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:
“Sure, I remember.”
“Well, this here’s the same kind of thing. So we decided to use those initials: GYA, for Got Ya Again.”
“Funny so many would fall for it the second time around.”
“That’s what a lot of the brass in the department said, that it wouldn’t work. And there was that unspoken thing, since it was all brothers runnin’ this operation, that we wouldn’t have the brains or the wherewithal to pull it off. But we are pulling it off. Got over a million dollars in goods already recovered, Marcus.”
“Congratulations, George.”
“Yeah, I’m proud. Gonna be a boost for my career, and for a lot of other good brothers, too.”
Clay ate his burger and waited for Dozier to finish his second chili dog. Dozier used the rest of the bun to mop the fallen beans and sauce off the plate.
“George?”
“Yeah.”
“You hear anything on Rasheed?”
Dozier nodded shortly, looked down at his clean plate. “Heard plenty, Marcus.”
“You got friends in Homicide?”
“Yeah, but they’re careful about givin’ out too much. No, I found out what you were lookin’ for by talking to the FBI and ATF boys we got working with us on the GYA thing. Got close to a couple of them these last six months.”
“The Feds are involved?”
“Uh-huh, and those Federal boys work fast. Turns out the group that robbed your store are wanted for a whole lot of shit, and not just in D.C.”
“Like what?”
“There was this shotgun murder at a drive-in this past week, down in North Carolina. A car registered to a Wilton Cooper was seen driving the suspect, white boy named Bobby Ray something-or-other, away. Then on Friday was that slaughter up in Marriottsville, near Baltimore. You read about that, right?”
“I read it.”
“Whoever did it burned the place down, but they got the tire markings, the shells, and some shot patterns, and they matched the double-aught loads. Same as the Carolina kill. Same prints, too.” Dozier looked Clay square in the eyes. “Same everything as in your shop.”
“Damn.”
“Uh-huh. This Cooper is one bad nigger, on the for real side. Was some kind of king inside the walls of Angola. One of the suspects, got a yard-long record on him, was incarcerated with Cooper down there. This suspect’s got a brother, and they think he’s with them, too.”
“What about the white boy?”
“No paper on him, but everyone makes him as the main triggerman. Way it appears, he just plain likes to kill. Question is, what connects them, motivewise, to you? Or was it something they had against Rasheed?”
“Rasheed was good. I don’t know why they picked my store, George. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
“Well, they’re gonna get ’em.”
“Got a good lead, huh?”
“Shoot, man, they left a trail so bright, blind man could see it. Had this girl they asked directions to the night of the murder, she described the car they were drivin’ down to wraparound stripes on the rear quarter panel. I saw the girl myself on Saturday, giving her statement in the station. Dark-skinned girl, looked like Carol Speed.”
“Carol Speed. She the one played with Pam Grier in that prison movie set down in the Philippines?”
Dozier nodded. “The Big Bird Cage. Anyway, the way she described the ride, it was like they picked out the most noticeable set of wheels they could. Like they were lookin’ to get caught.”
“What were they drivin’?”
“Chrysler product with a big-ass spoiler on the back.”
“Plymouth Superbird?”
“The sister version, by Dodge. Daytona Charger. Kind you usually see Chinese boys drivin’.”
“So everyone thinks they’re still in town?”
“Yeah. They found Cooper’s original vehicle, a red Challenger, stashed in a wooded area in Bladensburg, someplace like that.”
“Should be easy to spot ’em.”
“All the local law enforcement’s got the description of the men and the car now. Like I say, they’ll get ’em. I just hope to God they do before those boys hurt someone else.” Dozier looked at Clay, Clay’s eyes fixed and staring ahead. “You all right, Marcus?”
“Yeah, George, I’m fine. Thanks for looking into it, man.”
“I don’t know what you can do with it.”
“Can’t do nothin’. Just tryin’ to make some sense out of all this, for my own piece of mind.” Clay took his wallet from his back pocket, signaled the aproned teenager who stood beside the grill.
“Hold on, Marcus.” Dozier spoke to the grill man. “Young fella? How about another one of these chili dogs.”
“Damn, George. I thought Moms was waitin’ on you to get the barbecue going.”
“She is. But I don’t get in here as much as I used to. You come to Ben’s, you might as well go ahead and fill it on up.”
“Good dogs,” said Clay.
“Like to make you cry.”
Marcus Clay crossed Connecticut Avenue on foot, hit the sidewalk, walked north against the flow. He stepped around a tourist carrying a miniature American flag mounted on a stick, and bumped into her husband, who wore plaid shorts and athletic socks pulled up to the knee.
“Pardon me.”
“Excuse me,” said Clay to the tourist, and that’s when Clay saw Clarence Tate standing in front of the locked door of Real Right Records.
Clay went to his storefront, stood eye to eye with Tate. “You lookin’ for somethin’, man?”
“What all good people are lookin’ for,” said Tate, spreading his hands palms out. “Peace.”
“I don’t need no abstracts. I’m askin’ what you’re doin’ here for real.”
Tate shrugged in a loose way. “Came to talk to you, Marcus, that’s all. Figure we got a mutual interest in working this thing out.”
Clay looked around him, past the loiterers and the pedestrians. Traffic inched along amidst a shimmering heat mirage in the street. “Cooler and quieter inside,” he said, motioning his head toward the store entrance.
“You askin’ me in?”
Clay unlocked the door and said, “Come on.”
Twenty-Four
Dimitri Karras looked out the front window of his apartment late Sunday morning. One block west, a mass of pedestrians moved slowly up Connecticut; Karras saw an opportunity to off the rest of his weed. He made a cup of coffee, scaled out the remainder of his dope, bagged it at the cable-spool table in his living room. He did a couple of bong hits and left the Trauma Arms.
Karras wore baggy, lightweight cotton trousers with deep pockets in which he kept his OZs. A Hawaiian shirt worn tails out covered the bulging pockets. He went down to the circle and sat on the edge of the fountain, talking to a couple of people he knew and looking out for narcs. He didn’t usually ply his trade in the open here, but he knew the cops had better things to do on the Fourth, especially this Fourth, than to bother with a low-level dealer like him. After a while Karras saw an eager guy named Don Goines who was bone dry and offered to take the dope off his hands for retail. Karras made the deal sitting on a bench at the edge of the circular concrete walkway. He pocketed two hundred in twenties and went on his way.
He bought a Sunday Post and another cup of coffee and returned to the circle, where he had a seat on an unoccupied bench. Karras read the A section, then Book World, and then Metro, his routine. Halfway into Metro he came upon a story detailing a Saturday accident on 95 in which a car carrying three boys had collided with a tractor-trailer head-on. All three boys and the driver of the truck had been killed. Open alcohol containers, marijuana, and paraphernalia were found in the car’s wreckage. The boys were Silver Spring residents, and one of them was named Jimmy Castle.