Shoedog (18 page)

So when Isaac got back from the war, he took his father’s place at the new liquor store on Wisconsin and Brandywine. In the garage next to the store he taught young Rosenfeld not to drop his left when throwing a right, and he showed him how to get down in a three-point stance. He watched him grow up, and he watched the father grow old. He listened to their trash-talking bullshit every day, how they played each other and the customers, and sometimes he winced at it, but always he kept his mouth shut. He owed the family for what they’d done, for his father and for him. He did his job.

Now the hustler had given him ten grand to kill a man, and he’d do that too. He’d make a modest dollar on the sale of the house, and he’d’ hook that up with the ten, and move with Nettie off Fairmont, to someplace safer, Oxon Hill maybe, or Landover, or Capitol Heights. Nettie could grow tomatoes, some spices in the yard. He’d buy her a few things, a new dress, and some shoes—good God, the woman loved shoes—and a few things for himself.

He thought of the man in the maroon sport coat, the man the hustler had met outside the liquor store, at the car. It bothered him a little bit, ‘cause he
knew
the man. He forgot about it, though, as Nettie’s voice called from down the stairs.

“Dinner, Isaac.”

“I’ll be right down, baby!” he yelled.

Isaac palmed a full clip into the butt of the .45, safetyed it, placed it in the top drawer of the nightstand. He switched off the radio, then the light, and walked out of the room.

G
ORMAN
cut the Caddy’s engine, got out of the car, and walked across the lot. He checked the lot for undercover boys, guys sitting in their Fords wearing mustaches and shades and Peterbilt caps. He couldn’t see a one. Most likely, they were parked across 261, bayside, in the lot of the Rod and Reel. They alternated stakeouts between the Rod and Jethro’s, the crab house and bar that sat back on Fisherman’s Creek, the marina area on the canal that dumped into the bay. Jethro’s was where Gorman was headed.

Gorman felt comfortable in Chesapeake Beach. The drive was only thirty minutes from the Grimes estate, and he liked the water, and the air smelled salty and clean. And not too many spades. Always plenty of bikers, though, which meant that. Gorman knew he could take the short drive down to Chesapeake, anytime, and cop. There was always reefer, and if he wanted green, he could get it, the good shit too, not Mexican sprayed with Raid. But tonight Gorman wasn’t interested in smoke. Tonight Gorman was looking to score some crank.

He walked into the open-aired lounge at the side of Jethro’s, had a seat at the bar to the left of a group of young steamfitters he had seen before. The steamfitters, a loud row of beards, were all sloppy drunk. They watched a pro basketball game on the television set mounted over the call rack, and every time a shooter would miss, one of them would say, “That was close,” and another would add, “Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades,” and all of them would laugh.

Gorman nursed a draft and pretended to watch the game, though Gorman did not follow sports much, and he especially did not follow basketball, basketball being a game for bootheads. After a few sips of his beer, Gorman nodded across the horseshoe bar to a long-haired man in a leather jacket, and then Gorman went to the head in the back of the restaurant to take a piss.

Gorman drained in the urinal, then washed his hands in the sink. As he dried his hands on a brown paper towel, the long-haired man in the leather jacket walked into the bathroom.

“Spunk,” Gorman said. “Thanks for comin’.”

“You called, man. I’m here.”

Gorman tossed the crumpled towel in the wastebasket, drew a fifty from his wallet, handed it to Spunk. Spunk leaned his back against the bathroom door, took a snowseal from the pocket of his leather, and put it in Gorman’s palm.

Spunk’s hair looked wet. He shook it away from his face. “You want to take a look?”

“Uh-uh. It’s got weight.” Gorman put the drug in his pocket. “You never fucked me before, Spunk.”

“I wouldn’t fuck you, man.”

“I know it.”

Spunk went to a dispenser mounted above and to the left of the sink. He put quarters in the slot, cranked a wheel, and reached into a slot at the bottom of the dispenser. He pointed the matchbook-sized packet at Gorman.

“Linger-On,” Spunk said, turning the packet so he could read off the label. “Apply contents to area of organ covered by foreskin and massage until ointment disappears. Wait five minutes before ma… marital relations.”

“Quicker to jerk off,” Gorman said.

“Yeah.” Spunk shrugged, gave Gorman a chew-stained smile. “The old lady likes it, though.”

