What It Was

“That’s inadmissible.”

The police on the scene had found Williams’s house key in the alley beside his unco N work='0emnscious body. A bystander had identified Williams and his place of residence. Uniformed police, under the supervision of an overly ambitious sergeant, used the key to enter the house, searched the place thoroughly, and found a large amount of bundled heroin in a false wall behind a hutch. They had no warrant and no PC.

“I’m homicide police,” said Vaughn. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about heroin.”

“Who did this to you?” said Cochnar.

Williams took another drink of water and let a silence settle in the room. “I’m damn near sure the man goes by Red.”

“Last name?” said Vaughn.

“Jones.”

“Does Red have a Christian name?”

“I expect he does, unless he popped out the devil’s ass.”

“What else do you know about Jones?”

Williams paused. Over the ghetto telegraph he’d heard that Red Jones had a woman named Coco, ran a trick-house on 14th, near R, over a market once owned by a Jew, now run by a Rican. But there wasn’t any good reason to spill that information here. He’d already said too much.

“I don’t know nothin else,” said Williams.

Vaughn nodded. The name Red Jones was enough. Vaughn had already narrowed Reds-with-rap-sheets down to three. A.45 shell casing carrying a partial print had been recovered from the alley. Jones would have priors and prints on file. Now Vaughn would have to find someone to squeeze. Roland Williams, in exchange for speaking off the record with Vaughn and Cochnar, would not be required to testify. Vaughn didn’t want Jones for an attempted murder, anyway. He wanted him on the murder of Odum.

“Describe Jones,” said Vaughn.

Williams gave them detailed descriptions of Red Jones and his accomplice, whose name he did not know. Cochnar wrote it down, and Vaughn committed it to memory.

“You’re Homicide,” said Williams. “So why you here? Ain’t nobody murder me.”

“This isn’t about you,” said Vaughn. “You told your lawyer that you think there’s a connection between this Red character and a case I’m currently working. The victim was Robert Odum.”

Again, Williams glanced at his attorney.

“Go ahead,” said Doyle.

“I got robbed, Detective,” said Williams. “Man took my money and somethin else that belonged to me. Bobby Odum was an associate of mine, the only man in town who knew what I had in my possession.”

“You’ve got runners, don’t you?”

“My runners know what I got when I’m ready to tell ’em. Bobby was a tester. He knew I had product before anyone else did. Had to be Odum w S toMy runnersho gave me up.”

Cochnar was taking notes in a book of lined paper he held in hand. Williams was watching him.

“I ain’t tryin to dead myself,” said Williams. “I’ll plead the Fifth, I have to.”

“The detective’s already been informed,” said Doyle.

“Where’d you get the dope?” said Vaughn.

“Harlem,” said Williams.

“You copped from brothers?”

“Through the Family.”

“The Italians aren’t gonna like this.”

“That’s what I know. When I get out of here, I plan to give this life up, for real.”

“Sure you will.” Vaughn looked down at Roland, his honker coming out of his gaunt face like the pecker of an aroused dog. “They call you Long Nose, don’t they?”

“Some do,” said Williams defensively.

“I can see it,” said Vaughn, and showed Williams his row of widely spaced teeth. “Take care of yourself.”

Vaughn and Cochnar left the room. Walking down the busy hallway, they discussed the case. Cochnar had been in charge of prosecuting a James Carpenter, awaiting trial in the D.C. Jail on a homicide, when Odum was killed. Cochnar suspected that Carpenter had ordered the hit on Odum because he believed that Odum had provided information that led to Carpenter’s arrest. Vaughn and Cochnar now liked Red Jones for that murder-for-hire.

They passed a tall, chiseled, uniformed security guard who worked for a private company under contract with the hospital. His name was Clarence Bowman, and he had been raised in an alley dwelling known as Temperance Court.

Bowman followed Vaughn and Cochnar out to the parking lot, RFK Stadium and the D.C. Armory looming over the landscape. He kept well behind them so he would not be noticed. The big white man got into a large Dodge sedan. He looked like police, so that was no surprise. The stocky white boy in the suit unlocked a shiny pea-green Ford Maverick and settled into the driver’s side. Young dude with his first real job out of law school, driving his first new car. Cochnar, the government prosecutor. Had to be.

Strange sat on 13th in his Monte Carlo, listening to the radio, waiting. He was hoping that the man he had seen the day before would reappear. It wasn’t just a blind man’s grope. Street people had their favorite spots and seldom changed locations until chased off.

He was there a half hour or so when the man came out of an apartment building across the street from Odum’s. The man used the crosswalk, went to the retaining wall that was his chair, and had a seat on the edge of it, his feet dangling over the sidewalk. Strange got out of his car.

The man did not move as Strange approached, nor did he look Sr d='0em'›‹ away. Strange came up on him, his arms loose, his stance unthreatening, and stood before him.

“Afternoon,” said Strange. “I was hoping we could talk.”

Up close, the man’s eyes were not unintelligent, nor were they the empty eyes of a dope fiend, but he looked beaten. Though it was warm out, he wore an old-style cardigan sweater over a shirt with a frayed collar. His hair was shaved close to the scalp with a slash part, a barbershop cut from ten years back. The slope of his shoulders and his folded arms suggested surrender.

“You police?”

“Not anymore. I’m private. My name’s Derek Strange. Can I buy you a beer, something?”

“I don’t drink. You got a smoke?”

“Sorry.”

The man bit his lip as something came to mind. “I knew a Strange. Boy named Dennis. Older than you, about your size.”

“Dennis was my brother.”

“We used to hang out some, at house parties and all, before he joined the navy. I heard he passed. My sympathies, man.”

“Thank you.”

The man put his hand out and Strange shook it. “Milton Wallace.”

“Pleasure,” said Strange. “You served, too?”

“Army,” said Wallace, and then Strange knew. This wasn’t any street person, or drunk, or junkie. The man was a veteran who’d been in it and come out torn on the other side.

Strange looked up at the sky. Raindrops had begun to fall and more were on the way. “We should get out of this.”

“I live with my mother in that building,” said Wallace, pointing to the door from which he’d exited. “But I don’t want to disturb her.”

“My Chevy’s right over there.”

Wallace smiled wistfully. “That’s a pretty MC.”

THE NEW Stylistics song, “People Make the World Go Round,” was on the radio and