The Cut (Spero Lucas) (13 page)

“He’s not suggesting you go out and enlist, necessarily,” said Leo, looking at Spero out the corner of his eye.

“Course not,” said Spero.

“
I’m
goin to college,” said a young man.

“That’s excellent,” said Spero clumsily. “Anyone else?”

“How much money you make?” said Balls.

“That’s not an appropriate question, Hannibal,” said Leo.

“Do marines get much?” said another young man.

“Okay,” said Leo, “I think we’re about done. Let’s give my brother a round of applause.”

The students clapped for him. It wasn’t thunderous but it was respectful. He felt he’d done all right. At least he hadn’t shit the bed.

On the way out the door he got close to Leo and grabbed his forearm.

“It’s a good class,” said Spero. “I’m proud of you.”

“Proud of
you
,” said Leo.

GETTING INTO
his Jeep, parked on 11th, Lucas got a call on his cell.

“Where you at?” said Leo.

“Still outside the school.”

“Ernest Lindsay would like to speak with you.”

“Now?”

“It’s lunchtime, so I’m headed to the teachers’ lounge. You two can use my classroom.”

“What, I gotta go through security again?”

“Stop acting like a little girl.”

Spero got out of his vehicle and headed back toward the school.

S
PERO LUCAS
and Ernest Lindsay sat at one of the long tables in Leo’s classroom. Ernest had begun to eat his lunch from a paper bag. His mom had fixed him a tuna fish sandwich and had included Cheetos, a bottle of water, and an apple she had cut into slices.

“Thanks for coming back,” said Ernest.

“No problem,” said Lucas. “You know I been tryin to get up with you.”

“Sorry. I was kinda rude when I saw you on my street.”

“That’s all right.”

Ernest shifted his weight in his chair. “Did you read that book we were talkin about?”

“I read it a while back. Good stuff.”

“That thing teacher said, about the book being a Western in the
dis
guise of a crime story?” said Ernest.

“That’s right.”

“Works that way in movies, too.”

Lucas remembered that, the night before, Lisa Weitzman
had mentioned that Ernest was a movie lover. He did not know that Leo was pushing him to go to college, get his needed education, make contacts, and move ahead from there, possibly to grad school. Ernest’s grades were excellent, but he was reluctant to leave home, so Leo had suggested he apply to the University of the District of Columbia. It was a start.

“How so?” said Lucas.

“You know that first Man with No Name joint?”

“
A Fistful of Dollars
.”

“That was based on a Japanese movie about a samurai. And
that
one was taken from an old crime story. That Hamlet dude—”

“Hammett. You’re talking about
Red Harvest
.”

“They made a rack of movies based on that book. Not a one of them gave credit to Hamlet.”

“Hammett.”

“Right.”

“You’re pretty smart, Ernest.”

Ernest smiled shyly. “I’m gonna make movies, Mr. Lucas.”

“Call me Spero.”

“Sayin, I’m
going
to.”

“No doubt. But you need to get your undergrad work done first. Get yourself a base.”

“I picked up an application from UDC a few days ago.”

“There’s plenty of scholarship money for minority students. It’s lying around, waiting to be used. I bet my brother will help you fill out the forms.”

“My mother will help me.”

“Great.”

“I’ma drop the form back off next week.”

“Do it,” said Lucas. “Don’t wait.”

The room became uncomfortably quiet. A failing fluorescent bulb buzzed steadily overhead. Ernest withdrew the apple slices from his bag and handed one to Lucas. As Lucas ate it, he noticed Ernest staring at him.

“What’s up?” said Lucas.

“I was just wondering. About when you were overseas, in the war.”

Lucas sat back. Instinctively, he folded his arms across his chest. “Yes?”

Ernest shifted his weight in his chair. “You hear all kinds of stuff about what got done over there. By our soldiers, I mean. Things that got done to, you know, the people that lived in that country.”

“The civilians,” said Lucas.

“People that weren’t the enemy or terrorists.”

“It happens. Especially in wars that get fought today. Generally you’re not fighting men and women in uniform. Mistakes are made involving citizens. What’s called collateral damage.”

“So you saw civilians bein killed in Iraq?”

Lucas did not answer or gesture with his eyes.

“If you saw something like that,” said Ernest, “would you turn the soldier in who did it?”

Lucas shook his head. It was not a no. He was telling Ernest that the question was unanswerable and maybe out of bounds.

“Okay, then,” said Ernest. “Let me ask you this: You know that soldier who got killed by his own men? The one who
played football in the NFL? They got a word for what happened to him.”

“Friendly fire. His name was Pat Tillman.”

“Well, it wasn’t just the generals and the politicians who knew what happened. Some of his friends, the other soldiers, they had to know, too. So why didn’t anyone speak out? Why didn’t anyone come forward and say what went down?”

“It got told eventually.”

“But everyone tried to cover it up at first.”

“I don’t know about that, Ernest. I can’t speak for those who were there.”

“You’re not helping me out here much.”

“Helping you out with what?”

“You’re an investigator. You tried to talk to me, and I think I know what it was about.”

“Well?”

Ernest looked toward the windows and gripped his legs above his knees. “Man, I don’t know.”

“What’s going on with you?”

“I got a problem,” said Ernest.

“What is it?” said Lucas.

Ernest leaned forward. “I
saw
somethin.”

“I WASN’T
at school that day,” said Ernest, after Lucas had helped himself to a couple of water bottles from Leo’s desk drawer and returned with them to the table.

“Were you sick?” said Lucas.

“Nah. My mother works at the GAO, and all her other kids, my brothers and sisters, are grown and out the house.”

“So you cut school. What do you do, bring girls over while your mom’s at work, stuff like that?”

