He sat at the bar of the Villa Rosa, on Ellsworth Drive in Silver Spring. The place was done in dark wood and paneling, and it was a pleasant place to drink. Married couples, adulterous couples, and singles sat around him, talking low, as Charlie and his quartet played that jazzy samba sound from back in the Byrd’s Nest, the show area of the restaurant and club.
“How’s it goin’, Frank?” said a smooth voice as a man in a turtleneck and a bright sharkskin sport jacket passed behind him.
“I can’t complain,” said Vaughn to Pete Lambros, the owner of the club. Lambros had owned the Showboat, down on 18th and Columbia, for years and had recently opened the Villa Rosa out in the suburbs. Crime and a lack of Adams Morgan parking had driven him north, over the D.C. line.
“Another?” said the bartender, long sideburns, longish hair, had that Johnny Reb-Civil War look going on. He had just come on shift. Vaughn didn’t need another. He was on his fourth.
“Beam,” said Vaughn.
“Rocks, right?”
“Make it neat.”
The tender free-poured bourbon into a heavy glass and set it on a cocktail napkin. Vaughn drew an L amp;M from the deck and used his Zippo to give it fire. With the fetishism common in bar lovers, he placed his lighter squarely atop his pack of smokes and pulled a tray to within ashing distance of his hand, leaning his forearm just so on the lip of the stick. Cigarettes, whiskey, and walking-around money. What more, thought Vaughn, did a man need?
Well, there was work. And women. He had two of those. One for companionship and memories, and one for sex. He’d been with Linda that afternoon, and it had been good. He’d fucked her strong, and she had given that strength back in equal measure. Her thighs were in spasm when they were done. Their lovemaking had been so physical that when it was over, the bed was halfway across the room from where it had started.
“You know those little round rubber things,” said Vaughn, “you put ’em under the rollers of the bed frame? You need to get a set of those.”
“That would spoil the ride.”
Vaughn chuckled low. Linda kissed him hard on the mouth, her long brown hair damp with sweat.
He wasn’t in love with her, and he wasn’t with her just for sex. He could get that free and clear from any one of the many prostitutes he knew downtown. Vaughn needed to know that there was a woman out there who still wanted him, waited for him to drop by or call, thought about him
Vaughn drank off half his shot. He dragged on his cigarette and tapped ash off its tip.
At least he was pure at work. Not honest, but pure. His job was to close homicide investigations, and, regardless of his methods, there was no one better at it than he. But he had been a genuine sonofabitch to his family. He’d been a real failure with Ricky, who he hardly knew. The best he could say was that he’d kept Ricky out of harm’s way.
Not that anything could guarantee your kid’s safety. You could still lose them, even if you did them right. Look at Alethea and her husband, what was his name, Darrin, somethin’ like that. No, he was thinking of Derek, the young man, the cop. That good young black cop. There, I said
Alethea had lost her oldest to the streets. Wasn’t surprising, where they lived. Down there, coloreds were the perpetrators and the victims. But it never should have happened to a nice family like that. What they needed now was the satisfaction and peace of knowing who killed their son. That false pat on the shoulder, telling them the murder had been “solved.” Of course, no murder ever got solved, not unless you could bring back the dead. And there’d always be another grieving mother, right behind the last. Like the mother of that boy who got run down on 14th, and now Alethea Strange. There just wasn’t any way to protect the ones you loved. Even when you did them right…
“You all right here?” said the bartender.
“Gimme my check,” said Vaughn.
He raised his glass, looked at his heavy-lidded eyes in the bar mirror, and killed his drink.
LATE IN THE evening, Strange left his parents’ apartment, drove over to his place, showered, and changed his clothes. He put on a black leather car coat, dropped his badge into one of its pockets, and slipped his service revolver, a.38 Special, into the holster he had clipped onto his belt. He went back out to his Impala, parked on 13th, and drove down the big hill alongside Cardozo High.
He had no destination in mind. He rolled down the windows and let the cool, damp air of April hit his face. He got the all-news station on the radio, listened to a report on a massive rally for RFK on Park Road in Columbia Heights, and switched the radio off. He drove into the heart of Shaw.
Heading west, he passed the Republic Theater, the London Custom clothing store, National Liquors, and the Jumbo Nut Shop, and came to the intersection of 14th and U, which had been cleared of debris from the disturbance on the previous night. On the northeast corner, cardboard had been inserted in the broken glass door of the Peoples Drug. Hustlers, pimps, whores, men dressed as women, pushers and addicts, workers who had gotten off buses and had not yet gone home, and kids who were out too late for their own good cruised the sidewalks.
Strange turned around at 16th Street and doubled back to 7th, checking out the action near the Howard Theater and the active life on the street. He was killing time. He had told Darla Harris he might get up with her, but he had no intention of meeting her tonight. Seeing Carmen the other night, seeing her come into his parents’ apartment today, knowing she had missed her classes to do so, still feeling her hot breath in his ear, had erased Darla Harris completely from his mind.
Down below Howard University, he drove into the low-numbered streets of LeDroit Park. He went by the row house where Lula Bacon had her apartment and slowed his Chevy. The lights inside her place had been extinguished. He circled the block, saw no green Buick Special parked in the vicinity, and drove on. Dennis had spoken of another woman with whom Jones had fathered a baby. Dennis, Willis, and Jones had been at her place, getting their heads up, on Sunday evening. But Strange did not know her name or where she lived. He’d come back and speak to Lula Bacon. Also, he’d speak to James Hayes. If that woman had been involved in some kind of dope thing with Dennis and them, Hayes would know. But for now, all Strange could do was drive.
He ended his night, as he knew he would, parked on Barry Place, in front of the row house where Carmen stayed. He went up the concrete walk to the house, then took the wooden steps to the third floor and knocked on her door. Carmen did not answer. A middle-aged woman with a hard face came out of her apartment and asked Strange what his business was in the house. Strange said he was calling on his friend Carmen Hill.
“She went out with some of her college friends,” said the woman, looking him over. “You want to leave a message, somethin’?”
“No,” said Strange.
He went back to his parents’ apartment because he couldn’t stand to go back to his place alone. His father was seated in his chair, in the dark, watching
“Derek,” he said, staring at the screen, his shoulder relaxing under his son’s touch.
“You don’t mind,” said Derek, “I’m gonna stay the night.”
