“A ’94?” said Ornazian.
“How did you know?”
“The trans arm is on the column. Chevy moved the shifter to the floor later on.”
“Very good.”
“You removed the spoiler.”
“It attracts attention,” said Berhanu.
“So do the pipes.”
“If you want unflavored water but still fast, go with the Lexus. Three hundred and eighty horses.”
“You can keep your rice burner. I need space on this one. My driver goes around six four.”
“It’s a living room inside. Wilt Chamberlain’s Afro wouldn’t touch the headliner.”
“Good shape?”
“Donnie’s done a nice job with it. Heavy-duty suspension and brakes. New de Carbon shocks. It’s not a screamer off the line but it gets up to sixty very quickly.” Berhanu shrugged. “Basically, it’s a four-door Vette.”
“My jeans are getting tight.”
“You and your penis.”
“It’s a way of life.”
“So, we are good?”
Ornazian nodded. “Plates?”
“I’ll provide.”
Berhanu got his license plates from the long-term parking lots of the three local airports. He also had an extensive network of garage attendants in the area who helped him from time to time. Many attended his church on Illinois Avenue in Northwest.
Ornazian and Berhanu negotiated a price.
“Ciao,” said Ornazian to Berhanu before leaving.
“Ciao, Phil.”
Ornazian went to his car, where Donnie stood, his smartphone in his hand. As Ornazian approached, Donnie slipped the phone in his coverall pocket and walked away. Ornazian said nothing to Donnie. He didn’t trust drunks.
Ornazian’s plan for the day was to go out to Glen Echo Heights and surveil the Kelly residence. With luck, Terry Kelly would return home for one of his periodic visits. Ornazian would have dinner with his family and then do a night surveillance on Gustav and his men. This time he would follow the fat man out to his home in Hyattsville in an effort to ascertain a pattern. So far, Gustav had consistently gone from the brothel straight to his home, driven by Cesar in the Range Rover. The thin man took the Mustang, their follow car.
But now, sitting in his Ford in the alley, Ornazian would call Michael Hudson, give him the address of the woman he was looking for, and tell Michael that he had found a car.
AFTER HIS day shift at the restaurant, Michael went to his mother’s house, read his latest book out on the porch, and walked Brandy. Then he showered and dressed in a nice shirt and jeans. He brushed out his Timbs till they looked fresh, grabbed his watch cap, and left the house. Shadows had lengthened on the street.
Michael walked up to Warder Place in Park View and went up the steps to a tan-brick row house with bars on the first-floor windows. He stood on a small porch that could only hold one chair and knocked on the front door. Soon the door opened and Anna Byrne stood in the open frame.
“Michael,” said Anna. She was obviously taken by surprise but her eyes and body language said that he was fine.
“It’s me,” said Michael. “I got your phone.”
Michael pulled her iPhone from his back pocket and handed it to her across the threshold.
“God,” she said. “How did you get this?”
“Listened to the street telegraph. Wasn’t all that difficult.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“I put it on my mother’s charger. So you should be able to use it now.”
Anna powered up her phone and entered her password. Multiple messages and texts loaded. She had not yet notified the carrier of the theft, as Rick had told her to do. Rick would have said that she was foolish. She preferred to think of herself as an optimist.
“Thank you,” she said again, and then they stood there, him on the porch, she inside her home.
It was obvious to Michael that she was not going to ask him in, and why should she? She had known him only as an offender, not as a free man.
“Your husband home?” he said.
“Not yet,” she said. “Hey, you want to go for a walk? Let me buy you a beer or something. It’s the least I can do.”
“I don’t drink,” said Michael. “But I’ll sit with you.”
“Give me five minutes,” she said.
“I’ll wait for you here,” said Michael. He was sparing her the discomfort of asking him to wait outside.
THEY WALKED down to Georgia Avenue. Anna had her hair down and she had changed into jeans and a sweater over a black button-down shirt. Not provocative in any way, but cleaned up. Michael thought she looked nice.
Anna suggested a place called the Midlands, a beer garden with outdoor seating and open doors that led to an indoor bar area with a pool table. They sat at a picnic table because it was warm enough. Lights were hung on strings on wood beams in an arbor-type atmosphere. Longtime neighborhood residents were mixed with new ones. A smoker had been set up and someone was cooking some kind of meat that smelled good. People brought their dogs here, and water and treats were provided. There were many young men with beards.
Anna sipped a lager and Michael had a ginger ale. She asked him how he’d found her home. It wasn’t an accusation. She was curious.
“Dude I know who’s in the business of locating people. He helped me out.” He meant Phil Ornazian. “I didn’t mean to, like, invade your privacy.”
“You didn’t.”
“Since I’m being truthful, I looked at your credit card receipt from that first night I saw you at the DL. Said your husband’s name was Byrne. It confused me, ’cause, you know, you go by Anna Kaplan at the jail.”
“A lot of women don’t take their husband’s last names when they get married.”
