D.C. Noir

by George Pelecanos

  “Think about us with that money, Jackie,” she said. “We could get away, baby, far away.” It didn’t take her hand long to convince me

  “We can’t live without that money, Jackie.”

  “I don’t know how to get it.”

  “Find somebody who can.”

  I turned away from her.

  “Or I will,” she said, and drew her hand away.

  A couple of days later, I told her I knew a guy could take that money, you know, trying to impress her, like I was connected to more than a lousy paint brush. I dropped Michael Fannon’s name, a guy from my brother’s old gang.

  “Call him,” she said.

  I didn’t contact him right away, Michael wouldn’t remember me. I tried to ignore her. But she stayed after me. Call him. Call him. Call him.

  When I did, he didn’t know me, but then I mentioned Richie, and he pretended to remember me. I told him about Olivet, the chop shop, the money, and Jeanette. He got interested, fast.

  “Ripping off criminals works best,” he said. “Less chance getting caught, and they deal in cash. I’ll get back to you.” He hung up without a goodbye.

  He called me back a month or so later, on Friday night, my twenty-first birthday, April 5, the day after some cracker killed King in Memphis and the blacks set fire to the city.

  “Now’s the time,” he told me, “the cops got their hands full.”

  Jeanette and I had big plans for my birthday, but they went to hell like everything else when King got shot.

  “Come by anyway,” she told me on the phone, “we’ll do something.” She didn’t need to ask me twice.

  “Keep out of downtown,” Pop said when I left the house. He glued himself to the TV and muttered about the welfare sons-of-bitches burning his old stomping grounds.

  I drove Pop’s van to Jeanette’s apartment around 10:00. Her straight black hair shimmered in the hall light when she opened her apartment door. She wore a skirt the size of a hand towel. All her leg showed. Pink fuzz stood out from her sweater like she was electrified, and when she knew I was staring, she pulled the sweater down so tight I had to look away. A half-assed picnic dinner sat on her counter top, and she said we should go to McMillen Reservoir, park on Hobart, in front of Pop’s old place, and celebrate my birthday.

  “Forget about everything but us,” she said, and she got close to me and reached her hand around my ass.

  Pop was right, you can’t think below your belt.

  I figured the reservoir was safe. The blacks wouldn’t burn anything near Howard University. We found an empty spot in front of the house where Pop grew up, and parked. Jeanette pointed at the mirrored moon reflected on the reservoir.

  “Romantic,” she said. Compared to Edgewood Terrace, where she lived, and Michigan Park, where I lived, she was right. We hadn’t known much else.

  Jeanette piled Pop’s paint tarps flat on top of each other, covering the floor of the van, and tucked a clean sheet around the outside corners, like a real bed. She laid two pillows and an old quilt on top, then shed her clothes and stripped off mine. Pop’s van had no windows in the back. We crawled under the quilt. She pulled at me, impatient, wild, and when she was ready, she pushed me flat on my back and guided me inside her. She made me swear to do anything for her love. Swear. And swear. And swear.

  When we dressed, we sat in the front seat and rolled the windows down. An orange glow lit the sky above Howard. Smells, like fire jobs before new paint, drifted through the van. Smoke leeched from between Howard’s big brick buildings and rolled across 5th Street, smothering McMillen’s still surface like cemetery fog. I cracked two beers, lit a smoke and another off it, and clicked on the radio. I searched for that new Smokey Robinson song, but the shit going down all over the city screamed out on every station. I was wrong about Howard. 7th Street burned as hot as 14th.

  Jeanette’s eyes glazed over.

  “I got to get out of here” she said. “I’ll die here.” She waved her hand across the windshield. “We’ll all die here.” We stayed on Hobart until 4 a.m. The fires never went out, and I never mentioned Michael’s call.

  The next morning, Pop and I loaded the van for work, and he told me that Michael had called after I left. He wanted to know why Michael “that piece of shit jailbird” was calling after me. Pop made it real clear, when Richie enlisted, that he didn’t want to see any of Richie’s gang again.

  “What, that scumbag wants to sing you Happy Birthday?” Pop said.

