“Just tellin’ you I saw you, is all.”
Strange heard voices on the phone. He put the receiver back to his ear.
“Okay,” said Strange.
“We all here?” said Bagley.
“I can hear you,” said Tracy. “Derek?”
“I got what you needed,” said Strange. “It’s all on videotape.”
“That was quick,” said Bagley.
“Did it Friday night. I thought I’d let the weekend pass, didn’t want to disturb your-all’s beauty sleeps.”
“What’d you get?” said Tracy.
“Your bad john is a cop. Unmarked. But you two knew that, I expect. The flag went up for me when you said he was talkin’ about ‘I don’t have to pay.’ Question is, why didn’t you just tell me what you suspected?”
“We wanted to find out if we could trust you,” said Tracy.
Direct, thought Strange. That was cool.
“I’m going to give the tape and the information to a lieutenant friend of mine in the MPD. I been knowin’ him my whole life. He’ll turn it over to Internal and they’ll take care of it.”
“You’ve got a videotape of his car,” said Bagley, “right? Did you get his face?”
“No, not really. But it’s his car and it’s a clear solicitation. He might say he was gathering information or some bullshit like that, but it’s enough to throw a shadow over him. The IAD people will talk to him, and I suspect it’ll scare him. He won’t be botherin’ that girl again. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Bagley. “Good work.”
“Good? It was half good, I’d say. You two ever see that movie The Magnificent Seven?”
Bagley and Tracy took a moment before uttering a “yes” and an “uh-huh.” Strange figured they were wondering where he was going with this.
“One of my favorites,” said Strange. “There’s that scene where Coburn, he plays the knife-carryin’ Texican, pistol-shoots this cat off a horse from, like, I don’t know, a couple hundred yards away. And this hero-worship kid, German actor or something, but they got him playin’ a Mexican, he says something like, ‘That was the greatest shot I ever saw.’ And Coburn says, ‘It was the worst. I was aiming for his horse.’”
“And your point is what?” said Bagley.
“I wish I could’ve delivered more to you. More evidence, I mean. But what I did get, it might just be enough. Anyway, hopefully y’all will trust me now.”
“Like I said,” said Tracy, “there’s no such thing as an ex-cop. Cops are usually hesitant to turn in one of their own.”
“There’s two professions,” said Strange, “teaching and policing, that do the most good for the least pay and recognition. But you want to be a teacher or a cop, you accept that goin’ in. Most cops and most teachers are better than good. But there’s always gonna be the teacher likes to play with a kid’s privates, and there’s always gonna be a cop out there, uses his power and position in the wrong way. In both cases, to me, it’s the worst kind of betrayal. So I got no problem with turnin’ a cat like that in. Only . . .”
“What?” said Tracy.
“Don’t keep nothin’ from me again, hear? Okay, you did it once, but you don’t get to do it again. It happens, it’ll be the last time we work together.”
“We were wrong,” said Bagley. “Can you forget it?”
“Forget what?”
“What about the other thing?” said Tracy. “The flyer we gave you.”
“I’ve got a guy I use named Terry Quinn. Former D.C. cop. He’s a licensed investigator in the District now. I’m gonna give it to him.”
“Why not you?” said Bagley.
“Too busy.”
“How can we reach him?” said Tracy.
“He’s not in the office much. He works part-time in a used-book store in downtown Silver Spring. He can take calls there, and he’s got a cell. I’m gonna see him this evening; I’ll make sure he gets the flyer.”
Strange gave them both numbers.
“Thank you, Derek.”
“You’ll get my bill straightaway.” Strange hung up the phone and looked over at Lamar. “You ready, boy?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s roll.”
STRANGE retrieved the videotape of the cop and the hooker, wedged in the football file box, and shut the trunk’s lid.
“This here is you,” said Strange, handing the tape over to Lydell Blue.
“The thing you called me about?”
“Yeah. I wrote up a little background on it, what I was told by the investigators who put me on it, what I heard at the scene, like that. I signed my name to it, Internal wants to get in touch with me.”
Blue stroked his thick gray mustache. “I’ll take care of it.”
They walked across the parking lot toward the fence that surrounded the stadium, passing Quinn’s hopped-up blue Chevelle and Dennis Arrington’s black Infiniti I30 along the way.
Strange knew Roosevelt’s football coach — he had done a simple background check for him once and he had not charged him a dime — and they had worked it out so that Strange’s team could practice on Roosevelt’s field when the high school team wasn’t using it. In return, Strange turned the coach on to some up-and-coming players and tried to keep those kids who were headed for Roosevelt in a straight line as well.
“You and Dennis want the Midgets tonight?”
“Tonight? Yeah, okay.”
“Me and Terry’ll work with the Pee Wees, then.”
“Derek, that’s the way you got it set up damn near every night.”
“I like the young kids, is what it is,” said Strange. “Me and Terry will just stick with them, you don’t mind.”
“Fine.”
Midgets in this league — a loosely connected set of neighborhood teams throughout the area — went ten to twelve years old and between eighty-five and one hundred and five pounds. Pee Wees were ages eight to eleven, with a minimum of sixty pounds and a max of eighty-five. There was also an intermediate and junior division in the league, but the Petworth club could not attract enough boys in those age groups, the early-to-mid-teen years, to form a squad. Many of these boys had by then become too distracted by other interests, like girls, or necessities, like part-time jobs. Others had already been lost to the streets.
Strange followed Blue through a break in the fence and down to the field. About fifty boys were down there in uniforms and full pads, tackling one another, cracking wise, kicking footballs, and horsing around. Lamar Williams was with them, giving them some tips, also acting the clown. A few mothers were down there, and a couple of fathers, too, talking among themselves.
The field was surrounded by a lined track painted a nice sky blue. A set of aluminum bleachers on concrete steps faced the field. Weed trees grew up through the concrete.
Dennis Arrington, a computer programmer and deacon, was throwing the ball back and forth with the Midgets’ quarterback in one of the end zones. Nearby, Terry Quinn showed Joe Wilder, a Pee Wee, the ideal place on the body to make a hit. Quinn had to get down low to do it. Wilder was the runt of the litter, short but with defined muscles and a six-pack of abs, though he had only just turned eight years old. At sixty-two pounds, Wilder was also the lightest member of the squad.
Strange blew a whistle that hung on a cord around his neck. “Everybody line up over there.” He motioned to a line that had been painted across the track. They knew where it was.
“Hustle,” said Blue.
“Four times around,” said Strange, “and don’t be complaining, either; that ain’t nothin’ but a mile.” He blew the whistle again over the boys’ inevitable moans and protests.
“Any one of you walks,” yelled Arrington, as they jogged off the line, “and you all are gonna do four more.”
The men stood together in the end zone and watched the sea of faded green uniforms move slowly around the track.
“Got a call from Jerome Moore’s mother today,” said Blue. “Jerome got suspended from Clark today for pulling a knife on a teacher.”