Shame the Devil

  “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 Pussy’s playing at the Cat.”

  “The only pussy 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 fuck.”

  “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, God, 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 pronounce 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 fucked-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 bumped him from behind. Wilson looked over his shoulder, not hard or anything like that, but in a curious way. The man who had bumped 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; Jap cars and domestics passed 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.

  He got out of his car and took the sidewalk back to Connecticut. He walked to an apartment house on the corner, stood at the glass doors, waved to the woman at the desk, and was buzzed in.

  After work, he’d met Thomas Wilson at his place. Thomas had told him the plan. It was a very simple plan and as good as any plan, he supposed. If he kept his nerve, and Thomas kept his nerve, it could work.

  He took the elevator up to the sixth floor and walked down a carpeted hall. He knocked on a door and he heard muffled steps.

  Stephanie Maroulis opened the door.

  “Dimitri.”

  “It is me. Why so surprised?”

  “It’s not Tuesday,” she said.

  “I know it,” said Karras.

  They looked into each other’s eyes.

  “You’re breaking our arrangement,” she said. “You do this and everything changes.”

  “I’m ready for it to change,” he said.

  Stephanie stepped aside. He walked through the open door.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIS WILL BE the last day of my life.

  It was the first thought that came to Thomas Wilson when he woke on Friday morning. He turned onto his side in the bed and shut his eyes. His stomach flipped, and he thought he could be sick.

  Please don’t let me be a coward, God. Please.

  The phone rang, and Wilson reached across the bed and picked it up.

  “Thomas, it’s Nick Stefanos.”

  “Nick.”

  “I was with Dimitri on Wednesday night. I know you told him everything. I know what you guys are planning to do.”

  Wilson had promised Dimitri that from here on in he’d keep his mouth shut. He did want Stefanos’s help. He welcomed it. But he wouldn’t betray Dimitri, not again.

  “There is no plan,” said Wilson.

  “Bullshit,” said Stefanos. “You guys have got something happening and you think you can pull it off yourselves. I told Dimitri and I’m telling you: You try this thing and you will die. You understand me, Thomas?”

  “I gotta run,” said Wilson. “My uncle’s waitin’ on me, man, and I got to get myself into work.”

  “You still have my card?”

  “I got it.”

  “You call me, Thomas. You give me a call, hear?”

  “I hear you, Nick.”

  “Thomas —”

  Wilson killed the connection and sat up on the edge of his bed. He stood and dressed for work.

  Friday’s lunch, like every Friday lunch, was the most hectic two hours of the week at the Spot. Dimitri Karras, Maria Juarez, and James Posten had little time for idle conversation as they struggled to stay ahead of the orders flowing into the kitchen. Nick Stefanos and Anna Wang were in the weeds in the dining and bar area from noon to two. Ramon and Darnell had both broken full body sweat by the time the rush was through.

  At two o’clock, Maria put her Tito Puente tape into the box. James grabbed his spatula, and he and Maria began to dance. Karras walked over to Darnell, who was wiping down his slick arms with a rag, his backside against the sink.

  “How’d that catfish go today?” said Darnell.

  “Went good, buddy. Looked good, too. In fact, I called eighty-six on it to Anna even though we had one order left. That one’s for me.”

  “You earned it, Dimitri. Nice work today.”

  “Thanks.” Karras drew a card from his wallet. “Here you go, man. This is the number for that friend I been telling you about. Marcus wants to hook up with you, show you how easy it can be to do this thing, if that’s what you want to do. Got all sorts of options he wants to lay out for
you, Darnell. Says he’d like to meet with you next week.”

  “That’s cool. But I thought you were gonna come with me.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Karras, smiling sadly at Darnell. “If you still want me to.”

  “Damn right I want you to, Dimitri.”

  “Then I’ll be there,” said Karras, and he shook Darnell’s hand.

  Karras hugged Maria and James and thanked them for the good job they had done that day. He untied his apron, dropped it in the laundry hamper by the door, and left without another word. He sat at a deuce and ate the catfish special, avoiding conversation with Stefanos, and when he was done he told Anna and Ramon to have a good weekend, said good bye to Stefanos, and left the bar.

  Stefanos caught up with him out on 8th.

  “Dimitri!”

