Soul Circus (37 page)

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Ain’t no maybe about it. It wasn’t no kind of shock to me when they found me guilty. Question now is, will I live or die?”

Strange sat impassively, looking into Granville Oliver’s golden eyes.

“You know, it’s funny,” said Granville. “There was that day, when the Stokes girl was testifyin’, that I actually thought that there was a chance I might walk. She had planted that, what do you call it,
seed of doubt
up in that whole courtroom. And I remember thinkin’, Wouldn’t that be some shit, if it was what she was sayin’ that was gonna get me off?”

“Why would that be funny?” said Strange.

“Phil Wood told that girl he was gonna kill my uncle Bennett? Shoot, Phil was just talkin’, pumpin’ his own self up for the benefit of that pretty young ass. Phil had killed before to get his stripes, but he wouldn’t never pull the trigger on my own kin, not unless I ordered him to do it. And I never did.”

“What are you telling me?”

“
I
killed my uncle, Strange. Walked right up to the open window of his new Jag and shot that snitch motherfucker to death. Man was about to flip on me, and it was down to that. Him or me, and I wasn’t gonna do no long time, not for blood or anyone else.” Oliver looked Strange over. “You surprised?”

“Not really. In my heart, I guess I knew all along.”

“Didn’t make no difference to you, huh?”

“No. I suppose it didn’t.”

“You knew I was who they said I was and still you kept on it. Why?”

Because I took your father out, thirty-some years ago. Because it was me who put you behind the eight ball, like all these other kids out here, got no fathers to teach them, by example, right from wrong. How to be tough without being violent, how to walk with your head up and
your shoulders square, how to love one woman and be there for your children and make it work. Because it was me who put you on the road that took you where you are today.

“I was just doing my job,” said Strange.

“Well, you stood tall,” said Oliver.

“I did my best.”

“And I appreciate it. Wanted you to know.”

Their hands met in the middle of the table. Strange broke Oliver’s grip and stood.

“How’s the little man doin’?” said Oliver, looking up, managing a smile.

“Robert’s fine. He’s with that family affiliated with the church. I’m going to see him at practice this evening.”

“Boy can play, can’t he?”

“Yes, he can,” said Strange.

“Holler at you later, hear?”

“I’ll pray for you, Granville.”

And for myself, thought Strange, as he turned and walked from the D.C. Jail, leaving Granville Oliver in chains.

STRANGE had no live cases on the week’s schedule. He was restless and had time to kill before evening practice, so he went about filling up his day. He visited a technical school in Northwest that Lamar Williams had mentioned to him as a place that offered computer training on a noncollegiate level. Strange had promised Lamar that he would contribute half to the cost of classes if he thought the school was okay. He picked up a brochure and got their rates from one of the admission staff, and had a look at the facilities. Then he called Janine on his cell. He asked her if she’d like to meet him at the old Crisfield’s, up on Georgia, for a late lunch.

After raw oysters, soft-shell crab sandwiches, and a couple of beers at the U-shaped bar, Strange and Janine went back to the house on Quintana and made slow love in their bedroom as Greco slept at the foot of the bed. The house was quiet, with only the sounds of their coupling and the low hum of the window air conditioners running on the first and second floors. Lionel was in College Park, having started his freshman orientation.

Strange and Janine held each other for a while, kissing but saying little, after both of them had come. She looked up into his eyes and wiped some sweat off his brow.

“You’re troubled.”

“Even with all this,” said Strange. “I mean, with all I have, with you and Lionel. It’s crazy, I know.”

“You can’t hide it. Especially not in our bed.”

“I just feel like doin’ something. Making some kind of a difference. ’Cause damn if it don’t seem like I been chasing my tail these past months.” Strange put his weight on one elbow. “You know, the night Terry got shot —”

“Derek.”

“The night he got
shot
, Janine, he told me that all he wanted was to feel like he accomplished something.”

“Derek, don’t.”

“That’s what I want to feel now, too.”

“Maybe you haven’t felt that way lately. But you will.”

“I never should have let him go home alone like he did. I should have brought him back here that night to hang with all of us.”

