“Yeah, where you at?” said Baker.
“Comin up on you,” said the white boy, Cody.
Baker closed the phone.
A black Mercury Marauder pulled up out front of Leo’s. Charles Baker dropped beer money and a meager tip on the bar and walked out into the last of the day’s light. He crossed the sidewalk, stepping around one of those do-good types leading a dog out the Humane Society offices, and got into the spacious backseat of the car.
Deon Brown sat under the wheel of the Mercury. Cody Kruger was beside him. Deon looked in the rearview, and Baker studied his eyes. He had taken his pill, which was good.
“Go, boy,” said Baker.
Deon pulled off the curb, swung the Marauder around in the middle of Georgia, and headed south.
Latrice Brown owned a duplex row house in Manor Park, a middle-class neighborhood east of Georgia near the Fourth District police station. She stood in her second-floor bedroom, beside the window that gave onto a view of Peabody Street, looking down at the curb where her son, Deon, his friend Cody, and Charles Baker were stepping out of Deon’s car. Looking at Charles, she heard that voice in her head, which was her begging, saying, Please, let him be kind.
She worked for the Department of Labor as an administrative assistant. She had come from a strong family with roots in Southeast. She had held her government job for nearly twenty years, attended church regularly, did not smoke cigarettes or reefer, drank moderately, and had been a good mother to Deon and his older sister, La Juanda, now married and gone. Everything was right about her but one thing: she had always hooked up with bad men. Many women were attracted to reckless men in their youth. Most outgrew this attraction and learned, but La Trice Brown never had.
Deon’s father was dead, shot in the face for who knew what many years back at a house party in Baltimore. La Juanda’s father was a two-month error, a hustler she’d dropped off at the bus station in the way that soiled clothing got dumped at a homeless shelter. Charles Baker was La Trice’s latest mistake.
To be fair, he had seemed like a good man, a knight even, when they met. La Trice’s grandmother L’Annette had checked in permanently to the nursing home in Penn-Branch, suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s and plain old age. When La Trice visited, she would sometimes speak with Mr. Baker, one of the cleaning men. Though there was something about him that suggested a kind of hard edge, he was always polite and asked after her grandmother, telling her that he would make sure “the old girl” was comfortable when he was on shift.
He was older than her by ten years, but attractive, with a shaved head and greenish eyes that reminded her of that movie star who played the pimp with the golden heart. To her, the scar on his face did not ruin him, but instead gave him character. He had told her straight-up that he had made some bad decisions in his life and was currently on paper. Her reply was that she believed in redemption and second chances. That was her again, being blind.
La Trice had bought her grandmother a small bottle of good perfume as a birthday gift, and one day, while sitting in the room with her, noticed it was not on the dresser where Miss L’Annette kept her precious things. She mentioned this to Mr. Baker, who said he’d look into the matter. The next time La Trice visited, the perfume bottle was back on the dresser. She found Mr. Baker pushing a mop and bucket down the hall.
“Was it you?” said La Trice.
“I took care of it,” said Mr. Baker. “One of the nurses, Haitian gal, thought she was slick. She ain’t gonna take nothing from grandmoms again.”
“How did you get it back?”
“I just, you know, politely showed this girl the error of her ways.”
Mr. Baker moved into her personal space, looming over her, powerful. La Trice was a short thing, and he was so tall.
“Thank you, Charles.”
“That’s the first time you called me by my Christian name.”
“Would you like to have some coffee with me sometime?”
“Oh, I’d like that very much, La Trice.”
He had seemed like such a good man then. La Trice heard the slam of the front door as he entered her house, and felt herself flinch.
The young men went off to play Xbox back in the TV room. Cody rented an apartment nearby where he and Deon stored, scaled, and bagged the marijuana they moved. It was also where Cody kept his gun. Deon still stayed in his mother’s house, partly to keep an eye on his mom and partly because he felt it was the wise thing to do, given Cody’s reckless nature.
Baker told them he’d be back shortly. He wanted to have a word with Deon’s mom.
Baker went up the stairs. La Trice had been acting funny lately. Talking back, getting annoyed when he spoke on his plans for the future, like she had heard his bullshit stories one too many times. The worst thing was, she sometimes recoiled at his touch. Once you lost that sexual hold on a woman, the relationship was done. You could only get it back temporary, but never all the way. Not that he cared about her. But he needed her son and his friend. He would have to get the girl in control of her emotions until he used the boys up.
La Trice was standing back in the corner of her bedroom when he entered. She was very short, with big breasts that were too big, if there was such a thing, when the brassiere hit the floor. She was all-right looking when she smiled, but she didn’t do much of that anymore, and when she was brooding she had that cartoon character thing going on, thyroid eyes, lips out, like some animated canine. He was sick of looking at her.
“What’s goin on, girlfriend?” said Baker pleasantly.
“I just got home from work. You?”
“Been lookin for work.”
“Weren’t you on the schedule today?”
“Called in sick.”
“A condition of your parole is that you have gainful employment. You need that job.”
“Need got nothing to do with it. I’m done with that place. I’m telling you, I can’t stand the smell of it anymore.”
He didn’t like working with all those foreigners, either. Like that Haitian nurse. He knew it was her who stole that perfume from La Trice’s grandmother. Wasn’t the first resident that girl hit. Always took from the ones who were mixed up in the head. When he confronted the Haitian about the theft, she denied it, so he went ahead and pushed her into a vacant room and pinned her to the wall with a forearm across her neck. Squeezed one of her nipples hard between his thumb and forefinger, right through the fabric of her uniform, until a tear ran down her cheek. She brought that bottle of perfume to him the very next day. His gallant act had made him a hero to La Trice.
“I got what I wanted out of that nursing home, anyway,” said Baker. “I made the acquaintance of a sweet old lady named Miss L’Annette. And I met you.”
Baker remembered when words like that would dampen La Trice’s panties. But now she just looked away.
“We gonna be all right, girl,” said Baker. He stepped to her and lifted her chin with his hand. He bent forward and kissed her still lips.
She wanted him to go away. She didn’t love him. She didn’t care for the influence he had on her son. They were doing some kind of dirt together, Charles and Deon and Cody. Whatever it was, it had to be wrong.
“I’m out,” said Baker.
“Where you off to now?”
“Over to the apartment with the fellas. ’Less you want me to stay here with you.”
“No,” said La Trice. “You go ahead.”
Charles went downstairs, found the boys, and told them it was time to go.
Nine
Deon Brown had attended Coolidge High in the District, and Cody Kruger had gone to Wheaton High, out in
