The Night Gardener (13 page)

“What can I do today?”

“All these visitors here, they mean well, I know, but don’t give them the run of the house. If they have to use the bathroom, let them use the guest bathroom, not the one upstairs. And don’t let anyone except you and your wife go into Asa’s bedroom. We’re going to want to give that a thorough inspection.”

“What you looking for?”

Ramone made a half shrug. There was no reason to mention the possible evidence of criminal activity.

“We don’t know until we get in there. In addition, we’re going to interview you extensively. Helena and Deanna as well, as soon as they’re ready.”

“That Detective Wilkins, he already talked to me some.”

“He’ll be needing to speak to you again.”

“Why him and not you?”

“Bill Wilkins is the primary on the case.”

“Is he up to this?”

“He’s good police. One of our best.”

Terrance saw the lie in Ramone’s eyes, and Ramone looked away. He drank off some of his beer.

“Gus.”

“I’m sorry, Terrance. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through.”

“Look at me, Gus.”

Ramone met Johnson’s eyes.

“Find who did this,” said Johnson.

“We’ll do our best.”

“That’s not what I mean. I’m asking you personal and plain. I want you to find the animal that did this to my son.”

Ramone said that he would.

They finished their beers as the sky clouded over. It began to sprinkle. They stood in it and let it cool their faces.

“God’s cryin,” said Terrance Johnson, his voice not much more than a whisper.

To Ramone, it was only rain.

R
OMEO BROCK AND
Conrad Gaskins were parked at the entrance to a court, one of the tree-and-flower streets uptown off Georgia in Shepherd Park. This was not the high-end side of the neighborhood, but rather the less-fashionable section, east of the avenue. The court held a group of two-story splits and colonials with faded siding and bars on the first-floor windows and doors.

The house of Tommy Broadus was more heavily fortified than the rest, with bars on the storm door and the upper-floor windows as well. Contact lights, positioned to activate on movement at the center of the sidewalk, were mounted high above the front door. The front yard had been paved to accommodate two cars, leaving only a small strip of grass. A black Cadillac CTS and a red Solara convertible sat side by side in the driveway.

“His woman’s with him,” said Brock.

“ ’Cause the convertible would be her car.”

“A man wouldn’t drive a So-lara. ’Less he the type of man to suck on another man’s dick. That’s a girl’s idea of a sports car right there.”

“Okay. But the Caddy must be his.” Gaskins squinted. “He got the V version, too.”

“That ain’t no Caddy,” said Brock. “A seventy-four El-D is a Cadillac. That thing there, I don’t know what that is.”

Gaskins almost smiled. His cousin thought the world had stopped turning in the ’70s. That’s when cats like Red Fury in D.C. and a dude name Mad Dog out of Baltimore were legends in the streets. And there were businessmen like Frank Matthews, too, in New York, a black man who beat the Italians at their own game, cut and dealt out of an armed fortress known as the Ponderosa, and owned an estate on Long Island. Romeo would have given a nut to have lived in those days and run with any of them. He dressed in tight slacks and synthetic shirts. He even smoked Kools in tribute to that time. He would have worn a natural, too, if he could. But he had a large bald spot on the top of his dome, and a blowout wouldn’t come full. So he wore his head shaved clean.

“Tired of waitin,” said Gaskins.

“Just got dark,” said Brock. “If the mule coming, he coming now. Like Fishhead said, those boys like to run after sundown, but not too late so they stand out.”

“Fishhead said.”

“Man got a stupid name, don’t mean he can’t be right.”

A little while later, a car came down the street and slowed as it approached the court. Brock and Gaskins made themselves low as the car passed them and parked, as many other vehicles had done, head-in to the curb. It was a Mercury Sable, the sister to the Ford Taurus.

“What I tell you?” said Brock. “Fishhead gave us gold so far.”

Brock put his hand to the door handle.

“What you doin?”

“Gonna rush him and bull on in.”

“He might be packing. Then you got nothin but a gun battle in the street.”

“So we do what?”

“Think, boy. If he comin out with cash, we
let
him come out. Brace his ass then.”

“He still gonna have a gun if he got one now.”

“But then he got something worth taking.”

