Shame The Devil Part 38

"Paid off a man who works in that s.p.a.ce during the day."

"Another inside thing. Don't that boy ever learn?"

"He's scared. He just wants us out of town. It'll be all right."

"We will will be leavin' town after the job. Right, Frank?" be leavin' town after the job. Right, Frank?"

"I figure we'll pick up the car from Manny, slide on over to Detective Jonas's house in the middle of the night, do a little mayhem there. Then we'll leave town." Farrow looked closely at Otis. "You don't have a problem with that, do you, Roman?"

"I'm with you," said Otis carefully. "You know that."

"What I wanted to hear."

"There is something else I wanted to talk to you about, though."

"Go ahead."

"Gus. He don't belong with us, man. The man's plain lovesick over my sister. I brought him with me from Cali 'cause I wanted company on the ride. He wouldn't do us no good -"

"Get him out of here."

"Thanks. I was thinkin' I'd drive him up to D.C. today. Put him on one of those cross-country buses they got."

Farrow said, "Fine."

He turned and walked back up the stairs.

Otis breathed out slowly. He hadn't been certain that Frank would let Gus book. The thing was, he didn't like the sound of this card game heist and he sure didn't want to make a widow of his sister. Young boys playin' gangster. Shoot, any kind of drama could go down there. And then there was Frank on his revenge trip. Taking stupid chances, playing with that cop over the phone, following his kin. Now he wanted to go to the man's house after the job and f.u.c.k with his family and s.h.i.t. None of it felt right.

Well, at least Gus would get out clean. As for Otis, he'd stay with Frank, despite the funny feeling in his gut about their future. Ice-cold as he was, Frank had always watched out for him, even saved his life one time in Lewisburg. Once you made the decision to partner up with a man, whoever he was, it just wasn't right to walk away.

Roman Otis went around to the front of the house. Kendricks and Lavonicus were by the stand of tall pine near the Mark V, parked alongside the 'Stang.

"You don't have to tell me that you played for the Spirits," said Kendricks, " 'cause I know. But I'm tellin' you you that you don't know what the f.u.c.k you talkin' about. They used to call Marvin Barnes 'B. B.' on account of that n.i.g.g.e.r had one tiny-a.s.s head. Had a head on him small as one of those BBs you load into an air pistol, man." that you don't know what the f.u.c.k you talkin' about. They used to call Marvin Barnes 'B. B.' on account of that n.i.g.g.e.r had one tiny-a.s.s head. Had a head on him small as one of those BBs you load into an air pistol, man."

"I'm telling you, you," said Lavonicus.

"I'm telling you, you," said Kendricks, mimicking the monotone and laughing.

Lavonicus's ears turned pink. "Listen. B. B. stood for 'Bad Boy.' Marvin 'Bad Boy' Barnes, get it? I don't care what your friends say because I was there."

"Aw, go ahead," said Kendricks.

"Hey, Gus," said Otis. "Come in the house with me for a minute, will you?"

Lavonicus walked across the yard with Otis.

"What's up, Roman?"

"You're goin' home. How's that sound to you?"

Lavonicus gave Otis his clown's smile as he ducked his head under the door frame and entered the house.

Gus Lavonicus packed a bag quickly and said good bye to Farrow, who was standing in the kitchen, drinking a gla.s.s of red wine and smoking a Kool.

"Be back in a few hours, Frank," said Otis.

Farrow said, "Right."

Lavonicus and Otis left the house. Kendricks was still out in the yard. He smiled at Lavonicus as he came down the steps. Lavonicus and Otis walked toward the Bill Bla.s.s Mark V.

"Where you off to, Stretch? Takin' a trip or somethin'?"

"I'm goin' home," said Lavonicus.

"I'm goin' ho-ome," said Kendricks.

"I'm just droppin' him off in D.C.," said Otis.

"Goin' back to see your woman?" Kendricks cackled. "The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice, right, Gus?"

"See you later, Booker," said Otis.

"Hey, maybe I'll ride with y'all."

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Otis, but Kendricks got ahead of them and stepped along toward the car.

"So, you like the sisters, huh, Gus? You prefer 'em to your own kind, that's what it is?"

Lavonicus said nothing.

"How's a big man like you do it with a little thing like my cousin Cissy, you don't mind my askin'? I mean, what you do, bounce her all around in your lap and s.h.i.t? Or do you hit it from behind, man, hog-slap that thing...?"

They were nearing the stand of pine by the car.

"What'samatter, Gus, you done lost your tongue?" Kendricks looked over his shoulder and up at Lavonicus and laughed. "You got some red-a.s.s ears on you, too."

Lavonicus grabbed Kendricks by the neck and slammed his face into the trunk of a pine. Blood erupted, and pieces of bark flew from the tree. Lavonicus released Kendricks. Kendricks's arms pinwheeled, and he fell back and lay still.

Lavonicus's mouth dropped open. "Did I kill him, Roman?"

Otis looked down and studied his cousin's face. "Naw, man, he gonna be all right. C'mon."

They got into the Mark V and started down the long drive that cut through the woods to the two-lane. After a bend in the drive, Otis snapped his fingers and cut the engine.

"Hold up, Gus. I forgot my driver's license at the house. Gonna walk back and pick it up."

"We could just back up the car."

