Authors: DC Noir
George Pelecanos (17 page)
"Ohmigod!"
Lynette said.
"How?"
"I'm
not sure. But he knows. He knows everything. He's threatening to take the
children away from me."
"Ohmigod."
"And--"
she turned her face to the side, not trusting herself to tell this part. "And
he's threatening to go to Alan."
"Shit."
In her panic, Lynette got up and began putting on her clothes, as if Peter and
Alan were outside the door at this very moment.
"He
hasn't yet," Sally said quickly. "But he will, if I fight the change in the
custody order. He's given me a week to decide. I give up the children or he
goes to Alan."
"You
can't tell. You can't."
"I
don't want to, but--how can I give up my children?" Lynette understood, as only
another mother could. The truth would destroy her; the secret would tear apart
Sally's life. And even if Peter agreed not to tell for now, the danger was
still there.
"Would
he really do this?"
"He
would. Peter--he's not the nice man everyone thinks he is. Why do you think we
got divorced? And the thing is, if he gets the kids--well, it was one thing for
him to do the things he did to me. But if he ever treated Molly or Sam that
way..."
"What
way?"
"I
don't want to talk about it. But if it should happen--I'd have to kill him."
"The pervert."
Lynette was at once
repelled and fascinated. The dark side of Sally's life was proving as seductive
as Sally's quiet companionship.
"I
know. If he had done what he did to a stranger, he'd be in prison for life. But
in a marriage, such things are legal. I'm stuck, Lynette. I won't ruin your
life for anything. You told me from the first that this had to be a secret. I
just hope Peter will be satisfied with destroying me."
"There
has to be a way..."
"There
isn't. Not as long as Peter is a free man."
"Not
as long as he's alive."
"You
can't mean--"
Lynette
put a finger to Sally's lips. These had been the hardest moments to fake, the
face-to-face encounters. Kissing was the worst. But it was essential not to
flinch, not to let her distaste show. She was so close to getting what she
wanted.
"Trust
me," Lynette said.
Sally
wanted to. But she had to be sure of one thing. "Don't try to hire someone. It
seems like every time someone like us tries to find someone, it's always an
undercover cop. Remember Ruth Ann Aron." A politician from the Maryland
suburbs, Aron had, in fact, tried to hire a state trooper to off her husband.
But he had forgiven her, even testified on her behalf during the trial.
"Trust
me," Lynette repeated.
"I
do, sweetheart. I absolutely do."
Dr.
Peter Holt was hit by a Jeep Cherokee, an Eddie Bauer limited
edition,
as he crossed Connecticut Avenue on his way to the
Thai restaurant where he ate lobster pad thai every Thursday evening. The
remorseful driver told police that her children had been bickering in the
backseat over what to watch on the DVD player and she had turned her head, just
for a moment, to scold them. Still distracted by the children's fight when she
turned around, she had seen Holt and tried to stop, but hit the accelerator instead.
Then, as her children screamed for real, she had driven another 100 yards in
panic and hysteria. If the dermatologist wasn't killed on impact, he was
definitely dead when the SUV finally stopped. But the only substance in the
driver's blood was caffeine, and while it was a tragic, regrettable accident,
it was clearly an accident. Really, investigators told Holt's stunned
survivors, his ex-wife and two children, it was surprising that such things
didn't happen more often, given the congestion in D.C., the unwieldy SUVs, the
mothers' frayed nerves, the nature of dusk with its tricky gray-green light. It
was a macabre coincidence, their children being classmates and all, the parents
being superficial friends. But this part of D.C. was like a village unto itself,
and the accident had happened only a mile from the Dutton School. In fact,
Peter Holt had just left the same soccer practice that the driver was coming
from. He had been seen talking to his ex-wife, with whom he was still quite
friendly, asking her if she and the children wanted to meet him for dinner at
his favorite restaurant.
At
Peter's memorial service, Lynette Mason sought a private moment with Sally
Holt, and those who watched from a distance marveled at the bereaved woman's
composure and poise, the way she comforted her ex-husband's killer. No one was
close enough to hear what they said.
"I'm
sorry," Lynette said. "It didn't occur to me that after--well, I guess we can't
see each other anymore."
"It
didn't occur to me, either," Sally lied. "You've sacrificed so much for me.
For Molly and Sam, really.
I'm in your debt, forever."
And
she patted Lynette gently on the arm, which marked the last time the two ever
touched. Sometimes, when Alan was working late, Lynette would call, a little high
and a lot tearful, and Sally would remind her that they shouldn't tie up the
phone too long, lest the records of these conversations come back to haunt them
or the children overhear anything. They had done what mothers should do. They
had put their children first.
Peter's
estate went to Molly and Sam--but in trust to Sally, of course. She determined
that it would be in the children's best interest to pay off the balloon
mortgage in cash, and Peter's brother, the executor, agreed. Peter would have
wanted the children to have the safety and sanctity of home, given the
emotional trauma they had endured. He wouldn't want them forced out in the
housing market, cruel and unforgiving as it was.
No
longer needy, armored with a widow's prerogatives, Sally found herself invited
to parties again, where solicitous friends attempted to fix her up with the
rare single men in their circles. Now that she didn't care about men, they
flocked around her and Sally did what she had always done. She listened and she
laughed, she laughed and she listened, but she never really heard
anything--unless the subject was money. Then she paid close attention, even
writing down the advice she was given. The stock market was so turgid, everyone
complained. The smart money was in real estate.
Sally
nodded.
Seventy-two-year-old
Ida Logan was sitting in her rocker on her front porch when the gunman opened
fire. She never knew what hit her. Neither did her five-year-old great
granddaughter Aaliyah Gamble, who was sitting nearby at her red, blue, and
yellow plastic Playskool desk, playing with Legos.
