Murphy saw two homicide detectives, George Dozier and Doc Farrelly, talking to residents congregated in one backyard. Several cops were grouped around a boy’s body lying facedown beyond a chain-link fence. A dog barked savagely over the squawk of police and rescue-squad radios cutting the night.
Murphy saw Tutt by a second group of cops in the middle of the alley. Tutt was staring down at the body lying there while a uniformed patrolman named Platt talked close to Tutt’s ear. Murphy stepped forward and looked through a space between the cluster of cops.
The kid was on his back, his eyes open, his teeth bared in a snarl. His scalp and a portion of his forehead were gone. A bright green cap lay nearby, a piece of red, matted meat lying in its folds.
Murphy turned his head and vomited vegetable soup.
“Come on, partner,” said Tutt, grabbing hold of Murphy’s arm. “Let’s move.”
They walked back toward the Trans Am. Murphy stumbled. Tutt kept him on his feet.
“Short Man,” said Murphy.
Tutt said, “I know.”
“Marcus.”
“Elaine.”
“What are you doing, coming here this time of night?”
“Wanted to see you. Wanted to see my boy.”
“You know our agreement. How you’d always phone first.”
“I know, but… Elaine, please.”
She looked into his eyes. “Marcus, what’s wrong with you? You troubled over something?”
“Just need to see M. J. Just need to kiss him good night.”
Elaine stepped aside. “Come on, then. And don’t wake him, hear? Took me an hour to get him down.”
“Thanks.”
Elaine watched him walk through the foyer and up the stairs.
Marcus Clay stood in Marcus Jr.’s dark bedroom. Some light streamed in from the streetlamp out on Brown. The light passing the windowpanes threw crucifix lines across the covers of the bed. A bar of pale yellow shone on M. J.’s face. His mouth was open, his breathing deep and wheezy. Clay listened to him breathe, watched the rise and fall of his chest.
Clay got on his knees and kissed his son’s warm cheek. He smelled his hair. Elaine must have given him a shampoo or something, because the boy’s hair had the scent of coconut. But it also had that goat cheese smell that it had always carried since he was a baby. Clay loved that smell.
He walked from the room, turning once before he left to have another look at the boy.
Elaine hadn’t moved. She leaned against the foyer wall, her arms crossed. Clay went and stood before her. He lifted her chin and ran his finger down her strong neck. Elaine’s arms dropped to her sides. Clay leaned in and kissed her mouth. She made a low sound in her throat and turned her head away.
“Can I stay?”
Elaine’s mouth twitched. “No.” She moved her eyes off his.
“Be good for him to see me in the morning for a change.”
“I don’t think so,” she said softly.
“You want me to, Elaine. You want me, I know.”
“I don’t deny that. But it won’t fix a thing. It never was the problem between us.”
“What was? That girl?”
“That girl was just the last bit of disrespect you showed me. I don’t think of her, ’cause I know she meant nothing to you. What I do think about is how you never recognized me for my accomplishments. Who I was.”
“I was always proud of you.”
“Those stores of yours always came first, but you never thought that what I was doing might be important to me. To our family.”
“I know it. But I’ve learned now, baby, I swear—”
“Don’t.” She touched his chest. “I’m not ready. Okay?”
Clay lowered his head.
Elaine said, “What’s troubling you tonight, Marcus? Why’d you come here, for real?”
“Couple of kids, couldn’t have been more than eleven years old or something, got killed down near the U Street store tonight.”
“My God. You knew them?”
“I don’t think so. But I see kids like them all the time. Got one doin’ odd jobs around my store now just to keep him away from the street. These kids got no guidance, Elaine, no one to give ’em examples. I was just, I don’t know…. It made me want to see my son.”
Elaine put her arms around his neck and drew him close. She could feel his strong hands tight on her back.
“Promise me,” said Clay, “when you’re ready, at least you’ll try.”
“I promise.”
“I love you, baby.”
Elaine said, “I love you.”