"Need to stretch my legs before that long trip we got. Be right back."

Otis got out of the car and walked toward the house. When he got to the yard, he looked in the front window. He did not see Frank. He went to Kendricks and grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him into the woods. Kendricks was slight and easy to move. His head bounced on rocks and a tree stump, and his body swept a path in the dirt. Otis took him down a grade to a gully of brush and dried leaves.

Otis stood over Kendricks. His forehead was caved in and cracked open. Otis could see a part of his cousin's brain through all the blood.

Otis recited a brief and meaningless prayer. He had known Booker's mother, and she would have liked him to say a few words over her son.

"So long, cuz," said Otis. "You done gone and talked yourself to death. Now these animals out here gonna do you like you been doin' them."

He went back to the car.

Out on 301, Lavonicus fiddled with the radio dial.

"Want you to take care of my sister now, Gus, you hear?"

"I will."

"Ain't gonna lose that temper of yours with her, are you?"

"I'd never raise a hand to Cissy, Roman. You know that."

Lavonicus lit on a song and saw Otis smile.

"You like this one?" said Lavonicus.

" 'Love Won't Let Me Wait,' " said Otis, "by Major Harris. That's a bad motherf.u.c.ker right there."

Nick Stefanos locked the front door of the Spot from the inside and went back around the bar. He rotated a few cold beers out of the cooler, stocked a couple of cases of warm in the bottom, and put the cold bottles back on top. He took a bottle of Bud that he had buried in the ice chest and popped the cap.

"Thought you weren't going to drink tonight," said Alicia Weisman, who sat at the bar.

"I said that?"

"After how you felt this morning, remember?"

"Just gonna have one to take the edge off," said Stefanos with a tired wink. He tilted the bottle to his lips.

Alicia watched him. "Want to see some music? Nashville p.u.s.s.y's playing at the Cat."

"The only p.u.s.s.y I want to see is right here in front of me."

"You silver-tongued devil."

"I make the language of seduction an art." The phone on the wall rang. "Excuse me."

Stefanos picked up the receiver. It was Boyle on the other end of the line.

"How's it going?"

"We're sittin' here watching that show set in the emergency room. The doctors got personal problems and I give a f.u.c.k."

"Anything?"

"Not a word. Bill feels better me bein' here and all, but if we don't hear anything by the weekend, I'm gone. He misses his family, and my old lady's complaining I'm not around. What's up with you?"

"Not much," said Stefanos.

"All right. Keep in touch."

Stefanos went back and stood in front of Alicia.

"So," she said. "What do you think? Do you want to go out?"

"Let's just go back to my crib, okay? I might be getting a call there."

"You working on something?"

"I just need to be near my phone."

Stefanos lifted his beer bottle and Alicia took it gently from his hands. She set it down on the bar.

"You don't need that," she said. "Right?"

He did need it. He loved her but, G.o.d, he needed it. It was stronger than her or anyone else.

"Right," he said, pushing the bottle away with the back of his hand.

She leaned over the bar and kissed him on the lips.

Thomas Wilson ordered a cognac at the bar of an African club up on Georgia and Missouri, near the old Ibex. Wilson couldn't p.r.o.nounce the name of the place, but he liked it all right. Once you listened to their music for a while, it got way under your skin, too. Those Africans talked real loud, standing around the bar. Sometimes you couldn't tell if they were arguing with each other or just being friends. But they pretty much left him alone.

Way he looked now, cut in the face and with a f.u.c.ked-up eye, wasn't no one gonna try to talk to him, anyway.

Yeah, Dimitri had really worked him over. Afterward, even with the pain, it was funny how different he'd felt. Not good, exactly, or happy. More like clean.

Now that he'd done it, he wished Bernie had been there as well. He looked forward to seeing Bernie again. He wanted to tell him like he'd told Dimitri, and take it from Bernie like he'd taken it from Dimitri, if that's how it had to be. He wanted to feel clean with Bernie, and with Stephanie, too.

First he'd have to do this thing with Dimitri. Step up and be a man for Dimitri and Bernie and Stephanie. And for Charles. He could do that. He felt that he could.

Someone b.u.mped him from behind. Wilson looked over his shoulder, not hard or anything like that, but in a curious way. The man who had b.u.mped him started shouting something at him in a foreign tongue. Wilson ignored him, but the man kept shouting. One of the man's friends came over, and he could hear them laughing behind his back.

Wilson fired down his cognac. He got off his stool and left money on the bar. He was careful not to look at anyone as he walked from the club.

Dimitri Karras drove north on Connecticut Avenue, downshifting at the start of a long grade. The old BMW had lost its juice; j.a.p cars and domestics pa.s.sed him on either side. The Beamer's paint job had faded and its engine was weak, but he'd decided to hang onto it. Cars meant nothing to him anymore. The only time he'd get stoked by a ride was when he'd see a restored Karmann Ghia on the street. It reminded him of his old Ghia, that decade, those times. Yeah, the seventies had been a glorious ride.

Karras turned off Connecticut and parked along the curb.

He'd had a quiet day at work. Nick Stefanos had asked him a couple of questions and he'd answered him shortly or not at all. He didn't like to be unkind to Stefanos, but Stefanos was out. He was sorry he had talked so freely with him the night before. He shouldn't have gotten so drunk.