Soul Circus

by George Pelecanos

  “Some man matching your description,” said Blue, “talked to a neighbor of Olivia’s at her old address. He used some ruse about being a football coach, called himself Will Sonnet. Like that old TV show with Walter Brennan. You know, ‘No brag, just fact.’ ”

  “She came forward, huh?” said Strange.

  “Soon as she saw on the TV news that they found the Elliot woman,” said Blue.

  “Nice to know we got some good citizens out there.”

  “I figured that was you.”

  “And you told the son that his mother had won a raffle,” said Grady, addressing Quinn.

  “Yes,” said Quinn.

  “Tricky.”

  Quinn ignored the editorial remark. “How’d he connect me?”

  “The boy got a partial on your plates.” Grady stared at Quinn for a moment, then looked down at a small lined pad, where he tapped his pen. When he looked back up at Quinn he said, “You were a patrol cop here in Four D, weren’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  Next thing you’ll tell me I look familiar, but you already know who I am. I’m the cop that shot that other cop two years ago. Never mind that I was cleared. All of you will never forget. And now I’m private, a joke, tricking kids so that I can get their mothers killed. The opposite of what a cop does. Why don’t you just say it so we can move on?

  “We had no reason to think we were going to cause that woman any harm,” said Strange.

  “True,” said Grady.

  “Mario Durham looked less than harmless.”

  “I appreciate your cooperation on this. I really do.”

  “Anything we can do to help.”

  Strange knew Grady by reputation and by sight, a tall man with gray-blond hair and ice blue eyes, looked like an older version of that Scandi actor, played in the later Walking Tall movies, Bo something. Blue said that Grady was all right. Odd, but all right. He was known to keep crime-scene photos of victims mounted on the walls of his apartment, where he lived alone. Cops who’d been by his place described them: There was one of a young man lying on his back on a Capitol Hill street, his hands still tented in prayer from before he had been shot. Another showed a woman who had hung her cat from the basement pipe, then hung herself beside it. That one was framed above the mantel. Outsiders would say that Grady was disturbed to keep such photos on display. Cops knew that this was Grady’s way of dealing with his job.

  “Y’all are positive it was Mario Durham who killed her, right?” said Strange.

  “As positive as you can be. He left prints all over the apartment and her car. His prints were on her car keys, the shower curtain he wrapped her in, everything.”

  “Any idea on motive?” said Strange.

  Grady shrugged. “They found cash between her mattress and box spring. There was marijuana in there, too, looked like it might have been a little more quantity than for personal use. Mario’s got a connection to a dealer—”

  “What connection?” said Quinn.

  “I’m gonna get to that,” said Grady. “So maybe this had something to do with a drug debt unpaid. Or it was one of those crimes of passion. The way you described him, Mario must have been a real player.”

  “How’s the son doing?” said Quinn.

  “He’s staying with his uncle, William Elliot. It’s where he was when she was killed, and why she wasn’t reported missing right away. The way I understand it, the arrangement’s going to be permanent. The uncle’s about as straight as they come. A government employee, married, secure. Doesn’t tolerate knuckleheads or any kind of foolishness. Loved his sister but hated her lifestyle, all that.”

  “Sounds like a really fun guy,” said Strange.

  “Let’s be honest,” said Grady. “The boy’s never gonna get over the death of his mother. But from my point of view, he’s going to have a more secure environment now than he had before.” Grady’s eyes went from Strange’s to Quinn’s. “I’m not tryin’ to make you two feel good about yourselves, either. Just giving you my opinion.”

  Strange nodded. “You get anything from Durham’s cell number yet?”

  “Nothing yet,” said Grady. “If he uses it, we’ll get a trace. If he’s smart, he’s destroyed the phone by now, or dumped it somewhere to throw us off.”

  “He’s not smart,” said Quinn.

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to find him, either,” said Strange.

  “You’d think it’d be easy, even if he did move from place to place. And you know he’s not going far. Anacostia’s a small town. Talk to his mother, find out who he hangs with, all that. But there’s this connection he’s got, the one I was mentioning before.”

