Hell To Pay

Little and White gathered the cash up off the concrete. They backed up into the grassy area, turned, and walked quickly to the car. No one followed them or shouted for help.

Little counted the cash as they drove out of the complex. White looked in the rearview. A grin had broken, and was frozen, on Garfield Potter’s face.

LAMAR Williams said good night to his mother, a thirty-two-year-old woman with the face and body of a forty-year-old, who was leaning against the stove in their galley-sized kitchen, smoking a cigarette.

“Where you been at, Mar?”

“Practice with Mr. Derek. I was watchin’ wrestlin’ with that kid Joe Wilder after that, over at his mother’s.”

“I’m gonna need you in tomorrow night. I got plans.”

“Aiight.”

Lamar went down a hall and pushed open the door to his baby sister’s room. She was lying atop her bed, stretched out in those pj’s of hers, the ones had little roses printed on them. On her feet were those furry gold slippers she wouldn’t take off, with Winnie the Pooh’s head on the front. What was she now, almost four? Lamar covered her with a sheet.

He went back to his room, turned on his radio, sat on the edge of his bed, and listened to DJ Flexx talkin’ to some young girl who’d called in with some shout-outs for her friends. Then Flexx played that new Wyclef Jean joint that Lamar liked, the one with Mary J., where they was talkin’ about “Someone please call 911.” That one was tight. It made him feel better, to hear that pretty song.

Lamar lay back on the bed. He could still feel his heart beating hard beneath his white T-shirt. He’d done right, not giving up anything to those boys who’d tried to sweat him from the open windows of that car, because whatever they wanted with Joe Wilder’s mother, it was no good. But it was hard to keep doing right. Hard to have to walk a certain way, talk a certain way, keep up that shell all the time out here, when sometimes all you wanted to do was be young and have fun. Relax.

Lamar was tired. He rested the palm of his hand over his eyes and tried to make himself breathe slow.

chapter 13

STRANGE spent Wednesday morning clearing off his desk, his noontime testifying for a Fifth Streeter down in District Court, and his afternoon finishing his background check on Calhoun Tucker. He hit a couple of bars on U Street and then drove over to a club on 12th, near the FBI building, where George Hastings had said that Tucker had done some promotions.

All he spoke to that day told him that Tucker was an upstanding young businessman, tough when he had to be but fair and with a good reputation. At the 12th Street club, the bartender, a pretty, dark-skinned woman setting up her station, said that Tucker was “a good guy,” adding that he did have “a problem with the ladies, though.”

“What kind of problem?” said Strange.

“Being a man, you probably won’t think of it as one.”

“Try me out.”

“Calhoun, he can’t just be satisfied with one woman. He’s a player, serial style. It’s cool for a young man to be that way, but he’s the type, he’s gonna be a player his whole life, you understand what I’m sayin’? After a while you gotta check yourself with that, ’cause you are bound to hurt people in the end.”

“Did he hurt you?”

The bartender stopped slicing limes, pointing her short knife at Strange. “It’s my business if he did.”

Strange placed his card on the bar. “You think of anything else you want to tell me about him, you let me know.”

Strange went back to his place, hit the heavy bag in his basement, showered, fed Greco, and got on the Internet, reading the comments on a stock chat room while he listened to the Duck, You Sucker sound track he had recently purchased as an import.

“See you later, good boy,” said Strange, patting Greco on the head before he headed out the door. “Gotta get over to Roosevelt.”

THEY ran the team hard that night, as their game was coming up and the night-before practice would be light. The kids looked good. They weren’t making many mistakes, and they had their wind. The Midgets were in numbers on one side of the field with Lydell Blue, Dennis Arrington, and Lamar Williams, and the Pee Wees occupied the other. Near dark, after the drills, Strange called the Pee Wees in and told them it was time to run some plays. Strange took the offense aside as Quinn gathered the defensive unit.

The offensive huddle broke and went to the line. Dante Morris took the snap from Prince on the second “go” and handed off to Rico, who hit the five-hole off a Joe Wilder block, broke free from a one-handed tackle attempt, and was finally taken down twenty yards down the field.

Quinn took the kid who had missed the tackle aside. “None of this one-handed-tackle stuff. You can’t just put your arm out and say, Please, God, let him fall down. It doesn’t work that way, you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Hit him in the stomach. Wrap him up and lock your hands.”

The kid nodded. Quinn tapped him on the helmet with his palm, and the kid trotted back to the defensive huddle.

Joe Wilder slowed down as he passed Strange on the way to the offensive huddle. “Forty-four Belly, Coach Derek?”

“Run it,” said Strange. “And nice block there, Joe.”

Wilder ran the play into Dante Morris, who called it on one. It was a goal-line play, a simple flanker run direct through the four-hole. Wilder executed it perfectly and took the ball into the end zone. He did the dirty bird for his teammates and jogged back to Strange, a spring in his step.

“I be doin’ that on FedEx Field someday, Coach Derek.”