“For real?”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if you happen to run into anyone we both know, I hope you’ll keep my secret.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t give you up.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
Michael relaxed. He was grateful she hadn’t asked for details on how he’d retrieved her phone. “What kind of name is Kaplan?”
“I’m Jewish. And my full name is Annalisa. It means ‘grace’ or ‘devoted to God.’ My parents are full-on American, but they met on a kibbutz when they were backpacking through Europe after college. They were very into the Israeli-name thing.”
“My mother named me Michael. It was 1989, and she was very into that Michael Jordan thing.”
Anna smiled and sipped her beer. One of the owners’ dogs, a big friendly beast, bounded over to their table and sniffed Michael’s outstretched hand. Michael liked this place. He felt comfortable here, though he recognized no one and most of the customers were not the kind of people he’d come up with. He looked through the fence to the right of the Midlands and saw a storefront sign for a place called Wall of Books.
“Dag, they got a bookstore here?”
“Yes,” said Anna. “They buy and sell used books there.”
“Must’ve opened that while I was away. I can’t believe all the changes. This was kinda rough around here, before your time. What with the Park Morton homes right down the street. I used to see all kinds of go-go shows at the Capitol City Ball Room, right there.” Michael motioned with his head toward a big boxy building on Georgia.
“People called it the Black Hole, right?” said Anna.
“You know about that?”
“I’ve heard about it from my neighbors. What do you think of all the changes around here? Is it bad?”
“Not all. What do you call that, when you’re looking back, and it seems better than it really was?”
“Nostalgia.”
“Right. Sometimes I feel like a stranger in my own neighborhood, but long as too many people don’t get pushed out their homes, I guess the changes are good. All these new businesses, bars, and things…the Safeway up the s
treet? Those are jobs that weren’t there before.”
“But people do get displaced.”
“Sure do. That’s what that book was about. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears?”
“You read it?”
“Yeah.”
“I chose it for our book club,” said Anna. “It might have been a bad call.”
“The fellas didn’t like it?”
“It’s not that. Some of them made the cardinal mistake of reviewing. They chastised the author for not writing the story they wanted him to write.”
“I bet I know why. They couldn’t understand why that Ethiopian dude, Sepha, didn’t get with that woman, Judith. I mean, like, get with her all the way. Right?”
Anna chuckled. “Yes. You remember Donnell? He said, ‘Why did I take all that time to read that book if that dude wasn’t gonna consommé the relationship?’ And then he said, ‘I want my money back.’”
Michael laughed. “Sounds like that fool.”
“The book did generate discussion. Which is, you know, what good books should do.”
“I guess the author was saying, you can have a deep friendship with someone without having that physical thing.”
“Among other things, yes.” She looked him over. “So you’re reading a lot.”
“Like a mad dog. That’s ’cause of you.”
“Stop it.”
They exchanged phone numbers. Maybe it was the one beer that had altered Anna’s judgment. But she trusted him. She took her phone back and almost as an afterthought did a check-in text with her husband: Got my phone back. I’m out taking a walk. I’ll be home soon. It wasn’t exactly a lie.
After Anna had paid the bill, they went to the bookstore that was steps away. They browsed separately in the wooden stacks and Anna took something up to the register. She found Michael in the fiction section. He looked energized. Anna handed him a used paperback. It was a novel called Northline.
“That’s for you,” said Anna. “It’s one of my favorites.”
Michael was touched and speechless. To cover his emotion, he read the copy on the back.
“Says here it’s set in Las Vegas and Reno,” said Michael. “I never been out that way.”
“I hope you like it,” said Anna.
HE WALKED her back to her house at dusk. He suggested they go north on Quebec Street instead of taking Princeton, where he had strong-armed the man who’d stolen her phone the night before. He didn’t want to risk being recognized.
“How’s it going?” said Anna, looking up at him.
“You mean my life?”
“Yes.”
“I like my job. Sayin, it’s okay for now, till I figure out what’s next.” He flashed on Ornazian and what they were planning to do. “It’s always a challenge when you come uptown.”
“What’s that mean, come uptown?”
“It’s just somethin dudes say, when they come out. Uptown doesn’t mean it’s fancy. But it’s way better than where you been, because it’s home.”
“So…”
“It’s a little bit of a struggle, is all. But I reckon I’ll be fine.”
As they approached the corner of Quebec and Warder, Anna told him she’d walk the rest of the way herself. Michael knew it was because of her husband. She didn’t want her man to see them together. He understood.
“Thank you for getting my phone back,” she said.
“Ain’t no thing,” said Michael. “Be easy, Anna.”
They went their separate ways. She looked over her shoulder as she neared her house. Michael was adjusting the watch cap on his head, tilting it just so.
WALKING SOUTH on Warder, he saw Carla Thomas sitting on her porch alone, illuminated by candlelight. He went up the steps and joined her. She was drinking a glass of red wine, listening to some Erykah Badu, casting Mama’s Gun from her phone to a Bluetooth speaker she had set up on the porch.
“Big man,” said Carla. “Come up and set.”
