Hell To Pay

by George Pelecanos

  “Look here-”

  “You don’t have to say nothin’, Mr. Derek.”

  “Yeah, I do. Don’t want to give you the impression that I’m just assuming you’re always out there looking to get into trouble, doing somethin’ wrong. Because I do think that you’re a fine young man. I appreciate you helping out with the team like you do, and the way you help your mother around here, too.”

  “I know you do.”

  “I guess what I’m trying to tell you is, I’m proud of you. I give you advice you don’t need, I guess, because I care about you, see? I’m looking to play some kind of role in your life, but I’m not quite sure what that is yet, understand?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  They stood there in the foyer looking at each other. Lionel put his hands in his pockets and took them out again and shuffled his feet.

  “Anything else?” said Lionel. “’Cause I gotta bounce.”

  “That’s it, I guess.”

  Strange shook Lionel’s hand and then hugged him clumsily. Lionel left the house, looking over his shoulder at Strange one time before continuing on down the sidewalk. Strange watched him through the window and made sure he got safely into Janine’s car.

  “How’d that go?” said Janine, standing behind him with a cold bottle of beer in one hand and two glasses in the other.

  “Uh, all right, I guess.”

  “C’mon back out to the living room, then, and put your feet up.”

  Strange followed her out of the foyer, through a hall. He watched her strong walk and the back of her head of hair. He could see she’d been to the beauty salon that day, and he hadn’t even complimented her on it. He thought of how much he did love her, and the boy. And he thought of the stranger who had jacked his dick off on a massage table just a few hours earlier in the day.

  “Goddamn you, Derek,” he said under his breath.

  Janine looked over her shoulder. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine, baby,” said Strange.

  He wished that it were so.

  chapter 18

  GARFIELD Potter, Carlton Little, and Charles White spent most of Monday driving around Petworth, Park View, and the northern tip of Shaw, checking on their troops, looking for girls to talk to, drinking some, and staying high. Early in the evening they were back in their row house, hanging out in the living room, where the smoke of a blunt Little had recently fired up hung heavy in the air.

  Potter had been trying to get up with a girl all afternoon, but he hadn’t been able to connect. He paced the room as Little and White sat on the couch playing Madden 2000 while an Outkast cut on PGC came loud from the box. White saw the shadow that had settled on Potter’s face, the look he got when the girl thing hadn’t gone his way. Truth was, most girls were afraid to be with Garfield Potter, something that had never crossed his mind.

  Potter was working on his third forty of malt. He’d been drinking them down since early in the day.

  “Y’all gonna play that kid shit all night?” said Potter.

  “It’s the new one they got,” said Little.

  “I ain’t give a good fuck about no cartoon football game,” said Potter. “Let’s go up to that field and see some real football.”

  “That again?”

  “I feel like smokin’ someone,” said Potter. He rubbed his hands together as he walked back and forth in the room. “Lorenze Wilder is gonna be got.”

  “Ah, shit, D,” said Little. “Let me and Coon just finish this one game.”

  Potter went over to the PlayStation base unit and hit the power button. The game stopped and the screen went over to the cable broadcast. Potter stood in front of the couch and stared at his childhood friends. Little started to say something but thought better of it, looking into Potter’s flat eyes.

  “You want to go,” said Little, “we’ll go.”

  Potter nodded. “Bring your strap.”

  Charles White didn’t protest. He hoped they would not find this Lorenze Wilder up at the football field. He told himself that they would not. After all, they had gone back to the practice field a couple of times, and except for the first go-round when Wilder had been there, there hadn’t been nothin’ over there but a few parents, coaches, and some kids.

  They met a few minutes later at the front door of the house, Potter wearing his skully. Both he and Little had dressed in dark, loose clothing. White had slipped on his favorite shirt, the bright orange Nautica pullover in that soft fleece, the one felt good against his skin.

  “Take that shit off,” said Potter, looking at White’s shirt. “Like you wearin’ a sign says, Look at me.”

  “Why you buggin’?” said White.

