older crowd was listening, the DJ was doing an eighties mix of first-gen rap, heavy on effects. But Larry Holley was paying no attention to the music, which would have sounded corny to his young ears. He had things pressing hard on his mind.
He wore a blue windbreaker. Underneath it, holstered to his belt, was his service weapon, a Glock 17.
Holley drove by legitimate businesses, building suppliers, tire and muffler discounters, countertop makers, parts yards, pipe and steel works, automotive service shops, and electrical supply houses, most surrounded by chain-link fences topped with razor wire. Some of these places were guarded at night by German shepherds and Rotts. He turned off on a cross street, Varnum, and then took another turn down one of the high-forties streets, and at the end of the road came to an establishment, Mobley Detailing, that also had a fence and an open gate and was the last place on the block before woods and wall topped with elevated track. He pulled the Escalade into its lot.
A large one-story, gray-cinder-block building sat back on the property, fronted by several closed bay doors and barred windows. A few young men were in the lot, washing, waxing, rim-shining, and tire-wetting the exteriors of some SUVs. One vehicle’s doors were open and an old Rare Essence blared from inside, where a man was applying a special solution that cleaned leather and promised to return the new-car smell. Holley, phone to his ear, walked past the workers without acknowledgment. He told the person on the other end of the line that he had arrived, and when he came to the front door of the building, the door opened and he walked inside. A man was waiting for him.
“Aw’right,” said the man, short, well into middle age, still muscled, with an unlit cigar butt lodged in the corner of his mouth. His name was Beano Mobley. His face was compressed and featureless. He wore a cheap guayabera shirt that he had bought at the PG Plaza mall and a Redskins ball cap, the profile with feathers, on his head.
“Where they at?” said Larry Holley.
“In the office,” said Mobley, his voice all rasp. He looked over the tall, thin young man with amusement as he followed him toward the back.
They passed Mobley’s Aztec gold Cadillac DTS, the black Tahoe owned by Bernard White and Earl Nance, and a ’79 Lincoln Mark V, landau roof, double-white-over-blue-velour, opera windows, and wide whitewalls, which was the pride of Larry’s father, Ricardo Holley.
The cars took up much of the bay space, lit by fluorescent drop lamps. One tubular light flashed. No one had thought to change it.
In the back of the space was a large office area, previously glassed in, now enclosed in wood panels so that any activity within could not be seen by those out in the work area. Larry Holley came to a wooden door and tried the knob. It was locked. Beano Mobley unlocked it with a key and stepped aside as Larry entered the office. Mobley went in behind him.
It looked like an office outfitted for business, violence, and pleasure. In it were a large desk, several chairs, a green leather couch, and file cabinets against one wall. A calendar showed photographs of women looking over their shoulders, posing in thongs stretched tight over large behinds. There was a bar on a wheeled cart holding a bottle of Popov vodka, a nondescript rum, King George scotch poured into an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, a fifth of unopened Canadian Club, and various cognacs and brandies. Behind the desk, beside yet another door, against the rear wall, was a freestanding steel gun cabinet, eight felt-lined compartments above for pistols, five vertical compartments below for rifles. Each compartment had a lock. Ricardo Holley kept the keys in his desk drawer. The contents of the cabinet changed week to week. Mobley had been in the illegal-firearms business for a long while.
Earl Nance and Bernard White were seated on the couch. Nance’s wide-set eyes, psoriatic skin, flat face, and coiled little build gave him the look of a snake. He seemed to lack eyelids, which furthered that impression. He wore his wooden crucifix out over a rayon shirt. Bernard White was large and strong, but his eyes looked passive and he did not appear aggressive. Massive muscles in his shoulders bunched against his neck. When White stood beside Nance he dwarfed him.
Ricardo Holley was seated behind the desk. He wore a lavender shirt buttoned high with a bolo, beltless black slacks, and the kind of sharply pointed dress shoes favored by Africans. On his fingers he wore several stolen rings that featured emeralds. He had cinnamon-colored skin, light eyes, a comically long nose, and reddish hair he wore in an unfashionably puffy, loose Afro. He looked like a pimp who’d stayed too long. He was forty-six.
Larry Holley, with the same skin and hair color, nose, and build as Ricardo Holley, was twenty-five. Larry did not like the curl in his hair and had always kept it close to the scalp. To look at them together was to erase any doubt that they were father and son. But Ricardo had done nothing to raise, support, or nurture Larry. In fact, Ricardo had only come back into Larry’s life in the past year.
“My boy,” said Ricardo, rising up out of his chair. He crossed the room with a pronounced limp and gave Larry the half-hug-and-back-pound that feigned affection.
“Ricardo,” said Larry. He had stopped calling him “Dad” long ago.
Nance and White glanced at each other. Mobley, who had taken a place on the edge of the desk, one foot on the floor, one dangling, shifted the cigar butt in his mouth and stared impassively ahead.
“Why’d you call me in?” said Larry, easing into his cop stance, feet planted comfortably apart.
“Thought it was important we get together in person,” said Ricardo. “Talk about where we’re at.”
“Talk, then,” said Larry. “I got my shift to get to.”
“You want a drink, somethin?”
“No.” Not with y’all.
Ricardo nodded his head and returned to his desk. It was uncomfortable for him to be on his feet for too long. Larry remained where he was. He preferred to stand over them.
“So,” said Ricardo. “What’s the status of the investigation?”
“I don’t know,” said Larry. “I’m in Narcotics, remember?”
“You can’t look into it?”
“Homicide’s working outta One-D now. You expect me to walk into that station and start talkin random shit to those detectives?”
“Thought you mighta heard something, is all.”
Larry let them wait. He had heard things. He knew what was going on because it was easy for any MPD officer to get information on an ongoing investigation without arousing suspicion. At roll call alone you could get up on most any case.
“They got nothin, far as I know,” said Larry. “Evidence techs did their jobs. Autopsies been done. Right about now this case is getting cold. If Homicide had witnesses… that is, if they had any idea who the killers were, your boys would be in the box right now.” He pointedly did not look at Nance and White.
“So they got jack nothin,” said Nance.
“That’s ’cause the work was clean,” said White.
“Y’all were paid to do good work,” said Mobley.
Ricardo looked at White. “Beano sayin, there ain’t no need to boast.”
“When you got a big dick,” said Nance, “you wear tight pants.”
“Let’s cut all this bull shit,” said Larry to Ricardo.
“What’sa matter, Officer?” said Nance. “You uncomfortable around men who do their jobs?”
“Your ventriloquist dummy better check himself,” said Larry, speaking to White.
“All right, Earl,” said Ricardo. “That’s enough.”
Nance and White fancied themselves professional hitters. They were auto service technicians who had met at the luxury import dealership where they both worked. Tired of the economic struggle and grease under their fingernails, they had done a murder-for-hire together, ten thousand dollars each, after reaching out to the minions of a drug dealer, up on homicide charges, who frequently brought his E Class into their shop. Nance and White’s first kill was a potential witness. They were thorough and also indiscriminate. They killed women and those outside the game if they were asked to. The fact that one of them was black and one was white was attractive to clients. Either of them could go into certain neighborhoods without arousing suspicion. As their rep grew, they did several murders a year. They had no criminal records and had never been suspects. They thought they were smart and good at their work. They had merely been lucky.
“Sorry, Larry,” said Nance, and White smiled.