Ernest looked away, mildly embarrassed. “I watch movies on Turner, mostly, like if they’re havin like a festival. Something I really want to see.”

“What were you watching that day? Do you remember?” Lucas wanted to test the young man’s veracity. The TCM schedule for the past month was easy enough to check.

“It was…” Ernest’s brow creased. “It was called
The Last Hunt
. ’Bout buffalo killings in the West. I hadn’t even heard of it, but I got this friend Diego, a movie freak, told me about it. It’s not on DVD, so when it got scheduled during a school day, I knew I had to find a way to watch it.”

“Go on.”

“Way my mom’s got our house set up, when you’re watching television, you’re kind of sittin by the front porch window, so naturally you look out onto Twelfth Street from time to time. I heard a truck come down the street and stop. It was the FedEx man. He got a big package out the truck and carried it up the steps of Miss Lisa’s house and left it on her porch. She works during the day, too.”

“Lisa Weitzman, your next-door neighbor.”

“Yeah. So right after the FedEx man leaves, a black Impala SS shows up and this young dude gets out the car. It was the old-style SS, not that crud joint they got now.”

“How soon after?”

“Like, five minutes.”

“What’d the guy look like?”

“He had braids. That’s all I remember ’bout him, really.”

“Anyone else in the car with him?”

“There was someone in the passenger side, but he never did get out.”

“Okay.”

“So this dude with the braids comes up on Miss Lisa’s porch real quick and picks up that box. Must have been kinda heavy, ’cause he struggled with it some.”

Lucas’s blood was getting up. Tavon and Edwin had been lying to him. The package wasn’t stolen. He took a long drink of water and set the bottle back on the table.

“What happened next? The guy put the package in the car and drove away?”

“No,” said Ernest. He said nothing else and sat back in his chair.

Lucas stared at Ernest Lindsay. “You didn’t tell Lisa Weitzman that a package had been taken off her property. I know that she’s been a friend to you. Why wouldn’t you let her know?”

“I like Miss Lisa. She’s cool people.”

“Come on, Ernest, help me out here. What is this?”

“I don’t know for sure if I can trust you. You stand up in our class and talk about doin what’s right, and it moved me to reach out to you, but I just don’t know.”

“What’s holding you back?”

“It’s not just me. I got my mother to think of.”

“What are you afraid of? Do you want to bring the police into this?”

“No.”

“Do you need protection?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

“Police are already
in
it. They
part
of it, man.”

Lucas nodded slowly. “Tell me about it.”

Ernest exhaled, the air leaving him like he was pushing something away. “When that boy went down Miss Lisa’s steps with that box in his hand, a police car turned onto Twelfth and stopped behind the Impala. By then I was standing up in my mom’s living room, looking out the window, looking down on the street.”

“What happened next?”

“Police officer gets out the squad car and opens up its trunk. Says somethin, just a couple of words to the dude with the braids, and then that dude puts the package in the police officer’s trunk. Police officer gets in his car and drives away. Dude with the braids drives off, too. It happened fast, like,
bang
. You know?”

“Was the officer riding alone?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of car?”

“You know, a patrol car. Fourth District car.”

“And this cop was in uniform,” said Lucas.

“Yeah, but not a regular one, though. He had on a blue shirt, said ‘Police’ in big letters across his back.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was kinda skinny, had a long nose, like a beak almost. Hair was cut close, like a reddish color. Dude looked like a big old rooster.”

“Black or white?”

“If he was white I would have said so.”

“Right,” said Lucas. “What else?”

“I think this man saw me.”

“You
think
.”

“Before he left outta there, he looked up toward my house. I don’t know, maybe he had one of those feelings you get, like someone’s watching you. When he did, I stepped back, away from the window.”

“So you don’t know for sure.”

“The other day, when you were parked on this street, the first time you called out to me?”

“I remember.”

“He was parked over there on Clifton, in front of my school. I felt like he was waiting for me, man.”

That’s why Ernest had been so uptight that day, thought Lucas. It was the same 4D patrol car, the same officer who had come down the street earlier, driven slowly by Lucas’s Jeep, and checked him out. Now Lucas knew why the sight of the car had felt strange to him. The Fourth District’s southernmost boundary ended at Harvard Street, several blocks north of 12th and Clifton, which was 3D territory. So this car was out of its district. The officer knew who Ernest was and where he lived. He also knew Lucas’s vehicle by sight and maybe had its plates; he’d seen Lucas get out of it and try to talk to Ernest.

“What’s wrong?” said Ernest.

“I’m thinking,” said Lucas.

“Should I be worried?”

“No. You’ve told me everything you know, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You did right by talking to me. But you’re out of it now.”

“What’s your connect?”

“I was hired to get that package back.”

“Yeah? What was in it?”

“It’s better that you don’t know.”

“You sayin this shit is dangerous.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you, Ernest.”

“I can’t lie. I’m scared.”

“Don’t be,” said Lucas. “You’ll be fine.”

HE WAS
riding his bike out along Sligo Creek, away from the city, heading into the woods of Wheaton Regional Park property later that day, when it came to him. He kept pedaling and pushing it, and when he hit the park itself he found a shaded shelter that was cool and unoccupied. He removed his gloves and helmet, then sat on a picnic bench, took a long drink from his insulated water bottle, and wiped the drip off his chin.

He stared out into the trees.

The numbers of an MPD squad car, called the CAD, were printed on its right rear bumper and front quarter panels. The sequence started with the police district’s number. So a car from the Fourth District would display a CAD identification that began with the number 4.

The number that Tavon Lynch had sent him through the phone was not an address. Tavon had texted Lucas the number of the squad car driven by the police officer who he was in with or was shaking him down. Sitting on Hayes Street that night, he must have had the feeling that something was terribly wrong.