“He had a college degree, though,” said Lamar. “I’m strugglin’ to get my high school paper.”
“You’ll get it,” said Strange. “And we get you goin’ in night school, you’ll get the other, too. But I’m not gonna lie to you; it’s gonna take a lot of hard work. Years of it, you understand what I’m tellin’ you?”
“Yes.”
“Anyway, I’m here for you, you want to talk about it some more.”
“Thank you.”
“Ain’t no thing. You coming to the game?”
“I’ll be there.”
Lamar walked toward the door, the wastebasket in his hand.
“Lamar.”
“Yeah,” he said, turning.
“The sign out front.”
“I know. I was fixin’ to get the ladder soon as I emptied this here.”
“All right, then.”
“Aiight.”
Strange watched him go. He picked up the PayDay bar he had placed on his desk. He stared at it for a while, and then he shut down his computer and walked out of his office. He stopped in front of Janine’s desk.
“I was wondering,” said Strange, “if Lionel couldn’t just take your car home after the game. I thought, if you wanted to, you and me could go for a little ride.”
“That would be good,” said Janine.
“I’ll see you up at the field,” said Strange.
STRANGE drove down to the D.C. Jail at 1901 D Street in Southeast. He parked on the street and read over the notes he had taken from the news stories he had researched on the Net.
Granville Oliver had recently been arrested and charged in one of the most highly publicized local criminal cases in recent history. He had fallen when Phillip Wood, his top lieutenant, was arrested for murder on an anonymous tip. The murder gun had been found, and Wood was charged accordingly. He had pleaded out and agreed to testify against Oliver on related charges. It was exactly what Oliver had predicted Wood would do when he and Strange had first met.
Oliver had been hit with several federal charges, including the running of a large-scale drug operation and racketeering-related murder. At a recent press conference, broadcast on all the local stations, the attorney general and the U.S. attorney had jointly announced that they would aggressively seek the death penalty in the case. Though the citizens of D.C. had gone to the voting booths and overwhelmingly opposed capital punishment, the Feds were looking to make an example of Granville Oliver and send him to the federal death chamber in Indiana.
Strange closed his notebook and walked to the facility.
He checked in and spent a long half hour in the waiting room. He was then led to the interview room, subdivided by Plexiglas partitions into several semiprivate spaces. There were two other meetings being conducted in the room between lawyers and their clients. Strange had a seat at a legal table across from Granville Oliver.
Oliver wore the standard-issue orange jumpsuit of the jail. His hands were cuffed and his feet were manacled. Behind a window, a guard sat in a darkened booth, watching the room.
Oliver nodded at Strange. “Thanks for comin’ in.”
“No problem. Can we talk here?”
“’Bout the only place we can talk.”
“They treating you all right?”
“All right?” Oliver snorted. “They let me out of my cell one hour for every forty-eight. I’m down in Special Management, what they call the Hole. Place they put the high-profile offenders. You’re gonna like this, Strange: Guess who else they got down there with me.”
“Who?”
“Garfield Potter and Carlton Little. Oh, I don’t see ’em or nothin’ like that. They’re in deep lockup, just like me. But we’re down there together, just the same.”
“You’ve got more to worry about right now than them.”
“True.” Oliver leaned forward. “Reason I’m telling you is, I got contacts all over. Last couple of years I made friends with some El Ryukens. You know about them, right? They claim to be descended from the Moors. Now, I don’t know about all that. What I do know is, these are about the baddest motherfuckers walkin’ the face of this earth. They fear nothing and take shit from no man. They got people everywhere, and like I say, me and them are friends. Wherever Potter and Little go, whatever prison they get sent to? They will be got.”
“You don’t need to tell me about it, Granville.”
“Just thought you’d like to know.”
Strange shifted his position in his chair. “Say why you called me here.”
“I want to hire you, Strange.”
“To do what?”
