01 The Big Blowdown

by George Pelecanos

  You never learn, do you, sweetheart? You shoulda asked me for those things a half-hour ago, when all the blood had left my brain and gone down to my dick. I would’ve said yes to anything then.

  “Let me think it over, Eleni. I mean, we just moved into this two-bedroom, and things are kind of tight.”

  “Okay. We’ll talk it over later.”

  Karras kissed Eleni on the side of her mouth, got his topcoat from out of the closet, shook it on. He picked up a deck of cigarettes from the table by the door, slipped them and a book of matches into the topcoat’s side pocket.

  “See ya later, sweetheart.”

  “Oh, Pete, I almost forgot.” Eleni moved in the direction of the icebox.

  “Ah, no.”

  “Just run this around the corner to your mom.” Now she had pulled a tray from the icebox and was moving toward him. “It’s some of that pastitsio we had last night.”

  “What do I look like, some kind of delivery boy? You see some kind of paper hat on my head?”

  “Pete, don’t get sore about it.” She put the tray into his hands. “And say ‘hi’ to your mom.”

  Karras took the tray and the empty bottles and left the apartment. He dropped the bottles in a hinge-topped container outside the door. On the stairs, he passed the milkman coming up. Karras pretended to trip, acted like he would dump the food on the man in white. The man flinched, then grimaced as Karras pulled back.

  “You,” said the milkman.

  “Hurry up with that cow juice,” said Karras. “1 got a hungry kid waitin’ on it upstairs.”

  Out on the street, gulls appeared overhead, dipped down toward the tray of food. Karras smiled, thinking of the milkman, how he got him every time. Then he thought of Eleni, and the smile went away.

  Imagine me, ownin’ my own business. That’ll be the day.

  * * *

  His mother was boiling a chicken when he got to the apartment. She was standing in the kitchen in her black housedress, her nylon anklets bunched about her black orthopedic shoes.

  “Hello, boy mou,” she said as Karras walked in. She frowned as he limped across the room.

  “Hi, Ma.” He kissed her on the cheek, handed her the tray. “From Eleni.”

  “Pastitsio, eh? Entaxi.” She took the tray and set it on the counter. “Thelis cafe?”

  “Okay, Ma. I’ll have a cup.”

  Georgia Karras served her son some coffee and placed a small plate of sweets on the table. Karras dipped a koulouri in his coffee, ate that one and then another, then lighted a Lucky Strike and smoked it while his mother related some gossip about a woman she knew from church. When she had finished the story, she told him how the prostitutes’ murders had made her frightened to walk the streets after dark. He listened to all of this passively, smashed out his cigarette when it had burned down to the brand name printed on the paper. He got up to leave.

  “Gotta go. Ma. Got an appointment. Need any lefta?”

  “Fiya, boy. I’m okay.”

  The old man had taken out a good insurance policy. Well, at least he had done one thing right.

  “All right, then. I’ll be on my way.”

  His mother patted his cheek. “Pas sto halo.”

  Karras stopped at the door, watched his mother clear the table. He looked around the place: blankets covered the apartment’s mirrors, and all of the window shades were drawn down tight. Karras went out to the hall, closed the door behind him. He gripped the banister, moved carefully as he took the stairs down to the street.

  On H, Karras saw Su leaning against his new cab, smoking a cigarette, the butt dangling from his mouth, his hands deep in the flap pockets of his zip-up jacket. Su, a Chinese Alfalfa—that one fork of straight black hair still stood up on the back of his head, as it always had when they were kids.

  Su smiled, his eyes disappearing with the action. “Hey, Pete!”

  “Su.”

  Su ran a hand along the front quarter panel of his cab. “How you like my new sled?”

  “Nice. Where’d you get it?”

  “Up on Florida Avenue, at Cherner’s. Gotta deal on it, gonna pay on time. It ain’t so new how I’d like it, but you know what they say—”

  “‘Next to a New Car, a Chernerized Car is Best.’”

  “That’s right! How ‘bout a lift, Pete?”

  “I’m headin’ down to Southeast. I thought I’d take a bus and walk a little after that. It ain’t so far.”

