Soul Circus (36 page)

“Yeah,” said Foreman. “Okay.”

Foreman turned the LadySmith on McKinley and squeezed off two quick rounds. McKinley’s blood blew back at him and Foreman kept firing, moving the gun from McKinley’s belly to his chest, plaster exploding off the wall as the bullets exited his back. McKinley grunted, reached out for something, and lost his feet. As he fell, Foreman shot him in the groin and chest. Then the hammer fell on an empty chamber with an audible click.

Foreman still had the Colt trained on Durham and Walker. He holstered the revolver expertly, without looking for the leather, and faced them. Smoke was heavy in the candlelight. Foreman’s ears rung from the boom of the Magnum. He did not squint, looking at them, and he kept his voice even and direct.

“Hope you learned a lesson here tonight,” said Foreman. “I was a cop. Still am in my mind. You punk-ass motherfuckers out here, think you can threaten a police officer. You are wrong. Tellin’ me what’s good for my business. I don’t give a good fuck about him, or you, ’cause there’s always gonna be someone to come along and take y’all’s place. You who think you’re so special. Y’all ain’t shit. Think about that the next time you get the idea you’re gonna rise up.”

Durham said nothing. He had raised his hands in defense and they were shaking. He wanted to lower them, but he couldn’t move them in any direction at all.

“I hear sirens,” said Walker.

“Police gonna have to respond to this one,” said Foreman. “That gun does make some noise. Anyway, it’s your problem, not mine. I know you won’t mention I was here.”

“We’ll take care of it,” said Walker.

Foreman stood over McKinley and fired two shots from the Colt into his corpse. The force of the rounds lifted him up from the hardwood floor. Then the body settled in the mix of plaster and blood.

“That’s for talkin’ shit about my woman,” said Foreman, holstering the Colt.

He walked off, disappearing into the darkness of the hall. Durham lowered his hands, hearing the back door open and shut.

“D,” said Walker, “I’m gonna need some help to drag Hoss out there to the alley.”

But Durham did not answer. He was staring at his shaking hands.

STRANGE parked the Caprice on Quintana, killed the engine, and looked at the house he shared with his wife and stepson. Janine and Lionel were standing on the front lawn with Devra Stokes, in the light of a spot lamp Strange had hung above the door himself. Strange smiled, seeing the puff Lionel put in his chest as he talked to the girl. Juwan was playing with Greco, throwing him that red spiked rubber ball the tan boxer loved, then chasing him around the yard. Greco allowed the boy to catch up, letting him put his hand in his mouth, trying but failing to get the ball free.

Strange got out of the car. Greco’s nub of a tail twitched furiously as he heard the familiar slam of the Caprice’s door, but he stayed with the boy. Strange crossed the sidewalk and met the group in the light of the yard.

“What’s goin’ on, family?” said Strange. He hugged Lionel, then Janine. He kissed her and kept his arm around her shoulder after breaking their embrace.

“We’re just getting acquainted,” said Janine, smiling at Devra.

“Everyone’s nice,” said Devra.

“Yeah, they’re all right,” said Strange.

“Where you been, Pop? Keeping the streets safe for democracy?”

“While the city sleeps,” said Strange.

“Hungry?” said Janine.

“You know I am.”

“I saved you some meat loaf.”

“Knew there was a reason my car turned down this street on its own.”

“You could have stopped at any old restaurant,” said Janine.

“It wouldn’t be home,” said Strange. He kissed her again, and this time did not break away. “Ain’t nothin’ better than this.”

QUINN went home to a quiet, empty apartment. He hadn’t heard from Sue Tracy all day and hadn’t expected to. She and her partner, Karen, were close to finding a girl they’d been looking for for the past month or so. They’d planned to snatch her off the street that night.

The message light on his machine was blinking and Quinn hit the bar. It was Sue, asking him to call her on her cell.

He took off his shirt, washed his neck and face over the bathroom sink, and washed under his arms. He changed into a clean white T-shirt, went to the kitchen, found a Salisbury steak dinner in the freezer, and put it in his microwave oven. He set the power and time and touched the start button, then moved out to the living room and phoned Sue.

“Sue Tracy.”

“Terry Quinn.”

“Stop it.”

“Where are you?”