Kevin Murphy walked from the market with a twelve-pack of Miller High Life under his arm. He dropped into the driver’s seat of the Trans Am, pulled two beers from the bag, set the bag behind his seat. He opened one of the beers and drank down half of it with one long pull. He wiped his sleeve across his chin.
“Take it easy,” said Tutt.
“Too late for that.”
He pulled away from the curb. He accelerated through a red and kept the speedometer at sixty going north on 14th. He tossed the empty bottle over his shoulder and cracked the full one wedged between his legs.
“Watch it,” said Tutt.
Murphy swerved to avoid a Metrobus coming off a stop. They blew through the Arkansas Avenue intersection and hit the hill. They passed dealers hawking dimes and quarters to the car trade outside a closed liquor store. Murphy nailed the pedal to the floor. Tutt grabbed the armrest.
“Listen,” said Tutt as Murphy finally slowed the car for a red light. “Tonight we sleep on it. You go home and get three sheets if that’s what the fuck you got to do, but me, I’m gonna go back to my apartment and think.”
“ ’Cause you’re one of those deep thinkers, Tutt.”
“Yeah, well, at least I’m holdin’ onto my shit. And I’m tellin’ you, I’m gonna work us out of this.”
“Ain’t no way out. We’re on the payroll of a drug dealer who had two kids killed tonight.”
“We’re not drug dealers. You just keep rememberin’ that. We’re cops.”
“We’re nothin’,” said Murphy. “And we are fucked.”
Murphy dropped Tutt at his Bronco without another word. He continued north, killing a third beer by the time he hit Takoma. He parked on 4th, gave a hard look to a young man who had given him a hard look as he stepped out of his car.
“You want somethin’?”
“Nah, I ain’t want nothin’.”
“Then don’t be lookin’ like you do.”
Murphy went into Takoma Station, made his way to the bar, ordered a beer and a shot of Cuervo. He choked the tequila down and ordered another. He said something to the man next to him, and the man picked up his drink and moved away. He saw two couples standing at the service end of the stick, pointing at him and laughing. He drained his shot, finished his beer, and left some green on the wood. He walked toward the front of the club. Groups of people parted and made way for him to pass. Out on the sidewalk, he saw that his badge was still clipped to his pants.
Murphy sat in his Pontiac and had another beer. He drove home and went inside.
Wanda was asleep. Murphy sat on the bed and shook her until her eyes opened.”
“Kevin?”
He bent forward, put his mouth on her lips, and kissed her. He was hard immediately. It had been so long. He put his tongue in her mouth and ran it across her gums. He kneaded her breast roughly through her housedress.
She pushed on his shoulders. He pulled back, saw that he had smudged her lipstick. She looked like an old clown.
“Kevin!” she said. “You reek of alcohol.”
“Goddamn, girl,” said Murphy, standing straight. “You gonna tell me now how I smell? You who ain’t even had the pride to take a bath in the last week?”
“Oh, Kevin!”
Wanda’s hands fluttered to her face, and she began to cry. Murphy stumbled from the room.
He was in the basement now, and he
could hear her still. Crying and pacing across that damn cell of hers she called a bedroom.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and then he screamed as loud as he could, “Shut up!”
He had brought the beers down with him. He drank one quick.
He went to the pool table and racked the balls. He got bored and cracked a beer. He watched some TV. He drank another beer. He got up and went to the Skins Wall of Fame, took down his favorite glossy, Number 25, the autographed Joe Washington he had mounted and framed. He stared at it for a while, swaying on his feet. He noticed his shirt was wet all down the front.
Hypocrite.
He was in front of the heavy bag and it was swinging and he was no longer wearing his shirt. He was bare chested and his knuckles were bloodied and he could hear Wanda yelling upstairs in her room.
Stop please stop please stop
Murphy was at the workbench. His gun cases were down on the bench in a sloppy row. He needed to choose one now.
Kid killer you
He picked up one of the Combat Magnums, broke the cylinder, and took a bullet from the pool of them spilled out on the bench. He thumbed a bullet into a chamber. He laughed.