  Karras turned. Stefanos walked to him in his shirtsleeves and met him by the alley. He put a hand on Karras’s arm.

  “Where you off to, man?” said Stefanos.

  Karras shrugged. “Goin’ home.”

  “Don’t just walk out of here without telling me, Dimitri.”

  “Telling you what?”

  “When and where. I’ve got a right to know.”

  Karras looked around the street. He waited for a man to pass them on the sidewalk. When the man was out of earshot, Karras found Stefanos’s eyes.

  “Listen,” said Karras. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Nick. You hooking me up with this job, it put me back in the world. I’m almost at that place where I can see myself having some kind of normal life. But there’s one thing left to do, and you can’t be a part of that. You’re out of it, Nick. It’s not your affair. So forget it.”

  “I won’t forget it,” said Stefanos. “When is it going down?”

  Karras looked down at the cracked concrete. “Tomorrow night.”

  “Look at me, man.”

  “It’s set for tomorrow night.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “You’ll call me?”

  “Okay, Nick.” Karras nodded. “If that’s what you want. Yes.”

  Karras and Stefanos shook hands. Stefanos buttoned his shirt to the neck and watched Karras walk to his faded navy blue BMW, parked along the curb.

  “Liar,” said Stefanos, who had seen the hesitation in Karras’s eyes.

  It wasn’t going down tomorrow night. It was going down tonight.

  Thomas Wilson worked the day quietly with his uncle Lindo. He listened to Lindo talk about a woman he’d met at church and he listened to Lindo’s Frankie Lymon tapes on the cheap cassette player in the dash of his shitbox truck. He listened and tried to answer when Lindo asked him questions, but other than those short responses he didn’t say much.

  Time crawled that day, but when quitting time came it seemed to have come too quick.

  Wilson had gotten out of his coveralls in the warehouse bathroom and he went to the particle-board desk where his uncle sat, wearing spectacles and organizing the day’s tickets. His uncle had swept the warehouse like he did at the end of every week, whether it needed it or not, and specks of dust swirled in the air. A dying fluorescent tube flickered in the drop ceiling above the desk, its light flashing on the warehouse floor.

  “I can fix that for you before I go,” said Wilson, looking up at the light.

  “Got a box of replacement lamps coming in next week,” said Lindo. He looked closely at his nephew. “You seem troubled today, Thomas. Somethin’ you want to talk to me about?”

  “No, sir.” Wilson buried his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Go on, then, son. Have a good weekend. Rest up, ’cause come Monday we have a busy week.”

  “Okay, Uncle L. Thank you for everything, hear?”

  Lindo glanced up at Wilson. “Go on, boy. Don’t be so serious all the time. Go out and have yourself a little fun.”

  As he drove home, Wilson’s guilt deepened over using his uncle’s warehouse that night. His uncle took pride in that place, even if it wasn’t much more than a cheap desk and some cinder-block walls. Wilson stopped in a surplus store in Lanham and bought a half dozen blue plastic tarps.

  He passed the turnoff for his house and kept north on Georgia Avenue, turned left onto Quackenbos, made another left, and parked the Intrepid in an alley alongside a church. He stepped onto the grounds of Fort Stevens Park.

  He and Charles had played here as children. He walked into a dry moat, then climbed a steep hill and jumped down alongside one of two cannons that remained in the park. A tattered American flag hung at half-mast nearby and made rippling shadows at his feet. He could picture Charles as a child, running with an imaginary rifle cradled in his arms, diving and rolling down those hills. He could hear Charlie’s gleeful laugh.

  Charles, thought Wilson, I won’t let you down.

  But a block from his house his stomach betrayed him, and Wilson pulled over to the side of the road, where he opened his car door and vomited his lunch onto the street.

  Dimitri Karras got up off the bed at around six o’clock. He had been lying there on his back for a couple of hours. He was oddly calm.

  He found Bernie Walters’s Colt .45 and a box of shells in the bottom of his dresser, wrapped in an old pillowcase. He ejected the magazine into his palm. He loaded seven rounds into the magazine, testing the tension of the spring on the last round. He pushed the magazine into the butt of the gun and slipped the .45 into its leather holster. He dropped the rig onto the bed and phoned Thomas Wilson.