Gorman said, “Take it easy, Spunk,” and left the head.

Gorman returned to the bar, drank his beer standing, left fifty cents on two-fifty for the barmaid, and walked back out to the Caddy in the lot.

He lowered the window, started the engine, and turned on the radio: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”—at least they were good for somethin’, man, god
damnit
they could sing. Gorman eye-swept the parking lot, unfolded the snowseal in his lap. He okayed the weight—no, Spunk knew better man to fuck him—and checked out the texture. Solid, specked with blue throughout.

Gorman used a double-edged razor to cut a line on a flat glass paperweight he kept in the car. He bent his head, did the line, felt his eyes water immediately. He wanted a smoke right away, but he waited. Gorman’s blood began to rush a little faster. He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel, bobbed his head to the music, cut out another line of crystal meth. Afterward, he lighted a cigarette, drew on it deeply. Some blood dripped from his nose, stopped on the cleft of his upper lip. He wiped it off, and smiled. This was real good shit.

Gorman pulled out of the lot, headed for 260. He kept the window down, turned the Motown up. Gorman wanted another hit, but he figured he could ride the high all the way to the house. Then he’d kick back, huff a little glue in his room, relax. Besides, the crank was for tomorrow. He’d save it, do it then.

V
ALDEZ
held a juice glass in his thick hand, swirled scotch. One drink, just like always, the night before a job. Then early to bed.

A portable black-and-white played at a low volume in the room. Valdez sat in his boxer shorts on the bed, sipped scotch, watched the program on the screen. This was the one where the young guy runs an advertising agency, and the agency gets taken over by a bigger company, and the bigger company sends in some broad, a broad with brains and a big set of tits, to run it. So the guy, now he’s got to answer to this broad, and he doesn’t like it. But he likes those tits. So, for the whole season on this show, the two of them trade insults, and he checks out her ass every time she turns around, and she does the same to him, and nothing ever happens. Valdez figured, he could tell from the way the guy smiled, that the actor playing the role took it up the ass in real life. But they should have let him nail the broad on the show. It was a pretty good show, funny and all that shit, but him nailing the broad would have made the show a whole lot better.

Valdez tried to think about the last time he had been with a woman. He tried hard to remember. He thought of the time, a couple years back, when he and Gorman had gone down to Thomas Circle and bought a whore, a white broad wearing white hot pants with coffee stains on the crotch. She had sucked him off in the stairwell of an apartment house a little ways north of the Circle, on 14th. It had cost him twenty-five bucks, and Gorman had waited in the car. He guessed that had been the last time.

Valdez got off the bed, walked in front of the mirror that hung over his dresser. He fingered the gold crucifix that hung between the saddlebags of his chest, his eyes traveling down to his great brown belly. Under all of that he knew he was as hard as any man. He knew, too, that he was an ugly man, and that the ugliness added to the weight made it hard for any woman to want him. Men feared and respected him, though, and that was something.

From his bedroom, Valdez could hear the muffled, raised voices of the woman and Mr. Grimes upstairs. He walked back to the television set, turned up the volume. The beam of headlights—that would be Gorman, back from his run—passed through the room.

Valdez finished his scotch, placed the juice glass on the dresser. He touched the barrels of his two .45s, touched the extra clips laid neatly at the guns’ sides. He turned off the television, turned off the lamp on the nightstand, lay on his back on top of the covers. Valdez folded his hands across his chest, listened to the muted emotions of the voices above, listened to the heavy wheeze of his own breath. He closed his eyes.

W
EINER
laid an LP on the platter—the Jazz Messengers, on the Columbia label, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree sound—and turned up the volume on his Marantz tube amp. Man, this one really cooked.

He fixed himself a Brandy Alexander at the counter of his kitchenette, took it out to the living room, and had a seat on his brown corduroy sofa. Weiner put his feet up on the glass table that fronted the sofa, rested his glass in his lap. He closed his eyes, listened to the jump of “Infra-Rae,” Hank Mobley’s tenor sax blowing wild against Art Blakey’s drums.

Weiner had taken in a five-thirty show at the West End, had one drink after that at the bar of Madeo’s, a restaurant next door to the theatre, then walked the three blocks to his Foggy Bottom apartment. He had changed into paisley pajamas, a velour robe, and brown leather slippers.

