Drama City

Melvin Lee passed her on the way to the bathroom.

'Where you go now?' she said.

'To pull on my rod,' said Lee with a friendly smile. She understood the smile but not the words.

'Hurry up,' she said.

Lee went into the bathroom, took a pee, then went out the back door and bummed a menthol from the old man who worked the pressurized hose. He lit the smoke and went around the side of the business, where a few cars were idling in line, and he dragged on the cigarette and let the cool of a Salem hit his lungs.

I get off paper, thought Lee, and I won't have to put up with none of this bullshit anymore.

Rico's silver BMW pulled into the driveway entrance. Miller stopped alongside the brick wall of the building, where he could not be seen by the drying crew, and landed on his horn.

'Stupid-ass kid,' said Lee, crushing the cigarette under his boot.

Lee walked to the BMW and stood by its driver's-side window. Miller's white T-shirt was streaked and splattered with blood. His eyes were electric and alive.

'What happened?' said Lee, a sense of dread hitting him like a slap in the face. 'Thought I told you to stay put.'

'Law came for you, Melvin,' said Miller. 'I took care of it, man. For you.'

'Aw, shit, Rico.'

'Melvin, you gotta get in the car. They gonna be comin' for you now, for real.'

'Rico…'

'Get in.'

Lee walked slowly around the car. He dropped into the shotgun bucket and looked over at Miller.

'Where we goin'?'

'My place,' said Miller. 'You gonna see where I stay at now.'

Deacon Taylor lived in one of the new condos around U Street, within walking distance of the Lincoln Theater, Ben's, and many nightclubs and bars. His place was nicely furnished, with a granite-counter kitchen and a bathroom with limestone walls and a huge jetted tub built to hold three. He was only blocks from where he did his dirt, but in terms of the lifestyle, he was far away.

Deacon was listening to some Ronald Isley when the buzzer sounded at the front door. He checked his security camera and saw that it was police, the same Homicide team he'd spoke to earlier, come to see him for the second time that day. Deacon kept nothing in the apartment, no excessive amounts of cash and no guns or drugs, not even weed, so he was not worried. But he was curious to know why the MPD was back so soon. The men on the other side of the door identified themselves, and Deacon worked several locks to let them in.

'Yeah,' said Deacon.

'It's us again,' said Detective Steve Bournias, a stocky white man with a thin mustache.

'I can see that.'

'Sorry to bother you,' said Detective Reginald Ballard.

'We've got a problem, though,' said Bournias. 'Wonder if we can't get a little bit more of your time.'

'This about those murders over on Crittenden? I already told you, I don't know nothin' about it.'

'This isn't about those murders.'

'Well, what is it about? I'm busy—'

'Fellow by the name of Melvin Lee, used to work for you. Probably still does, but that's neither here nor there.'

'Now wait a minute—'

'Melvin Lee,' said Ballard. 'Lives on Sherman Avenue?'

'What about him?'

'We're looking for him. Our people checked on his place of employment, a car wash up on Georgia. Seems he showed up for his shift and then just kinda disappeared.'

'So?' said Deacon. 'What'd he do wrong, light up in a no-smoking zone, sumshit like that?'

'A little bit more serious than that,' said Bournias. 'Mr Lee's probation officer was stabbed in his apartment this afternoon. Stabbed repeatedly, Mr Taylor.'

'You don't look so good,' said Ballard. 'You wanna sit down?'

'I don't know nothin',' said Deacon, the words automatic.

'This isn't the usual cost-of-doing-business bullshit,' said Ballard. 'To use a knife is personal to begin with. To use it with that kind of anger is something else again. Makes us think that maybe your boy has issues with women.'

'I don't know nothin',' said Deacon.

'Get your shit,' said Bournias. 'We're gonna do this in the box.'

'Lawyer,' said Deacon.

'Yeah,' said Reggie Ballard tiredly. 'Okay.'

Lorenzo Brown was turning up Sherman, coming off his chaining call, when he saw the ambulance and police cars blocking the street. Neighborhood residents were out, looking at one row house in the middle of the block like they were waiting on something to happen there or someone to be brought out. And then he saw Miss Lopez's Honda parked along the curb. He had sat in it enough times to know it was hers. She had those green little tree deodorizers hanging from her rearview to take away the smell of her cigarettes.

Lorenzo found a place to park the truck. He went into the crowd. Kids rode their bikes around the residents and police like buzzards waiting on the kill. Lorenzo found two youngish women who looked like they belonged on the street.

''Scuse me,' said Lorenzo to one of the women. 'You know what's going on?'

'Woman got herself shot or something' said the woman.

'I heard she got stabbed,' said her friend.

'In that house?' said Lorenzo.

'In that house right there,' said the first woman.

'White woman, what I hear,' said the friend. 'She musta had business here or somethin'.'

Lorenzo's blood jumped. He felt a little dizzy in the heat.

'Is she dead?' said Lorenzo, dreading the answer.

'I don't know,' said the friend.

'She another statistic now,' said the woman.

One of the kids riding bikes made a pistol out of his fingers and pointed it at the back of one of the police.

Lorenzo walked toward the house. He approached the police line where they had stationed uniformed officers and where the yellow tape hung. He went right to a white policeman and stood beside him.

'Excuse me, officer,' said Lorenzo.

The police looked him over, studied his uniform, read the rectangular nameplate on his chest.

'Yeah?'

'Is the victim a white woman?'

'What?'

'I might know the victim. If her name is Rachel Lopez, I know her.'

'Who are you?'

'I'm one of her offenders.'

'Hold up a second,' said the police, grabbing hold of Lorenzo's biceps. Lorenzo did not try to pull his arm free. The police shouted into a crowd of police knotted by the row house door. 'Hey, Sarge, come here!'

A black policeman with stripes on his sleeves came to the white police who was holding Lorenzo. The black policeman was well built and had grief and fire in his eyes.

'What?' said the Sergeant. 'Donald Peterson' was etched on his nameplate.

'This gentleman says he knows the victim. Says he's one of her offenders.'

'Is she alive?' said Lorenzo.

Sergeant Peterson took Lorenzo by the same arm and led him back toward the street. He held him tightly. There was anger in the way his fingers dug into Lorenzo's skin.

'Tell me she's alive,' said Lorenzo.

'Shut your mouth,' said Peterson. "Less I tell you to talk, you keep your mouth shut.'

Peterson roughed him putting him into the car.

The hardest part was seeing her under that sheet, the blood staining it in big sloppy circles that seemed to grow as they carried the stretcher down the steps. Her colorless face was nearly covered with a breathing mask. The rescue squad men and women worked on her as they made their way to the ambulance, but they might as well have been working on one of those dummies you'd see in a store window, way she looked. The other hard part was trying to keep the recognition and surprise off his face when the sergeant asked him if he knew of a guy named Melvin Lee. Rachel Lopez, Peterson said, had been stabbed in Lee's apartment. A neighbor on the third floor had heard her screams.