Right as Rain (12 page)

“Momma,” said Strange, “I had a little excitement on the job today.” He told her the story of Sherman Coles and his brother, and of the young ex-police officer who had come along. He made it sound funny and unthreatening because he knew his mother worried about him and what he did for a living. Or maybe she was done worrying, thought Strange. Maybe she didn’t think of him out there, could no longer picture him, or her city and its inhabitants, at all.

When he was done his mother smiled in that crooked way she had of smiling now, her lips pulled over toothless gums. Strange smiled back, not looking at the splotchy flesh or the stick arms or the atrophied legs or the flattened breasts that ended near her waist, but looking at her eyes. Because the eyes had not changed. They were deep brown and loving and beautiful, as they had always been, as they had been when he was a child, when Alethea Strange had been young and vibrant and strong.

“Room,” said his mother.

“Okay, Momma.”

He wheeled her back to her room, which overlooked the parking lot of a post office. He found her comb in the nightstand and drew it through her sparse white hair. She was nearly bald, and he could see raised moles and other age marks on her scalp.

“You look nice,” he said when he was done.

“Son.” Those eyes of hers looked up at him, and she chuckled, her sharp shoulders moving up and down in amusement.

Alethea Strange pointed to her bedroom window. Strange went to the window and looked out to its ledge. His mother loved birds; she’d always loved to watch them build their nests.

“Ain’t no birds out there building nests yet, Momma,” said Strange. “You’re gonna have to wait for the spring.”

Walking from her room, Strange stopped beside the big attendant and gave her a carnivorous smile that felt like a grimace.

“You take good care of my mother now, hear?”

Strange went toward the elevators, unclenching his jaw and breathing out slow. He began to think, as he tended to do when he left this place, of who he might call tonight. Being here, it always made him want a woman. Old age, sickness, loss, and pain … all of the suffering that was inevitable, you could deny its existence, for a little while anyway, when you were making love. Yeah, when you were lying with a woman, coming deep inside that sucking warmth, you could even deny death.

“YOU want a little more?”

“Sure.”

Terry Quinn reached across the table and poured wine into Juana Burkett’s glass. Juana sipped at the Spanish red and sat back in her chair.

“It’s really good.”

“I got it at Morris Miller’s. The label on the bottle said it was bold, earthy, and satisfying.”

“Good thing you protected it on your little journey.”

“I was cradling it like a baby on the Metro on the way over here.”

“You really ought to get a car, Tuh—ree.”

“Didn’t need one, up until recently. My job is close to my house, and I can take the subway downtown, I need to. But I was thinking, maybe I should get one now.”

“Why now?”

“Your house is kind of a far walk from the Catholic U station.”

“You’re pretty sure of yourself.” Juana’s eyes lit with amusement. “You think I’m gonna ask you back?”

“I don’t know. You keep making dinners like this one, I’m not going to wait for an invitation. I’ll be whining like a dog to come in, scratching on the door out on your front porch. ’Cause you are one good cook.”

“I got lucky. This was the first time I made this dish. Baby artichokes and shrimp over linguini, it just looked so good when I saw the recipe in the
Post.
”

“Well, it was.” Quinn pushed his empty plate aside. “Next time I take you to dinner. A little Italian place called Vicino’s on Sligo Avenue, they got a red peppers and anchovies dish to make you cry.”

“That’s on your street.”

“We can walk to it,” said Quinn. “Stay in the neighborhood, until I get my car.”

Juana went to get coffee and brandy from the kitchen. Quinn got up and walked to the fireplace, where a pressed—paper log burned, colored flames rolling in a perfect arc. He picked up a CD case from a stack of them sitting on top of an amp: Luscious Jackson. Chick music, like all the rock and soul with female vocals she had been playing that night.

Juana’s group house was nicer than most. Her roommates were grad students, a young married couple named James and Linda. He had met them when he’d arrived, and they were good—looking and nice and, as they had disappeared upstairs almost immediately, considerate as hell. Juana told him that James and Linda had the entire top floor of the house, and she had the finished basement for a quarter of the rent. The furnishings were secondhand but clean. Postcard—sized print reproductions of Edward Hopper, Degas, Canne, and Picasso paintings were framed and hung throughout the house.