“Out at Seven Locks with Karen. We got our girl. We’re processing the paperwork with the police, and her mother is on the way.”

“Can you come over?”

“It’s gonna be a couple of hours.”

Quinn looked at his watch. “Christ, it’s late.”

“Too late?”

“No, no. I want to see you.”

“Good. Did you have a productive day?”

“A lot happened,” said Quinn. “I don’t know about productive.”

“What about Linda Welles? Anything?”

“Yeah, plenty,” said Quinn, too quickly. “I’ll give it to you when you get here.”

“You might be sleeping.”

“Wake me up.”

“I’m going to, believe me. Listen, Terry, they’re calling us in. Love you.”

“I love
you
,” said Quinn.

The line went dead. Quinn stared at the phone.

I’ll give it to you when you get here.

He had a couple of hours to kill before Sue would be by. Enough time to go down there, get it, and have it for her when she arrived.

It wasn’t about finding Linda Welles. It was about doing something, and in the process, getting back a piece of his pride. He knew this, but he pushed the knowledge to the back of his mind.

Quinn went to the kitchen. He had a few bites of the Salisbury steak and some of the accompanying potatoes and mixed vegetables. Just enough to make his hunger headache fade but not enough to make him heavy and slow. He threw the rest of the dinner in the trash. He drank a large glass of water and walked to his bedroom.

Quinn retrieved his Colt, a black .45 with checkered grips, a five-inch barrel, and a seven-shot load, from his chest of drawers. He released the magazine, examined it, and slapped it back into the butt. He racked the slide. Quinn had bought the piece, a model O, after a conversation in a local bar.

It never would have happened, I had my gun.

Quinn holstered the Colt behind the waistband of his jeans and put on his black leather jacket.

Okay, so he’d been punked. He could fix that now.

He thought of Strange. He hadn’t lied to him. He’d gone home like he’d promised.

Quinn grabbed some tapes, a pen, and the Linda Welles file on his way out the door. He walked out into the night air, letting the mist cool his face. He ignitioned the Caprice and put
Copperhead Road
into the deck and turned it up. As he was going south on Georgia, the traffic lights flashed yellow. Quinn’s long sight was gone and the lights were a blur. He downshifted coming out of the tunnel under the pedestrian bridge leading to the railroad tracks. A freight train neared the station as he passed. Going up the hill, Quinn punched the gas.

IN Far Southeast, Quinn stopped the Chevelle on Southern Avenue near Naylor Road. He withdrew his Colt and flicked its safety off, then refitted it under his jacket. He turned off Southern and drove up Naylor. He passed the well-tended Naylor Gardens complex, the buildings deteriorating in appearance as he moved on. Up past Naylor Plaza he saw the group of young men sitting on the front steps of their unit at the top of a rise of weeds and dirt. He swung the Chevelle around in the street and parked behind a red Toyota Solara with gold-accented alloy wheels and gold trim.

Do your job.

Quinn was out of the car quickly, walking up the hill. The young men had heard his pipes and were watching his approach. He walked through the mist and the hang of smoke in the halogen light. His blood jumped as he walked, watching the faces of the heavyset young man with the blown-out Afro and the skinny kid with the napkin bandanna and the others who had been there earlier in the day. He reached behind him. His hand went up under his jacket. Finding the grip of the gun, he was not afraid. He pulled the Colt, going directly to the heavyset young man. He grabbed the young man’s shirt and bunched it in his left fist, touching the barrel of the Colt under his chin.

“Put your hands flat beside you,” said Quinn. “Your friends don’t want to fuck with me. Believe it.”

The young man did it. No one made a comment or laughed. No one moved.

“I ain’t strapped,” said the young man.

“I don’t
care
,” said Quinn. “Linda Welles.”

“Who?”

“The girl on the flyer I showed you. You know where she is, who she’s with. Gimme a name.”

The barrel of the gun dented the young man’s skin as Quinn pressed it to his jaw.

“She stayin’ with this boy Jimmy Davis, up on Buena Vista Terrace. Up there off Twenty-eighth.”

“Where on Buena Vista?”

“He’s in this place, got a red door.”

“Say it again.”

The young man repeated the name and address. Quinn released his shirt and stepped back. He held the gun loosely at his side. He looked around at the faces of the boys on the steps. They stared at him with nothing in their eyes. One of the young men raised a brown paper bag and tipped its bottle to his lips.

