What It Was

by George Pelecanos

  The man sitting on the folding chair was bold behind his drink and did not take his eyes off Jones as the tall man took long strides over the sidewalk. Jones pushed on the front door of Soul House and stepped inside.

  The doorman, a fat man named Antoine, took in Jones, strapped with double automatics, standing in the entrance area, surveying the space. Antoine had crossed paths with Jones once before.

  “You can’t bring that iron in here,” said Antoine weakly, and then thought better of his tone. “Sayin, you shouldn’t.”

  Jones didn’t reply. Instead, he scanned the low-lit room. He focused on the back of a man seated at the bar. The man turned his head to talk to the girl beside him, revealing his fucked-up beak.

  The jukebox was playing an old song, a soul thing by some blue-gum singer from out the South. Jones did not hear it. The song in his head was new, like one of those soundtrack songs they played in the movies he’d seen at the Republic, the Langston, the Senator, and the Booker T. The song in his head had one of those scratchy guitar riffs, wacka-wacka-wacka-wak, and a female vocal, the girl speaking, not singing, almost with a breathy kind of whisper. And now Red Jones was in the movie, crossing the barroom floor, people murmuring, moving out his way. Nearing Williams, he stopped and stood behind him. Jones could hear music and the lyrics, which went

  Red Fury, he’s the man

  Try and stop him if you can

  and Jones cross-drew his guns. He said, “Long Nose,” and as Roland Williams swiveled his barstool around, a look of sad resignation came upon his face, and Jones fired both of his .45s. The Colts jumped in his hands, and the girl beside Williams screamed as gunshots thundered in the room and the blood of Williams speckled her. Williams, leaded multiple times, toppled off his stool and fell, dead as JFK, to the floor.

  Jones’s ears were ringing some. A few patrons had backed off into the shadows and some were outright cowering, their arms wrapped around themselves, their chins tucked into their chests. Othella, the girl next to Williams, was frozen where she sat, her vanilla-colored slacks darkened at the crotch with urine. Gerard the bartender had raised his hands without being asked to, and they were shaking. Jones, guns still in hand, turned around and walked away. Antoine the doorman was no longer at his post, and Gerard watched Jones through the gun smoke as he pushed on the door and left the bar.

  Out on 14th Street, Jones got into the passenger seat of the Fury.

  “Everything all right?” said Coco.

  “Straight,” said Jones. His eyes were bright as he looked at his woman. “I wrote a song about me while I was in there. Call it my ‘Ballad of Red.’ ”

  “For real.”

  “Need to work on it some. But yeah.”

  Coco pulled off the curb and drove north. The juicer sitting outside Soul House watched the red Plymouth cruise away. The big-haired lady behind the wheel had left no rubber on the road. Didn’t seem to him like she was in any kind of hurry at all.

  That night, for days to come, and into the years, the man in the folding chair and the patrons and employees of the bar would talk about the event that had just gone down. The details would change, the roles of the witnesses would get inflated, and the story would grow to legend fueled by drama, exaggeration, and outright fabrication.

  Red Jones had earned his myth.

  NEWS OF the Soul House shooting spread quickly and soon reached the Third District headquarters, where Vaughn had booked Clarence Bowman for firearms violations and secured him in a holding cell. The jail was crowded that evening, as welfare checks had recently hit the street. The sudden infusion of cash into the city initiated an increase of alcohol and drug use, which led to incidents of mayhem and domestic violence.

  Bowman shared a cell with several men, some who would be arraigned shortly on serious offenses. One of the men was a doe-eyed alcoholic named Henry Arrington, in on a public drunk charge, who would be released the next morning. Bowman immediately marked Arrington as the crippled calf of the bunch. He cut Arrington from the herd, took him aside, and had a quiet but firm talk. Spoke slow, ’cause Arrington was a little off his ass on alcohol. Asked Arrington who he loved the most in this world, and Arrington said his grandmother. He then told Arrington that he would find his grandma and murder her if Arrington did not do exactly as Bowman said. Didn’t matter if Bowman was going to be incarcerated for the next five, ten, or twenty years. When he got out, he would kill her dead and then he would do Arrington for fun. Bowman, of course, didn’t off innocents, and it gave him no pleasure to make these threats, but he felt he had to do so in the interest of time.

