What It Was

Vaughn had been summoned to another meeting with Lieutenant David Harp back in Harp’s office. This one was less cordial than the last. The brazen nature of the Soul House burn had put Harp over the edge. As the lieutenant spoke, veins stood out like hot wires on his neck. The message was clear: Red Jones was on a murderous crime spree in the city and it was Vaughn’s responsibility to put it to an end. His shield depended on it. Vaughn knew the threat was bullshit, but it angered him to hear it just the same.

Vaughn returned to his desk to retrieve a fresh deck of L amp;Ms before heading down to the crime scene on 14th. From back in the holding cells, Vaughn could hear Clarence Bowman’s agitated shouts, nonsense declarations strung together somewhat randomly: “I’m not me! I’m not myself today! My stomach hurts! I gotta make some dookie! Tellin y’all, I gotta take a shit!”

On the way out the door, Vaughn got up with the sergeant, Bill Herbst, who was on desk duty.

“What’s Bowman’s malfunction?” said Vaughn.

“He’s been screaming his black ass off for the last fifteen minutes,” said Herbst with a shrug.

“Sorry to leave him with you, Billy. I gotta get outta here.”

“We’ll deal with it, Hound Dog.”

Vaughn, usually cool, now visibly shaken, lit a cigarette and tossed the match on the floor. The sergeant watched him go.

In his cell, Bowman dropped his slacks around his ankles, squatted, and shat loudly and voluminously on the concrete floor. What he did next caused alarm and activity, and sent his, aed cell mates scattering to the farthest reaches of the iron cage. Some yelled for their jailers to get them out of there, and one hardened criminal puked up his dinner. Bowman had scooped up a handful of his bowel movement and put it into his mouth.

Bowman wasn’t crazy. He was logical. It was easier to bust out of St. Elizabeth’s than it was the D.C. Jail.

Lou Fanella and Gino Gregorio had sat on Coco Watkins’s house for hours. Tired and frustrated, they returned to the room of their motor lodge in Prince George’s County, took naps, got up out of bed, changed into rayon print sport shirts and no-belt slacks, and found a place on Kenilworth that served Mexican.

“This joint stinks,” said Fanella, shaking his head as he took the last bite of his enchilada platter. “What’s the name of this shithouse again?”

“Mi Casa,” said Gregorio.

“Me Caca is more like it.”

Gregorio noted that Fanella had cleaned his plate as thoroughly as a dog would tongue-polish its bowl, but Fanella told him he was only getting his money’s worth. He also told Gino to shut his mouth.

Fanella suggested they find some women. He was a man with elemental needs.

He phoned their boy, Thomas “Zoot” Mazzetti, who told him where they could buy some tail. Fanella didn’t want to spend much, wasn’t interested in those overpriced escort services, and anyway, those stuck-up gals weren’t any fun. Zoot said the 14th and U Street corridor still had women out on the stroll.

“I don’t want no monkeys,” said Fanella.

“Don’t worry, Lou,” said Zoot. “They got white snatch down there, too.”

Fanella and Gregorio got into the Lincoln and headed into the city. Reaching their general destination, they pulled over on 14th and let the Continental idle. Fanella rested his smoking-hand on the lip of the open driver’s-side window as he had a look at the scene.

They were in a commercial and residential district gone to seed. There weren’t a whole lot of straight citizens out, but there was life. People moving about furtively in the darkened doorways of shuttered businesses, heroin addicts, pushers, hookers, a guy dressed outrageously in a purple suit and hat, the Halloween version of a pimp. They had both noticed the unusual number of police cars cruising the area, too.

“We shouldn’t stay too long, Lou,” said Gregorio.

“Relax,” said Fanella. “Here comes somethin now.”

A black girl, low to the ground and tarted up, approached their car.

“You datin tonight, sugar?” she said, her hand on the roof of the Lincoln as she leaned in.

“We got something specific in mind.”

“You polic'›r on 14th e?”

“No.”

“You want black girls, right?”

“White girls,” said Fanella, holding up two fingers. He dragged on his cigarette and blew some smoke in her direction.

“Wait up,” said the girl sourly.

A few minutes later two young white girls in their late teens walked down the sidewalk. One wore short shorts and a scoop-neck shirt with a glittery star on it stretched tight across her full chest. Her hair was on the orange side of blond. The other one was skinny, small-breasted, brunette, and wore a miniskirt and V-neck top.

“I know which one you want,” said Fanella with a smile. Gino liked them slim to bony.

“So?”

“She looks like a boy.”

The girls reached their car. Neither of them lived in the neighborhood of pretty, but they would do.

The one who had the woman’s body looked down at Fanella. “You two datin?”

“Yeah, and we’re not police. Get in the car.”

“Don’t you want a room?”

“I don’t do whorehouses. We got a place. Let’s go there and party.”

“Me and my friend don’t have that kind of time.”

“I’ll pay for your time. Get in.”

The girls opened the suicides and climbed into the Lincoln. Fanella asked them their names, and the one who was doing all the talking said hers was April. The skinny trick called herself Cindy.

“I’m Lou and this is Gino.”

“You got anything to drink, Lou?”

“Liquor and setups.”

“I like rose-A. Cindy does, too.”

“We’ll get some wine, then.”

“How ’bout a little blow to go with it?” said April.

“What do I look like, Rockefeller?”

“C’mon, Lou, let’s have some fun.”

After some negotiation, they agreed on a price. April had Fanella drive to a nearby row house on T and told him to keep the Lincoln running while she went inside. She returned a few minutes later with the eager, optimistic look of a coke addict who has just copped.

Fanella drove east as Gregorio found a radio station that April and Cindy liked. A hit song was playing, and the girls sang along to the title refrain every time it came around.

“ ‘Alone again’…” sang April.

“… ‘Naturally,’ ” sang Cindy and April in unison, and both of them laughed.

It was annoying, but Fanella did not tell them to knock it off. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, and that was all right with him. After all, they weren’t much more than kids.

Strange showered, dressed in a nice slacks-and-shirt arrangement, and picked up Carmen at her apartment off Barry Place, near the playing fields across from Howard University. Carmen wore a simple, flattering minidress with hoop earrings. Her makeup was understated and just right. When she got into the passenger bucket of his Monte Carlo, they kissed. Pulling back, her eyes dimmed somewhat as she said, “You smell sweet.”

“I cleaned myself up real good for you, girl,” said Strange, his voice sounding unconvincing to his own ears.

He told her to find something on the radio, and she dialed it over to WOL. The station was spinning light tunes that women liked when they were alone and men and women liked to listen to when they were together. “Betcha by Golly, Wow,” by the Stylistics, “Lean on Me,” by Bill Withers, the 5th Dimension’s “(Last Night) I Didn’t