Hard Revolution

“Then send your brother over, you got one. That is, if he looks like you.”

“Your baby’s crying,” said Strange in an even way. “You best get yourself together and see to that child.”

“You run into Alvin, you tell him he done lost this good thing forever.”

She was talking to his back. Strange had already begun to take the stairs down to the street.

VAUGHN COMMANDEERED THE phone booth in the lot of the Tick Tock. He phoned the Esso station and got the correct name of the employee, Carlton “Buzz” Stewart. He was told by the manager, who sounded harried, that this was Stewart’s day off. Vaughn then called the Sixth Precinct station and told the guy manning the Homicide desk what he needed. It required more than a little work, and he knew it would take time. While he waited, Vaughn stood in the lot, smoking and guarding the phone, and drinking Schlitz from a can wrapped in a brown paper bag. A county cop approached him about the open beer; Vaughn badged him and showed him his uppers, and the cop shoved off. By the time Vaughn got the return call, it was after noon. He put all the information into his notebook and went to his car.

He had instructed his man to put out a bulletin, with descriptions, over the radio: two men, Walter Hess, aka Shorty Hess, and Carlton Stewart, aka Buzz Stewart, were wanted for questioning in the hit-and-run death of Vernon Wilson. It was the very soft version of an all-points bulletin. If they were to be stopped for, say, a traffic violation, and the uniform radioed in the information, the bulletin would send up a flag. Both men had sheets, and Hess was an ex-con. But Vaughn suspected that their crime was the result of a drunken night, and though he thought they were stupid and probably cruel, he did not believe them to be dangerous. Plus, he wanted the collar for himself.

He drove to the 700 block of Silver Spring Avenue off Georgia, a quarter mile northeast of the District line. The street consisted primarily of bungalows set close to the curb, with deep, sloping backyards lightly forested in oak, walnut, and pine. The residents were second-wave, postwar, blue- and gray-collar workers, many of German descent, who had purchased these houses, built in the 1920s, on the GI Bill. Their kids were going or gone. Bikers and young tradesmen had begun to rent the houses as the homeowners neared retirement age and drifted off. Vaughn knew that some of these renters used and possibly dealt marijuana and speed. He had sat beside them at the bars up on Georgia on a couple of occasions, had struck up conversations with them and seen the drugs in their jacked-up eyes.

According to his information, Walter Hess lived with his parents in a baby blue bungalow with white trim and a broad front porch, located at the crest of a hill. Vaughn found Hess’s mother at home. He told her that he and Shorty had worked together at the machine shop on Brookeville Road before he’d moved on, and that he was just dropping in on his old bud on the long shot that he might be in.

“He’s at work,” said the woman, who was not old but had whiskers sprouting from her chin. She hung back in the doorway and did not step out into the natural light or ask him in. The house smelled of cabbage and dog. There was dog hair swirled upon her embroidered apron. Her eyes were close set. She breathed through her mouth and looked slightly retarded. She was no taller than a child.

“I shoulda known,” said Vaughn. “That Galaxie of his ain’t around.”

“It’s in the shop. He’s drivin’ our Rambler.”

“Oh, yeah, he mentioned once that you all had one. That old blue one, right?”

“Green. You want me to tell him you stopped by?”

“I think I’ll surprise him at the shop,” said Vaughn. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Vaughn drove over to Mississippi Avenue, looking for Buzz Stewart’s house, looking for his Belvedere. But it was not parked along the curb or in the open freestanding garage, which he could see from the street. He didn’t want to talk to Stewart’s people even if they were in. He had already risked too much with Hess’s mother.

Vaughn went out to Brookeville Road, a few miles away, to an industrial area near Montgomery Hills, not far from his own house. He found the machine shop, did not see a green Rambler in the vicinity, and parked nearby. Shortly thereafter a man in a blue work shirt with his name stitched on the breast patch walked out of the shop and lit a cigarette. Vaughn rolled down the window of his Polara and shouted to the man.

“Hey, fella, you seen my buddy Shorty? We supposed to meet here on his break.” Vaughn doing his idea of redneck, which was not much of a stretch.

“His whole life’s a break,” said the man, dragging hungrily on his cigarette.

“Where’s he at, then?” said Vaughn.

“Called in sick,” said the man, flicking ash at his work boots. “Must have that Irish flu.”

Vaughn rolled his window up, turned the key in his Dodge, and took off up the road. So neither Hess nor Stewart was at work. Maybe they got so shitfaced the night before they couldn’t work. But Hess had told his mother he was going to work. Maybe what it was, Hess and Stewart had anticipated the heat and left town. Vaughn didn’t think the little grease monkey would leave D.C. without his Galaxie. But he couldn’t be sure.

He drove to a phone booth outside a body shop. He phoned the station to see if there had been any flags on the bulletin. The desk sergeant told him there was nothing to report. He had received only one message, from a cop named Derek Strange. Strange had asked that Vaughn give him a call.

“Gimme the number where he’s at,” said Vaughn. He pulled his notebook and pen from his jacket, and wrote the number down.

STRANGE SAT IN the living room of an Otis Place apartment, talking with James Hayes. Hayes had gone out for his morning walk, on which he regularly picked up a Post and a pack of smokes. The newspaper sat in a heap at the foot of his chair, and a cigarette burned in an ashtray beside him. Hayes wore a velvet jacket. He had changed out of his street shoes and now wore soft leather slippers. He held a cloth handkerchief, which he used to wipe at his runny nose.

“He left out of here when?” said Strange.

“I’m not sure,” said Hayes. “Maybe ’round eleven o’clock. I had a woman friend coming over here. She works late on Sunday nights.”

“Eleven would fit,” said Strange.

“I had to put him out,” said Hayes. “We were having a good time, just sitting here, listening to some old records and discussin’ things. But he had to go.”

“Ya’ll were gettin’ high?”

“Sure.”

“Was he lucid?”

“He was a little down on reds. And we had drunk some Margeaux and burned a little smoke. I can’t speak for his head. Far as his feet went, though, he wasn’t gone. I wouldn’t have let him out the door had he been stumblin’.”

“What about his mental state?”

“Good,” said Hayes. “He seemed good to me.”

“He didn’t indicate that he was in danger, anything like that?”

“No.”

“The two of you made a transaction, didn’t you, on Sunday night?”

Hayes dragged on his cigarette, released two streams of smoke through his nose. He squinted at Strange through the smoke. “That’s right. He had delivered a little somethin’ to a couple of friends of his.”

The phone rang on the stand by the front door. Hayes got up and answered it, then said, “He’s right here.” He held the phone out to Strange, who crossed the room and grabbed the receiver.

“Derek Strange.”

“This is Vaughn.”

“Thanks for returning my call.”