It was curious, but it was less pressing than the problem at hand. He’d completed the task for which he’d been hired, which technically meant that he was finished. But Lucas knew that for Holley and his men, it couldn’t be over. They’d come at him now.
Lucas counted out his forty percent, which came to thirty-six thousand dollars, then took a hundred-dollar bill from the stack and put it in his pocket. He stashed the rest of the thirty-six grand in one of the Nike shoe boxes he had taken from Holley’s house. He placed the remaining fifty-four thousand dollars, which would go to Anwan Hawkins’s ex-wife, in another shoe box. He tore up the third shoe box and threw it away. He carried the other boxes back to his bedroom and set them down. He went to his closet, where his shoes sat on a small throw rug, and he pulled the throw rug, carrying the shoes with it, completely out of the closet.
Beneath the rug was a cutout that Lucas had made in the floor. He had done a clean job of it, and Miss Lee would most likely never know. He pulled on a hinged ring he had set in a grooved-out section of the wood, and the piece came free. Beneath the cutout, in a solid-bottom frame, also constructed by Lucas, sat a steel Craftsman toolbox that had belonged to his father. Lucas placed the two shoe boxes on top of each other beside the toolbox. He replaced the wood piece, fitted it properly, put the rug and his shoes back over the cutout, and closed his closet door.
He locked his apartment, took the stairs down to his separate entrance, and went outside to try and find one of his neighbors, a young man named Nick Simmons. Simmons was on the street, standing by his Caddy. The car was parked in front of Nick’s father’s house, a wood-shingled colonial with a large front porch. Nick was working under the hood, rag in hand.
“Hey, Nick.”
“Spero.”
Nick Simmons stood to his full height. He was a tall man of twenty, had hang-time braids, was physically imposing but not aggressive, and wore a mustache, long sideburns, and some kind of business on his chin.
“What you up to?” said Lucas.
“Just checkin the fluids,” said Nick. “Trying to beat those idiot lights.”
He owned a rare and sharp 1990 baby-blue-over-dark-blue Eldorado coupe with gold spoke Vogue wheels. His father, Sam Simmons, who worked for the US Postal Service, had gone in on half of it and loved it as much as his son did. Nick’s mother was deceased. The father had kept him in line and made him stay in school. He was in his second year at Howard. He was always broke.
“You about to find some work this summer?” said Lucas.
“I’m lookin.”
“It helps to be clean shaven on job interviews.”
“Thanks, Dad. You know, the Bible says that a man shouldn’t round the corners of his beard… or somethin like that.”
“The Rastafarian Bible?”
“Leviticus,” said Nick with a shy smile.
“Look, you need some pocket money, right?”
“Always.”
“You have plans tonight?”
“I can’t go anywhere without coin.”
Lucas produced the hundred-dollar bill and held it out to Nick. Nick did not reach for it.
“What do I have to do?”
“I’m taking a young lady to dinner this evening,” said Lucas. “While I’m out, I’d like you to sit on your porch and keep an eye on Miss Lee’s house. If anyone comes around who you think looks suspicious, sits in their car too long, takes photographs, anything like that, I want you to call me. I’ll give you my number. I don’t want you to do anything but call, hear? Don’t engage anyone in conversation or initiate any kind of conflict.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“One other thing. If Miss Lee is outside of her house, and any suspicious type tries to talk to her or bother her at all, I want you to call the police. Don’t even hesitate.”
“You expecting something like that to happen?”
“I’m being cautious.”
Nick took the hundred. “You got it.”
“That’s for tonight. I might ask you to do this again going forward, same pay. Until the situation changes.”
“Sounds like easy money to me.”
“Let’s hope so.” Lucas shook his hand. “Thanks.”
“Good looks, man.”
Lucas went back to his place, got out of his dirty work clothes, and ran a shower. He and Constance had a date.
They were in the original dining room of the recently expanded Mourayo, a Greek restaurant on the west side of Connecticut Avenue, above Dupont Circle. Lucas and Constance sat at a deuce by the opened front windows. The oppressive humidity of deep summer had not yet arrived, and a breeze came off the block. The sidewalks were heavy with foot traffic in this upscale neighborhood of retail, restaurants, and bars on the Avenue, old luxury row homes of brick and stone on the side streets. A mix of straight and gay, business suits and freaks. It had always been lively and offbeat here at night.
The dining room was airy, with warm wood trim, white walls, and hardwood floors. The busboys wore sailor shirts and fisherman caps. Lucas was wearing a fitted Boss summer shirt with vertical blue and white stripes.
“You blend in with that shirt,” said Constance. “It looks like the Greek flag.”
“I took a risk,” said Lucas. “And as for you…”
“Please.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
They had started with marinated anchovies, grilled octopus with a fava bean puree, sesame encrusted haloumi cheese with grapes, and a salad voskou, heavy on tomatoes, feta, peppers, and red onions. They were sharing a bottle of Boutari red, slightly chilled. The restaurant’s owner came by and poured a few inches of wine into their glasses.
“Everything all right, Spero?”
“Poli orayo,” said Lucas.
“Kali oraxi,” said Natalie before moving on to another table.
“This is nice,” said Constance after Natalie had gone away.
“Wait’ll you taste the fish.”
A short while later, the waiter brought Constance a whole branzino baked in salt and filleted it tableside. Lucas was having soutzoukakia , meatballs stewed in tomato sauce and served over rice.
“God,” said Constance after taking a bite, “I’m glad I made that phone call for you.”
“I am, too.”
“It must have panned out for you.”
“It did.”
“You’re in that mode tonight. It’s like you hit the number or something.”
“A ship came in,” said Lucas.
They ate their meal. She talked about her initial intent to pursue a graduate degree in education and her decision to go to law school instead. She told him he would make a good high school coach, and he said it was too late for that.
“Tom told me your brother’s a teacher,” said Constance.
“Yeah, Leo’s over at Cardozo,” said Lucas. “He’s doing good work.”
“You’ve got other siblings, right?”
“Allegedly. My sister’s an attorney in California. We don’t hear from her much. Got a brother named Dimitrius I haven’t seen in years. He’s in jail somewhere for all I know.”
“Your family sounds fractured.”
“Somewhat.”
“Is it-”
“Because the kids were adopted?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Irene wasn’t adopted. My mom had a rough pregnancy with her and was advised not to have any more kids. So my folks built the family another way. I don’t know what Irene’s malfunction was. She was always unhappy. Dimitrius, I look at him basically as being defective. Those two were older than me and Leo, and when they left home it all got better.”