Shame the Devil dq-4

by George Pelecanos

  Wilson sipped his cognac. It felt funny, sitting here this early on a Tuesday night. Usually, about this time, he’d be in the meeting with the rest of the group, drinking coffee, talking, telling jokes. But they’d all decided to cancel, as Bernie was down in the country on vacation and it wouldn’t be right to do the thing without Bern.

  Wilson went to the pay phone back by the rest room. He phoned Bernie’s house and left a message on his machine, telling Bernie he hoped he was resting up real good down on his “plantation.” Country-lovin’ fool didn’t even have a phone down there on that property. Wilson would have liked to have heard Bernie’s voice right about now.

  A young woman approached him on her way to the rest room. Wilson patted his fade and said, “What’s goin’ on, girl? You look fine, too.” The woman went right on by without a word.

  Wilson phoned his place for messages. His uncle Lindo had called to talk about Dexter Manley, whom he’d seen on the Glenn Harris show on channel 8. And Dimitri’s friend, that investigator named Stefanos, had called as well. What was up with that? Wilson dialed the number Stefanos had left on the machine. A woman answered and then Stefanos got on the line. Sounded like Stefanos was in a bar his own self.

  “What can I do for you, man?” said Wilson.

  “I know about you, Thomas,” said Stefanos. “I know about Lewisburg and the men in the garage. Maybe we better have a talk.”

  Wilson didn’t answer.

  “Thomas?” said Stefanos. “I’ll see you in a half hour.”

  “Where?” said Wilson.

  “The Spot,” said Stefanos. “Out on the street.”

  Dimitri Karras and Stephanie Maroulis had dinner at the Thai Room on Connecticut and Nebraska, then went back to Stephanie’s place and watched that cop show everyone liked on TV. Karras noticed that every time they ran out of ideas, the writers would send the main character into a bar so that he could fall off the wagon again for an episode or so. But he liked the show all right. It was something to pass the time.

  “This is the kind of night married people have,” said Karras.

  And Stephanie said, “What’s wrong with that?”

  They got undressed and folded their clothes neatly and made love quietly, and she fell to sleep with his fingers stroking her hair. This is also how it is for married people, thought Karras. And then he thought, It was just like this with Lisa. It’s not so bad.

  He woke up in the middle of the night and looked at the night-stand to check the time on the clock radio. He noticed that the photograph of Steve Maroulis was no longer there.

  Nick Stefanos crossed 8th Street and walked to the Dodge Intrepid idling at the curb. He opened the passenger door and climbed inside. He handed Thomas Wilson a can of beer and opened one for himself.

  “Drive uptown,” said Stefanos. “You can drop me at my place in Shepherd Park.”

  Wilson drove along the Southeast business district, around the Capitol and into Northwest. He went west on Pennsylvania Avenue and cut north on 14th Street. As he drove, he confessed. “That’s it,” said Wilson. “If I changed things to go in my favor, I didn’t mean to. I’ve told it to you as straight as I could.”

  Stefanos nodded. He had drunk his beer quietly while Wilson talked, and he had interjected nothing.

  Wilson shifted in his seat. “You got no comment?”

  “You covered it.”

  “All right, then. How’d you get hip to me, man?”

  “I marked you as a con the first time I met you. Did a background check and Lewisburg came up. That murderer – what’s his name?”

  “Farrow. Farrow and Otis.”

  “Farrow would be the man I saw at the garage.”

  “Yes.”

  “Farrow shot his mouth off to Bill Jonas when he was threatening his family. Told him that he was an alumnus of several institutions, including a federal facility. Lewisburg’s a federal joint. Jonas’s son Chris saw the same red Mustang I saw at Ruiz and Gutierrez’s shop. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots.”

  “I been waitin’ for this for two and a half years,” said Wilson. “Dreading it and welcoming it at the same time. Can you understand at all what I mean?”

  Stefanos looked out the window, nodded toward a lit storefront at 14th and S. “That used to be my grandfather’s place, right there. Nick’s Grill. You’d never know how much pride went into that place from the way it looks now. Funny how you live in this town long enough, all these old buildings hold memories of some kind.”