Fuck you laughin’ at, man? You seen what a gun-eat does to a man. Brain and skull blown out the back, sprayed up on the wall. Eyes bugged from the gas jolt. Nose scorched black from the flames rushing through…. Don’t picture it, man. Just think about the Peace.
Tears streamed down Murphy’s face. He picked up another bullet. It slipped from his fingers and rolled. His hand crabbed across the bench as he chased the round.
Don’t fuck around with too much lead, now. Give you way too much time to think, Kev.
Murphy grabbed the bullet, fitted it in another chamber. He spun the cylinder, slapped it shut. He turned the gun and closed his lips around the cool barrel.
Don’t think don’t
Murphy put his thumb on the trigger. With his right hand he locked back the hammer. Tears hot on his cheeks. He heard Wanda’s laughter. He gagged on the barrel and moaned.
Do it do it do it do it
Murphy squeezed the trigger.
Don’t
His eyes crossed, watching the hammer arc forward.
SUNDAY
MARCH 16, 1986
TWENTY-ONE
Sunday morning: cease-fire time in the city. Cars moved slowly and stopped at red lights. Squares rose early, played with their children, read the paper, went to church. Whores and criminals slept late.
Marcus Clay and George Dozier sat at the counter of the Florida Avenue Grill, located at the corner of 11th and Florida on the tip of Shaw. They had seen each other at church, as they did every Sunday, and Clay had followed Dozier to the grill for a late breakfast.
They sat on red stools where the counter jutted in, back toward the swinging kitchen door. Along the wall, front to back, above the grill and sandwich board and coffee urns, hung framed photographs of local and national celebrities who had visited the diner over the years for some of the very best soul food in Washington, D.C. Clay sat before a photo of Sugar Ray Leonard and his boy, Ray Jr.; Dozier’s view was of a smiling Johnny “Guitar” Watson. Clay and Dozier had grown up together. They’d been coming here all their lives.
“Thank you, Miss Mary,” said Dozier as the waitress set down a half-smoke-and-two-egg breakfast in front of him.
“Sure thing, Detective,” said the waitress. “Here you go, Marcus.”
Clay thanked her and looked lovingly at the chef’s special placed before him: country ham and eggs over easy, redeye gravy, grits, fried apples, and hot biscuits. He dug in.
“So, what do you think?” said Clay.
“We’ll get ’em,” said Dozier. “We’ve got to. Too many people interested now. It made the front page this morning, above the fold, and you know it’s gonna be the lead on the TV news for half the week. The chief already got us together on it late last night. Wait, now, any minute you’re even gonna see the mayor chime in with some of his firsthand knowledge of the drug problem plaguing our city.” Dozier side-glanced Clay.
“So everything you hear about the mayor’s true.”
“Overdosed twice in eighty-three. Made it to IAD, too, but the report got buried. They say the mayor’s eatin’ Valium all day just to notch himself down off the cocaine. Meanwhile, the drug problem keeps festering on. Kids afraid to walk into their own schools.”
“It’s a damn shame.”
“Anyway, we’ll get the ones did this.”
“What about the gun?”
Dozier shrugged. “Nine-millimeter casings. Gun could be anywhere, coulda come from anywhere. Anyone can drive over to Virginia, buy a gun, bring it back into D.C., and sell it. Or rent it for the night. Or trade it for a little blow. Gun’s got plenty of generations behind it before it gets fired in a homicide.”
“So how you gonna solve this?”
“Keep canvassing the neighborhood, talking to people. Clues don’t solve murders, informants do. If it’s a drug burn, nobody wants to talk, ’cause the citizens and even the snitches got more fear of dealers now than they do the police. And most homicides involve drugs these days.”
“You think these kids were into dealin’ drugs?”
“They weren’t the ones dealing drugs down in your neighborhood, no. Fellow by the name of Tyrell Cleveland’s growin’ a business down there now. Got all sorts of mules around U.”
“I know about Tyrell.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Uh-uh. But I had a good heart-to-heart talkin’-to with one of his soldiers yesterday afternoon.”
“Well, we’re gonna get up with Tyrell Cleveland’s street army, too, see if they know anything.”
