Today I had a gun, and I had Joe in the passenger seat, casting a dour eye over the neighborhood.
“It just gets worse, doesn’t it?” he said. “I haven’t been down here in a few years, but you can’t pick up the paper without seeing something about this neighborhood. It just gets worse, poorer and bloodier.”
“And more hopeless,” I said, because that’s how East Cleveland seemed to me, a legacy of poverty and crime and corruption drowning the people who tried to make a life there.
“Ah, shit, nothing’s hopeless,” Joe said. “Just ignored.”
My mind wasn’t on East Cleveland, though. I was thinking of Ken Merriman, of that spot in Mill Stream Run where his body had been dumped, and wondering whether he’d made a drive down Eddy Road on his last day alive. Joe had his face turned away from me, looking out at the neighborhood, and when I glanced at him I had a vision of the bullet holes that hid under his shirt, and then one of the steel security bar that rested across Amy’s door.
“Hey,” I said, and he turned back to me. “When we talk to Darius, I don’t want to give him any names, all right?”
“You mean Cantrell and Bertoli?”
“No, I mean Pritchard and Perry.”
He frowned.
“Like I said before, this is a scouting trip, okay? I want to ask the guy about Bertoli’s car, drop Cantrell’s name, see if we get any sort of response. Feel him out. Then I’ll call Graham. It’s still his case, you know.”
His frown didn’t fade. “What’s that have to do with names?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why—”
“Look, Graham got on my ass about this before, told me to stay out of his way. I don’t want to deal with that again.”
He looked at me for a long time, then nodded his head at the traffic light ahead.
“You’ve got a green.”
It was closing in on six now, streetlights coming on, but Classic Auto Body was still open. It was an ugly, sprawling place of cinder block, with a stack of tires and a few stripped cars in the parking lot. From the outside it looked like a picture of poverty, but the garage doors were up and two gleaming cars were visible inside, one a new Cadillac and the other a pickup truck that had been painted gold and black and mounted on massive, oversized tires. Two young black men lounged on stools in the garage. A set of speakers stood behind them, playing rap music with a bass line I could feel in my chest.
“Hey,” Joe said as we got out of the truck, his voice soft, and when I looked at him he nodded at the black- and-gold pickup truck inside. “Look at the wheels.”
There were small diamonds cut out of the chrome rims.
One of the men inside the garage, a thin guy with darker skin and a shaved head, had moved his hand to rest beneath his oversized jacket when we drove in. Now that he saw us, he took it away and exchanged a look with his partner, who got to his feet and stepped over to a closed door. He opened it and said a few words, then shut it and came out to meet us. The guy with the jacket never moved.
“We closed,” the one on his feet said, stopping at the edge of the garage. He wore a close-fitting, sleeveless white shirt, ridges of muscle clear beneath it. The music was even louder now, the sound of a ratcheting shotgun incorporated into the beat.
“Doesn’t look that way,” I said.
“Is, though.”
“That’s all right. Don’t need any work done. Came to see Darius.”
He reached up and scratched above his eyebrow, head tilted, studying me. “Darius a busy man.”
“I’m sure of it. That’s why we don’t intend to keep him long. Got a picture to show him, a question to ask, then go on our way.”
His eyes flicked over to Joe, whose look and demeanor said
“I’ll give him the picture for you.”
Joe shook his head. “We will. Thanks, though.”
“Man, Darius ain’t available.”
“You work with him?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you know how to get in touch with him. Give the man a call.”
While Joe talked, I found myself staring at the man on the stool, that hand resting near his waist. He wasn’t looking back at me. He was looking at Joe.
“He ain’t gonna answer,” the guy in the sleeveless shirt said.
“How do you know that?”
“He busy.”
“How about we call him just the same,” Joe said.
“No,” I said, and they both looked at me with surprise. I shook my head. “If he’s not around, he’s not around. We’ll come back.”
He nodded. “You do that, man.”
“Thanks.”
I turned and walked to the truck. I had the door open and was sitting behind the wheel before Joe even moved. He walked over slowly, got inside, and swung the door shut without a word. The guy from the stool got to his feet and came over to stand with the other man at the edge of the garage. They watched as I drove out of the lot.
“Maybe I misread the situation,” Joe said after we were a few blocks away, “but I kind of assumed Darius was inside that office. You know, where the kid poked his head in before he came out to run us off.”
“Could be.”
“Uh-huh. You want to tell me what we’re doing driving away, then?”
“I’m thinking we should pass this off to Graham,” I said. “His case, his decisions to make. You saw those diamonds on the rims down here, that’s enough, right? Between that and the phone calls, we’ve got enough. It’s time to pass it to him now.”
“That’s a pretty different stance from the one you had this afternoon.”
“Had a few hours to think about it.”
“You’ve done some thinking,” he said, “but it’s not hours of it that are catching up with you now. It’s months.”
We didn’t say much on the way back to the office. When we got there all he said was “Let me know if Alexandra calls” before he got into his own car and drove away.
I went home, too, called Amy and said I’d come over and I had some news, and then took a shower. Before I got into the water I stood at the sink and stared into the mirror for a long time, waiting for the man looking back to tell me what he wanted to do. What he needed to do. Then the steam spread across the glass and he was gone, no answers left behind.
I did not call Quinn Graham, as I had told Joe I would. I did not call anyone. That night I updated Amy, took her from my conversation with Alexandra Cantrell to my decision at the garage.
“You’re really going to back off, pass it to Graham?” she said. “Then why were you there to begin with? Why spend two weeks watching for Alexandra?”
“Just to see if he was right. I had to know. That’s all. Now I do.”
“If who was right? Ken?”
I nodded.
“You said you were angry with him at first,” she said. “Hurt and betrayed, because he lied to you.”
“Sure. You think that’s abnormal?”
“No. But you don’t seem angry now.”
“I understand why he did it now.”
She nodded. “That makes it easier, doesn’t it.”
