King Suckerman

by George Pelecanos

  “I don’t know….”

  “What’s your name, man?”

  “Rasheed.”

  “Rasheed, brother, come on… you got to help me out with my woman.”

  “All right. Make it quick.”

  Rasheed opened the door, let Cooper in, flipped back the latch to where it had been.

  “You got To Be True?” said Cooper.

  “Yeah, we got it.”

  “Take me to it, man, so I can get on out of here and leave you to your J-O-B.”

  Cooper glanced behind him at the foot traffic on the street as he followed Rasheed Adamson to the Soul section of the store. When he was satisfied that they were partially hidden by an aisle divider, Cooper pulled the .45 from behind his waistband. He moved forward quickly and jammed the muzzle of the automatic savagely into Rasheed’s kidney.

  “Uh!” said Rasheed. “What the—”

  “Nigger,” hissed Cooper, “don’t even turn around. Don’t say nothin’ ’less I ask you a question, hear?”

  Rasheed nodded his head.

  “Good. Where the lights at in this joint?”

  “G-got a set by the door and a set next to the stockroom.”

  “To the stockroom, then.” Cooper pushed in on Rasheed’s kidney. “Go.”

  They walked close together into the stockroom. Rasheed extinguished the store lights without asking; he knew what Cooper wanted him to do.

  “All right. Now open that back door an inch.”

  “Why?”

  “I ain’t ask you nothin’, nigger. I told you to open that got-damn door.”

  Rasheed deactivated the back door alarm by punching a numeric code into a grid. It was not a silent alarm, and he didn’t want the man with the gun to panic. He then used his keys to turn a series of locks. He opened the door and stepped back.

  A half minute later two people came through the door. One of them, a white boy, held a sawed-off shotgun at his side and the other, a black man, carried a revolver.

  Cooper closed the door tight, did not lock it.

  “Everything all right out there, B. R.?”

  “Everything’s cool, blood.”

  Rasheed checked out the white one called B. R. Maroon snap-button-fly bells and a jungle-motif maroon and green rayon shirt with long collar points. Boy had some Flagg Brothers–lookin’ kicks on his feet, too, and a pale, fucked-up, toothless face.

  “Good,” said Cooper. “You okay, Russell?”

  “Everything’s chilly,” said Russell.

  Rasheed searched Russell’s blank face for a hint of compassion. He saw nothing there.

  Cooper turned to Rasheed. “What you say your name was again, boy?”

  “Rasheed.”

  “Wilton Cooper’s mine.”

  Rasheed’s eyes widened slightly. He had taken a call from the mother of Marcus’s Greek friend, Dimitri Karras, earlier in the night. She had been trying to reach her son to tell him that a man named Cooper had been over to her place, asking a lot of funny questions about Marcus. Rasheed had left a note for Marcus detailing the message out on the counter.

  “Somethin’ wrong?” said Cooper, noticing the change in Rasheed’s expression.

  “No,” said Rasheed.

  “All right. Now look here, Ra-sheed. We come here tonight to get back somethin’ your boss took. Somethin’ that was mine. I got nothin’ against you, man. Shame it had to be you standin’ here and not your boy Marcus Clay. But we gonna deal with the situation that we got. I just want to be clear: You don’t tell me what I want to know, I will fuck you up. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m just gonna leave it up to you. It makes no difference to me.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. Now take us to the place where the boss keeps the money.”

  Rasheed hesitated. The white boy pointed the shotgun in his direction.

  “All right,” said Rasheed. “Come on.”

  Rasheed felt unsteady on his feet. He noticed a shake in his knees. He said a short prayer as he led them to the island counter, prayed to God to let him be a man in the face of all this. To be a man, that was important; also, to honor his word with Marcus Clay.

  “Money’s in the register,” said Rasheed.

  “Open it,” said Cooper.

  Rasheed turned a thin plastic key on the face of the register. A small bell announced the opening of the drawer.

  “Ding,” said Russell with a wide grin.

  “What you got in there, Ra-sheed?”

