The Man Who Came Uptown

  Ward had finished his call and came up on Ornazian.

  “What’s up with that?” said Ornazian, nodding at the father-and-son photo.

  “When I was working Vice, long time ago, I busted this massage parlor on Fourteenth and R. Found this photograph, a glossy signed to the establishment by the champ’s son. Not to cast aspersions…”

  “You’ve got it hanging on your wall of fame. It must mean something to you.”

  “It just makes me smile,” said Ward. “But really, it reminds me of those Wild West times. I drove down Fourteenth Street recently. You know what that massage-parlor building is now? A flower store.”

  “So? That’s a good thing, right?”

  “Sure, a positive thing. But when it was wide open out there, we had fun. There was this other dude, back in the seventies, was a real gunslinger. Street name was Red Fury. Had a girlfriend named Coco, a pimpette who ran a whorehouse on that same stretch of Fourteenth. You heard of Red?”

  “Before my time.”

  “I could tell you some things.”

  “We’re going to be spending hours together tonight. Tell me then.”

  They walked to the outer office, where Ward introduced Ornazian to the three employees who were seated at their desks. None of them looked very busy now. One of the men, Jake, stacked shoulders and neck, barely made eye contact with Ornazian. The other, who said his name was Esteban, was courteous and shook Ornazian’s hand firmly. The woman, Genesis, had the most intelligent, alert eyes of the group. She wore a ball cap and a ring with a very small diamond on her finger.

  “Just one a’ y’all mind the phones tonight,” said Ward. “Don’t care who. Decide amongst yourselves. I’ll be checking in.”

  By the time they exited the offices, night had fallen. Behind the building, Ward kept three black cars: two Lincoln Marks and an old but cherry Crown Victoria. Ward had expanded his business beyond bail bonds and skip traces. He now provided security for events and drivers/bodyguards for celebrities, dignitaries, and quasi-celebrities who came into D.C.

  As they walked toward the cars, Ornazian said, “What’s the quiet one’s story?”

  “Jake did a combat tour in Iraq and re-upped for a second tour in Afghanistan. He’s on so many meds I can’t use him on the street. I keep him in the office to answer the phones and process clients. He’s a house cat.”

  “What about the other dude?”

  “Esteban. That’s Spanish for Stephen.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I’m just sayin. Marine Corps. Follows orders real good and aims to please.”

  “And the woman?”

  “National Guard, but don’t let that fool you. She ran security with convoys. Went into hot pockets when the soldiers and Marines got pinned down. I talked to her CO and he told me that girl was fierce. But I won’t have her for long. Genesis is finishing college on the VA tit. Wants to go to law school.”

  “Good for her.”

  “What I should have done, too, if I had any sense. But I didn’t. Not a lick.” Ward pointed to the Crown Vic. “Let’s take my UC. It’s all loaded up.”

  As they cruised out of the lot, Ward nodded at his sign. “Changed the name of my business, you notice that? Used to be Ward Bail Bonds, but now it’s just Ward Bonds. It’s clever, don’t you think?”

  “Why is it clever?”

  “Ward Bond. The actor?”

  “Not familiar with him. Is he from the silent era or something?”

  “Funny. He’s that big dude, character actor. Played in all of them movies with John Wayne.”

  “I’ve heard of Lil Wayne,” said Ornazian.

  “Now you’re being stupid,” said Ward.

  FOR YEARS, several hotels and motels had been clustered around the busy intersection of New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road near the National Arboretum and the city’s largest animal shelter. These establishments had been homes to folks on public assistance, drug addicts, thrifty adulterers, down-and-outers, death-wish drinkers, and unknowing foreign tourists who had purchased cheap lodging online that promised easy bus access to the monuments, museums, and downtown D.C. The motels had also been notorious venues for prostitutes and pimps, but that activity had been curtailed. The rooms were now mostly occupied by homeless families who had been placed here by the District government. Private, armed security guards roamed the parking lots, keeping an eye on the comings and goings of the residents.

