Shoedog

by George Pelecanos

  Tomorrow morning he’d meet the men at the Grimes place, answer any questions, collect his fee from Grimes, and finish his end of the deal. Then, while the men did the job, he’d go meet Nita.

  Weiner looked at his wrinkled hand wrapped loosely around the glass. It really didn’t bother him—a man his age, he’d have some gray hairs, a few wrinkles. The important thing was, he’d look good tomorrow, dress with a little flair. Nita liked his confidence, his wit—he knew that, could tell from the way her eyes danced when he told a joke—and she liked the way he wore his beret, a little off-center, like he looked at the world different from everybody else. And the ring, man, that would turn her head all the way around. Sure, three Cs was steep for a ring like that, but he knew—he could just imagine—that Nita was worth every last penny.

  Weiner got up, went to the window, looked out at the street below. A young man strutted down the sidewalk, his arm around his girlfriend. He kissed her ear, smelled her hair, and she leaned into him and laughed. Weiner watched them cross the street, turn a corner, pass through the light of a streetlight, and disappear.

  He stood there staring at the light, the spot where the lovers had been, and his thoughts went back thirty years, to a terrifically sexy girl he had known, a young waitress at Coffee and Confusion. He could still see her, leaning over the tables, serving drinks, her long black hair falling around her face. He wondered where that girl was now.

  Weiner closed his eyes, put his head back, and killed his drink.

  “WHAT you thinkin’ about, baby?”

  Randolph said, “Nothin’.”

  “You thinkin’ about somethin’.”

  Randolph rolled onto his elbow. He put his hand to the woman’s breast. His fingers traced her nipple in the darkness. He lowered his head, kissed her there.

  “Wasn’t I good to you?” he said.

  “Mmm-huh.”

  “I ain’t thinkin’ about nothin’ but you, baby.”

  The woman said, “Come here.”

  CONSTANTINE listened to the Isleys’ “Live It Up” on the house stereo, had a taste of his drink. More ice water than vodka now, but that was all right. He’d have one more, call it a night.

  He had sat alone at the bar for the last half hour, listening to the seventies funk favored by the tender. Solo drinkers took up the remaining stools, spaced evenly apart. The booths and deuces were largely unoccupied; a few adulterous couples talked quietly in the dim light.

  Constantine heard a familiar voice call his name, turned his head left toward the entrance to the lounge. Through the smoke of the barroom he saw Polk, limping toward him.

  Polk unsnapped his windbreaker as he took a seat next to Constantine. Constantine shook his hand.

  “Polk.”

  “Thought I’d find you here.” Polk strained a smile. “How’s it goin’, Connie?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Got a cigarette?”

  “Sure.”

  Constantine picked his Marlboros off the bar, shook one out of the deck in Polk’s direction. Polk took it, flipped the filter between his teeth. Constantine stuck one in his mouth, lighted Polk’s, put fire to his own. He dragged deeply, tossed the spent match into the ashtray that sat to the right of his drink.

  “You ready for another?” Polk said.

  “Yeah,” Constantine said. “One more.”

  Polk signaled the bartender. “An Absolut and tonic here, and a vodka rocks for my friend.” Polk turned to Constantine. “You take a special kind?”

  “Just vodka,” said Constantine, and the bartender went away to fix the drinks.

  “You ought to try the good stuff,” Polk said.

  “It’s all alike.”

  “Just the same, you ought to try it some time. It’s okay to have nice things.” “You sound like Grimes.”

  “Well,” Polk said, “just look at him. Whatever you think of the man, he’s got it all. Doesn’t he?”

  The bartender served the drinks. Polk tapped Constantine’s glass with his, had a healthy pull off his cocktail. Polk put the glass back on the bar.

  “I talked to Randolph,” he said, looking at Constantine carefully, out the corner of his eye. “Randolph thinks you’ve got somethin’ going on with Grimes’s woman.”

  “It’s my business if I do,” Constantine said.

  “I’m not gonna tell you to knock it off,” Polk said, waving his hand.

  Constantine dragged on his cigarette, exhaled. “What were you going to tell me, Polk?”

