S Street Rising: Crack, Murder, and Redemption in D.C. (12 page)

Inside the church, a little boy asked Jim what the tape was for. Jim crouched so he and the kid were face-to-face.

“Unfortunately,” Jim said, “some people don’t know how to solve disagreements peacefully. They use guns and hurt other people. That’s what happened at the club. Instead of talking, someone used a gun, and four young men were killed. It’s sad, but you’re safe in here.”

The boy nodded.

Jim’s daughter, Rachel, helped out with the Sunday school. She was fourteen, a few years older than the dozen kids in the group. “We should do something to remember the victims,” one of them said. Rachel asked the children what they wanted to do, and they came up with a plan.

In the church basement, Rachel, Jim, and Grace foraged some pieces of wood and a roll of twine. Rachel helped the kids tie the wood together into four crosses. Everyone put on their coats and gloves, and Jim led the kids and the rest of his flock outside. Four kids volunteered to carry the crosses. They marched to John’s Place.

The morning was bright and freezing. The kids placed the crosses against the wall of the nightclub. Jim led the shivering group in a prayer.

“Dear God, we pray for the young men who lost their lives as they make their transition, and for the two who were wounded. We pray their souls find peace. We pray for those who use guns to settle disputes, that they may find nonviolent solutions. We pray for those who are caught up in the drug trade, that they may find another path. And we pray for those who are imprisoned by their addiction, that they, too, find a different way of life.

“Amen,” Jim said.

“Amen,” the group responded.

They trudged back to the church.

The following night was the beginning of my weekend. I downed three rum and Cokes with my TV dinner. The buzz amplified my good mood. On Sunday, I’d knocked out a follow-up story for the front page of the Metro section. That entire shift qualified as overtime. My next paycheck would be substantial. A celebration was in order.

I picked up the phone and paged Champagne. Fifteen minutes later, with Champagne riding shotgun, I turned right onto S Street and pulled over next to John’s Place.

A little more than forty-eight hours after the quadruple killing inside the nightclub, it was business as usual on the block. Slingers dressed in heavy coats, boots, and knit hats stood at their usual spots on both sides of the street. I handed the cash to Champagne. She stepped out of the car and was quickly surrounded by dealers.

Champagne made the buy and strolled back to the car. As I watched her return, I noticed something odd a few feet behind her: four makeshift wooden crosses resting against the wall of John’s Place.

Well
, I thought,
that’s different
. The usual street-killing memorial consisted of a pile of flowers and teddy bears.

Champagne plopped into the passenger seat. I pulled away from the curb and drove past the crosses, the slingers, and the church.

Copping crack on the same corner where I’d covered a quadruple killing less than seventy-two hours earlier was brazen, even reckless—maybe as reckless as going into a hotel room to smoke crack when you know the FBI is watching you.

I viewed my encounters with strawberries in purely transactional terms. In exchange for cash, which they used to buy crack for both of us, the women made the buy and provided sex. Most of the strawberries working in my neighborhood were white, but a handful of blacks and Latinas also roamed the streets, exchanging sex for crack. I didn’t think much about them as people until I saw Stacy on the front page of the
Post
. She had gorgeous eyes and a nice smile. But she wasn’t Stacy. Her real name was Sherry K. Larman.

The headline read, “Fateful Links of Seven Slain Women.”

Sherry was twenty-six, the story said, and one of several prostitutes who’d been murdered in D.C. or nearby Arlington, Virginia, over the previous fourteen months. Most of them had used drugs. The story appeared on the first day of June 1990. Sherry’s mother, Sandra Johnson, was quoted at length.

Sherry had grown up in suburban Maryland. She’d had a decent life before she got hooked on crack, her mom said. Sherry’s father was a retired D.C. cop. In high school, she won trophies for track.

Johnson said she’d warned Sherry that she was living dangerously and pleaded with her to give up drugs and prostitution. “She got caught up in this street life and it had a hold of her,” Johnson said. “She knew what she was doing was wrong, and she wanted to get out, but the pull was just too strong.”

Sherry’s body had been found a few days earlier on the top deck of a parking garage in Arlington. She’d been suffocated, as had one of the other victims. All the others had been shot.

I absorbed the details of Sherry’s life. I hadn’t physically harmed this woman, and I’d never intended to hurt her. But there was no way around it: I’d helped destroy her.

The Sherry described in the article was a nice suburban girl who was loved by her parents. The Stacy I knew rented out her body to strange men in exchange for crack. I’d helped put her in a place where a man with bad intentions could place his hands around her throat and squeeze the life out of her.

Until I read about Sherry, I thought that my habit affected no one but me. But the details of her crack-addicted life seemed like an indictment. I dropped the paper and sank to the floor.

By now I’d covered hundreds of homicides for the
Post
, but I hadn’t known any of those killed. I usually thought about the victims as long as it took to report and write my stories or news briefs. For most of them, that amounted to no more than a couple of hours. I hadn’t had any of them into my home. I hadn’t asked any of them to buy crack for me.

Stacy was different. I’d picked her up a couple of times when I couldn’t find or reach Champagne.

My thoughts turned from self-recrimination to self-preservation: Did Stacy have a pager? I couldn’t remember. If she did, and the cops recovered it, would my number be in it? Would a detective knock on my door? Suddenly I felt nauseated.

I rushed to the bathroom and vomited.

It wasn’t the first time the sight of Stacy had prompted me to worry that my double life would be exposed. Six months earlier, just before Christmas, I’d almost run into her while on a reporting assignment.

