The Cut (Spero Lucas) (11 page)

Lucas knew that this area had been murder notorious at one time, but it was quiet now. Serene almost, with the water cutting through the trees. Had to be dark at night back here, but still. It did look cleaned up and relatively safe. Tavon and Edwin could not have known what was coming to them. And then the fear and panic, when they
did
know. Lucas only hoped it had been quick for them. Pain and confusion for sure, but not prolonged.

Darkness, he thought, seeing his father in a box. Lucas closed his eyes.

HE HAD
a fish sandwich with hot sauce from a carryout on Benning Road and headed into Northwest, where he found himself once again parked on 12th Street. He was facing north, looking in his side-view at the students walking from the school, the uniformed police ushering them along. Soon the Lindsay boy appeared, wearing a purple polo, his braids touching his shoulders, talking to himself, walking home.

“Hey, Lindsay,” said Lucas, from behind the wheel of his Jeep.

The young man recognized him but kept walking without reply.

“Lindsay!”

“It’s
Ernest
,” he said, without breaking stride, going up the concrete steps and disappearing behind the front door of his house.

At least I know your name, thought Lucas. Progress.

A few minutes later, he phoned his brother, who was no doubt still inside the school.

“Leo.”

“It is me.”

“Got a question for you, man.”

“Where you at?”

“On Twelfth. You could throw a rock and hit me if you had an arm.”

“You wearin your decoder ring?”

“Doing surveillance.”

“That’s awesome! Do you have that piss jug in the car?”

“And my porta-potty.”

“Thought you had a question.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a student by the name of Ernest, would you? I been trying to get up with him.”

“I believe I got a couple of boys named Ernest. One goes by Ernie.”

“He called himself Ernest. Lindsay’s his last name.”

“He’s in my all-male class, in the morning.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“He’s all right. Sensitive, on the intelligent side. You’re not gonna get him in any kind of trouble, are you?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Well, why don’t you come meet him?”

“Huh?”

“I been asking you to talk to my class.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Come past tomorrow.”

“For real?”

“Why not?”

“I need time to prepare.”

“No, you don’t. Just come in and be yourself. They don’t want to hear about, You can be anything you want to be, or any of that jive. Say what you been doing these last ten years. Be honest and real. That’s what the boys appreciate.”

“Okay.”

“Ten o’clock, Spero.”

“I’ll be there.”

HE WENT
home, showered and changed into street clothes, dropped some paperbacks off at Walter Reed for the soldiers and marines, and drove back toward Cardozo. At 13th and Clifton, where he was stopped at the red light, he saw people walking up the long hill, coming from the U Street Metro station in business attire, a mix of Hispanics, blacks, and many whites, all coming home from work. From a local’s perspective, it was startling to witness this neighborhood’s transformation.

He parked in shadow on 12th, on the east side of the street.

A half hour later, a woman walked down the sidewalk. She appeared to be in her early thirties, with long chestnut-colored hair, a prominent nose, high cheekbones, and dark eyes. She wore a gray business suit, a shirt-jacket-and-slacks arrangement that did not conceal her long-legged, thoroughbred build. She carried a briefcase and walked with good posture and confidence.

Lucas got out of his Jeep as she hit the steps leading to the house with the lime green trim. He jogged across the street and said, “Lisa Weitzman?”

She stopped and turned, cool and unafraid. “Yes?”

“Spero Lucas,” he said. “I’m an investigator.”

H
E SAT
on her porch, on a folding metal chair that was one of two situated around a small round metal table. Lucas had asked for ten minutes of her time. She had agreed and told him to wait outside. She went into her home and when she returned she had removed her jacket. Her white button-down shirt was fitted and served her well. She took a seat in the second chair. Dusk had come to the street.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” said Lisa Weitzman, after he had told her why he had sought her out. He had not been coy. He’d given her the straight information about the package and why it had been shipped to her house.

“You weren’t at home that day.”

“I don’t take time off. If I do go on vacation I leave town. But I’m at work every day, typically, out the door at seven thirty and usually not back here until six thirty, seven at night. So, no, I wasn’t aware that anyone had taken something off my porch. Certainly not a large amount of marijuana.”

“It was thirty pounds.”

“Was it shipped out from Boulder?” said Lisa.

“Huh?”

“ ‘Packed in coffee grounds and wrapped around in dryer sheets.’ ”

“ ‘Multitude of Casualties,’ ” said Lucas, with a slow, dawning smile. “The Hold Steady. You like them?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I do, too. They burn it down live.”

Their eyes met and something passed between them. Lisa pushed a strand of stray hair behind her ear and crossed one leg over the other.

“That’s how the dealers pack it, right? The coffee grounds mask the smell from the dope dogs.”

“So I hear,” said Lucas. “Any of your neighbors mention seeing suspicious activity up here?”

“A few of them certainly would. If they saw someone stealing something off my front porch…”

“Like the old lady across the street?”

“Miss Woods? She’d be one, definitely. She’d probably try to stop the culprit, too.”

“Yeah, we met.”

“She’s sweet.”

“To
you
, maybe,” said Lucas. “How about Ernest Lindsay, next door?”

“Ernest and I are cool.”

“Good guy?”

“Yeah. He has some home issues. I let him hang here sometimes, watch TV and stuff, when he wants to get out. Ernest loves movies. He even watches the black-and-whites
on TCM. He wants to be a director.” Lisa looked away, out toward the street. Perhaps she felt she had betrayed Ernest’s trust. “Ernest would have said something.”

“No doubt.”

“If I hear anything…”

“I’ll write my number down before I go. I appreciate you taking the time.”