  Rasheed stared into the drawer. Some light spilled in from the street lamps of Connecticut, but the store was awfully dark, and it was difficult to see. “ ’B-bout a hundred, hundred and twenty, maybe.”

  B. R. Clagget stepped through an opening and got inside the island, stood a few feet from Rasheed. He cocked his hip.

  “Sounds like you’re a little short,” said Cooper.

  “What’s that?” said Rasheed.

  “You talkin’ about a hundred and twenty. I was thinkin’ more like twenty thousand.”

  “Shit, man—”

  “Don’t be cursin’ Mr. Cooper,” said Clagget.

  Rasheed moved back a step, stopping on the throw rug that covered the trap door. He felt the rug beneath his feet. Standing there, protecting the money, it sent a rush of courage and pride into his spine. Rasheed stood straight. He imagined how it would be the next morning, standing around with Marcus and Cheek, telling the story of how he fooled these country motherfuckers, Marcus looking at him, admiration in his eyes—

  “About that twenty thousand,” said Cooper.

  “Look, I swear to you, man, I don’t know nothin’ about no twenty grand. What we got in the register is what we got to get us started for tomorrow’s business. I mean, I just made the deposit myself a half hour ago.”

  Russell Thomas took an album from its sleeve, sailed it across the room. It shattered against the Chaka Khan poster taped to the painted cinder-block wall.

  “Hey,” said Rasheed. “You don’t have to do that.”

  Russell said, “You tellin’ me what I can do, boy? I’ll come over there right quick and slap the taste out your mouth.”

  “Talk about it, Russell,” said Clagget.

  Russell pointed to a black-covered album that sat face out on display. He held the album up so Cooper could check it out. “Hey, Cooper, look. They got Wild and Peaceful.”

  Russell dropped the record, kicked the display over. Albums slid across the floor, many of them breaking into pieces. Russell got his shoulders behind another rack, pushed the rack over on its side.

  “We need peace,” said Russell. “We need uni-tee.”

  Clagget laughed.

  “Hey!” shouted Rasheed. “There ain’t no need—”

  “Talk about the money,” said Cooper, sharply cutting him off.

  “I don’t know…. I’m tellin’ you, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man.”

  Cooper stepped forward. Rasheed took a step back. Clagget looked down at Rasheed’s feet. He smiled and racked the shotgun’s pump.

  “You know what that sound is?” said Clagget.

  “Huh?” said Rasheed, wincing at the sudden rise in his voice. He stared openmouthed at the sawed-off, now pointed at his face.

  “That there,” said Clagget, “is the sound of your own death.”

  Rasheed looked at Cooper, smiled weakly.

  “Hey, blood,” said Rasheed.

  Clagget squeezed the shotgun’s trigger. Flame erupted from the sawed-off’s muzzle. Papers flew off the countertop and floated in the air.

  “Damn,” said Russell.

  Cooper looked out at the avenue. The sound had attracted a few faces at the window. The pedestrians saw black men in the shop and quickly got on their way. He figured one of those good citizens would be on a pay phone real quick.

  “Little brother,” said Cooper. “You didn’t even give the boy a chance to speak.”

  “Didn’t need to,” s
aid Clagget, pointing at the floor. “Look.”

  Cooper looked down to where Rasheed had been standing. The rug had been moved aside when Rasheed stepped back. There was the outline of a trapdoor cut into the hardwood floor.

  Cooper got down on his haunches, lifted the piece of wood. He pulled out the cash box, opened it. He counted out ten thousand dollars joylessly, folded the money, put it in the pocket of his slacks.

  “Cooper,” said Russell. “We best be on our way.”

  All of them could hear the sound of a siren now in the distance.

  “Get the money out the register, B. R.”

  “Right,” said Clagget.

  Cooper stood over Rasheed’s body. The double-aught shell had cleaned off the side of the boy’s face. It looked as if an animal had taken a bite from Rasheed, crown to jaw. Chunks of brain and clumps of damp hair dripped off the shelving beneath the counter. The blood looked black in the absence of light.