  “Go ahead,” said Strange.

  “Mario’s younger brother is a guy named Dewayne Durham. Leads a gang called the Six Hundred Crew. Marijuana sales, primarily, with cocaine in the mix. Dewayne’s got priors, was a suspect in several murders in his younger days, the typical profile. He’s the big Magilla in his corner of the world.”

  “So nobody’s gonna flip on his brother,” said Quinn.

  “Exactly,” said Grady.

  “You bring Dewayne in?” said Strange.

  “Yeah,” said Grady. “He gave us jack shit.”

  A brief silence fell.

  “The gun he used is in the river right now, I expect,” said Strange.

  “No,” said Grady. “Here’s where it gets interesting. You guys hear about that quadruple homicide in Southeast last night?”

  “I read about it in the Metro section this morning,” said Strange. “They withheld the names of the victims.”

  Grady leaned forward and issued a joyless show of yellowed teeth, meant to be a smile. “One of the guns used in the shooting was the same gun Mario used to shoot Olivia Elliot.”

  “What the fuck?” said Quinn.

  “How’d you get that so quick?” said Strange.

  “There was an alert officer on the crime scene, remembered the caliber of the murder gun in the Elliot case. They sent one of the slugs and a casing out and ran them through the IBIS program, you know, with the ATF?”

  “IBIS?” said Quinn.

  “Inter Ballistics ID System,” said Grady. “You been away.”

  “Not too long.”

  “The slug from the shooting matched the slugs taken out of Olivia Elliot. A Taurus thirty-eight. It wasn’t just the same model of gun. The markings made it as the same exact piece.”

  “Keep talking,” said Strange.

  “Two of the victims of the shooting were known employees of Dewayne Durham. Jerome Long and Allante Jones. Allante. Christ, someone named their kid after a Cadillac, you believe it? And not even one of the good Caddies.”

  “And?”

  “One of them used the Taurus before he died.”

  “Who’d he use it on?” said Quinn.

  “Jeremy Coates. He and his cousin James worked for a rival dealer, this fat cat named Horace McKinley.”

  McKinley. Strange’s blood ticked through his veins. James and Jeremy Coates owned the beige Nissan that had been tailing him the past two days; Janine had gotten him the information from her MVA contact after Quinn had taken their plate numbers off the 240.

  “Funny,” said Grady. “Right?”

  “If all else fails,” said Strange, “I guess you can follow the gun.”

  “Oh, we’re already on that. We did a trace, the ATF again, God love ’em. The serial number was still on there, which tells us the gun came from a pro middleman. It was purchased in a gun store down in Virginia, way down off Route 1, called Commonwealth Guns. It’ll be a straw buy, we’re pretty sure. Probably went to an intermediary dealer who works the District. Anyway, we’re looking into it.”

  “So the gun sale was legit,” said Quinn.

  “Most likely. Purchased at an FFL—that’s federal firearms licensee to you, Quinn. Since you been away so long.”

  “And that makes it legal?”

  “Legal, not moral. But so what? Legal’s enough. H
ard to stop straw buys, anyway, even if you wanted to. Sixty percent of the crime guns recovered in D.C. come from legitimate stores in Maryland and Virginia. In Virginia you can buy a gun, do an instant background check, and walk out of the store, that day, with the gun in your hand. Nice, huh?”

  “If you’re buying a gun for protection or sport, then it makes sense,” said Quinn. “So I guess it depends on how you look at it.”

  “Maybe you ought to ask Olivia Elliot’s son,” said Grady. “How he looks at it, I mean.”

  “Anything else?” said Lydell Blue, cutting the tension that had come to the room.

  “Yeah,” said Grady. “Anything else you two can tell me?”

  “I’ve given you everything, I think,” said Strange.

  But he hadn’t mentioned Donut, Mario’s friend. He and Quinn had agreed: They were saving that bit of information for themselves.

