Michael liked how the author set everything up real fast, from jump. Like, without telling you too many details, you knew right away what was happening. It gave you a feeling and made you choose a side. There is a man in a shack, and he is outnumbered and outgunned, and there are many men on the high ground, shooting down on the man who is alone, and there’s a man in charge named Tanner who is giving the orders. Straight on, because most folks side with the underdog, you are hoping that someone helps the man in the shack and stops this man Tanner.
The man you think is going to help is a Mexican constable and former soldier named Bob Valdez. He comes on the scene and does something, is tricked into it, really, that is unexpected, and then Tanner, being who he is, does the Mexican dirt. Valdez is a man who is alone, and Tanner is powerful, and he has many men backing him up. So Tanner shoves Valdez, because he can. And the more he shoves him, the harder Valdez gets, and the more he pushes back. By the end of the book, Tanner realizes that he should have given Valdez what he wanted to begin with, which was not much at all. It wouldn’t have cost so much.
Picture the ground rising on the east side of the pasture...
Picture it. The author, Mr. Leonard, is telling you to look at it. To see it in your head. It’s a bold way to start the story, but it does what it sets out to do. Michael could picture the rise of the land, and the pines, and the men in groups firing down on the one man who was cornered in his shack. And Michael could guess what wasn’t on the page because of the vivid description of what was. Maybe there was a chill in the air, since they were high up in those hills. Maybe there were cotton-white clouds moving across a bright blue sky, and shadows on the pines when those clouds drifted across the sun.
Michael closed his eyes. When he read a book, he wasn’t in his cage anymore. There wasn’t a lock on his door, or the rank smell of the dirty commode by the bunk, or his low-ass cellmate passing gas in his sleep, or the sounds of men shouting in the unit. Guards telling him what and what not to do. He hadn’t disappointed his mother. He wasn’t looking at five years in a federal prison on a felony gun charge.
When he read a book, the door to his cell was open. He could step right through it. He could walk those hills under that big blue sky. Breathe the fresh air around him. See the shadows moving over the trees. When he read a book, he was not locked up. He was free.
Part II
Six
Phil Ornazian had known Matthew Mirapaul when both of them played in bands back in the early to mid-nineties. This was around the time they were coming out of Wilson, the public high school in Ward 3, in Upper Northwest, west of Rock Creek Park. Mirapaul drummed in a hard-core band in the tradition of John Stabb’s Government Issue with shades of metal à la Scream. Ornazian played bass in a band called the People’s Drug that had a prominent rhythm section driving melodic, anthemic songs. At the time they were going for that Jawbox sound.
Both of their bands cut albums, not on the Dischord label. Both opened for bands like Lungfish, Circus Lupus, Nation of Ulysses, and Slant 6. Ornazian and Mirapaul played at Black Cat — level venues, and there they were not even headliners. They never made it to the stage of the 9:3 °Club. But they were part of the storied D.C. scene and they had fun.
Mirapaul had aspirations. His ambition was to record for a major label, or an offshoot of one, but he never came close. He even had a stage name, Tony Leung, who was an actor in John Woo’s Hong Kong films. Mirapaul had no Asian in him, but the name change was a rock-star thing to do, and also he felt that his real name was too easily mangled.
Mirapaul was Straight Edge, Ornazian was not. When he was in bands, Ornazian was a hard drinker and ate his share of speed. But he cleaned up completely when he met Sydney, who used neither alcohol nor drugs.
In the tradition of Washington’s punk-rock royalty, Mirapaul and Ornazian aged out of their bands but attempted to remain true to their ideals as adults by staying in town and working in the community. Mirapaul got his law degree, remained independent, and opened a practice as a criminal defense attorney, taking on clients who couldn’t afford representation by larger firms. Ornazian got his investigator’s license and found that he liked the work. Every day was different, and he wasn’t caged in a room or subjected to office politics. Much of his business came from attorneys. Though he was friendly with many prosecutors, he rarely accepted work from them. Typically, he gathered evidence that defense lawyers like Mirapaul could take into court.
Somewhere along the line, Ornazian’s ethics had blurred.
Mirapaul leaned back in the chair set behind his desk. He was of average height and thin. His close-cut hair had gone completely gray. His features were sharp, and his sun-creased face was as lined as a cowboy’s. He wore a plain charcoal suit with an open-necked white shirt. A pre-knotted tie was looped on a nearby hanger.
“You cleaned up for me, Phil.”
“When I’m calling on money,” said Ornazian, seated before him.
Ornazian was wearing an American Giant blue hoodie over a black T, and Levi’s 501s cuffed up over black Wolverine boots. All of it, save the boots, was fresh out of the laundry. Mirapaul was right. Ornazian had cleaned up for him. He needed work.
“What do you have for me, Matt?” said Ornazian. “I hope it’s something big. Could use one of those yearlong jobs you used to throw my way.”
“The Tommy Winterses of this world are few and far between these days.”
Tommy Winters had run a murder-for-hire outfit out of Southeast back in the early aughts. He and his lieutenants were responsible for twenty-eight murders, retribution kills, turf beefs, and the permanent silencing of witnesses who had been scheduled to testify in prominent trials. Ornazian had spent thirteen months in Congress Heights and Washington Highlands untangling the web of loyalties, betrayals, and organizational machinations. It had been Ornazian’s most challenging, and lucrative, case.
The Tommy Winters job had put good money in Ornazian’s pocket, but it had also permanently put him on the radar screen of major-crime-unit police and federal law enforcement officials who had been trying to nail Winters for years. Ornazian was followed, pulled over in his car for nonexistent infractions, and stared down in court. His phone was bugged by the Feds. As an investigator in the rougher sections of town, Ornazian had experienced some intimidation and near violence, but the truth of it was, he feared the DOJ and the FBI more than he feared the streets.
Mirapaul and Ornazian had worked the case hard, not because they liked Winters but because they had agreed to take his case. Despite their diligence, Winters was convicted. He had, most likely, personally committed or ordered many of the murders he had been charged with. Winters was currently doing life without parole in the supermax out in Colorado.
“So your murder business is a little off,” said Ornazian. “That’s kind of a good thing, right?”
“Absolutely,” said Mirapaul. “The city’s in pretty good shape. I live here with my family, so I couldn’t be more pleased.”
Ornazian swept his hand around, gesturing to the surroundings. “You’re making the rent on this place, so you must be doing fine.”
Mirapaul’s office, located above a liquor store on C Street, near Judiciary Square and the courts, was a rather ramshackle affair, meant to impress no one. He owned a Jeep rather than a German import. The walls were not decorated with law degrees or awards but with framed photographic prints of the musicians and audiences of the original D.C. punk-rock era taken by local artists like Cynthia Connelly, Jim Saah, Lucian Perkins, and Rebecca Hammel.