'I'll meet him,' said Deacon. 'But I ain't ready just yet. Need to think things out before we talk.'
'You got a plan?'
'I don't plan,' said Deacon. 'I look for opportunities.'
'You want to do this tonight?'
'Tonight's good.'
'I'll go back to Larry.'
'Don't call him Larry to his face,' said Deacon. 'I heard his mother named him after the bass player, and I heard he don't like it.'
'What bass player?'
'Larry Graham,' said Deacon.
Griff shrugged and looked blankly at Deacon.
'Awright then,' said Deacon. 'Go talk to Graham and set it up. Say, eight o'clock at the fort?'
'I'm on it,' said Griff.
'No doubt,' said Deacon. Griff pulled away in his car.
Deacon thinking, Boy don't know who Larry Graham is, at least he should have pretended like he did. Tryin' to make me feel all ancient out here.
Lorenzo Brown caught a quick tuna sub at his Subway and got back to work. He radioed in to Cindy, still on the desk, to see if there were any calls he needed to take. She told him about a chaining complaint over in Columbia Heights. He told her he would pass by the address on his way back to the office. She didn't mention anything about the incident in Southeast. Leon Skiles had followed street code, as Lorenzo had expected, and not reported the assault.
Lorenzo started up the Tahoe and headed for Columbia Heights.
Eddie Davis was a cutter in a styling shop on Florida Avenue, in Trinidad, near Gallaudet. He was a slim man in his midfifties, quiet and gentle, with a trim mustache and kind eyes. Nothing about him suggested that he was the same person who in 1977 had stabbed a man repeatedly for looking at his girlfriend the wrong way in a Petworth bar. Eddie Davis, up on PCP, had left an Italian switchblade in the man's neck after burying it to the hilt, and then resumed his drinking. No one had come near him until the police arrived. When he was smoking that boat, Eddie felt as if he had the strength of ten men and, feeling that way, he did. In fact, it took four police to subdue him that night.
The murder charge bought him a twenty-five-year sentence. He had fathered two sons before he went inside. As teenagers, without a strong male figure to keep them in line, both young men became involved in the crack cocaine trade, which hit Washington like a plague in the summer of '86. As adults, Eddie's sons eventually caught drug charges and were incarcerated for most of the nineties. Eddie himself was released and was promptly violated on possession-with-intent-to-distribute offenses. He returned to prison, where the one-two punch of Jesus and drug rehabilitation finally found traction with a man who realized he was both too old to play the game and lucky to be alive. As for Eddie's sons, they were CSOSA cases: Transferred from Lorton to federal facilities, they had served out the rest of their terms far away from D.C. and now were out on paper, trying, like their father, to stay on the straight.
Rachel Lopez entered the styling shop, a unisex affair owned by an ex-offender named Rock Williams who aggressively employed men and women who had done time. The shop was full-service, with stylists, barbers, manicurists, and pedicurists, and specialized in hair coloring and extensions. Williams had a loyal clientele. Most of the customers had family members either in incarceration or on paper and were behind the concept of redemption through hard work.
'Mr Williams,' said Rachel Lopez, approaching the broad-chested owner standing behind the register counter.
'Miss Lopez.' He extended his hand and she shook it. 'You lookin' for Eddie?'
'I am.'
'He's around here somewhere. I'll get him for you.'
Williams went past the styling area and through curtains to a back room. Rachel listened to the soft soul and jazz of the Howard University radio station, WHUR, coming from the house system. She got nods and eye contact from a couple of the cutters and a wink from a female manicurist working close to the counter. All had been told by Eddie Davis and Williams that Miss Lopez was a PO and that she was all right. She had never once caught attitude in the Rock Williams House of Style.
Davis emerged from the back room smiling. He met her at the counter and shook her hand. She drew him into her arms impulsively. He hugged her as he would a daughter.
'How do I look?' he said, stepping back.
Davis wore a black barber's smock with 'Eddie' stitched in cursive across the chest. Above his name was an embroidered tableau of crossed scissors over a barber pole. His hard life had aged him prematurely and considerably, but Rachel could still see the handsome man he once had been. Everything about him she needed to know was in his eyes. There was nothing bad there; it was impossible that there would be evil in him again.
'You look great,' she said.
'Do I look like a man who's about to come off paper?'
'I wrote the termination letter a few days ago. I'm ready to send it in.'
'That don't mean we gotta stop seein' each other, right?'
'I'll be around,' said Rachel. 'And I'm gonna expect that Christmas card too.'
'You're family, Miss Lopez. I ain't never gonna take you off that list.'
They looked at each other for a few moments. She hoped that what he said was true. It was with mixed feelings that she let go of certain offenders. The fact that an Eddie Davis was going to make it validated her life's work. That he was walking out of her world caused her sadness too.
'How are your sons?' she said.
'Good. Charles and Michael both cuttin' heads in separate barbershops.' Eddie looked around to make sure that Williams was not within earshot. 'Plan is, I'm gonna start up my own shop. Get my sons under my wing. I'm lookin' at this little space over there on Good Hope Road. It's close to my apartment. Want a place I can walk to every morning, turn that key.'
'Don't worry about Rock hearing you,' said Rachel. 'He'd be happy if you went out on your own.'
'I'm gonna do it, Miss Lopez. I am going to do it.'
'I believe you. Your sons are in Anacostia as well?'
'Yeah. Both of 'em bought little houses over there in Southeast. I helped 'em out with the down payments. I had a, what do you call that, motive for it. I want to be close to my grandchildren.'
'It's all about family.'
'Yes,' said Eddie. He looked her over. 'You look nice today, you don't mind my sayin' so.'
'I was feeling poorly this morning. But I'm better now.'
'You gonna be able to come by that barbecue this weekend? My sons and their kids are gonna be there. They'd love to see you.'
'I'll try.'
Eddie pointed a gnarled finger in her direction. 'I'm not gonna let you lose touch.'
'I promise. We've come too far together, you and me.'
'God is good,' said Eddie Davis.
He can be, thought Rachel. They hugged again before she left the shop.
Out in her Honda, Rachel looked through her files. She had one more stop to make before returning to the office. The offender had given her his work schedule, by her request. He was a person she needed to stay on top of, a career criminal who up to this point had been unable to leave the drug game behind.
Rachel wanted to interview the offender at his place of employment whenever possible, to verify that he was there consistently. It looked as if she had missed that opportunity when she had failed to make all of her calls the day before. She'd have to visit him at his residence on Sherman Avenue.
According to her records, that's where the offender, a man named Melvin Lee, stayed.
CHAPTER 20
Rico Miller sat on a folding chair by the big front window of the apartment, watching the street. Melvin had told him not to stay there, but he was bored. He had tried playing Counter-Strike on Xbox, but he was used to the PS2 controller and grew frustrated using one he didn't know nothing about. He had thought getting high might help him master the system, but that didn't educate him either. The fat joint he'd smoked had only made him more confused. And that had sent him to where he was at right now, staring out the window. Wasn't much skill you needed for that.