  “Cmon, Pete.” Su opened the rear door of the Dodge, made a courtly handsweep pointing Karras inside. “I’ll only hit you for one zone.”

  “All right.”

  Karras got into the backseat of the sedan. Su pitched his smoke, ran quickly and nimbly around the front of the car. He slipped into the driver’s seat, put the Dodge in gear, pulled away from the curb.

  “What’ya think about the Nats this year, Pete? They got anything?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I haven’t followed baseball much since the war.”

  Karras thought of Billy Nicodemus, pictured him running across H as a boy, his mitt hanging loosely on his hand. Billy had taken that mitt everywhere, even when the boys had pooled their change one summer and taken the open streetcar out to Glen Echo. Perry Angelos had brought Helen Leonides along as his guest, which didn’t sit well with the other boys but which they had allowed—as everyone knew, even then, that Perry was sweet on Helen. They had caught the streetcar at the beginning of the line and watched the conductor walk the wheel from back to front, flipping the chair backs as he went along the aisle. Upon arriving at the park, they had swum in the pool until the early afternoon, then went to the funhouse, where they rode the big wheel in the center of the hall, which spun faster and faster until all the kids had been thrown to the side. Helen’s skirt had blown up around her thighs while on the wheel, and Karras could not help noticing the blue print on her soft white underpants, feeling some degree of excitement tinged with shame. Later, as evening fell, Joe Recevo had suggested that they finish things off listening to the popular tunes of the McWilliams Orchestra in the Spanish Ballroom, but none of them save Joe knew how to dance. At the end of the day Angelos had gotten sick on the roller coaster, and Billy Nicodemus vomited from the motion of another ride coupled with too many sweets. On the trolley ride back home, Billy had smiled, remarking on what a fine day it had been, a crusty arc of vomit framing his wide grin. Yeah, Billy—he had always been some kind of happy kid.

  Su brought Karras back to the world. “Think Feller will sign with Cleveland?”

  “Like I say, Su, I wouldn’t know.”

  Su tried again. “DiMaggio signed yesterday, d’ya hear about it? The Yanks are gonna pay him ninety grand.”

  “That so.”

  Karras shook a Lucky from the deck, struck a match to it, dropped the match out the cracked window. He looked at Su looking at him in the rearview.

  Karras said, “You still running errands for the Hip Sings?”

  “Hip Sings?” said Su. “What the hell is that?”

  Su didn’t say much after that. Karras figured the crack would shut Su up, and he was right. These Chinese, you brought up their secret societies, you might as well ask them to rat out their own mothers. Su drove quietly through the streets while Karras smoked his cigarette.

  Su dropped Karras on the 4500 block of Alabama Avenue, let it idle by the curb. Karras went around to the driver’s window, leaned in.

  “Thirty cents,” said Su.

  “Here you go.” Karras handed him four bits.

  “Ninety grand for DiMaggio, Pete. Can you imagine it?” Su winked, put his fists together, broke his wrists in an abbreviated swing. “Joltin’ Joe.”

  Karras smiled. “Take it easy, Su.”

  “You too.”

  Su gunned it down the street. Karras waited for the cab to make the turn at the intersection, then walked along the sidewalk to the middle of the block. He took the steps up to the front of a row house there and went through an open door
into a common foyer. He rested for a moment in the foyer, then knocked on a door marked 1.

  The door opened: A built, green-eyed blonde in a black slip stood in the frame. She wore black stockings with seams running down their backs, sling-backed, open-toed high heels finished things off.

  Karras swallowed hard. The woman turned all the way around to let him have a good look, wiggled one foot in the air when she was done.

  “You like?” she said.

  “Cat-eyes, right?”

  “That’s what they call them. How’d you know?”

  “I saw ‘em down at Hahn’s. I was walkin’ down F last week, the guy was just putting them out in the window.” Karras made an eye-sweep of the foyer. “You always come to the door dressed like this?”

  “When it’s you knocking, I do.” The woman took Karras by the hand. “C’mon inside, Pete, it’s awfully cold.”

  Karras looked her over, couldn’t help but grin. “That much I can see.”

  “Quit clowning around. You know I’ve only got an hour for lunch.”

