Right as Rain (16 page)

The lights from the Jeep were in his eyes and blinding as Kane “tucked myself back in” and zipped up his fly. A “large black man” came through the glare of the lights and was upon him at once, yelling in an extremely agitated manner for Kane to produce a license and registration.

“What did I do?” Kane asked the black man.

“You were pissin’ in the street,” said the black man. “And don’t even think of lyin’ about it, ’cause I saw you holdin’ your little pecker plain as day.”

The man was broad, “like a weight lifter,” and taller than Kane by a head. Later, Kane would be told that the man’s name was Chris Wilson and that he was an out—of—uniform cop.

Kane said here that he detected the strong smell of alcohol on Chris Wilson’s breath.

When a man had been drinking, even one beer, thought Strange, it would be difficult to smell alcohol on another man’s breath. Strange made a line through this statement with a yellow accent marker.

“Who are you?” asked Kane. “Why do you need to see my license?”

“I’m a cop,” replied Wilson.

Kane was frightened, but “I knew my rights.” He asked to see Wilson’s badge or some other form of identification, and that’s when Wilson “became enraged,” grabbing Kane by the lapels of his shirt and throwing him up against the car. Kane suffered severe back pain immediately, he said.

“Aw, shit,” said Strange under his breath. That was for the benefit of a future lawsuit, right there. Greco opened his eyes, lifted his head up, and looked up at Strange.

Kane claimed to have “a moment or two” of blackout then. He next recalled lying on his back in the street, with Wilson crouched down upon him, one knee on his chest. There was a gun in Wilson’s hand, “an automatic, I think,” and he was holding it “point—blank” in Kane’s face.

Kane said that he had never known that kind of fear. Spittle had formed on the edges of Wilson’s mouth, his face was “all twisted up with anger,” and he was repeating, “I’m gonna kill you, motherfucker,” over and over again. Kane had no doubt that Wilson would. He was “embarrassed to say” that when Chris Wilson pressed the muzzle of the gun to his cheek and rolled it there, Kane “involuntarily voided” his bowels.

Strange read the police report from the scene. Going by the statement of one officer who reported that he detected a strong fecal smell coming off him, Strange concluded that indeed, Ricky Kane had dirtied his drawers that night.

Kane said that at the point when Wilson had him pinned to the ground, a marked police cruiser pulled onto the scene. Two police officers, one black and one white, got out of the cruiser and ordered Wilson to drop his weapon. Kane’s description of the events that followed were roughly in keeping with the statements made by officers Quinn and Franklin.

Strange opened his newspaper clipping file. He went to a section he had marked, an interview with Chris Wilson’s girlfriend, who had been with him earlier that night. The girlfriend confirmed that Wilson had been drinking on the night of the shooting and that “he seemed upset about something.” She didn’t know what it was that was making him upset, and he “didn’t say.” He made a mental note of the girlfriend’s name.

Strange dialed a number, got the person he was trying to reach on the other end. After some give and take, he managed to make an appointment for later that afternoon. He said, “Thank you,” and hung the receiver in its cradle.

“’Scuse me, old buddy,” said Strange, pulling his feet gently from beneath Greco’s head. “I gotta get to work.”

Strange got into his leather. The dog followed him out of the room.

IN
the outer office, Strange stopped to talk to Janine while Greco found a spot underneath her desk. “You talk to Lydell Blue?”

Janine Baker handed him a pink message note, ripped off her pad. “Lydell ran Kane’s name through the local and national crime networks. Kane has no convictions, no arrests. Never got caught with a joint in his sock. Never got caught doing something besides what he was supposed to be doing in a public rest room. No FIs, even, from when he was a kid. No priors whatsoever.”

“Okay. Remind me to give Lydell a call, thank him.”

“He said he owed
you.
Somethin’ about somethin’ you did for him when the two of you were rookie cops. Good thing you still know a few guys on the force.”

“The ones who aren’t dead or retired. I know a few.”

“Hey, boss,” said Ron Lattimer from across the room. Ron wore a spread—collar shirt today with a solid gold tie and deep gray slacks. His split—toe Kenneth Coles were up on his desk, and a newspaper was open in his hands.

“What?”

