Soul Circus

by George P. Pelecanos

  “Sure. Nut and J can take care of things. We’ll swing by again later on. Give Nutjob the gun.”

  “You sure?”

  “He needs to get used to holdin’ it. And get the money from ’em while you’re there.”

  “Right.”

  Walker slid the Glock under his waistband as he got out of the car. He crossed the street and went up the rise to the flagpole, chin-signaling one of the sellers, who held the money, as he passed. The seller followed Walker up the hill.

  Walker had a look around the street before passing the gun over to Jerome Long.

  “Here you go, Nut. Take care of things.”

  Long glanced down at the gun as he weighed it in his hand. “It’s live?”

  “Yeah, you all set.”

  Long took the automatic and slipped it under his shirt and behind the belt line of his khakis. He wore the flannel shirt tails out. Though it was already too warm this time of year to have flannel on his back, he favored the material for three seasons because he liked the way it looked on him. It went nice with his khakis and his Timbs.

  “I’ll hold it down, chief,” said Long.

  The seller handed Walker a thick wad of cash and jogged back down the hill.

  “We’ll roll on back in here in a while,” said Walker, stashing the money in his jeans. He turned and went down to the idling Benz.

  Long and Jones watched the Benz pull off and move down the street.

  “That gun looked new,” said Jones.

  “They went to see Foreman this afternoon,” said Long. “So I guess it is.”

  “Why Zulu show you all that love just now?”

  “What you mean?”

  “Why he give that gun to you and not me?”

  “Gave it to the first one of us he came up on, I guess. Anyway, we both in charge, you know that.”

  “Can I hold it?”

  “Nah, uh-uh.”

  “Why not?”

  “Dewayne and Zulu wanted you to hold the gun, they would’ve put it in your hand.”

  “Damn, boy, why you do me that way?” Jones looked over at his friend. “Feels good to have it, though, right?”

  “Yeah,” said Long. “I dare a motherfucker to start some shit out here tonight.”

  JAMES and Jeremy Coates had been drinking and smoking hydro since the afternoon, and now James was getting stupid behind it, daring other drivers at stoplights with his eyes, flashing that kill-grin he had, shit like that. Jeremy had seen him get like this too many times before, but he knew better than to comment on it, and anyway, Jeremy’s head was all cooked, too.

  James called himself J-1 and Jeremy called himself J-2. They had argued briefly over who would get the number one designation at the time they had come up with the names. James had won the argument, since he was the older of the two.

  They had been driving around for an hour or so, looking for girls, rolling up in the usual spots, the Tradewinds and other places in PG, but as yet had found no luck.

  The cousins had not done well with D.C. women. They were not attractive in any way, though they did not know this or would not admit it, and they had not yet found their sense of city style. So if they had women at all, they usually had to buy them with money or drugs. Sometimes, if the girl was game, and sometimes even if she was not, they would share a girl or scare one enough to give herself up.

  Often they couldn’t even tempt a girl into the car with cash or cocaine. This had been one of those nights. James and Jeremy looked an awful lot alike: Both were small and wiry, with bulbous noses and thyroid-mad eyes, and when they were high and sweaty like they were now, it scared girls some to look at them. Scary or no, the Coateses didn’t like to be turned down. James especially, when he wanted some of that stuff and couldn’t get it, he got mean.

  They were driving through Washington Highlands on Atlantic, going over the drainage ditch of Oxon Run. Jeremy was under the wheel of their beige-over-tan ’91 240SX, shifting into third on the five-speed as he pushed the car up the hill. It was a four-cylinder rag, but they hadn’t known that or even asked about it when they’d bought the car. It had a spoiler on the back of it, and it looked kinda like a Z, so they had figured the ride was fast.

  “Boulay bookoo chay abec moms, ses-wa,” sang James as he turned the radio up high.

  “Turn that bullshit down,” said Jeremy. He reached for the volume dial and heard a horn sound as the 240 swerved into the oncoming lane. He brought the car back to the right of the line.

