“Why hire private cops?” said Quinn.
“What my partner means is,” said Strange, “you suspect some kind of foul play, what you need to do is, you need to report it to the police.”
“Black girl goes missin’ in Southeast, police ain’t gonna do shit. But it ain’t like that, anyway. Olivia was the kind of girl, it was a cloudy day or somethin’, it would bust on her groove. She’d be, like, cryin’ her eyes out over somethin’ simple like the weather. I’m worried in the sense that she’s sad, or got the depression, sumshit like that. I just want to know where she is. And if we do have some kind of problem between us, then maybe we can work it out.”
“All right, then,” said Strange. “Give Terry here the details on what you just told us. Addresses, phone numbers, all that.”
Strange went out to the reception area while Quinn took the information. He phoned Raymond Ives, Granville Oliver’s attorney, and left a message on his machine informing him that he was making progress on the gathering of countertestimony against Phillip Wood. When Strange returned to his office, Mario Durham was standing out of his chair. He wasn’t but five and a half feet tall, and he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred twenty-five pounds.
“We all set, then,” said Durham.
“Just give my office manager out there your deposit on your way out,” said Strange, “and we’ll get going on this right away.”
“Fifty, right?”
“A hundred, just like Janine told you when you spoke to her on the phone.”
“Damn, y’all about to bankrupt a man.”
“It’s a hundred. But this shouldn’t take too long. Our rate is thirty-five an hour, and if it comes out to be under the hundred, then you’re gonna get what we didn’t earn back.”
“Put a rush on it, hear? I can’t even afford the hundred, seein’ as I’m in between jobs right now. I’m just anxious to see my girl.”
Durham began to walk from the room. Greco got up and followed him, sniffing at the back of his Tommys as he walked. Greco growled some, and Durham quickened his step. Greco stopped walking as Durham passed through the doorway. Quinn shut the office door.
“Animal doesn’t like you,” said Strange, “must be a reason.”
“We don’t usually ask for one-hundred-dollar deposits, Derek.”
“I made an exception for him.”
“It’s because he’s black, right?”
“It’s because he’s a no-account knucklehead. That hundred’s the only money we’re ever gonna see out of him. He’s got no job, wouldn’t even give Janine a fixed address. Said if we needed to get him we could look up a friend of his called Donut in Valley Green.”
“Donut, huh? You can bank that.”
“And his only phone number is a cell.”
“You think there’s something funny about his story?”
“Course there is. Somethin’ funny about half the stories we hear in this place. Maybe she owes him money, or he’s just tryin’ to find out if she’s shackin’ up with someone else.”
“You don’t think a woman would leave a prize like him for another man, do you? That’d be like, I don’t know, driving across town for a Big Mac when you got filet mignon cooking on the grill in your backyard.”
“Was it just me, or was that man butt-ugly?”
“Playa hater,” said Quinn.
“Almost feel like pressing his money back in his hand, giving him the phone number to a good dentist.”
“Last time I saw two teeth like that, they were attached to somethin’ had a paddle for a tail and was chewin’ on a piece of wood.”
“Well, a hundred dollars is a hundred dollars. If any of that information he gave us is accurate, I’ll find that girl this afternoon.”
“Quit bragging.”
“No brag,” said Strange, “just fact.”
“Guns of Will Sonnet,” said Quinn. “Walter Brennan.”
“Damn, boy, you surprise me sometimes.”
“You need me,” said Quinn, “I’m puttin’ in a few hours at the bookstore today.”
Strange said, “I’ll call you there.”
Chapter 6
STRANGE went back down to Anacostia and had a late lunch at Mama Cole’s. Its sign claimed they served “the best soul food in town,” and if that wasn’t enough, the cursive quote on the awning out front added, “Martin Luther King would have eaten here.” Strange didn’t know about all that, but the food was better than all right. He ordered a fish sandwich with plenty of hot sauce, and when he had his first bite he closed his eyes. That pricey white-tablecloth buppie joint on the suit-side of town, claimed it was South authentic, didn’t have anything this good coming out of its kitchen.
“How you doin’, Derek?” said a man at a deuce as Strange was making his way toward the door.
“I’m makin’ it,” said Strange, shaking his hand. The man was an assistant coach for the football squad that played their home games at Turkey Thicket, but Strange could not remember his name.
“You gonna be ready this year, big man?”
“Oh, we got a few surprises for you, now.”
“All right, then.”
“All right.”
They shook hands. Quinn would say something now, if he were here, about Strange running into someone he knew in every part of the District. It was true, but Strange never found it surprising. He’d lived here, and only here, for over fifty years. For its permanent residents, D.C. was in many ways still a small town.
Strange got into his Caprice. He was full and happy. He pushed in a mix tape and found “City, Country, City,” the War instrumental that he always returned to when he was under the wheel on a fine spring day. He drove to the nail salon where Mario Durham had first met Olivia Elliot and entered the shop.
The owner of the place, a youngish woman who looked like she had a ropy bird’s nest set atop her head, hadn’t seen or heard from Olivia in a long while. She didn’t ask why Strange was looking for Elliot, and he didn’t bother to invent a ruse. She had marked him as a bill collector, most likely, an assumption he did not confirm or deny. If Elliot had left her job on bad terms, then this would work in his favor.
“You have no idea where she’s working now?” said Strange.
“I don’t believe she could hold a job for long,” said the owner.
“Girl was keepin’ bad company, too,” said another woman, unprompted, from across the shop.