“But that’s not what happened.”

“I know it.”

“Lie down,” said Janine. “Hold me and let’s go to sleep. Can’t remember the last time we had an afternoon to ourselves like this, just to do nothing but rest.”

“Okay,” said Strange. “I need to rest. That sounds good.”

But when he awoke, late in the afternoon, his feelings had not changed.

STRANGE drove down to 9th and Upshur. He had not yet read the paper, so he picked up that day’s
Post
at Hawk’s barbershop and told one of the cutters he would return it.

Going into his shop, he went through the reception area and into his office, where he had a seat behind his desk. The vinyl version of
Round 2
, the Stylistics’ follow-up to their debut, was leaning up against the wall, facing out, directly behind his chair. Lewis, from the used-book store in downtown Silver Spring, had mailed it to Strange, and Strange had not yet taken it home. Like the gum wrappers still in the top drawer of Quinn’s desk, it was something he had not wanted to deal with just yet.

Strange went right to the Metro section. Between the roundup columns, “In Brief” and “Crime,” there had been five gun-related murders reported over the past weekend. Many of the victims had gone unnamed and all were in their late teens or early twenties. One had occurred in east-of-the-park Northwest and the others had occurred in Far Southeast. At the city’s annual Georgia Avenue Day celebration, a teenager had been shot by random gunfire, sending some families fleeing in panic and causing others to dive on their children, shielding them from further harm.

Strange went to the A section. Deep inside, a congressman from the Carolinas dismissed the need for further handgun laws and vowed to continue his fight to hold Hollywood and the record industry accountable for the sexual content and violent nature of their product. This same congressman had threatened to cut off federal funds to the District of Columbia, earmarked for education, if D.C. did not agree to change its Metro signs from “National Airport” to “
Reagan
National Airport.”

Strange turned his head and looked at the Stylistics album, a birthday gift from Quinn, propped up against the wall.

Do something.

“I will,” said Strange, though there was no one but him in the room. His voice was clear and emphatic, and it sounded good to his ears.

STRANGE turned on the light-box of his storefront, returned the newspaper to Hawk’s, and drove north to his row house on Buchanan. From his basement he retrieved a couple of red two-gallon containers of gasoline, one of which was full, and carried them out to the trunk of his Caprice. He went to the Amoco station next, filled up his tank and filled the empty container with gas. He placed it next to the other in the trunk and used his heavy toolbox to wedge them tight against the well. Then he drove down Georgia to Iowa Avenue along Roosevelt High and parked in the lot between Lydell Blue’s Buick and Dennis Arrington’s import.

The boys were down in the Roosevelt “bowl,” doing their warm-ups in the center of the field. The quarterback, Dante Morris, and Prince, another veteran player, were in the middle of the circle, leading the team in their chant. Strange could hear them as he took the aluminum-over-concrete steps of the stadium to the break in the fence.

“How y’all feel?”

“Fired up!”

“How y’all feel?”

“Fired up!”

“Breakdown.”

“Whoo!”

“Breakdown.”

“Whoo!”

Strange shook hands with Blue and then with Arrington, a computer specialist and deacon who was a longtime member of the coaching staff. The boys were warming up together but would soon break into their Pee Wee and Midget teams, determined by weight, for the remainder of the practice.

“You’re a little late,” said Blue.

“Had to get some gas,” said Strange.

“We got a scrimmage set up for this weekend.”

“Kingman,” said Arrington.

“They’re always tough,” said Strange.

“I like the way that boy Robert Gray is playing,” said Blue. “Boy runs with authority. He’s not much of leader, but he can break it.”

“He’s just getting to know the other kids,” said Strange. “And he’s naturally on the quiet side. Plus he’s smart; he already learned the plays in just a week’s time. Be a change from Rico, anyway, the way that boy runs his mouth.”

Rico was the team’s halfback, a talented but cocky kid who had a complaint ready for every command.

“Gray’ll keep Rico on his toes,” said Blue. “Make him appreciate that position he’s got, and work harder to keep it.”

“I was thinkin’ the same thing,” said Strange. “And who knows? Maybe Robert’ll earn that position himself.”