  “’Cause I don’t want no one to remember us later on,” said Potter, talking carefully as he would to a child. “Could you be more stupid than you is?”

  LORENZE Wilder stood by the stadium seats, leaning on the chain-link fence, watching the kids practicing while his hand dipped into a bag of french fries doused in ketchup. He shoved a handful of fries into his mouth and licked ketchup off his fingers. He hadn’t thought to get some napkins from the Chinese chicken house he’d stopped into up on the strip. Cheap-ass slope who owned the shop, he was probably hiding the napkins in the back anyhow.

  Wilder nodded to one of the parents of the kids who was seated nearby. Man barely gave him the time of day, just a kind of chill-over with his eyes. One of those bourgeois brothers, Wilder guessed, thought he was somethin’ with his low-grade government job. Maybe he didn’t like Wilder’s T-shirt, had a big picture of a marijuana leaf on the front. Didn’t like him wearing it in front of all these kids. Well, fuck him, too.

  The coaches were working these boys tonight. That whiteboy coach they had, he had set up three of those orange cones road crews used in the center of the field. The kids were running to the cones, and the white boy had the pigskin, and he was shouting “Right” or “Left,” and the kid would cut that way without looking over his shoulder and get the pass from that coach. The pass would always be there, on the money. Wilder had to admit, the white boy had an arm on him, but he should’ve thrown it much harder, taught those boys what it was like to feel the sting of a bullet-ball. That’s what Wilder would do if he was the coach. He wouldn’t mind getting out there himself, show them all how it was done.

  The one named Strange was out there, talking to another coach, a brother with a gray mustache who looked even older than him. Wilder didn’t care much for this Strange, who he could tell didn’t want him hangin’ around his little nephew, Joe. First time they’d met, Strange had given him one of those chill-looks, too.

  Now the kids were being told to come in and take a knee. It had gotten near to dark, and Lorenze Wilder guessed the practice was coming to an end. Wilder had brought his car with him tonight. He wasn’t gonna let Strange talk him out of spending time with his nephew. Joe was his own kin, after all. And Lorenze Wilder needed to speak to him about something important. He’d been looking to get up with the little man on it for a long time.

  CHARLES White sat in the backseat of the Plymouth and watched Garfield Potter return from the fence bordering Roosevelt’s stadium. In the passenger seat, Carlton Little ate a Quarter Pounder, his eyes closed as he chewed. He had made them stop at the McDonald’s near Howard before doubling back up here to the high school. Little always got hungry behind the herb.

  Potter crossed the lot slow, putting a down-dip to his walk, a kind of stretched-back grin spreading on his face. The things that made Potter smile were not the things that made other people smile, and White felt a tightening in his chest.

  Potter leaned into Charles White’s open window.

  “You drivin’, Coon. Get out and take the wheel. Roll over to Iowa and park on the street. We’ll wait there for him to pull out.”

  “Wilder’s here?” said Little, looking up from his meal.

  “Yeah,” said Potter. “And we gonna dead this motherfucker tonight.”

  STRANGE gave his usual cl
osing talk to the Midgets and Pee Wees, and answered their questions patiently. Then he asked them for the starting time of the next practice, on Wednesday night.

  “Six o’clock on the dot, be there, don’t miss it!”

  “See you then,” said Strange. “Those of you on your bikes, get home now. If you’re waitin’ on a ride from one of the coaches or parents, you wait over there by the stands, or at the parking lot if you know the car.”

  Strange looked over to the stands, saw the parents and guardians grouped together, waiting for their kids and for those who were not theirs but who depended on them for a lift home. He noticed Joe Wilder’s no-account uncle standing apart from the rest, leaning on the fence, a brown bag of trash at his feet. He probably just dropped it there, thought Strange. Wouldn’t think to move a few feet and throw it in a can.

  Prince and Joe Wilder were walking together toward the stands.

  “Prince! Joe! Y’all wait for me, hear?”

  Joe Wilder turned his head, made a small wave back to Strange, and kept walking. Strange could see the boy’s eyes blink under his helmet as he took out his mouthguard and fitted it in the helmet’s cage. He was holding one of those wrestling figures of his tight in his hand.