  “Here’s the phone number,” said Bowman, and had Arrington say it back to him several times.

  Vaughn had been summoned to another meeting with Lieutenant David Harp back in Harp’s office. This one was less cordial than the last. The brazen nature of the Soul House burn had put Harp over the edge. As the lieutenant spoke, veins stood out like hot wires on his neck. The message was clear: Red Jones was on a murderous crime spree in the city and it was Vaughn’s responsibility to put it to an end. His shield depended on it. Vaughn knew the threat was bullshit, but it angered him to hear it just the same.

  Vaughn returned to his desk to retrieve a fresh deck of L&Ms before heading down to the crime scene on 14th. From back in the holding cells, Vaughn could hear Clarence Bowman’s agitated shouts, nonsense declarations strung together somewhat randomly: “I’m not me! I’m not myself today! My stomach hurts! I gotta make some dookie! Tellin y’all, I gotta take a shit!”

  On the way out the door, Vaughn got up with the sergeant, Bill Herbst, who was on desk duty.

  “What’s Bowman’s malfunction?” said Vaughn.

  “He’s been screaming his black ass off for the last fifteen minutes,” said Herbst with a shrug.

  “Sorry to leave him with you, Billy. I gotta get outta here.”

  “We’ll deal with it, Hound Dog.”

  Vaughn, usually cool, now visibly shaken, lit a cigarette and tossed the match on the floor. The sergeant watched him go.

  In his cell, Bowman dropped his slacks around his ankles, squatted, and shat loudly and voluminously on the concrete floor. What he did next caused alarm and activity, and sent his cell mates scattering to the farthest reaches of the iron cage. Some yelled for their jailers to get them out of there, and one hardened criminal puked up his dinner. Bowman had scooped up a handful of his bowel movement and put it into his mouth.

  Bowman wasn’t crazy. He was logical. It was easier to bust out of St. Elizabeth’s than it was the D.C. Jail.

  LOU FANELLA and Gino Gregorio had sat on Coco Watkins’s house for hours. Tired and frustrated, they returned to the room of their motor lodge in Prince George’s County, took naps, got up out of bed, changed into rayon print sport shirts and no-belt slacks, and found a place on Kenilworth that served Mexican.

  “This joint stinks,” said Fanella, shaking his head as he took the last bite of his enchilada platter. “What’s the name of this shithouse again?”

  “Mi Casa,” said Gregorio.

  “Me Caca is more like it.”

  Gregorio noted that Fanella had cleaned his plate as thoroughly as a dog would tongue-polish its bowl, but Fanella told him he was only getting his money’s worth. He also told Gino to shut his mouth.

  Fanella suggested they find some women. He was a man with elemental needs.

  He phoned their boy, Thomas “Zoot” Mazzetti, who told him where they could buy some tail. Fanella didn’t want to spend much, wasn’t interested in those overpriced escort services, and anyway, those stuck-up gals weren’t any fun. Zoot said the 14th and U Street corridor still had women out on the stroll.

  “I don’t want no monkeys,” said Fanella.

  “Don’t worry, Lou,” said Zoot. “They got white snatch down there, too.”

  Fanella and Gregorio got into the Lincoln and headed into the city. Reaching their general destination, they pulled over on 14th and let the Continental idle. Fanella re
sted his smoking-hand on the lip of the open driver’s-side window as he had a look at the scene.

  They were in a commercial and residential district gone to seed. There weren’t a whole lot of straight citizens out, but there was life. People moving about furtively in the darkened doorways of shuttered businesses, heroin addicts, pushers, hookers, a guy dressed outrageously in a purple suit and hat, the Halloween version of a pimp. They had both noticed the unusual number of police cars cruising the area, too.

