Drama City

'We ain't done here.'

'Excuse me,' said Lorenzo, stepping around Lee. He couldn't help brushing the boy's shoulder as he passed. The way it felt, rigid, it was like he was touching a corpse.

'I'm gonna see you again,' said Lee to Lorenzo's back.

Lorenzo crossed the field to Loomis's car.

Now Loomis and his partner were both tight in on Mark, who was holding his ground. Mark was keeping his pleasant half smile, that game face he used when he talked to everyone on the job, no matter what he was saying. Loomis's partner, big boy with lineman guns coming out his T-shirt, and Loomis himself, looked like they were both ready to kick Mark's ass. Their dog, in the back of the Benz, had its head out the rear window. It was barking, growling, and baring its teeth.

'How's everyone doin' today?' said Lorenzo, stepping close to the group, speaking in a friendly, even tone.

Loomis studied Lorenzo, then stood back and took a calming breath.

'Your boy just talkin' too much shit,' said Loomis. 'I'm fixin' to introduce him to my right fist.'

'Ain't no need for that,' said Lorenzo, pulling on the sleeve of Mark's shirt, moving him out of reach of Loomis's partner.

'That's what I'm sayin',' said Loomis. 'He ain't got no call to talk to me with that kind of disrespect. Askin' me, Are you aware of this, and, Are you aware of that. Yeah, I'm aware, motherfucker. And you about to be aware that you fucked with the wrong man.'

'He don't mean nothin' personal,' said Lorenzo. 'He's just doin' his job. Just like you and your friend here, and me. We're all just looking to get along.'

Loomis, the rage gone out of him, lowered his voice to a mumble. 'I got enough stress without this bullshit.'

'I heard that,' said Lorenzo.

The BMW drove by them, Lee and the one called Rico smiling at Lorenzo as they passed. The rest of the cars began to pass them too. Loomis and the big man got into the Benz without further incident, the pit bull still barking itself crazy in the backseat, and left as well. Soon it was just Lorenzo and Mark standing in the alley, with only their Tahoe left in the clearing. A couple of elderly men had come out the back of their houses and were surveying the scene.

'We do anything here?' said Lorenzo.

'We hit the pause button,' said Mark, wiping sweat off his forehead with a damp sleeve. 'Maybe stopped a couple of animals from getting torn up.'

'Today.'

A Seventh District cruiser came down the alley toward them. The driver was taking his time.

'Here comes the cavalry,' said Mark.

Lorenzo shook his head and smiled. 'What you say to Twan to get him so riled?'

'I was just telling him about the dogfighting law we got in this city. It's a felony now, you know?'

'For real?'

'I was enlightening him.'

'Looked like he was responding in a real positive way.'

'You hadn't stepped in, I would have brought him around to my way of thinking. I mean, he was practically eating out of my hand.'

'Looked to me, way both of those boys were crowded around you, that the two of them was gettin' ready to hand you your ass.'

'That was a group hug.'

Two officers, a black and a white, got out of the cruiser. They walked toward Mark and Lorenzo.

'You want to talk to them?' said Mark.

'You do it,' said Lorenzo, handing Mark the clipboard. 'I got a little problem interfacing with the police.'

CHAPTER 9

Rachel Lopez sat on a living-room sofa in a home in Landover, Maryland, with a woman named Nardine Carlson. It was late in the afternoon, but Nardine, puffy eyed and disheveled, looked as if she had just woken up.

Nardine Carlson lived with her children and grandmother in Kent Village, a development of houses and apartments in various configurations and conditions. Nardine's place was on a trash-littered street of duplexes, where the cars outside the houses were much nicer than the houses themselves.

When Rachel had pulled her Honda up to the front of Nardine's house, she recognized a fat, unattractive man leaning against a new German import, talking to a cute younger girl wearing shorts that laced crisscross style up the front. The fat man, Dennis Palmer, went by the name of Big Boy on the street. He wore a wife-beater and was rolling out of it in all directions.

'Hey, Dennis,' said Rachel as she walked past him and the girl, Nardine's file in her hand.

'Miss Lopez,' said Dennis.

'Everything okay?' said Rachel, still walking.

'Don't worry, I'm still up at the Friendly's.'