The Cut

by George Pelecanos

  “Leo, I—”

  “This is about that job you took, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A job you took for money.”

  “I work for money,” said Spero. “Same as you.”

  “Bullshit.” Leo stepped forward, grabbed a handful of Spero’s T-shirt, and got close to his face. They had fought many times growing up, and neither of them was afraid to go. But Spero kept his arms at his side.

  “Let go of me,” said Spero quietly.

  “I don’t know what you do or why you do it. But don’t tell me we’re about the same thing. I put you up with one of my students, and now that boy’s in some kind of danger. You need to tell me right now how you’re gonna resolve it.”

  “Let go.”

  Leo loosened his grip and stepped back.

  “He’ll be all right,” said Spero. “I promise you.”

  “You should call the police.”

  “I can’t. And I can’t tell you why.”

  “Then what’re you going to do?”

  “Pick him up from where he’s at. It’s a simple exchange.”

  “Simple.”

  “I’ve got this,” said Spero.

  Leo nodded. “You better call me when it’s done.”

  A SIMPLE exchange.

  Lucas had lied to his brother. There would be nothing simple about what was going to happen.

  He knew too much about these men, and so did Ernest. They would kill Lucas as soon as he gave them the money, and they would kill the boy. And if he managed to rescue Ernest, or if Ernest escaped, it could perhaps go somewhere that was much worse. They knew where Lucas lived. Larry Holley, a police officer, had access to all kinds of information, so it stood to reason that they could easily get to his mother and to Leo as well. They had killed Tavon and Edwin without thought. He couldn’t stand to think of what they might do to his family.

  Lucas knew what had to be done. But it was anything but simple.

  He stopped by his place to offload his kayak and gear, and to grab some cash. He phoned Bobby Waldron and drove out of the city once again.

  WALDRON LIVED with his folks in a vinyl-shingled rambler off upper Veirs Mill Road in Rockville, past the Twinbrook shopping strips. Waldron’s father was a master plumber and his mother was retired from the Montgomery County school system, where she had worked in various cafeterias. Their home was small and old but well maintained. Bobby kept the lawn mowed to within an inch of its life. What with his ever-dwindling security work, he didn’t have much else to do.

  Lucas parked and went up to the front stoop, where an American flag hung above the door. He rang the bell. Presently, Rosemary Waldron appeared in the frame, a bottle of Miller High Life in hand.

  “Spero,” she said. Rosemary was a good-time redhead in her late fifties, fifty pounds bad for her heart, with a gone-to-hell belly and the straight-out missiles that some women get in their middle age.

  “Miss Rosemary,” said Lucas, stepping into the house as she moved aside. He was still in his swim trunks and T.

  “Would you care for a beverage?”

  “No, thanks. Is Bobby around?”

  “He’s in the basement. C’mon.”

  With Rosemary accompanying him, he walked through a living room that showcased framed photos of the Waldrons’ only son in dress and combat uniforms, and with his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan. Bobby’s medals and commendations, mostly for sharpshooting, were also framed. They moved around the furniture that crowded the room and came to a kitchen and an open door that led downstairs. Rosemary yelled into the space, “Spero’s here,” and motioned for him to go ahead.

  Lucas took the wooden steps to the basement, finished and carpeted with knotty pine walls and a matching bar. Bobby Waldron got up off a sleeper couch that was set before a TV on a stand. He was playing the latest Madden on his Xbox. His video games were aligned in a cheap bookcase beside the television. The room was clean, orderly, cool, and dark, and smelled of cigarettes. Curtains were drawn on the small casement windows.

  Waldron was shirtless and in skivvies, displaying his build and tiger-stripe tats. They shook hands.

  “What do you think?” said Waldron, looking at his right biceps, then his left, flexing each.

  “If you ever get drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals, they won’t have to issue you a uniform.”

  “Har har.”

  From upstairs, they heard Waldron’s mother’s voice. “Would you guys like some sandwiches?”

