stairs of his apartment and out to his Jeep. He dropped the back bench and slid the bike into the Cherokee, then checked to make sure he had his gloves, sunglasses, helmet, and phone.
He drove out to Hyattsville, Maryland, via Queens Chapel Road and Hamilton Street, and stopped in the lot of the 38th Street Park, through which ran the paved Northwest Branch trail. He got onto his bike and pedaled southeast, staying in the middle gears, through open fields, past woods, across Rhode Island Avenue, and finally across Alternate Route 1, navigating through fast vehicular traffic. He dipped down onto Tanglewood Drive, entered the industrial district of Edmonston, and cruised at a steady pace.
Winding around 46th and cutting off of Upshur, he took another high-forty street and crossed through the two-syllable, bottom-of-the-alphabet roads, Varnum, Webster, and Windom. He passed low-slung commercial buildings, many fenced in, many with security cameras mounted on their entranceways and walls. There were no other bikers back here, but with his gray-and-black clothing and gray bike he did not stand out. Also, his face was obscured by his helmet and shades. He slowed as he neared Mobley Detailing, seeing young men working on an SUV in its front lot, seeing no other vehicles. The employees were listening to go-go music coming from the SUV’s open doors and they did not look up as he almost silently rolled by. He went to the end of the road and dismounted his bike. He walked it across the street and laid it down far back and out of sight of the Mobley lot, then he got his iPhone out of the small zippered pack fitted beneath the Trek’s saddle. He walked along the stone wall of an elevated train track, behind a thin line of weed trees and brush, taking photos of the Mobley building and its geography, noting the fence topped with two strands of barbed wire, which could be easily climbed and jumped, noting that there were no cameras mounted on the building’s face or above its front door or bay doors. The employees spoke to one another, joked and laughed, but never looked away from their task, and he made it easily behind the building, which was unfenced and bordered more thin woods and the train track wall, and he took photos of the rear of the building and its fortified back door.
His breathing was easy. He was in shape and he was calm. He’d barely broken a sweat.
Inside the building, in the main office, Ricardo Holley sat behind his desk. Beano Mobley sat on the edge of the desk, a cigar butt lodged in the corner of his mouth. Earl Nance and Bernard White were seated on the couch. They were all having drinks, scotch for Nance and White, cognac for Holley and Mobley. The money had been cut up and distributed, and the atmosphere should have been celebratory, but the mood in the room was far from light.
“Your boy makes me nervous, Ricardo,” said Nance.
“Ain’t no need to stress,” said Holley. “He’s in now. He can’t spill to no one and he can’t walk. He don’t even know what’s going on, for real.”
“Is he gonna get you more business?” said White.
“We don’t need him to identify anyone else for the time being,” said Holley. “We just gonna milk what we got for now and see how it goes. Make a few more pickups and move it on the wholesale level. There’s cash in that. When it dries up, we’ll regroup.”
Holley and Mobley shared a look. Holley was being deliberately vague with the two hitters. They were on a need-to-know basis. Just like Larry.
“Larry don’t like it that we did those boys,” said Nance.
“He likes money,” said Holley.
“What are we gonna do about that other thing?” said Nance. Holley had told him about Lucas when he’d poured them their drinks.
“What do you think we should do?” said Holley.
“Are you worried?”
“I’m not worried about him going to the police. He’s motivated by cash. But that don’t make him any less relentless. I don’t think he’s gonna stop comin.”
“If you want,” said Nance, “we’ll just take care of it.”
“Shit just got all complicated when we got into this marijuana thing,” said Mobley in his gravelly voice. “I told you, Ricardo-”
“I know you did.”
“Gun business just simpler. We should have stuck to it.”
“Still, we got a problem,” said Holley. “Hindsight ain’t gonna make it disappear.”
“It’s about to be Saturday night,” said Nance, fingering the wood crucifix hanging outside his shirt. “Young man like Lucas, you know he’s gonna step out.”
“You nominating yourself?” said Holley.
“Just me,” said Nance. “Bernard might scare him off, seein as how he’s a black dude with all that size.”
“And you with no size,” said White, amused. “He might not even notice your ass at all.”
“Why you gotta say that, Bernard?” said Nance.
“ ’Cause you a pimp-squeak.”
“It’s pipsqueak, dumbass.”
“See? You said it yourself.”
“I don’t want this getting back to Larry,” said Holley. “We might still need his services.”
“He won’t know shit,” said Nance. “I’ll do it subtle. I won’t even make any noise.”
“Bernard?” said Holley.
“Man’s got something to prove,” said White. “Let him prove it.”
The room went silent. Mobley glanced over at his partner, whose face showed no emotion.
“Well?” said Nance.
Ricardo Holley nodded. “Do what you do.”
BACK ACROSS the street, from the side of an electrical supply house, Lucas watched as the bay door opened and a black Chevy Tahoe emerged. Behind the Tahoe, two figures followed on foot from the darkness of the interior bays: Ricardo Holley and a short, muscular, middle-aged man wearing a cap. Through the windshield of the Tahoe, Lucas saw a big black man behind the wheel, all neck and shoulders, and a much smaller white man in the passenger bucket, his face barely clearing the dash. As they drove out of the lot, Lucas took photographs. He could only hope that the stills would capture the plates. He watched as the short man said a few words to the employees and gestured at the SUV they were working on. Obviously this was a man in charge. Perhaps it was Mobley himself.
Ricardo and the boss went back inside the building. Lucas picked up his bike, fitted his left foot into the toe clip, swung his right leg over the saddle, and took off.
As soon as Lucas got back to his apartment, he sat down at the kitchen table and studied the photographs on his phone. He spread his fingers on the screen to make the photos larger. He opened his notebook and with a pen he sketched the Mobley Detailing building from various vantage points. He did not know how this helped him exactly, but it was habit, and sometimes when he looked at sketches he found that he could “see” things he could not see in photographs. But this did not happen now.
He got up and paced the room. He was amped up. He wanted a woman. He went into his bedroom and lay down on a camping mat and stretched and did crunches until his abs ached. He did six sets of pushups on his rotating stands, twenty-five reps, three sets normal hand-width apart, three sets wide stance. He did pull-ups on the bar set high in the door frame. He took a shower and dressed in jeans and a fitted black T-shirt; he felt clean, strong, and relaxed. He went out to his living room and sat in his reading chair and looked out the window. Dusk had arrived.
What did he know? He realized that he knew little for certain, but he had some ideas.
Larry Holley was in with his father, Ricardo, and the others at the detailing shop. Larry was in the Narcotics squad and had probably been tapped by his father to identify persons of interest and shake them down. Tavon and Edwin, under suspicion because of their involvement with known marijuana dealer Anwan Hawkins, were perfect marks. Looked at rationally, it was actually a good business arrangement. Assuming Tavon and Edwin were allowed to keep a cut, they had a lookout and protection in the form of police. In turn, Larry, his father, and their crew made money for themselves. Which was what was bothering Lucas. If it was all good, why were Tavon and Edwin killed?
The one thing Lucas did know was that he had been identified. Because Larry Holley was police, he could easily bring up all kinds of information on him. Where he lived, where his family lived, phone numbers, and more. The Holleys and their minions could get to him. They could get to his brother and his mom. The defense against