  My only brush with crime, shoplifting from the five-and-dime on Monroe Street, had been dealt with swift and sure. One of the clerks, who had a crush on Richie, ratted me out. I was in third grade at Saint Gertrude’s.

  Richie beat my ass and said he’d do worse if he caught me again. From then on, my criminal activity stayed limited to stealing Pop’s change. High school ended and I signed on with Pop’s paint crew. A couple of years passed and Pop dumped his crew. From then on, it was just me and him and the sick smell of paint.

  I didn’t tell Pop that I’d called Michael first. Pop would never understand. I called Michael because I promised I’d do anything for her love. I hoped he’d never call back.

  But King got killed, the cops got busy, and Michael got hungry.

  “Perfect,” Jeanette said when I finally did tell her, “Olivet’s stashing more money than ever. He’s fencing for the looters. They been bringing stuff since they torched downtown. The safe under his desk is fat with cash.”

  “Where are the cops?” I said.

  “You think the squares from out in the burbs would come by at night shopping for their wives and girlfriends if cops were a problem? And Olivet keeps counting that money, alone, late, after midnight, when everybody’s stopped coming around. Big money, Jackie, for everything we want, and all the cops across the river.”

  I called Michael back and told him what Jeanette said, and about the alley that Pop and I used to get into Olivet’s back lot. Olivet’s lot filled the triangle between the train tracks and Kenilworth Avenue, where they almost collided, and stretched alongside the back fences of Deanwood’s gaso-line alley garages.

  “Smart girl,” he said. “I know her?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Deanwood’s a quiet place, street after street filled with squat brick and cinderblock duplexes, and none too nice apartments. Pop called Michigan Park a move up from Hobart Place. Nobody moved up to Deanwood, that was clear. The only single houses were country shacks thrown up by the colored farm boys who came looking for city jobs, money jobs. Everything looked beat.

  Olivet’s alley lay half hidden behind brush grown wild around the tracks. It dead-ended into Olivet’s back lot. He didn’t bother with a gate or fence. He wasn’t worried about keeping anybody out. I told Michael that the whole time Pop and I worked painting Olivet’s office, we never saw a soul use that alley, coming or going.

  “Tonight’s the night,” Michael said on Saturday when I got him on the phone, “the city’s still hot. Get the key from your girl and meet me at Chick Hall’s.” Honky-tonk whites gathered at Chick Hall’s Surf Club, a shitty storefront bar just over the line in P.G. County. Jeanette loved Chick Hall’s.

  I told her the plan and she handed me the key to Olivet’s back door. She kissed me on the mouth and said she knew the safe was full. Then her eyes narrowed and she asked, “When do I meet Michael?”

  “Hasn’t come up,” I said. I didn’t like how quick she was to ask that.

  “How about tonight, how about I ride with you to the meet? I’ll drive Pop’s van home and pick you up after it’s over.”

  “Michael might not go for it,” I said, hedging.

  She closed her fingers around my arm and pulled me tight to her. On tiptoes, she kissed me again and let my hands

  “C’mon, Jackie, we’ll have some fun later,” she said, and pushed me off, playing. Her fingertips grazed across my zipper. She was driving Pop’s van to Chick Hall’s that night around 11:00. She always got her way.

/>   On our way there, we passed a group of kids hanging out at the intersection of Bladensburg and South Dakota, in front of Highball Liquors, too late for kids so young to be out. They were yelling at each car passing by. I felt better. With cops around, no kids do that.

  When we turned through the light, the kid nearest my window screamed, “Honky!” He flipped me the finger and pumped his fist in the air. Jeanette pushed the gas a little harder.

  Chick Hall’s was near Peace Cross, in a strip of crummy stores on Bladensburg Road. Ten miles past Chick’s was all country.

  We pulled into the lot, behind the bar, and I glanced over at Jeanette. The glare from an alley streetlamp sprayed across her face. She slid the tip of her tongue between closed lips and moved her head side to side, searching the stretch of empty lots.

  She picked a spot next to the dumpster, in the darkest corner, and cut the engine. A dark sedan, hidden in the night shadows, blinked its lights once, and the doors sprung open. Michael and two strangers spilled out.

  Jeanette watched Michael lead his crew across the lot toward us. They looked like killers, dressed in black from head to toe. Jeanette licked her lips.

