Right as Rain

  “Sure.”

  “Nice meeting you, Lewis.”

  “You, too, Detective.”

  Quinn snagged his leather off a coat tree behind the counter. Strange and Quinn walked from the shop.

  Crossing the street, Strange said, “He blind?”

  “Legally, he is. I know he can’t drive a car. He says he ruined his eyes reading under the covers with a flashlight when he was a boy. Had a father who thought Lewis was unmanly or something ’cause he read books.”

  “Imagine him thinking that.”

  “Lewis is all right.”

  “You’re a friend to him, you ought to tell him about these new products they got on the market, called soap and shampoo. Got this new revolutionary thing called deodorant, too.”

  “I’ve told him. So has Syreeta. But he’s a good clerk. She doesn’t like to work too many hours and neither do I. He’s the kind of guy, his hours might as well be painted on the front door. Hard to find help like that today.”

  “What, they got him in charge of the romance books or something? He looks like he might be an expert in that department.”

  Quinn looked over at Strange. “You’d be surprised.”

  “For real?”

  “I’m not saying he’s a player or anything like that. He’s one of those one—woman men. Matter of fact, he’s been faithful to a girl named Fistina for the last twenty years.”

  “They say that’ll make you blind, too.”

  “I’m not blind.”

  “Neither am I. But you and me, we probably practice that kind of love in moderation. I bet Lewis in there, he just wears old Fistina out.”

  They got into Strange’s Caprice. Strange turned the ignition, and the engine came to life. He looked through the windshield at the gun shop across the street.

  “Real nice how they’re running that place a half mile over the District line. Makes it real convenient for those kids downtown, don’t have to drive too far to buy a piece.”

  “They don’t buy them there. Too many restrictions, and who wants a registered handgun, anyway? They just kind of road—test the floor models.”

  “Just as bad, you ask me.”

  “You’re thinking like a cop,” said Quinn.

  “That so.”

  “And you’re driving a cop’s cruiser. What’s this, a ninety?”

  “Eighty—nine. Three—fifty square block with a beefed—up suspension. Thicker sway bars and a heavy—duty alternator. Not as fast as those LTIs, you know, the ninety—six with the ’Vette engine. But it moves.”

  “Don’t your tails get burned, driving this thing?”

  “Sometimes. When I’m doing a close tail I take out a rental.”

  “I thought you were a cop when you pulled up out front of the place. Not just the car — the way you moved.”

  “Yeah, I got made as one by this old lady yesterday down in Langdon Park. Once you put on the badge, I guess you never lose the look.”

  “You tellin’ me —”

  “Yeah,” said Strange. “I was a cop and then I wasn’t. Just like you.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Been about thirty years since I wore the uniform. Nineteen sixty—eight.”

  Strange pulled down on the tree and put the Chevy in gear.

  THEY drove south on Georgia Avenue, music playing from the deck. Just past Kansas Avenue, Strange pointed out his shop, set back off the main drag in the middle of a narrow strip.

  “That’s me right there,” said Strange. “That’s my office.”

  “Nice logo.”

  “Yeah, I like it.”

  “You sell magnifying glasses, too?”

  “Investigations, man. Little kid sees that symbol, he knows what it means. Hell, your boy Lewis sees it, he squints real good, he can tell —”

  “I got you.” Quinn looked across the street at a bar called the Foxy Playground. “What’s that, your hangout over there?”

  Strange didn’t answer. He turned up the volume on the deck and sang under his breath. “We both know that it’s wrong, but it’s much too strong, to let it go now… .”

  “I’ve heard this one,” said Quinn. “Guy’s hammering some married lady, right?”

  “It’s a little more subtle than that. Mr. Billy Paul, he justified an entire career with this single right here. Glad I recorded it before I lost my album collection. Had to throw them all out after the pipes busted in my house, couple years back.”

  “You can buy it on CD, I bet.”