Lisa Weitzman stood. Lucas did not. He was being presumptuous and somewhat childish. He didn’t want to go.

“Anything else?” she said.

“Nope.”

She stared at him and he said nothing.

“I’m going to have a beer,” she said. “Would you care to join me?”

“Absolutely,” said Lucas.

SHE HAD
come out with a couple of Dogfish 90 Minute IPAs, candles, and matches. She told him about her work in copyright law, saying with sarcasm that it was “fascinating,” and he said that he did investigative work for a private-practice defense attorney who had an office down by Judiciary Square. He told her that he wasn’t the office type and that he liked working outside. He listened to reggae, ska, dub, and guitar-based rock and bar bands. He liked soul music when he heard it but was unfamiliar with the artists because they had come before his time. She too liked rock, and a good night out for her was a transcendent live show. She could tell she was going to get along with someone if they were into DBT.

“
Decoration Day’s
the shit,” said Lucas.

Dark had come and the candle flames threw a pleasant light on the porch. The beer was good, heavy with malt and alcohol. They were on their second round.

“You’re supposed to drink this one out of snifters,” said Lisa.

“I wouldn’t,” said Lucas, and he tapped the neck of his bottle against hers. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.” She swigged some beer and put the bottle on the table. “It’s Spero…”

“Lucas.”

“With a
c
or a
k?
”

“With a
c
.”

“I was thinking it was Greek.”

“It is.”

“But there’s no
c
in the Greek alphabet.”

“My grandfather changed it. He thought it looked better when he wrote it out in cursive. More American. How did you know that? About the alphabet.”

“I took Greek in college.”

“Where was that?”

“Stanford.” She said, softly, almost apologetically.

“That where you got your law degree?”

“Yale.”

“Oh, just Yale.”

“How about you? Where did you go to school?”

“The University of Baghdad,” said Lucas, repeating a lame joke he had heard many times but had never made himself, up until now. “Stupid, man. I don’t know why I said that.”

“You’re blushing.”

“Fuck, I know.”

“Army?”

“Marines.”

She asked nothing else about the subject and said, “Welcome home.”

“Good to be here,” said Lucas, taking in the graceful curve of her neck.

“You don’t look Greek.”

“I’m adopted. I’ve got a brother, also adopted, who teaches at Cardozo, right there.” He pointed his bottle sloppily in the direction of the school. His head was up. The alcohol had given him a kiss.

“You ever wonder, you know, about your identity?”

“No. I know who my parents are.”

“That’s nice.”

“I was blessed. You?”

“I’m from California, a suburb north of San Francisco. Grew up in a nice Jewish home. Progressive parents…”

“Bedroom community.”

“Sounds idyllic, I know. Out there the folks like to say that they don’t have any racial problems. No black people, no problems.”

“Must have been a culture shock, moving here.”

“For my neighbors more than for me. They like me now. I think.”

“Doesn’t matter if the racial makeup changes. This is a black city, far as I’m concerned. Always will be.”

“My local friends tell me that it’s mostly out-of-town transplants who buy houses in neighborhoods like these. You all can’t forget what it was. I don’t remember the high
crime or the Clifton Terrace apartments when they were HUD, and I sure don’t remember the riots, because I wasn’t even on the planet. I just saw an affordable house on the edge of downtown with middle-class homeowners tending to their own, and I scooped it up. It’s quiet here. I walk up to Thirteenth and Clifton some nights and I sit on the school wall and look down at the city, and I feel like I hit the lottery.”

“The million-dollar view,” said Lucas. “You walk up there alone?”

“Most times,” she said, looking right at him. “Yeah.”

She went inside and came out with a couple more beers and a half-smoked joint. Lucas lit the joint off one of the candles and they passed it back and forth.

After a long exhale, Lucas said, “This isn’t stuff from that package, is it?”

“Nope. I already told you, I had nothing to do with it.”

“Just checking.”

“Stop working, Spero.”

“You’re right, I should.”

Lisa said, “Relax.”

Her knee brushed against his and he felt an electric current run up his spine.

They talked some more. It was easy. Lisa roached the last of the joint in the pack of matches, blew out the candles, got up, and gathered the bottles off the table.

“You want another?” she said.

“I could.”

“It’s gotten a little chilly out here.” She moved toward the door and looked over her shoulder.

“What?”

“You wanna come in?”

“Yes.”

THEY KISSED
standing up in her living room. Her mouth was made for it. He admired the curve of her hip as she ran her hand down his biceps. She reached under his shirt and touched the hardness of his abdomen and ran her fingers down the ladder.

“I knew it,” she said.

“These are nice,” he said stupidly, as he cupped one of her breasts. His finger and thumb swelled her nipple through the fabric of her shirt.

“They hold my bra up,” she said.

The two of them laughed.

“I’m trippin,” he said.

“Me, too,” she said, her eyes alive.

“You know I can’t stay.”

“Really?”

“I can’t stay
long
.”

“That’s better.”

She stepped forward and came into his arms.

LUCAS WALKED
out onto the street after midnight, satiated, a cocky lilt in his step. He had no misgivings or remorse. For a couple of hours, he had forgotten about Tavon, Edwin, and death. He had not thought about Constance, his brother’s inevitable comments, morality, or anything else. His father had once told him, “Don’t let anything walk past you,” and Lucas knew well what that meant. There are opportunities
and adventures that are there for only a short period of time, and only available to people of a certain age. He and Lisa Weitzman understood. They’d had fun. He didn’t want to be one of those sad middle-aged guys who think about the women they should have bedded in their youth, if only they’d been less sensible. He planned to age with good memories.