Hell To Pay

by George Pelecanos

  “You’re fine,” said Quinn.

  “Yeah, I’m a beauty, all right. Anyway, that’s how I got into the recruitment biz for World.”

  “Stella-”

  “I do like strong men, Terry. The shrink was right about that.”

  She slid over on the seat so that she was close to him. Quinn could feel her warm breath on his face.

  “That’s not a good idea,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, green eyes, I’m not gonna hurt you. I was just lookin’ for a little love. A hug, is all.” She moved back against the passenger-side door, her face colored by the vapor lights of the lot. Quinn could see that her eyes had teared up behind the lenses of her glasses.

  “I’m sorry, Stella.”

  “Ain’t no big thing,” she said, a catch in her voice. She turned her face away from him and stared out the window.

  They sat awhile longer, watching the uniformed cops moving in and out of the station. A minivan pulled into the lot. A man and a woman got out of it and hurried inside. Stella laughed joylessly, watching them.

  “I love happy endings,” said Stella. The hard shell had returned to her face.

  “You don’t have to go back to working for Wilson. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I know. Damn right, I am somebody, and all that.”

  “I’m serious. And we both know it’s not safe. One of these days he’s gonna find out you been playin’ him for the middle.”

  “You didn’t give me up to him back there, did you? You didn’t say my name or nothin’ like that.”

  “No.”

  “Course not. There wasn’t nothin’ in it for you.”

  “That’s not the only reason people do or don’t do what they do,” said Quinn.

  “Yeah, okay, whatever.” Stella lit another cigarette. “Just so I get paid.”

  A half hour later Tracy emerged from the station. Stella climbed into the back and Tracy took the shotgun seat.

  “Everything go okay?” said Quinn.

  “The parents have her,” said Tracy. “They’re taking her home. I can’t tell you if it’s going to stick.”

  She drank a beer and Quinn drank another as they drove back into D.C. Quinn parked the van on 23rd, alongside the church.

  Tracy gave Stella five hundred-dollar bills, along with her card.

  “It was a pleasure doin’ business with y’all,” said Stella. “You want your smokes back?”

  “Keep ’em,” said Tracy. “I got another pack. And, Stella, you need to talk, anything like that-”

  “I know, I know, I got your number right here.”

  “Stay low for a few days,” said Quinn.

  Stella leaned forward from the backseat and kissed Quinn behind the ear. Then she was out of the van’s back door and walking across the church grounds. They watched her move through the inky shadows.

  “Where do you suppose she’s going?” said Quinn.

  “Don’t think about it.”

  “I shouldn’t even care, right? I mean, she’s steering girls over to Wilson so he can turn them out.”

  “Stella’s a victim, too. Try to think of it like that. And remember, we got Jennifer off the street.”

  “So how come I feel like we didn’t accomplish shit?”

  “You can’t save them all in one night,” said Tracy. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  Quinn looked back to the church grounds. Stella was gone, swallowed up by the night. Quinn put the van in gear, rolled to the corner, hooked a left, and headed uptown.

  SUE Tracy invited herself into Quinn’s apartment. He was relieved that she took the initiative but not surprised. He snapped on a lamp in the living room, gathering up newspapers and socks as he moved about the place, and told her to have a seat.

  Quinn went into the kitchen to put the beer in the refrigerator, opened two, and brought them back out to the living room along with an ashtray. Tracy was on her cell, talking to her partner, telling her what had gone down. Karen, it went fine, and Karen this and Karen that. He heard Tracy say where she was, then listen to something her partner said. Tracy laughed, saying something Quinn couldn’t make out, before she ended the call.

  Tracy lit a smoke and tossed a match in the ashtray. “Thanks. You don’t mind if I smoke in here, do you?”

  “Nah, it’s fine.”