  “No thanks, Mom!” shouted Waldron. To Lucas he said, “Let’s go to my room.”

  They entered Waldron’s bedroom, which Lucas guessed had been framed out and finished by his father. It was just as orderly as the rec room. Waldron’s shoes were neatly lined up along one wall, his clothing, shirts and trousers, even T-shirts, on hangers in an open closet. There was a low-watt lamp on beside his bed, which was a simple mattress and box spring sitting frameless on the floor. There were no windows. Bobby closed the door and locked it.

  He picked up an old JanSport day pack that sat against a wall. He unzipped the main compartment and pulled out a gun wrapped in an oiled rag. He unpeeled the fabric. In it was a Smith and Wesson five-shot Special .38, blue steel, short nosed, with rubber grips. He handed it to Lucas butt out.

  “That’s what you lookin for?” said Waldron.

  Lucas broke the cylinder, spun it, looked through its empty chambers. He jerked his wrist and snapped the cylinder shut. “Yes.”

  “I don’t know what you need it for…”

  “As it should be.”

  “… but I would be concerned for you if I thought that was all you had.”

  “This is insurance. Revolvers don’t jam.”

  “There’s no paper on it. I got it at a show. Shaved the numbers for you, hombre. I hope that’s not a problem.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Hollow points and a clip-on are in the bag. You can keep the bag, too.”

  Lucas reached into the back pocket of his swim trunks and pulled out his wallet. He handed Bobby the cash they had agreed upon and something extra.

  “That’s a thousand too much,” said Waldron.

  “It’s for the surveillance job,” said Lucas. “You did good work, and you saved my ass.”

  “I’m always available.” Waldron’s close-set eyes flickered. “For this, too, whatever it is.”

  “I’m good, Bobby. Thanks.”

  A few minutes later he was walking through the living room, the day pack slung over his shoulder.

  “That was a quick visit,” said Rosemary Waldron, seated in a recliner, a fresh bottle of beer in hand.

  “I just came by to borrow a few video games,” said Lucas.

  “You’re always welcome here, Spero.”

  “I appreciate it, Miss Rosemary.”

  Lucas tossed the bag onto the rear deck of his Jeep and covered it with a blanket. His blood ticked electric through his veins. The feeling was familiar and right.

  TWENTY-­THREE

  LUCAS TOOK a shower and changed into jeans and a white T-shirt. Out in his living room, he studied the sketches he had made of the Mobley Detailing building in his notebook. He looked at the front facade, the entrance door and bay doors, and the rear, its windows and back door. He went through the photos he had taken from his iPhone, and the ones he had shot of the surrounding landscape. After a while he had the external layout committed to memory. That was all well and good, but the interior was a complete unknown. Lucas had no idea where Ernest was being held inside those walls. If in fact Ernest was in that building at all.

  He needed help, but he didn’t want Marquis Rollins or Bobby Waldron further involved. He thought of Lieutenant Pete Gibson and his longtime hard-on for Ricardo Holley. Gibson might want in. But that wouldn’t work, either. What Lucas was about to do had to stay with him alone.

  The room had darkened by degrees. The day was bleeding off.

  Lucas sat at the kitchen table, his notebook and phon
e before him. He was staring at a wall meaninglessly when the phone began to ring. His young next-door neighbor Nick Simmons was on the line.

  “Nick, what’s up?”

  “Thought you might like to know, there’s a police officer out on Emerson, standing by his car. He’s lookin up at your windows.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Inside my house.”

  “Hold on.”

  Lucas got up and went to one of the windows that fronted Emerson. He stayed back in the living room, just far enough so he couldn’t be seen. Larry Holley, in blue, was out there on the street beside an unmarked black Crown Vic that was obviously an MPD vehicle. He was standing with his arms crossed, leaning against the rear quarter panel. He seemed to be waiting.

  “I guess I’ll go out there and see what he wants,” said Lucas.

  “Okay,” said Nick.

  “If you see something going down—”

  “What?” said Nick. “Call the police?”