  “Ain’t you got nothin’ more to say than that?”

  “No,” said Stefanos. “And don’t look for any sympathy from me, either.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Wilson’s hand tightened on the wheel. “You wanna know somethin’, man?”

  “What?”

  “Been many a night I wanted to kill myself. Just do it quick and check on out.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “When it came time, I couldn’t do it. And there was another thing I couldn’t do: Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t tell my friends that I had set their loved ones up to die. In the end I couldn’t do either one of those things. I was just plain paralyzed. I guess that makes me a coward, right?”

  “Yes,” said Stefanos. “You’re a coward.”

  They drove through the U Street intersection and up into Columbia Heights and beyond. The light from the street lamps above crawled across their laps. Past Arkansas they climbed a hill and neared Colorado Avenue.

  “Couple more streets and you’ll be making a left,” said Stefanos.

  “What’re you gonna do?” said Wilson. “You fixin’ to turn me in?”

  “I haven’t told anyone a thing. You want to know the truth, that’s not what you need. The law can’t do any more to you than what’s been done.”

  “What, then?”

  “Left here.” Stefanos killed his beer and dropped the can on the carpet. “I’m going to give you a little time to sort it out. We’ve got Bill Jonas under protection, but only for a few days. You need to make your peace with Dimitri and the others. Then we’ll see.”

  “Dimitri will kill me, man. And then he’ll want to kill them.”

  “Maybe so. You need to tell him just the same. Pull over behind that old Dodge.” Stefanos handed Wilson his card as the Intrepid rolled to a stop. “Three days.”

  Stefanos stepped out of the car and crossed the dark street. Wilson watched him go.

  THIRTY-THREE

  All right, James,” said Dimitri Karras. “I need to call out some burgers.”

  “Go ahead, man.”

  “You wanna turn down that Luther first?”

  “Yeah,” said Darnell, not turning his head from the sink. “Can’t think with that man bellowin’ and shit.”

  “How much you need to think about to clean off a dish?” said James.

  “Now you gonna take me for bad?” said Darnell. “Arabs and Jews be walkin’ down the street holdin’ hands the day I let a man wearin’ makeup talk to me like that.” Darnell laughed deeply.

  “Aw, go ahead, Darnell.”

  James Posten twirled his spatula and sang as he went to the box, cut the volume on the Luther Vandross by a notch. He patted Maria Juarez on the ass as he went by, and Maria turned and did the same to him. But it was a halfhearted step back from their usual kitchen play. Maria’s left arm was bruised from elbow to shoulder, and the pain was clear on her face.

  “James?”

  “Talk about it, Dimitri.”

  “I got a bacon-cheddar, rare. I got provolone, well. And I got a plain, extra rare.”

  “You want it bleedin’, huh?”

  “Knock the horns off it and walk it through a warm room.”

  Anna Wang entered the kitchen and pinched Karras on the arm as she passed.

  “What’s happenin’, Anna?”

  “Melvin’s at the bar reciting the entire eighteen-minute Isaac Hayes version of ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix.’ He’s still on the intro. I needed a break.�
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  Anna went to Maria and kissed her on the cheek. “Nice presentation on the salad today, senora.”

  “Thanks, Ann.”

  “That’s senorita to you, girl,” said James. “‘Cause Maria looks young as one and pretty as one, too.”

  “Okay, James. Can I just add, the burgers are coming out perfect?”

  “Go on, girl,” said James, “get back to the dining room where you belong. We don’t need your kind around here, or your compliments.”

  James smiled to himself as Anna left the kitchen. He turned to say something to Maria, but he saw her wince as she tried to pick up a bowl of lettuce and his smile turned to a frown.

  Nick Stefanos walked into the kitchen after the rush. They were all glad to see him back after missing so many shifts. Karras had the feeling Stefanos had been avoiding him, though, the entire afternoon.

  “Hey, Dimitri.”

  “What?”

  “Dan Boyle called. Remember his uncle he talked about, the cop who knew your father and my papou? ”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s not doing so hot. They’ve got him in a nursing home, and Boyle says he’s failing. Boyle’s been talking to him about you and me, and he asked to see us. It would be a good thing to do. What do you think?”

