dirt.”
“Charles can’t help what he is.”
“Plenty of folks had bad childhoods. They found ways to carry it.”
“He never killed anybody,” said James.
“No,” said Raymond, meeting his brother’s stare. “He never did that.”
“Let me get back to this water pump.”
“Go ahead,” said Raymond Monroe.
Calvin Dixon and his friend Markos sat on plush chairs in the living room of Calvin’s luxurious condominium, located on V Street, behind the Lincoln Theater, in the heart of Shaw. They were smoking cigars and drinking single-barrel bourbons, neat with waters back, the bottle set between them on a table made of iron and glass. They had everything young men could want: women, money, good looks, vehicles that went fast. But on this night they did not look happy.
“Did you make the call?” said Markos, a handsome young man with his father’s Ethiopian skin tone and his mother’s leonine features.
“I was waiting to talk to you,” said Calvin, a bigger, cut, more rugged version of Dominique.
“You want some more water? I’m about to get some.”
“Sure.”
Markos rose and went to the open kitchen, equipped with a Wolf cooktop and wall oven, an ASKO dishwasher, and a Sub-Zero side-by-side. He poured filtered water into two glasses from a dispenser built into a marble countertop and brought the glasses back to the table. He used his hand to retrieve ice from a bucket and dropped cubes into the water.
Calvin poured more bourbon from a numbered bottle of Blanton’s. They tapped tumblers and drank.
“How you like that stick?” said Markos, referring to the Padron cigar Calvin was drawing on.
“Nice,” said Calvin. “The sixty-four got the twenty-three beat, you ask me.”
A woman opened the bedroom door and stood in the frame. She was very young, black haired, and supercharged, a mix of Bolivia and Africa. Her breasts strained the fabric of her button-down shirt, and her ass was the inverted heart so many times invoked but rarely realized. Her name was Rita. Calvin had retired her from a haircutting salon in Wheaton after she had given him a shampoo and scalp massage.
“Did you call me?” said Rita to Calvin.
“Nah, baby. Let us have some privacy for a little while longer, okay?”
She pouted for a moment, then went back into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
“Girl must have thought we said her name,” said Calvin.
“I asked you ’bout your stick,” said Markos. “I didn’t say ‘trick.’ ”
Calvin smiled a little, taking no offense. Rita was gorgeous, and a slut. They both felt the same way about women, even each other’s occasional girlfriends.
“How’s Dominique?” said Markos.
“Stayin at my parents’ for the time being. He don’t want to be at his apartment right now. He might be out for good. I don’t know.”
“We can get someone else to move weight for us.”
“I agree.”
“Question is, what are we gonna do about our problem?”
“The old man damn near ass-raped my kid brother. The white boy held a gun on him and watched.”
“ ‘Damn near’ ain’t rape.”
“That’s a hair so fine you can’t split it. Tell that shit to Dominique.”
“What about the other one they were in with?”
“Deon? Dominique says he wasn’t involved. We been tryin to reach him to confirm that, but he’s not taking his calls. That cell probably ringin at the bottom of the Anacostia River right now. If he’s smart, he dumped it on the way out of town. But I’m not worried about him. It’s the other two.”
“Comes back to the original question: what are we gonna do?”
Markos dragged on his cigar and looked at his friend. Both of them were tough and skilled fighters who in their youth had regularly taken home trophies from the Capitol Classic, the annual martial-arts tournament held at the old D.C. Convention Center. They had never run from any type of physical challenge or confrontation. But this was different, a step they had yet to take. Neither of them saw it as a moral decision. They simply loved their lifestyle and did not want to endanger it with the possibility of prison.
“I talked to Alan,” said Calvin. Alan was in security management at a club they frequented. He had a personal history that connected him to the underworld of the city to the north.
“And he said what?”
“He said these boys would take a lethal injection before they gave us up. That promise and the way they carry it is how they grow their business.”
“Is this what you want to do?”
“Don’t put it all on me,” said Calvin. “I need you to say you good with this, too.”
Markos nodded at the RAZR lying on the table. “Make the call.”
Calvin flipped open his cell.
“How long we gonna sit here?” said Cody Kruger.
“Not too long, I expect,” said Charles Baker.
“You know this is his house?”
“The people-find site brought me here. There were three Alexander Pappases in the area, but only one the right age. And this is near where he grew up at. Got to be him.”
“Okay, but why you think he’s gonna come outside?”
“Because I’m smart,” said Baker. “Tomorrow is trash pickup day in Montgomery County. You see all those cans and recycling bins out by the curb?”
Kruger said, “Uh-huh.”
“Mr. Alex Pappas ain’t brought his out yet. But he will. All these suburbanites do it the night before, so they don’t have to fuck with it in the morning.”
They had been on the street for an hour or so. Because no one was walking through the clean middle-class neighborhood and many of the homes had gone dark, it seemed very late. Rain had fallen, and in its aftermath the streetlamps were haloed with rainbows and mist.
“Why don’t you just go and knock on the man’s door?”
“’Cause I could pull a trespassing charge,” said Baker patiently. “I get to him out on the street, that’s public property.”
A car rolled down the road behind them, its headlights sweeping the interior of the Honda. Baker and Kruger watched it pass and slow down, then come to a stop at the curb in front of the Pappas residence. It was a light blue Acura coupe, well maintained; a woman’s car, thought Baker, until a nicely dressed young man began to step out of the driver’s side.
“Stay here,” said Baker, seeing it all at once, moving quickly because that was how a decisive man ought to. It had to be the man’s son, and that was good. Deliver a message to the boy and you’d send a message to the man real clear. Do what I’m asking because I can get to your family. I can and will.
Baker stepped down the street as the young man, looked to be in his middle twenties, locked the car with one of those gizmos he held in his hand. He was aware of Baker coming up on him, and he tried not to act frightened. He looked Baker in the eye and nodded a greeting but kept moving around the car in an effort to get up on the sidewalk and into his house.
“Hold up a minute, young man,” said Baker, blocking his path, careful not to touch him or get too close.
“Yes?” said John Pappas in a friendly but guarded manner.
“Is this the Pappas residence right here?”
“Yes. I live here. What can I do for you?”
What can I do for you? Baker almost laughed. The young man taking a real firm tone now, like he was gonna defend the castle and shit. Trying to be something he was not. Baker studied him, trim and decked out in nice clothes, the black shirt worn tails out the way all these stylish young men liked to do. Baker looked at John Pappas and in his mind he saw the word, flashing like a sign outside a bar that was named Prey.
