Soul Circus

by George Pelecanos

  “Can I get some of that Extra, Terry?” said Lamar.

  Quinn tossed a stick of gum to Lamar as he stepped out from behind his desk.

  “You ready?” said Strange.

  “Thought you two were gonna renew your vows or something,” said Quinn.

  Strange head-motioned to the front door. “We’ll take my short.”

  Janine watched them leave the office. Strange filled out that shirt she’d bought him, mostly cotton but with a touch of rayon in it for the stretch, with his broad shoulders and back. Her man, almost fifty-four, had twenty years on Terry, and still he looked fine.

  Coming out of the storefront, they passed under the sign hanging above the door. The magnifying-glass logo covered and blew up half the script: “Strange Investigations” against a yellow back. At night the light-box was the beacon on this part of the strip, 9th between Kansas and Upshur, a sidearm-throw off Georgia. It was this sign, Janine’s kidding aside, that was the landmark in Petworth and down into Park View. Strange had opened this business after his stint with the MPD, and he had kept it open now for over twenty-five years. He could just as well have made his living out of his row house on Buchanan Street, especially now that he was staying full-time with Janine and her son, Lionel, in their house on Quintana. But he knew what his visibility meant out here; the young people in the neighborhood had come to expect his presence on this street.

  Strange and Quinn passed Hawk’s barbershop, where a cutter named Rodel stood outside, dragging on a Newport.

  “When you gonna get that mess straightened up, Derek?” said Rodel.

  “Tell Bennett I’ll be in later on today,” said Strange, not breaking his stride.

  “They got the new Penthouse in,” said Quinn.

  “You didn’t soil it or nothin’, did you?”

  “You can still make out a picture or two.”

  Strange patted his close-cut, lightly salted natural. “Another reason to get myself correct.”

  They passed the butcher place that sold lunches, and Marshall’s funeral parlor, where the white Caprice was parked along the curb behind a black limo-style Lincoln. Strange turned the ignition, and they rolled toward Southeast.

  chapter 3

  ULYSSES Foreman was just about down to seeds, so when little Mario Durham got him on his cell, looking to rent a gun, he told Durham to meet him on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, up a ways from the Big Chair. Foreman set the meeting out for a while, which would give him time to wake up his girl, Ashley Swann, and show her who her daddy was before he left up the house.

  An hour and a half later, Foreman looked across the leather bench at a skinny man with a wide, misshapen nose and big rat teeth, leaning against the Caddy’s passenger-side door. On Durham’s feet were last year’s Jordans; the J on the left one, Foreman noticed, was missing. Durham wore a Redskins jersey and a matching knit cap, his arms coming out the jersey like willow branches. The back of the jersey had the name “Sanders” printed across it. It would be just like Durham, thought Foreman, to look up to a pretty-boy hustler, all flash and no heart, like Deion.

  “You brought me somethin’?” said Foreman.

  Durham, having hiked up the volume on the Cadillac’s system, didn’t hear. He was moving his head to that single, “Danger,” had been in heavy rotation since the wintertime. Foreman reached over and turned the music down.

  “Hey,” said Durham.

  “We got business.”

  “That joint is tight, though.”

  “Mystikal? He ain’t doin’ nothin’ J. B. didn’t do twenty years back.”

  “It’s still a good jam.”

  “Uh-huh. And PGC done played that shit to death.” Foreman upped his chin in the direction of Mario. “C’mon, Twigs, show me what you got.”

  Mario Durham hated the nickname that had followed him for years. It brought to mind Twiggy, that itty-bitty model who was popular from back before he was born. It was a bitch name, he knew. There wasn’t but a few men he allowed to call him that. Okay, there was more than a few. But Ulysses Foreman, built like a nose tackle, he sure was one of those men. Durham reached down into his jeans, deep inside his boxers, and pulled free a rolled plastic sandwich bag containing a thick line of chronic. He handed it across the bench to Foreman.

