Lucas felt the vibration of his iPhone buzzing in the front pocket of his jeans. He retrieved it, looked at the screen. Tavon Lynch was calling in. Lucas answered.
“Hold up, Tavon,” said Lucas. To Constance he said, “I gotta take this, a work thing. I promise, just this one time tonight.”
“Go ahead.”
Lucas left the rooftop, walked passed the doorman, took the steps down to the main floor, and went out on 14th, where he stood on the sidewalk and resumed his conversation.
“What is it?” said Lucas.
“We lost another one,” said Tavon.
“Another one what? ”
“ ’Nother package. Off the porch of a home east of Capitol Hill. More like Lincoln Park.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re in Northeast right now.”
“How much did you lose?”
“Thirty-pound package, like the last two.”
“What’s goin on?”
“Huh?”
“I’m askin you, what do you think is happening?”
“I don’t know, Spero. I don’t.”
“Somebody knows what you guys are doing.”
“That’s impossible. Only me and Edwin do.”
A crowd of folks approached, loudly, and Lucas waited for them to pass.
“Look,” said Lucas, “I’m with a friend right now, about to have dinner. I’ll call you first thing in the morning.”
“A’ight.”
“You guys watch yourselves.”
“We’re good.”
“ Listen to me, Tavon. Don’t go trying to work this shit yourselves. We’re talking about some weight now, and big money. Whoever’s behind this is not going to play.”
“We got it, Spero. Me and Edwin can handle it.”
Lucas, exasperated, let it go. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, hear?”
“Is she pretty?”
“Who?”
“Your friend.”
“Yes.”
“My man,” said Tavon.
Lucas ended the call. He stood there on the sidewalk, thinking things over. Something was not quite right.
SEVEN
They sat in a deuce near the large mural of a smiling Mr. Gaye. Constance had ordered the signature dish, fried chicken and waffles with collard greens and gravy. Lucas was getting down on a strip steak with Maytag blue cheese and sauce bordelaise. They had eaten mussels with bacon, apples, and cream to start. The house was lively and packed.
“I don’t get the Belgian-food thing,” said Constance. “How does it connect with Marvin Gaye?”
“Late in his career, he moved to this place Ostend, on the Belgian coast. He went there to clean up. He did it, too. Claimed it was the happiest time of his life.”
Constance picked up a piece of chicken and went at it. She was cleaning it to the bone. He admired a woman who enjoyed her food.
“You’re gonna be one of those kind of lawyers.”
“What kind is that?”
“The ones who eat what they kill.”
“I want to be a good defense attorney,” said Constance. “Public, at first. Help people who can’t afford high- priced representation. That’s my goal for the time being. You?”
“Me, what.”
“What do you do, exactly? You didn’t get your lifestyle on Petersen wages. You’re not even a licensed investigator. I asked Tom.”
“Petersen doesn’t require CJA training or a license. That’s attractive to me. I prefer to work without the ticket in my wallet.”
“Well?”
Lucas swallowed the last bite of his steak. He sat back in his chair, had a swig of his beer, and put the glass back on the table.
“I find things for people,” said Lucas. “I retrieve things that were lost or stolen.”
“And you get what for that?”
“Forty percent. If it’s not cash I’m looking for, then I take the same percentage of the assessed value of the item.”
“How in the world did you get into that?”
“When I came back from the Middle East, I did a little security work. Limo companies, driving celebrities and dignitaries, like that. I also silent-bounced at a couple of clubs. One night at the bar I met a woman whose boyfriend had stolen her jewelry before he broke up with her. She was a nice person and this guy was a bully; he’d fucked her over, basically, because he knew that he could. I agreed to try and get her stuff back. She asked me what my fee was, and forty percent came into my head. I don’t know why. I took the job and I completed it.”
“How?”
“It’s not important. I’ve always been aggressive. Make a decision and act on it. I like having a task and solving things, I guess.”
“How’d you turn it into a living?”
“Her jewelry was worth a lot of money, and my take was substantial. I thought, I can get used to this. And I was good at it. I did a couple more jobs, one private, one for a small-businessman whose employee was ripping him off, and it got around on the street telegraph that I was that guy. I started getting referrals. Petersen heard about me from a client.”
“I get it. What about things like pension and insurance?”
“I can buy health insurance. Far as a retirement account goes, it’s not on my radar screen.”
“No college?”
“I had a couple of semesters. It wasn’t my thing.” Lucas leaned forward. “There’s a lot of men and women out here like me, Constance. We’ve been through this war and we just look at things differently than other people our age. I mean, there are certain bars I don’t hang in. The people, the conversations, they’re too frivolous. I’m not gonna sit around and have drinks with people who are, you know, ironic . Being in a classroom, listening to some teacher theorizing, I can’t do it. I also wasn’t about to take a job in an office and deal with the politics. I woke up one day and knew that I was never gonna have a college degree or wear a tie to work. I was coming up on thirty years old and I realized, I’ve fallen through the cracks. But I’m luckier than some people I know. I’ve found something I like to do. My eyes open in the morning and I have purpose.”
Constance pushed her plate, now holding only bones, to the side. “You’re either the most complicated guy I ever met or the simplest.”
“I’m the simplest.”
“You’re smart. You read a bunch. You should try school again.”
“Not gonna happen,” said Lucas. “Does that bother you?”
