with him, called him Leo. Leo’s birth name had been Nigel, but Van and Eleni Lucas had changed it, in the same way that they had changed Spero’s name from Sean. Spero and Leo had come into the world from entirely different places and had wound up brothers. Both felt blessed.
“What do you think?” said Spero, talking on his cell, sitting in his reading chair by the window that gave to a view of Emerson Street. “Should I take the job?”
“ I wouldn’t,” said Leo, speaking from his basement apartment in Logan. “But I wouldn’t do half the shit you do.”
“Because he’s a dealer?”
“Because someone with a defective personality probably stole that weed. Because someone like that might not like you looking into it, and they might go and blow your pretty head off.”
“Hawkins doesn’t seem to play in that kind of arena.”
“Oh. He deals marijuana as opposed to the hard stuff, so he’s cool.”
“I’m not claiming that. But he is smart and practical. Not practical, exactly. He looks at his situation from the practical tip based on the facts at hand.”
“He’s pragmatic,” said Leo.
“Thanks, teacher. My impression was that he isn’t the violent type. He seems like a straight-up businessman who lost an item out of his inventory.”
“And you seem like you already made up your mind.”
“Unless you talk me out of it.”
“What for? You’ve gone ahead and rationalized it, so there it is.”
“I’m not trying to judge my clients.”
“Not even a little bit.”
“It’s work,” said Spero.
“Someone’s got to do it,” said Leo. “Et cetera.”
Spero heard a female voice, deep in the background. She was saying Leo’s name in a singsong way.
“You’ve got company?” said Spero.
“No,” said Leo softly. “That’s only a kitty cat.”
“A talking kitty cat?”
“Like in the cartoons.”
“They say it purrs if you scratch it.”
“Now you goin somewhere you shouldn’t.”
“It better be a woman, dude. ’Cause if you’re sticking an actual cat, even one that can say your name, I’m gonna be very disappointed in you. And Mom is not gonna understand.”
“I gotta go,” said Leo, and hung up the phone.
Spero Lucas sat in his chair, alternately reading a book and looking out the window as darkness caressed the street. He had hit a little herb and was listening to his Trojan Dub Box Set on the stereo. Soon he felt a familiar desire. He wanted the company of a woman, but it would be discourteous to phone Constance or anyone else now, the moral equivalent of a drunk call, and he was not about to troll the bars, something he had always been loath to do. He had already had a good bike ride that day to Hains Point, ten miles down, ten miles back, most of Beach Drive a slight uphill grade on the return. But he wasn’t tired, and decided to go for a walk. He could have gone east into Crestwood, the fine neighborhood across 16th Street, where the mayor lived and where there was little incidence of crime. But when he left the house he headed to 13th, walked in the night through the weedy field of Fort Stevens Park, crossed the dark parking lot of Emory Methodist Church, and went down steps to Georgia Avenue. He found a bar and nursed a beer, then another, sitting quietly among mostly quiet types in their thirties and forties, listening to tunes from a jukebox stocked with deep-soul hits and rarities, not knowing the names of the songs but liking what he heard. Thinking, My brother was right; I’ve decided to take the job. I’d already rationalized it before we spoke. I need the work, I like the money, I like the action. This is what I do.
When his second beer was done, he settled up his tab and left five on eight.
The bartender thanked him and said, “You parked on Georgia?”
“No.”
“I was gonna warn you, we been had kids breaking into cars lately.”
“I’m on foot.”
“Mind yourself out there.”
“Thanks,” said Lucas. “I’m good.”
LUCAS DID the Reginald Brooks job for Petersen, extensive witness interviews related to a shooting in Ward 7. It was roughly a week before he could get to the Hawkins matter. He cleared the decks and got to work.
Lucas met Tavon Lynch and a young man named Edwin Davis at the Florida Avenue Grill, at 11th and Florida, for breakfast. Locals called it the Grill, as if there were only one, and in their heads it was so. It was the old city’s soul diner, the warmest spot for a real southern breakfast, owned and operated by the son of the original owners, in business for almost seventy years. Autographed head shots of former mayors, movie stars, comedians, Howard Theater headliners, and singers, many in Jheri curls, lined the walls. Customers typically wore Redskins gear, bled burgundy and gold, had deep knowledge of high school sports, worked every day, spoke of their mothers with reverence, attended some kind of church, listened to HUR, PGC, or WKYS for their music and John Thompson’s show on 980 AM for sports talk, and would have elected 88.5’s Kojo Nnamdi for mayor if only he would run. The people behind the counter were friendly if you wanted them to be but not intrusive or overly familiar. The conversations were spirited and often poetic. Some came here for the atmosphere. For Lucas, that was a part of it, but he returned repeatedly for the value and the food.
He normally sat at the counter, but because they were three they took a booth. Lucas had a plate of grilled half-smokes split under onions, grits, two eggs over easy, biscuits, and butter. He’d work that off later on his bike. Tavon had been served pork chops and eggs, and Edwin ate eggs and corned beef hash, hot apples, and toast. Only Lucas was drinking coffee.
“This is good right here,” said Tavon, using his fork to point at his plate.
Like his boss, Tavon wore his hair in braids. He was around twenty, had sensitive eyes and an open manner. He wore a T-shirt showing Bob off the cover of Kaya and white perforated-leather Lacoste high-tops. Edwin Davis was around the same age as Tavon, average height, with prominent cheekbones. He rocked LeBrons and a Rapteez T. His ears were almost comically elfish, softening the effect of his muscular build. Edwin was soft-spoken to the degree that Lucas could barely hear him. They seemed tough enough, but neither of them were thugs, nor did they pretend to be. Lucas imagined they liked girls, fashion, cars, video games, sports except for hockey, and getting their heads up. They were typical urban young men who happened to make their living in the marijuana trade.
“You got the bomb breakfast,” said Tavon.
“I been dreamin on these half-smokes,” said Lucas.
“Them shits repeat on me,” said Edwin, breaking one egg and letting its yolk run into the hash.
“Everything you put in your mouth does,” said Tavon. “Stinkpot like you.”
They ate for a while, grunting and sighing in pleasure but barely speaking. Lucas didn’t feel the need to rush into their business and he believed that meals were close to sacred. When he had sopped up the last of the egg with his biscuit, he pushed his plate aside and let the waitress refill his coffee mug.
“Anwan said I’d be meeting with you,” said Lucas, looking at Tavon. “He didn’t say you’d be bringing anyone along. I’m not being confrontational. I just want to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Understood,” said Tavon, glancing at his partner. “I don’t know you, either, but I got told to be straight with you.”
“You can be.”
“When Anwan said you’d be seein me, he meant me and Edwin, ’cause that’s how we do. The two of us are, like, equal. If we had one of those organization charts, Anwan would have a square at the top, and then, under him, there’d be lines to me and Edwin. Us alone, on the same level, and everyone else below us.”
“I get it.”
“Anwan tells us what we need to know,” said Edwin. “But it stops there.”
“You must have security,” said Lucas.
“We don’t need it,” said Edwin.
“You sayin this is the inner circle right here?”
