Quinn charged in. Wilson jabbed at his face as he advanced, but Quinn swatted it off and threw a right. The right glanced off Wilson’s cheek, and as Wilson moved a hand up to fend off another blow, Quinn put one in his gut and buried it there. Wilson jacked forward, then squared himself straight. They traded body blows. Quinn threw a vicious uppercut in the space between Wilson’s hands and connected square to Wilson’s chin. Wilson’s eyes rolled up, and Quinn hit him there again. Wilson staggered back. He shook the cobwebs out and kicked the table violently away from the couch. He wasn’t smiling anymore.
There was a large space, cleared now, in the middle of the room. They circled the space and met in its center.
Wilson stepped on Quinn’s foot and punched through his guard. Quinn’s neck snapped back as he took the short right. He tasted the blood flowing over his upper lip, and Wilson threw the same jab. Quinn blocked it with his palm, quickly wrapped his arms around Wilson, and locked his hands behind him once again. Wilson ran him straight into a wall. Quinn felt a picture frame splinter behind his back. He reared back and butted his forehead into Wilson’s nose. Wilson’s blood mingled with his, and Quinn heard an animal sound that was his own and he butted Wilson again. Tears welled in Wilson’s eyes, and Quinn released him. They both stepped back and tried to breathe.
Below his nose, blood covered Wilson’s face. His blood was brown on his green suit. Quinn’s shirt was slick with blood.
“Enough,” said Wilson, reaching into his suit pocket. His hand emerged with a pearl-handled knife, and its blade flicked opened as Wilson walked toward Quinn. The scream of a woman now pierced the room.
Wilson’s arm whipped forward. The blade winked in the light, and Quinn tried to move out of its arc, but as he felt the impact, like a punch, he knew that he had failed. Fresh blood warmed his face.
Wilson turned the handle in his hand so that the blade revolved and he tried to make a backswing, but Quinn caught his forearm and held it. Wilson’s legs were spread wide, and Quinn kicked him in the balls, aiming for three feet behind them and following through. Wilson coughed. Quinn felt the tension go out of Wilson’s forearm, twisted the arm behind him, and kicked Wilson’s right leg out from under him at the shin. Wilson went down on one knee, and Quinn got his wrist and bent it forward until Wilson released the knife. The knife dropped to the carpet. Quinn put everything he had into it and kicked Wilson in the face. There was a wet cracking sound. Wilson’s body jerked up, and blood arced up with it. Wilson fell on his side and then onto his back, where he remained. His face was featureless and ruined.
Quinn picked up the knife. He folded the blade into its handle and pocketed it. He dragged Wilson to the radiator and cuffed him to one of its tubes.
A woman was screaming obscenities at Quinn. She was standing in the doorway, ass-out in a short skirt and fishnets, but not attempting to enter the room.
Quinn reached into his jeans for his cell. He sat on the purple couch, squinting at the keyboard of the cell, and with a shaky hand punched in 911. He asked for squad cars and an ambulance and gave the dispatcher his general address. He ended the call and tried to think of Strange’s number. He tried to think of Sue’s. He couldn’t bring either of their numbers to mind.
He breathed slowly. He knew that he was still bleeding because he could feel it going down his neck. He could feel the wetness of it on his upper chest and behind his collar. He wanted to bring his heart rate down to slow the flow of blood. The air was full on his wounds now, and the pain had ratcheted. He stared at the ripped curtains and the broken glass, and after a while he heard sirens and an odd sound coming from his lips.
Wilson said something from across the room. It was hard to hear him because the woman was still alternately sobbing and berating Quinn.
“What?” said Quinn.
“Somethin’ funny?” said Wilson.
“Why?”
“You
“Was I?” said Quinn.
It didn’t surprise him. It didn’t scare him or make him feel any way at all. Quinn let his head drop back to the couch. He closed his eyes.
chapter 31
ON the stoops of the row houses of Buchanan Street, the jack-o’-lanterns of Halloween had begun to wilt. Time and the weather had mutated the faces carved into the pumpkins, and hungry squirrels had mutilated their features. Gloves and scarves had come out of the closets, and lawn mowers had been drained of gas and put away in basements and sheds. Colors had exploded brilliantly upon leaves, then the leaves had dried and gone toward brown. One holiday was done and another was approaching. Thanksgiving was just a week away.
Strange drove his Cadillac up his block, waving to an old woman named Katherine who was out in a heavy sweater, slowly raking her small square of yard. Katherine had been an elementary school teacher in D.C. for her entire career, put two sons and a daughter through college, and had recently lost a grandson to the streets. Strange had been knowing that woman for almost thirty years.
Strange hooked a right on Georgia Avenue. He looked in his shoebox of tapes and slipped an old Stylistics mix into the deck. Bell and Creed’s “People Make the World Go Round” began with a wintry prologue, Russell Thompkins Jr.’s incomparable vocal filling the car. As Strange drove south on Georgia he softly sang along. At a stoplight near Iowa, he noticed a flyer with the likenesses of Garfield Potter, Carlton Little, and Charles White still stapled to a telephone pole. By now, most of those flyers had been torn down.
Potter and Little had been arrested at their house on Warder Street without incident. They had been arraigned and were now incarcerated in the D.C. Jail, awaiting trial. The trial would not come for another six months. The whereabouts of the missing suspect, Charles White, would continue to be a source of speculation for the local media from time to time. A year and a half later, White’s identity would surface in connection with another murder charge outside of New Orleans. White would eventually be shanked to death, a triangle of Plexiglas to the neck, in the showers of Angola prison. The story would only warrant a paragraph in the
Strange parked on 9th and locked the Brougham down. He walked by the barber shop, where the cutter named Rodel stood in the doorway, pulling on a Newport.
“How’s it goin’, big man?”