  “I have a player. But I like records. Was listening to this Black—byrds tape yesterday, Flying Start? Thinking about the liner notes on the inner sleeve of the original record. I sure wish I had that record today.” Strange smiled a little, listening to the music. “This is kind of beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “If you were there, I guess.”

  “Don’t you like music?”

  “When it speaks to my world. How about you? You ever listen to anything current?”

  “Not really. The slow jams got to be the end—all for me. Nothin’ worth listening to, you get past seventy—six, seventy—seven.”

  “I was eight years old in seventy—seven.”

  “Explains why you don’t have an appreciation for this song.” Strange looked across the bench. “You’re a D.C. boy, right?”

  “Silver Spring.”

  “I heard it in your voice.”

  “Graduate of the old Blair High School. You?”

  “Roosevelt High. Grew up in this neighborhood right here. Still live in it.”

  Quinn looked at the blur of beer markets, liquor stores, dollar shops, barbers, dry cleaners, and chicken and Chinese grease pits as they drove south.

  “My grandparents lived down this way,” said Quinn. “We’d come to see them every Sunday after mass. Thirteenth and Crittenden.”

  “That’s around the block from where I live.”

  “I used to play out in their alley. It always seemed, I don’t know, dark down there.”

  Because of all those dark people, thought Strange. He said, “That’s because you were off your turf.”

  “Yeah. It made me a little bit afraid. Afraid and excited at the same time, you know what I mean?”

  “Sure.”

  “One day these kids came up on me while I was playing by myself.”

  “Black kids, right?”

  “Yeah. Why you ask that?”

  “Just trying to get a picture in my mind.”

  “So these kids came along, and the littlest one of them picked a fight with me. He was shorter than I was and lighter, too.”

  “It’s always the littlest one wants to fight, when he’s in a group. Little dude got the most to prove. You fight him?”

  “Yeah. I had walked away from a fight at my elementary school earlier that year, and I’d never forgiven myself for it. Matter of fact, I still can’t bear to think of it today. Funny, huh?”

  “Not really. This kid in the alley, you beat him?”

  “I lost. I got in a punch or two, which surprised him. But he knew how to fight and I didn’t, and he put me down. I got back inside the house, I was shaking but proud, too, ’cause I didn’t back down. And I saw that kid a couple of years later, the day of my grandfather’s wake. He was walking by their house and stopped to talk to me. Asked me if I wanted to play some football, down by the school playground.”

  “And you learned?”

  “What breeds respect. Not to walk away from a fight. Take a beating if you have to, but a beating’s never as bad as the feeling of shame you get when you back off.”

  “That’s your youth talking right there,” said Strange. “One day you’re gonna learn, it’s all right to walk away.”

  Chapter 8

  DOWN past Howard University, at the Florida Avenue intersection, Georgia Avenue became 7th Street. They stayed on 7th and then they were in Chinatown, passing nightclubs, sports bars, and the MCI Center, which anchored the new downtown D.C. Farther along
there were more nightclubs and restaurants and the short strip of the arts and gallery district, and at Quinn’s direction Strange hung a left onto D Street, two blocks north of Pennsylvania Avenue. He parked the Chevy in a no—parking zone, along a yellow—painted curb, and killed the engine. Then he reached into the glove box, withdrew his voice—activated tape recorder, and pla ced the recorder on the seat between himself and Quinn.

  “This is it,” said Strange. “You were right about here?”

  “Except that we parked it in the middle of the street. We came in just like this, from Seventh. My partner was driving the cruiser.”

  “That would be Eugene Franklin.”

  “Gene Franklin, right.”

  “What made y’all pull over?”

  “We were working. We had just come off a routine traffic stop, guy in a Maxima had blown a red up at Mount Vernon Square. Up around Seventh and N, you want the exact location.”

  “So you were headed south on Seventh after that, and Franklin turned left onto D. He see something, or was that just some kind of pattern?”

  “No, we hadn’t seen anything yet until we made the turn. This stretch of D is unlit at night, and there’s hardly any activity. Pedestrian traffic, none. Sun goes down, rats stroll across the street like they own the real estate.”

