Soul Circus (28 page)

Foreman moved his head around some, back and forth, trying to get the ache out his neck. Shit was just building
up
.

“I’m ready,” said Ashley, behind him.

He hadn’t heard her, with all that thinking he’d been doing. But he could smell that body spray she liked, raspberry, from that “collection” of Nubian Goddess fragrances she bought at the CVS.

Foreman turned. She had on some shorts-and-top thing, looked like pajamas to him. When he’d said so she’d laughed and told him that it was a daytime outfit she’d bought at Penney’s. She was carrying a glass of chardonnay in one hand, had one of her Viceroys in the other.

“You done packing?”

“Said I was ready, sugar. I was wondering, should I take my gun?”

“Leave it,” said Foreman. “You won’t need it down on that farm, anyway. And the way you drive with that lead foot of yours, you might get pulled over. No reason to risk that.”

Ashley moved forward, held her cigarette away so that the smoke didn’t crawl up into his eyes. He could smell the wine and nicotine on her breath as she kissed him deep. The woman could hoover a man’s tongue. He had hit it that morning, just a couple of hours ago, but he felt himself growing hard again. He reached down and stroked the back of her thighs, felt the ridges and pocks there. He liked everything about her, even those marks.

“I love you, Ulee.”

“I know you do.”

“Couldn’t you just say it back?”

“I show you every day, don’t I?”

“Wish you could come with me.”

“So do I, but I got business to attend to. Keep your cell on, hear?”

“I will.”

“You always
say
you will, but then I get that voice says, Leave a message.”

“I’ll keep it on.”

“I’ll call you later.”

From the front steps, he watched her pull away in that Cougar of hers, feeling strange as she turned onto Wheeler Road, like maybe he should have gone with her this time, just gotten the fuck away. But this house, the woods, the seclusion, it had all been bought with sweat and hard work; none of it came easy. You needed to remember how much you loved your lifestyle when it came time to protect it. That’s why, despite the funny rumbling in his gut, he was hanging back here today.

A car soon came down the drive, that boy was gonna make the buy and some girl he knew. A little while from now, Foreman figured, McKinley and that sidekick of his, one with the long arms they called Monkey, they were gonna be rollin’ in here, too.

DETECTIVE Nathan Grady stood over Donut, who sat on the couch. Donut had invited Grady to have a seat with him, but Grady had said that he preferred to stand. Always look down on the person you were interviewing, and crowd them when you could.

Donut’s legs were scissoring back and forth, and sweat had formed on his upper lip, betraying his friendly, accommodating smile.

“So you don’t know about the whereabouts of your friend Mario.”

“Nah, uh-uh.”

“And you weren’t aware that he was wanted on a murder?”

“No, I wasn’t aware of that situation right there.”

“Seems like everybody in Anacostia’s heard about it but you.”

“Now that you tell me, though, I feel real bad about that girl got herself dead.”

“You haven’t heard from your friend in the past few days, have you?”

“Been a long while. I was just wonderin’ today where he been at.”

“I suppose we could go into your phone records. Ask around with your neighbors, too. Maybe they’ve seen him coming in and out of here.”

“You should. I’d like to know my own self where he is.”

Grady rocked back on the heels of his Rocksports. He looked back at the uniformed officer standing by the door, then lifted his head and made a show of sniffing the air. Donut watched him, thinking, Here it comes.

“That marijuana I smell,
Dough
-nut?”

“I don’t smell nothin’.”

“You got some priors, so it made me think, you know, you might still be dealing.”

“That was the old me. I been rehabilitated. And I go to church now, too.”

“So you wouldn’t mind if I looked around?”

Donut shrugged. This motherfucker did find something, it wouldn’t be but an ounce or so. What they call personal-use stuff. He’d be on the street in an hour, and the charge would get thrown out, anyway, come court date. He knew it, and so did this bobo with a shield. As for the stuff he had that looked like crack, shit, that wasn’t nothin’ but baking soda cooked hard. Make them all look stupid when they got it back to the lab.

“You know what an accessory-to-homicide conviction would do to you, with your history?”

“I got an idea. But, see, I don’t know where Mario is.”

