“I’d rather not say.”
“If you know what’s going on, then someone referred you. No reference, no audition.” I didn’t respond. The man said, “If you’ve got no reference, this conversation’s over.”
I took a shot. “Eddie Colorado,” I said, then waited.
“Okay,” the man said. “You come by tonight, we’ll have a look at you.”
“I don’t think I can make it tonight.”
“Then forget it, for now. We’re shooting tonight, and we only shoot once a week.”
“I’ll be there,” I said. “I’ll make it somehow. You’re down in Southeast, right?”
“That’s right. A warehouse, on the corner of Potomac and Half. The gate looks locked, but it’s not. What’s your name?”
“Bobby,” I said, picking one blindly. “What time?”
“No time. We’ll be here all night.” The phone clicked dead.
I looked somberly at LaDuke. Then I broke into a smile and slapped his open palm.
“You got something?” he said, standing up abruptly from his chair.
“Yeah. Get your shit, LaDuke. We’re going for a ride.”
“Why’d you have the smarts to mention Eddie Colorado?” LaDuke said. We were driving east on M in my Dodge, the morning sun blasting through the windshield. The wind was pushing LaDuke’s wavy hair around on top of his square head.
“No other option,” I said. “He asked for a reference, and that’s the only name that fits with Roland and Calvin. It was a lucky call. Apparently, Eddie’s referring potential movie stars to this guy, whoever he is. Eddie’s been siphoning it off from both ends.”
“Eddie. That mother fucker. I’d like to go back there and fuck him up, too.”
“Relax, LaDuke. Guys like Eddieuyser. I dry up and blow away. We’ve got to concentrate on Roland now.”
“You think this is it?”
“Too many other things are falling into place. Bernie Tobias talked about the Southeast location and the- one-night-a-week shoot. This guy I just talked to on the phone, he confirmed it.”
“Where we going?”
“Check the place out.”
“We goin’ in right now?”
“No. Chances are, even if this is the place, Roland’s not there yet. I want to see it, then we’re gonna find out who owns the warehouse, see if he’s got any information on his tenants.”
I put a cigarette to my lips, hit the lighter. LaDuke, nervous as a cat, nodded at the pack on the dash.
“Give me one of those things,” he said.
“You really want one?”
“Nah,” he said. “I guess not.”
Past the projects, we cut a right off M and went back into the warehouse district that sits on a flat piece of dusty land between Fort McNair and the Navy Yard. It was midmorning. Trucks worked gravel pits, drivers pulled their rigs up to loading docks, and government types drove their motor-pool sedans back toward Buzzard Point. In the daytime, this area of town was as populated and busy as any other; at night, there was no part of the city more deathly quiet or dark.
“That’s it,” LaDuke said, and I parked along a high chain-link fence where Potomac Avenue cut diagonally across Half.
The warehouse was squat, brick, and windowless, as undistinguishable from any of the others I had seen on the way in. A double row of barbed wire was strung around the perimeter, continuing at a sliding gate. One car, a Buick Le Sabre, sat parked inside the gate. Across the street was an almost identical building, similarly fenced and wired, with windows only at two fire escapes set on opposing faces. In front of that one, two white vans were parked, advertising LIGHTING AND EQUIPMENT. Next to this warehouse stood a lot containing a conical structure, some sort of urban silo, and an idling dump truck.
“What do you think?” LaDuke said, pointing his chin toward the warehouse where the Buick sat parked.
“That’s it,” I said. “We know where it is now, and it’s not going anywhere. We’ll come back tonight.”
“Lot of activity around here.”
“Not at night. Used to be a couple of nightclubs, ten, fifteen years back, that jumped pretty good. But nothing now.” I pushed the trans into drive.
“Where now?” LaDuke said.
“Office of Deeds,” I said. “We find out who collects the rent.”
The office of the Recorder of Deeds sat around 5th and D, near Judiciary Square, the area of town that contained the city’s courts and administrative facilities. The building has a funny old elevator that doesn’t quite make it to the top floors; to get to where the records are kept, you have to get off the lift and take the stairs the rest of the way. LaDuke and I did it.
There was one disinterested woman working a long line, but I was lucky to see a bar customer of mine, a real estate attorney by the name of Durkin, sitting in a wooden chair, waiting for his number to be called. He also had a copy of the Lusk’s Directory, a crisscross land reference guide, in his lap. I borrowed it from him and promised him a free warm Guinness Stout-his drink-the next time he was by the Spot. Durkin tipped the fedora that he wore even indoors and gave me the book. By the time my microfiche had been retrieved from the files, I knew enough with the help of the Lusk’s to have the name of the landlord who owned the warehouse at Potomac and Half. The name was Richard Samuels.
From there, it wasn’t a stretch to get an address and phone. If Samuels was like every minimogul/land baron I’ve met, he could not have resisted putting his name on his own company. He would have told you the ID made good business sense, but it was as much ego as anything else. And his name was on the company-Samuels Properties was listed in the first phone book we hunted down, right outside the District Building; the address matched that printed on the deed. LaDuke flipped me a quarter and I rang him up.
“Samuels Properties,” said the old lady’s voice on the other end.
“Metropolitan Police,” I said, “calling for Richard Samuels.” LaDuke shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“Let me see if he’s on the line.” She put me on hold, came back quickly. “If this is about the fund-raising drive, Mr. Samuels has already sent the check-”
“Tell him it’s about his property at Potomac and Half.”
“Hold on.” More waiting, then: “I’ll put you through.”
Another voice, deep and rich, came on the line. “Yes, how may I help you?”
“My name is Nick Stefanos-”
“Officer Stefanos?”
“No.”
“You’re not a cop?”
“Private.”
“Well, then, you’ve misrepresented yourself. I guess we have nothing to talk about.”
“I think we do. You might be interested in some activity going on in your property on Half Street in Southeast. And if you’re not interested, maybe Vice-”
“Vice?” His tone lost its edge. “Listen, Mr. Stefanos, I’m certainly not aware of any illegal activities, not on Half Street or on any of my properties. But I am interested, and I’m willing to listen to what you’ve got to say.”
“My partner and I would like to see you this morning. The conversation would be confidential, of course.”
“That would be fine,” Samuels said. He confirmed the address.
“We’ll be right over,” I said, and hung up the phone.
LaDuke scrunched up his face. “You identified yourself as a cop, Nick. This guy Emmanual-”
“It’s Samuels.”
“He could turn us in.”
“Come on, LaDuke. We’re standing at the door. Let’s go see what the man’s got to say.”
The office of Samuels Properties was on a street of commercially zoned row houses just north of Washington Circle, in the West End. We parked the Dodge in a lot owned by Blackie Auger, one of D.C.’s most visible Greeks,
