The Man Who Came Uptown
- Автор: Пелеканос Джордж
- Год: 2018
- Язык: английский
- Год: Mulholland Books / Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 978-0-316-47982-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Man Who Came Uptown». Краткое содержание книги:
“Please respect our wishes,” said Weitzman. “Keep this as quiet as possible. Don’t involve the other kids or their parents.”
“I won’t,” said Ornazian. But he already had a plan, and his assurance was a lie.
Ten
A week after he’d come home, Michael Hudson decided it was time to see about a job. The lady from Open City Advocates had given him the name of a man who was the general manager of a restaurant in Columbia Heights. She’d told Michael, confidentially, that this man had a conviction from when he was younger, a possession/distribution thing that had bought him jail time in Maryland, and that he would probably be empathetic toward someone who was trying to get it together on the outside.
Michael let Brandy out into the small dirt-and-weed yard at the back of their home and waited for the dog to do her business. The yard led to an alley and an empty lot, where another east — west alley came to a T. There Michael saw four men smoking weed, talking, not bothering anyone, not doing much at all. One of them, an army veteran named Woods, was seated on a crate. Michael nodded to Woods, whom he knew from childhood, and Woods said, “Hudson,” and another man said, “All right.”
Brandy took her sweet time sniffing and pooping, and Michael didn’t rush her. Eventually, he had to go down into the yard, pick the dog up in his arms, and carry her back up the concrete steps into the house. Brandy got anxiety, paced in a circle, when she felt she couldn’t make it up those steps. Once inside, she tottered over to her bed, a large cushion set next to Doretha’s favorite armchair, and settled into a nap.
Michael dressed in a collared shirt, freshly laundered jeans, and a pair of low black Air Force Ones that he had polished. He grabbed his NYRB paperback edition of Hard Rain Falling and left the house. His plan was to talk to the restaurant man and then maybe find a bench in the sun and read some. The blossoms had come early after a warm winter and it would be nice to sit outside. He was deep into his book.
He walked over to Eleventh Street around Park Road, where there was a cluster of restaurants, bars, and coffee shops on the otherwise residential block. He passed Tubman Elementary, where kids were kicking a ball around on the field. Nearby was a fenced-in area where dogs played and their owners socialized.
The restaurant was on a corner of the intersection and took up the entirety of a three-story row house that was topped with a turret, D.C.’s signature architectural feature. There was outdoor seating, picnic tables mostly, up on a patio, where Christmas lights had been strung. Alongside the patio was a small porch with a metal cage holding stacks of split wood, and steps led down to double doors, which Michael guessed was access for food deliveries. The sign outside the place said THE DISTRICT LINE. And below it, in smaller letters, GOOD FOOD AND DRINK.
Michael went inside.
A young woman with ginger-colored hair was behind the bar, slicing fruit. The bar ran from the entrance to the rear of the room, where a hall led to a stairwell. A man in street clothes, wearing a short brown apron tied around his waist, was setting silverware on bare wooden tables. There weren’t many tables, and the place was empty of customers.
“Hi,” said the bartender to Michael. She had a nice smile.
“Hello.”
“We’re not serving yet. Lunch starts in about a half hour.”
“I’m here to see...” Michael looked down at the notepaper he was using as a bookmark in the novel he was carrying. Its top peeked out of the pages. “Angelos. We got an appointment.”
“He’s down in the kitchen. He’ll be right up.”
Almost as she said it, a barrel-chested man in his early thirties came out of the stairwell and appeared in the room, carrying magnum bottles of white wine in a box. He set the box on the bar. He had a heavy black beard and wore a red bandanna over his longish black hair. He looked like a well-fed pirate.
“This man is here to see you, Angelos.”
“Michael Hudson.” Michael stepped forward and put out his hand. Angelos shook it.
“Angelos Valis.” He looked at his wristwatch, a rotary-faced job with a green band, and said, “Let’s go upstairs. It’s quiet there.” To the bartender he said, “Call me if you need me, Callie.”
Michael followed Angelos up a narrow set of stairs by the front door to another dining room that was also on the small side, a corner room with windows all the way around, looking down on Eleventh. They had a seat at a two-top. Michael put his book down on the table. Again Angelos looked at his watch.
“Thanks for seeing me,” said Michael.
“You come recommended by the woman over at Open City. They’re good people, so that goes in your favor. But I need to know a few things before this conversation goes any further. Specifically, your priors. Not just convictions. Charges too.”
“You get right to it.”
“We’re about to open. So tell me. You just got out.”
“I was charged with armed robbery, but the charges got dropped. The man who was robbed decided not to testify.”
“You had a gun?”
“No, my partner did. I was there to back him up and drive the car. When a heater’s involved, doesn’t matter who’s carrying it. You still take the gun charge.”
“I guess you’ve been told that I’m no stranger to lockup. So it doesn’t bother me that you’ve been in jail. But I won’t hire a violent offender or a sex offender. I just won’t.”
“I’ve never done anything like that.”
“My friend said you had other priors.”
Michael hesitated. Angelos had looked him in the eye the entire time he’d been with him. He was direct, but that was cool. Michael wasn’t offended. This dude was straight.
“Well?”
“I was into cars when I was young. I stole one once and got probation. When I stole another one, I got sent to juvenile.”
“New Beginnings?”
“Nah, that wasn’t open yet. I was out there in Oak Hill.”
“That’s rough.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-eight.”
“That’s a long gap between your juvenile priors and the commission of a robbery ten years later. Why’d you decide to commit another crime?”
“I was stupid,” said Michael. “But I’m not gonna be stupid anymore.”
Angelos continued to look into Michael’s eyes and Michael did not cut his eyes away.
“You ever work in a restaurant before?” said Angelos.
“No,” said Michael. “But I’ll learn.”
“What are you good at?”
“Numbers. I used to work store jobs. Like, in D.C.? The sales tax is five and three-quarters percent. You can give me any amount, and I can do that tax in my head. Don’t need to look it up.”
“That’s great, but I don’t need someone to operate the register or wait tables. Do you speak Spanish?”
“No,” said Michael.
“Well, that’s a problem right there. You’d be working in the kitchen. My kitchen crews are Hispanic and for the most part they don’t speak English. Anyone who works down there has to be able to communicate with them.”
“You sayin you don’t hire no one but Spanish?”
“That’s pretty much the case. Look, they seem to be the only ones who want these jobs, and they work the hell out of them. If one of them can’t come in, they send in a friend or a relative to cover. I’m never shorthanded.”
“You’re telling me that you have an opening in the kitchen?”
“Dishwasher,” said Angelos. “Actually, it’s not open yet. One of the guys I have now has a problem with alcohol. I can’t carry him anymore. I’m going to let him go on payday.”