  If Lionel or Lamar were there, he’d tell them to go ahead and get up with the boys, make sure they waited up by his car. But Lamar was baby-sitting his little sister, and Lionel had stayed home to catch up on his schoolwork.

  “Derek,” said Lydell Blue, coming up beside him and startling him with his voice. “Can I talk to you a minute? Need some advice on what to do with my offensive line. I mean, they did nothin’ on Saturday. You and Terry been handlin’ yours pretty well.”

  “I can’t talk long,” said Strange.

  “This won’t take but a minute,” said Blue.

  Some of the boys had stayed on the field and were throwing long passes, tackling one another, clowning around. Strange glanced over at Arrington and Quinn, who were gathering up the equipment on the far sideline.

  “All right,” said Strange, “but let’s make it quick. I gotta get these boys back in their homes.”

  JOE Wilder saw his uncle Lorenze standing by the fence as he neared the stands. Joe’s mom was mad at his uncle or something, and Joe hadn’t seen him around the apartment for quite some time.

  “Little man,” said Lorenze.

  “Hey, Uncle Lo,” said Joe with a smile.

  “How you been doin’? You lookin’ strong out there, Hoss.”

  “I been doin’ all right.”

  “I got my car. C’mon, boy, I’ll drive you home tonight.”

  “Thanks, but I was gonna ride with Coach Derek.”

  “You like ice cream, don’t ya?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, c’mon, then. We’ll grab a cone or a cup or somethin’, and then I’ll run you home.”

  “I like ithe cream,” said Prince.

  “Sorry, youngun,” said Lorenze. “Only got enough to spring for me and my man here. Next time, okay?”

  Joe Wilder looked back at Coach Strange, who was still on the field, talking with Coach Blue. His uncle seemed pretty nice. He wouldn’t let anything happen to him or nothin’ like that. And an ice cream sounded good.

  “Tell Coach Derek I got a ride home with my uncle,” said Joe to Prince. “All right?”

  “I’ll tell him,” said Prince.

  Prince had a seat on the lowest aluminum bench in the stands and waited for Strange to finish what he was doing. Joe and his uncle climbed the concrete steps to the parking lot. The shadows of dusk faded as full dark fell upon the school grounds.

  “THERE we go,” said Potter, looking through the windshield of the Plymouth from the passenger side. “There goes Wilder right there.”

  Lorenze Wilder was letting a uniformed boy into the passenger side of his car. As he went around to the driver’s side, he looked around the parking lot, studying the cars.

  Potter chuckled under his breath, then took a deep swig from a forty-ounce bottle of malt liquor. He slid the bottle back down between his legs.

  “He got some kid with him,” said White. “That’s his nephew, right?”

  “Whateva,” said Potter.

  “Yo, turn that shit up, D,” said Little from the backseat. He was busy rolling a fat number, his hands deep in a Baggie of herb.

  Potter turned up the volume on the radio.

  “That’s my boy DJ Flexx right there,” said Little. “They moved him into Tigger’s spot.”

  “Put this shits in gear, Coon,” said Potter. “They’re pullin’ out.”

  “We gonna do this thing with that kid in the car?” said White.

  “Just stay on Wilder. He probably gonna be droppin’ that boy off at his mother’s, sumshit like that.”

  “We don’t need to be messin’ with no kids, Gar.”

  “Go on, man,” said Potter, chinning in the direction of the royal blue Oldsmobile leaving the parking lot. “Try not to lose him, neither.”

  LORENZE Wilder’s car was a 1984 Olds Regency, a V8 with blue velour interior, white vinyl roof, and wire wheel covers. The windows were tinted dark all the way around. It reminded Wilder of one of those Miami cars, the kind those big-time drug dealers had down there, or a limousine. You could see out, but no one could see inside, and for him it was the one feature of the car that had closed the deal. He had bought it off a lot in Northwest for eighteen hundred dollars and financed it at an interest rate of 24 percent. He had missed the last three payments and had recently changed his phone number again to duck the creditors who had begun to call.

