In August of 1999, one week before he was scheduled to go on trial for racketeering after a wire recorded him discussing a major buy, Bennett Oliver was found murdered behind the wheel of his car, a new-style Jag with titanium wheels, idling a block from the rec center. Two bullets had entered his brain, one had blown out an eye, and a fourth had bored a tunnel clean through his neck. The Jag was still idling when the police rolled up on the scene. There were no bullet holes in the palms of the hands, no defensive marks at all, indicating that Bennett knew and maybe even trusted his attacker and had been surprised by his own murder. The word on the street was that Bennett’s nephew Granville, expecting his uncle to roll over and implicate him on the stand, had pulled the trigger or had ordered it pulled.
Granville Oliver had kept a relatively low profile since the murder of Bennett. Though he was still very much in the business, his name, and the name of his operation, had not appeared recently in the news. He had moved to a new home outside the city, in Largo, where he was said to be recording an album in a studio he had built in the basement of the house.
Strange steered his Cadillac off the main highway. He supposed that he was headed toward Granville Oliver’s house now.
He parked behind the Mercedes in a circular drive in front of a large brick colonial. Another brand-new Mercedes, less adorned than the one Phillip Wood drove, was parked there, facing out.
The house was on a street with two similar houses, one of which appeared to be unoccupied. It wasn’t a neighborhood, exactly, certainly not one of those gated communities favored by the new African American wealth of Prince George’s County. Maybe Granville wanted the privacy. More likely, those kinds of people had moved behind the gates to get away from the Granville Olivers of the world. There were unofficial covenants protecting them; real estate agents working certain neighborhoods knew to discourage sales to his kind.
Wood’s partner remained in the car. Strange followed Wood to the front door. He noticed an open garage, totally empty, attached to the side of the house. Beside the garage, a boy no older than twelve raked leaves.
They walked into a large foyer in which a split staircase led to the upper floor. Two hallways on either side of the staircases reached a state-of-the-art kitchen opening to a large area holding cushiony couches, a wide-screen television, and stereo equipment. They went through this area, past a dining room introduced by French doors, and into another sort of foyer that led to an open door. Wood was talking on his cell all the way. He made a gesture to Strange and stepped aside so that Strange could go, alone, through the doorway.
The room was a kind of library, with framed photographs on the walls and books shelved around a huge cherry-wood desk, and it smelled of expensive cologne. Granville Oliver sat behind the desk. He was a large man with light brown eyes, nearly golden, and handsome in an open-neck shirt under a dark suit. Strange recognized him by sight.
“Go ahead and close that door,” said Oliver.
Strange closed it and walked across the room.
Oliver stood, sized Strange up, leaned forward, and shook his hand. Strange had a seat in a comfortable chair that had been placed before the desk.
“This about Joe Wilder?” said Strange.
“That’s right,” said Oliver. “I want you to find the ones who killed my son.”
chapter 23
“YOU’RE Joe’s father?”
“Yeah.”
“He never mentioned it.”
Granville Oliver spread his hands. “He didn’t know.”
The Motorola StarTAC on Oliver’s desk chirped. Oliver picked up the cell, flipped it open, and put it to his ear. Strange listened to “uh-huh” and “yeah” over and over again. He was too wired to sit in the chair and digest what had been revealed. He got up out of the chair and walked around the room.
The wall cases were filled with books. Judging by the tears on the corners of the frayed jackets and the cracks in the spines of the paperbacks, the books had been read. Except for a few classic works of fiction by writers like Ellison, Himes, and Wright, most of Oliver’s collection consisted of nonfiction. The subjects dealt with black nationalism, black separatism, and black empowerment. All were penned by black authors.
The photographs on the walls were of Oliver with local sports celebrities and politicians. One showed him with his arm slung over the shoulder of D.C.’s former mayor. There was a rumor, unsubstantiated, that Oliver had periodically supplied the mayor with both women and drugs. Another photo had Oliver standing on an outdoor court, presenting a trophy to a basketball team wearing black shirts with red print across the chests. The shirts read, “Dare to Stay Off Drugs.”
The cell phone made a sound again as Oliver ended his call.
“You sponsor a team?” said Strange.
“Gotta give back to the community,” said Oliver, with no apparent irony.
Strange could only stare at him. Oliver nodded in the direction of his cell phone, which he had placed on a green blotter. “I had to take that, but it’s turned off now. We can talk.”
Strange sat back down in his chair.
“So what do you think?” said Oliver, waving his hand around the room, the gesture meant to include the entire house, his land, all his possessions. “Not bad for a Southeast boy, right?”
“It is something.”
“Check this out.” Oliver shook a black-and-white photograph out of a manila envelope and slid it across the desk to Strange. It was a head shot of a scowling Oliver wearing a skully and chains, his arms crossed across his chest, a Glock in one hand and a .45 in the other.
Strange dropped the photograph back on the desk.
“That’s my new promo shot,” said Oliver, “for this record I just made. I brought this boy down from New York, used to run the mixin’ board up there for some of the top acts. This boy put some beats behind me, made my flow tight. I got a studio right here in my basement, man. All new equipment, all of it the best. I mean, I got everything.”