  “That is a problem,” said Lucas.

  “I would say so.”

  “Forget it,” said Lucas. “Just draw your blinds and go about your business.”

  “I can do that, too.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  Lucas ended the call. He was barefoot, so he found a pair of shoes and put them on. He walked downstairs and out of the house. He crossed the lawn and the street. He neared the Crown Vic, and Larry Holley stood away from it and uncrossed his arms.

  Lucas stopped, staying out of Holley’s reach. He put his weight on his back foot.

  “You looking for me?”

  “Maybe we ought to take this someplace else.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  Holley looked at Lucas’s defensive posture, the veins popping out on his biceps. “You’re a little jacked up.”

  “I guess I am.”

  “Why come outside, then?”

  “You’re every citizen’s bad dream. A bent cop can do whatever he wants. I can’t really hide from you, can I?”

  “I came to see you for one reason only: to speak with you.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re on duty?”

  “I’m Ten-Seven.”

  “If you’re here to take me down—”

  “Told you, I’m not.”

  “If you are, let me make this clear: if anyone has an idea about fucking with my family, they better rethink it. I’ve got everything documented and in the hands of an attorney. Your name, too, and your involvement in this. Everything. Something happens to someone I care about—”

  “What about your involvement?” said Holley. “You put the part about killin Nance in those documents, too?”

  “That was self-defense.”

  “What I heard, his hyoid bone was broke. Seems to me you coulda just choked him out. With your military background, you must know how to render a man unconscious without ending his life.”

  Lucas said nothing.

  “We all got dirt on us,” said Holley. “Don’t try to act like you’re clean.”

  Lucas’s anger drained away. He studied Larry Holley’s face. He was the younger, mirror image of his father, but they were different in a crucial way. There was vulnerability in the son’s eyes.

  “How’d you get involved in this?”

  “Can’t say, exactly,” said Holley. “I’m not claiming I’m innocent. When my father approached me, I could have said no. I took that step. I wanted to please him, see? But I never thought it would end up in all this death.”

  “What did Ricardo ask you to do?”

  “Identify targets. That’s what I did with Tavon and Edwin. Boys in the game think they got it all figured out, but they never do. I tailed them in my personal vehicle and rolled up on them at a Brookland home when they were picking up a package. I told them how it was gonna be. Fifty percent to us, fifty to them. They didn’t have a choice.”

  “You took the package right there?”

  “I delivered it to my father and Mobley. They wholesaled it, I guess.”

  “What do you mean, you guess?”

  “My father keeps me in the dark about damn near everything having to do with the business side. I was told to have the boys lie to their man Hawkins. To tell him the product got stole so the pie didn’t have to get sliced up too deep. They went along with it. They were too scared not to.”

  “Because you were police.”

  “Yes,” said Holley quietly.

  “If they went along, why were they killed?”

  “I don’t know,” said Holley. “I don’t. We had done two other retrievals, one on Twelfth Street, and the last one in Northeast. It was time to pay the boys off. I was there that night. I was supposed to watch the transaction and make sure it went down straight. The idea being, a patrol car idling on the street will keep all the other knuckleheads away. But I got called off by my father. I didn’t know Nance and Bernard White were gonna do what they did.”

  “White’s the muscled-up dude?”

  “Yeah. Him and Nance were partners. Amateur hitters. Trash.”

  “And now they’ve got Ernest Lindsay.”

  “Ricardo, Beano Mobley, and Bernard. That’s right.”

  “You left your name off the list.”

  “I’m not with ’em anymore.”

  “How’re you gonna break off from your own father?”

  Holley shook his head. “Did you have one who loved you?”

  “I did,” said Lucas.

  “That’s all I ever wanted, man. I waited my whole life to meet up with my pops. I dreamed on how that reunion was gonna be. Ricardo only reached out when he found out I was MPD. And that was just to plug me in to his scheme.”

  “Do they have Ernest at the building in Edmonston?”

  Holley nodded. “There’s an office, and another room behind it that leads to the back door. He’s in that room.”