“Question is, why would any kid the age of those boys be the target of a drug kill?”
“Kids all ages deep into it now, Marcus. Those boys, both of them, they had cocaine in their pockets, rolled up in foil. Shit wasn’t nothin’ but baby laxative, mostly, but there it is. And the one got the top of his head blown off, Wesley Meadows, his fingerprints were on this .22 found by his side. Old piece of shit had a bad firing pin on it anyway, couldn’t have shot nothin’ with it if he tried, but the evidence does suggest that this eleven-year-old kid was carrying a gun.”
“Damn.”
“Talked to one of Meadows’s best boys, kid named Mooty Wallace? Claims he was home last night. Meadows’s older brother, Antoine, now there’s one we know is in the life. We’ve spoken to him, too, but nothin’ there, either. So we just got to keep talkin’ to folks. We’ll get this one. We will.”
Clay and Dozier made a dent in their breakfasts, saying nothing until some activity behind them in the booths turned their heads. The young people sitting there were pointing through the window blinds excitedly at a tough-looking young man who wore the Scowl, standing outside his brand-new import, talking to a girl.
“Who’s the celebrity, George?”
“Boy named Tony Lewis,” muttered Dozier. “Used to work for Cornell Jones over on Hanover Place, till Jones got busted. Now he’s a lieutenant with Rayful Edmond. See how those kids got all bright eyed seeing that boy? Used to be that kind of respect was shown to cops. I remember the first time I saw a brother in a uniform, when my mother took me down to Morton’s to shop for some Sunday clothes? I saw that man in those blues, the way people were lookin’ at him, I knew that’s what I wanted to be someday.”
“You did it, brother. Got out that uniform and earned your detective’s shield quick, too. But what about Edmond? Can’t y’all put him away?”
“Workin’ on it. But he’s got the layers of his empire, and maybe even the people in power, protecting him. Why, at the Strip, over on Orleans and Morton Place, in Trinidad? Cops don’t even bother. Edmond’s got the alleys trip wired and blockaded so patrol cars can’t give chase. Cars lined up there weekend nights with Maryland and Virginia plates, buyin’ quarters and halves like burgers at the drive-through. And beyond that, they say he’s starting
a subdistribution thing with the other dealers around the city.”
“Sounds like a real businessman.”
“Edmond’s become a folk hero, Marcus; I’m not lyin’. Sponsors a basketball team in the Police Athletic league, gives turkeys to the poor at Thanksgiving, all that. Drives a white Jag with gold wheels around town so all the kids can see. A man to emulate, just like Nicky Barnes was up in Harlem.
“I’m tellin’ you, Marcus, we’re losin’ the battle down here. Outnumbered and outgunned. The mayor’s been cutting back on the department every year since he’s been in office. Every time the new budget comes up, our portion’s been less and less. We’re low on cars, and we got no new equipment, not even computers linking us to the national crime networks. And what new recruits we do get, why, plenty of them they’re lettin’ in now are flat unqualified. Heard tell a few are damn near retarded. All of this in the middle of the worst crime epidemic in this country’s history—”
“I hear you, George.”
“And you think that dried-up old husk of a man down on Pennsylvania Avenue cares? How about those horn-rimmed-glasses economic advisers of his, makin’ the rich happy, pushin’ the poor back further than they are? You think those Harvard boys care? Or the president’s wife? ‘Just Say No,’ right? Easy to say no when you get born into alternatives and opportunities and a future.”
“I hear you.”
“It’s gonna get worse. You heard about this crack thing, right?”
“Read about it in Newsweek magazine.”
“It’s comin’ here, you can believe that. Imagine if they opened a Mac-Donald’s in New York and L.A. and Detroit, then it hit ’em they forgot to open one up in D.C. Yeah, rock’s gonna be here real soon. And when it is, ain’t gonna be no weekend warrior thing, not like it is now for the white people out in the suburbs, using snow in the safety of their own homes. Crack’s cheap and highly addictive, a drug tailor-made for the ghetto. Which means nobody’s even going to care. Gutters gonna run with blood for real.”