  “He’s handsome,” she said. She wouldn’t take her eyes off Michael, and leaned forward in her seat.

  “Michael said alone,” I reminded her. She looked at me like she’d forgotten who I was.

  “Does it matter?” she said. I wished my brother Richie was one of them. Jeanette jumped from Pop’s van, slammed the door, and propped herself against the front fender. I moved quick, to be by her side. Michael walked right up to us without saying a word. The two with him split apart and flanked us. Michael glanced at me, then nodded his head to the guy near my shoulder.

  “That’s Ray,” he said, and the guy’s face pinched togeth like a smile hurt him. Michael called the other guy his boy, and said his name was Dee. A thick rope of scar cut through Dee’s right eye.

  “You the smart girl?” Michael said to Jeanette. He moved closer like he might sniff at her, like some dog.

  “Maybe,” she said, “smart enough.” Michael’s eyes traveled from her ankles to her eyes.

  “Surprised I hadn’t noticed you before,” he said.

  “That’s okay, I’ll be around.”

  “Cut the shit, Romeo,” Ray said to Michael, “we got work to do.”

  A noise, like a laugh, came from Dee. Jeanette looked at Ray like I’d seen her look at bugs.

  “You got the key?” Michael said to me, but still stared at Jeanette. She reached into her pocket to retrieve it. Her jack t opened and she drew in a deep breath and pushed her breasts out. Michael didn’t miss a thing. She held the key between her thumb and index finger and extended her hand toward Michael. He held his hand still, palm up. When the key came close, he touched the side of her hand with his fingers, and she dropped the key.

  “Be careful,” she said. I wanted her talking to me, but she wasn’t.

  “Don’t worry,” Michael said.

  I sneaked my arm around Jeanette’s waist and pulled her closer to me. Michael didn’t blink. She couldn’t keep from staring.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  I tried to kiss Jeanette, but she tilted her face away, like she did with fresh makeup, and blew a kiss. I followed the three of them across the lot to the dark sedan.

  Michael tossed me the keys. He jumped in the front seat and motioned me behind the wheel. Ray perched in back. Dee stared at me from the rearview mirror. The scar jagged through his eye and left his eyeball milk-white, like a boiled egg. He shifted in the seat and the twin barrels of a sawed-off shotgun poked out between the buttons of his overcoat. He took his time covering them up.

  “See what you want, boy,” he said.

  Michael motioned me to start the car. “Do the speed limit and don’t run any lights.”

  “I thought you weren’t worried about cops,” I said.

  “I’m not. Just drive and shut the fuck up. I’ll do the thinking.”

  Pop called it right about Michael, he was no friend, but it was too late. Richie wasn’t around this time to bail me out. I took Bladensburg to Kenilworth heading toward the city, and passed commercial buildings and scrap joints left stranded on empty streets. I thought about Jeanette’s sweet lips against mine and mashed down on the gas.

  “Easy,” Ray said. Hot breath laced with stale booze pushed against the back of my ear. I let off the gas and he settled into the backseat. I scoped every intersection for law, but no cops were in sight.

  At the D.C. line, I turned off Kenilworth onto Eastern Avenue and headed into Deanwood. Before we came to the tracks, I turned right onto Olive Street and slowed down to a crawl. Olive dead-ended into Polk, and Olivet’s alley opened across the intersection. All the houses and apartments sat dark, like everyone had turned in, like real people, like Pop.

  I glanced again in the rearview mirror and saw Dee’s milk eye blink once, slow motion, then his good eye zeroed into mine. The shotgun lay across his thighs.

  “Eyes on the road,” Ray said, nudging me in the shoulder.

  We stopped at Polk, facing the alley. To the left, a walk-way disappeared under the tracks into a concrete tunnel, black from soot off the overhead trains. The last garage in gasoline alley was half a block to my right. The streetlights were out

  “Let’s go,” Michael said.

  I cut the lights and coasted across Polk onto the gravel alley. The night swallowed us up. I kept my foot off the gas, careful not to tap the brakes, afraid of the red glare. Loose stones grumbled beneath the sedan’s weight. The weeds from the tracks side of the alley swept against my side of the sedan, grabbing, like living things trying to hold me back.