“You gonna take the Pee Wee team alone, Derek?” said Blue, his eyes moving to Arrington’s. “ ’Cause me and Dennis here got our hands full with the Midgets.”

Strange nodded. “I’ll handle it.”

“You could use some help.”

“I know it,” said Strange, and ended the conversation at that.

After practice, the coaches had the boys take a knee and told them what they had seen them do right and wrong in the past two hours. The boys’ jerseys were dark with sweat and their faces were beaded with it. When Strange and Blue were done talking, Arrington asked them what time they should show up for the next practice.

“Six o’clock,” said a few of the boys.

“What
time
?” said Arrington.

“Six o’clock, on the dot, be there, don’t miss it!”
they shouted in unison.

“Put it in,” said Strange.

They all managed to touch hands in the center of the circle.

“Petworth Panthers!”

“All right,” said Strange. “Those of you got your bikes, get on home straightaway. If you got people waitin’ for you, we’ll see you get in the cars up in the lot. For you others, Coach Lydell and Coach Dennis and myself will drive you home. I don’t want to see none a y’all walking through these streets at night. Prince, Dante, and Robert, you come with me.”

Strange crossed the field in the gathering darkness, Robert Gray beside him, his helmet swinging by his side.

“You looked good out there,” said Strange.

Gray nodded but kept his face neutral and looked straight ahead.

“It’s okay to smile,” said Strange.

Gray tried. It didn’t come naturally for him, and he looked away.

“It’s a start,” said Strange. “Gonna take some work, is all it is.”

Strange dropped Dante Morris, Prince, and Gray at their places of residence. Pulling off the curb from his last stop, Strange got WOL, the all-talk station on 1450 AM, up on the dial. The local headline news had just begun. From the female reporter, Strange learned that Judge Potterfield had sentenced Granville Oliver to death.

DRIVING south on Georgia, Strange saw a boy standing in front of his shop on 9th. He swung the Caprice around, parked in front of the funeral home, and walked toward the boy. He wasn’t any older than seven. His dark skin held a yellow glow from the light-box overhead. The boy took a step back as Strange approached.

“It’s okay,” said Strange. “That’s my place you’re standing in front of, son. I was just coming by to turn off the light.”

The boy looked up at the lighted sign. “That your business?”

“That’s me. Strange Investigations. I own it. Been in this location over twenty-five years.”

“Dag.”

“What you doin’ out here this time of night all by yourself?”

“My mother went to that market across the street. Said she couldn’t hold my hand crossing Georgia with those market bags in her hand, so I should wait here till she comes back.”

“What’s your name, young man?”

The boy smiled. “They call me Peanut Butter and Jelly, ’cause that’s what I like to eat.”

“Okay.”

“Mister?”

“What?”

“Will you wait with me till my mother comes back? It’s kinda scary out here in the dark.”

Strange said that he would.

AFTER the mother had come, and after Strange had given her a polite but direct talk about leaving her boy out on the street at night, Strange put his key to the front door of his shop. He had a slight hunger and knew that he could find a PayDay bar in Janine’s desk. As he began to fit the key in the lock, he heard the rumble of a high-horse, big American engine, and he turned his head.

A white Coronet 500 with Magnum wheels was rolling down the short block. It pulled over directly in front of the shop and the driver cut its engine. Strange recognized the car. When the driver got out, Strange could see that, indeed, it was that Greek detective who worked for Elaine Clay. As he crossed the sidewalk, Strange could see in the Greek’s waxed eyes that he was up on something. And as he grew nearer, he smelled the alcohol on his breath.

“Nick Stefanos.” He reached out his hand and Strange took it.

“I remember. What you doin’ in my neighborhood, man?”

“I was driving around,” said Stefanos. “You said that if the light-box was on I should stop by.”

“I was just fixin’ to turn it off,” said Strange.

“Too late,” said Stefanos with a stupid grin. “I’m here.”

STRANGE and Stefanos walked to the Dodge, parked under a street lamp. Stefanos leaned against its rear quarter panel and folded his arms.