  “Tell me more about the interior.”

  Holley went through it, room by room. The doors, the windows, the vehicles that would be parked in the bays. Lucas tried to see it in his head.

  “What’re you gonna do?” said Holley.

  “I’ve got to get him out of there.”

  “They’ll kill you soon as you give them the money. The boy, too.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “You’re not gonna make it.”

  “You’re forgetting something,”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve done this before.”

  In the fading light of dusk, Lucas’s eyes were bright.

  LUCAS AND Larry Holley spoke for a little while longer and exchanged cell numbers. Holley drove off in the black Crown Victoria, and Lucas went back up to his apartment. In his bedroom he pulled the throw rug and his shoes out of the closet. He freed the wood cutout in the floor and reached down into the hole and from the framed basket retrieved the steel Craftsman toolbox that had been his father’s. He opened the lid and removed the top tray. In the main compartment he found what he was looking for: a pistol, a holster and belt, and two fifteen-round magazines holding metal-jacketed rounds.

  Lucas moved to his desk, where he had placed the .38 Special, now loaded with hollow points and seated in its holster. He examined the gun he had taken from the toolbox. It was a double-action semiautomatic Beretta, an M-9 with a steel body and black checkered grip. It was similar to the sidearm Lucas had carried in Iraq. He had replaced the military-issue magazines with those manufactured in the Beretta factory because he felt they were more reliable. The previous owner had been left-handed, and Lucas had switched the safety for right-hand use. It was not a perfect weapon, but he was comfortable with it and in his grip it felt right.

  Sitting at the desk, he picked up the Beretta and, with the gun pointed sideways, pulled back its slide several times. This would allow any rounds left in the chamber to fall free; none did. With the slide locked out, he looked through the chamber and determined t
hat it was clear. He pointed the weapon at the floor and he dry-fired and heard a click. He then palmed one of the magazines into the gun and racked the slide. With the safety on, he fitted the gun into the holster and belt. He slipped the second magazine into one of the pouches of a black nylon mesh pistol vest that he had laid out on his bed. He put all of his gear and a couple of bottles of water into a medium-sized duffel and placed it by his front door.

  He phoned Ricardo Holley. Their conversation was pointed and short.

  Lucas changed into a black T-shirt. Without introspection he went to his door, picked up the duffel bag, took the stairs down to the exit, and walked to his Jeep. Full night was on the street.

  TWENTY-­FOUR

  LARRY HOLLEY dropped the Crown Vic off in the lot behind the 4D station, switched over to his black Escalade, and drove through the northeast quadrant of the city and into Maryland. He pulled over to the shoulder on a side street in the industrial section of Edmonston and killed his engine. He had stopped several commercial buildings short of the Mobley Detailing lot. Larry got out of the SUV and left it unlocked.

  He walked down the street. No one was out, and there seemed to be no activity in any of the properties he passed. It was dead as a graveyard back here at night.

  He was in blue. Not a patrolman’s uniform but the uniform of his squad. On the back of his shirt “Police” was spelled out in big white letters. His Glock 17 was holstered on his side. In an ankle holster he had fitted an old Armscor six-shot .38 revolver. He had found it under the seat of a suspect’s car and now it was his throwdown. Larry did not expect or want to use either of the guns. He had never even drawn his service weapon except in front of a mirror. Violence wasn’t in his nature, but in the event that it transpired, he was fully armed.

  He walked across the Mobley lot. He reached into his pants pocket and took out his cell and called Beano Mobley on his.

  “Mobley speaking.”

  “It’s Larry. I’m on my way in.”

  “Wasn’t expecting you, man.”

  “I’m here, Beano, right out front. Let me in.”

  Larry always phoned Beano, and Beano was always the one who opened the door. As he neared it, he heard the dead bolt turn, and Larry walked right through as the door swung open, Mobley behind it in his white guayabera shirt, the stub of an unlit cigar wedged in the corner of his mouth. Mobley looked around the edge of the door before closing it.