The Cut

by George Pelecanos

  “Where your ’Lade at, Larry?”

  “On the street. I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.”

  “You ashamed?”

  “Close the door, Beano. You’re gonna catch cold.”

  Mobley laughed huskily. Of Ricardo’s associates, Larry disliked him the least. Beano was crooked but likeable in a drunken-uncle kind of way. Larry thought: too bad about him. Righteous fire burns all.

  Mobley closed the door and threw the dead bolt. “The fellas is in the back.”

  The Expedition, the DTS, and the Mark V were parked in the bays, with the big SUV taking up much of the space. Larry walked under a flashing fluorescent light, through the narrow opening between the Lincoln and the Ford, and when he came to the office he knocked on its door and turned the knob at the same time. He walked inside and Beano Mobley came with him.

  Bernard White and Ricardo Holley were standing by the steel gun cabinet behind the desk. A couple of the pistol compartments were open, the red felt lining of their interior cavities visible. Bernard White wore an oversize T-shirt with cutoff sleeves and work pants. He held a Heckler & Koch 9mm auto-pistol loosely in his hand. Ricardo was in the process of slipping a Glock under his shirt. The 17 had been his sidearm when he was on the force, and he was fond of it. A large tumbler half-filled with whiskey sat atop the desk. Also on the desk, Ricardo’s keys.

  “What you doin here?” said Ricardo, his eyes unfocused. His shirt was bright purple silk, buttoned to the neck and decorated with a bolo tie. He wore billowing black slacks; on his feet were black side-weaves. “Thought you were through.”

  “I am,” said Larry. “But you still owe me money.”

  “What I tell you, Beano?” said White. “Man acts all high and mighty, but he still wants to get paid.”

  “I don’t have the cash,” said Ricardo. “You know this. Lucas took it.”

  “When you’re gonna get it?”

  “Lucas called me a little while ago. He’s comin here tomorrow morning, ten A.M. Says he’s bringin the money.”

  “And you’re gonna do what?”

  “Take it,” said Ricardo.

  “I mean after.”

  “That ain’t none of your business anymore,” said Ricardo.

  “It is if it comes back on me,” said Larry. “You kidnapped a minor. I got a right to be concerned.”

  “Oh, you concerned,” said Ricardo.

  “The boy’s all right,” said Mobley. “He’s scared, is all.”

  “Lucas is a grown man,” said Larry. “He knew what he was into. But the boy—”

  “You don’t like it,” said White, “but you’re too weak to try and stop it.”

  Larry didn’t respond.

  “Larry got a gun, but he don’t like to use it,” said White, giving him a slow going-over with his eyes. “You do look resplendent in that uniform, though.”

  “What’s that mean?” said Mobley.

  “Means our man Larry is like a peacock.” White smiled. “Got real colorful feathers. Don’t you, Larry?”

  “I’m confused,” said Larry. “You askin me to dance?”

  “Pretty peacock,” said White.

  “Y’all run your mouths too goddamn much,” said Ricardo. “In my day we’da gotten to it by now.”

  “I can do that, too,” said White.

  “Save it for Lucas,” said Ricardo. He picked up his tumbler and drained it. He limped to the bar cart and poured more scotch.

  That’s right, thought Larry. Drink up.

  “Let’s go,” said Ricardo, making eye contact with Mobley and White. “We need to go out to the bays and strategize. You, too, Larry. We’ll see your ass out.”

  The four of them walked from the office, Ricardo mumbling, limping deep. Larry lagged behind. He was unsteady on his feet. He would be all right if he could just get outside. He wanted to run.

  You’re too weak to try and stop it.

  Larry felt his cell vibrate in his pocket, heard that little chime sound it made when a text message had come in. He drew the phone and read its screen.

  I’m here. Get him out.

  “Fuck me, man,” said Larry, staring at his phone. The others stopped and turned to look at him. “That’s my lieutenant. I need to call in.”

  “You’re off duty,” said Ricardo.

  “I’m never off duty,” said Larry.

