beaded with it. When Strange and Blue were done talking, Arrington asked them what time they should show up for the next practice.
“Six o’clock,” said a few of the boys.
“What
“Put it in,” said Strange.
They all managed to touch hands in the center of the circle.
“All right,” said Strange. “Those of you got your bikes, get on home straightaway. If you got people waitin’ for you, we’ll see you get in the cars up in the lot. For you others, Coach Lydell and Coach Dennis and myself will drive you home. I don’t want to see none a y’all walking through these streets at night. Prince, Dante, and Robert, you come with me.”
Strange crossed the field in the gathering darkness, Robert Gray beside him, his helmet swinging by his side.
“You looked good out there,” said Strange.
Gray nodded but kept his face neutral and looked straight ahead.
“It’s okay to smile,” said Strange.
Gray tried. It didn’t come naturally for him, and he looked away.
“It’s a start,” said Strange. “Gonna take some work, is all it is.”
Strange dropped Dante Morris, Prince, and Gray at their places of residence. Pulling off the curb from his last stop, Strange got WOL, the all-talk station on 1450 AM, up on the dial. The local headline news had just begun. From the female reporter, Strange learned that Judge Potterfield had sentenced Granville Oliver to death.
DRIVING south on Georgia, Strange saw a boy standing in front of his shop on 9th. He swung the Caprice around, parked in front of the funeral home, and walked toward the boy. He wasn’t any older than seven. His dark skin held a yellow glow from the light-box overhead. The boy took a step back as Strange approached.
“It’s okay,” said Strange. “That’s my place you’re standing in front of, son. I was just coming by to turn off the light.”
The boy looked up at the lighted sign. “That your business?”
“That’s me. Strange Investigations. I own it. Been in this location over twenty-five years.”
“Dag.”
“What you doin’ out here this time of night all by yourself?”
“My mother went to that market across the street. Said she couldn’t hold my hand crossing Georgia with those market bags in her hand, so I should wait here till she comes back.”
“What’s your name, young man?”
The boy smiled. “They call me Peanut Butter and Jelly, ’cause that’s what I like to eat.”
“Okay.”
“Mister?”
“What?”
“Will you wait with me till my mother comes back? It’s kinda scary out here in the dark.”
Strange said that he would.
AFTER the mother had come, and after Strange had given her a polite but direct talk about leaving her boy out on the street at night, Strange put his key to the front door of his shop. He had a slight hunger and knew that he could find a PayDay bar in Janine’s desk. As he began to fit the key in the lock, he heard the rumble of a high-horse, big American engine, and he turned his head.
A white Coronet 500 with Magnum wheels was rolling down the short block. It pulled over directly in front of the shop and the driver cut its engine. Strange recognized the car. When the driver got out, Strange could see that, indeed, it was that Greek detective who worked for Elaine Clay. As he crossed the sidewalk, Strange could see in the Greek’s waxed eyes that he was up on something. And as he grew nearer, he smelled the alcohol on his breath.
“Nick Stefanos.” He reached out his hand and Strange took it.
“I remember. What you doin’ in my neighborhood, man?”
“I was driving around,” said Stefanos. “You said that if the light-box was on I should stop by.”
“I was just fixin’ to turn it off,” said Strange.
“Too late,” said Stefanos with a stupid grin. “I’m here.”
Chapter 37
STRANGE and Stefanos walked to the Dodge, parked under a street lamp. Stefanos leaned against its rear quarter panel and folded his arms.
“I heard the news about Oliver on the radio,” he said. “I guess it’s why I thought of you and took a shot at stopping by.”
“They’ll give him the needle now, up in Indiana.”
“Not just yet. There’s plenty of appeal time left. Anyway, you did what you could.”
“That’s what everyone tells me,” said Strange. “So you were just driving around, huh?”
“Yeah, my girlfriend, woman named Alicia, she’s out with friends. I got itchy hanging around my crib.”
“Smells like you made a few pit stops on your way here,” said Strange. “Thought you were staying away from drinking.”
“I said I was tryin’ to stay out of bars. It’s not the same thing.”
“You fall off that wagon much?”
Stefanos shrugged. They stood there for a while without speaking. Stefanos lit a Marlboro and tossed the match onto the street.
“You sure did stir up the bees down in Southeast,” said Stefanos.
“I guess I did.”
“After Horace McKinley was found in that alley, it started the ball rolling, didn’t it? The ATF got involved and put together a case against that gun dealer, lived over the line in Maryland.”
“Ulysses Foreman. But it wasn’t McKinley’s death that triggered all the activity. It was Durham’s boy Bernard Walker gettin’ arrested for an unrelated murder a month later. The Feds flipped him on Durham and got him to detail the Foreman operation – what he knew about it, anyway. Apparently it was Foreman who blew up McKinley’s shit. They even indicted Foreman’s girlfriend as a coconspirator in the gun trafficking charge. Getting defendants to flip beats good police work every time.”
“I guess I ought to thank you for the job.”
“What job?”
“The Dewayne Durham thing, the whole Six Hundred Crew operation, it’s gonna be a RICO trial now. Elaine Clay was the PD assigned to the case. I’m doing the investigative work for the defense.”
“Congratulations,” said Strange.
