The Night Gardener

'Is the big man in?' said Ramone.

'Working,' said Janine. 'And rarely here. All you boys like to run the streets.'

'True. Listen, I got a name. Can you get me an address and phone? I need business and residence.'

'All those toys you police have and you're askin me?'

'I'm not at the toy store,' said Ramone. 'Daniel Holiday, spell it like a vacation. Goes by Doc. He has a car or limo service, is what I hear. I imagine he'd name it after himself.'

'Okay. I'll run it through People Finder. Give me your cell number. I got it on file somewhere here, but I'm lazy.'

Ramone gave her his number. 'How's your boy?'

'Lionel's in college, praise be. Your lovely wife and kids?'

'All is good. Ya'll still got that boxer?'

'You mean Greco. He's under my desk. Got his chin on my toes as we speak.'

'Nice beast,' said Ramone. 'Call me, hear?'

'In a minute,' said Janine.

It was more than a minute, but not much more. Ramone wrote down the information on his pad and thanked Janine. Soon after that, Rhonda came out of the house. She put her sunglasses on immediately, walked to the Taurus, and got under the wheel. She removed her sunglasses and used a tissue to wipe at her eyes.

Ramone reached over and put a hand on her shoulder, massaged her there.

'I guess the old girl took it rough,' said Ramone.

'She wasn't but ten years older than me,' said Rhonda. 'Granmom raised that boy from a baby. Stayed right there by him through all his rough spots, never gave up hope that he would make it through to the other side. Now she's got nothin.'

'What was her take?'

'She said he was a good boy who had made some bad friends and unfortunate mistakes. Said Jamal had finally got himself on the straight.'

'Sounds familiar.'

'I took a quick look at his room. No cash lyin around, and the things he had didn't look all that nice. I didn't see any obvious signs that he was in it. Anyway, we gonna have to go elsewhere to get the deeper story. I got a couple of photos from G-mom, so I can show them around.' Rhonda leaned forward, looked in the rearview, and chuckled without joy. 'Look at me. All puffy-eyed and stuff. And now my mascara's run.'

'C'mon, you look fine.'

'I used to. Remember how I looked before I had my boys?'

'You know it.'

'I had it goin on, Gus.'

'You still do.'

'Aren't you sweet.' Rhonda opened the folder she held on her lap. 'Granmom says he's still best friends with this boy Leon Mayo. His name came up on WACIES as an accomplice in one of those car thefts and a possession beef. We ought to find him, see what he's got to say.'

'You're driving,' said Ramone. 'Or do you want me to? So you can, you know, reapply that war paint?'

'I'm good,' said Rhonda. 'Sorry you had to put up with my tears. I just got emotional. I can't say why.'

'Is it that time of month?' said Ramone.

'You mean that time of the month when you start talkin ignorant?'

'Sorry.'

They pulled away from the curb.

Holiday didn't speak much to his client, an Arnold and Porter lawyer, on the run down to Reagan National. Guy was on his cell most of the time and never once made eye contact with Holiday in the rearview the entire ride. To the lawyer, he was invisible, and to Holiday that was fine.

Coming back from 395, he shot through the tunnel and took New York Avenue out of town, where he hooked up with the Beltway in Maryland and ramped off onto Greenbelt Road. He listened to Channel 46 on the XM, a station called Classic Album Cuts, and kept it up loud. They were showcasing ax standards today, starting with 'Blue Sky,' and Holiday could see his brother, long-haired and higher than Hopper, playing air guitar to that beautiful, fluid Dickey Betts solo, a piece of music that just spelled happiness to Holiday, because his brother had been happy then and his sister was there, happy too, and alive. And then the deejay went right into 'Have You Ever Loved a Woman,' Clapton and Duane Allman dueling, both of them on fire, and something cold touched Holiday, like the finger of death, but then there came the memories of his family, and Holiday relaxed and let the window down and drove on.

He passed Eleanor Roosevelt High and made a right down Cipriano Road, checking the detail map on the bench beside him as he went along woods and past a Vishnu temple, going right on Good Luck Road on the edge of New Carrollton and making another right into a community known as Magnolia Springs, ramblers and ranchers mostly, some well tended, others in need of care. He found the house he was looking for on Dolphin Road. It was a yellow-sided, white-shuttered one-story affair with a brownish lawn and a late-model Mercury Marquis, the step-up Crown Vic, in the driveway. Holiday smiled, looking at the car. Once a cop.

He parked the Lincoln curbside, killed the motor, got out of it, and walked to the house. He passed a dead lilac tree in the yard and wondered why the owner hadn't removed it. He rang the doorbell and found himself straightening the lapels of his jacket as he heard footsteps approaching the door. And then the door opened, and a bald, average-sized black man with a gray mustache stood in the frame. He wore a sweater, though the day was warm. He was well past middle-aged and stepping off the bridge to elderly. Holiday had never seen him without his hat.

'Yes?' said the man, his eyes hard and unwelcoming.

'Sergeant Cook?'

'T.C. Cook, th-that's right. What is it?'

'Have you read the Post today? There was a boy found over in that community garden on Oglethorpe Street. Shot in the head.'

'Fourth District, yes. I saw the segment on Fox Five.' Cook unfolded his arms. 'You're not with the media. Some kind of law enforcement, right?'

'I'm ex-police. MPD.'

'No such thing as ex-police.' Cook's mouth sloped down slightly on one side as he spoke.

'I suppose you're right.'

'Television man said that the boy's first name was Asa.'

'It's spelled the same way,' said Holiday, 'forwards and back.'

Cook studied Holiday and said, 'Come inside.'

CHAPTER 17

Leon Mayo worked as an apprentice auto mechanic in a small garage on a single-digit block of Kennedy Street. He had been given the opportunity to learn the trade by the owner, who had done Lorton time himself back in the early '90s. The owner's former parole officer, who now had Leon as an offender, had put them together. Ramone and Rhonda Willis found Leon after stopping by to see his mother at the apartment where both of them lived. She had told them that Leon was working, hitting the word emphatically, and gave them the location of the garage.

The owner of Rudy's Motor Repair, Rudy Montgomery, met them with unwelcoming body language and a glare, but he led them to Leon Mayo when they described the nature of their visit. Leon was in a bay illuminated by a drop-light, using a sprocket wrench to loosen a water pump with the intention of pulling it out of a beat-to-shit Chevy Lumina. They badged him and gave him the news about his friend. Leon put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and stepped away. They left him to his grief. A few minutes later he emerged from the garage and met them in a lot overfilled with previous-decade sedans and coupes manufactured, primarily, in Detroit.

Leon stood before them, rubbing his hands on a shop rag and twisting and untwisting the rag. His eyes were pink, and he kept them focused on the asphalt. The fact that they had seen him spontaneously break down had shamed him. He was a thin, strong young man who looked five years older than his twenty.

'When?' said Leon.

'Sometime last night, I expect,' said Rhonda.

'Where was he got?'

'He was found at Fort Slocum, around Third and Madison.'

Leon shook his head. 'Why they have to do that?'

'They?' said Rhonda.

'I'm sayin, why would anyone do Jamal like that? He wasn't into no dirt.'

'Your records say otherwise,' said Ramone.

'That's all past,' said Leon.