The Sweet Forever by George Pelecanos
Tyrell said, “Alan.”
“Yeah, Ty.” Alan Rogers leaned with his back against the front door, looked into Tyrell’s strange bottle green eyes.
“You say you didn’t get close to Junie’s car.”
“Uh-uh.”
“So you don’t know.”
“Nah. But I got the sign from Tutt. Shook his head as he walked by.”
“So he was tryin’ to say—”
“That there wasn’t a got-damn thing in the car.”
“Damn.”
“By now he done checked out the whole car, though, Tyrell. By now he’ll know for sure. You say he’s comin’ out?”
“Should be out here real soon.” Tyrell looked through the bay window to the street. A set of headlights, with another set behind it, was coming down the gravel road. “That would be them now.”
Short Man Monroe stood out of his chair. “You want my opinion, Tyrell, we don’t need no mothafuckin’ po-lice around.”
“Relax, Short Man. We do need them. They’re gonna help us carve out our territory down there, and protect it once we do have it carved out.”
“Can’t stomach that Tutt.”
“Relax.”
“Like to bust a cap in his fat head, too.”
“Just relax.”
Alan Rogers shook his head. “Junie, man. I can’t believe that young nigga’s dead.”
Tyrell looked at his manicured nails. “I told that boy not to drive so fast.”
Richard Tutt stepped out of his Bronco. Kevin Murphy closed the door of his Trans Am, met Tutt in the yard. They moved toward the house, walking between the black 300 and Tyrell’s black BMW 633. To the side of the house, Tutt saw Jumbo Linney’s beat-to-shit, primered ’82 Supra, the two-tone model that made Spics catch wood.
Tutt wore street clothes, a Members Only jacket over a denim shirt worn out, his .45 tucked beneath the band of his acid-washed jeans. Murphy noticed that Tutt had on those gray ostrich-skin Dan Post boots with the three-inch heels, the ones Tutt thought were so fly. Tutt’s flattop was gelled, shaved back and sides, no burns, the back of his neck rolled and pink as a baby’s ass.
“Tyrell’s gonna be all over it tonight,” said Tutt.
“Heard that,” said Murphy.
“You let me do the talkin’, partner.”
“You got it, King.”
They had come out East Capitol, crossed the Whitney M. Young Bridge over the Anacostia River into P. G. County, taken Central Avenue for a couple of miles through Seat Pleasant and on into a spare mix of residential and commercial structures, gas stations, half-rented strip shopping centers, and the occasional fast food outlet. Back behind one of those strip centers, where only a TV repair shop and a dry cleaner remained in business, was a rocky field split by the access road. The road continued another quarter mile, went to gravel, ended at an old bungalow backed up to a shallow woods of maple and oak. With the strip center forming a one-story concrete barrier and the stand of trees semicircling the right side of the house, the bungalow could not be seen from 214.
About a year back, a Capitol Heights friend had told Tyrell about the For Rent sign out on the highway. Tyrell liked the idea of being out of the city, and when he saw the house, he especially liked how it was kind of tucked back against the woods. He had this coke-whore girlfriend, white freak, a real estate broker named Kerry King. For the free blow he was laying on her and all that good dick she was getting, Kerry had been more than happy to put her name on the lease.
Tutt and Murphy stepped up onto the bungalow’s porch. Tutt knocked, and Alan Rogers opened the scarred oak door and stepped aside. Tutt and Murphy entered the house.
“You don’t mind,” said Tyrell, “if I don’t get up.”
“Gentlemen,” said Tutt, stepping into the room with his stiff weight lifter’s gait, his beefy arms pumping him forward, the arms way out at his side.
Murphy scoped the house. Two large rooms, once used as living and dining areas. A stereo, a wide-screen, and a couch and table arrangement where the dining area had been. Jumbo Linney and Chink Bennet sat on the leather couch, laughing and getting high. They had barely acknowledged the cops’ entrance. Beyond the couch was an open entrance to a kitchen. The living room contained Tyrell’s reclining chair, several folding chairs, a round oak table, and a fireplace, which Tyrell liked to keep live. Murphy knew the layout of the rest of the house: a hallway to the right of the dining area, a bathroom splitting two small bedrooms, a stairwell leading up to an unfinished attic. Murphy and his wife, Wanda, lived in a bungalow just like this one, on 4th and Whittier on the D.C. side of Takoma Park.