  Adjoining one of the motels was a Chinese restaurant with a large dining room. Its grim location and lack of ambience prevented it from becoming a destination for discerning Washingtonians, but it was a secret spot for foodies who didn’t mind the traffic congestion and the enduring blight of the NYA corridor.

  Ornazian and Ward sat at a four-top, eating and strategizing. The proprietors specialized in Szechuan cooking of the northern Shaanxi region. The food was righteous.

  “Pass me those scallion pancakes, man,” said Ward.

  Ornazian pushed the plate within reaching distance of Ward. Also on the table were platters with dwindling portions of rou jia mo, which was the Chinese version of a hamburger, cumin lamb on sticks, spicy vermicelli, and dumplings with hot sauce. They were having a feast.

  Ward swallowed, closing his eyes with satisfaction. “You trying to spoil a brother.”

  “Maybe.”

  He opened his eyes. “You bring me over to these hotels cause of the location? Like, a prelude?”

  “I brought you to this restaurant because of the food. Anyway, you’d be hard pressed to find pimps around here now.”

  “True,” said Ward, somewhat ruefully. “The game changed. Most of the trade is online these days.”

  “Get on certain internet sites, you pick out your girl. Then it’s an in-call or an out-call. You don’t have to troll the streets looking for it. It’s as easy as making a dinner reservation.”

  “Police have been stinging the johns like that, though. Luring them to hotels with net ads.”

  “They make some arrests that way, yeah. But they haven’t made a dent in prostitution.”

  “I remember when all those Asian massage parlors were in D.C.”

  “Police in the District did a good job of going after the landlords. They pretty much closed the massage parlors down. Most of the AMPs are over in Northern Virginia now.” Ornazian stabbed at a dumpling and moved it to his plate. “Hispanics have the brothels. That leaves the street trade. Logan Circle is still a hot spot, but less of one. The girls work the clubs early in the night and then move over to the hotels. Near dawn you still see some trickin on the corners. But it’s not like it was.”

  “Lot of those online ads say ‘No pimps.’”

  “Lotta those ads are bullshit,” said Ornazian. “There’s still plenty of pimps around. The ads say ‘No pimps’ so the johns don’t get scared away.”

  “Tell me about the one you got in mind.”

  “We’ll get to that. Let’s enjoy our meal. Get another dish. Try the black bean eggplant if you want to go to heaven.”

  “I would, but our waiter don’t understand a word of English. Kinda hard to communicate in this joint.”

  “You ever try to learn Chinese?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Just point to the photograph on the menu. That’s what the pics are for.”

  “I shouldn’t eat any more. But okay.”

  Ward raised his hand and tried to get the waiter’s attention. Ornazian texted his wife and suggested she go to sleep. He told her he’d see her in the morning.

  Four

  THEY DROVE out to the old residential section of Beltsville, in Maryland, and parked in a neighborhood of ramshackle, trailer-type homes on a street between Route 1 and Rhode Island Avenue. There was little activity on the block, though there were many cars and trucks, three or four to a home. Some were in mid-repair; some had been left in weeds for seasons, perhaps years. Ornazian and Ward were near a government strip of land that served as a walk-through between bl
ocks. Like the rest of the surroundings, this too had gone untended. Trees had fallen, blocking the path.

  “That’s his,” said Ornazian, nodding toward a house on the edge of the walk-through.

  “With the portable carport?” said Ward. “That’s some ghetto shit right there. In a different hood, the neighbors would call the county on this mug.”

  The house was a one-story affair with a side addition fronted in the formstone commonly found on dwellings in Baltimore. The original structure had asbestos shingles and a few of them had fallen off, exposing tar paper. The carport was just a corrugated cover on four poles that sat free in the driveway. There was no vehicle beneath it.

  “The pimps I knew in my day had more pride,” said Ward. “I mean, they never did have much money. Spent most of it on their rides and their vines. It was all about the show.”

  “It’s smarter not to show.”

  “How’d you mark him?”