  “Call in, then,” said Ricardo.

  “Not in front of y’all,” said Larry.

  “I bet this motherfucker got to pee sittin’ down, too,” said White, and Ricardo laughed.

  Larry looked at his father. He felt nothing, not even hate.

  “Take your privacy,” said Mobley, pointing back at the office. “Go on.”

  Larry’s long strides got him back to the office quickly, where he closed the door behind him. Now he was committed. He was sure.

  He picked up the ring of keys off the desktop and dropped them into his pants pocket. He opened the desk drawer and rummaged through it. He found the piece of paper with Spero Lucas’s name and contact information written on it, along with all the names and numbers taken from Tavon and Edwin’s cell, and he folded the paper and slipped it into his back pocket. He flipped the dead bolt on the door that led to the back room, opened the door, and stepped inside. He shut the door softly.

  “Ernest,” said Larry.

  Ernest Lindsay got up out of his chair as if sprung. “You. You’re—”

  “I know who I am,” said Larry. “I’m about to get you out of here. C’mon, boy, move.”

  Larry went to the rear door, read what was etched on its lock, and searched on the ring for the Schlage key that would match it. There were two possibilities and the second key fit. Larry turned it and opened the door. Ernest was right beside him.

  “Listen up,” said Larry. “Get yourself to the wall of the tracks and follow it to the street. You’ll see a black Escalade parked about a hundred yards away. It’s open. Get in the backseat and lie down on it. I’ll be out there in a hot minute.”

  “Why don’t you come with me?”

  Larry put his hands on Ernest’s shoulders and gave him a little push. “Go.”

  He watched as Ernest took tentative steps, then quickened his pace as he walked into a stand of weed trees that led to the wall. Ernest was swallowed by the darkness. Larry thought for a moment, then closed the door and locked it. He slipped the keys into his pocket.

  He went back to the main office, opened the door leading to the bay area, and shut it behind him. He stepped quickly across the bay floor, passing under the buzzing, flashing fluorescent light that no one had ever thought to change, moving through the narrow space between the Expedition and the Mark, his eyes on the front door of the building, where the others were now grouped.

  “Where you goin so quick?” said Mobley in that rasp of his, and Larry said, “Something came up; I gotta go back in,” and he kept on walking without breaking stride or looking at the man who was his father by blood only. Larry opened the door himself and heard it shut behind him.

  He breathed fresh air as he moved across the lot. On the street he broke into a run and reached the Escalade. He got behind the wheel and looked over his shoulder. Ernest was lying down across the backseat.

  “Stay like that,” said Larry.

  He retrieved his cell and put it on the console, found his ignition key and fitted it, and fired up the SUV. He pulled away and when he got to the top of the cross street he braked and picked up his cell. He looked in his rearview mirror and waited. Soon he saw a man in dark clothing cross the street on foot, then pass through the open gate of the Mobley Detailing lot. Half a minute later, the text chime sounded from his cell. Larry looked at the screen.

  Make the call.

  Larry dialed Beano Mobley’s number.

  “Mobley speaking.”

  “It’s Larry. I’m comin back in.”

  “What the fuck…”

  “I left my car keys back in the office. C’mon, Beano,
open that door up, man.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Larry ended the call and tossed the phone onto the seat beside him. He gave the Escalade gas, turned right, and gunned it toward 46th Street. He could smell his perspiration. His shirt was damp and it clung to his back.

  “You can get up,” said Larry.

  Ernest got himself to a sitting position and wiped sweat off his face. He took deep breaths and let them out slowly. Larry looked in the mirror. Their eyes met.

  “Thank you,” said Ernest.

  “This didn’t happen,” said Larry. “None of it. Anybody asks you where you been, your mother, your teachers, your friends… tell ’em you been shacked up with some girl. I reckon you’re gonna see something on the TV news tomorrow, or read about it in the paper. You’re not to speak on this, any of this, again. You understand me, young man?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Relax,” said Larry. “I’m taking you home.”

