What It Was (20 page)

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Authors: George P. Pelecanos

Tags: #Derek Strange

BOOK: What It Was
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The tip of a gun barrel pressed behind his ear.

“Hey, shitbird,” said a voice. “I’m a police officer. You do anything else besides raise your hands, I’ll squeeze one off in your head. I won’t even think about it. And I’ll sleep good tonight.”

Bowman raised his hands.

“Anne!” The man holding the gun on him shouted toward the house, and soon a bright light illuminated the porch. The woman Bowman had seen in the living room came outside, followed by a male cop in uniform. A badge was clipped to the woman’s trousers, and there was a revolver in her hand. Her police sidearm was pointed at his midsection as she descended the porch steps.

“We got him,” said Officer Anne Honn. She and the uniform covered Bowman with their weapons.

“Keep your hands up,” said Vaughn, holstering his .38. “Don’t twitch.” Vaughn found Bowman’s guns and inspected them in the light. “Shaved numbers. The DA’s gonna like that.”

“Lawyer,” said Bowman.

“You’re gonna need one, Hoss,” said Vaughn. “Put your hands behind your back.”

Bowman thought on who had set him up as he felt the bracelets lock onto his wrists. Couldn’t be that punch Gina Marie, ’cause she wouldn’t sign her own death certificate like that. It had to be that man-ho, called hisself Martina, who had been sitting beside Gina in the diner. Bowman needed to get a message to Red.

“Let’s go,” said Vaughn. With the uniformed officer beside him, Vaughn grabbed Bowman roughly by the arm and led him to a squad car that was parked around the corner in the alley. Officer Honn placed Bowman’s guns in an evidence bag and went back into the house to talk to Cochnar and his wife, safely stashed in their second-story bedroom.

“You must be Vaughn,” said Bowman, getting a look at the big dog-toothed white man for the first time.


Detective
Vaughn.” He studied Bowman’s face. “Damn, you do look like that actor, used to be a big-time athlete… Woody Strode, right?”

It’s Rafer Johnson, thought Bowman. But he didn’t bother to correct the man. He wouldn’t know the difference anyhow.

COCO WATKINS
pulled the Fury over to the curb in front of Soul House on 14th.

Red Jones said, “Leave it run.” He pulled his guns from under the seat and chambered rounds into both of them. Pushed his hips forward as he fitted the Colts in the dip of his bells.

Coco threw the shifter into park. The 440 rumbled and sputtered through dual pipes. Coco looked to the sidewalk,
where a man with a gray beard sat on a folding chair. In his hand was a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag.

“There goes witness one,” said Coco. “You ’bout to kill him, too?”

“Old-time don’t bother me.”

“Be better if we waited for Williams to go somewhere alone.”

“Better for who?”

“You. Your future.”

“I’m already wanted for murder.”


I’m
not.”

“You know how the lawyers do. They only gonna charge me for one. The one they got the best chance of taking to conviction.”

“So you gonna give ’em a choice.”

“What, you scared?”

“Concerned for you don’t make me scared.”

Jones looked over at his woman, her hair touching the headliner of the Plymouth, her red lipstick, her violet eye shadow, the nice outfit she had on. Coco always looked good when she stepped out the door. She was a stallion.

“I’m goin in there,” said Jones. “You can leave me here if you want to. I’ll understand. And I’ll be all right.”

“You think I’d leave you?” Her eyes had grown heavy. She brushed tears away with her thumbs, carefully, so as not to disturb her makeup.

Jones could see that he’d cut her. He leaned across the seats and kissed her on the mouth. “You’re my bottom, girl.”

Jones got out of the Plymouth and closed its passenger door behind him. He adjusted the grips of the .45s so that
they pointed inward; now he could draw the way he had so many times before in the mirror. Brazenly, he tucked the tails of his rayon shirt behind the grips, so all could now see his intent.

The man sitting on the folding chair was bold behind his drink and did not take his eyes off Jones as the tall man took long strides over the sidewalk. Jones pushed on the front door of Soul House and stepped inside.

The doorman, a fat man named Antoine, took in Jones, strapped with double automatics, standing in the entrance area, surveying the space. Antoine had crossed paths with Jones once before.

“You can’t bring that iron in here,” said Antoine weakly, and then thought better of his tone. “Sayin, you
shouldn’t.

Jones didn’t reply. Instead, he scanned the low-lit room. He focused on the back of a man seated at the bar. The man turned his head to talk to the girl beside him, revealing his fucked-up beak.

The jukebox was playing an old song, a soul thing by some blue-gum singer from out the South. Jones did not hear it. The song in his head was new, like one of those soundtrack songs they played in the movies he’d seen at the Republic, the Langston, the Senator, and the Booker T. The song in his head had one of those scratchy guitar riffs, wacka-wacka-
wacka
-wak, and a female vocal, the girl speaking, not singing, almost with a breathy kind of whisper. And now Red Jones was in the movie, crossing the barroom floor, people murmuring, moving out his way. Nearing Williams, he stopped and stood behind him. Jones could hear music and the lyrics, which went

 

Red Fury, he’s the
man

Try and stop him if you
can

 

and Jones cross-drew his guns. He said, “Long Nose,” and as Roland Williams swiveled his barstool around, a look of sad resignation came upon his face, and Jones fired both of his .45s. The Colts jumped in his hands, and the girl beside Williams screamed as gunshots thundered in the room and the blood of Williams speckled her. Williams, leaded multiple times, toppled off his stool and fell, dead as JFK, to the floor.