  Foreman’s pearl red 1997 El Dorado Touring Coupe was parked on MLK between W and V in Southeast. Its Northstar engine was quiet, and no smoke was visible from the pipes. Foreman didn’t like to tax the battery, so he was letting the motor run. He sat low on the bench, his stacked shoulders and knotted biceps filling out the ribbed white cotton T-shirt he’d bought out that catalogue he liked, International Male.

  Across the street, a twenty-foot-tall mahogany chair sat in the grassy section off the lot of the Anacostia Medical / Dental Center, formerly the sight of the Curtis Brothers Furniture Company. The Big Chair was the landmark in Far Southeast.

  “This gonna get me up?” said Foreman, inspecting the contents of the bag.

  “You know me,” said Durham. “You know how I do.”

  Foreman nodded, glancing in the rearview. A Sixth District cruiser approached, coming slowly from the direction of St. Elizabeth’s, the laughing house atop the hill. Foreman never worried. If he didn’t know the beat police in this part of town, then he could name-check some of their older fellow officers, many of whom he had come up with back in the late eighties, when he had worn the uniform himself in 6D. Being a former cop, still knowing existing cops, it was usually worth a free pass. Leastways it stopped them from searching the car. The cruiser went by and was soon gone from sight.

  Foreman reached under the seat and produced a Taurus 85, a five-shot .38 Special with a black rubber boot-shaped grip and a ported barrel. He handed it to Durham butt out, keeping it below the window line. Durham admired it in the morning sunlight streaming in from the east.

  “It’s blue.”

  “For real. Pretty, right?”

  “Damn sure is.”

  Durham turned it in the light, the barrel now pointed at Foreman. Foreman reached out and with the back of his hand moved the barrel so that it pointed down at the floor of the car.

  “It’s loaded?” said Durham.

  “You got to treat every gun like it’s live, boy.”

  “I hear you. But is it?”

  “Yeah, you’re ready.”

  Durham nodded. “When you want it back?”

  Forman weighed the plastic bag in his hand. “I say you rented about five days of strap right here.”

  “That’s a hundred worth of hydro in that bag. I coulda bought a brand-new three eighty for, like, ninety dollas.”

  “You talkin’ about a Davis? Go ahead and buy one, then. But give me back my real gun before you do.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “There you go then, little man. You want to ride in style, you got to pay.” Foreman pushed his hips forward to slip the bag into the pocket of his jeans. “What you need the gun for, anyway?”

  “Need to make an impression on someone, is all it is. Why?”

  “I can’t be fuckin’ with no murder gun, hear? You plan to blow someone up behind this shit, I got to know. ’Cause I can’t use no gun got a body attached to it. We straight?”

  Durham nodded quickly. “Sure. Do me a favor, though. Don’t be tellin’ my brother about you rentin’ me this gun.”

  “Why not?”

  “He might say somethin’ to our mother. I don’t want her stressin’ over me.”

  “I can understand that. We don’t need to be worryin’ your all’s moms.”

  Foreman had already decided that he would tell Dewayne Durham that he had rented a gun to his half brother, Mario. Dewayne might not like that, but it would be better if he knew up front. Foreman figured, what harm would it do? This miniature man right here wouldn’t have the courage to use the gun anyway. Foreman would have it back in five days, and he had some free hydro to smoke in the bargain. Didn’t seem to be any kind of problem to
it that he could see.

  They shook hands. Durham ended the ritual with a weak finger snap.

  “Let me get on back to Mer-land where I belong,” said Foreman.

  “I got an appointment I got to get to my own self.”

  “You need me to drop you somewheres close?” Foreman had no intention of driving Mario Durham anywhere, but he felt it made good sense to be polite, go through the usual motions and ask. Foreman’s business relationship with Dewayne Durham was on the rise.

  “Nah, I’m just down there around the corner.”

  “Awright, then,” said Foreman.

  “Aiight.”