  “A whole hour, huh? How we gonna fill it up?”

  The woman chuckled, reached out to touch his cheek. Karras stepped through the open door frame. He slipped his arms around her waist, pulled her to him gently. He kissed her open mouth.

  “Vera,” he said.

  Karras breathed her in, a smell clean as spring.

  Chapter 19

  Jimmy Boyle unwrapped his second hot dog of the morning, took a bite. With the mustard and the raw onions and a little of the vendor’s green relish, God, the dog was good. He finished it quickly, drank off the rest of his Coke to push the mess down his throat. His burp brought the taste back up, making him think with some remorse that the two hot dogs had only made him angry, sometime soon he’d be ready for a serious crack at lunch.

  “Hey, Mister, you gonna turn that bottle in?”

  A kid had been sitting on the curb nearby, eyeing the bottle like he could have taken a bite out of the glass.

  “What say?” Boyle turned so his good ear was pointed toward the boy.

  “Your bottle. Would ya mind if I turned it in for the refund?”

  Boyle went to the boy, dropped the empty in his lap. “Here you go, kid. Knock yourself out.”

  Boyle bought a paper at a newsstand, stood on the sidewalk facing a bank, had a look at the front page. The alleged lead on the killer in the latest whore murder almost made him laugh. The Department spokesman had told the Times-Herald that a walk-in confession was being looked into, but Boyle knew that was a flat-out lie. Confessions they had, in spades. What they needed was a killer. Every time one of these roundheels bought it, handfuls of phony confessors—terminal drunks and dopers looking for a permanent three-square, bedwetters crying for attention—turned themselves in. Some of them were capable of violence in certain situations; one or two of them qualified as drool cases or rubber-room candidates. None of them were gone enough to do what the killer had done. And only the killer would know certain elements absent from the newspaper accounts—the press had been fed the facts minus several key details. So the few detectives still assigned to the murders took the confessions, noted the pertinent omissions, and slipped the reports in a thickening file.

  Reading the story, Boyle felt a click in his chest. If he could just dig a little bit, turn up the right rock that had a genuine lead underneath, a solid lead on the murders…hell, he might as well forget about it—he’d been dreaming about cracking this case for the last three years. Why would he think he could uncover something when the homicide boys had come up with major-league goose eggs? They were the ones with the wheels and the departmental muscle. They had the access to the lab jockeys with all the scientific equipment, they wore the suits and ties. And here he was, a beat cop, wearing the same lousy blues given to him when he joined the force. To top it off, the Department had colored guys working Shaw now, walking the same beat, making the same amount of dough as him.

  Boyle lowered the newspaper, looked at his reflection in the bank’s window. Shit, did he really look like that? The window distorted things, that much he knew. But this wasn’t some circus mirror like they had out at Glen Echo, the one that could make a skinny man look fat. This was him, more or less—a guy not even thirty years old, with a triple chin, a head like a cantaloupe, and a gut covering the buckle on his belt. Boyle looked away.

  Most of the guys he came up with were now private sixth grade, the highest rank of nonofficer, and a few had already made the jump. These were the guys who had kept an eye on their physiques, made a few high-profile busts along the road. Boyle had not distinguished himself in looks or in deed, or in any way at all. When promotions came around, he had been passed up every time.

  His father had told him long ago that a man is judged on how he looks. Not that his father—a frail, balding morgue attendant on and off the city payroll throughout his career—had ever looked like much himself. But Boyle had always listened patiently to every homespun bit of advice the old man had given out. And it was his father and uncle, now a detective, who had come through when Boyle had applied for the force—the two of them had managed to falsify his physical, get him into the Academy despite the bum ear. So Boyle had no reason to doubt that a man’s looks could keep him from getting ahead. The knowledge, however, was of little use to him if he couldn’t take off the weight. The truth of it was, Boyle just loved so goddamn much to eat.

  Boyle would try this new thing Karras had suggested, though he had his doubts. A pill that could make you forget about food, give you energy all the time—a “pep pill.” Now, what the hell was that? Karras had assured him that it wasn’t any kind of dope, but Pete had always been on the blind side about things like that. Still, Pete had gone out of his way to drop his name to that uptown pharmacist he knew. He might as well go there, give the Doc a try.

