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:
“You know that guy, amigo?” said Michael.
“Who?”
“Don’t play. The man who boosted the phone.”
“Yes, I know him,” said Joe. “He wear that jacket all the time. He probably stole that too. Lives with some men I know who work in kitchens, like me. Sometimes we drink beer at their house. He doesn’t work. He is a bum.”
“So you know where he stay at?”
“Sí, Tall Man,” said Joe, and his eyes smiled. “What are you gonna do?”
The cell on Ornazian’s nightstand was buzzing, but he didn’t answer it because he was busy making love to his wife. He gathered Sydney’s thick, muscular thighs around his waist. She flexed her inner muscles and tightened herself around him.
“Uh,” he said.
Sydney chuckled low. “You like that?”
“Fuck, yeah,” he said and kissed her full mouth. She made a small grunt of pleasure as he touched bottom.
Their pit mix Blue was asleep on one of two cushions in the room. Their other dog, Sydney’s protector, sat beside their bed, watching them fuck. Whitey had been whining for the last ten minutes.
“Stupid animal,” said Ornazian.
“He thinks you’re hurting me.”
“I am.”
She was getting there. He could tell by her cooling lips and her escalating moans. He turned her over because that was how she liked to finish. He gripped her shoulders for purchase and she reached between her legs and worked herself.
“Apo piso,” said Ornazian.
“Huh?”
“‘From behind.’ It’s Greek.”
“I know it’s Greek. They invented it. Don’t stop.”
She burst with a long shudder.
They rested, and then she said, “Now you,” because he had controlled it and held himself back. She propped some pillows against the headboard and told him to sit and lean back, and then she pushed his legs apart and got between them. She went to him with vigor.
“Look up at me when you do that,” said Ornazian.
“Who made you king?” she said.
“You did.”
Michael stood on Princeton Place in Park View around two thirty a.m., after the bars had officially closed. He was near a group of low-rent row homes, painted brick, no stoops, no porches, on the south side of the street. The man in the leather jacket, whose name was Guillermo and who went by Gil, lived in one of the homes. He was not there now. This Michael knew because Joe had asked a female friend to call the house and see if he was in. The person who picked up the phone told the woman that Gil was out “having beers.”
Some of the bars citywide stayed open and served past their closing time, but Michael was patient and energized. He himself had just recently clocked out of work. He was not tired.
Around three a.m., a man in a black jacket with multiple zippers — surely Gil — came up from Georgia Avenue, walking unsteadily. Michael crossed the street and headed toward him. The man would be naturally hesitant at this hour to see a big man approach him on a dark street, but his machismo prevented him from stepping to the side, and as they neared each other Michael grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, lifted him off his feet, and slammed him onto the hood of a nearby Nissan sedan.
Michael held Gil fast with one hand, bore his full weight down on him, and violently pressed his forearm across his throat.
“You stole a phone tonight,” said Michael.
Gil looked into Michael’s unyielding eyes. “The phone no work.”
“I ain’t ask for no review.”
“Eh?”
“Give it up.”
The swell inside Michael was familiar.
Ornazian and Sydney lay in bed, naked atop the sheets, his arm under her, her head on his broad chest. Now the room was quiet, as Whitey had joined Blue in sleep. With his free hand, Ornazian traced the curve of her rump.
“You’re fine as shit, girl.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“You are. I showed Thaddeus that photo of you and he was like, Damn.”
“You’re bad.”
“Proud, is all.”
“I’m still carrying fifteen extra pounds from the babies. I could stand to lose a few.”
“Please don’t. You’re perfect as you are.”
“You just like me.”
“I do, indeed.”
“I want to look like Diana Ross in 1967.”
“I’d leap over a hundred Diana Rosses just to touch your hand.”
“You’re sweet.”
“I mean it.” He did too.
Sydney looked up at him. “What are you working on with Thaddeus?”
“Couple of things,” said Ornazian. “We’re gonna be flush.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“It’s for our family. Besides, I got a life insurance policy. Half a mil. Even covers suicide, in case all your talking drives me to it.”
“I don’t like it when you joke about that,” said Sydney. “I worry.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Everything’s good.”
Sydney left the room to use the toilet in the hall. Ornazian reached over to the nightstand to check his phone.
Michael Hudson had called.
Seventeen
The next day, Ornazian pulled into a north — south alley off Kansas Avenue and drove to where it joined another alley at a T. There he came upon a freestanding red-brick garage large enough to hold four vehicles. A sign above the bays read FRIENDLY AUTO REPAIRS. The establishment was licensed to work on cars.
A man with a full head of tight black curls stepped out of the garage rubbing his hands on a shop rag. His name was Berhanu and his true business was off-the-books rental cars known as hacks. He accepted only cash, which served him and his clients well. There was no paper trail.
Ornazian got out of his Ford amid the frenzied barks of alley dogs. He walked through an open chain-link gate, wide enough to allow the entry and exit of vehicles, and shook Berhanu’s hand.
“Selam, Berhanu,” said Ornazian. “How’s your family?”
“Thanks be to God, Phil. They are well. And yours?”
“We’re good.”
Ornazian and Berhanu were both Eastern Orthodox Christians and when they greeted each other, they observed certain rituals. They were not close friends but their common religion connected them in an unspoken way.
“What do you have for me?”
“Come inside.”
They walked into the garage that was lit by drop lamps. A large tool bench ran along the back of the bays. Berhanu’s man, a beer alcoholic named Donnie, was seated on an overturned milk crate, drinking Budweiser from a can. He was a good mechanic when sober. Though he recognized Ornazian, he said nothing to him upon his entrance. Instead, Donnie got up and walked out of the garage.
There were three cars in the bays. Two of them were imports: a high-horse Lexus LS460 and an E-Series Benz that Berhanu kept for big rollers. The third was a nineties-era Chevy Impala SS, black over gray, with five-spoke aluminum wheels. Its bumpers, grille, and rocker panels were black and not chromed. The Impala SS had been the shot-across-the-bow for the modern muscle-car sedan. Ornazian went to it immediately. It was a car he had coveted when he was a young man but could not afford. He opened the driver’s-side door and inspected the interior. The front buckets were as spacious as La-Z-Boys and the rear bench was as big as a sofa.
“A ’94?” said Ornazian.
“How did you know?”
“The trans arm is on the column. Chevy moved the shifter to the floor later on.”
“Very good.”
“You removed the spoiler.”