“You’re actin like you’re the bank.”
“I am.”
“What about the rest of it?”
“What’s left is safe at my spot. You don’t need to worry. It’ll come to you eventually. Your father ain’t gonna let you starve.”
“ Now you’re my father,” said Larry.
Ricardo smiled. “You said you had a problem.”
“ We do,” said Larry. “It’s that Lucas dude. The one who’s been camped out on Twelfth? I just saw him walkin down the road, not far from this shop.”
If Ricardo was shaken he did not show it. “So?”
“What you mean, so? ”
“What’s he gonna do? He’s not police. You are. You see what I’m sayin?” Ricardo gestured with his hand as if he were shooing away a fly. “I don’t want you to worry over this. You ran his plates. You gave me his address. You did your thing and now I know where to find him. Let me take care of it.”
“I told you, I don’t want no more violence.”
“Neither do I. I was thinking of setting up a meet. Whatever Lucas is looking for, it’s got to involve money. That’s true for every man, right? You of all people should know.” Ricardo picked up a rubber-banded stack of cash and tossed it forward on the desk so that it landed within reach of Larry. “Speaking of which.”
Larry hesitated. He picked up the cash and shoved it inside his windbreaker.
“Buy something for yourself,” said Ricardo. “Maybe some new vines.”
Larry looked at Ricardo, Bama material, wearing all black in the middle of the day, rayon shirt and slacks, looking like Zorro, telling him how to dress.
“Somethin funny?” said Ricardo.
“Nothin is,” said Larry.
“You were grinnin.”
“Don’t lie to me again,” said Larry. He walked from the room, closing the door behind him.
“Mother fuck you,” said Ricardo, staring at the door. The light had left his eyes.
Lucas and Marquis dropped the rentals off at the lot on Sligo Avenue, then went to their own vehicles, parked near a corner Spanish market. Lucas took the radio and headset from Marquis, stowed it in the back of the Jeep, and pulled two water bottles from the cargo area. He handed one to Marquis. The two of them stood in the street and drank deeply.
“What’s our next move?” said Marquis, wiping off his chin.
“You’re out,” said Lucas. “I don’t like where this is going, and I don’t want you involved with it anymore. I’ll settle up with you for today when I get my cut.”
“That’s not why I asked. I know you’re good for the money. I’m worried about you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“No doubt. But that look you got right now? I seen that in your eyes before. April twenty-six, two thousand and four, to be exact. In those houses on the edge of the Jolan graveyard.”
Lucas nodded. “That was some day.”
“The hajjis was comin in by taxicab and flatbed trucks. Must have been hundreds of ’em, wearing them checkerboard scarves.”
“Kaffiyehs,” said Lucas.
“You took point. I see that flashlight attached to the barrel of your M-Sixteen. I see you leading the way into those dark rooms, and the muzzle flash of those AKs, the walls just shredding from the rounds. I still dream all that.”
And I see you sparing no one, thought Marquis. Emptying your mag into the heads and chests of the ones you put down. But then we all did that. When you kill a man twice, you know he can’t get up and shoot at you again.
“It was somethin,” said Lucas.
“All those bullshit movies about adrenaline-junkie soldiers and marines? I never served with anyone like that.”
“Neither did I.”
“It wasn’t about thrill seekers. It was about emotion. We had a bond, man.”
“We still do.”
“But you can’t say more than one or two words about it.”
“What’s to say? We don’t have to talk about it, because both of us were there. To try and talk about it with someone who wasn’t there… what’s the point?”
“So, again,” said Marquis, “what are you fixin to do?”
“I’m going back to that detailing shop on my bike. I can slip in there easier on two wheels. Take some photos, shit like that.”
“You don’t have your squad anymore.”
“I won’t take any unnecessary chances,” said Lucas. “I want to live.”
Marquis held out his hand. “Two-One, Luke.”
“Two-One.”
They tapped fists.
SIXTEEN
Lucas changed into black shorts, padded in the seat and lined with spandex leggings, a gray poly shirt that wicked, and gray shoes with steel-shanked soles. He carried his bike, an aluminum frame, gray Trek, down the stairs of his apartment and out to his Jeep. He dropped the back bench and slid the bike into the Cherokee, then checked to make sure he had his gloves, sunglasses, helmet, and phone.
He drove out to Hyattsville, Maryland, via Queens Chapel Road and Hamilton Street, and stopped in the lot of the 38th Street Park, through which ran the paved Northwest Branch trail. He got onto his bike and pedaled southeast, staying in the middle gears, through open fields, past woods, across Rhode Island Avenue, and finally across Alternate Route 1, navigating through fast vehicular traffic. He dipped down onto Tanglewood Drive, entered the industrial district of Edmonston, and cruised at a steady pace.
Winding around 46th and cutting off of Upshur, he took another high-forty street and crossed through the two-syllable, bottom-of-the-alphabet roads, Varnum, Webster, and Windom. He passed low-slung commercial buildings, many fenced in, many with security cameras mounted on their entranceways and walls. There were no other bikers back here, but with his gray-and-black clothing and gray bike he did not stand out. Also, his face was obscured by his helmet and shades. He slowed as he neared Mobley Detailing, seeing young men working on an SUV in its front lot, seeing no other vehicles. The employees were listening to go-go music coming from the SUV’s open doors and they did not look up as he almost silently rolled by. He went to the end of the road and dismounted his bike. He walked it across the street and laid it down far back and out of sight of the Mobley lot, then he got his iPhone out of the small zippered pack fitted beneath the Trek’s saddle. He walked along the stone wall of an elevated train track, behind a thin line of weed trees and brush, taking photos of the Mobley building and its geography, noting the fence topped with two strands of barbed wire, which could be easily climbed and jumped, noting that there were no cameras mounted on the building’s face or above its front door or bay doors. The employees spoke to one another, joked and laughed, but never looked away from their task, and he made it easily behind the building, which was unfenced and bordered more thin woods and the train track wall, and he took photos of the rear of the building and its fortified back door.
His breathing was easy. He was in shape and he was calm. He’d barely broken a sweat.
Inside the building, in the main office, Ricardo Holley sat behind his desk. Beano Mobley sat on the edge of the desk, a cigar butt lodged in the corner of his mouth. Earl Nance and Bernard White were seated on the couch. They were all having drinks, scotch for Nance and White, cognac for Holley and Mobley. The money had been cut up and distributed, and the atmosphere should have been celebratory, but the mood in the room was far from light.
“Your boy makes me nervous, Ricardo,” said Nance.
“Ain’t no need to stress,” said Holley. “He’s in now. He can’t spill to no one and he can’t walk. He don’t even know what’s going on, for real.”
“Is he gonna get you more business?” said White.
“We don’t need him to identify anyone else for the time being,” said Holley. “We just gonna milk what we got for now and see how it goes. Make a few more pickups and move it on the wholesale level. There’s cash in that. When it dries up, we’ll regroup.”
Holley and Mobley shared a look. Holley was being deliberately vague with the two hitters. They were on a need-to-know basis. Just like Larry.