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:
“Hey, Dimitri, what’s goin’ on?”
“What?”
Karras looked at the face in front of him: a law-firm messenger he knew named Mike, or Mick, something like that. Karras hadn’t noticed his approach.
“Dimitri, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look so good, dude. You’re whiter than a fuckin’ sheet.”
Karras looked down. He had dropped the Metro section, and it lay in the grass at his feet.
“I’m all right.”
“Hey, Dimitri.” The messenger lowered his voice. “I’m lookin’ to cop.”
“Cop?”
“Yeah, I’m lookin’ for some smoke, man.”
“I’m done with that,” said Karras. “I’m cooked.”
“You look cooked, dude,” the messenger said, but Karras was up and walking away.
Karras had a beer at Benbow’s and a second one right behind it. He knew he could get drunk very quickly on an empty stomach, if that was his intent, but Karras was not a drinker, and he was still rational enough to realize that getting drunk would neither bring Jimmy Castle back to life nor change what he, Karras, had done. He drank a third beer anyway and stepped out into the heat.
Karras badly wanted to see Marcus, but he couldn’t face him yet. He thought of going to a movie, but he had seen the feature at the Janus, and there was the possibility that Noah Castle was there, ushering the show. Of course Noah wouldn’t be working, not one day after his little brother’s death. But Karras didn’t care to take the chance.
Karras stood in the middle of the Connecticut Avenue sidewalk. People went around him, all of them moving south. He began to feel nauseous out in the sun. He walked back to the Trauma Arms and took the steps up to his apartment, stopping once on the stairs to get his breath. Inside, he went straight to the bathroom, where he vomited his beers and morning coffee into the toilet. The beer bile stung shooting through his nose. He pulled himself up and washed his face with cool water from the sink. He staggered out into his bedroom, dropped onto his mattress, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
“So,” said Marcus Clay. “Talk about it.”
“It’s about Wilton Cooper,” said Clarence Tate.
Clay said, “I figured it was.”
“Want you to know somethin’, man, straight off.”
“Go ahead.”
“I had nothin’ to do with what happened in your shop.”
“Never thought you did. Was your boss, though, that brought those boys north.”
“He didn’t know nothin’ about the consequences. Eddie’s just simple like that.”
“He’s responsible, just the same.”
“In the same way that you’re responsible. You and your Greek friend.”
“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know, Tate.”
They stood on the sales floor, Tate with his back against the Soul rack, Clay straight up with his arms folded across his chest.
“Okay,” said Tate. “It was Cooper’s bitch killed your employee. The ugly white boy with the Zayre’s-lookin’ vines pulled the trigger.”
“I know it.”
“Wasn’t just your employee they dusted. They killed a bunch of bikers out in Howard County as well.”
“I know that, too.”
“Cooper’s crew is just a killin’ machine.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know all that.”
“That’s right.”
“But you haven’t told the cops what you know.”
“Right again,” said Clay. “And neither have you. Otherwise, you’d be talkin’ to them right now and not to me.”
“Yeah. I’m talkin’ to you.”
“You know where Cooper’s at?”
Tate nodded. “I got the number where they’re staying, over in Northeast. Take about a couple of seconds for the police to be over there and bust that door down.”
“But you’re not gonna call the police.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause Cooper threatened the life of my baby girl.”
Clay unfolded his arms and leaned back against a rack. Now he stood eye level with Tate.
“You got a daughter?”
“Yeah.” Tate smiled. “Girl named Denice. Prettiest little thing you ever did see.”
“Why not have her mother take her out of town until it’s over?”
“She ain’t got no mother. The woman who bore her lives on the streets. She started spikin’, fell in love with that shit. Forgot all about the love she had for her daughter. I’m raising my girl now. Anyway, it ain’t never gonna be over.”
“Cops raid that joint, they’re gonna put Cooper and the rest away for life. You won’t have to worry about no threats he made.”
“That’s bullshit, Marcus, and you know it is. Wilton Cooper’s one of those niggers got so he loves the inside. On the street he’s hunted. But inside those walls he’s something else. A hero, man. Incarceration doesn’t punish a man like Cooper. The longer the bit, the greater his reward. He can have anything done, have anyone smoked from in there.”
“I hear you, man.”
“Question I have for you is why haven’t you been talkin’ to the cops?”
“Who’s askin’? Your boss pullin’ your strings, or you come here your own self?”
“Just me,” said Tate.
“Okay,” said Clay. “I thought there might be a better alternative than the kind of justice the courts gonna deal out to Wilton Cooper. Thought I might have the opportunity to meet with the man, face-to-face, before the law gives him his gift, puts him where he wants to be.”
“Then we’re thinkin’ the same way.”
Clay said, “What’d you have in mind?”
Tate pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He motioned Clay, and the two of them went to the island in the center of the store. Tate placed the paper on the counter, used his fingers to smooth out the folds.
“I ain’t much of an artist,” said Tate. “But this here’s a place where I thought I could arrange it so the two of you could meet. It would have to be tonight.”
“During the fireworks.”
“Right. On account of all that noise.”
“You think you can get him to come?”
“I think he’s waitin’ on my call. Truth is, that’s why he’s hangin’ around D.C. He don’t give a fuck about the money you took. It’s all about you.”
Clay stared at the crude pencil diagram. “All right, Tate. Like I said: Talk about it.”
They planned for the better part of an hour. Clay went in the backroom and phoned Elaine, told her he’d be home a little later in the day. When he came out, he saw Tate flipping through the C bin in Soul.
“What you lookin’ for, man?”
“Give More Power to the People.”
“The Chi-Lites. You mean you don’t own that?”
“I wore the grooves down on my original.”
“Well, it’s on order,” said Clay.
“Can’t let that inventory build up, right? Got to turn it quick.”
“You know it. I’ll put it aside for you when it comes in.”
“Thanks.”
Clay watched Tate withdraw an LP, read the liner notes on the back. “You’re into that neoclassic sound, huh?”
“That what they call it? Shoot, man, I just love good music.”
Clay looked Tate in the eye. “Let me ask you something. Why’s a smart guy like you workin’ for a dumb-ass like Eddie?”
“Just happened, I guess.”
“That doesn’t explain why you stay.”
“I don’t intend to be with him much longer. Tryin’ to make this one last score, you want to know the truth. Lookin’ for a fence to take this big load we got. Eddie and me, we got this deal. Gonna split the take on that one and go our separate ways. And there’s another thing. I know it sounds like bullshit, man, but I just don’t believe in walking out on a man after I’ve made a commitment to him.”