  “You think of anything else, let me know,” said Grady, pushing two business cards across the table. “I’ve got to get down to the substation in Six D. They just brought Dewayne in for another go-round. I wanna see his face when we tell him about the gun.”

  “If I run into Mario,” said Strange, sliding his own card in front of Grady, “I’ll mention you’re looking for him.”

  “Oh, I’ll probably run into him first.”

  The two men smiled cordially and shook hands at they stood.

  “Where you off to?” said Blue.

  “Running down to check on the Granville Oliver trial,” said Strange.

  “Another solid citizen,” said Grady. Strange didn’t respond.

  “I talk to you a minute?” said Blue.

  Strange nodded as Quinn and Grady left the room.

  “Anything more on that break-in last night?” said Blue.

  “I don’t expect I’ll be hearing anything,” said Strange. “It was a professional burglary. I’m not gonna let it interfere with what I’m doin’.”

  Blue stroked his thick gray mustache. “You mean you’re not going to take the warning.”

  “I’ve pretty much decided I’m just gonna keep doing my job.”

  “You can’t fight the government, if that’s who it is.”

  “True,” said Strange. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

  Strange and Blue, friends for thirty-some-odd years, shook hands.

  Quinn was waiting for Strange out in the hall. They took the stairwell down to the first floor.

  “Interesting meeting,” said Quinn.

  “I’m thinking about it,” said Strange.

  Strange’s Caprice was beside Quinn’s Chevelle in the lot behind the station. Strange motioned for Quinn to come with him.

  “Where we headed?” said Quinn.

  “Gotta get myself lookin’ right first. Then the office, then downtown.”

  “We’re gonna need two cars today. You and me got different things planned.”

  “We’ll pick yours up later. We’re swinging back up here for our lunch appointment anyway.”

  They settled onto the front bench of the Caprice.

  “That Grady guy,” said Quinn, “he’s the one keeps death photos, like art or something, hanging in his crib.”

  Strange turned the ignition. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “Man looks like that actor played in Walking Tall. Not Joe Don Baker. Parts two and three, I mean. The ones that sucked.”

  “Bo something or other,” said Strange.

  “Derek?”

  “Funny.”

  “It’s Svenson, dude.”

  “That’s it. Damn.” Strange pulled out of the lot. “Was killing me, looking at Grady across that table. I just could not remember that cat’s name.”

  STRANGE had his hair cut and his beard trimmed at Hawk’s, then walked to the office, where he met Quinn, who had been making some calls and gathering equipment and files. Greco greeted Strange as he entered the storefront, settling back onto his red cushion after receiving a rub on the head. Lamar Williams was up on a ladder, changing a fluorescent bulb, and Janine was seated behind her desk, tapping the keyboard of her computer.

  “Good morning,” said Janine. “You look nice.”

  “My neck itches,” said Strange, picking up his messages off Janine’s desk. “I’ll be right back out.”

  In his office, Strange looped his belt through the sheath of his Buck knife and retrieved a sand-filled sap from his top desk drawer. He slipped the sap into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled his shirttail out to cover it. He made a phone call, then grabbed some files and other items, and went back out to the front of the shop.

  “Here you go,” said Janine, handing him a PayDay bar, his favorite snack. “In case you miss a meal.”

  “Thank you, baby,” said Strange. “Stick to your desk if you can today. I’m gonna need to keep in contact with you, hear?”

  Strange looked up to Lamar, on the top step of the ladder.

  “What’s goin’ on, boss?” said Lamar.

  “What’s goin’ on with you?”

  “Keepin’ this place clean. Taking care of my mother and my baby sister. Studying for my final tests. Same old same old.”

  “Were you studying for your tests when I saw you walkin’ down Georgia toward the Black Hole the other night?”

  “Dag, Mr. Strange, you got eyes everywhere? I was just checking out some go-go they had up in there, wanted to see if I could run into this girl I wanted to get to know. I’m allowed to have some fun, ain’t I?”

  “Long as you take care of that other stuff you claim you’re doing, too.”

  “I am.”

  “You keep it up, then.”

  Quinn got up from his chair, a file in one hand and a fresh pack of sugarless gum in the other.