A young man, cleanly but not loudly dressed, got out of the Mercury and walked toward the house, talking on a cell and looking around as he went along. He did not see the men in the Impala, as their heads were barely above the windshield line and their car was parked far back at the head of the court. The security lights on the house were activated as he moved up the sidewalk. The barred storm door opened as he neared. Then the main door opened as well. The man went into the house.

“You see it?” said Gaskins.

“Wasn’t nobody pulling that door open.”

“Right. He called in and it opened by itself. Automatic.”

“I smell money,” said Brock.

“Wait.”

They sat there for another half hour. When the front door to the house opened again, it was not the man who had arrived in the Mercury leaving, but a woman, tall and full up top and in the back, with curls on her head. She carried a small purse in one hand and a cell in the other.

“Uh,” said Brock.

“We ain’t here for that.”

“I know, but
damn
.”

They watched her get into the red Solara, fire it up, and back it out of the driveway.

“Don’t tell me to hold up, neither,” said Brock. “That girl’s gonna get us in.”

Gaskins didn’t object. When the Solara passed them, Brock turned the key on the SS. He powered the headlights, swung the car around, and followed the woman to the intersection at 8th, staying close to her taillights. As she slowed for the stop sign there, he gave the Impala gas, swerved around her, cut in front of her abruptly, and threw the trans into park. Brock jumped out and went around the rear of the Chevy, pulling his Colt as he moved. Her window came down, and he could hear her giving him attitude already as he stepped up to the Toyota and pointed the gun at her face. Her big, pretty brown eyes went wide but only in surprise. She did not seem afraid.

“What’s your name, baby?”

“Chantel.”

“Sounds French. Where you off to, Chantel?”

“To buy cigarettes.”

“That won’t be necessary. I got plenty.”

“You fixin to rob me?”

“Not you. Your man.”

“Then let me be on my way.”

“You ain’t goin no goddamn where but back in that house.” Brock made a motion with the barrel of the gun. “Now, get out the car.”

“You got no reason to take that tone.”

“Please… get out the motherfuckin car.”

She killed the engine and stepped out of the Toyota. She handed the keys to Brock, who tossed them to Gaskins, walking their way. Gaskins held a roll of duct tape in his free hand.

“My partner will drive it back,” said Brock. “You come with me.”

“Look, if you gonna kill me, kill me now. I don’t want no tape around my head.”

Brock smiled. “I got the feelin we gonna get along.”

The woman’s eyes appraised him. “You look like a devil. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Once or twice,” said Brock.

IT WAS EASY TO
get into the house. Chantel Richards phoned her boyfriend, Tommy Broadus, from outside, and he let her in by pushing a button from a remote in the living room, where he sat with his mule, a young man named Edward Reese. The storm door opened and behind it the main door cracked, and Chantel, Brock, and Gaskins went inside.

They walked into the living room, Brock and Gaskins with their guns drawn. Tommy Broadus sat in a large leather easy chair, a snifter of something amber in his hand. Edward Reese, in white Rocawear polo shirt over big jeans and Timberlands, sat in a chair just like it, on the other side of a kidney-shaped marble table. He was drinking the same shade of liquor. Neither of them moved. Gaskins frisked them quickly and found them to be clean.

Brock told Tommy Broadus that they were there to rob him.

“Clarence Carter can see that,” said Broadus, chains on his chest, rings on his fingers, his ass spilling over his chair. “But I ain’t got nothin of value, see?”

Brock raised his gun. Chantel Richards stepped behind him. He fired a round into an ornate, gold leaf-framed mirror that hung over a fireplace with fake crackling logs. The mirror exploded, and shards of glass flew about the room.

“Now you got less,” said Brock.

They all waited for their ears to stop ringing and for the gunsmoke to settle in the room. It was a nice room, lavishly appointed, with furniture bought on Wisconsin Avenue and statues of naked white women with vases resting on their shoulders. A plasma television set, the largest Panasonic made, was set on a stand of glass and iron and blocked out most of one wall. A bookcase with leather-bound volumes on its shelves took up another. In the middle of the bookcase was a cutout holding a large, lighted fish tank in which several tropical varieties swam. Above the fish tank was empty space.

“Tape ’em up,” said Brock.

Gaskins handed Brock his gun. Brock holstered it in his belt line, keeping the Colt trained on Broadus.