  “That’s French, yang,” said James. “Talkin’ about the Moolong Rooge. They be sayin’, Do you want to fuck with my moms? or sumshit like that.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what they be singin’ about. Sounds like they’re screamin’ more than singin’, you ask me.”

  “Which one of them bitches from the video you like the best?”

  Jeremy Coates screwed his face up into a grimace as he thought it over. “Not the white bitch, I can tell you that. No-ass bitch, looks like a chicken with those legs comin’ out her like they do. I guess Maya, I had to choose.”

  “I like Pink. Pink has got some ass on her, yang.” James smiled. “I bet it’s pink inside, too.”

  “Shit, even a mule is pink inside.”

  “You ought to know. Remember that time I came up on you on the farm, back in Georgia?”

  “Shut the fuck up. I was just cleanin’ that mule off.”

  “I ain’t see no brush.”

  “I was washin’ it.”

  “Yeah, looked like you was waxin’ it, too.”

  “Aw, fuck you, man.”

  James laughed. He punched his cousin on the shoulder and got no response. Jeremy turned right on Mississippi. As he did, the batch of little tree deodorizers hanging from the rearview swung back and forth.

  “We goin’ to see the Six Hundred boys?” said James.

  “Thought we’d drive by and see what’s what.”

  “I saw that Jerome Long outside a club last night with a girl. Girl was laughin’, lookin’ at him like she was lookin’ up at Taye Diggs or sumshit like that.”

  James had a beef with Nutjob Long, who had looked at him the wrong way and smiled one night at a club. Long was known to be good with the women. James Coates hated Long for that, too.

  James pulled a gun up from under the seat. It was a 9mm Hi-Point compact with a plastic stock and alloy frame, holding eight rounds in its magazine. The gun was a starter nine, popular with young men because of its low price. James had traded a hundred and twenty dollars’ worth of marijuana to get it. He fondled the gun as he held it in his lap.

  Jeremy looked down at the gun, then back at the road. “Damn, boy, you ought to be ashamed to be holdin’ some cheap shit like that.”

  “It shoots.”

  “And a Geo gets you from place to place, too. You don’t see me drivin’ one, do you?”

  “I’m gonna get me one of those Rugers next.”

  “Sure you are.”

  James looked through the windshield at the elementary school, coming up on their left. “Slow this piece down, yang. I want them to see us while we pass.”

  They cruised slowly by the school. They ignored the kids who were selling on the street and the lookouts riding their bikes, and they stared hard up the hill toward the two young men standing by the flagpole. James made sure the young men could see his smile.

  “That’s Long,” said James. “That’s his boy Lil’ J up there beside him, too.”

  “So?”

  “So keep on going a few blocks, then turn this motherfucker around and bring it back. Drive past ’em a little faster this time.”

  “Tell me what you doin’ before you do it, hear?”

  “We’re in their house, right?”

  “Yeah, we in it.”

  “We’re just gonna announce ourselves, then.”

  Jeremy gave the Nissan gas. James pulled back the receiver on the Hi-Point and laughed. They were having fun.

  “THAT’S them,” sa
id Jerome Long as the Nissan went down the block. “That’s those cousins from the Yuma.”

  “They be tryin’ to mock us,” said Allante Jones.

  “They can try.”

  “You see all those little trees they got swingin’ from their mirror?”

  “And that spoiler, too.”

  “Like it’s gonna make that hooptie go faster. Next thing they gonna do is paint some flames on the sides.”

  “ ’Bamas,” said Long.

  The taillights on the Nissan flared as the car slowed down.

  Jones squinted. “Looks like they’re stopping.”

  “They ain’t stoppin’,” said Long. “They turnin’ around.”

  The Nissan had U-turned and was now accelerating back in the direction of the school. Long could hear the driver, the one named Jeremy, called himself J-2, going through the gears. And then he saw James Coates, ugly like his cousin but crazier by an inch, leaning out the window of the passenger side, smiling at them, laughing, as they came up on the school. And then he saw the gun in his hand, and saw a puff of smoke come from it just about the time he heard the pops. Long froze; he couldn’t make his hand go to the Glock and he couldn’t move his feet. He felt his friend Lil’ J tackle him to the ground.