  “What about that night? You pulled onto D, what did you see?”

  Quinn squinted. “We came up on a confrontation. A curbed red Jeep, a Wrangler, parked behind a shit—box Toyota. Next to the Toyota, on the street, a guy with his knee on another guy’s chest, pinning him to the asphalt. In the aggressor’s hand, a pistol. An automatic, and he had the muzzle smashed up against the pinned guy’s face.”

  “Describe this aggressor.”

  “Black, mid—to—late twenties, medium build, street clothes.”

  “And the guy he had on the ground?”

  “White …” Quinn looked over at Strange, then away. “… around thirty, street clothes, slight build.”

  “So you and your partner, you happen on the scene of this confrontation. What happens then?”

  Quinn breathed out slowly. “Gene says, 'Look!’ But I’m ahead of him, I already got the mic in my hand. I’ve got it keyed and I’m calling for backup while Gene flips on the overheads and gives the horn a blast. The aggressor looks up at the whoop of the siren, and Gene stops the cruiser in the middle of the street. But our presence doesn’t change the aggressor’s mind.”

  “You got a talent for reading minds?”

  “I’ll put it another way. The aggressor keeps the gun on the guy he’s got pinned to the ground. He’s made us as cops, but it hasn’t changed his focus. From my perspective it hasn’t changed his intent.”

  “His intent being, the intent of this black aggressor, I mean, to do harm to the white guy he’s got pinned down on the street.”

  “I saw a man holding a gun on another man in the street.”

  “All right, Quinn. Keep going. Where are you now? You and your partner, I mean.”

  “We’re about twenty—five yards back from them, I’d say.”

  “Okay,” said Strange.

  Quinn rubbed his thumb over his lower lip. “I’m out of the car right away, and I can hear Gene’s door swing open as I draw my weapon. So I know he’s behind the driver’s—side door, and I know Gene’s got his own weapon cleared from his holster as well.”

  “You do what next?”

  “I’ve got my gun on the aggressor. I yell for him to drop his weapon and lie facedown on the street. He yells something back. I can’t really hear what he’s saying, ’cause Eugene’s yelling over him, telling him what I’m telling him: to drop his weapon. The lights … the red and blue lights from the overheads are strobing the scene, and I can hear the crackle of our radio coming from the open doors of our cruiser behind us.”

  “Sounds like a lot of confusion.”

  “Yes. Gene and I are both yelling now, and there’s the lights and the radio, and the aggressor, he’s yelling back at us, not moving the gun from the guy’s face.”

  “What’s Wilson — what’s the aggressor yelling now?”

  “His name,” said Quinn. “His name and a number. It didn’t register … it didn’t register until later on that the number he was yelling, it was his badge number. But he never moved his gun away from the guy’s face. Not until he looked at us, I mean.”

  Strange stared through the windshield, trying to imagine the picture the young man was painting.

  “What happened when he looked at you, Quinn?”

  “It was only for a moment. He looked at me and then at Gene, and something bad crossed his face. I’ll never forget it. He was angry at us, at me and Gene. He was more than angry; his face changed to the face of a killer. He swung his gun in our direction then —”

  “He pointed his gun at you?”

  “Not directly,” said Quinn, his voice growing soft. “He was swinging it, like I say. The muzzle of it swept across me, and he had that look on his face… . There wasn’t any doubt in my mind. … I knew. … I knew he was going to pull the trigger. Eugene screamed my name, and I fired my weapon.”

  “How many times?”

  “I fired three rounds.”

  “From where you stood?”

  “They say I walked forward as I fired. That I don’t remember.”

  “According to the articles, the trajectory of the entrance wounds and the exit pattern of the shell casings for that particular weapon were consistent with your statement. But the three casings weren’t found together in a group. Apparently you moved forward and fired the third round into him when he was down. The third casing was found about ten feet from the victim.”

