“Nah, I’ll be back in like, an hour, sumshit like that.”
“’Cause I thought we’d all roll out together for a while, later on.”
White nodded, went out the door, and closed it behind him. He walked down to the corner and when he was out of window-sight he ran around to the alley. He found his Adidas bag there and ran with it back to the street, where he walked to his Toyota parked along the curb. His heart was fluttering like a speed bag as he put his key to the driver’s-side door.
White tossed the Adidas bag in the backseat, got into the front, and turned the ignition. He put the stick into first and heard the tires squealing as he pushed on the gas and let off the clutch. First time this old shit box had ever caught rubber. White didn’t look in the rearview. As he neared Georgia Avenue he began to laugh.
WHITE stopped at a market on Georgia, one of those fake 7-Elevens, places those Ethiopians named Seven-One or Seven-Twelve, for a big cup of coffee to go. A 4-D cop was parked in the lot, but that meant nothing in this neighborhood, ’less you were out here committing some obvious mayhem. Shoot, someone was smoking cheeva in a nearby car, you could smell it in the lot, and the cop was just sitting there behind the wheel, smellin’ it too, most likely, sipping from a large cup. Why would that cop care to stress his self, make an arrest, when the courts would just kick that smoker right back out on the street?
White went into the store. He bought his coffee and a couple of Slim Jims, some potato chips, and a U.S. road map, folded up wrong like someone had been using it without paying, which was in a slot next to the gun magazines they sold in that joint. White went back out to the lot, the map in one hand, the other stuff in a brown paper bag.
There was this boy standing near his Toyota, and when White came out the boy kind of backed away. He was wearing a white T-shirt and khakis, and White had the real feeling he knew this boy or he’d seen him before.
White wasn’t a fighter and he wasn’t brave, but when it looked like someone was fuckin’ with your whip out here, ordinarily you had to say something. You couldn’t let it pass, because then you were weak. Just a comment like, “You got some business lurkin’ around my shit?” or somethin’ like that. But White didn’t need no drama tonight, what with the police right there, and he let it pass.
As he pulled out of the lot and back onto Georgia, he noticed that boy, standing on the corner, staring at him and his car. But White wasn’t gonna worry about it now. He was gone.
WHITE got over to 14th Street and headed south. He took the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River and into Virginia, where he followed 395 to 95 South. Soon he was out of anything that looked like the city and seeing signs for places like Lorton, which of course he had heard of, and Dale City, which he had not. Down around Fredericksburg, just an hour into his journey, he saw a Confederate flag sticker on the back window of a pickup truck and knew he was already very far away, maybe a whole world away, from D.C.
The coffee had done its job. He was wired and bright with thoughts of the future. He was sorry that the little boy had been killed, but he was convinced that he couldn’t have stopped it, and he knew for certain that he couldn’t change what had happened now.
This was his plan: He had a cousin in Louisiana, a nephew of his mother’s who had come up and stayed with his grandmother a couple of summers back. That summer, White and this boy, Damien Rollins, had got kind of tight. Damien worked in a big diner down there on the interstate, outside New Orleans, and told White that he would hook Charles up if he ever came down south. He said that the man who owned the diner paid cash, under the table. Charles had the idea that this would allow him to work there without incident, under an assumed name, in case anyone was still lookin’ for him up in D.C.
White had an address on his cousin, and he had held on to it. About halfway down, he’d give him a call and tell him he was on his way. He had money in his pocket, so he’d also tell cuz that he’d be stayin’ with him and help out with half the rent. He’d get that job at the diner and he’d hold it. He wouldn’t get into any kind of bad shit down there and he’d stay away from those who looked wrong.
Maybe he’d make manager someday at that job.
chapter 26
WALTER Lee worked for a big-box electronics retailer up by Westfield Shopping Center, the fancy new name for the mall that everyone in the area still called Wheaton Plaza, a few miles north of the Silver Spring business district. Lee wrote up answering machines, mini–tape recorders, cordless phones, and portable stereos at a computer station after the customers had basically picked the units out themselves. The human resources department gave him the title of sales counselor, but there were few professional salesmen left in the business, and Walter Lee was a clerk.
Strange and Quinn entered the store late in the morning. There was a sea of maroon shirts in the place and few customers at this hour. Most of the employees looked like African Americans, African immigrants, and Indians of some variety, with some Hispanics thrown into the mix to cater to the Spanish-speaking clientele. Strange found himself wondering if the manager of the store was white.
No one approached them or asked if they needed help. In fact, several of the sales counselors had scattered when the two of them had walked through the doors. Strange went up to a tall young African and asked him if he could point out Walter Lee. Strange already knew that Lee was on the schedule; he’d phoned the store on the ride out to Wheaton.
Walter Lee stood by the rack of boom boxes, fiddling with a radio dial, as Strange and Quinn approached. Lee looked up and saw a strong middle-aged man in a black leather jacket, a beeper and a Buck knife and a cell on his belt line, with a younger white dude, also in a leather, had a cocky walk, coming toward him. Lee saw two cops.
“How you doin’ today?” said Strange.
“Good. What can I get for you gentlemen?”
Quinn got too close to Lee, crowding him, like he used to do when he wore the uniform. Strange did the same to Lee on his opposite side and flipped open the leather case he drew from his jacket. He let Lee look at the badge and license and closed the case before he had looked at them too long.
“Investigators, D.C.,” said Strange. “This here’s my partner, Terry Quinn.”
“What y’all want?”
“’Bout a minute of your time,” said Strange. “A few questions about Lorenze Wilder.”
“I already talked to the police.” Lee looked around the sales floor. He was in his early thirties and carried too much weight for his age. He wore a fade haircut that looked fine on Patrick Ewing but on Lee just looked tired. “This ain’t too cool, you know.”
“We won’t be long,” said Strange. “You were at the wake for Lorenze, right?”