“Says here that leather of yours is out. The zipper kind, I mean. You need to be gettin’ into one of those midlength blazers, man, with a belt, maybe, you want to be looking up—to—the—minute out there on the street.”

“You readin’ that article about that book came out, on black men and style?”

“Uh—huh. Called
Men of Color,
somethin’ like that.”

“I read the article this morning, too. That lady they got writing about fashion, she’s got a funny way of putting things. Says that black men have developed a dynamic sense of style, their 'tool against being invisible.’”

“Uh—huh. Says here that we black men 'use style like a sword and shield,’ ” said Lattimer, reading aloud.

“All of
us do?”

“See, now, there you go again, Derek.”

“’Cause I was wonderin’, that old man, practically lives out on Upshur, with the pee stains on the front of his trousers? The one gets his dinner out the Dumpster? Think he’s using style as a tool against being invisible? I seen this young brother gettin’ off the Metrobus yesterday out on Georgia, had on some orange warm—up suit with green stripes up the side; I wouldn’t even use it to cover up Greco’s droppings. And look at me, I went and forgot to shine my work boots this morning… .”

“I get you, man.”

“I just don’t like anybody, and I don’t care who it is, tellin’ me what black men do and don’t do. ’Cause that kind of thinking is just as dangerous as that other kind of thinking, if you know what I mean. And you know some white person’s gonna read that article and think, Yeah,
they
spend a lot on clothes, and yeah,
they
spend a lot on cars, but do they save money for their retirement or their children’s education, or do they do this or do they do that? You know what I’m sayin’?”

“I said I heard you.”

“It’s just another stereotype, man. Positive as it might look on the surface, it’s just another thing we’ve got to live with and live down.”

“Damn, Derek,” said Lattimer, tossing the paper on his desk. “You just get all upset behind this shit, don’t you? All the article’s saying is we like to look good. Ain’t nothin’ more sinister behind it than that.”

“Derek?” said Janine.

“What is it, Janine?”

“Where are you off to now?”

“Workin’ on this Chris Wilson thing. I’ll be wearing my beeper, you need me.” Strange turned to Lattimer. “You busy?”

“I’m working a couple of contempt skips. Child—support beefs, that kind of thing.”

“Right now?”

“I was planning on easing into my day, Derek.”

“Want to ride with me this morning?”

“That Chris Wilson case isn’t going to pay our bills. I do a couple pickups, it helps us all.”

“Like to get your thoughts on this, you have the time.”

“Okay. But I got to do some real work this afternoon.”

“Give Terry Quinn a call,” said Strange to Janine. “The name of the shop he works in is Silver Spring Books, on Bonifant Street. Tell him I’ll be by in an hour, he wants to make arrangements to take some time off.”

“You’re gonna let the guy you’re investigating ride with you?” said Lattimer.

“I’m getting to know him like that,” said Strange. “Anyway, I told him I’d keep him in the loop.”

Lattimer stood, shook himself into his cashmere, and placed a fedora, dented just right, atop his head.

“Don’t feed Greco again,” said Strange to Janine. “I gave him a full can this morning.”

“Can I give him one of those rawhide bones I keep in my desk?”

“If you’d like.”

On the way out of the office, Strange looked into Janine’s eyes and smiled with his. That was just another thing he liked about Janine: She was kind to his dog.

Out on Upshur, Strange nodded at the fedora on Lattimer’s head.

“Nice hat,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“That function as a sword or a shield?”

“Keeps my head warm, said Lattimer, “you want the plain truth.”

Chapter
15

S
TRANGE
drove the capice into southeast. He popped 3+3, in his opinion the finest record in the Isley Brothers catalog, into the deck. Ronald Isley was singing that pretty ballad “The Highways of My Life,” and Strange had the urge to sing along. But he knew Lattimer would make some kind of comment on it if he did.

“This is beautiful right here,” said Strange. “Don’t tell me otherwise, ’cause it’s something you can’t deny.”

“It is pretty nice. But I like somethin’s got a little more flow.”

“Song has some positive lyrics to it, too. None of that boasting about beatin’ up women, and none of that phony death romance.”