“We’re gonna talk again. You’re holding out on me, it’s not gonna go your way come sentencing time.”

“You find Mario,” said Donut, “let me know. He borrowed a shirt from me and didn’t return it. A Sean John — wasn’t cheap, either.”

“Anything else?” said Grady, his jaw tight.

“Boy owes me five dollas, too.”

QUINN drove down the block, saw the unmarked with the GT plates and the 6D cruiser outside Donut’s building, and kept his foot on the gas. He turned the corner and idled the Chevelle against the curb. He phoned Strange on his cell.

“Derek.”

“Terry, what’s going on?”

“I found the building where Mario’s friend Donut lives. But I think Grady or some other cop might have found him first. They got cars outside the place now.”

“We can visit him later on.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m tailing Horace McKinley as we speak. I waited for him near his place on Yuma after I finished up with Devra Stokes. I followed him and his boy when they drove out in their Benz.”

“And?”

“They’re headed out of the city, going onto Wheeler Road right now. Passing a Citgo station . . .”

“Stay several car lengths back and try not to get made.”

“Funny,” said Strange.

“Want me to meet you?”

“I’ll call you in a few minutes. There they go, they’re turning.”

“Into where?”

Quinn waited. He could almost see Derek’s face, intense, as he watched the car up ahead.

“Looks to me,” said Strange, “like they’re driving right into the woods.”

STRANGE parked his Caprice beside the Citgo station, near the rest rooms and out of sight. He grabbed his 10 × 50 binoculars from the trunk, locked the car down, jogged around a fenced-in area holding a propane tank, and ran into the woods. He went diagonally in the direction that McKinley and his sidekick had gone, hoping that they were headed for a house set back not too far off Wheeler Road. He crashed through the forest like a hooved animal, unconcerned with the noise he made, and saw brighter light about a quarter mile in. He slowed his pace, approaching the light, which he knew to be a clearing, with care.

Strange took position behind the trunk of a large oak. A brick rambler, looked like it had some kind of deck on the back of it, stood in the clearing at the end of a circular drive. Parked in the drive were a late-model red El Dorado, McKinley’s black Benz, and a green Avalon with aftermarket alloy wheels.

Strange looked into his binos. McKinley and his sidekick, young dude with some long-ass arms, were getting out of the Benz. McKinley, big as he was, and with a strained look on his face, tired from all that weight, was getting out more slowly than the other young man.

There were three people standing at the top of the rambler’s steps, on a small concrete porch under a pink awning. The color of the awning told Strange that a woman lived in the house. Two of the three people, a handsome young man and an attractive woman, were in their early twenties. The third was a bulked-up man heading toward the finish line of his thirties. The older man, smoking a cigar, wore a ribbed shirt highlighting his show muscles. He descended the steps to greet McKinley. With that barracuda smile of his, the bulked-up man looked like some kind of salesman.

Strange lowered his binoculars. Was this McKinley’s drug connect? Probably not. Most of the major quantities sold down here came from out of town. But this here looked like more than a backyard barbecue. The muscleman was selling something.

Strange stepped back about twenty yards and phoned Quinn. He told him to park beside the Citgo station, and where he could find him, approximately, in the woods.

HORACE McKinley shook the hand of Ulysses Foreman, taking the pliers-like strength of his grip, Foreman always eager to show off what he had.

“Damn, big man, you ain’t lost nothin’.”

“You the big man, dawg,” said Foreman, nodding at Mike Montgomery but not bothering to shake his hand.

McKinley wondered where that white rhino of Foreman’s was. She was usually here to greet them, too, trying to talk like a black girl, coming off like some strand-walking ho, showin’ off her big pockmarked ass cheeks.

“Where your woman at?” said McKinley.

Foreman dragged on his cigar. “She went off to see her daddy down in southern Maryland.”

“I’ll catch her next time, then. You got somethin’ for me?”

“C’mon in.”

McKinley and Montgomery went up the steps to where the young man and woman stood. It was crowded up there, and the woman backed up as McKinley introduced himself, extending his hand to her, ignoring the man.

“Couple of associates of mine,” said Foreman from behind them, not bothering to state their names.