  “Just this,” Polk said, putting his hand on Constantine’s arm. “I passed up on a lot of good things in my life. That’s just one of the mistakes I’ve made along the way, and believe me, I’ve made plenty. But when you come across something as fine as that woman… you don’t let it get away from you, Connie, not for nothin’.” Polk lowered his voice, squinted. “If you have to, you take it.”

  Constantine gently pulled his arm from Polk’s grip. “Thanks for the advice,” he said.

  Polk looked away, then into his drink. He had a sip, had a hit of his smoke. He cocked one eyebrow, shook his head. “Anyway, that’s not what I came to tell you. I came to apologize, really. I came to apologize for getting you into all this. I didn’t mean for—”

  Constantine stopped him. “I let myself in on it, Polk. So forget it.”

  Polk’s expression lightened as he placed his hand back on Constantine’s arm. “Well, after tomorrow, there’s still Florida. Right, Connie?”

  Constantine thought about it, chuckled. “To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten all about it. Florida—that’s where we were goin’?”

  “It’s still on, son. You and me.” Polk glanced at his wristwatch, finished his drink in one gulp. “I gotta get goin’, pal, Charlotte’s waiting.”

  Polk got off the stool, snapped up his windbreaker to the neck. Constantine put his hand on Polk’s shoulder.

  “Hold on a second,” Constantine said. “There’s something I gotta know.”

  “What?” Polk said.

  “In the meeting, you told Grimes that if something happened to you, your share would go to me.” Constantine stared into the bright blue of Polk’s eyes. “Why?”

  Polk smiled. “It’s simple, Connie. That day I picked you up hitchhiking—I asked you for a smoke. Well, you probably don’t remember, but you gave me your last one. It was a small thing to do, I know. But it’s been a long time since someone’s done that. It meant something. It meant something, to me.” Polk smiled at Constantine.

  “Take it easy, Polk.”

  “You too, kid.”

  Polk turned, headed for the exit. Constantine watched him limp away.

  The bartender, a heavy, slow man with a round, moley face and easy manners, stood in front of Constantine. He wiped the bar with a white rag, emptied Constantine’s ashtray, used the rag to clean out the ashtray. He placed the ashtray back on the bar.

  “Another?” he said.

  “This’ll do it,” Constantine said. “Thanks.”

  The bartender went to the register, pulled Constantine’s check. Constantine watched him figure out the tab as he mouthed the words to the fat-bottomed funk coming from the deck. Constantine hit his cigarette down to the filter, crushed the cherry in the ashtray. He looked at his face in the barroom mirror through the spaces of the liquor bottles lined on the rack.

  So the job, and then Florida. Florida would be next. He had been to Florida, driven there from South Carolina, stayed briefly. He had been most places, it seemed. He supposed it was inevitable that he’d see some of those places again.

  “Life is short”: he’d heard that overused expression, in bars all over the world. Men used it to explain away everything, from their most recent, foolish purchase, to their next drink, to their last meaningless affair. Life, in fact, seemed very long to Constantine. He could not imagine living another thirty-five, forty years. What would he do?

  The thing of it was, Constantine did not fear death. He thought—no, he was
certain—that death would be exactly the same for him as that time before his birth: a black nothing, a total absence of sensation. The end of his life, though, that might be something, as that was something that a man could only experience once. If he was curious about anything, it was to feel those last few seconds of free-fall before the blackness. Constantine sat on the bar stool, wondering what it would be like, at the very end.

  Chapter

  19

  THE men met in the foyer of the Grimes estate at ten o’clock on Friday morning.

  Valdez and Gorman stood together next to the entrance to the library, their hands in the pockets of their loose-fitting, zippered jackets. Randolph, Polk, and Constantine stood on the opposite end of the foyer, talking quietly. Jackson dug under his thumbnail with a metal file, and stood alone.

  A little past ten, Weiner came down the stairs carrying a large duffel bag in his right hand. Grimes walked from his office, leaned on the rail that ran around the landing, and looked down on the men. Grimes wore a blazer over a salmon-colored polo shirt, with khaki slacks and loafers. His gray hair had been lightly slicked back.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Weiner said, placing the duffel bag in the center of the marbled foyer.