  LUCAS HAD parked the Jeep one street west of Mobley Detailing. Standing behind it, its tailgate up, he slipped on his pistol vest and belt, the holstered Beretta on his right hip, the clip-on holding the .38 on his left. He took a short drink of water from a bottle, dropped the bottle on the cargo deck, and closed the tailgate.

  He hugged the wall of the elevated tracks until he came to the adjacent street. He crossed the street, keeping low.

  He swiveled his head and saw the Escalade idling up at the cross. He went through the open gate of the detailing lot. There was a light over the front door, but its wattage was weak and it did not illuminate the entire lot. He crouched against the fence in shadow and pulled his cell from one of his vest pouches. He hoped Larry Holley had the kid. If Holley had lost his nerve… But it didn’t matter now. He looked at the phone’s keyboard and he punched in the words Make the call and he hit “send.”

  Lucas slipped the cell back into its pouch and velcroed it shut. He drew the .38 from its holster and the M-9 off his right hip and thumbed off its safety. He walked forward, snicking back the hammer on the .38 and locking it into place.

  His heart rate was up and he could feel its hammer. In Fallujah his platoon had fought in two-man teams. He had paired up with Marquis Rollins, and after Marquis was injured it had been Jamie Burdette until Jamie’s death. Going into houses together near the Jolan graveyard, facing the unknown, jacked up on energy, ambition, and confidence, because your partner was with you and he had your back.

  But now Lucas was alone and at the door.

  The door opened a crack, and he felt a violent surge inside his chest. He kicked the door open, moved through it, and looked left. A short man in a white shirt was falling from the force of the contact. Lucas fired the .38 three times rapidly into his torso just as he hit the floor, and his shirt tore apart and bloomed deep red.

  He saw movement in his peripheral vision on his right, heard a gunshot, and felt the air move past his head. He dropped. In the prone position, one arm extended, he saw a big man in a cutoff T-shirt backing up between two vehicles, holding a gun, pointing it at him and firing, and he saw the muzzle flash and the floor before him spark, and Lucas rolled and got to his feet. He took cover behind the tail of the Expedition. He looked through its windows and saw the big man moving along its side, and he stepped back and straightened the arm holding the Beretta and he fired off two rounds into glass and the glass shattered, and in the rain of it he saw the man crouch down.

  Lucas spun off the tailgate and shot the big man as he was struggling to stand. The round hit the man in the groin, and as he staggered, his arms pinwheeling, a look of surprise on his face, Lucas moved forward and buttonholed him with a shot to the chest and one to the throat. The man flopped onto his back, jerking wildly. He released his gun and grabbed weakly at his open neck. Lucas stood over the man and shot him twice in the face. He dropped the revolver, now empty, on the body.

  A light flashed and buzzed overhead. Lucas heard a door slam in the back of the warehouse. He walked forward between two vehicles, the automatic in hand.

  Beano Mobley at the door, Bernard White lying by the Ford, both dead. Ricardo Holley in one of the back rooms. Five shots expended from the .9’s fifteen-round mag. These were Lucas’s thoughts as he approached the main office, its walls once glass, now wood panels, just as Larry had described it. The door was open.

  Lucas stood beside the door, gun arm out. He cleared it and walked into the office. He knew from the sound he’d heard that Ricardo had entered the far back room.

  Lucas passed a gun case with open compartments, went to the door at the back of the office, and stood beside it. Pressed against the wall, he reached over to the dead bolt and flipped it. Three shots punched through the door, missing Lucas. He crouched down, turned the knob, pushed the door open with the toe of his boot, and whirled into the space, firing his weapon twice at the purple shape in the center of the room. The sound was sonic, and he saw a tall man topple over a table and upend it and come to rest on his back. Lucas walked through smoke, the Beretta pointed at Ricardo Holley. Holley’s Glock was beside him. Lucas kicked it across the floor.

  Holley looked up at Lucas with dying eyes. One slug had caught him square in the chest. A pool had rapidly spread beneath him and darkened his coppery hair. The jacketed round had exited his back, and he was bleeding out. Holley’s bright purple shirt was flapping at the entrance wound and it was black there.

