King Suckerman

by George Pelecanos

“Now you gonna rob us, too,” said Cooper. “That right, Trouble Man?”

  “Teach you country motherfuckers a lesson,” said Clay, not believing his own cocky words, regretting them as they came from his mouth.

  Clay backed away to the door, past Ronald and Russell Thomas and their hard stares. Karras and the girl were already there.

  “I expect we’re gonna see you boys again,” said Cooper.

  “I expect you will,” said Clay.

  Clay, Karras, and Vivian went through the door. The ones in the office listened to their rapid footsteps echo in the stairwell.

  Tate helped Marchetti to his feet.

  “Wilton,” said Clagget. He was on his knees, blood seeping through the fingers of the hand covering his mouth, dripping down into a small puddle pooled before him on the floor.

  “I know, B. R. We gonna get you somewhere, fix your ass up.”

  “My mouth,” said Clagget, working to sound out the word completely. His front teeth were gone.

  “Trouble Man took you to school,” said Cooper. “We gonna talk about that later.”

  Tate got Marchetti into his chair, then went to the window. He watched the three of them jog across the street, Clay and the girl climbing into the open-air VW while the Greek stashed the bag under the hood, which on that fool car was the trunk. Tate couldn’t make out the number on the D.C. plates. No matter. There couldn’t be many cars like that one in town. Tate watched Karras get behind the wheel and he watched them drive away.

  Cooper saw Marchetti rub at his swelling eye. “Might want to put somethin’ on that.”

  “What the hell happened?” said Marchetti.

  “That’s always the question,” said Cooper, “isn’t it?”

  “Gimme one of them double-O’s,” said Russell to his brother. Ronald drew two cigarettes from the torn hole in the bottom of the deck, handed one to Russell. Russell struck a match, lit his smoke, lit his brother’s.

  “Tell you one thing,” said Russell. “Trouble Man ever even have a dream about fuckin’ with me, he gonna find somethin’ out. I’d steal that nigger right in the face. I’d double steal that motherfucker.”

  Ronald chuckled. “That nigger would fuck you up, boy.”

  “Don’t be callin’ me no boy,” said Russell.

  “Go ahead, man.”

  “You see a boy standin’ here,” said Russell, “suck his dick.”

  “Aw, go ahead,” said Ronald.

  Cooper dropped the end of his Salem to the floor, crushed it beneath his canvas jazz shoe. He looked at Marchetti, whose left eye had begun to darken.

  “Shame about the money,” said Cooper.

  Marchetti squinted. “That was your money, Wilton.”

  “You’re mistaken,” said Cooper. “I gave it to you, remember? That was your commission for puttin’ me up with that biker friend of yours. What was his name?”

  “Larry.”

  “Larry, that’s right. Course, I might be interested in gettin’ that money back for you. Say, for a fifty percent finder’s fee. Right after I do my deal with Larry.”

  “Fifty points,” mumbled Marchetti. “Real generous of you, Wilton.”

  “We friends,” said Cooper, “right?”

  “Wilton,” said Clagget, staggering a little, still dazed as he walked toward Cooper sitting in the chair.

  “All right, boy,” said Cooper. “We better go see about gettin’ you cleaned up.”

  Cooper got up out of his chair. Tate tossed him a rag. Cooper took the rag and went to Clagget.

  Clagget said, “I’m gonna kill that motherfucker, Wilton.”

  “I know you are,” said Cooper. He blotted the rag on the blood splashed across the blue rayon of Bobby Roy Clagget’s chest.

  “I swear for God,” said Clagget.

  “Hush,” said Cooper, shaking his head. “Look at you, man. You done gone and fucked up another pretty shirt.”

  SIX

  Dimitri Karras downshifted, took H across North Capitol. He relaxed his shoulders, glad to be out of the warehouse district, glad as hell to be back in Northwest. Marcus Clay sat to his right, staring straight ahead, mumbling occasionally as the recently completed events replayed themselves in his mind. In the rearview Karras watched Vivian, sitting sideways between the front buckets, her long black hair fanning out in the wind, a slight crescent of purple and a small ring dent on the left side of her pronounced jaw where Eddie Marchetti had given her his hand.

  “You okay?” said Karras, turning his head briefly to catch Vivian’s eye.