  “Can I get one of them Extras, Terry?” said Lamar.

  Quinn handed Lamar a stick of gum. “You ready, Derek?”

  Strange nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Out on the street, walking to Strange’s car, Quinn said, “You’re a little rough on him, aren’t you?”

  “He thinks I am now,” said Strange. “When he’s older and he understands what I was trying to do, he’ll think of me different.”

  “The kid’s trying, Derek.”

  “I know he is,” said Strange. “Lamar’s good.”

  ON the way downtown they stopped at the offices of One Kid, One Congregation, below Massachusetts Avenue, where Strange had made a short introductory appointment with Father John Winston, the nonprofit’s director. Winston was a former police officer, now a minister, out of a large metropolitan area in the Midwest, who had brought his program to D.C. Strange talked with Winston briefly in the office and knew right away that he liked the man and what he was trying to do. Both were ex-cops, so there was that connection as well.

  Back in the Caprice, Strange drove down toward 3rd and Constitution.

  “What was that about?” said Quinn.

  “Robert Gray,” said Strange.

  “That boy you inherited from Granville Oliver.”

  “He’s in a bad place right now. I’m gonna try and get him into this program, where a church kind of adopts a kid. It’s a citywide thing, and I’ve heard it works. Might be just what Robert needs. This guy Winston, he’s started a similar program for addicts here, too.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “If I can swing it, we’ll get him into a family up near us, so we can have him on the football team, too.”

  Quinn looked at his friend across the bench. “Derek Strange, always looking to save the world.”

  “A kid or two, maybe,” said Strange. “That would be enough for me.”

  chapter 24

  STRANGE and Quinn entered courtroom 19, where the Oliver trial was in progress, after a thorough security check. The heads of a few spectators and several law enforcement types turned as they walked in and took their seats. Strange and Quinn did not return their stares.

  Judge Potterfield, rotund and jowly, had asked attorneys from bo
th sides to approach the bench for a consultation. Phillip Wood, sharply dressed and freshly shaved, was on the stand. Granville Oliver sat placidly, his stun belt beneath his blue suit, staring at Wood through nonprescription glasses.

  The prosecution’s questions for Wood resumed. His testimony had been rehearsed and came off that way. It could have been recorded as a primer for the life, D.C.-style, complete with name checks of familiar clubs, go-go bands, motels, skating rinks, favorite models of automobile, brands of champagne, Calico autos and AK-47s. Wood was asked about Bennett Oliver, and if Granville had ever discussed killing his uncle or having him killed.

  “Granville told me he suspected his uncle Bennett was gettin’ ready to flip to the Feds,” said Wood. “They had his uncle talkin’ about a buy on a wiretap and they were gonna send him up. Granville thought his uncle was gonna cut a deal.”

  “What were Granville’s thoughts about that?” said the prosecutor.

  “Objection,” said Ives. “Mr. Wood’s interpretation of the defendant’s thoughts calls for speculation.”

  “I’ll rephrase, your honor. Did Granville Oliver ever say that he would in any way try to stop his uncle from talking to federal agents?”

  “He said it was time for Bennett to be got.”

  “To be got?” said the prosecutor.

  “To be killed. Next thing I heard, Bennett Oliver was dead.”

  “I see.” The prosecutor paused for effect and softened his tone. “Do you love Granville Oliver, Mr. Wood?”

  “Yes,” said Phillip Wood, looking straight at Oliver. “That’s my main boy right there. I love Granville like my own blood.”

  Oliver’s expression remained flat and unreadable.

  Judge Potterfield called a short break in the proceedings. Strange caught the eye of Raymond Ives, Oliver’s primary defense attorney, and head-motioned him to follow.

  Strange and Quinn met Ives, immaculate and trim in a William Fox pinstripe, outside the courthouse. They stood on the sidewalk of Constitution where the bus and car sounds would serve to mute their conversation. A man who looked like a federal cop watched them, standing near the building’s front steps among the cigarette smokers, not smoking himself.