Quinn backed up a few steps. He holstered the gun. He turned and walked down the rise to his Chevelle. He got under the wheel, started the car, and pulled off the curb.

At the next corner, Quinn stopped and wrote down the name and location the young man had given him on the back of one of the flyers. He ejected the Steve Earle tape and slipped
Darkness on the Edge of Town
into the deck. “Adam Raised a Cain” came forward, and he turned it up. Quinn rolled down his window and began to laugh. It was easy. Fire with fire. All it took was a gun.

He drove down Naylor and onto 25th, and looked around at the unfamiliar sights. He didn’t know this stretch of road, and anyway, his night vision was for shit. Street lamps and headlights were haloed and blurry. He wasn’t lost. He’d come out on Alabama somewhere and from there he could hit MLK. He wasn’t in a hurry. He was enjoying his Springsteen, his victory, the night.

He pulled up behind a car at a stoplight. Cars were parked along the curb at his right. In his rearview he saw a red import, tricked out in gold. He looked to his left. A white car with tinted windows rolled up had pulled alongside him. He couldn’t see the occupants of the car. He heard Strange’s voice in his head:
A classic trap. Gangs hunt in packs
.

Quinn’s eyes went back to his rearview. The driver of the red car was heavy and wore his hair in a blown-out natural.

Quinn reached behind him and fumbled under his jacket. He found purchase on the grip of the Colt and began to draw it out. As he did this, he looked out the open window, feeling the presence of someone there.

He saw a skinny boy with a napkin bandanna on his head and a stainless automatic in his hand. The boy’s finger went inside the trigger guard just as Quinn freed his gun and cleared it from his waist, seeing the stainless piece swing up, knowing he was far too late.

Quinn thinking,
He ain’t nothin’ but a kid
, as the world flashed white.

GRANVILLE Oliver’s biceps pushed against the fabric of his orange jumpsuit. His manacles and chains scraped the table before him as he lowered his hands.

“Thanks for coming by,” said Oliver.

“Ain’t no thing,” said Strange.

“Sentencing’s today.”

“Ives told me.”

“Whichever way it goes, I figure we won’t be seeing each other again. So I thought we should, you know, say good-bye, eye to eye.”

Strange nodded. The room was quiet except for the muffled voices of attorneys and their clients seated in other cubicles behind Plexiglas dividers. A guard with heavy-lidded eyes sat in a darkened booth, watching the room.

“You did everything you could,” said Oliver.

“I tried.”

“Yeah, you and that white boy was working with you, y’all did a good job.”

Strange leaned forward. “Say his name.”

“Quinn.”

“That’s right.”

“You two did all right, bringing that girl in like you did. For a while, seemed like her testimony was really gonna help my case. Sayin’ that Phil was talkin’ to her about plannin’ to kill my uncle and all that. Course, when they crossed her, the prosecutors tried to make her look like a common ho, what with her havin’ that boy out of wedlock, and the lifestyle she was into when she was kickin’ it with Phil. But she kept her composure up there. She was good.”

“She was.”

“Where’s she at now?”

Devra Stokes was living in Northwest, working in a salon, going to Strayer and taking secretarial classes around her hours in the shop. She and Juwan were renting an apartment, found by Ives, in a fringe but not deadly neighborhood. She and the boy were doing fine. But there was no reason for Strange to give Oliver, or anyone else connected with the trial, her whereabouts.

“I don’t know,” said Strange.

“Anyway, I guess it’s all over now. Relieved to have it behind me, you want the truth.”

After the defense had rested its case and closing arguments had been presented, jury deliberation lasted less than two weeks, an unusually short time for a case with this kind of life-and-death ramification. Once the verdict was read, a kind of minihearing had commenced in which Raymond Ives and his team argued mitigating circumstances in hopes of avoiding the death penalty. That phase, too, had concluded, leaving only Judge Potterfield’s sentencing to complete the trial.

“Too bad it didn’t work out for you,” said Strange.

“Aw, shit, I knew how it was gonna end from day one. That jury they handpicked, they decided what they were gonna do the first time they got a look at me. I mean, you get down to it, they didn’t even need to go through the trouble of havin’ that trial.”