  “I’m fine,” said Vivian. “Thanks, guys.”

  “Yeah, Marcus. Thanks.”

  “Sure thing, lover.”

  “Wasn’t the first time Marcus saved my ass,” explained Karras.

  “You guys have done this before?”

  “Don’t make a practice of it. And we damn sure don’t make a practice of it when it involves guns. But my friend Dimitri here, he seems to find his way into situations, usually have something to do with a lady.” Clay side-glanced Karras. “I’m just the lucky one who happens to be around when it all rains down.”

  Vivian said, “That thing you did, taking away the kid’s gun like that. You were in the service, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Where’d you learn that move? Vietnam?”

  “Thirteenth and Euclid,” said Clay.

  Karras smiled a little. He knew Marcus would never cop to anything about Vietnam. Karras had talked once with Al Adamson—Rasheed’s older brother—who had served with Clay overseas, and had found out how deep into it Marcus had been. But, like just about every soldier Karras had ever known who had seen real action, Marcus preferred to bury it, keep it in the past or let it sleep in some unlit corner of his head. Clay never talked about Vietnam, and Karras never asked.

  “Well,” said Karras, “it’s over now.”

  Clay exhaled heavily. “You think so, huh?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “The girl, for one,” said Clay. “That Eddie Spaghetti character, he’s gonna want her back. You don’t mind if I call you a girl, do you, baby?”

  “No, I don’t mind.”

  “And the money,” said Clay. “Especially the money. I never should’ve took the goddamn money.”

  “I was wondering what you were doing there,” said Karras.

  “Lost my temper and shit. That’s all it was. A boy holds a gun on you like that, it steals something from you, man. I just wanted to steal something back.”

  Karras smiled. “You gave ’em a little attitude with your words, too, Marcus. Talkin’ about that country shit.”

  “They were some Macon County Line–lookin’ motherfuckers,” said Clay.

  He and Karras laughed. They gave each other skin. Vivian put her head forward between the front seats. She kissed Clay behind the ear and gave Karras one on his cheek.

  “Hey, baby, you don’t have to do that,” said Clay.

  “I wanted to,” said Vivian.

  Karras turned onto New York Avenue, headed west across town. “How old are you, anyway?” he said, his eyes in the rearview.

  “How old are you?” said Vivian coyly. Karras noticed a dimple tucked along the laugh line of her right cheek.

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “How about you, Marcus?”

  “Same.”

  “I’m nineteen,” said Vivian.

  “Nineteen?” said Clay. “And here I was askin’ if it was all right to call you girl.”

  “You’re a gentleman,” said Vivian, “that’s all.”

  “Hey,” said Karras, “what about me?”

  “You,” said Vivian, with some play in her voice. “I’m not so sure about you.”

  “After what I did?”

  “I’m still not sure.”

  “Stupid,” said Clay.

  “Lighten up, man,” said Karras.

  “It was plain stupid, takin’ that jack.”

  “So give it back.”

&n
bsp; “I plan on it,” said Clay, “soon as everything cools down. Have to think on how to do it without causin’ any more trouble. Maybe contact that Clarence Tate. He seems sensible enough.”

  Karras squinted. “We should be all right for a few days. They don’t know anything about me except my name. And I’m not in the book.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “Which ought to buy us a little time.”

  Clay shook his head. “Stupid, though. Just plain stupid.”

  “Hey, where we going, anyway?” said Vivian.

  “My apartment. Marcus needs a shower, and I could use one, too.”

  “I could use a little smoke,” said Vivian. “I had a nice buzz goin’ before you guys came to the party. All that trouble back there, it made me crash.”

  “Plenty of herb in the trunk,” said Clay, pointing to the hood of the VW. “Where the engine is on a real car.”

  Clarence Tate looked out the window, watched the Challenger move down the block, cut right, disappear. Two blocks away, he could still hear the rumble of the engine.

  “What a day,” said Marchetti.

  “Yeah,” said Tate.

  “I mean, was this a day or what?”

  “It was a day, Eddie.”

  Marchetti fumbled through his desk, brought out the remote. He stared at it for a moment, held it in one hand while he gingerly touched the fingers of the other to his swollen eye.

  “Did I deserve this?” said Marchetti.

