Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go (18 page)

“I want to listen to this kinda shit, I’ll dig out some old Sabbath albums. ‘Masters of Reality’ maybe.”

“Yeah?” the guy said. “Well, you had your day, didn’t you? Anyhow, your girlfriend’s waitin’ for you, ace.” He and the longhaired girl laughed.

I found my girlfriend in the bedroom, lying on a floor mattress, nude above the waist, her hands locked behind her head. The room was lit by candles, and a stick of incense burned by the bed. I climbed out of my shorts clumsily and pulled my T-shirt over my head.

“I didn’t bring anything,” I said.

“That’s not what I had in mind,” she said, pushing her huge breasts together until there was a tight tunnel formed between them. “Come here, Nick.”

I straddled her chest and gave her the pearl necklace she was looking for. Our shadows slashed across the wall in the dancing light.

Black.

THE ROOM WAS DARK
. Through the slots in the curtains, I could see that the sky had not yet begun to turn. I rose and sat naked on the edge of the bed, listened to the steady snore of the woman next to me, waited for my eyes to adjust to the absence of light. I made my way to the bathroom, put my mouth under the faucet, and drank water until I thought I would be sick. I took a shower, scrubbing my genitals and fingers until I was certain that her smell was gone, then dried off and found my clothes
lying in a heap by the bed. I dressed in the light of the bathroom and left the room.

Out on the stoop of her apartment building, I looked down the slope of Belmont, saw my car parked at the bottom of the street. My stomach flipped and I took a seat on a step. I leaned my head against a black iron railing and closed my eyes. A woman and a man argued violently in Spanish not very far away.

Black.

I woke up behind the wheel of my car. My keys were in my hand. The windows were rolled up and the heat was hideous, my hair and clothing wet with the smell of alcohol and nicotine. I turned the ignition and drove northeast into Shepherd Park.

I entered my apartment and looked into my room. Lyla slept in my bed. I fed my cat, took another cold shower, and got under the covers, turning onto my side. Lyla moved herself against me and draped a forearm over my shoulder, brushing her fingers across my chest.

“You okay?” she said drowsily.

“I’m fine.”

“I was worried about you.”

“I’m here now, baby. Relax.”

She drifted off, holding me. I fell to sleep knowing we were done.

I
SLEPT UNTIL
noon and woke with a head full of dust and a stomach full of rocks. Lyla had gone, left some chocolate kisses on top of a note in the kitchen. The note said that she’d call me later and that she loved me.

I ate the chocolate out on my stoop, where I drank the day’s first cup of coffee and sat with the worn copy of
D.C. This Week
spread open between my feet. My cat rolled on the grass in the high sun. The phone rang inside my apartment. I went back into the living room and picked it up.

“Nick!”

“LaDuke.”

“You sound like you just woke up.”

“I’m just sitting here, going through the classifieds in the newspaper. One of the two we found at Calvin’s and Roland’s.”

“Anything?”

“Uh-uh. A few ads, escort services specializing in young
black males, that kind of thing. They could be solicitations for prostitution, but, I don’t know, there’s more than a few of them, and to me they look too organized, too legit.”

“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place,” LaDuke said.

“Say what?”

“You’re assuming that Calvin and Roland were using the personals to sell themselves, maybe set up prospective johns for some sort of roll. Right?”

“That’s what I was looking for, yeah.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it—maybe our boys were the buyers, not the sellers. Maybe they read an ad in there, got themselves hooked up as actors in this porno thing.”

I pushed my coffee cup around on the table. “You know, Jack, you might not be as dim as you look.”

“If that’s some kind of compliment, then I guess I better take it.”

“You pick me up at my place?”

“In an hour,” he said. “Look presentable, okay?”

“Sure thing, Boy Scout. See you then.”

After several forced sets of push-ups and sit-ups, I took a long, cold shower. I didn’t feel much better, but I felt human. LaDuke swung by right on the button, and I went out to meet him with one of the newspaper copies in my hand. I got into the passenger side of the big Ford and dropped the tabloid on the seat between us. LaDuke wore a starched white shirt with a solid black tie. He had shined his thick black oxfords, the only shoes I had ever seen on his feet. I nodded at the newspaper on the seat.

“Good call,” I said. “I was looking in ‘Adult Services,’ when I should have been looking under ‘Wanted.’ I found a couple of items in there… could be something. One’s a photographer looking for healthy young black males to pose nude. The other one’s got a local filmmaker looking for young African-American males for his next production.”

“Might be a winner,” LaDuke said.

“We’ll check it out later,” I said. “Let’s go.”

LaDuke looked me over. “You look like hell, you know it?”

“Thanks for the observation.”

“You ought to slow it down a little, Nick.”

“Just turn this piece of shit over,” I said. “We gotta go pick up Darnell.”

At the Spot, Darnell was finishing his load of lunch dishes, so LaDuke and I had a seat at the bar. Boyle sat alone, a beer and a Jack in front of him, two stools away from Mel, who softly sang along to the Stylistics coming from the deck. I ordered a quick beer from Mai, just to steady my hands. It worked. Mai put an ice water on the bar, and I chased the beer with that. LaDuke got up and went to talk to Anna, who was cleaning her tables in the other room. Boyle looked down the bar in my direction.

“Who’s your friend?” he said.

“Guy’s name is LaDuke,” I said.

“I knew that,” Boyle said. “Johnson’s been talking to Shareen Lewis. She told him all about him—and you.”