  “I talked to a girl, goes by the name of Monique. Did her a solid once. Regular john she had had stiffed her out some money. She’d been busted a couple of times for solicitation, and she’d seen me down at the courts.”

  “You found the john.”

  “Wasn’t hard. She was making out-calls to this guy, always used the same hotel, one of those new boutique jobs, down near the White House? Guy always valeted his car. I slipped one of the valet dudes some cash in exchange for the plate number. From there I found his home address. Married with kids, naturally. He’s the CFO of some tech company out on Twenty-Nine.”

  “You blackmailed him,” said Ward.

  “He shouldn’t have stiffed my friend.”

  “So this girl, Monique, she hipped you to this pimp.”

  “I asked her what was happening out there. You were a cop, so you know that prostitutes are the best sources on the street. They’re up all night. They see everything.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Monique told me about this pimp she had for a while. Goes by Theodore.”

  “That’s not a very cool name for a player.”

  “But it is,” said Ornazian, who was a hobbyist in the origin of words. “It’s from the Greek. Theo is ‘god,’ and doro is ‘gift.’ God’s gift. Get it?”

  “You some kind of linguist?”

  Ornazian grinned. “I’m a cunning linguist.”

  “Finish your story, man.”

  “Theodore’s got a stable, three women at all times. If they want to leave him or if they don’t earn, he lets them go. His philosophy is, there’s plenty more where they came from. He’s no gorilla pimp. He’s not into violence. He likes to smoke weed, and so do they, but it’s not part of his plan to make them dependent on harder drugs. He looks for girls who have problems, like problems at home, with their parents, all that. He listens to them. He makes them his girlfriends. Buys them gifts. Puts them up in a decent place. And then, he’s like, ‘All these good things cost money. You gonna need to contribute, girl. Take care of my man here and help me out. And this man right here.’ Like that. He holds the money they earn. They don’t keep any of it, but he takes care of all their needs.”

  “Theodore,” said Ward.

  Ward had said the name with hate. It was one of the many reasons Ornazian had asked Ward to come along tonight.

  “Take a nap,” said Ornazian. “He’s not coming home for another hour or so.”

  “How you know?”

  “I been out here three nights this week. Man’s a creature of habit, just like anyone else.”

  “I mean, how you know what he’s got?”

  “He’s working three women. Monique says they each earn about a thousand a night on the weekends. Put that together with what he probably keeps in the house, and it could be a nice payday. The dude makes a couple hundred thousand a year, cash. Chances are some of it’s in his crib.”

  “We gonna hit him before he goes in?”

  “No. That window on the right side of the house, closest to us? That’s the bathroom. Every night, he comes home, the light goes on in there and then the window steams up.”

  “I get it. The man likes to shower before he retires.”

  Ornazian settled into his seat. “Take a nap, Thaddeus.”

  “I gotta pee.”

  “There’s an empty milk jug behind your seat.”

  “I can’t if you’re watching.”

  “I’ll turn away.”

  Ward side-glanced Ornazian. “Could you tug on it a little?”

  “Only if that will shut you up.”

  AROUND THREE in the morning, Theodore drove his Chrysler 300 under the cut-rate carport and killed the engine. He got out of his black Green Hornet–style sedan and walked toward his house. He was tall and very thin and wore his hair in braids. He sported a down vest over a red buffalo-check shirt, jeans with appliques on the pockets, and Timbs.

  “Don’t look like a mack to me,” said Ward.

  “That’s today’s pimp,” said Ornazian. “You know where you find guys wearing outrageous clothes, carrying walking sticks, and shit like that? At Halloween and frat parties.”

  Theodore triggered a motion-detector light as he stepped up to his door.

  “He got those security lights around back too?”

  “Yeah,” said Ornazian. “So what? His house backs up to woods. Anyway, we’re gonna be inside quick.”

  “Are there dogs?”

  “No dogs.”

  “I hate fuckin with dogs.”

  “I crept around that house many times. He has no dogs. Trust me.” As Theodore entered his house and closed the door behind him, Ornazian said, “Okay.”