  Boyle took the U Street trolley over to 14th, caught a northbound bus. He rode it up through Columbia Heights and into Brightwood Park to the end of the line, got off at the depot at Colorado Avenue. The pharmacy stood on the corner there, where Colorado crossed 14th.

  Boyle entered the pharmacy, passed a soda bar managed by a young, handsome guy, a Marine Corps veteran of the Philippine campaign. The vet was a friend of Peter Karras, but Boyle could not remember his name: Paleo-something, some shit like that. Whatever, the only thing Boyle would have bet on was that it ended in an s. These Greeks and their crazy names. Boyle nodded at the guy and the guy nodded back. Karras had told Boyle that this veteran was a good Joe.

  The Doc was behind the counter in the back of the store, smoking a cigarette. He was tall and thin with sharp, elongated features, gray half-moons below his eyes, the caved-in cheeks of the often ill. His thin assistant, young and on the healthier side, stood on a platform working on an order. Boyle went up to the counter, waited for the Doc to look up. He was reading a paper he had spread there, smoke dribbling slowly through the flared nostrils of his long nose. He crushed the cigarette in an ashtray filled with dead ones, pushed the newspaper to the side. Boyle noticed the caffeine shake in the man’s hand.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Jim Boyle. Pete Karras sent me.”

  The Doc cracked a smile, everything on his face rearranging itself into a whole new wrinkled mask. “You the cop?”

  “Yeah, but this isn’t business. I’m here on my own time. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “Who’s worried? Pete told me what you wanted, I thought I might be able to help.”

  “I been puttin’ on the pounds lately—”

  “Not a problem. You just wait right there.”

  “Could you speak up a little?”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Boyle watched him go up to the platform, talk to the young assistant. The assistant looked Boyle over from up on his perch. Then he disappeared for a couple of minutes, came back and put something in the Doc’s shaky paw. The Doc returned to the counter, pressed a plastic canister into Bo
yle’s hand. Boyle shook it, listened for the rattle before slipping the canister into his trouser pocket.

  “Anything I ought to know?”

  “Let’s see. Well, they’re going to make you a bit jumpy, in a pleasant kind of way. You’ll find you have more energy, less desire to eat. If you have trouble sleeping, knock off taking them late at night. You should see the results you’re looking for fairly quickly.”

  “That it?”

  “That’s all, I guess.”

  “I’m no doper,” said Boyle.

  “Neither am I.” The Doc shrugged. “Neither is my assistant. But we use these all the time. They’re simple pep pills. Everyone needs a lift at some point during the day. You can’t always get to a cup of coffee.”

  Boyle reached for his wallet. “What do I owe you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You sure?”

  “Please. Like I said, I’m Just looking to help you out. Maybe you can do the same for me some time.”

  Boyle hesitated for a moment, then turned and left the store.

  The Doc put fire to a cigarette. He coughed a little, felt a rawness in his throat. His assistant came up next to him, snatched a cigarette for himself from the house pack. The Doc struck a match, held it out.

  “You and me are just smoking up a storm,” said the Doc.

  “It’s these pills. They make you crave it.”

  “Brother, you said it.”

  The assistant drew in hungrily on the cigarette. “You fix him up?”

  The Doc nodded. “He needs to lose a little weight.”

  “I’ll say.”

  The two of them laughed.

  “How much you give him?”

  “About twenty tablets.”

  The Doc smiled. “He’ll be back.”

  “I give him about a week,” said the assistant.

  “Yeah,” said the Doc. “That’s one thing about this Benzedrine—you start likin’ it real good and quick.”

  * * *

  By the time Boyle had changed into his uniform and left the locker room for his foot patrol, he had started to feel pretty damn good. The Doc had been right about the energy, but he hadn’t mentioned the incredible wave of confidence, the notion that he could kick right through a brick wall. It had come on him slowly, beginning with a tickling sensation at the back of his head married to a powerful thirst. He hadn’t thought about food once in the last hour, either, and when he did force himself to consider it the notion sickened him, maybe for the first time in his life. If one tablet had done this for him, imagine how good he would have felt had he swallowed two.