Tomorrow morning he’d meet the men at the Grimes place, answer any questions, collect his fee from Grimes, and finish his end of the deal. Then, while the men did the job, he’d go meet Nita.

Weiner looked at his wrinkled hand wrapped loosely around the glass. It really didn’t bother him—a man his age, he’d have some gray hairs, a few wrinkles. The important thing was, he’d look good tomorrow, dress with a little flair. Nita liked his confidence, his wit—he knew that, could tell from the way her eyes danced when he told a joke—and she liked the way he wore his beret, a little off-center, like he looked at the world different from everybody else. And the ring, man, that would turn her head all the way around. Sure, three Cs was steep for a ring like that, but he knew—he could just
imagine
—that Nita was worth every last penny.

Weiner got up, went to the window, looked out at the street below. A young man strutted down the sidewalk, his arm around his girlfriend. He kissed her ear, smelled her hair, and she leaned into him and laughed. Weiner watched them cross the street, turn a corner, pass through the light of a streetlight, and disappear.

He stood there staring at the light, the spot where the lovers had been, and his thoughts went back thirty years, to a terrifically sexy girl he had known, a young waitress at Coffee and Confusion. He could still see her, leaning over the tables, serving drinks, her long black hair falling around her face. He wondered where that girl was now.

Weiner closed his eyes, put his head back, and killed his drink.

“W
HAT
you thinkin’ about, baby?”

Randolph said, “Nothin’.”

“You thinkin’ about somethin’.”

Randolph rolled onto his elbow. He put his hand to the woman’s breast. His fingers traced her nipple in the darkness. He lowered his head, kissed her there.

“Wasn’t I good to you?” he said.

“Mmm-huh.”

“I ain’t thinkin’ about nothin’ but you, baby.”

The woman said, “Come here.”

C
ONSTANTINE
listened to the Isleys’ “Live It Up” on the house stereo, had a taste of his drink. More ice water than vodka now, but that was all right. He’d have one more, call it a night.

He had sat alone at the bar for the last half hour, listening to the seventies funk favored by the tender. Solo drinkers took up the remaining stools, spaced evenly apart. The booths and deuces were largely unoccupied; a few adulterous couples talked quietly in the dim light.

Constantine heard a familiar voice call his name, turned his head left toward the entrance to the lounge. Through the smoke of the barroom he saw Polk, limping toward him.

Polk unsnapped his windbreaker as he took a seat next to Constantine. Constantine shook his hand.

“Polk.”

“Thought I’d find you here.” Polk strained a smile. “How’s it goin’, Connie?”

“It’s okay.”

“Got a cigarette?”

“Sure.”

Constantine picked his Marlboros off the bar, shook one out of the deck in Polk’s direction. Polk took it, flipped the filter between his teeth. Constantine stuck one in his mouth, lighted Polk’s, put fire to his own. He dragged deeply, tossed the spent match into the ashtray that sat to the right of his drink.

“You ready for another?” Polk said.

“Yeah,” Constantine said. “One more.”

Polk signaled the bartender. “An Absolut and tonic here, and a vodka rocks for my friend.” Polk turned to Constantine. “You take a special kind?”

“Just vodka,” said Constantine, and the bartender went away to fix the drinks.

“You ought to try the good stuff,” Polk said.

“It’s all alike.”

“Just the same, you ought to try it some time. It’s okay to have nice things.” “You sound like Grimes.”

“Well,” Polk said, “just look at him. Whatever you think of the man, he’s got it all. Doesn’t he?”

The bartender served the drinks. Polk tapped Constantine’s glass with his, had a healthy pull off his cocktail. Polk put the glass back on the bar.

“I talked to Randolph,” he said, looking at Constantine carefully, out the corner of his eye. “Randolph thinks you’ve got somethin’ going on with Grimes’s woman.”

“It’s my business if I do,” Constantine said.

“I’m not gonna tell you to knock it off,” Polk said, waving his hand.

Constantine dragged on his cigarette, exhaled. “What
were
you going to tell me, Polk?”

“Just this,” Polk said, putting his hand on Constantine’s arm. “I passed up on a lot of good things in my life. That’s just one of the mistakes I’ve made along the way, and believe me, I’ve made plenty. But when you come across something as fine as that woman… you don’t let it get away from you, Connie, not for nothin’.” Polk lowered his voice, squinted. “If you have to, you take it.”