  As he went down it looked all jittery, like one of those videos where the camera can’t sit still. Long saw the troops diving for cover, a lookout on his bike pedaling like it was the devil behind him, and he heard more shots and it was as if he could feel them going by. There was a metallic sound as a round sparked off the flagpole, and Long put his head down and covered his ears. When he uncovered them, there was just the laughter of James Coates and the music they were listenin’ to. Under all that was the sound of their four-banger struggling up the street as they sped away.

  The troops were slow getting up.

  Jones released his hold on Long and rolled off of him, standing to his feet. Long brushed the dirt off his clothes as he stood. He locked hands with Jones and pulled him in for the forearm-to-forearm hug.

  “My boy,” said Long, his voice sounding high to his own ears.

  “You know I got your back.”

  “Better tell everyone to pull it off the street for a while. All those shots, you know someone’s bound to call up the police.”

  “I’ll do it. We could use a break our own selves, too.”

  It shamed Long that his hands were shaking. It shamed him that he had frozen up the way he had. He buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He was embarrassed now, standing next to his friend, as he’d just been bragging about daring a motherfucker to come by here and start something tonight. And here he was, trembling like a kid. He hadn’t even been able to pull his gun.

  “They surprised us,” said Jones, as if he could read Long’s mind. “You didn’t even have no time to think on it.”

  “I knew they was stupid,” said Long. “But I didn’t know they’d be so bold.”

  “They need to be got,” said Jones.

  “They will be.”

  “You know where they stay at?”

  “I know this girl who does,” said Long. “And I’m gonna remember that car.”

  ARNICE Durham lived in a nice town house her son Dewayne had bought for her in the Walter E. Washington Estates near the Maryland line. She had given birth to Mario when she was sixteen, and Dewayne came, by another man, when she was twenty-six. Arnice was now creeping up on fifty but didn’t feel it. Her friends told her she carried her age good.

  She had always took care of her body. Though many of her men smoked and used drugs and alcohol, she did not. She was also a regular at church. It was true that she had been poor and looked ghetto most of her life, but that changed when Dewayne started earning the money that he had been bringing in the past two years or so. With Dewayne’s cash she bought furniture for her new house, and clothes and jewelry, and she made two trips a week to the hair salon and had her nails done while she was there. Money kept you young. Anyone who said different ain’t never had none.

  She let Dewayne and his friend Bernard into the house. Dewayne kissed her on the cheek, and she said hello to Bernard and asked if he was wanting on something to drink. She had told Dewayne that his friends were always welcome here.

  They went past the slipcovered furniture and wide-screen TV of the living room into the dining room, where a scale was set in the corner along with a cash counting machine. Durham used his mother’s place for work – bagging up, scaling out, packaging, and counting – at night, mostly, when it wasn’t smart to burn the candles in that house on Atlantic. She knew to let his troops in whenever they came by, long as they went and called ahead first. And she knew not to talk to the police about anything, anytime.

  Arnice Durham never questioned her son about his business, and she didn’t question her own involvement in it, either. Wasn’t any opportunity where Dewayne had come up, and the people in those schools where he went had barely taught him how to read. He was out here now, making his way the best he could, and he was doing fine.

  She did worry about Dewayne’s safety, though, and she prayed for him regular, not just on Sundays, but every night before she went to bed. She prayed for her first son, Mario, too, but for different reasons. The Lord would watch over both of her sons, because at bottom they were good. This was something she believed deep in her heart. Sometimes, also, she said prayers of thanks for the life Dewayne had given her. She knew she was blessed.

  Dewayne was seated at the dining-room table, running money through the cash counter. When he was done he read the number on the display and handed Bernard some bills. He stood and backed away from the table.

  “You hear from Mario, Mama?”