  “Larry did this,” said Ricardo weakly. “He trapped me.”

  “Why’d you kill those boys?” said Lucas.

  Holley’s lips twitched into a smile. His teeth were stained red. “You don’t know shit, do you? You took that money just to give it back.”

  “Tell me what I don’t know.”

  “You killed me, man. Now you want me to…” Holley’s eyes closed, then opened. He was smiling still.

  “Say it,” said Lucas.

  “Come close,” said Ricardo softly.

  Lucas holstered his gun, got down on his haunches, and put his face close to Holley’s.

  “Fuck you,” said Holley, with a chuckle that was a sickening wheeze.

  He thought he would go out that way: laughing. But his smile became a grimace as he began to cough, and a great stream of blood spilled from his mouth. Fear came to his face. In its grip he stared at the ceiling. His body shivered in spasm and his eyes faded. Then his eyes were black buttons in a cardboard mask.

  Lucas found Holley’s cell phone in one of his pockets. He put it in a pouch of his vest. He collected the cells of Mobley and White, picked up his spent .38 off White’s corpse and holstered it. He left the building quietly through its front door. He heard no approaching sirens and made it to his Jeep and took off his vest and unarmed himself and put everything in the duffel bag and covered the duffel with a blanket.

  He headed into D.C., staying within a ten-mile range of the speed limit, careful not to drive too slowly. He went through neighborhoods where normal citizens were sleeping, or making love to their spouses, or lying in bed worrying over their children, or sitting in their favorite chair, having a last, late-night drink. He passed bars where young people stood out on the sidewalk, talking to one another and smoking cigarettes. He found himself on M Street in Southeast, and he followed it to where it seemed to end but in fact continued along the Anacostia, past old marinas partially hidden in the trees. He parked down by the river, under the Sousa Bridge, where there was no one. There he retrieved his guns from the back of the Jeep and hurled them, one after the other, out into the water. After the second muted splash he got back into his vehicle and went north.

  He made one more stop, on 12th Street, Northwest. A light was on in the living room window of Ernest Lindsay’s place. Lucas made a call to his brother, and when it went to message he said, “Ernest is safe.”

  Lucas’s hands, tight on the steering wheel, relaxed at once. He drove home.

  TWENTY-­FIVE

  FOR THE next few days, Lucas stayed in his apartment. He tried to read a nov
el and watched bits of old movies and sports on TV, but he couldn’t focus on any of them. His work was done, but there was no satisfaction. He felt, somewhat, as he had upon his return to the States: no duties, no mission, no cause.

  The killings did not make the morning Post, but broke instead on its crime-related website. Many firearms had been found at the scene, implying business-related violence perpetrated on the participants of a criminal enterprise. He scanned the initial story but did not bother with the print or web follow-ups. If he was a suspect, if the police were going to question him or arrest him, so be it. He wasn’t going to turn himself in, and he wasn’t going to run.

  His one possible link to the murders would come from Tim McCarthy in IAB and former MPD lieutenant Pete Gibson. McCarthy had taken his request for a background check on Larry Holley and referred him to Gibson. Both had tried to nail Ricardo Holley twenty years earlier. They must have known immediately that Lucas was, in some way, involved in Ricardo’s death. They could have been weighing their options. Perhaps they considered the demise of Ricardo Holley, Beano Mobley, and Bernard White to be justice, what some D.C. police call a “society cleanse.” At any rate, the law did not come.

  His brother Leo phoned him the afternoon following the shootings.

  “Ernest showed up for school today. Made it back for the last day of class.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Claims he went off with some girl. That would be a first, far as I know.”

  “Even a nail gun like you had a first time, Leo.”

  “It wasn’t pretty, either.”

  “Neither was she.”

  “I just wanted to say thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Play it like that if you feel the need to.”

  “Okay.”

  “You wanna go over to Mom’s tonight and have dinner? We could sit and watch a game on the wide-screen.”