  Quinn was by his modest CD collection, trying to figure out what to put on the carousel. It struck him, looking to find something that would be appropriate, that most of the music he owned was on the aggressive side. He hadn’t really noticed it before. He settled on a Shane MacGowan solo record, the one with “Haunted” on it, his duet with Sinéad. Good drinking music, and sexy, too, like a scar on the lip of a nice-looking girl.

  Quinn had a seat on the couch next to Tracy. She had taken off her Skechers and tucked her feet under her thighs.

  “To good work,” she said, and tapped her green can against his. They drank off some of their beer.

  “What were you laughing about on the phone there. Me?”

  “Well, yeah. Karen bet me I was gonna spend the night here. I took the bet.”

  “And?”

  “I told her I’d pay up the next time I saw her.”

  Tracy stamped out her smoke and pulled the Scunci off her ponytail. She shook her head and let her hair fall naturally past her shoulders. Some strays fell across her face.

  “Do I have anything to say about it?” said Quinn.

  “Both times we’ve been together, you’ve been staring at me like you were from hunger. And Terry, I’m not as obvious as you are, but I’ve been looking at you the same way.”

  “Christ, you got some balls on you.”

  “It’s not like I make a habit of this.” She unfolded her legs and swung them down to the hardwood floor. “But, you know, when it’s so obvious like it is right here, I mean, why dance around it?”

  “You talked me into it.”

  Tracy leaned into Quinn. He brushed hair away from her face and she kissed him on the mouth. Their tongues touched and he bit softly on her lower lip as she pulled away.

  “Let’s have another beer,” said Tracy. “Relax a little, talk. Listen to some music. Okay?”

  “You’re in charge.”

  “Stop it.”

  “No, it’s cool.” Quinn breathed out slow. “Relax. That sounds nice.”

  They drank their beers and Quinn went off for two more. Tracy was lighting a cigarette when he returned. He sat close to her on the couch. Quinn had downed three beers and was working on his fourth. His buzz was on, but he was still amped from the grab.

  “Thought you were gonna relax.”

  “I am.”

  “You got your fist balled up there.”

  “So I do.”

  “Forget about what happened tonight with Wilson, Terry. He pushed my buttons, too. But he’s history and we got the job done. That’s the only thing that matters now, right?”

  Quinn nodded. He was thinking about Wilson. Sitting here drinking a cold beer with a fine-looking woman he liked, ready to go to bed with her, and not able to stop thinking of the man who had punked him out.

  “What makes you think I had Wilson on my mind?”

  “I asked around about you, talked to a couple of guys Karen knew in the MPD.”

  “Yeah? What’d they say?”

  “Well, everyone’s got a different opinion on what happened the night you shot that cop.”

  “That black cop, you mean. Why didn’t you just ask Derek? He did his own independent investigation into the whole deal.”

  “That how you two hooked up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The department said you were right on the shooting.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. You know what I’m sayin’; you were a cop yourself. But a whole lot of cops I come across, they’re not too willing to forget about it. Some guys still think that shooting was a race thing. By extension, that I’m some kind of racist.”

  “
Well?”

  “Sue, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that I have no prejudice. For a white guy to say he sees a black man and doesn’t make some kind of assumptions, it’s bullshit, and it’s a lie. And the same thing goes in reverse. Let’s just say I’m no more a racist than any other man, okay? And let’s leave it at that.”

  “You know, even the ones who had that opinion of you, they also admitted that you were well-liked, and a good cop. You did have a reputation for violence, though. Not bully violence, exactly. More like, if anyone pushed you, you weren’t willing to let it lie.”

  Quinn drank deeply of his beer and stared at the can. “You always background check the guys you’re interested in?”

  “I haven’t been interested in anyone in a long time.” Tracy took a drag off her smoke and ashed the tray. “Now you. Ask me anything you want.”

  “Okay. First day I met you, I had the impression you had some daddy issues.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Tracy, shaking her head. “Not like you mean. I loved my father and he loved me. I never felt I had to prove anything to him. He was always proud of me. I know ’cause he told me. He even told me the last time I saw him, in his bed at the hospice.”