Juana came out of the kitchen carrying a tray balanced on one hand. She wore a white button—down shirt out over black bells, with black waffle—heeled stacks on her feet. Black eyeliner framed her night—black eyes. She placed the tray on a small table and went around the room closing the miniblinds that hung from the windows.

“Wanna sit on the couch?”

“Okay,” said Quinn.

Quinn pulled the couch close to the fire. They drank black coffee and sipped Napoleon brandy.

“I downloaded all the stories they did on you last year off the Internet,” said Juana.

“Yeah?”

“Uh—huh. I read everything today.” Juana looked into the fire. “The police force, it sounds like it’s a mess.”

“It’s pretty bad.”

“All those charges of police brutality. And the cops, they discharge their weapons more times in this town, per capita, than in any city in the country.”

“We got more violent criminals,
per capita,
than in any city in the country, too.”

“And the lack of training. That large group of recruits from back in the late eighties, the papers said that many of those people were totally, just mentally unqualified to be police officers.”

“A lot of them
were
unqualified. But not all of them. I was in that group. And I had a degree in criminology. They shouldn’t have hired so many so quick, but they panicked. The Feds wanted some kind of response to the crack epidemic, and putting more officers on the street was the easiest solution. Never mind that the recruits were unqualified, or that the training was deficient. Never mind that our former, pipehead mayor had virtually dismantled the police force and systematically cut its funding during his
distinguished
administration.”

“You don’t want to go there, do you?”

“Not really.”

“But what about the guns they issued the cops?” said Juana. “They say those automatics —”

“The weapons were fine. You can’t put a five—shot thirty—eight into the hands of a cop these days and tell him to go up against citizens carrying mini TEC—nines and modified full—autos. The Glock Seventeen is a good weapon. I was comfortable with that gun, and I was a good shot. I hadn’t been on the range the official number of times, but I’d take that gun regularly out to the country… . Listen, believe me, I was fully qualified to use it. The weapon was fine.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“You’re thinking, She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Now she’s going to tell me about cops and what’s going on out in the street.”

“I wasn’t thinking that at all,” lied Quinn. “Anyway, we’ve got a new chief. Things are going to get better on the cop side of things, wait and see. It’s the criminal side that I’ve got my doubts about.”

Juana brushed her hand over Quinn’s. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t upset me.”

“I’ve never been with someone who did what you did for a living. I guess I’m trying to, I don’t know, tell myself it’s all right to hang out with a guy like you. I guess I’m just trying to figure you out.”

“That makes two of us,” said Quinn.

She moved closer to him, her shoulder touching his chest. They didn’t say anything for a little while.

And then Quinn said, “I met this man today. Old guy, private investigator. Black guy, used to be a cop, long time ago. I can say that he’s black, right?”

“Oh, please. You’re not one of those people claims he doesn’t see color, are you?”

“Well, I’m not blind.”

“Thank you. I was at a dinner party once, a white girl was describing someone, and her friend said, 'You mean that black guy?’ and the white girl said, 'I don’t know; I don’t remember what color he was.’ She was saying it for my benefit, see, trying to give me the message that she wasn’t 'like that.’ What she didn’t realize was, black people laugh at people like her, and detest people like her, as much as they do flat—out racists. At least with a racist you know where you stand. I found out later, this girl, she lived in a place where you pay a nice premium just so you and your children don’t have to see people of color walking down your street.”

“I hear you,” said Quinn. “I used to live in the basement of this guy’s house in this neighborhood, about a mile or two from where I live now.”

“You mean that nuclear—free bastion of liberal ideals?”

“That one.

“A lot of the people on the street I lived on, they had bumper stickers on their cars, 'Teach Peace,’ 'Celebrate Diversity’ like that. I’d see their little girls walking around with black baby dolls in their toy strollers. But come birthday time, you didn’t see any black
children
at those little white girls’ parties. None of those children from 'down at the apartments’ nearby. These people really believed, you put a bumper sticker on your Volvo so your neighbors can see it and a black doll in your white kid’s hands, that’s all you have to do.”