  “When?”

  “Later this afternoon, after my shift.”

  Karras shrugged. “I can do that. I’ll go home and shower and meet you back here in the bar.”

  “Sounds good. Hey, you seen James out there on the floor? I got a live ticket with some hots on it and I need him.”

  “He’s out by the basement stairs, talking to Ramon. They been gabbin’ about something for the last ten minutes. I’ll tell him to come on back.”

  “Say, Nick…” said Karras as Stefanos left the kitchen.

  Karras knew Stefanos had heard him. It was odd that he would just walk away.

  Roberto Juarez came in around three o’clock and stood on the landing. He wore a white imitation-silk shirt under a thin leather jacket. He stared at Stefanos behind the bar without recognition or a smile. Stefanos went to the reach-through and told Maria that her husband had come to pick her up.

  At the top of the basement stairs, Ramon went, “Tss,” and Roberto Juarez turned his head. Ramon connected his thumb to his forefinger and put them to his lips, miming an imaginary toke. Juarez grinned stupidly. Ramon went up to the landing, and Juarez followed him out the door.

  A couple of minutes later, James Posten emerged from the kitchen dressed in his fox-head stole and carrying his jeweled walking stick. Stefanos watched him go to the front door, open it, and go outside.

  James Posten walked down 8th. He said hello to a pool player named Mattie, who stood outside Athena’s, the neighborhood women’s bar, smoking a cigarette. He passed the riot-gated athletic-shoe store and turned the corner into the alley.

  Ramon and Juarez were back in the alley, hitting a joint. James stopped for a moment to prop his walking stick against the brick wall and then kept striding toward Juarez. Juarez held the joint up in offering, pursed his lips, and made kissing sounds at James. Juarez smiled contemptuously at James, and when James reached him he threw a deep right into Roberto Juarez’s face. He aimed for the brick wall behind Juarez’s head, and the punch landed squarely and collapsed his nose.

  Juarez screamed. Blood splashed out into the alley.

  Juarez tried to cover up, but James Posten combinated to the same spot. Juarez’s nose had been pushed off to the side, and now it was just smashed cartilage and a loose flap of skin. Juarez went down to the alley floor moaning, tears streaming across his ugly face.

  He reached out to Ramon, and Ramon laughed.

  “Now you know what it feels like to get hit by a man,” said James very quietly. “Don’t even have a dream about takin’ your hand to your wife or your little girl again.”

  James walked back to the head of the alley and picked up his walking stick. Ramon followed. They turned and headed down 8th Street, back toward the Spot.

  “Where you learn that, Jame?” said Ramon.

  “West Baltimore,” said James.

  Maria was waiting by the service bar with Darnell when James and Ramon came back in. Anna Wang was sitting at the bar next to Karras, who was eating his lunch. Happy sat alone, working on a Manhattan. Stefanos was behind the stick, one foot up on the beer cooler.

  They watched James give Maria a kiss. Five minutes later Roberto Juarez entered the Spot and stood on the landing. Blood covered his white shirt and smeared his face. His eyes were glassy, and he was having trouble standing up.

  Happy turned his head, looked Juarez over, then turned back to his drink.

  “James just took away everything that guy ever had,” said Stefanos.

  “Someone ought to call an ambulance,” said Anna Wang, reaching for one of Stefanos’s cigarettes.

  Karras nodded and cut into his chicken-fried steak.

  Roberto Juarez reached a hand out to his wife. Maria’s eyes narrowed as she buttoned her cheap coat and raised her chin.

  “You do that?” said Darnell to James.

  “Sure did,” said James.

  “Hard to believe a man wearin’ eyeliner could put a hurtin’ on another man like that.” Darnell looked admiringly at James. “You sure you tellin’ the truth?”

  “ Got to tell the truth,” said James.

  “An’ shame the devil,” said Maria Juarez.

  She straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. They watched her cross the barroom floor.

  Dimitri Karras finished his lunch and drove his old BMW up into Northwest. He walked to his building at 15th and U. He took the elevator to the fifth floor, walked down the hall, and turned the corner to his apartment. Thomas Wilson stood outside of Karras’s door.