  “Boy?” said Cooper softly, looking at the corpse. “Didn’t your people ever tell you? White man gonna find a way to fuck you up every time.”

  “Got it,” said Clagget, holding up a short stack of bills.

  “All right,” said Cooper. “Let’s go.”

  The three of them ran out the back door, guns drawn. A couple of people on 20th had been hanging around since the shotgun sound had reached the street, and these people backed up quickly at the sight of the men. One of them, a student in his twenties, got on his belly and slid beneath a parked car.

  Clagget dropped the sawed-off behind the front seat, got in first. Russell and Cooper were in soon after. Ronald had cooked the ignition and was pumping the gas against the clutch.

  “Go on, Ronald,” said Cooper. “Show us what Big Bird can do.”

  Ronald Thomas eased off the clutch pedal; the Daytona screamed away from the curb. The four of them were pinned against their seats as Ronald pulled back on the pistol-grip gearshift and caught long rubber in second. He double-clutched out of the Florida Avenue right turn. The Dodge fishtailed for fifty yards before straightening out on the way to 16th.

  “Whewee,” said Cooper.

  “That was bad, Wilton!”

  “Yes it was,” said Cooper.

  Bobby Roy Clagget yelled, “Man, we’re blowin’ this town all to hell!”

  “Bo Hopkins,” said Cooper. “Right?”

  “The Wild Bunch,” said Clagget, nodding his head.

  Russell extended his hand, palm up, to the backseat. “You’re one crazy white boy, man! You all right.” Clagget slapped Russell’s palm.

  Cooper found his Salem longs on the seat at his side. He lit one for himself, lit one for Clagget.

  “Hey,” said Russell to Ronald. “Gimme one of them double-O’s.”

  Ronald drew the deck of Kools from the visor, shook two out of the bottom of the pack.

  The bright yellow Dodge with the big spoiler hit eighty miles an hour going east across the city. The men inside it were laughing loudly and giving each other skin. They could no longer hear the sirens of the police cars and ambulances converging on the record store at Connecticut and R.

  NINETEEN

  Marcus Clay told Elaine to take the Riviera back to their row house in Mount Pleasant, that he’d meet her there. He and Karras left Vivian Lee at the Trauma Arms and jogged the two blocks to the store.

  Clay and Karras were let through the police barricade and into the shop. Red light flashed intermittently on the cinderblock walls from the cherry-tops parked out on the street. A big man with a ruddy face stopped Clay as he came through the door. The man wore a plain khaki raincoat, though it was neither raining nor cool. The grip of his .38 curved out from beneath the coat’s wide lapels.

  “You Marcus Clay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Farrelly. Homicide.”

  “How’d y’all find me so quick?”

  “You got an employee list posted in the back with numbers. We tried you at your home number first, couldn’t get an answer. Tried a Mr. Cheek next, got him. He said you might be with Karras. Cheek gave us Karras’s number.” Farrelly moved his chin toward Karras. “That Karras?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He work here?”

  “No.”

  “Then he needs to stay out of everybody’s way. Tell him not to leave, though. Might want to have a few words with him myself.”

  Karras heard Farrelly’s instructions. He stepped back against the nearest wall. He didn’t move.

  Farrelly said to Clay, “You up for this now?”

  Clay said, “Yeah.”

  “Over here.”

  Clay followed Farrelly toward the center island. He noticed but did not stop to touch the overturned displays and damaged inventory spread about the floor. Cheek was in a corner of the store, his shoulders jerking, tears running down his face. A uniformed cop stood next to him staring straight ahead.

  They were through the opening and in the island now. Farrelly got down on one knee and pulled back the sheet. He looked up and into Clay’s expressionless eyes.

  “Rasheed Adamson,” said Clay.

  “Your employee?”

  “Right.”

  “Matches his wallet ID,” said Farrelly. He stood up and nodded shortly toward a small man in a gray suit wearing rimless bifocals. “Okay. Cover him up.”

  Farrelly said to Clay, “You want a coffee?”

  “Don’t drink it.”