In
but a few seconds, more than a half dozen hollow-point 9mm rounds ripped
through each of them, their bodies performing the death dance that only the
gunfire of automatic weapons can orchestrate, jerking to the staccato of the
rat-tat-tat-ta of the machine gun, as though keeping time to the pulsating
rhythm of a boogie rap tune.
To
eyewitness Rodney Grimes, the carnage seemed to transpire in slow motion; amid
the crimson mist of their splattering blood, the bullets appeared to strike the
frail old woman and the fragile little girl forever.
The
dreadful scene was punctuated, and made that much more grotesque, by Aaliyah's
head exploding, bursting like a ripe melon dropped from a high place. The pink
halo of her vaporized brain was visible only for an instant, yet the obscene
corona lingered around what little remained of the back of her neatly braided
head; a ghastly image frozen in time...emblazoned upon his troubled mind.
* *
*
Rodney
Grimes didn't think twice about cooperating with the police. His late father
had taught him that "evil flourish when good men do nothing."
Rodney
Grimes was a good man, wasn't he? He liked to think so. And even if he had not
truly been good up to that point, couldn't he be? Could he not rise to the
occasion? Evil had been done and he was compelled to do his part to ensure that
the gunman did not go unpunished. It was his duty. Voluntarily, he told the
police who arrived first at the scene of the crime that he had witnessed the
murders and provided them with a detailed description of the suspect, making
sure to emphasize that the gunman had long dreadlocks and was very dark-skinned
with unsettling bluish-gray eyes; and described the getaway car, a black
late-model Ford Crown Victoria, like a cop car. And later that day, he assisted
Detective John Mayfield, the lead on the case, by accompanying him to the
Violent Crimes Branch headquarters and picking out a photo of a suspect from an
array of nine mugshots. He'd also agreed to participate in the viewing of a
lineup. "Sure, no problem," he'd told the detective. "Just let me know."
However,
the day after the double shooting, the courage of his conviction diminished
considerably when he looked up from the Spider-Man comic he was leafing through
at the newsstand inside of Iverson Mall and noticed the killer with a lion's
mane of long dreadlocks standing next to him, towering above him.
The
shooter held the latest issue of Superman, flipping its pages, but not looking
at the comic book. Instead, his cold, disconcerting bluish-gray eyes were fixed
on him.
Rodney
hoped it was just his imagination at the crime scene; that the killer had simply
looked in his general direction, not directly at him, directly into his face.
But the killer's presence here before him dashed that hope.
The killer had seen him...and evidently knew who he was.
They
stood there silent for a moment, an outlandish odd couple,
Rodney
Grimes's clean-cut, black yuppie appearance in direct contrast to that of the
killer, who looked like a hip-hop Rastafarian.
"Hey,"
said the killer, finally breaking the ice, "you look familiar." He paused,
waited for a response. When Grimes did not reply, he continued. "Do I look
familiar to you?"
Grimes
remained silent.
"No?"
the killer said. "I musta made a mistake." The killer laughed. "I know what it
is! Ever see that Eddie Murphy movie...um...Harlem Nights, yeah. Redd Foxx had on
big, thick Coke-bottle glasses like yours, made his eyes look all big and shit,
like he was wearin' magnifyin' glasses. Yeah, that's it, you probably just
reminded me of him."
Grimes
remained silent.
"Say,"
the killer continued, "
just
how good can you see with
eyes that bad? I'll bet you be makin' mistakes all the time, don't you? Wavin'
at people across the street, then
be
like, 'Oh, shit,
that ain't whoever.' Yeah, must be hard recognizin' people with eyes as bad as
you got."
Grimes
remained silent.
"You
kinda old to be readin' comic
books,
ain't you?" the
killer asked. "What, you twenty-one, twenty-two? Sheeit, I gave up readin' them
joints when I was a little kid." He snickered.
Grimes
remained silent. The killer turned his attention to the comic book.
"You
know," the killer mused, "funny thing about heroes,
'specially
comic book superheroes, none of 'em wear glasses. Take Superman here. His
disguise, his costum, is Clark Kent, all mild-mannered and shit, wearin'
eyeglasses, 'cause Superman, he know that people who wear eyeglasses all weak
and geeky and shit, so nobody will mistake him for a hero. So he can have some
peace, un'erstand? 'Cause otherwise, people would bug his ass to death!
'Superman, get my cat out the tree.' 'Superman, tow my car to the shop.' Yeah,
it just
be
Superman do this and Superman do that, all
the goddamn time!"
The
killer stared directly into Grimes's magnified eyes and continued: "But the
point I was tryin' to make is
,
heroes don't wear them
shits. The
eyes is
the windows to the soul: weak eyes,
weak soul. People who wear 'em
is
just plain weak.
It's a fact.
But when it's time to go to work, Superman
snatch off them hornrims and that Brooks Brothers and show off his Krypton
clothes.
'This is a job for Superman!'
Right?
Voice
get
deep and everything."
The
killer paused for a moment to let his point sink in, and then made his message
plain.
"Thinking your weak ass can take down a super villain could get
you and other people you care about in some serious trouble and cause you some
real heartache.
Don't make no
mistake, Rodney, don't
try to be no hero. Heroes don't wear glasses."
Certain
his point had been made, the killer put the comic book back on the rack, glared
at Rodney Grimes a few long moments for good measure, and then turned and
leisurely walked away.
Finally,
after having been paralyzed like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi,
Grimes returned the Spider-Man to the rack and, on unsteady legs, exited the
newsstand.