“So why’d you ask?”

“Just wanted to see how deep you’d go in your lies, Nick. You keep playing me, tellin’ me you’ve got nothing on the case. But you and Boy Detective over there are working on some kind of angle, am I right?”

“I said I’d square it with you when I had something concrete.”

“Sure you will.”

“How about you? Johnson get any more evidence that Roland and Calvin were moving drugs?”

“I’m done feeding you information,” Boyle said. “You’re on your own.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

Darnell came out of the kitchen, rubbing his hands dry on a rag. I left a few bucks for Mai and got LaDuke’s attention. He said good-bye to Anna and tossed Darnell the keys to the Ford. The three of us went out the door.

DARNELL PARKED NEAR THE
entrance to Goode’s White Goods, and soon afterward McGinnes came goose-stepping out into the lot. He got into the back with LaDuke, introduced himself, said hello to Darnell. Darnell, his hands on the wheel, gave McGinnes an amused smile.

“Where’s Donny?” I said.

“He’ll be along,” McGinnes said, and just as he got the words out, Donny came through the double glass doors. He was wearing some sort of green double-knit slacks and two-inch heeled shoes, with a green shirt and green tie combo to complete the hookup.

“I remember this movie,” Darnell said, “when I was a kid. Had Sammy Davis, Jr., in it, playing some cavalry guy, like Sammy was supposed to be Gunga Din and shit.”

“
Sergeants Three
,” I said.

“With all this green this cat’s wearin’,” Darnell said, “kind of reminds me of Sammy, tryin’ to be Robin Hood.”

“Donny’s all right,” McGinnes said.

Darnell said, “Must be one of those Baltimore brothers, with those threads and shit.”

“Here,” McGinnes said, passing a few spansules over the front seat, pressing them into my hand. “Eat one of these, man. It’ll do you right.”

“What is it?”

“Make you go, Jim,” McGinnes said.

“Maybe later.” I stashed the speed in my pocket.

Donny got in the car, next to McGinnes in the backseat. He shook hands with everyone, gave Darnell a different shake than he gave everyone else. Darnell rolled his eyes and put the Ford in gear.

On the way to the Hot Plate, I gave everyone some background and general instructions. I wasn’t worried about McGinnes—I knew he would pick up on the rhythms once we got started. LaDuke sat quietly next to the open window while McGinnes and Donny bantered verbally over who would play what roles when the time came.

“Listen,” I said, “we’re all supposed to be equal, management-wise—that’s the whole point of this thing. This Bernie guy, he likes to feel like he’s being courted by a bunch of execs, get it?”

“I get it,” Donny said. “But I ain’t never run down this kind of game before. Understand what I’m sayin’?”

“Hey, Donny, if you’re not comfortable—”

“I’ll be all right. It’s just that, you know, I don’t want anybody thinkin’ I’m some kind of
punk
. See what I’m sayin’?”

“We’re just businessmen selling this stuff,” I said. “So relax.”

“ ’Cause I ain’t no punk,” Donny said, unable to give it up. “I ain’t never had nothin’ back there didn’t belong back there. Fact is, I’m so tight, it hurts me to fart.”

“Shit,” Darnell mumbled.

“Now, women?” Donny continued, moving forward and leaning his arms on the front seat. “I
get
me some women. Had me this girl last night, this freak from Dundalk?”

“Told you he was from Baltimore,” Darnell said.

“Anyway,” Donny said, “in the beginning, this freak didn’t want to come over to my place, on account of I’m on the… slight side. Maybe she thought that meant I was light in other ways, too. See what I’m sayin’? But when I unspooled that motherfucker”—and here Donny imitated the sound of a line being cast—“the freak says, ‘Goddamn, Donny, where’d a little man like you get so much dick?’ ”

“Step on it,” LaDuke said, “will you, Darnell?” Darnell gave the Ford some gas.

THE ONLY SIGN OUTSIDE
the Hot Plate said
NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, BOOKS
. The address, however, jibed with the one given to me by Gerry Abromowitz, so Darnell parked the car on K. We left him sitting behind the wheel, reading a paperback on the teachings of Islam, and went inside the shop.

The first section of the store featured racks of daily
newspapers and magazines, weeklies and monthlies, all of the legitimate variety. The clerk behind the counter did not so much as look up when we entered. We went through another open door, into a considerably livelier and more populated section where the real business was being conducted.

A couple of employees—one skinny, one fat, there never seemed to be middle physical ground in places like these—were ringing up sales and keeping an eye on the display floor. Donny immediately went to a rack containing shrink-wrapped magazines whose covers almost exclusively featured women with extralarge lungs. McGinnes seemed more interested in the business aspect of things, wondering aloud how the “profit pieces” were merchandised. LaDuke stood with his hands in his pockets, clearly disgusted at the sight of middle-aged men eye-searching the mags that specialized in man-boy action. Most of the activity seemed to be in that area of the store. I waited for one of the clerks to get free, the pock-faced, skinny one, and announced myself. The kid punched an in-house extension, spoke to someone on the other end, pointed to another open door, and told me we could “go on.” I got everyone together and we went through to the back.

We entered a large warehouse arrangement where three men sat in an office area in front of computers, taking orders over the phone. I guessed that the mail-order end of things was Tobias’s biggest number, the on-line factor a big element in the company’s growth, a way for pedophiles and other pervs to home-shop and network coast to coast without fear of exposure. Progress.