  “Was he a cop?”

  “No. He did come from a family of them, but it wasn’t something he wanted for himself. He was a career barman at the Mayflower Hotel, downtown.”

  “They’re all, like, Asian guys behind the bar down there.”

  “That’s now. Frank Tracy was all Irish. Irish Catholic. Just like you, Quinn.”

  “And you.”

  “Not quite. The Tracy part of me is. My mother was Scandinavian, where I got the name Susan and my blond hair.”

  “You’re a natural blonde?”

  “Don’t be rude.”

  “I was just wondering.”

  Tracy smiled. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “You are something,” said Quinn.

  They undressed each other back in his room, standing face to face before the bed. She helped him off with his T-shirt and then slipped out of her slacks, leaving on her black lace panties. They were cut high, and her thigh muscles were ripped up to the fabric. He unbuttoned her shirt and peeled it back off her strong shoulders. She wore a black brassiere that fastened in the front. He unfastened it and let it drop to the floor. He pinched one of her pink nipples and flicked his tongue around it.

  “These are nice,” said Quinn.

  “I’ve been told.”

  He swallowed. “I mean it, baby.”

  “They hold my bra up,” said Tracy.

  Quinn chuckled and kissed her lips. He got down to his knees and drew her panties down and kissed her sex. He blew on her pubis and kissed her there and split her with his tongue. Her fingers dug into his shoulder until it hurt. He sucked her flesh into his mouth and tasted her silk and she came standing there.

  They moved to the bed and fucked on the edge of it, Quinn on top. His orgasm was like a punch in the heart. They talked for a while and took a shower and fucked again. Quinn lay beside Tracy and they looked at each other for a long time without speaking. He watched her eyelids slowly drop. In sleep she had a small smile.

  Quinn got out of bed and walked to the window. It was late, nearly four. The street was still. A cop car from the station up the street blew down Sligo Avenue and was gone. He wondered if the guy was on a call, or if he was just driving fast, looking for the next piece of action. He wondered if he was that kind of cop, the kind Quinn had been.

  It had happened fast with Tracy. He knew it would when he’d met her the first time, in the coffee shop. It had been simple, as simple as her uttering those few words. Irish Catholic. Just like you, Quinn. Nothing much needed to be said between them after that, as all was understood. There was her father, as much a part of her as the blood in her veins, and now him, equally familiar. He wondered, as he often did, if it wasn’t more natural for people to stick with their own kind. Well, anyway, it was easier. Of this he was sure.

  Tracy had been a cop, too, just like him. With her, he didn’t have to pretend that he didn’t care about the action, that he didn’t crave it all the time. There wouldn’t be any of that bullshit fronting, the mask he’d felt he had to wear when he was with other women. In that way, they were good for each other. She took him for who he was.

  Quinn stood there looking out the window to the darkened street, picturing Wilson in that trick-house, seeing that gold-capped smile and hearing his smooth baritone and trying to forget. Trying to figure out where he was headed with this problem of his. Trying to figure out, himself, who he was. Who he was and where it would take him in the end.

  chapter 16

  ON Saturday morning the team gathered at Roosevelt High School for a roster check. Strange and Blue wanted to be sure the kids were outfitted with the proper pads and mouthpieces, so that there would be no surprises before game time or injuries on the field of play. When they were done checking on those details, the kids got into the cars of the coaches and the usual group of parents and guardians and drove across town and over the river to the state of Virginia, where the Petworth Panthers’ first game was to be played.

  Their destination was a huge park and sports complex in Springfield that held tennis and basketball courts, picnic areas, and several soccer and football fields. A creek ran through the woods bordering the property. Complexes like this one were typical and numerous in the suburbs, especially farther out, where there was land and money. The kids from the Panthers had rarely seen playing fields as carefully tended as these, or sports parks situated in such lush surroundings.

  “Dag, boy,” said Joe Wilder, his eyes wide, “this joint is tight; check out those lights they got!”