  Durham dropped the pistol into the large pocket of his oversize jeans and stepped out of the car. He walked down the hill and cut left. Foreman watched him, wearin’ a boy’s-size Redskins jersey, a slip of nothing in his Hilfigers, hanging like some sad shit on his narrow ass. “I’m just down there around the corner”—that was some bullshit right there. Twigs didn’t own no car, or if he did it wasn’t nothin’ but a bomb. Most likely he was headed for the Metro station to catch a train to that appointment he had. Must be a real important date, too. Foreman had to admit, though, Mario Durham always did have some good chronic to smoke. Dewayne, a dealer over in Congress Heights, advanced him however much he wanted.

  Durham walked toward the Metro station in Barry Farms, passing hard-eyed boys on the sidewalk, thinking how different it felt when you had a gun in your pocket. Different on the physical tip, like he’d grown taller and put on fifty pounds of muscle. Lookin’ in those young boys’ narrowed eyes, thinking, Yeah, go ahead, fuck with me; I got somethin’ right here gonna make your eyes go wide. Having that .38 just touching his leg through the fabric of his Tommys, it made him feel like he had four more inches of dick on him, too.

  He’d catch a Green Line train and take it over the river to the Petworth stop. The man’s office, he’d seen the sign out front with the magnifying glass on it all those times he’d been to that titty bar they had across the street from it, on Georgia. His office, it wasn’t far from the station stop.

  Durham wondered, could the man in that office find Olivia? Because his kid brother wasn’t gonna wait much longer without taking some kind of action his own self. Sign out front claimed they did investigations.

  Strange Investigations.

  That’s what it said.

  chapter 4

  THERE it is right there,” said Quinn, pointing to the in-dash cassette deck in Strange’s Chevy.

  “He said ‘hug her.’ ” Strange sang the words: “ ‘Makes you want to love her, you just got to hug her, yeah.’ ”

  “ ‘You just got to fuck her,’ ” said Quinn. “That’s what the man’s sayin’. Rewind it and listen to it again.”

  They were on eastbound H Street in Northeast, where the sidewalks were live with pedestrian traffic, folks hanging out, and deliverymen moving goods from their curbed trucks to the shops. They passed a Murray’s Steaks, several nail salons and hair galleries, and a place called Father and Son Beer and Wine. Strange turned right on 8th and drove toward Southeast. He rewound the tape and the two of them listened again to the line in question.

  “There it is, man,” said Strange. “He said ‘hug her.’ ”

  “He said ‘fuck her,’ Dad.”

  “See, you’re focusing on the wrong thing, Terry. What you ought to be doing, on a beautiful day like this, is groovin’ to the song. This here is the Spinners’ debut on Atlantic. Some people call this the most beautiful Philly soul album ever recorded.”

  “Yeah, I know. Produced by Taco Bell.”

  “Thom Bell.”

  “What about those guys Procter and Gamble you’re always goin’ on about?”

  “Gamble and Huff. Point is, this is pretty nice, isn’t it? Shoot, Terry, you had to have—”

  “Been there; I know.”

  “That’s right. You take all those slow-jam groups from that period, the Chi-Lites, the Sylistics, Harold Melvin, the ballad stuff that EWF was doin’, and what you got is the most beautiful period of pop music in history. It’s like America got their own… they finally got their own opera, man.”

  Quinn turned up the volume on the deck. He chuckled, listening to the words. “Derek, is that what you mean by opera, right there?”

  “What?”

  “ ‘Makes a lame man walk… makes blind men talk about seein’ again.’ ”

  “Look, the song’s called ‘One of a Kind (Love Affair).’ Ain’t you never had the kind of love that could rock your world like that?”

  “When I was bustin’ a nut, maybe.”

  “That’s what I can’t understand about you young folks, Generation XYZ, or whatever you’re calling yourselves this week. Y’all ain’t got no romance in you, man.”

  “I had plenty in me last night.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Strange looked across the bench. “How’s Sue doin’, anyway?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Yeah, and she’s fine, too.”

  On M Street, Strange cut east. They took the 11th Street Bridge over the river and into Anacostia, bringing them straight onto Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

  The welcoming strip in this historic part of town was clean and carefully tended. Merchants swept the sidewalks outside their businesses, and the cars along the curb were late model and waxed. Commercial thinned out to residential as the Chevy began to climb the hill in the direction of St. E’s. Strange and Quinn drove by the Big Chair without remark. Farther up, on the left, Strange mentally noted the nice lines on a pretty red El Dorado parked along the curb. He loved the beauty of big American cars.