“Looks like you’re at peace,” said Michael, taking a seat beside her.
“Not too often I get time to myself.”
“Where’s Alisha?”
“She’s at a friend’s house,” said Carla. “I got to pick her up in a couple of hours. And my grandmother’s out too. She playin bingo at her church.”
“So…”
“That’s right. I’m alone.”
Michael said nothing. Words of seduction failed him. He was out of practice.
Carla stood up and lifted her glass of wine off the table. She gathered up the speaker and her phone as well.
“You comin in?”
“I’d like to.”
“Bring that candle with you, Mike.”
With gratitude and anticipation, he watched the sway of her hips as she walked through the door. Michael picked up the candle and followed her into the house.
Eighteen
ORNAZIAN SCOOPED up Michael Hudson a few blocks north of his mother’s house on Sherman Avenue, at his request. Darkness had fallen hours earlier. Ornazian stopped at the corner, let the vehicle idle, got out of the car, and went around to the passenger bucket. Michael slipped under the wheel, powered back his seat, and let his long frame settle.
“Impala SS,” said Michael, failing to keep the pleasure from his voice. “Haven’t drove one of these in a long while.” He gripped and released the steering wheel and studied the instrument panel.
“Told you I’d hook you up. Let’s head out. Our man’s in Ward Nine.”
Michael recognized the somewhat derogatory term for Prince George’s County but made no comment on it, as he had no skin in that game. He pulled down on the transmission arm and went east.
“Where exactly?” said Michael.
“You know Beaver Heights?”
“On the Mer’land side of Eastern Ave.”
“That’s right.”
As Michael drove, Ornazian watched him get a feel for the Impala. On Kenilworth Avenue, when the road was clear, Michael punched the gas. Cruising smoothly on the upmarket shocks, the sedan picked up speed like an airplane on a runway.
“Take care on the corners,” said Ornazian. “It wallows.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It doesn’t hug the road too well.”
“It’s a straight-line runner,” said Michael. “Always was.”
“You had one of these?”
“For a day.”
They parked in the lot behind the complex of buildings where Thaddeus Ward had his business. Michael put the SS at the end of a row of three black cars while Ornazian used his cell to alert Ward to their arrival. Soon Ward, clad in dark clothing, walked across the lot, chest out. Michael checked out his swagger and his neatly trimmed gray mustache.
“Man’s cocky,” said Michael. “And old.”
“Not too old,” said Ornazian. “He can still do it. Pop the lid.”
Ward retrieved a couple of duffel bags from the trunk of the Crown Vic and dropped them in the open trunk of the SS. He got into the backseat of the Impala, reached across the console, and shook Michael’s hand.
“Thaddeus Ward.”
“Michael Hudson.”
Michael drove out of the lot.
THEY PARKED on a side street in Columbia Heights, a couple of blocks west of Georgia, near the bar with the nine ball painted on its light box. Down the block, a kid sat on a chair outside a row house, holding a cell in his hand. The black Range Rover and the blue Mustang were parked nearby.
Michael looked around. “Couple of security cameras on this street. They could be recording our license plates.”
“Not to worry,” said Ornazian. “The plates on this car don’t match the registration.”
“Pretty bold,” said Michael. “To have this place right here, where folks live.”
“It won’t be here all that long, most likely,” said Ward. “They move these whorehouses around.”
“How can they operate without getting busted?” said Michael.
“By the time you get a warrant from a judge, the place is gone. Hard to hit a moving target.”
“Someone’s gettin paid,” said Michael, his eyes in the rearview. He was looking at Ward in the backseat.
Ward spoke with patience. “I worked Vice for a long time, young man. Never knew of any vice cops who were that dirty. Some of the fellas I worked with got a little close to the girls, if you know what I mean. Tipped ’em off in advance if there was a bust about to go down, like that. But that’s different. That’s just being human.” Ward took a stick of gum from his pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth. “The chief eliminated the vice squad units in the District in 2015. So there’s less manpower to deal with this mess now. Not making excuses. Explaining it to you, is all.”
“So you were all clean,” said Michael, pushing it.
“I’m only speaking on my experience in the MPD. There’s whorehouses in Montgomery County, one I’ve seen myself. Right in a residential district, on the edge of that neighborhood where the lefties live. You drive by in the summertime, you see the girls sitting in the window boxes on the second floor. A blind man can see they’re trickin. I don’t know how the police out there can let that ride. I wouldn’t. I hate motherfuckers who run women. I just do.”
Ornazian let Ward’s anger simmer. It was good to have Ward jacked up on his bad memories.
An old car with rusted rear quarter panels pulled up to the row house. The kid spoke into his cell as several men got out of the hooptie and went inside the brothel.
“They’re about to get some,” said Ward.
“Our man should be coming out soon,” said Ornazian, glancing at his watch. It was two a.m.
A half hour later, Gustav, in his ill-fitting sport jacket, and Cesar, his second, came out of the house. Cesar carried two briefcases. There was no third man.