  The men formed a semicircle around Weiner and the bag. Weiner crouched down, zipped open the bag. He looked inside it, looked up at Randolph.

  “You’re okay,” Weiner said. “Right, Randolph?”

  “I got mine,” Randolph said, pulling back the lapel of his jacket to reveal the butt of a holstered .45. Constantine recognized the checkered walnut stock, the raised horse insignia in the middle of the grip.

  “Constantine?” Weiner said.

  “I won’t need—”

  “We already went through this, kid.”

  “The Colt, then,” said Constantine.

  Weiner pulled a blue-steeled automatic from the bag, handed it, butt out, to Constantine.

  “Full clip,” Weiner said. “Safety on.”

  Gorman nudged Valdez as Constantine checked it.

  “You know how to use it, driver?” Gorman said.

  Constantine ignored Gorman, hefted the gun in his hand.

  “Jackson?” Weiner said.

  Jackson dropped the file into his pocket, looked down at Weiner. “I got my Walther,” he said lazily. “I’m good.”

  Weiner nodded, pulled another .45 from the bag. “Polk.”

  Polk took the gun, checked the action, holstered it inside his windbreaker. “Thanks, buddy.”

  Weiner moved his brown beret back on his head, glanced up at Valdez. Valdez unzipped his jacket, opened it, showed automatics holstered beneath each arm.

  “I’ll take a revolver,” Valdez said, “for insurance. Case one o’ these sonofabitches jams.”

  Weiner drew a snub-nosed .38 from the bag. Valdez took it, dropped to one knee, raised his pant leg, slid the .38 into the empty holster strapped to his ankle. He stood, shook his pant leg down over the holster. Weiner pointed his chin at Gorman.

  “I’m holdin’ my nine,” Gorman said. “You know what else I want. Give it to me.”

  Weiner reached into the bag, withdrew a 12-gauge pump shotgun with a pistol grip. The skinny man with the gray complexion grabbed it, ran his hand down the barrel.

  “This the six- or the eight-shot?” Gorman said.

  “The six,” Weiner said. “Mossberg makes the barrel shorter by two inches on the six-shot. Thought you’d want the short—”

  “It’ll do,” Gorman said, adding, “Shells.”

  Weiner tossed a box of shells to Gorman, stood up, faced the men. Gorman put the shells in his jacket.

  “Masks are by the door,” Weiner said. “Randolph and Constantine, you know the drop for the cars. Any questions, gentlemen?”

  None of them spoke.

  “That’s it, then,” Grimes said, from above. He pushed away from the rail, walked back into his office, and closed the door.

  THE car drop was near Indian Head Highway in Oxon Hill, behind a nondescript commercial strip of rundown brick structures well off the main road. Constantine drove the Super Bee with Polk to the drop. Randolph and Jackson went in Randolph’s T-Bird, and Gorman and Valdez took the Caddy. They parked on the side of a closed television repair shop whose windows displayed sun-faded banners, and moved to the rear of the strip. Gorman walked in the middle of the pack, the shotgun tight against his leg.

  The Fury and the Road Runner sat together, the only cars in the gravel lot. The sun hung overhead, drying the dew beaded on the cars’ hoods. Constantine pointed to the Road Runner, side-glanced Valdez.

  “That’s us,” he said.

  Gorman went to it, opened the door, slid the Mossberg behind the buckets onto the floor of the backseat. He walked around the car, opening all the windows. Valdez grunted, got down on his belly, checked beneath the Plymouth for leaks.

  Jackson walked to the Fury, ran his hand down the long black hood on his way to the door. He opened the door, got into the shotgun seat, pulled the nail file from his slacks. He pushed the file beneath his thumbnail, stared straight ahead.

  Polk, Randolph, and Constantine stood at the edge of the lot and looked out across a weedy field. Beyond the field, a few Cape Cods stood on a dead-end street.

  “Hot for April, man.” Randolph shifted his shoulders, looked over at Constantine. “You gonna be all right, lover?”

  “I’ll be all right,” Constantine said.

  “We best be goin’, then. Got to get my ass into work, too. Friday’s my day. I sell some shoes on Friday, boy.” Randolph stared across the field, spoke softly to himself. “Triple dot,” he said.