“You’re gonna work up a sweat, Tuh—ree.”

“Sorry.” Quinn rubbed at the edge of his lip. “So anyway, I met this old
black
PI today.

“Yeah? What’d he want?”

Quinn told her about his day. When he came to the Richard Coles part, he told her that he had kept Coles “occupied” in the men’s room while Strange, the old investigator, made his bust.

“You were smiling just then,” said Juana, “you know it? When you were telling that story, I mean.”

“I was?”

“It made you feel right, didn’t it, to be back in it.”

Quinn thought of the swing of the hammer, and the blood. “I guess it did.”

“You like the action,” said Juana. “So why’d you leave the force?”

Quinn nodded. “You’re right. I liked being a cop. And I wasn’t wrong on that shooting. I’d give anything to have not shot Chris Wilson, to have not taken his life. But I was not wrong. They
cleared
me, Juana. Given all the publicity, though, and some of the internal racial stuff, the accusations, I mean, that came out of it … I felt like the only right thing to do at the time was to walk away.”

“Enough of that,” said Juana, watching the frown return to Quinn’s face. “I didn’t mean to —”

“It’s all right.”

Juana turned to him and placed the flat of her hand on his chest. Quinn slipped his hand around her side.

“I guess this is it,” said Quinn.

Juana laughed, her eyes black and alive. “You’re shaking a little bit, you know it?”

“It’s just because you’re so fucking beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Juana brushed Quinn’s hair back behind his ear. “Well, what are you going to do now?”

“Keep working at the bookstore, I guess, until I figure things out.”

“I mean
right
now.”

“Kiss you on the mouth?”

“For an educated guy,” said Juana, “you’re a little slow to read the signs.”

“Thought it would be polite to ask,” said Quinn.

“Ask, hell,” said Juana, moving her mouth toward his. “You nearly made me beg.”

Chapter
11

E
NTERING
his row house, Derek Strange listened to a message from Janine, asking him over for a thrown—together dinner with her and her son, Lionel. She had made “a little too much” chicken, she said, and she didn’t want “all that food to go to waste.”

Strange phoned a woman named Shirley whom he dated from time to time, but Shirley was either not at home or not taking calls. Strange fed Greco and walked him around the block.

When Strange returned he checked his portfolio on the Net while listening to a reissue of Elmer Bernstein’s sound track to
Return of the Magnificent Seven.
He took a shower and changed into a sport jacket over an open—collared shirt. He phoned another woman and was relieved to find her line busy, as this was not a woman he was anxious to see. His stomach grumbled, and he phoned Janine.

“Baker residence.”

“Derek here.”

“Hello.”

“Got any of that chicken left?”

“I been keeping it warm for you, Derek.”

“Can I bring Greco?” asked Strange.

Janine said, “I’ve got a little something for him, too.”

THEY
kissed for a long time, and then Quinn removed his shirt and Juana removed hers. She began to unfasten her black brassiere.

“Can I get that?” said Quinn.

“Sure.”

He had some trouble with the clasp. “Bear with me.”

She ran her fingers down his veined bicep. “I thought you meant
may
I get that.”

“No, I can do it. Here we go, I got it, right here.” He removed her bra. She let him look at her and touch her. He kissed her shoulder blade and one of her dark nipples, and he kissed the soft flesh of her breast and tasted the salt on her skin.

“That’s nice,” she said.

“Christ,” said Quinn.

He got out of his jeans, and when he turned back to her he saw that she was naked now, too, and they embraced atop the blanket she had thrown on the couch. He kissed her mouth and rubbed himself between her thighs, and she moaned beneath him and laughed softly and with pleasure as his fingers found her swollen spot. Her skin was a very deep brown against his pale, lightly freckled body, and he intertwined his white fingers with her brown fingers and kissed her hand.

“You know what we’re doing now?” whispered Quinn.

“Celebrating diversity?”

“I like it so far.”

“We’re all the same,” said Juana, “deep down inside.”