Alan Rogers closed the door, went over to the table where Monroe sat, found himself a chair. Kevin Murphy positioned himself behind Tutt, leaned against the door frame, folded his arms. Tutt stood before Tyrell. None of them had made a move to shake hands. That they wouldn’t was understood.
“So,” said Tyrell.
“Yeah,” said Tutt. “Lotta action today.”
Tutt smiled cordially, kept smiling as he had a quick look around the place. Mutt and Jeff were back on the couch, cooking their heads on some ragweed, listening to some kind of mindless rap. Tutt could see a gun, looked like a nine, sitting on the table in front of them amidst the clutter of someone’s old lunch. To his right, Tyrell’s enforcer, Short Man Monroe, sat at the round table, a toothpick in his mouth, polishing one of his two Glocks with a lambskin cloth. Tutt could have laughed out loud: It would be just like a nigger to polish a plastic gun. The Rogers kid—Tutt made him as soft—had taken a seat at the table next to Monroe. On the table: an LED readout scale, a mirror with a couple of grams of coke heaped on top, a blade lying next to the coke, an automatic money-counting machine, a brown paper bag holding cash or bricks. A Mossberg pistol-grip, pump-action shotgun leaned barrel up against the bricks above the hearth. With all the McDonald’s wrappers, empty chip bags, and half-drunk Big Gulps sitting around, Tutt wondered if any of these geniuses would be able to find his hardware if anything went down.
“About today,” said Tyrell.
“You mean Junie,” said Tutt.
“Uh-huh.”
“Junie’s car was empty.”
“No pillowcase. No twenty-five grand.”
“Nothin’.”
“I saw him put it in the car myself before he left to make the buy.”
“Maybe Junie got greedy, stashed the bundle somewhere before the accident.”
“I don’t think so.”
Short Man raised his head. “Junie wasn’t smart enough to plan nothin’ like that.”
“Or stupid enough,” said Tyrell, “to try and take me off.”
“I don’t know what happened to it,” said Tutt.
“No?”
Tutt motioned toward Rogers and Monroe. “They were there. Maybe you ought to ask your boys.”
Short Man stopped polishing his gun. He stared at the floor, rearranged the toothpick to the other side of his mouth.
“I’ll ask them what I want to ask them,” said Tyrell. “Right now I’m asking you.”
“Me and Murphy,” said Tutt, “one way or another, we’re gonna find out what happened to your money, Tyrell.”
Tyrell stared at Murphy. Murphy held the stare. “That’s what I’m payin’ you two for. Right, Officer Murphy?”
Tutt cleared his throat. “Okay. So we’ll start with some of those neighborhood rummies down there, see what we can dig up.”
“Yo, Tutt,” said Alan Rogers. “You might want to talk with that kid, too.”
“What kid?”
“One stands out front of Medger’s all the time.”
“Yeah,” said Tutt. “I know the kid you mean.”
Murphy thought back on the conversation he’d had with Anthony Taylor. “I saw what happened,” the kid had said. And when Murphy had told him that a lot of people had seen what had gone down, the kid had said, “After, too.” Like he’d seen something else.
“I’ll talk
“Well,” said Tyrell, smiling. “The man speaks.”
“That youngun always be there,” said Monroe. “Calls himself Tony the Tiger, some shit like that.”
“Calls himself T,” said Murphy. He repeated, “I’ll talk to the kid.”
“Don’t care who talks to who,” said Tyrell. “Long as I get what’s mine.”
Linney and Bennet laughed raucously from the other room. They had turned the porno tape back on, and Chink Bennet was in front of the set, air-humping Suzie Wong.
“I thought I told y’all to cut that tape off,” said Tyrell.
Bennet pointed at Linney. “Jumbo did it, Tyrell.”
“Damn, Chink, why you be lyin’ like that?”
“Turn it off and come in here. We talkin’ business; I want y’all to know what’s up.”
Tutt nodded at the silent man in the hard chair. “Who’s the new man, Tyrell?”
“Antony Ray. Cousin of mine. Just got out of Lorton, three weeks back. Served four on an eight-year armed robbery bit. Not sure what his role’s gonna be with us, but I am sure he’ll fit in somewhere. Right, cuz?”
