“We’re gonna talk again. You’re holding out on me, it’s not gonna go your way come sentencing time.”
“You find Mario,” said Donut, “let me know. He borrowed a shirt from me and didn’t return it. A Sean John – wasn’t cheap, either.”
“Anything else?” said Grady, his jaw tight.
“Boy owes me five dollas, too.”
QUINN drove down the block, saw the unmarked with the GT plates and the 6D cruiser outside Donut’s building, and kept his foot on the gas. He turned the corner and idled the Chevelle against the curb. He phoned Strange on his cell.
“Derek.”
“Terry, what’s going on?”
“I found the building where Mario’s friend Donut lives. But I think Grady or some other cop might have found him first. They got cars outside the place now.”
“We can visit him later on.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m tailing Horace McKinley as we speak. I waited for him near his place on Yuma after I finished up with Devra Stokes. I followed him and his boy when they drove out in their Benz.”
“And?”
“They’re headed out of the city, going onto Wheeler Road right now. Passing a Citgo station…”
“Stay several car lengths back and try not to get made.”
“Funny,” said Strange.
“Want me to meet you?”
“I’ll call you in a few minutes. There they go, they’re turning.”
“Into where?”
Quinn waited. He could almost see Derek’s face, intense, as he watched the car up ahead.
“Looks to me,” said Strange, “like they’re driving right into the woods.”
Chapter 27
STRANGE parked his Caprice beside the Citgo station, near the rest rooms and out of sight. He grabbed his 10 ? 50 binoculars from the trunk, locked the car down, jogged around a fenced-in area holding a propane tank, and ran into the woods. He went diagonally in the direction that McKinley and his sidekick had gone, hoping that they were headed for a house set back not too far off Wheeler Road. He crashed through the forest like a hooved animal, unconcerned with the noise he made, and saw brighter light about a quarter mile in. He slowed his pace, approaching the light, which he knew to be a clearing, with care.
Strange took position behind the trunk of a large oak. A brick rambler, looked like it had some kind of deck on the back of it, stood in the clearing at the end of a circular drive. Parked in the drive were a late-model red El Dorado, McKinley’s black Benz, and a green Avalon with aftermarket alloy wheels.
Strange looked into his binos. McKinley and his sidekick, young dude with some long-ass arms, were getting out of the Benz. McKinley, big as he was, and with a strained look on his face, tired from all that weight, was getting out more slowly than the other young man.
There were three people standing at the top of the rambler’s steps, on a small concrete porch under a pink awning. The color of the awning told Strange that a woman lived in the house. Two of the three people, a handsome young man and an attractive woman, were in their early twenties. The third was a bulked-up man heading toward the finish line of his thirties. The older man, smoking a cigar, wore a ribbed shirt highlighting his show muscles. He descended the steps to greet McKinley. With that barracuda smile of his, the bulked-up man looked like some kind of salesman.
Strange lowered his binoculars. Was this McKinley’s drug connect? Probably not. Most of the major quantities sold down here came from out of town. But this here looked like more than a backyard barbecue. The muscleman was selling something.
Strange stepped back about twenty yards and phoned Quinn. He told him to park beside the Citgo station, and where he could find him, approximately, in the woods.
HORACE McKinley shook the hand of Ulysses Foreman, taking the pliers-like strength of his grip, Foreman always eager to show off what he had.
“Damn, big man, you ain’t lost nothin’.”
“You the big man, dawg,” said Foreman, nodding at Mike Montgomery but not bothering to shake his hand.
McKinley wondered where that white rhino of Foreman’s was. She was usually here to greet them, too, trying to talk like a black girl, coming off like some strand-walking ho, showin’ off her big pockmarked ass cheeks.
“Where your woman at?” said McKinley.
Foreman dragged on his cigar. “She went off to see her daddy down in southern Maryland.”
“I’ll catch her next time, then. You got somethin’ for me?”
“C’mon in.”
McKinley and Montgomery went up the steps to where the young man and woman stood. It was crowded up there, and the woman backed up as McKinley introduced himself, extending his hand to her, ignoring the man.
“Couple of associates of mine,” said Foreman from behind them, not bothering to state their names.
“Horace McKinley. Pleased to meet you, baby.” Horace turned to the young man, then made a gesture to the Avalon with the Virginia plates parked in the drive.
“That you?”
“Yeah,” said the young man, smiling with pride.
“Why don’t you get you a real car? Avalon ain’t nothin’ but a Camry with some trim on it, and a Camry ain’t nothin’ but shit.”
The young man didn’t know how to react. He had been disrespected in front of the girl, but he wasn’t going to step to this Horace McKinley. Probably a dealer, ’cause that’s who Foreman did business with. Looking at him, wasn’t no
“I got my eye on a Benz I like,” said the young man, but McKinley had already moved his attention back to Foreman, standing at the bottom of the steps.
“Where we goin’?” said McKinley.
“Down to the rec room,” said Foreman.
“Nah,” said McKinley. “Nice day like this? Why don’t you get me one of them good cigars you smokin’, and a cold beer or two, and meet us out on the back deck. We can do our business out there.”
“Fine. Go on through the house and I’ll see y’all out there.”
McKinley and Montgomery went into the house. Foreman came up to the porch, reached into his jeans, and extracted a roll of bills. He peeled some money off and handed it to the young man.
“Let me give this to you now,” said Foreman, “lighten up this wad I got.”
“What you want me to get?” said the young man, taking the money and slipping it into his khakis.