  “I don’t remember moving forward,” said Quinn. “I know what they said, and I know about the casings, but I don’t remember. And I don’t believe I shot him when he was down. He might have been going down, still pointing his gun —”

  “Weren’t you concerned with hitting the other guy?”

  “At that point I was concerned primarily with the safety of myself and my partner. I’ve already admitted as much.” Quinn glared at Strange. “Anything else?”

  “Okay, Quinn. Take a deep breath and settle down.”

  Strange’s beeper sounded. He took it from his hip and checked the readout. He said, “Excuse me, man,” reaching across Quinn to unlock the glove box and withdraw his cellular phone. He punched a number into the grid and spoke into the mouthpiece.

  “What’s up, Ron? … Uh—huh.” Strange frowned. “Now, you gonna ask me to do this thing for you because you’re down on K Street picking up a suit? … Yeah, I know you can’t just pick it up, you got to try it on, too… . Uh—huh… . No, it’s not ’cause I buy my shit off the rack that I don’t understand. … I do understand… . Believe me, it’s no thing. I got no problem with it, Ron. I sound like I do? Gimme the data, man.”

  Strange took the information, using a pen on a cord, writing on a pad affixed to the dash. He cut the line without another word and dropped the phone in the glove box, shutting the door a little too hard.

  “I got something I got to do. Man jumped bail on a B&E beef, and there’s this snitch we use, been hangin’ in a bar this man supposed to frequent. Turns out the bail jumper just walked into the bar.”

  “Who was that on the phone?”

  “My operative, young man by the name of Ron Lattimer, works for me.”

  “You do skip—tracing, too?”

  “Ron handles that. I don’t like to chase people down. But Ron’s busy, see, picking up a suit. So this one goes to me. Shouldn’t be too serious. I’ve seen the sheet on this guy, and he’s all of one twenty if he’s a pound. It’s out of my way, but you want, I’ll drop you off.”

  “I’ll ride with you,” said Quinn. “You can drop me when you’re done.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Hold up a second.” Quinn put his hand on Strange’s arm. “Don’t think I didn’t notice what you were getting at with y
our questions there. All that black—aggressor, white—guy black—this, white—that bullshit. What happened that night, you can try and paint it any way you want if it makes you feel any better. But it had nothing to do with race.”

  “Don’t tell me,” said Strange. “Don’t tell me, ’cause I’m a black man, twenty—five years your senior, and I know. I’m just trying to get at the truth, and if I hurt your feelings or hit a nerve somewhere along the line, so be it. I didn’t drop by to see you today ’cause I was looking for a friend, Quinn. I got plenty of friends, and I don’t need another. I’m just doing my job.”

  Strange ignitioned the Caprice, engaged the trans, and swung a U in the middle of D.

  “One more thing,” said Quinn. “Knock off that 'Quinn’ shit from here on in. Call me by my given name. It’s Terry, okay?”

  Strange turned right on 7th and gave the Chevy gas. He reached for the sunglasses in his visor, chuckling under his breath.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You got a temper on you,” said Strange.

  Quinn looked out the window, letting his jaw relax. “People have told me that I do.”

  “That story about fighting in the alley. How you were shaking, afraid and excited at the same time. You liked the action your whole life, didn’t you?”

  “I guess I did.”

  “What you ended up becoming, that’s not surprising. Guy like you, I bet you always wanted to be a cop.”

  “That’s right,” said Quinn. “And I was a good one, too.”

  Chapter 9

  THE bar was on the end of a strip of bars off M Street in Southeast, surrounded by fenced parking lots, auto repair and body shops, and patches of dead grass. Strange parked and nodded toward the corner business, a brick, two—story windowless structure. The sign over the door read, “Toot Sweet: Live Girls.”

  “Sign says they got live girls in there,” said Quinn.

  “That’s so the fellas who like dead ones don’t get disappointed once they get inside,” said Strange. “Should’ve known from the address Ron gave me it was gonna be a titty bar.”

  “They got the bathhouses down here, too, I remember right.”