  “Go on, Randolph,” Polk said. “I’ll be along.”

  Randolph shook Constantine’s hand, did not look in his eyes. He walked to the Fury, settled himself in the driver’s seat.

  Polk said, “Got a smoke, Connie?”

  Constantine took the pack from his denim shirt, shook one out for Polk. He lit Polk’s, lit one for himself. He took three cigarettes from the pack and slipped them carefully into his breast pocket. He put the remainder of the pack in the pocket of Polk’s windbreaker.

  “Here,” Constantine said.

  Polk wrinkled his forehead. “You got enough for yourself?”

  “Take ‘em.”

  Behind them, they heard the voice of Gorman: “Come on, driver, move it!”

  Constantine turned to say good-bye, but the old man was already gone. Polk limped to the car, climbed into the backseat of the Fury. A rumble cut the air as Randolph lit the 440.

  Constantine had a drag off his cigarette, followed that with a long hotbox. He pitched the butt, blew smoke in the wind as he walked towards the car. The ugly face of the Mexican gazed out from the shotgun seat.

  Constantine opened the door, settled in behind the wheel. He found the key under the seat, fitted it. He looked in the rearview at the gaunt, cadaverous face of Gorman staring out the window. He adjusted the rearview, made an adjustment to the side mirror.

  Constantine put his fingers to the key and cooked the ignition.

  Chapter

  20

  RANDOLPH pulled the Fury over to the curb a half-block south of Uptown Liquors on Wisconsin Avenue. He shook his wrist out of his sport jacket, looked at his watch: twelve past eleven.

  Jackson took his shades off, folded them, slipped them in the visor over the passenger seat. He pulled his Walther PPK from the holster beneath his jacket, jacked a round into the chamber. He checked the indicator pin on the gun to make sure the round had fallen. He released the safety, slid the Walther back in the holster.

  “You ready, old man?” Jackson said.

  Polk looked out, past a young couple window-shopping a camping goods store, to the liquor store up the block. A man walked his dalmatian in front of the liquor store, the dog stopping to smell a fast-food wrapper on the sidewalk. Polk touched the grip of the .45 inside his windbreaker. He took a last hit off his smoke, pitched the butt out the
window.

  “I’m ready,” Polk said.

  “The old bitch is workin’ today,” Jackson said. “You see her?” They had driven slowly past the place, one time, around the block. In the spaces between the fluorescent banners hung in the Store’s plate-glass window, they had seen an elderly woman in a red sweater standing at the front register.

  “I saw her.”

  “All right,” Jackson said. “You remember the setup?”

  “I was in the place,” Polk said, “yesterday.”

  “The hymie said the money’s in three places behind the counter. Two cameras, alarms under—”

  “I was in the place.”

  “We use the masks,” Jackson said, speaking rapidly. “In and out.”

  “Don’t kill anybody, Jackson,” Polk said.

  “In and out, old man,” Jackson said. “Nobody dies.” Jackson moved his head to a silent rhythm, forward and back. He looked at Randolph behind the wheel, kept the rhythm. The driver was cool—no emotion on his face.

  “I’m ready,” Randolph said. “Let’s get it done.”

  He engaged the transmission and pulled away from the curb. He drove slowly, passed the young couple, passed a skateboarder wearing a baseball cap backward, passed the man and his dalmatian. Randolph cut in front of a parked Volvo, stopped the Fury in front of the double glass doors of Uptown Liquors.

  Jackson had the stocking bunched on the top of his head. Polk had already pulled his down across his face. Randolph looked in the rearview, saw the old man’s blue eyes, blue-gray now beneath the mesh, his brush cut spiking through the nylon. From behind the stocking, Polk gave Randolph a wink. Jackson checked his watch.

  “Do it, old man,” Jackson said. “I’m right behind you.”

  Polk got out of the car, limped quickly across the sidewalk to the double glass doors. Jackson pushed on the passenger door, leapt out of the car, bumped the door closed, pulled the stocking over his face, ran to the entrance on the heels of Polk. Randolph saw Jackson’s hand reach inside his jacket as he followed Polk into the store.