  “I’m gonna get me one,” said Farrelly. “I’ll meet you in the backroom in five. Okay?”

  “Sure. You through with Cheek over there?”

  “Yeah, he’s done.”

  “I’m gonna tell him to get on home.”

  “Fine. Five minutes, Clay.”

  “Right.”

  Clay went over to Cheek, put his arm around him, moved him away from the uniformed cop, talked to him, got him settled down. Cheek left the store without a word.

  Clay saw a cop he had come up with in Shaw, a muscular guy named George Dozier, standing in street clothes by himself in the middle of the Jazz aisle. He went over to Dozier and the two of them shook hands.

  “George.”

  “Marcus. You all right, man?”

  “Yeah. What you doin’ here, George?”

  “Heard the call on my police-band at home, recognized the address. Came over, wanted to make sure… make sure it wasn’t you.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Ain’t no thing.”

  “You in homicide now?”

  Dozier shook his head. “Doin’ an undercover thing.”

  “You can find shit out, though, right?”

  “I hear things, Marcus, yeah.”

  “Keep you ears open wide for me, man.”

  “You comin’ to church on Sunday?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “All right, then, Marcus. I’ll see you in church.”

  Clay sat in his chair at the desk where he did his paperwork in the backroom. Detective Farrelly sat on the edge of the desk. Farrelly held a lit filterless Chesterfield in one hand and a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee in the other.

  “Rasheed Adamson,” said Farrelly. “Good kid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Better than good, I’d say. He’s clean as hell. We checked him out.”

  “Rasheed was good all the way.”

  “No enemies, I guess.”

  “None.”

  “How about you?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Enemies. You got any?”

  “No.”

  “Wilton Cooper,” said Farrelly.

  Clay’s heart kicked. He tried to keep his face from twitching. “Say what?”

  Farrelly studied Clay’s face. “We found a handwritten note out there on the floor, right in the middle of a bunch of papers that had been blown off the counter. The note said that a Wilton Cooper had gone by Dimitri Karras’s mother’s house today, lookin’ for you. The same Karras who’s out there right now, right?”

&
nbsp; “That’s right.”

  “Just checking.” Farrelly cleared his throat. “The note was signed by Rasheed. I guess Karras’s old lady called the store.” Farrelly hotboxed his Chesterfield, stared down at Clay through his exhale. “So, Wilton Cooper. You know him?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “Yes. I don’t recognize the name. And I know he ain’t no friend of mine. Must be some salesman, or a bill collector, maybe, somethin’ like that.”

  “You got trouble paying your bills?”

  “Every small businessman I know’s got trouble with his payables.”

  “I’ll give you that.” Farrelly drained his coffee. “Well, we’ll check on this Cooper. See about priors, or if he’s got any outstanding paper on him. If Cooper comes up goose eggs, then it looks like we’re talking about a simple armed robbery gone wrong. The register and the cash box in the floor were emptied out. I assume you got insurance.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How much you normally keep in that box?”

  “Whatever the day’s take was.”

  “So what, a grand?”

  “Less on most days. Three, four hundred.”

  Farrelly breathed out slowly. “Well, the perps left plenty of prints, that’s for sure. Made a lot of noise, left a lot of prints, drove out of here like bats out of hell in a bright yellow car. We’re talkin’ to some witnesses right now. Funny, this crew didn’t seem to give two shits about leaving clues behind.”

  “You think you’ll get ’em, then.”

  “Hard to tell. The easy ones end up being hard, and the hard ones sometimes go the other way.” Farrelly put his hand on Clay’s shoulder. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “The forensics guy out there, Snipes, he was lookin’ at you when you IDed Rasheed. Noticed how unemotional you were. Pointed it out to me when I was getting my coffee, like it meant something. Like maybe you were involved. An insurance scam, something like that. I didn’t answer him because I knew he wouldn’t understand. Snipes was never in the service.”

  “So?”

  “You were.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “I was in the Big One myself. And my son did a tour of Nam. You get so’s you can look at a man and tell if he’s served or not. Fellow your age, that would place you in Vietnam. Am I right?”