  “No,” said Arnice. “He’s all right, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, yeah, I saw him today; he looked fine. Just checkin’ is all; thought he might have rolled on by.”

  “He might be stayin’ up with that boy Donut.”

  “All right then. Let me get on back to my place.”

  Dewayne smiled at his mother. She had deep brown, loving eyes. She wore a new dress and she had a necklace on, spelled “Arnice” out in diamonds, all of the letters hanging on a platinum chain.

  “You driving me to church this Sunday, Dewayne?”

  “I’ll pick you up like always.”

  He kissed her good-bye and left the apartment with Walker.

  Dewayne tossed Walker the keys to the Benz as they walked across the lot.

  “Drive me home, Zu. You can check on everything when you come back into the city, hear?”

  Walker said, “Right.”

  Walker drove into Maryland on Branch Avenue, headed toward Hillcrest Heights. Durham kept an apartment there, near the Marlowe Heights shopping center. The building he lived in looked kinda plain, but inside his crib Durham had it all: stereo and flat-screen TV, DVD, everything. It was real nice.

  The rule was, you kept your business in the city, in the neighborhoods you came up in, but you lived outside of town. You needed to get out of the city to breathe, but you couldn’t get no love in Maryland or Virginia on the business side. There wasn’t no good way to get a bond, and you got charged with somethin’ there, you’d do long time. Plus, there was the PG County police, who had a rep for being ready on the beat-down and quick on the trigger. The only thing those states were good for, on the business tip, was to buy a gun. So you lived in the suburbs and you did your dirt in town.

  Durham’s cell rang and he answered it. Walker made out that Dewayne was talking to Jerome Long, and when Dewayne was done, Walker asked him what was up. Durham told Walker about the drive-by over at the school, and who had done it.

  “What you want to do about that?” asked Walker.

  “Nothing now.” Durham slid down low in his seat. “I don’t want to think on it tonight.”

  He tried not to, and closed his eyes.

  STRANGE got up out of bed without waking Janine and went to the window that fronted the street. He knew he had
dozed some and he could not remember hearing Lionel come in the house. There was his old Chevy, though, parked along the curb. Strange felt his hands relax. He reached down and patted Greco, who was standing by his side.

  Lionel had detailed the car out, like he said, and it looked nice. The chrome wheels shined under the street lamp, and the tires had been sprayed with that fluid, made them look wet. Strange wondered when the last time was that Lionel had checked the oil.

  Well, anyway, the boy was in the house.

  Strange thought about Robert Gray, if anyone listened for his footsteps coming through the front door, or if that junkhead aunt of his or her hustler-looking boyfriend looked into Robert’s bedroom at night to see if he was covered up. And then he got to thinking about Granville Oliver, and if anyone had ever thought to show that kind of concern for Oliver when he was a kid.

  It was hard to imagine that a killer and kingpin like Oliver had once been a boy. Strange couldn’t picture that hard man in manacles as one in his mind. But everyone started out as an innocent child. It’s just that the poor ones didn’t come out of the gate the same way as those who had money, a set of loving parents, and everything that went along with them. It was like those kids were crippled, in a way, before they even got to run the race.

  Strange ran his hand through his beard and rubbed at his cheek.

  “Derek,” said Janine’s groggy voice behind him.

  “I know,” he said. “Come to bed.”

  “Lionel get in?”

  “Yes, he’s here.”

  “You’re done working for today,” said Janine. “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop.”

  He got back into bed. Because Janine was right. He wasn’t going to do anybody any good just standing by that window, and there wasn’t anything more he could do tonight. His day was done.

  Chapter 14

  THE Granville Oliver trial was being held in Courtroom 19 at the U.S. Courthouse on Constitution Avenue and 3rd Street, in Northwest. Strange passed by the nicotine addicts standing outside the building in the morning sun. The air was still, and the smoke from their cigarettes hung in the light. It would be a hot spring day, a reminder that the dreaded Washington summer was not far behind.