painkillers did help to soften the pain in his hip. Doctor said that the bone deterioration since his shooting all those years ago was “pronounced,” and that he should think about getting the replacement surgery, that is unless he wanted to be physically impaired for the rest of his life. Holley knew what they did to you in that operation; they took a table saw or something like it to your ass. Just thinking of that saw cutting into his bone made him sick. He’d stay on pills and gut it out.
Holley got out of his vehicle, went up to his front door, turned the key, and stepped inside his house. Right away he sensed that something was off. He could smell the foreign perspiration in the room. The light was different than it should have been, straight back in the kitchen, for this time of day. He had lived here many years and he knew.
He moved quickly to the kitchen and saw that the back door was open and listing, its frame splintered. He looked out into the backyard. There was no one there, no cars in the alley. He turned and limped back through the house toward his bedroom, hearing his own heavy breathing, and then he was in the ruin of his bedroom and he knew he’d been violated and tossed.
For a moment he stood frozen, staring at the mess. His dresser drawers and clothing heaped on the floor, his mattress sliced both ways, his jewelry in various places about the room. That nice painting of the full-figured freak he’d bought at that flea market on Morrison, a hole punched through its center, its frame busted up.
He felt his hands shaking. He moved to the closet, empty of clothing. He knew before he saw the piece of plywood lying haphazardly on top of his best pairs of shoes. Knew before he saw the empty space where the Nike boxes had been.
He felt dizzy. He stumbled back and turned and made his way into the bathroom. He needed to run some water on his face. He looked at the mirror and saw the message, in big bright letters, written in red lipstick across the glass. You Lose, Rooster
If the neighbors had been home, they would have heard Ricardo Holley’s howl.
NINETEEN
Lucas counted the cash when he got back to his apartment. There was ninety thousand dollars, in various denominations, stacked in the boxes. He was on a high since he’d burgled Ricardo Holley’s house and left the childish message on the man’s mirror. And then, staring at the money, he grew puzzled.
Anwan Hawkins had told him that the initial theft of the first package had occurred several weeks before they’d first met. The second package, taken off Lisa Weitzman’s porch, had disappeared a week before they met. Another full week had elapsed before Lucas began work on the case, due to some work he had previously committed to Tom Petersen. A third package was stolen in Northeast the day Tavon Lynch and Edwin Davis had been murdered. Three packages, worth roughly one hundred and thirty thousand dollars each on the retail level, which equaled close to four hundred thousand dollars. Even allowing for the six weeks that had elapsed, even allowing for the cutting up of the money, for the payoff to Holley’s crew and to Tavon and Edwin, if they were paid at all, it was highly unlikely that there would only be twenty percent of the take left. Ricardo Holley did not seem to be the type to allow his minions to spend frivolously and potentially draw unneeded attention. The man himself drove a car that was twenty years old. Where had all that money gone?
It was curious, but it was less pressing than the problem at hand. He’d completed the task for which he’d been hired, which technically meant that he was finished. But Lucas knew that for Holley and his men, it couldn’t be over. They’d come at him now.
Lucas counted out his forty percent, which came to thirty-six thousand dollars, then took a hundred-dollar bill from the stack and put it in his pocket. He stashed the rest of the thirty-six grand in one of the Nike shoe boxes he had taken from Holley’s house. He placed the remaining fifty-four thousand dollars, which would go to Anwan Hawkins’s ex-wife, in another shoe box. He tore up the third shoe box and threw it away. He carried the other boxes back to his bedroom and set them down. He went to his closet, where his shoes sat on a small throw rug, and he pulled the throw rug, carrying the shoes with it, completely out of the closet.
Beneath the rug was a cutout that Lucas had made in the floor. He had done a clean job of it, and Miss Lee would most likely never know. He pulled on a hinged ring he had set in a grooved-out section of the wood, and the piece came free. Beneath the cutout, in a solid-bottom frame, also constructed by Lucas, sat a steel Craftsman toolbox that had belonged to his father. Lucas placed the two shoe boxes on top of each other beside the toolbox. He replaced the wood piece, fitted it properly, put the rug and his shoes back over the cutout, and closed his closet door.
He locked his apartment, took the stairs down to his separate entrance, and went outside to try and find one of his neighbors, a young man named Nick Simmons. Simmons was on the street, standing by his Caddy. The car was parked in front of Nick’s father’s house, a wood-shingled colonial with a large front porch. Nick was working under the hood, rag in hand.
“Hey, Nick.”
“Spero.”
Nick Simmons stood to his full height. He was a tall man of twenty, had hang-time braids, was physically imposing but not aggressive, and wore a mustache, long sideburns, and some kind of business on his chin.
“What you up to?” said Lucas.
“Just checkin the fluids,” said Nick. “Trying to beat those idiot lights.”
He owned a rare and sharp 1990 baby-blue-over-dark-blue Eldorado coupe with gold spoke Vogue wheels. His father, Sam Simmons, who worked for the US Postal Service, had gone in on half of it and loved it as much as his son did. Nick’s mother was deceased. The father had kept him in line and made him stay in school. He was in his second year at Howard. He was always broke.
“You about to find some work this summer?” said Lucas.
“I’m lookin.”
“It helps to be clean shaven on job interviews.”
“Thanks, Dad. You know, the Bible says that a man shouldn’t round the corners of his beard… or somethin like that.”
“The Rastafarian Bible?”
“Leviticus,” said Nick with a shy smile.
“Look, you need some pocket money, right?”
“Always.”
“You have plans tonight?”
“I can’t go anywhere without coin.”
Lucas produced the hundred-dollar bill and held it out to Nick. Nick did not reach for it.
“What do I have to do?”
“I’m taking a young lady to dinner this evening,” said Lucas. “While I’m out, I’d like you to sit on your porch and keep an eye on Miss Lee’s house. If anyone comes around who you think looks suspicious, sits in their car too long, takes photographs, anything like that, I want you to call me. I’ll give you my number. I don’t want you to do anything but call, hear? Don’t engage anyone in conversation or initiate any kind of conflict.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“One other thing. If Miss Lee is outside of her house, and any suspicious type tries to talk to her or bother her at all, I want you to call the police. Don’t even hesitate.”
“You expecting something like that to happen?”
“I’m being cautious.”
Nick took the hundred. “You got it.”
“That’s for tonight. I might ask you to do this again going forward, same pay. Until the situation changes.”
“Sounds like easy money to me.”
“Let’s hope so.” Lucas shook his hand. “Thanks.”
“Good looks, man.”
Lucas went back to his place, got out of his dirty work clothes, and ran a shower. He and Constance had a
