“Do I ask for many?”
“Matter of fact, you do. Would be nice if you called me once in a while and said, I don’t know, ‘Let’s meet for a beer.’ ”
“What you want, a box of chocolates, too? You sound like a female.”
“Come over here right now and this female will put a foot up your ass.”
“When I do try to get you out, you say you can’t.”
“I got responsibilities now.”
“Wasn’t me who told you to get married.”
“What do you know about marriage? Even if you were married, Derek, you wouldn’t be.”
“True.” Strange wasn’t proud of it. His friend Lydell knew him well. “About that favor…”
“What is it?”
Strange gave him the address he had memorized. “I need a phone number and names.”
“Where can I reach you?”
“I’ll hold. I know you got the crisscross right there.”
“Gimme a minute,” said Blue. Shortly thereafter, he got back on the line with the information. Strange wedged the receiver between his chin and chest as he wrote it down.
“Thanks, brother.”
“That all?”
“What kind of flowers you like? I wanna send you a bouquet.”
“Fuck you, man.”
“You my boy,” said Strange, and hung up the phone.
Strange had time, and he was hungry. He drove down to the Hot Shoppes on Connecticut, below Albemarle Street, sat at the counter, and ate a Teen Twist with fries and a Coke. The waitress mentioned that Mr. Isaac Hayes was across the street at the WMAL studios, doing an interview in advance of a local performance. When Strange was finished with his meal, he settled up, went outside, and stood on Connecticut Avenue. Wasn’t long before Isaac Hayes came out of the building across the street and walked toward a waiting limousine. Hayes was shirtless, his big chest and shoulders draped in the multiple, thick-link gold chains he’d worn at Wattstax and on the cover of Hot Buttered Soul.
“Black Moses,” said Strange with wonder.
He c sim" hecked his watch. Reckoning that Maybelline would be in that house tutoring for another hour or so, Strange walked a half block north to the Nutty Nathan’s stereo and appliance store and had a look around. A mustached salesman, pink eyed and smelling of weed, malt liquor, and breath mints, got a hold of him and promptly led him to the sound room in the back of the store, where he put an album on a BSA platter and demoed a high-amp sound system played through the much-touted Bose 901 speakers. A stinging guitar intro came forward.
Strange’s eyes widened involuntarily. It was not the kind of music he normally listened to, but the sound quality of the system was outrageous and the song was blowing back his head.
“Steely Dan,” said the salesman. “New group out of California.”
“Nice,” said Strange.
“ ‘Your everlasting summer, you can feel it fading fast,’ ” said the salesman, reciting the lyrics dramatically. He hand-brushed a Hitleresque shock of black hair that had fallen across his forehead, then did some fretwork with his fingers. “They can play, Jim.”
“The name’s Derek.”
“Johnny McGiness,” said the salesman, extending his hand.
Strange shook it. “Maybe I’ll be back.”
McGinnes smiled stupidly. “If I don’t see you here, I’ll see you…hear?”
Before he left, Strange purchased a four-pack of blank Memorex tapes. A skinny young white dude, probably around sixteen, his white-boy Afro touching his shoulders, in Levi 501s rolled up cigarette-style and a Nutty Nathan’s T-shirt, stood by the register counter, eyeing Strange. Had to be a stock boy, ’cause he held a dustrag in his hand. Looked like an Italian or a Greek, what with the large Mediterranean nose that dominated his face. He, too, had stoned eyes.
A female clerk with dilated pupils handed Strange the bagged-up tapes, the package no bigger than a sandwich.
The young man said, “Would you like me to take that out to your car for you, sir?”
“I think I can handle it,” said Strange.
The young man smiled. “Just doin my j-o-b.”
Smartass, thought Strange. And heading out the door, he thought: Is it just me, or is everyone in this motherfucker high?
Vaughn had a brief conversation with Dewight Mitchell, a D.C. Transit bus mechanic who troubleshot at the depot up by 14th and Decatur. Mitchell was about Vaughn’s age, solidly built, with short gray hair and veins thick as worms on the backs of his workingman hands. Once Mitchell had shown him his Electra, a convertible, Vaughn knew for certain he was speaking to the wrong man. He had known, in fact, since he’d met Henrietta, Mitchell’s wife.
They talked cars, mainly. Vaughn said he was a Mopar man but felt that Dodge had erred with the design change they’d made afterdwid the golden years of ’66 and ’67. Mitchell liked GMs for their elegant lines but conceded their mechanical inferiority. Said he could break down any kind of engine, so the nuts-and-bolts shortcomings didn’t bother him much, long as he was driving a nice-looking car.
They shook hands and Vaughn went on his way.
In Vaughn’s mind, he was straight with black people. He got along fine with them, mostly, if they were polite and close to his age. It was some of the young ones, with their attitude, who rubbed him the wrong way. As if to underscore the point, a dark guy with a blowout crossed the road up by Colorado Avenue, taking his sweet old time as Vaughn approached in his Monaco. Vaughn had to stop and wait for the young man to pass, and got an eyefuck for his courtesy. It was that special look that said, I dare you to hit me, white man.
Maybe I should pull over and kick your ass, thought Vaughn. But these days, at the urging of Olga, he was trying to get with the program and move to a higher spiritual place, join hands with all the people of colors and step forward into the light.
Vaughn showed the spade his choppers and drove on.
FOURTEEN
First thing Clarence Bowman did after reporting for work at D.C. General early that morning was to check in on Roland “Long Nose” Williams. Looking through the open door of his room, he saw an orderly changing the sheets on Roland’s empty bed. Confirming that Williams had been released, Bowman called in to the home office and said he was experiencing stomach problems that rendered him unable to work. Excused from his duties for the day, he returned to his apartment off H Street, got out of his security guard uniform, and changed into triple-pleat black slacks, a gray poly shirt, black side-weaves, and a summer-weight sport jacket, also black. Bowman phoned Coco Watkins and told her that Williams was back on the street.
“I’ll make sure Red gets the message,” said Coco. “You on your thing?”
“I could use some female assistance,” said Bowman. “Phone call shit.”
“My girls are kinda shook from a bust went down last night. You know they be delicate sometimes.” Bowman heard Coco inhale deeply on a cigarette as she thought it over. “There’s an all-purpose girl, goes by Gina Marie. She should be down at the diner on U. She goes there to start her day.”
“I know Gina.”
“Many men do,” said Coco. “That girl will do anything for a dime.”
Bowman ended the call. He went to his small kitchen and dropped the door on the oven of his freestanding electric range. In its cool cavity were two guns: an S amp;W.38 and a Colt.22. Bowman checked the loads on both and slipped them into a small gym bag. He found the keys to his Mercury Cougar and with bag in hand left out of his crib.
Coco Watkins looked out
Focusing on the unmarked, Coco did not take notice of a black Continental parked on the opposite side of 14th, or the two white men who were its occupants. Had she studied the Lincoln, she would have noted that the car was not a typical police vehicle, and that the men inside it didn’t look like law.