  “We shouldn’t stay too long, Lou,” said Gregorio.

  “Relax,” said Fanella. “Here comes somethin now.”

  A black girl, low to the ground and tarted up, approached their car.

  “You datin tonight, sugar?” she said, her hand on the roof of the Lincoln as she leaned in.

  “We got something specific in mind.”

  “You police?”

  “No.”

  “You want black girls, right?”

  “White girls,” said Fanella, holding up two fingers. He dragged on his cigarette and blew some smoke in her direction.

  “Wait up,” said the girl sourly.

  A few minutes later two young white girls in their late teens walked down the sidewalk. One wore short shorts and a scoop-neck shirt with a glittery star on it stretched tight across her full chest. Her hair was on the orange side of blond. The other one was skinny, small-breasted, brunette, and wore a miniskirt and V-neck top.

  “I know which one you want,” said Fanella with a smile. Gino liked them slim to bony.

  “So?”

  “She looks like a boy.”

  The girls reached their car. Neither of them lived in the neighborhood of pretty, but they would do.

  The one who had the woman’s body looked down at Fanella. “You two datin?”

  “Yeah, and we’re not police. Get in the car.”

  “Don’t you want a room?”

  “I don’t do whorehouses. We got a place. Let’s go there and party.”

  “Me and my friend don’t have that kind of time.”

  “I’ll pay for your time. Get in.”

  The girls opened the suicides and climbed into the Lincoln. Fanella asked them their names, and the one who was doing all the talking said hers was April. The skinny trick called herself Cindy.

  “I’m Lou and this is Gino.”

  “You got anything to drink, Lou?”

  “Liquor and setups.”

  “I like rose-A. Cindy does, too.”

  “We’ll get some wine, then.”

  “How ’bout a little blow to go with it?” said April.

  “What do I look like, Rockefeller?”

  “C’mon, Lou, let’s have some fun.”

  After some negotiation, they agreed on a price. April had Fanella drive to a nearby row house on T and told him to keep the Lincoln running while she went inside. She returned a few minutes later with the eager, optimistic look of a coke addict who has just copped.

  Fanella drove east as Gregorio found a radio station that April and Cindy liked. A hit song was playing, and the girls sang along to the title refrain every time it came around.

  “ ‘Alone again’…” sang April.

  “… ‘Naturally,’ ” sang Cindy and April in unison, and both of them laughed.

  It was annoying, but Fanella did not tell them to knock it off. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, and that was all right with him. After all, they weren’t much more than kids.

  STRANGE SHOWERED, dressed in a nice slacks-and-shirt arrangement, and picked up Carmen at her apartment off Barry Place, near the playing fields across from Howard University. Carmen wore a simple, flattering minidress with hoop earrings. Her makeup was understated and just right. When she got into the passenger bucket of his Monte Carlo, they kissed. Pulling back, her eyes dimmed somewhat as she said, “You smell sweet.”

  “I cleaned myself up real good for you, girl,” said Strange, his voice sounding unconvincing to his own ears.

  He told her to find something on the radio, and she dialed it over to WOL. The station was spinning light tunes that women liked when they were alone and men and women liked to listen to when they were together. “Betcha by Golly, Wow,” by the Stylistics, “Lean on Me,” by Bill Withers, the 5th Dimension’s “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All.” It was like the DJ knew that they were on a date. Strange drove west, windows down, a nice pre-summer night in D.C., Carmen humming along to the music, somewhat distant maybe, but seemingly content.

  Strange went to the big lot off 16th Street at Carter Barron and found a space near the amphitheater set in the woods of Rock Creek Park. He and Carmen walked with the moving crowd of stylishly dressed black Washingtonians down an asphalt path, past the box office, and through the turnstiles, where Strange presented his tickets. They found their seats in the bowl, under a clear night showcasing stars. The amphitheater had been built on a slope, designed so that the sound would reach all spaces equally, and there were few undesirable seats in the house. Strange felt that there was no better outdoor venue in the city to watch a musical performance. He reached for Carmen’s hand.

  Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway had been students together at Howard, and Flack had played piano and sang for years at the Clyde’s bar, making them hometown heroes. Flack in particular received a raucous ovation as she took the stage, wearing one of several gowns she would change into during the show.

  The Carter Barron engagement had been booked and sold out for several consecutive nights. The evening’s program had Flack and Hathaway executing solo sets and also playing together. It was expected that they would do “Where Is the Love,” their number one single on the R&B charts, and when they launched into it, a great reception was issued from the overcapacity crowd.

  In truth, Strange was not much of a Roberta Flack fan. Her vibe was too soft for him, and though he would never tell Carmen, he felt it was music for females. But he found himself getting into her performance. She had an accomplished group of musicians backing her up, and her man on guitar, Eric Gale, doled out some tasty licks. Strange had seen Hathaway at the Ed Murphy’s Supper Club, where he played often, and he put Donny’s debut album, Everything Is Everything, in the category of classic. When Hathaway got down on the ivories during his intro to “The Ghetto,” the house lit up.

  Strange waited with dread for the inevitable comedown of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” Flack had recorded it in ’69, but it caught chart fire when Eastwood put it in that movie of his, about the one-night stand gone way wrong. To Strange, it was one of the most lackluster songs ever to hit the charts. But Carmen liked it, so Strange never put it down in her presence. Flack was singing it now, one spotlight on her at the piano. There was a rapt, spiritual expression of attention on Carmen’s face.

  Strange looked around at the audience. Turning his head back toward the rear rows, he saw a big, rust-colored, misshapen Afro on a light-skinned man, and the large hair of the tall, overly made-up woman who sat beside him.

  Strange couldn’t believe that any man could be that bold. Still, he wondered.

  He put his mouth close to Carmen’s ear. “I gotta make a phone call.”

  “Okay.”

  Strange produced his wallet and gave Carmen a twenty-dollar bill. “Case I don’t come back…”

  “What?”

  “That’s for cab fare. They got taxis out in the lot. I’ll meet you back at your crib later on.”

  “For real, Derek? You gonna leave me here?”

  “I’m working a case.”

  “Not tonight you’re not.”

  “I’ll explain later on.”

  “You got plenty to explain,” she said.

  He had no time to ponder her words. He ignored the looks of reproach from the audience members seated around them and managed to get out of their aisle. Went up the steps between the rows and couldn’t help but look over at Jones, who was staring at him straight on. The dude knew no caution and had no fear.

&
nbsp; RED JONES had been suffering through that boring-ass song he’d heard on the radio when he saw a man with a thick mustache turn his head and study him from the center rows of the theater. Then watched as the man talked to his woman and got up out of his seat. He locked eyes with him as he walked up the steps. Dude had big shoulders on him and a chest. He looked like some kind of police.

  Red Jones turned to Coco. “I smell pig.”

  “Red, I’m tryin to hear Roberta.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “For real.”

  “Do I look like I’m playin?”

  They got up and took their time moving through the aisle. They were interrupting Flack’s dramatic performance and blocking the view of many, but no one had the balls to say a thing.

  STRANGE FOUND the pay phone up near the bathrooms. He dialed the Third District house, identified himself as a former police officer, and asked to speak to Vaughn. When told by the desk sergeant that Vaughn was out, Strange left a detailed message and suggested that any available units be sent to the amphitheater. Red Jones and Coco Watkins went past him, taking their time, taking long strides, without a glance in his direction. Strange saw no ring on Coco’s hand.

  As the two of them went out the gates, Jones stopped to light a cigarette for himself and one for his woman. To Strange, it didn’t look like either of them gave a good fuck about being recognized or anything else. But they were leaving, which meant that they knew they’d been made.

  Strange watched Jones and Watkins step off the asphalt path and walk directly into the darkness of the woods.

  Strange cradled the receiver. He saw a couple of private security guards talking and smoking by the front gates. He walked past them, exited the venue, and began to jog when he hit the lot, where his MC was parked under a light.