Antony Ray nodded.
“Antony’s great-uncle,” said Tyrell, “was a big man down on Seventh Street, way back in the forties. Fellow by the name of DeAngelo Ray.”
“Yeah,” said Tutt. “Good to know we got some royalty bloodlines comin’ into the organization.” Tutt tilted his chin up at Ray. “Nice meetin’ you, An-tony.”
Ray said nothing.
Murphy said, “Gonna get me some water out the back.”
Murphy walked into the kitchen. A couple of girls were back there, couldn’t have been more than sixteen. They were dancing in place to the Whodini record playing in the other room. One of them, wearing a tight barber pole–striped shirt, looked him over as he passed. Murphy nodded. The girls giggled. Murphy saw a vanity mirror lying on the kitchen counter with lines tracked out on it, and a rolled twenty lying next to the lines. Murphy found a clean glass in a cabinet, ran some tap water into the glass. He drank the water with his eyes closed as he leaned over the sink.
“What’s goin’ on, Stuff?” said one of the girls.
“You big, too,” said the other, and both of them laughed.
This is wrong. I’m wrong. Father in heaven, this is all wrong.
Murphy placed the glass in the sink, walked out of the kitchen and back to the front of the house.
When he got there, Tyrell was looking up at Tutt, saying, “So you didn’t catch them.”
“No,” said Tutt. “I had the one kid dead to rights in the alley. Would’ve caught his ass, too, if it wasn’t for all the obstacles your people got set up back there.”
“You know who these boys are?”
“I know,” said Monroe. “One of them calls himself Chief.”
“The kid I chased, he was wearin’ some bright green knit cap. Kid might as well go on and wear a target next time.”
“They just younguns, Ty,” said Rogers. “They be playin’ like they in the life.”
“They tryin’ to beat me on my own strip,” said Tyrell. “Ain’t no game to me.”
“We’ll take care of it,” said Tutt.
“Not if I take care of that shit first,” said Monroe.
Tutt said, “This ain’t about makin’ noise, Tyrell. This ain’t about startin’ a war. This is about control.”
“Man’s right, Short,” said Tyrell. “We don’t want no high drama. Just want to keep everything nice and quiet down there. Under control. Why we got our men in blue here on our side.”
Linney and Bennet laughed, touched hands.
Murphy said, “Let’s go, Tutt.”
“Hey, King Tutt,” said Bennet. “Those are some sporty shitkickers you got on, man. Where you goin’ tonight, some kind of hoedown and shit?”
“What, you don’t like my boots, Chink? And here I was gettin’ ready to say somethin’ to you about that suit you’re wearin’.”
Bennet looked down at his lime green parachute-material jogging suit as if he were seeing it for the first time. “This suit is bad!”
“It’s bad, all right. Matter of fact, I’d own two of them if I was you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. One to shit on and one to cover it up with.”
No one laughed. Murphy saw Monroe point the Glock at Tutt, mouth the word pow.
“Let’s go, Tutt.”
“Yes,” said Tyrell, “maybe you two better get on your way.”
Tyrell stood from his chair, uncoiling his gangly frame. Tyrell went six foot six. He was light-skinned and freckled, with long equine features, a hint of beard, pointed teeth, pointed ears. Reminded Murphy of one of those stone figures perched atop white people’s churches.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” said Tutt.
“Find my money,” said Tyrell.
Tutt nodded and made an elaborate good-bye wave of his hand to Monroe. He and Murphy walked from the house, heard the door shut behind them.
In the yard, Tutt looked back at the house and grinned. “Shit. An-tony Ray. Couldn’t be just ‘Anthony,’ had to be ‘An-tony.’ And you hear Ty-rell in there? ‘I’ll ax them what I want to ax them. Right now I’m axin’ you.’ ”
“He said ‘ask.’ ”
“What?”
“Nothin’.”
“All right, partner. I’ll check with you tomorrow, hear?”
“Yeah. See you then.”
Tutt climbed up into the Bronco with the oversized tires. Murphy settled into his new Trans Am. He hit the ignition and drove back out to 214.
From the bay window, Tyrell Cleveland watched the truck follow the car out to Central Avenue while Linney and Bennet returned to the couch.