  “Dimitri.”

  “Thomas. What’re you doing here? Aren’t you working today?”

  “I took the afternoon off. Needed to see you, man.”

  “You sick or somethin’? Your eyes don’t look right.”

  “Need to talk to you, Dimitri. Need to tell you somethin’ now and get it out quick. Don’t stop me while I’m talking, ’cause I might not ever have the courage to tell it again.”

  Karras regarded Wilson curiously. Wilson’s gaze was level and true.

  “Say it,” said Karras.

  By the time he was done, Wilson was sobbing. Karras’s shoulders had sagged and there were tears welled in his animal eyes. His lip was trembling, and his fists were balled and shaking at his side.

  “Dimitri,” said Thomas Wilson. “I am so sorry for what I’ve done.”

  Karras screamed. Wilson stood passively as Karras leaped toward him.

  He’s going to kill me now, thought Wilson. He was strangely relieved. It surprised him for a moment that he was not afraid.

  Wilson saw a white blur in the dim hall light. He saw nothing, felt nothing after that.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Boyle and Stefanos were at the bar drinking when Karras arrived, late in the afternoon, at the Spot. Stefanos was working on a beer, and Boyle was tipping a shot of Jack Daniel’s to his lips. Karras put his hand on Stefanos’s shoulder and nodded at Boyle. Stefanos turned his head; Karras’s face was tight-jawed and pale.

  “Anything wrong?” asked Stefanos.

  “Not a thing,” said Karras.

  Boyle drank off the rest of his beer and stashed his Marlboro reds in the side pocket of his tweed while Stefanos went around the bar and grabbed a six-pack from the cooler. Mai made a couple of hash-marks on his tab. Stefanos, Karras, and Boyle exited and got into the Coronet 500 out on 8th.

  The nursing home, a one-story, white-brick affair fronted by a flat, brownish lawn, was in the town of Greenbelt, in Prince George’s County. They signed in at the desk under the scrutiny of a chubby receptionist, who was eating a late lunch from a sectioned foam tray. Boyle had two cans of beer tucked beneath his raincoat.

  They walked down a carpeted hall, the
smell of soiled diapers cutting the still air. They passed a room where a woman sat with her face down on a table. A man’s gravelly voice came loudly from another of the rooms: “Nurse… nurse… nurse,” over and over again. The nurses on shift, black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa, stood together at the end of the hall, conversing, ignoring the man’s plea. Television sets, the volume turned unnaturally high, blared from every direction in the home.

  “In here,” said Boyle, and they followed him through an open door.

  A heavy, shapeless old man was lying in a railed bed, his head elevated by pillows. He stared through a large window, shafts of sunset streaming across his body. Next to his bed was a small table on wheels, on which sat a tray of cold, untouched, pureed food. The stench of urine drifted off the bed. The room had the unmistakable smell of death.

  “Uncle Jimmy,” said Boyle, and the man turned.

  “Danny.”

  Jimmy Boyle smiled. His face was fleshy, his jawline nearly invisible. Ashen baggage hung beneath his faded brown eyes. A thick hearing aid had been surgically implanted in one of his ears. His dome was covered with brown spots, and the strands of hair that remained were like brittle thread, both yellow and gray in the light.

  “This is Dimitri Karras,” said Boyle. “And this is Nick Stefanos.” Jimmy Boyle looked directly into Karras’s eyes as he shook his hand.

  “Good to meet you,” said Karras.

  “And you.”

  Jimmy Boyle made a tired gesture with his fingers. “Come on, fellas, have a seat.”

  Stefanos pulled up the room’s sole chair, and Karras had a seat on the edge of the bed.

  “It’s too crowded in here for me,” said Dan Boyle.

  “Go ahead,” said his uncle. “Give us some time alone.”

  Boyle kissed his uncle on the top of his head. Before he left he said to Stefanos, “I’ll be down in that sitting room by the reception desk.”

  “Close the door on your way out,” said Karras. He couldn’t stand to hear the voice of that man, still calling for the nurses.