicion because of their involvement with known marijuana dealer Anwan Hawkins, were perfect marks. Looked at rationally, it was actually a good business arrangement. Assuming Tavon and Edwin were allowed to keep a cut, they had a lookout and protection in the form of police. In turn, Larry, his father, and their crew made money for themselves. Which was what was bothering Lucas. If it was all good, why were Tavon and Edwin killed?

  The one thing Lucas did know was that he had been identified. Because Larry Holley was police, he could easily bring up all kinds of information on him. Where he lived, where his family lived, phone numbers, and more. The Holleys and their minions could get to him. They could get to his brother and his mom. The defense against this, he felt, was not in passivity but rather in aggression.

  He fell asleep in his chair.

  He was riding shotgun beside his father in the old man’s truck, a two-tone Chevy Silverado. The Van Lucas he saw was around forty, big chested, a bit overweight, with a beard and a full head of curly hair. The windows of the truck were down, and from the dash tape deck the Stones were doing “Loving Cup,” Mick singing, “I’m the man that brings you roses, when you ain’t got none.” His father was smiling, and through the windshield Lucas could see the people they knew in their neighborhood, the auto body guys and the Wanderer and the Hispanic workers standing by their 4Runners and the African barbers, waving at them as they passed. He saw his mother, also twenty years younger, walking their dog, Shilo, the animal stopping to pee in a bed of wild mint, and Lucas thought, That’s nice, Shilo’s alive. His father turned to him and asked, “Thoolevis, Spero?” the standard Greek man’s question for his son, and Lucas said, “Yeah, I’m workin.” When Lucas looked back through the windshield they were on Lincoln Road, Northeast, and with a sense of dread he realized where they were going and he said, “No, Dad, not yet,” and his father pulled the truck over and kept it running. Nodding at the iron gate arched over the entrance to Glenwood Cemetery, he looked at his son and said, “Wanna come in?”

  Lucas opened his eyes, startled. It was dark in the room and the streetlamps outside cast a pale yellow light on the darkened landscape. He sat in his chair, staring out the window, still hearing his father’s voice. He wiped tears off his face.

  Lucas stood. He felt like having a beer, but he didn’t want to drink alone. The bar up on Georgia was as good as any. He brushed his teeth, washed his face, and came back out to the living room. He reached for the keys to his Jeep but picked up only his house key instead.

  It was a nice night. He decided to walk.

  LUCAS WALKED north on the
Piney Branch Road that was not the same thoroughfare known by commuters but more like the urban-alley version of a country lane. He could hear cars moving to the west of him on 16th Street, but it was quiet back here tonight. A big engine moved somewhere behind him, and he turned his head and saw a flash of black vehicle on a cross street, and he kept moving his feet. He crossed Gallatin, then Hamilton, and made a right on the wide and majestic Colorado Avenue and headed northeast. Then he was in the small commercial district at 14th and Colorado. He walked by the Gold Corner Grocery, where he often bought beer, Louis’ Barber Shop, Colorado Café, Florescence Beauty Salon, and the Ethiopian market called Mekides. He didn’t have to look to recognize the business names because he knew them by heart. Many people, mostly black and Hispanic, were out. He walked by the beautifully maintained Longfellow apartments with their center-screened porches and iron balconies, and a man who smelled of alcohol walked toward him and said, “Hola,” and Lucas said, “Hola, como estas,” which was nearly all the Spanish he knew. At 13th Street he walked due north and crossed at the Missouri Avenue light. He approached Quackenbos Street, where he cut right as he often did and began to walk across the dark weeded field of Fort Stevens Park.

  To his left were the historic fort, the trenches, ammunition bunkers, cannons, and flagpole. He stayed to the field and arrived at a gravel driveway that led up to the parking lot between the Methodist church and a four-square colonial with a wraparound porch, which was also church property and unlit behind its windows. Lucas often cut through the lot and descended the steep concrete steps that dropped down to Georgia Avenue. He passed a bucket truck and construction materials and went up a rise and came to the lot, lit faintly by a lamp hung on the side of the stone church.