“Horace McKinley. Pleased to meet you, baby.” Horace turned to the young man, then made a gesture to the Avalon with the Virginia plates parked in the drive.

“That you?”

“Yeah,” said the young man, smiling with pride.

“Why don’t you get you a real car? Avalon ain’t nothin’ but a Camry with some trim on it, and a Camry ain’t nothin’ but shit.”

The young man didn’t know how to react. He had been disrespected in front of the girl, but he wasn’t going to step to this Horace McKinley. Probably a dealer, ’cause that’s who Foreman did business with. Looking at him, wasn’t no
probably
about it; with all that ice, the four-finger ring and the necklace, he was a drug dealer for sure. Wouldn’t do any good to his health to show the fat man any kind of defiance.

“I got my eye on a Benz I like,” said the young man, but McKinley had already moved his attention back to Foreman, standing at the bottom of the steps.

“Where we goin’?” said McKinley.

“Down to the rec room,” said Foreman.

“Nah,” said McKinley. “Nice day like this? Why don’t you get me one of them good cigars you smokin’, and a cold beer or two, and meet us out on the back deck. We can do our business out there.”

“Fine. Go on through the house and I’ll see y’all out there.”

McKinley and Montgomery went into the house. Foreman came up to the porch, reached into his jeans, and extracted a roll of bills. He peeled some money off and handed it to the young man.

“Let me give this to you now,” said Foreman, “lighten up this wad I got.”

“What you want me to get?” said the young man, taking the money and slipping it into his khakis.

“I got to think on it,” said Foreman. “Come down to the basement while I take care of him. You and your girl can kick back and shoot some pool, or just watch some TV, while I’m working things out with the fat man.”

The young man grinned sheepishly. “Can I get one of them
ci
gars, too?”

“THAT didn’t take long,” said Strange.

“I followed your scent,” said Quinn. “Fill me in.”

“Nothin’ for a while now.” Strange looked at the house. “Dude with muscles, between your age and mine, lives there. He met McKinley and his boy out front. That’s their Benz, the one followed me the other day. The Toyota with the chrome on it belongs to a young man, has a nice-looking girl with him.”

“And?”

“Muscled-up dude gave the young man some cash and they all went into the house. I moved around some and saw McKinley on the back deck. Came back here to meet you so you wouldn’t get lost. You remember the path you took?”

“I dropped some bread crumbs on the ground on my way in, just in case.” Quinn reached for Strange’s binoculars, took them, and looked at the house through the glasses. “You get what you needed from Stokes?”

“Yeah. Right after I talked to her I went to the post office and mailed the tape to Ives. Then I drove over to Yuma, the six hundred block, and watched this shit-hole-lookin’ house where McKinley hangs.”

“Stokes gonna be okay?”

“Long as we keep an eye on McKinley.” Strange gave Quinn the details of McKinley’s assault on Devra Stokes.

“Guy’s a real gentleman.”

“Man does that to a woman is a coward. I’d like to get him alone and see how he holds up.”

“Maybe you’ll get your chance.”

Strange looked Quinn over. “Nice work finding that boy Donut.”

“Like your boy Stefanos said, just hang out and listen.” He handed the binoculars back to Strange. “What do you think’s up with all this?”

“They got me all curious now,” said Strange. “Let me get closer and take the plate numbers off that Caddy and the Avalon. You got a pen on you, something to write on?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll read the numbers out to you, unless you want to read ’em off to me.”

“Your eyes are better than mine.”

“I know that, man. Just didn’t want you feeling like my lackey, is all.”

When Strange had gotten the numbers off the plates closer in, they moved back to their spot in the woods.

“Now let’s move around to that place I found before,” said Strange. “Get a better look at that deck.”

WHILE the young man shot some pool, smoked a cigar, and tried to impress his girl, Foreman put some red felt over one of those trays he used to rest his food on while he watched TV. Then he laid the rest of his inventory, the Sig Sauer .45, the Heckler & Koch .9, and the Calico M-110, atop the tray. He placed bricks of corresponding ammunition above the guns, a couple of beers with pilsner glasses on the side, and two cigars laid out just so. Presentation was everything in this business. It was his trademark, setting him apart from the other arms dealers in town.