  “ ‘I Could Never Repay Your Love,’ ” said Strange, upping the volume on the deck.

  “Thank you, Derek,” said Quinn.

  Strange ignored him, settling low on the bench. He smiled as the vocals kicked in. “Just listen to this, man. Philippe Wynne really testifies on this one here.”

  STRANGE found Devra Stokes on their third stop. He had first gone to the Paramount Beauty Salon on Good Hope Road, where no one claimed to remember the girl. Strange checked his files, located in the trunk of his car: Janine had located Devra’s mother, Mattie Stokes, using the People Finder program on her computer. Strange found her, a tired-looking woman in her late thirties, at her place in the Ashford Manor apartments, down by the Walter E. Washington Estates off Southern Avenue. She informed Strange that her daughter was working in another beauty parlor on Good Hope Road, a block east of the Paramount.

  Quinn stayed in the car while Strange entered the salon. He went directly to an oldish woman, small as a child, whom he figured to be the owner or the manager. He told the hard-faced woman that he was looking for Devra Stokes and was pointed to a young lady braiding another woman’s hair. A little boy, no older than four, sat at the foot of the chair, playing with action figures and making flying noises as he moved the figures through the air. When the older woman told Devra that a man was here to see her, she glanced at him with nothing telling in her eyes and returned to her task at hand. Strange had a seat by the shop-front window and flipped through a copy of Essence magazine. The miniature woman he had spoken to was looking him over as if he had just come calling on her granddaughter with flowers, chocolates, and a packet of Trojan Magnums. He tried to ignore her and studied the photos of the models in the magazine.

  Ten minutes later Devra Stokes walked over to Strange and sat down beside him. Time and her environment had not yet bested her. She had almond-shaped, dark brown eyes and a wide, sensuous mouth.

  “You lookin’ to talk to me?”

  “Derek Strange.” He flashed her his license. “Investigator, D.C.”

  “This about Phillip and them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Knew y’all would be along.”

  “Will you speak with me?”

  “I can’t today. I got appointments.”

  “But you will?” Devra looked away. Strange gently touched her arm to bring her back. “Yo
u filed a brutality complaint against Wood.”

  “That was a while back.”

  “When the time came to take the stand, you changed your mind.”

  Devra shrugged and looked in the direction of the little boy, still playing beside the chair. Strange was certain that Phillip Wood had paid her to stay away from court. It was possible, also, that Wood had fathered her child. Wood would be put away forever, and with him any money he could provide to Stokes and her son. Strange was counting on her awareness that she’d been permanently dogged out. He hoped it burned her deep.

  “I just need some background information,” said Strange. “Chances are you won’t have to testify.”

  “Like I say, I can’t talk now.”

  “Can I get up with you here?”

  “Where else I’m gonna be?” said Devra, looking down at her shoes.

  “What time you get off today?”

  “About five, unless my clients run over.”

  “Your little boy likes ice cream, right?”

  “He likes it.”

  “How about I see you around five? We’ll find him some, and we’ll talk.”

  Devra’s eyes caught light and her mouth turned up at the sides. She was downright pretty when she smiled. “I like ice cream, too.”

  Course you do, thought Strange. You’re not much more than a kid yourself.

  AT the Metro station Strange idled the Caprice while Quinn passed out flyers to Anacostians rushing to catch their Green Line trains. The flyers were headed with the words “Missing and Endangered” and showed a picture of a fourteen-year-old girl that Sue Tracy, Quinn’s girlfriend, had been hired to find. Tracy and her partner, Karen Bagley, had a Maryland-based business that primarily took runaway and missing-teen cases. Bagley and Tracy Investigative Services also received grant money for helping prostitutes endangered by their pimps and violent johns. Quinn had first met Tracy when he agreed to take on a case of hers that had moved into D.C.