  They discussed the specifics of the plan. When they were done, Karras said, “Pick me up at eight.”

  Wilson said, “Right.”

  Nick Stefanos phoned Dan Boyle at William Jonas’s house and got Jonas first. He exchanged a few words with Jonas and asked to speak to Boyle.

  “You going to be there all night?” asked Stefanos.

  “Yeah,” said Boyle. “Why, what’s up?”

  “I might need to speak with you.”

  “Something going on?”

  “Sit tight,” said Stefanos. “I’ll let you know.”

  Thomas Wilson sat at a small desk in the foyer of his house on Underwood. He broke the cylinder of his five-shot .38 Special and thumbed shells into its chambers. He spun the cylinder and wrist-snapped it shut. The snub-nosed revolver with the narrow checkered butt and the worn-down bluing felt small in his hand. He held the gun under the desk lamp and noticed that his hand was shaking. He concentrated and tried to make his hand stop shaking, but he could not.

  He laid the gun down on the desk and pulled the phone toward him. He dialed Dimitri Karras.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” he said when Karras answered the call.

  “You can,” said Karras. “See you at eight.”

  Wilson listened to the dial tone. He dialed Bernie Walters’s home number. Bernie’s recorded voice came through the speaker and then there was a long beeping sound.

  “Hey, Bern… Thomas here. I guess you got a couple more days of that Jeremiah Johnson thing you’re doin’ down there in God’s country. I’m just callin’ to say hello again. Was thinkin’ maybe I’d drive down tomorrow morning and surprise you. Take you up on that offer you been makin’ to me these last couple of years. Be a good chance for the two of us to talk, buddy. ’Cause we need to talk, see? Anyway… listen, if I don’t happen to make it down there, man… I just wanted to tell you… I wanted to say that you been a good friend. I’m sorry for everything, but I’m fixin’ to try and make it right. You been a good friend, Bern. You, uh…”

  Wilson found himself stumbling on his words. He said good bye to Bernie and cut the line.

  “You all packed?” said Farrow.

  “Ready,” said Otis.

  “I got a meet point from Wilson. Says we’d get lost if we tried to find it directly. Behind a closed gas station near the industrial park.”

  Otis nodded. “Here you go, Frank. This is you.”

  He ha
nded Farrow one of the two .45s he had copped on Sepul-veda, back in L.A. Farrow hefted the gun and checked the action.

  “Where’s your cousin?”

  “Booker? He didn’t come home last night and I ain’t seen him all day.”

  Otis didn’t want Frank getting angry over Gus’s little accident. Once they got on the road and headed back west, Frank would never know.

  “Just as well,” said Farrow. “Leave some money on the table for him. That’ll be good enough.”

  Otis pulled his hair back off his shoulders and banded it. He holstered his .45 into his waist rig and put on a ventless, checked wool sport jacket over his clean white shirt. He looked in the living-room mirror and smiled, admiring his gold tooth, the cut of his jacket, his hair. The look.

  He left money on the table — a fifty-dollar bill on top of ten ones, so Frank wouldn’t get suspicious. Wasn’t any point in leaving too much for a corpse lying in the woods, even if the dead man was your kin.

  “You ready?” said Farrow as he walked back into the room.

  “Yeah,” said Otis. “Let’s go.”

  Dimitri Karras was waiting on the corner of 15th and U as Thomas Wilson pulled the Intrepid to the curb at eight o’clock. Karras settled in the passenger bucket and fastened his seat belt. “You finalized it with Farrow and Otis?” said Karras.

  Wilson nodded. He drove east.

  They crossed the city. They rode the Beltway for fifteen miles and exited at Route 4. Wilson slowed as they drove through old Upper Marlboro.

  “Run through it again,” said Karras.

  “I’m meeting them behind a Texaco that’s been out of business a couple of years. We’ll be passin’ it in a mile or so. After I get you settled, I’ll leave my car there and come in with them.” Wilson swallowed. “Afterwards, we’ll clean the warehouse, drive them back, and dump ’em behind the station. Get back into my car and split.”

  “It’s simple. I like that.”

  “Yeah, it’s simple. ’Cept the killin’ part.”

  “You shouldn’t have any problem with that. Just try to remember what they did to your friend.”