As Gaskins worked, duct-taping the hands and feet of Broadus and Reese, Brock went to a wet bar situated near the plasma set. Broadus had several high-shelf liquors on display, including bottles of Rémy XO and Martell Cordon Bleu. On a separate platform below were bottles of Courvoisier and Hennessey.

Brock found a glass and poured a couple inches of the Rémy.

“That’s the XO,” said Broadus, looking perturbed for the first time.

“Why I’m fixin to have some,” said Brock.

“I’m sayin, you don’t know the difference, ain’t no reason for you to be drinking from a one-hundred-fifty-dollar bottle of yak.”

“You don’t think I know the difference?”

“Bama,” said Edward Reese with a smile. Brock locked eyes with him, but Reese’s smile did not fade.

“Tape that boy’s mouth up, too,” said Brock.

Gaskins did it and stepped back. Brock took a sip of the cognac and rolled it in the snifter as he let it settle sweet on his tongue.

“That is nice,” said Brock. “You want some, brah?”

“I’m good,” said Gaskins.

Brock drew the Glock and handed it to Gaskins.

“Awright, then,” said Brock. “Where your stash at, fat man?”

“My stash?”

“Your money only. I don’t want no dope.”

“Told you, I got nothin.”

“Look, you seen I got no problem using this gun. You don’t talk real quick, I’m gonna have to use it again.”

“You can do whateva,” said Broadus. “I ain’t tellin’ y’all shit.”

Brock had another sip of his drink. He put the snifter down and went to Chantel Richards. He touched a finger to her face and ran it slowly down her cheek. She grew warm at his touch and turned her head away.

Broadus’s expression did not change.

“I’ll give you a choice,” said Brock. “Either you give up your shit or I’m gonna fuck Chantel right here in front of you, understand? What you think of that?”

“Go ahead,” said Broadus. “Invite the whole goddamn neighborhood, you got a mind to. They can take a turn with it, too.”

Chantel’s eyes flared. “Mother
fucker
.”

“You don’t love your woman?” said Brock.

“Shit,” said Broadus. “Most of the time, I don’t even
like
the bitch.”

Brock turned to Gaskins. “Fix the lady a drink.”

“What you want, girl?” said Gaskins.

“Martell,” said Chantel Richards. “Make it the Cordon Bleu.”

BROCK AND CHANTEL SAT
on a king-size bed in the master bedroom upstairs. Atop the dresser were several ornate boxes that Brock assumed held jewelry. He could see many suits, a neat row of shoes, and a set of designer luggage through the open door of the walk-in closet. Chantel drank some of the cognac, closed her eyes, and hit it again.

“This is
good,
” she said. “One hundred ninety a bottle. I always wondered how it would be.”

“First time you had it, huh?”

“You think he’d ever let me have a taste?”

“Man doesn’t care about his woman, ’specially one as fine as you? Makes you wonder.”

“Only thing Tommy cares about is this house and all the things he done bought to put inside it.”

“That your jewelry?” said Brock, nodding toward the dresser.

“His,” said Chantel. “He ain’t buy me nothin. That car you saw? It’s mine. I pay on it every month. I
work
.”

“What else he got?”

“He got an egg.”

“An egg.”

“One of those Fabergé eggs, he says. Bought it off the street. I told him they don’t have no Fabergé eggs on no hot sheet, but he claims it’s real.”

“I don’t want no fake eggs. I’m talkin about money.”

“He got it. But damn if I know where it is.”

“That boy down there with him, with the smart smile. He come to pick up some cash, right? He mulin some dope back from New York tonight, isn’t he?”

“I expect.”

“But you don’t know where that cash is.”

“Tommy wouldn’t tell me that. Guess he don’t love me enough.”

“He do love his stuff, though.”

“More than life.”

Brock pursed his lips. He did this when he was working on a plan.

“Wasn’t much of a yard in the front,” said Brock.

“Huh?”

“Is there grass out back?”

“He got some.”

“So he got a lawn mower, too.”

“It’s out there in a shed.”

“Wouldn’t be electric, would it?” said Brock. “ ’Cause that would really fuck with what I’m seein in my head.”

GASKINS HELD THE GLOCK
loosely at his side. Broadus and Reese sat taped in their chairs, with Reese’s mouth sealed. Chantel had poured another drink and was alternately sipping it and inspecting her long painted nails.

Brock came from the back of the house and entered the living room. He was carrying a two-gallon plastic container of gasoline.