King Suckerman
- Автор: Пелеканос Джордж
- Серия: D.C. Quartet #2
- Год: 1997
- Язык: английский
- Год: Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 978-0-316-69590-9
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «King Suckerman». Краткое содержание книги:
“Okay.”
“Talk to you tomorrow, hear?”
Karras went to where Elaine stood, kissed her on the cheek. He left the funeral home and walked across U Street to his car.
“Saturday night,” said Eddie Marchetti. “Nothing on.”
“What’s that?” said Clarence Tate.
Tate stared out the window into the darkness. He could hear the faint thump of bass from the disco down the street.
“I was just sayin’ that Saturday is the worst night of the week for TV.” Marchetti looked sadly at the Sony across the room. On the screen, a toothy white guy in a blue uniform was smiling at something another toothy white guy had said. “Emergency. Christ.”
Tate walked across the room and turned off the set. He had a seat in front of Marchetti’s desk.
“Eddie, we need to talk.”
“About what?”
“About figuring out what to do about Wilton Cooper. About cutting our losses here. About getting rid of that inventory back there and closing up shop. I think it’s time to discuss it, don’t you?”
“Take care of it, Clarenze. That’s what I’m overpaying you for, right?” Marchetti smiled weakly.
Clarence Tate shook his head. It wouldn’t help to say anything else. Tate would have to figure everything out his own self. Eddie was just plain hopeless.
Marchetti stared at the Sony’s gray tube. “I wish it were Sunday, Clarenze. Kojak night.”
“Damn, Eddie—”
“What, you don’t like Kojak?”
“I like him all right.”
“Kojak knows how to dress.”
“Man’s got some bad vines,” admitted Tate. “I’ll give you that.”
“You got a favorite Kojak, Clarenze?”
“Not really.”
“I got a favorite.” Marchetti leaned forward.
Tate sighed. “Go ahead, Eddie.”
“Okay. There’s this Mafia guy, and he has a son, a real loser. For one reason or another the son puts a hit out on Kojak, kills someone else along the way. Now this Mafia guy, he and Kojak, they go way back, but because of the kid the don’s lost Kojak’s respect. The Mafia don, he tries to talk Kojak out of going after the kid. He makes the mistake of calling Kojak Theo — trying to hit a nerve, for old time’s sake and all that. The camera moves in on Savalas, who corrects the guy by saying, ‘It’s Lieutenant Kojak.’ Like, you don’t know me all that well anymore to be callin’ me Theo. Really powerful shit. Anyway, in the end Kojak guns the kid down in the street. Some lady comes by and says, ‘Who was that guy?’ meaning the kid. And Kojak says, ‘He was nobody, lady. Nobody at all.’ I’m tellin’ you, Clarenze, every time I see that one show, I get the chills.”
Marchetti’s eyes went somewhere else. He rubbed his jowls.
“You know, Clarenze, I never wanted no one to get hurt.”
“I know it, Eddie.”
“I only wanted to come down here and make a name for myself so I could go back up to Jersey with my head up. I was afraid that if I didn’t do something to show my family, I’d end up a nobody myself, y’know what I mean?”
Tate nodded, waited for Marchetti to go on. But Marchetti didn’t say anything else, and Tate stood out of his chair.
“Hey, where you goin’?”
“Home, to relieve my parents. Gonna put my little Denice to bed.”
“Clarenze—”
“Huh-uh, Eddie. I need to be there for her before she goes to sleep.”
Tate was halfway across town, driving east in his Monte Carlo, when a plan began to form in his head.
Twenty-Three
In all of Marcus Clay’s twenty-seven years, he had never seen so many Maryland and Virginia license plates on a Sunday morning in the District. As he drove his Riviera across town to church, it seemed that every suburban family and carload of college kids was headed into D.C. The Metrobuses were full, too, and people of all ages and colors were walking down the streets, carrying coolers and blankets folded under their arms. The big celebration had begun.
At the All Souls Baptist Church, the pews were all occupied, but as soon as the service ended the parishioners headed out quickly, eager to change into shorts and T-shirts and get their spots on the Mall or settle into the choicest picnic areas of Rock Creek.
Outside the church, Clay saw George Dozier head down the polished concrete steps to his ride, a brown Mercury Marquis, parked out front on the street.
“Hey, George!” called Clay.
Dozier stopped, turned around. “Marcus.”
Clay went down to where Dozier stood, his keys in his hand. “George, man, I been looking for you.”
“Here I am. But I’m kind of in a hurry. My mom put me in charge of the barbecue today.”
“Shoot, George, everyone’s in a hurry today. I need to talk to you, man, about Rasheed’s case. You told me—”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Look, George, I tell you what. We’re just a couple of blocks from U Street, right? How about I buy you lunch at Ben’s?”
Dozier thought it over. “I can’t spare more than fifteen, twenty minutes, Marcus. Don’t want to get Moms upset.”
“I won’t keep you, man. Let’s go.”
Clay knew that Dozier couldn’t resist a free lunch at Ben’s Chili Bowl. What kind of real Washingtonian could?
“So — pass me that hot sauce, George — the other night, you said you were working some undercover thing.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” George Dozier looked down the counter at Ben’s, packed with folks in church clothes and others who were casually dressed. “Been working on something right here in Shaw the last six months or so.”
Clay used a knife and fork to cut a portion out of his chili burger. Dozier had a couple of chili dogs on a plate in front of him. He picked one up and took a healthy bite.
“Mmm,” said Dozier.
“What kind of thing you got goin’ on?”
Dozier wiped his mouth. “Been runnin’ this citywide scam down on these thieves. Got a storefront operation set up on Twelfth, between U and V. Call it G and G Trucking Service. A bunch of us cops in plainclothes sit behind a long counter, take the walk-in trade. You wouldn’t believe it, man: Once the word got out on the street, everyone in this town who had stolen goods to sell started coming in to see us. They think we got a high-end fence operation going on. We tell ’em we work for some Jew, but the Jew, he’s out of town. All kinds come in: office burglars, home burglars, pickpockets sellin’ credit cards, stickup boys, junkies, you name it. Lot of ’em selling guns. Chief Cullinane says half of them’s recidivists—”
“Recidivists?”
“Repeat offenders, back on the street.”
“How you know that?”
“We got their names, numbers, addresses, all that. Been runnin’ this operation for the last six months. Next week we’re gonna shut it down, go to their homes or where they’re stayin’, arrest them then.”
“Now wait a minute, George. How’d you get this cast of characters to give up their names and addresses to a bunch of plainclothes cops?”
Dozier was finishing up his first dog. He swallowed, then gave Clay a wide grin. Clay could picture the same exact smile on little George Dozier’s face back when the two of them were alley-running kids.
“Here’s the beauty of it, Marcus. We held a raffle.”
“A raffle?”
“Yeah. You believe that shit? Raffled off an El Dorado, man, and don’t you know that damn near every man walked in that joint filled out a card. Called it the GYA raffle.”
“What’s GYA stand for?”
“Got Ya Again. You remember back in February, when those white cops grew their hair kinda long, impersonated Mafia dons, ran a similar operation down? It was all over the papers and the TV, called it the Sting?”