Tyrell went to the hearth and picked up the poker that lay on the bricks. He squatted down before the fire. He moved the logs around and found new flame.
Short Man Monroe lifted his leather jacket off the back of his chair. He put it on, picked his Glock up off the table, fitted it in the waistband of his Lees. He dipped his finger into the cocaine heaped on the mirror, rubbed a generous amount on his gums. He nodded at Alan Rogers.
“We gone, Ty,” said Rogers.
“Where you off to?”
“Gonna check out the Chuck Brown show at the Masonic Temple.”
“Make the pickups while you’re down there.”
“Right.”
Monroe walked out, leaving the door open. Rogers opened his mouth to speak. He had practiced what he was going to say, said the words aloud to the bathroom mirror just a half hour before: Yo, Ty, for tonight, why can’t I be like any young man, forget about the business, just have fun? He looked at Tyrell, squatting there, his face lit by the flames. Damn if Tyrell didn’t look like the devil himself.
Rogers kept his mouth shut. He followed Monroe out the door.
SEVEN
Eddie Golden paused on the steps of his Aspen Hill apartment house, put fire to a Marlboro red, and had a quick look around the parking lot. As far as he could tell, no one had followed him home. No brothers in drug cars, and no cops. No phone calls, either, which meant everything had to be cool. So far, at least, Eddie had made out all right.
He went down to the Reliant, parked by the brown Dumpster in the corner of the lot. He had stopped the car when he had made it over the Maryland line, pulled over on a side street to transfer the pillowcase to the trunk. Leaning into the trunk, he couldn’t resist, he had to have a look at the money again. And take a couple of hundred out for his pocket. Walking-around money, that’s all it was, until he could figure out what to do next.
Right now, Eddie felt kind of loaded down. There was the money in his wallet, twenties and tens, and it felt fat in the back pocket of his jeans. Also the cocaine inhaler in his front pocket, loaded with blow he had just bought from a neighbor, a scientific-looking guy named Leonard who dealt out of his cat piss–smelling one-room on the third floor. His car keys and Donna’s
After Eddie had copped the blow from Leonard he had gone back downstairs to his own place, got out of his concert clothes, and changed into Wheaton bar dress, a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. He cut out a couple lines for himself, snorted them using one of the fresh rolled twenties, had a few drags off a cigarette, then went and had a seat on the can. Leonard’s coke was cut heavily with mannitol, and the baby laxative had loosened him up right away. He came out of the head and called Donna, left a message on her machine. He did some more coke, sat on the couch alternately smoking and wringing his hands, then packed himself up and booked, as the closeness of the apartment was driving him nuts.
He drove over to Hunter’s, a bar at the corner of Georgia Avenue and University Boulevard, and went inside. The place was loaded with the usual Friday night crowd, young white people, blue- and gray-collar, most of them already half in the bag. Eddie got a beer from the bartender, a guy who wrestled All-County for Northwood High, and found his friends at a four-top near the small stage, where a Southern boogie band in the Marshall Tucker/Rossington-Collins mold was tuning up. The table was crowded with Buds and Miller Lites, a couple of dirty ashtrays, and three shot glasses holding the smell of Jack Black.
“Play some Krokus, man!” yelled one of Eddie’s friends to the guitar player, and the rest of Eddie’s friends laughed.
Eddie’s friends were freelance installers, just like Eddie, who worked on commission for several local appliance dealers. They made half of each installation fee, which sounded good on paper, but there were frequently call-backs and cancellations, which Eddie and his friends always blamed on the salespeople who never bothered to ask the right measurement questions when the customers were in the stores. Many of the salespeople were Jewish, making them the further target of Eddie’s friends’ anger and jokes. Eddie’s friends had a name for Jews: tapirs, after the long-nosed mammals one of them had seen once in a picture book.
Eddie himself was Jewish, but he had never gotten around to telling his friends. A name like Golden, you’d have thought they would have known, but they had assumed that Eddie had adopted one of those Vegas strip, crapshooter-cum-good-time-boy names like Bobby Montana or Nicky Diamond, and Eddie never told them different. He had grown up out in Layhill, in a mostly upper-class Jewish neighborhood, and his family had belonged to that Jewish country club out there, Indian Springs, which Eddie’s friends of course called “Israel Springs.”