  “Yeah, you deserved it all right. You shouldn’t have hit Vivian in front of those two. I mean, you shouldn’t have gone and hit her period, understand what I’m sayin’? But hittin’ her in front of those two is what started all the trouble.”

  “And then the kid with the gun. What the hell was he thinkin’ of?”

  “Just a dumb kid,” said Tate. “You mix with those kinds, Eddie, I been tellin’ you for the longest time, you’re gonna get yourself into a world of trouble.”

  Marchetti waved his hand. “All right, all right.”

  “Then you go and give those boys a Baggie of cocaine before they leave. Like they need that freeze to get up. Bunch of finger-on-the-trigger motherfuckers to begin with.”

  “It was a gift, from Larry. I figured they’d want to sample what they were going to purchase. Anyway, what was I going to do with it? You know I don’t use that shit. Hell, give me a nice highball to start, a plate of red sauce over linguine, a little antipast, a carafe of the house red to wash it down, that’s the only high I need.”

  “Ray Charles can see that, Eddie.”

  “What, you think I’m too fat?”

  “I ain’t say that, man.”

  “But you think it, right?”

  “You’re askin’ for the truth, you could lose a couple of ounces here and there.”

  Marchetti looked down at his gut. “If I was a little leaner… lean and loose, like that Greek… Vivian would’ve stayed more interested, is that what you’re sayin’?”

  “Hard to tell. You might have paid her a little more attention. You might have done that. And hittin’ her like you did, that was straight-up wrong.”

  “I’d talk to her,” said Marchetti, “if she was here right now. Tell her I was sorry for what I did.”

  “Maybe you’ll get your chance.”

  “The thing is, I could’ve made her stay. If you had let me go for the short-nose, I could’ve backed those two off.”

  “You oughta be thankin’ me. I’ve seen that Marcus Clay on a basketball court. Boy can get from A to B like quicksilver, man. He would’ve been on you. Lucky you got a local man like me, knowin’ all the local boys myself. This here ain’t your town, Eddie. You could get hurt, bein’ a stranger here like you are.”

  “Maybe so. But I see those two again, they’re gonna pay.”

  “Way those country boys were talkin’,” said Tate, “you’re gonna have to get in line.”

  Marchetti punched the power button on the remote and the Sony flickered on across the room. The news was on, Gordon and Max on channel 9. Another salt-and-pepper team, but these guys were pretty good. Not that you could see for shit, with the snow falling across the tube.

  “Before all this started,” said Marchetti, “you were gonna fix the antenna, remember?”

  “Let me get to it,” said Tate.

  “Or do I need a new set?”

  “We got ten Sonys in the back, Eddie, KV-1920s, just like this one. They’re all gonna get the same reception, with all this metal and concrete. Anyhow, you need to stop worryin’ about the snow on your set and start thinkin’ about how we’re gonna move those goods back there, boss.”

  “All right, all right, I’ll think. In the meantime, go jiggle the antenna. Harry-O’s on tonight, and I don’t wanna be distracted.”

  Tate grinned. “What, you gonna watch Harry-O over Barnaby Jones?”

  “Quit fuckin’ with me, Clarenze. You know I can’t take that Barnaby Jones. What’s Ebsen, like eighty years old? You ever known a bad guy who’s gonna back down from Buddy Ebsen? Bad dude holding a gun on Buddy Ebsen, Ebsen going, ‘Excuse me, could you hold off on that gun for a second, I got a little problem with my pacemaker.’ ” Marchetti clutched his chest, laughed, got hyped on his own pantomime. He pointed excitedly at Tate. “Or how about this? ‘Excuse me a second, Mr. Bad-News, but could you put the piece down for a minute? I forgot to take my Geritol this morning….’ Ain’t gonna happen. I hate those geezer shows.”

  “I know you do, Eddie.”

  “Started with the cripple shows, Ironside and then Longstreet—the one about the blind detective, like a blind detective could do shit. Now what do you got? You got old and you got old and crippled. Like Cannon, with his tuba theme music. He’s old and he’s a fat fuck in the bargain. What the hell’s he gonna do, huh?”

  “You askin’ me a question?”

