. .
Worse than that was the possibility that they had his e-mail. He had, years ago when e-mail was still a new thing, carried on a torrid written relationship with a woman who wasn't his wife. It was all virtual, he had never even met the woman. But he knew that if any of those letters were made public, his personal life would disintegrate, and his political life would become impossible.
He had ambition, but he wasn't a Bill Clinton. He couldn't see himself pressing forward inexorably, not caring what scandals turned up in his personal life.
For the first time since his triple bypass, Tenroyan didn't complete his circuit around the mall. He turned his back on the Washington Monument and walked back past the Smithsonian, toward the Capitol Building.
1.06 Tue. Mar. 3
A T eight in the morning, Kareem Rashad Williams, aka Lionel, walked down Twelfth Street in Brookland. He walked with an exaggerated swagger, staring at each passerby, as if daring anyone to make something of him. He looked at everyone as if he wanted them to start trouble, trouble he'd enjoy finishing. It was Lionel's crazy look, and he always used it when he was scared shitless.
He hadn't slept more than six hours in the past week. He hadn't gone home—hadn't even gone back to The Zodiac. He'd been walking the streets of Washington since he'd found Davy.
Now Davy's cash was almost gone. What the fuck was he going to do?
It was one thing knowing that he'd tipped a cop—a cop and a Fed—into a world of shit. He could care less about what happened to Detective Gideon Malcolm and his brother, that was the cop's own lookout.
But Davy, that was too fucking close to home.
Davy had been a little guy who'd boosted cars for a living. He and Lionel had been buddies since they'd shared a six-month stretch together. They'd been released the same day with fifty other small-timers that the District couldn't afford to house. The two of them had been tight since then.
Davy had been the ambitious one. While Lionel had been nickel and diming as a street-level dealer, turning to the cops for extra scratch, Davy had been moving up and out. He'd gone from boosting cars and chopping them, to boosting heavy equipment and truck hijacking. Davy had been talking lately about becoming a regular wiseguy. He had talked about taking down loads of everything from cigarettes to VCRs. He had talked about the special job that was going to land him a hundred grand all for himself.
Lionel thought Davy just talked too damn much.
But Lionel was beginning to think that God was getting him back for ratting on Davy. Christ, why did Davy have to tell him about that one job? Why'd he have to keep repeating the fact that he was going to make a hundred grand just for delivering a refrigerated truck—
Lionel had felt all too justified in giving the whole deal over to Detective Malcolm. Davy hadn't needed to rub his face in the hundred grand, more money than Lionel was going to see in his entire street-peddling life. The one concession that Lionel had made for friendship's sake was he'd held out for an extra fifty bucks before he gave over the address.
Then things had gone to shit.
First, Davy had come over the night before the job and gotten drunk on Lionel's couch telling him how the Doctor with the hundred grand had pulled out of the deal thinking there was some sort of setup. Lionel had spent the entire evening in a panic thinking that he'd blown the job and not only was Davy going to find out—and maybe have his mob friends put a hit out on his good friend Lionel—but Detective Malcolm was going to show up for his fifty bucks because nothing'd been going on at the address Lionel had sold him.
Then the next day, he'd heard about the mother of all setups. He had heard about the whole damn thing on the news, Davy there with him hungover and staring at the TV screen. For fifteen minutes, all Davy could do was shake his head. Lionel had gotten the gut feeling that Davy had known, that he was going to draw down on him right there while Lionel's gun was on his bed under a pile of underwear. But all Davy had said was, 'Guess it was a good thing they canceled the job, huh?' Then he had turned to Lionel and grinned at him. It was such a fucking irritating grin that Lionel'd wanted to cap him right there.
But he hadn't.
It wasn't long before Lionel's little tip-off began haunting him. For a while he was crashing at friends and at The Zodiac trying to keep a step ahead of them. It lasted a while. Then his money dried up, and with it, most of his friends. It was in desperation that he tried to lean on Davy for some cash, maybe enough to get out from under this heat he was feeling.
When he'd gone to Davy's to see him about the money, he'd almost turned around and left before he entered the building. There was something about the whole setup he didn't like. The more he had thought about it, the more he didn't like the way Davy had sounded on the phone. He'd stood out on the street, paranoia gripping him for the better part of an hour.
Lionel knew then that Davy knew. He could feel it in his gut that Davy had seen through him and was waiting up there with his chromed Magnum to blow his old friend Lionel away.
For half that hour, Lionel was going to leave, find a way to split town broke. The second half, the hard ass in him took over and he decided he wasn't going to let any assholes, Davy and cops included, put the fear on him.
When the street had cleared of the last occupied car, an idling Dodge pickup, Lionel raced into Davy's building, his hand on the butt of his nine millimeter.
Lionel had decided that Davy was not going to get the drop on him.
Davy hadn't.
Lionel had his gun out before he'd reached Davy's floor. He took the steps slow, expecting an ambush at every landing. He made it fine to Davy's door . . .
The first sign that something had happened to Davy—the door hung open, spilling dead-blue light into the hallway.
Lionel pushed the door open with his gun, still worried that Davy might be waiting to whack him.
'Davy?' he called, pointing his gun into the apartment. 'You all right in there?'
No answer.
Lionel stepped slowly into Davy's apartment until he could see the whole living room—the TV on, showing a blank digital-blue screen. Across from it—the couch. On the couch—Davy.
Lionel knew what had happened the moment he saw
Davy's rolled eyes and the rubber hose around his right bicep. The smack was rank in the room, the kit strewn across the table in front of Davy.
Davy had shot himself up a bit farther than he'd been ready to go.
Lionel stood in the center of the living room, pointing a gun at Davy as if it was all a trick, as if his old friend was about to jump up and whack him for selling him out.
Davy didn't move, didn't breathe.
The fucker was stone dead.
It took a few minutes to register.
Afterward, after Lionel lowered his gun and took a step or two into the apartment, the real nasty part of it had begun to sink in.
Davy'd never done heroin before. Something Lionel knew. Lionel would've been selling the shit to him otherwise. Just looking at Davy lying there, Lionel could see that there weren't any tracks on the arm with the hose. The kit on the table was brand-fucking new. The spoon didn't even have soot marks.
Two words in Lionel's mind, 'Set up.'
Someone else shot Davy up. Not Davy's wiseguy friends. Phony ODs were too fucking elaborate for the mob. It began coming down on him. Detective Malcolm shot down, Davy dead with a needle in his arm—
Took no genius to figure who was on the short list to be next. Lionel stayed around only long enough to liberate what cash was immediately obvious, then he got the hell out of there, making sure the door was closed and