  Ward had disabled the dome light of the Vic. They exited in darkness and went around to the rear of the car, where Ward popped the trunk. He fired up a mini Maglite he had produced from his jacket and put the butt end of it in his mouth, illuminating the trunk’s interior.

  In the trunk was a great deal of weaponry, ammunition, and hardware, as well as various restraint devices. From a box, Ornazian and Ward pulled lightly powdered nitrile gloves, favored by auto mechanics, and fitted them on their hands. Ward unrolled a blanketed 12-gauge Remington pump-action shotgun, then lifted a Glock nine out of a case. He released its magazine, checked the load, and seated the magazine back into the gun. The Remington 870 and the Glock 17 were common police firearms. Ward fitted the pistol into the dip of his slacks.

  “The Special’s you,” said Ward, nodding at a .38 revolver that was a version of the MPD sidearm Ward had carried when he was first in uniform.

  “You know I don’t want it,” said Ornazian.

  “It’s for show,” said Ward.

  Ornazian broke the cylinder on the .38 and saw that its chambers were loaded. He slipped the gun in the side pocket of his lightweight jacket, then grabbed a friction-lock, retractable baton from a large steel toolbox and put it in a back pocket of his jeans. Ward handed Ornazian a package of women’s stockings. Ornazian pulled a stocking down over his face and Ward did the same. Finally, Ward put some plastic cuffs of varying lengths in his jacket, picked up the shotgun, cradled it, and shut the trunk. He nodded at Ornazian.

  They moved to the side of the house, watched through windows as its interior brightened, waited for the bathroom light to come on, and stood outside its window for several minutes until they heard the sigh of pipes followed by the faint drum of water running in a shower. Ward followed Ornazian to the backyard. A security light flooded the area and Ornazian stepped into it, unfazed. He calmly used the steel baton to break the window of a rear door. He reached inside the broken window, unlocked the knob, and flipped the arm of the dead bolt.

  They entered the house and walked through an odorous kitchen to a living area with a wide-screen television, a table holding game-console controllers and stroke magazines, and a matching set of large leather furniture. The house was rank with crushed-out cigarettes and the skunk-smell of weed.

  Down a hall were a couple of bedrooms and, at the end, a bathroom door. Behind
it, Theodore showered. Ornazian scouted the bedrooms while Ward stood in the hall, the shotgun resting on his forearm.

  Ornazian found the bedroom where Theodore obviously slept and switched on the bedside lamp. The nightstand’s top drawer had a keyhole on its face. A smartphone, presently charging in a wall outlet, was on the nearby dresser. There was a wooden chair on which Theodore most likely sat when he put on his socks and shoes. An open closet showed many shirts, top-buttoned and neatly hung on a wooden rod. On the carpet of the closet, Nike sneaks and Timberland and Nike boots were paired, neatly aligned, and set atop their corresponding boxes.

  Soon the sound of running water ceased. Ward, positioned outside the bathroom, pointed the shotgun at the door, fitting its butt in the crook of his shoulder, his finger inside the trigger guard. Theodore stepped out of the bathroom, still wet, wearing only a bath towel around his waist.

  “Fuck is this,” he said, getting a look at the man before him holding the shotgun dead-on at his chest.

  Ward racked the pump for drama. “You don’t know?”

  “You fixin to rob me,” said Theodore. It wasn’t a question. He was trying to remain cool but his face had lost some color.

  “Correct,” said Ward, jerking his head toward the bedroom on the left. “In there.”

  Theodore walked into the bedroom and Ward followed. Ornazian had drawn the .38 and was holding it by his side.

  “Drop that towel,” said Ward. Theodore did not comply and Ward said, “Drop it.”

  Theodore pulled the towel free and dropped it to the floor. He stood naked before the men who held the guns. He was bird-chested and inadequately muscled.

  “For a man who runs women,” said Ward, “you don’t look like much.”

  In truth, there was nothing wrong with Theodore. He was all there, more or less. But Ward knew that a naked man was a vulnerable man. He was simply stripping him down further.