“You know I don’t listen to that bullshit, Derek. The music I roll to is hip—hop but on the jazz tip. The Roots, Black Star, like that. That other stuff you’re talkin’ about, it doesn’t speak to me. You ask me, it ain’t nothin’ but the white music industry exploiting our people all over again. I can see those white record executives now, encouraging those young rappers to put more violence into their music, more disrespect for our women, all because that’s what’s selling records. And you know I can’t get with that.”

“The soul music of the sixties and seventies,” said Strange. “Won’t be anything to come along and replace it, you ask me.”

“Can’t get with that, either, Derek. I wasn’t even born till nineteen seventy.”

“You missed, young man. You missed.”

Strange turned down 8th Street and took it to M.

“Where we headed?” said Lattimer.

“Titty bar,” said Strange.

“Thank you, boss. This one of those perks you talked about when you hired me?”

“You’re staying in the car. This is the place I picked up Sherman Coles for you while you were admiring yourself in a three—way mirror. I just got to ask the doorman a question or two.”

“About Quinn?”

“Uh—huh.”

“I heard Janine say that the man Wilson pulled that gun on, he was clean.”

“Maybe he was. One thing’s certain, he made out. According to the papers, the department paid him eighty thousand dollars to make him happy. For the
emotional trauma
he went through and the back injury he sustained when Wilson threw him up against the car.”

“What did Wilson’s mother get?”

“A hundred grand, from what I can tell.”

“Cost the police department a lot to make everyone go away on that one.”

“The money was never going to be enough to satisfy his mother, though.”

“You can dig it, right?”

Strange thought of his brother, now thirty years gone, and a woman he’d loved deep and for real back in the early seventies.

“When you lose a loved one to violence,” said Strange, “ain’t no amount of money in the world gonna set things right.” “How about revenge? Does that do it, you think?” “No,” said Strange, his mind still on his brother and that girl he’d loved. “You can never trade a bad life for a good.”

STRANGE
parked on the street, alongside one of the fenced—in lots fronting the strip—bar and bathhouse district. He said to Lat—timer, “Wait here.”

The doorman who’d been at Toot Sweet when Strange had picked up Coles was there again today. He’d gotten his hair cut in a kind of fade, and he wore a baggy sweatsuit, which didn’t do a whole lot to hide his bulk. Boy looked liked some cross of African and Asian, but Strange figured the majority of it was African, as he’d never seen any kind of Chinaman that big.

“How you doin’,” said Strange.

“It’s still seven dollars to get in. We ain’t gone and changed the cover since the other day.”

“You remember me, huh?”

“You and your friend. White boy did some damage back in the bathroom.”

Strange palmed a folded ten—dollar bill into the doorman’s hand. “I’m not coming in today, so that’s not for the cover. That’s for you.”

The doorman casually looked over his shoulder, then slipped the ten in the pocket of his sweatpants. “What you want to know?”

“I was wonderin’ about what happened back there in the bathroom.”

“What happened? Your partner fucked that big boy
up.
Went into the kitchen and got a tenderizing mallet, then went into the bathroom and broke big boy’s nose real quick. Kicked him a couple of times while he was down, too. I had to clean up the blood myself. There was plenty
of it,
too.”

“What you do with the big guy?”

“One of my coworkers drove him to D.C. General and dropped him off. They got a doctor over there, this Dr. Sanders, we’ve seen him put together guys got torn apart in this place real nice. So we figure we put him in good hands.”

“Why didn’t you phone the cops?”

“The big guy didn’t want us to. Right away I’m thinkin’ he’s got warrants out on him, right? And the management, they don’t want to see any cops within a mile of this place. Not to mention, you and your buddy, I know you’re not cops, but whatever the fuck your game is, you probably know enough real policemen to make it rough on the owner to keep doing business here, know what I’m sayin’? I mean, we’re not stupid.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“Next time you bring white boy around here, though —”

“I know. Put him on a leash.”

The doorman smiled and patted his pocket. “You want another receipt?”

“It’s tempting,” said Strange. “But I’ll pass.”

On the way back to the car, Strange thought, Maybe I’m giving this Terry Quinn too much credit. Sure, it could have gone down the way he said it did with Wilson. But maybe it was just that some switch got thrown, like all of a sudden the “tilt” sign flashed on inside his head. A young man with that kind of violence in him, you couldn’t tell.