  I steered a little closer to the fences that separated us from the garages. Nothing stirred.

  “There’s his light,” I said, and pointed ahead to the familiar white-washed building that appeared from the darkness like a ghost.

  “Stop here,” Ray said.

  I touched the brakes and winced, waiting for the red glare.

  “Ray disconnected the lights,” Michael said, and chuckled to himself. Ray said something about me under his breath.

  “Make a U-turn,” Michael directed. I looked up at the little patch of yellow light shining through the door that led to Jeanette’s and my future.

  “Face out the alley and keep the engine running,” Michael said, “we won’t be long.”

  I adjusted the rearview so I could watch the landing at the top of the metal stairs and the door with the light. Olivet’s Cadillac snugged close against the side of the building, hiding beneath the stairs.

  Michael swiveled in his seat and faced the others. Dee slipped a shell in each barrel and snapped the shotgun closed. The hair at my neck stood up. They lingered outside the car for a second, talking too soft for me to hear, then I watched them creep across the lot to the bottom of the stairs.

  I could’ve started the car and taken off. If I waited until they climbed the stairs and went inside, I could’ve hauled ass. They couldn’t stop me.

  But Jeanette wanted Olivet’s money, bad, and if I took off, she and I turned to shit. The air inside the sedan drew close, hot. I opened the window for relief. Don’t run, I repeated to myself, over and over.

  Michael led the way up the metal stairs. He held the key in his left hand, extended. A handgun dangled from his other, I could see the chrome. Ray raised his own gun. Dee followed, two steps behind, the sawed-off cradled against his chest.

  “Port arms,” Richie called it, when he showed off his army drills. He used a broomstick instead of a rifle, but Pop and I got the idea. Maybe Dee was in the army, maybe that’s how he got that scar. Maybe he knew Richie.

  Michael stopped at the last step, below the landing, and pushed the key into the lock. He lay flat against the building, hidden from the square of light in the door. When the door opened, they shoved inside.

  My hand reached for the shifter, I pumped the clutch once, but couldn’t put it
in gear. Not without Jeanette.

  I leaned across the seat to roll Michael’s window down, and a loud sound, like a cannon, exploded the night. I buried myself into the seat, low, and peeked over the back to see out the rear window. Michael burst through the door at the top of the landing and charged down the flight of metal stairs. A bulging sack swung from his gunless hand. Ray came right behind him, fast, and Dee so close he nearly fell over Ray. All three hit the drive running and moved across the lot toward me.

  The smell of burnt gunpowder came off them when they piled into the sedan.

  “Go, go, go!” Michael yelled, and I punched the gas. We lurched down the alley, tires squealing, and left rubber on Polk where the gravel drive ended. I took a screeching left, and pulled on the headlights.

  “Take Kenilworth,” Michael said, and I smashed the gas pedal to the floor. Dee broke the sawed-off open and dumped the cartridges into his hand. He caught me watching him in the rearview.

  “Mind your business, boy,” he said. Michael and Ray stared out their side windows, unsmiling, nodding their heads slow, like they were in a trance.

  Thoughts of Jeanette raced through my brain during the ride to Chick’s. Olivet’s money. Her money. Fuck the money. All I cared about was Jeanette. She loved me, not the money.

  Jeanette was waiting for us in Pop’s van. The lots were empty. She’d parked in the same spot beside the dumpster. I pulled in next to her.

  She slunk out of the van into the glare of our headlights. Her skirt hiked up and showed the whites of her thighs. I climbed out of the sedan fast, but she looked right past me, even as I moved beside her.

  “How’d it go?” she asked Michael.

  “Why you asking him?” I said.

  “Good.” Michael held up the fat sack.

  He didn’t look at anyone but Jeanette when he spoke. He handed her the sack and she unrolled the top and looked inside. She touched the sleeve of Michael’s coat.

  “They shot him,” I said, grabbing at her attention, and Ray told me to shut the fuck up. I lost Dee behind me in the shadow of the dumpster.

  Jeanette glanced at me, but spoke to Michael. “You shot Olivet?” She sounded pissed, like Michael had deliberately disobeyed.