  “Look at thoth uniforms,” said Prince, pointing to a team warming up on a perfect green field, with big blue star decals on their helmets. “They look just like the Cowboys!”

  The kids were on a path between the road and the field, alongside a split-rail fence. Strange, Blue, Lionel Baker, Lamar Williams, Dennis Arrington, and Quinn were walking among them. Rico, the cocky running back, was telling the quarterback, Dante Morris, what he was going to do to the opposing team’s line, and Morris was nodding, not really listening to Rico but keeping quietly to himself. Later, just before the first whistle, Morris would say a silent prayer.

  There were several teams on and around the two main fields. Many had their own cheerleading squads and booster clubs. A game was ending on one of the fields. As the Panthers went through an open chain-link gate, they passed a group of boys in clean red-and-white uniforms, decked out in high-tech equipment, their gleaming helmets held at their sides.

  “Y’all the Cardinals?” said Joe Wilder.

  “Yeah,” said one of the boys, mousse in his studiously disheveled hair, looking down on Wilder and looking him over.

  “We’re playin’ y’all,” said Wilder.

  “In those uniforms?” said the kid, and the Cardinal next to him, pug nosed and with an expensive haircut like his friend, laughed.

  “What, did you find those in the trash or somethin’?” said pug nose.

  Wilder looked over at Dante Morris, who shook his head, Wilder taking it to mean, correctly, that Morris was telling him to keep his mouth shut. Rico took a step toward the two Cardinals, but Morris pulled on his sleeve and held him back.

  Strange, who had heard the exchange and seen this kind of thing before, said, “C’mon, boys, you follow me.”

  The Cardinals were a team of white kids and the Panthers were all black. But it wasn’t a white-black thing. It was a money-no money thing, a way for those who had it to show superiority over those who did not. Plain old insecurity, as old as time itself.

  Blue checked in the team rosters to a guy in a Redskins cap whom he knew to be the point man for the league, then met Arrington, Lionel, and the Midgets for their pregame warm-ups. Strange and Quinn led the Pee Wees under the shade of a stand of oaks beside the main stadium and had the
m form a circle. Strange told Joe Wilder and Dante Morris, the designated captains, to lead the team in calisthenics. Lamar Williams stood by and made sure that they kept the circle tight.

  “How y’all feel?”

  “Fired up!”

  “How y’all feel?”

  “Fired up!”

  “Breakdown.”

  “Whoo.”

  “Breakdown.”

  “Whoo!”

  Strange watched the Cardinals warming up down on the edge of the field. He watched their coach, a fat white man in Bike shorts, yelling out the calisthenics count to his team. Strange remembered this guy from a scrimmage late in the summer, a heart attack waiting to happen, and how he coached his kids to be intimidating and mean.

  “You hear what went down back there?” said Quinn.

  “I heard it,” said Strange.

  “I hope we beat the shit out of these guys, Derek, I swear to God.”

  There was only so much money in the program. The kids had to come up with fifty dollars to play for the squad, and some of them hadn’t even been able to raise that. Dennis Arrington, who was flush from his job in the computer industry, had donated a couple of thousand dollars to the team. Strange, Blue, and Quinn had come up with a grand between them. It bought good pads and replacement helmets and mouthguards, but it didn’t buy new jerseys and pants. The Panthers’ green uniforms were faded, mismatched, and frayed. The number decals on their scarred helmets rarely matched the numbers on their jerseys.

  “It’s not the attitude we’re trying to convey to the boys,” said Quinn, “but I can’t help feeling that way, even though I know it’s wrong.”

  “It ain’t wrong,” said Strange. “But we got what we got. Game time comes, it’s not the uniforms gonna decide the contest. It’s the heart in these kids gonna tell the tale.”

  Strange called them in. They gathered around him and Quinn. Quinn talked about defense and making the big plays. Strange gave them instructions on the general offensive game plan and a few words of inspiration.