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:
“Never thought I’d hear a country song playing in this neighborhood,” said Michael.
“Country’s just one of the things this guy is,” said Anna. “Anyway, they’ll probably play GoldLink or something like that next. All kinds of people patronize this place. You’ve got to serve your clientele.”
“I reckon.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t stress on things I can’t change.” Michael sipped his drink. “All this new stuff happened quick, though. I wasn’t locked up for all that long.”
“Everything happens quickly now. The hands on the clock are spinning faster. Don’t you feel it?”
“Yes. What’s that mean, though? That you should slow yourself down and enjoy it? Or pack in as much as you can ’cause time is short?”
“I don’t know what it means,” said Anna. “I go to work every day and try to do something positive. I don’t have grand ambitions. Make a living, make a little impact on someone’s life, if I can. That’s the most anyone can hope for, I think.”
“Small kindnesses. Like in the book.”
“Which book?”
“The one you gave me. Northline. Every time something horrible happened to that girl, over and over again, when it seemed like she was too far gone to ever come back, someone did something nice for her. Wasn’t anything major. But it made a difference. She learned. Eventually, she ended up helping that dude with the scars the same way.”
“What did that tell you?”
“The bad in the world, it can keep coming at you. But one small act of kindness can overpower the dark.”
“I loved that book.”
“So did I. Thank you for giving it to me. And for everything you did when I was in the jail. You changed my life.”
Their eyes locked. Anna blushed.
“What?” said Michael.
“Nothing. It was my pleasure.”
Michael held her gaze. “How is it for you?” he said.
“How’s what?”
“Are you happy?”
She hesitated, because how she answered would have implications for them both. Her heart wanted many different things. But she knew what was right.
“I don’t think I’m all that different from anybody else,” she said. “I definitely have a lot to be thankful for. So I’m pretty happy, I guess. Most of the time I am.”
“With your man, I mean.”
“I know what you were asking. Yes.”
Michael nodded. He needed to know.
On impulse, Anna reached across the table and laid her hand over Michael’s. The feeling was electric. She kept it there, looking into his eyes. Then she slowly withdrew it.
They sat there as Anna finished her beer, comfortable with each other in the gathering dark.
She walked her bike up the hill toward Warder and he walked beside her. They said good-bye a block from her house. She watched him as he turned the corner at Princeton and headed west.
Michael took his time walking home. He had received a text and answered it. Now he needed to think.
The black Edge was parked on Sherman, right in front of his mother’s house. Michael opened the door and got into the passenger bucket.
“Michael.”
“Told you I’d meet you up the street.”
“This was the only spot available.”
“Say what you came here for.”
“I’ve got another job for you,” said Ornazian.
“What makes you think I’d do it?”
“Me and Thaddeus are about to do a home invasion out in the country. These guys stole some valuable jewelry from a house party. Raped the teenage girl who lived there. They’re white supremacists. Bad people all the way around.”
“Don’t play me, Phil.”
“I need you. You drove the shit out of that Impala when it counted. I don’t know anybody who can do what you do.”
“Always on the hustle. What you gonna do now, threaten to send me back to jail?”
“I don’t think I have to.”
Michael stared ahead. “When?”
“Soon.”
“Don’t come near my mother’s house again. Hear?”
Michael got out of the Ford. Ornazian pulled off the curb and drove toward Petworth. He wanted to see his sons before they went to sleep.
Twenty-Four
They drove up the graded road at night, Michael at the wheel of the SS, Ornazian beside him. Thaddeus Ward was in the backseat. The headlights were off. Michael navigated by the light of the moon. They passed the house in the pines, and Ornazian told him to keep going, and then, after a hundred yards, he told him to turn around. Nearing the house, Ornazian instructed Michael to pull over and cut the engine.
“Wait,” said Ward. “Back it into the woods instead.”
“What if we get stuck?” said Ornazian.
“It hasn’t rained for a week,” said Ward. “Ground’s packed hard. We’ll be fine.”
Michael did it. The Impala was partially hidden by oak and scrub pine, its nose out. They could see the house clearly. The curtains were drawn, and lights were on inside. Only the Cherokee and Silverado were in the gravel driveway. There was no Charger.
“Where’s our boy?” said Ward.
“Who knows?” said Ornazian. “Still at work? It doesn’t matter. We don’t want him, we only want what they stole.”
“We could wait till Kelly gets back,” said Ward.
“There’s no telling when or if he’s coming back tonight. I don’t think we should wait.”
“Okay,” said Ward, trying to think of all the possibilities. “They know someone broke into their house. They’ll be on alert.”
“What’s your point?”
“We have to go in hard. I’ll use the ram and you need to cover them with the shotgun.”
“Right.” Ornazian clipped a two-way radio to his belt and handed its mate to Michael. “Stay on channel eleven.”
“Like last time.”
“Kelly’s tall with a long face and a broad forehead,” said Ornazian, speaking to Michael. “If he comes back to the house, remember, you’re with us. You know what that means.”
Michael said nothing. But he understood what Ornazian was saying. He was expected to back them up.
“You done speechifying?” said Ward.
“Not yet,” said Ornazian. “I just want to remind everyone that these are bad people. They drugged and assaulted a girl. They’d just as soon see you swinging from a tree as look at you, Thaddeus.”
“You don’t need to gin me up,” said Ward. “I was a kid in Washington in the fifties. My father was a veteran of World War Two, a taxpayer, and a straight citizen, and still, I heard him get called a nigger many times. Do you know what that does to a boy who looks up to his father? My mother worked for the federal government, but come Easter, she couldn’t buy a hat or a dress in one of those downtown department stores or walk into the Garfinckel’s on Fourteenth Street and spend the money she’d earned. That is, until 1968. That’s when we burned Fourteenth Street to the ground. So, yeah, I know who these people are. It’s you who don’t know. You too, Hudson. Either you never took the time to learn your history or you forgot. It’s the forgetting that allows trash like them to come back.
“This past year been the darkest time I can remember. But I did smile once. When that white-supremacist dude came to town and someone just up and coldcocked him right in the face. This is Washington, man. The percentages are down, but it’s still a black city. Always gonna be a black city to me. Some white boy comes into D.C. and starts talking that filth, he’s gonna get his punk ass handed to him real quick.
“So there ain’t no need for you to get my blood going, Phil. I got a daughter. She’s more accomplished than any of these people will ever be, and still, in their eyes, she’s mud.”