I’d volunteered to work a double shift on a Saturday, a couple of days before the holiday. It meant a fat, overtime-enhanced paycheck and a guaranteed byline. I’d be covering a holiday party at Lorton Correctional Complex. Through a prison fellowship program, 150 female inmates would be visiting with their kids in the gymnasium. It would be an easy, heartwarming feature.

I walked into the building and froze the moment I spotted Stacy underneath the basketball goal at the opposite side of the gym. She was striking, with long legs and hazel eyes. Like Champagne, she worked the edge of downtown. But I hadn’t seen her in weeks. Now I knew why.

She was with three other inmates. The other women were all holding little kids. Stacy was talking to one of the children.

I wouldn’t have been so alarmed if I’d spotted Champagne in the gym. Champagne was a pro. I’d never told her or Stacy what I did for a living, but I was confident that if I ever ran into Champagne in the real world, she wouldn’t expose me as a fellow user.

Stacy was a wild card. What would she say if she saw me? Would she blurt something out in surprise? Would she try to leverage what she knew about me to her advantage?

The inmates and kids were clustered in different parts of the gym. I made for a small group gathered near the goal opposite Stacy’s. I turned my back and started interviewing.

Quickly, efficiently, I obtained quotes from three inmates and the fellowship director. Each of the women was locked up on a drug charge.

Without looking behind me, I nearly ran out of the gym and drove back to the
Post
.

The close call was unnerving, but I quickly regained my bearings. And learning from a front-page
Post
story that Stacy/Sherry had been murdered rattled me far more, but not to the point that I changed my behavior. Things could be worse. At least I hadn’t been videotaped smoking crack by the FBI.

Barry went down—barely. On August 10, 1990, a jury convicted the mayor of one count of cocaine possession. The jury didn’t convict him in connection with the Vista Hotel bust, which he’d been lured to by Rasheeda Moore. Instead it found him guilty of using cocaine at the Mayflower Hotel, in downtown Washington, with another woman, two months before the Vista episode. The jury acquitted the mayor of a second drug possession charge, and was unable to reach a verdict on twelve counts.

On the night of the verdict, my editors had me drive through the eastern part of the city looking for signs of civil unrest. It was business as usual. There were no riots. Drug corners continued to do a brisk business.

On my way back to the office, I drove through S Street, where the slingers were out in force.

As long as I was holding it together at work, I told myself, I was fine.

For about a year, I held it together at work, more or less. I showed up for my shifts and knocked out news stories and longer feature articles, which often ran in the Sunday edition. On my days off, I’d pick up Champagne and smoke crack. Instead of using two rocks at a time, Champagne and I began ingesting three, sometimes four rocks per encounter.

In June 1991, one year after the story of Sherry Larman’s death was on the front page of the
Post
,
I went to Los Angeles for a family dinner. I was getting worried about my increasing crack usage and figured the visit would be a good chance to clear my head and regroup.

On the day of the dinner, I joined some old pals at the Hollenbeck Youth Center, in Boyle Heights, for a few pickup basketball games. Then I cruised over to one of my favorite burger stands on Olympic Boulevard for lunch. I had less than $20 in my pocket and no intention of seeing Raven. But her motel was so close. I could at least say hi.

It was a warm day. Raven was rocking tight shorts and a sheer, plunging short-sleeved top. She sauntered toward my rental car and smiled broadly when she saw me.

“Hey, stranger. Good to see you again. I’m holding, if you want to party.”

The family dinner wouldn’t start for five hours. Plenty of time. I hit a nearby ATM and met Raven in her room. Fifteen minutes later, I exhaled the last of the residue as Raven worked on me. I wasn’t anywhere close to getting off.

“Can you get a couple more rocks?”

Raven’s head popped up.

“You know I can, babe.”

I handed Raven the cash. Her dealer was camped out in another room. We went at it again. I failed to launch. I went back to the ATM. We did no better on the next try. We kept going. Three, four, five times I hit the ATM and returned to the room. I found a pay phone and called home to say I was running late but would be at the dinner. Night fell.

Raven said she needed to clear out of the motel.

“But I haven’t finished,” I whined. I was
this
close.

Raven slipped on her bra. “I know another place nearby where we could get a room by the hour,” she said.

I handed her $50 for three more rocks.

The other place was a few blocks east on Olympic, on the western edge of downtown. I almost laughed when I saw the sign: EXPERIENCE MOTEL
.
It was an L-shaped, two-story hot-sheet joint with a faded pink paint job and a small parking lot. Flashing neon spelling out the motel’s name was mounted above the tiny first-floor office. The
O
was burned out.

Twenty bucks got us an hour. We could have the room until the morning for an additional ten, Raven said. I handed her a twenty and a ten, just in case we needed more than an hour. She paid the clerk and we headed up the stairs. A Latino gangster in a white wifebeater, khakis, and pointy black dress shoes leaned over the second-floor railing, eyeballing us.

The gangbanger was about my height but stocky, with broad shoulders and thickly muscled arms, which were covered with tattoos. He looked to be in his early twenties. He was either MS-13 or 18th Street. He stood between us and our room.

We reached the top of the stairs. The gangster pushed off the rail and turned toward us. The walkway was narrow; there was no room to slip by. Homeboy stared at me. I glanced at Raven, hoping she would register recognition. If she knew the gangster, she could ask him to stand down. Raven returned my glance with a look that said I was on my own.

The
vato
stepped up and crowded my space. He smelled of beer and cheap cologne. The gangster pointed at my wrist.

“Nice watch, homes.”

“Thanks,” I replied warily. The timepiece was simple and probably cost no more than $25. But it had been a gift from my uncle Victor, my pop’s oldest brother.

“Give me the watch,” the gangster said as he reached for it.

I didn’t think. I slapped his hand away and shouted, “No!”