“It’s easier. Voice activated, so it leaves your hands free. You can keep one on the wheel and the other on your johnson.”
“Thanks for thinking of me.”
“I know you like to multitask.”
They coordinated channels and frequencies, got into the rentals, and drove off the lot.
Ricardo Holley’s residence was on 9th Street, Northwest, uptown between Tuckerman and Somerset. A middle-class neighborhood where teenagers attended Coolidge High, kids played ball down on 3rd Street, and adults got their beer and wine from the Safeway on Piney Branch Road. The block contained row houses mixed with detached houses in varying conditions. Quiet, most of the time.
Ricardo’s place was an old one-story bungalow painted dark brown with black trim. It did not look inviting. The windows were barred, the grass was uncut, and there were no flowers or toys in the yard. A small alarm system sign was planted in the grass near the front steps. A Lincoln Mark V, white with a white landau roof and opera window cutout, sat out front.
Lucas and Marquis were parked nearby on different cross streets. Both of them had the bungalow in view. Lucas had a pair of Nikon 10x50 security binoculars on the bucket beside him, a bottle of water, and an empty piss bottle on the floor of the backseat. He and Marquis had been out here for an hour or so. It was now midmorning.
“Here he comes,” said Lucas, speaking into the mic, his radio activated in the console cup holder to his right.
“I see him,” answered Marquis.
Ricardo closed the front door behind him and limped onto the sidewalk toward his car, holding a manila envelope under his arm. He was wearing a black shirt and pants, a dark ensemble more suitable for night. Ricardo had a long thin nose. His hair was cottony and receding.
“Looks like that Jewish dude,” said Marquis, “half of that old-time duo, you know those guys who sing those songs and, like, harmonize?”
“Simon and Garfunkel,” said Lucas.
“Whichever one got the fucked-up hair.”
“What do you think Ricardo is?”
“You mean, is he mixed? Shit, I don’t know what he is.”
“On the force they used to call him Rooster.”
“I see it,” said Marquis.
The envelope Ricardo carried bulged with weight. He popped the trunk on his car and dropped the envelope inside. Closed the lid, got into his Lincoln, and started it up.
“What you suppose that was?” said Marquis. “Paperwork, somethin?”
“He doesn’t look like much of a businessman to me,” said Lucas. “Could be cash.”
“Car like that,” said Marquis, “he’s gonna be easy to tail.”
“So let him get far ahead,” said Lucas. “And remember, he’s ex-police. He notices things.”
“Right.”
Ricardo stopped at the nearby Safeway for a Starbucks coffee, then drove south on Georgia. Lucas and Marquis took turns as the lead tail and kept well back. Mobile surveillance was easier on heavily trafficked streets than it was on side streets, and Ricardo did not stray. Down in Park View he stopped on the Avenue and went into a well-known establishment that featured pole-and-freak-dancing onstage.
“He’s goin in that titty bar,” said Marquis, driving past it.
“Might be in there for a beer or two,” said Lucas, behind him. “I could use some lunch.”
“Already?”
“We better fuel up. You know that place I like down here?”
“Got that sign, with the trout jumpin out water, a hook in its mouth. That one?”
“Yep. Get two fish sandwiches. Extra hot sauce on mine. I’ll park on Georgia and keep an eye on the club.”
They ate their sandwiches in their respective vehicles. Ricardo did not emerge from the club. Marquis told Lucas that he needed to piss, and Lucas said to go ahead, that he would use his bottle if he needed to and stay where he was. Marquis got out of the Buick and crossed Georgia, holding out his palm in a halt gesture to the oncoming traffic as he limped deeply over the asphalt and then the sidewalk, heading toward a gas station that had a restroom. He stopped to talk to a man outside a liquor store, a man he surely didn’t know, a conversation that had probably started over spare change and had gone on to involve the Wizards and the Redskins and would eventually lead to God and church and some message involving a blessed day.
Lucas felt a rush of affection, watching his friend. Dipping down the sidewalk, trying to get from A to B. He’d be walking on a titanium shin pole and plastic knee for the rest of his life. But always positive, because Marquis looked for the good. A man with faith.
Ricardo came out of the bar around one o’clock in the afternoon and drove east, taking Irving Street to Michigan Avenue, then South Dakota Avenue to Bladensburg Road. Again, major roads, but with frequent stoplights, so they had to be cautious. Marquis offered to take the lead, reasoning that Ricardo would be less likely to notice a youngish black man driving a ubiquitous SUV in the city. Eventually they all appeared to be coming to some sort of destination in Maryland, out there near the Peace Cross, where Ricardo turned off Annapolis Road and headed into a commercial and industrial strip in Edmonston.
“Let him go,” said Lucas, who knew the area from his frequent bike rides up along the nearby Northwest Branch trail. “That’s Tanglewood at the end and nothing much else. He’s got to be stopping. Bunch of little streets back there, but we can always make his Lincoln.”
“Copy that,” said Marquis.
They drove for a bit, then cut back on 450 and went down the road where Ricardo had turned, staying several car lengths from each other. Lucas in his GMC had taken the lead. They went by several fenced-in businesses. On the road itself Lucas noted that there were signs prohibiting stopping and parking. They did not see the Lincoln, and began to hit the side roads, the U, V, and W streets, the high forties on the cross. Finally, near a dead end, Lucas neared a business with a big sign that said Mobley Detailing, and he saw the white Mark V in its lot, young guys shining up a car, Ricardo idling, waiting to enter a cinder-block building before one of several bay doors that was coming up on its track, and Lucas said, “Go back.” He and Marquis both reversed, swung around in driveways, and drove back to a place where there was something like a turnaround. They got nose to ass in their vehicles like police and talked to each other through open windows.
“Stay here,” said Lucas. “I’m gonna walk down there and take a couple of photos.”
“Seems kind of reckless to me.”
“Parking on that road’s illegal; we’d stick out. And I don’t like that dead end.”
“Whatever you say, cowboy.”
Lucas found a spot to park the GMC, removed his headset, and got out of the vehicle. He nodded at Marquis and began to walk down the road. He looked like a working-class guy in his Dickies shirt and pants, young dude, short hair, nothing about him standing out among other guys who looked like him here, going about their blue-collar business in Edmonston. A jellybean Ford F-150 came up on him and passed, raising dust. There was no one else walking on the road, but that was all right. He pulled his iPhone from his pants pocket and touched the camera app, readying the device. He went by an auto body shop and was about fifty yards away from Mobley Detailing when he heard the rumble of a V-8 approaching from behind. As he turned his head there was a black Cadillac Escalade beside him, come to a crawl, and his stomach flipped as he locked eyes for a moment with the man behind the wheel, who was a younger version of Ricardo Holley. The Escalade accelerated and turned into the lot of the detail shop. Lucas spun around and walked back, his face flushed.
“Stupid,” he said, and repeated it, muttering as he quick-stepped down the road.
Marquis watched him approach, knew at once that something was wrong. He waited for Lucas to come up to the Buick.
“What happened?”
“I was burned,” said Lucas.
“You sure?”
“Ricardo’s son Larry.”