  Lorenze saw Joe running his hand along the fabric of the seat as they drove south on Georgia Avenue.

  “You can get your own car like this someday, you work hard like your uncle.” In fact, Lorenze Wilder hadn’t had a job in years.

  “It’s nice,” said Joe.

  “That’s like, velvet right there. Bet your father got a nice car, too.”

  Joe Wilder shrugged and looked over at his uncle. “I ain’t never met my father, so I don’t know what he drives.”

  “For real?”

  “Mama says that my father’s just… She say he’s gone.”

  Of course, Lorenze knew all about the family history. It was this very thing Lorenze and his sister had argued about, that had set her shit off. She didn’t want the boy to know about his father, that was her business. But here it was now, affecting him, Lorenze. Standing in his way. All he wanted was a little somethin’, a way in. Lorenze tried not to think on it too hard, ’cause it only made him angry.

  He glanced over at his nephew. Joe Wilder’s helmet was next to him on the bench seat. He held an action figure in his hand, some guy in tights. Sunglasses had been painted on the man’s rubber face.

  Lorenze let his breath out slow. He hadn’t been around kids too much himself. But as kids went, his nephew seemed all right. Lorenze made himself smile and tried to put a tone of interest in his voice.

  “Who’s that, Joe?”

  “The Rock.”

  “That’s that Puerto Rican boy, right?”

  “I don’t know what he is, but he’s bad. I got a whole rack of wrestlers like this at home.”

  “Bet you ain’t got no good ice cream at your mama’s place.”

  “Sometimes we do.”

  “What kind of ice cream you like?”

  “Chocolate and vanilla. Like, when they mix ’em up.”

  “I think I know where this one place is.” They were south of Howard University now, and Lorenze turned the wheel and went east on Rhode Island Avenue. “Let’s see if it’s open, okay?”

  Had Wilder bothered to look in his rearview, he would have seen a white Plymouth following him from four or five car lengths back.

  “HE ain’t droppin’ that kid off,” said White.

  “Just keep on doin’ what you’re doin’,” said Potter.

  Carlton Little passed the fat bone over the front seat to Potter. Potter took it an
d hit it deep. He kept the smoke in his lungs for as long as he could stand it. He exhaled and killed the forty of malt and dropped the bottle at his feet. The music from the radio was loud in the car.

  In the Edgewood Terrace area of Northeast, still on Rhode Island, Potter saw the blue Olds slow down up ahead. It turned into a parking lot where a white building stood, fronted with glass and screens.

  “Keep drivin’ by it,” said Potter.

  As they passed the building, Potter saw that it was a take-out ice-cream joint, had a sign out front looked like a kid had drawn it. Next to it was a 7-Eleven with plywood over its windows and red condemnation notices stuck on the boards.

  “Drive around the block, Coon.”

  White made a left at the next intersection, and the next one after that. Potter reached into his waistband and drew the.357 Colt that he had there. He broke the cylinder and checked the load. He jerked his wrist to snap the cylinder shut, as he had seen it done in the movies, but it did not connect, and he used his free hand to finish the job. He tightened his fingers on the revolver’s rubber grip.

  “Get your shit ready, Dirty,” said Potter.

  “I’m tryin’ to,” said Little, with a nervous giggle. He had his 9mm automatic out from under the front seat. He had released the magazine and was now trying to slide it back in. Little had gotten this Glock 17, the current sidearm of the MPD, from a boy he knew who owed him money, a drug debt erased. But Little hadn’t practiced with it much.

  “Boy,” he said, “I am fucked up.” The magazine found its home with a soft click.

  White brought the car back out to Rhode Island, about fifty yards south of the ice-cream place.

  “Park it here and let it run,” said Potter.

  As they pulled along the curb, Potter watched Lorenze Wilder and his nephew up at the screen window of the joint, the place where you ordered and paid. Wasn’t but one other car in the lot, a shitty Nissan. Well, it was September. The nights had cooled some.

  “What’re we gonna do?” said White.

  “Wait,” said Potter.