Jones’s ears were ringing some. A few patrons had backed off into the shadows and some were outright cowering, their arms wrapped around themselves, their chins tucked into their chests. Othella, the girl next to Williams, was frozen where she sat, her vanilla-colored slacks darkened at the crotch with urine. Gerard the bartender had raised his hands without being asked to, and they were shaking. Jones, guns still in hand, turned around and walked away. Antoine the doorman was no longer at his post, and Gerard watched Jones through the gun smoke as he pushed on the door and left the bar.

Out on 14th Street, Jones got into the passenger seat of the Fury.

“Everything all right?” said Coco.

“Straight,” said Jones. His eyes were bright as he looked at his woman. “I wrote a song about me while I was in there. Call it my ‘Ballad of Red.’ ”

“For
real
.”

“Need to work on it some. But yeah.”

Coco pulled off the curb and drove north. The juicer sitting outside Soul House watched the red Plymouth cruise away. The big-haired lady behind the wheel had left no rubber on the road. Didn’t seem to him like she was in any kind of hurry at all.

That night, for days to come, and into the years, the man in the folding chair and the patrons and employees of the bar would talk about the event that had just gone down. The details would change, the roles of the witnesses would get inflated, and the story would grow to legend fueled by drama, exaggeration, and outright fabrication.

Red Jones had earned his myth.

 

N
EWS OF
the Soul House
shooting spread quickly and soon reached the Third District headquarters, where Vaughn had booked Clarence Bowman for firearms violations and secured him in a holding cell. The jail was crowded that evening, as welfare checks had recently hit the street. The sudden infusion of cash into the city initiated an increase of alcohol and drug use, which led to incidents of mayhem and domestic violence.

Bowman shared a cell with several men, some who would be arraigned shortly on serious offenses. One of the men was a doe-eyed alcoholic named Henry Arrington, in on a public drunk charge, who would be released the next morning. Bowman immediately marked Arrington as the crippled calf of the bunch. He cut Arrington from the herd, took him aside, and had a quiet but firm talk. Spoke slow, ’cause Arrington was a little off his ass on alcohol. Asked Arrington who he loved the most in this world, and Arrington said his grandmother. He then told Arrington that he would find his
grandma and murder her if Arrington did not do exactly as Bowman said. Didn’t matter if Bowman was going to be incarcerated for the next five, ten, or twenty years. When he got out, he would kill her dead and then he would do Arrington for fun. Bowman, of course, didn’t off innocents, and it gave him no pleasure to make these threats, but he felt he had to do so in the interest of time.

“Here’s the phone number,” said Bowman, and had Arrington say it back to him several times.

Vaughn had been summoned to another meeting with Lieutenant David Harp back in Harp’s office. This one was less cordial than the last. The brazen nature of the Soul House burn had put Harp over the edge. As the lieutenant spoke, veins stood out like hot wires on his neck. The message was clear: Red Jones was on a murderous crime spree in the city and it was Vaughn’s responsibility to put it to an end. His shield depended on it. Vaughn knew the threat was bullshit, but it angered him to hear it just the same.

Vaughn returned to his desk to retrieve a fresh deck of L&Ms before heading down to the crime scene on 14th. From back in the holding cells, Vaughn could hear Clarence Bowman’s agitated shouts, nonsense declarations strung together somewhat randomly: “I’m not me! I’m not myself today! My stomach hurts! I gotta make some dookie! Tellin y’all, I gotta take a
shit!

On the way out the door, Vaughn got up with the sergeant, Bill Herbst, who was on desk duty.

“What’s Bowman’s malfunction?” said Vaughn.

“He’s been screaming his black ass off for the last fifteen minutes,” said Herbst with a shrug.

“Sorry to leave him with you, Billy. I gotta get outta here.”

“We’ll deal with it, Hound Dog.”

Vaughn, usually cool, now visibly shaken, lit a cigarette and tossed the match on the floor. The sergeant watched him go.

In his cell, Bowman dropped his slacks around his ankles, squatted, and shat loudly and voluminously on the concrete floor. What he did next caused alarm and activity, and sent his cell mates scattering to the farthest reaches of the iron cage. Some yelled for their jailers to get them out of there, and one hardened criminal puked up his dinner. Bowman had scooped up a handful of his bowel movement and put it into his mouth.

Bowman wasn’t crazy. He was logical. It was easier to bust out of St. Elizabeth’s than it was the D.C. Jail.

LOU FANELLA
and Gino Gregorio had sat on Coco Watkins’s house for hours. Tired and frustrated, they returned to the room of their motor lodge in Prince George’s County, took naps, got up out of bed, changed into rayon print sport shirts and no-belt slacks, and found a place on Kenilworth that served Mexican.

“This joint stinks,” said Fanella, shaking his head as he took the last bite of his enchilada platter. “What’s the name of this shithouse again?”

“Mi Casa,” said Gregorio.

“Me
Caca
is more like it.”

Gregorio noted that Fanella had cleaned his plate as thoroughly as a dog would tongue-polish its bowl, but Fanella told him he was only getting his money’s worth. He also told Gino to shut his mouth.

Fanella suggested they find some women. He was a man with elemental needs.

He phoned their boy, Thomas “Zoot” Mazzetti, who told him where they could buy some tail. Fanella didn’t want to spend much, wasn’t interested in those overpriced escort services, and anyway, those stuck-up gals weren’t any fun. Zoot said the 14th and U Street corridor still had women out on the stroll.

“I don’t want no monkeys,” said Fanella.

“Don’t worry, Lou,” said Zoot. “They got white snatch down there, too.”

Fanella and Gregorio got into the Lincoln and headed into the city. Reaching their general destination, they pulled over on 14th and let the Continental idle. Fanella rested his smoking-hand on the lip of the open driver’s-side window as he had a look at the scene.

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