  “I’ll take Harry-O and Bronk any day over those geezer-crip shows. With those guys, at least they can walk down the street without a Seeing Eye dog or someone holding onto their arm, you know what I mean?” Marchetti waited. “You like David Janssen, Clarenze?”

  “He’s all right. Man don’t smile much.”

  “I bet he gets a load of pussy, though.”

  “Man gets all that play, you think he’d smile every now and again.”

  “He smiles. Well, it’s more like one of them facial tics, really.”

  “I better get up on that roof.”

  “Okay, Clarenze. You go ahead and fix me up.”

  Clarence Tate sighed. It didn’t pay to kid Eddie Spags about his program choices, not unless you had all day to talk it out. Man was serious about his TV.

  Tate left Marchetti sitting there, his head rested in his palm, and went through the door into the back hall. He walked by the Sonys and then some Litton microwave ovens and a stack of Webcor table radios—he’d have to talk to Bernard about dropping off the Mickey Mouse bullshit like that—and some twenty-five-inch Philco “consolette” color TVs and a couple of complete Sansui systems that he wouldn’t have minded owning himself. It hurt him, seeing all that inventory just gathering dust like that. He couldn’t get it through Eddie’s head that they had to move this shit out and move it quick.

  Tate would have loved to have gotten out himself. Ex-cons and dead-eyed Bamas and pimply-ass, shotgun-carrying white boys; hot goods and cocaine—he didn’t need all that in his life. He just wanted a decent job, a few extra dollars so he could see clear to some kind of better life. Not just for him, either. For his sweet little Denice, too.

  SEVEN

  Dimitri Karras swung the Ghia into a space in front of 1841 R Street, cut the engine.

  “Here we are,” said Karras.

  Vivian had a look at the building: a former mansion with a peeling stucco facade, now four floors housing three units per floor, a small yard out front patched with brown where a fat gray cat with huge ears lay on the grass watching a cluster of gnats hover in the air.

  “You liv
e here?” said Vivian.

  “Trauma Arms,” said Clay.

  Karras said, “Come on.”

  Karras got the grocery bag from the trunk. The three of them went into the building. The resident manager, Duncan Hazlewood—six four, broad of shoulder and chest, bearded, Hemingway with acrylic-stained khakis—was carrying a canvas from his studio and through the hall toward his front door. Hazlewood was an artist, a dropout advertising conceptualist turned painter, now into a period of black-and-white pen-and-ink drawings. His girlfriend, Libby Howland, held the door for him.

  “Duncan,” said Karras.

  Hazlewood eyed the group. “Having a party?”

  “We’ll let you know.”

  “See that you do, damnit. Wouldn’t want to miss out on it if you did.”

  They went up the stairs. A white man’s raised voice, followed by the sheepish voice of a black man, emerged from behind a closed apartment door. Karras and Clay exchanged looks. The white man was Irvine Nichols, a drama and arts editor at the Washington Post. Nichols favored young black men, and he alternately loved them and berated them. For some reason these black men made their way to Nichols’s apartment in prodigious numbers.

  “Sounds like discipline time on the plantation,” said Clay.

  “He’s a hard boss,” said Karras, “but a fair one. Been askin’ about you, too, Marcus.”

  “Knock that bullshit off, man.”

  Vivian stopped to stare at the door, but Karras and Clay were back on the stairs, heading up to the next level. She followed. Karras put a key to a locked door, opened the door, went through. Clay and Vivian went in behind him.

  Karras’s apartment went the depth of the building, front to back, with a big bay window facing R. The living area of painted wainscoting and plaster walls was wide and uncluttered, with high ceilings and painted, exposed beams. A Pullman kitchen, harvest gold enamel on steel, was fitted against the wall. Past the kitchen a narrow hall led to a single bedroom and bath.

  Vivian took in the bare-bones look: an oak dining table with four hard-seat chairs; a brown couch with sagging cushions; a bentwood rocker; a cable-spool table in front of the couch, a tall blue plastic bong atop the table; a color television set, pushed to the corner of the room; two large floor speakers, wires exposed, placed on either side of the bay window; and, occupying an entire wall, unfinished bookshelves holding an amp, preamp, turntable, scores of paperback and hardback novels, and what seemed like hundreds of records. A ceiling fan moved warm air and dust around the room.