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:
“You think it’s on the up and up?”
“Like I say, I don’t know these cats. But he gave me no reason to doubt him.” Clay reached into the back pocket of his pressed jeans, pulled out a sheet of paper. He walked to the desk and slid the paper in front of Marchetti. “Here you go, Spags. Wrote the address down for you and everything.”
“Thanks. I’ll look into it next week.”
“Better get over there the next day or so. They’re gettin’ ready to close down the operation.”
Tate reached over and took the paper off the desk. “I’ll handle it, Eddie. Get a truck loaded up tomorrow morning and roll right over there.”
“That’s not a good idea,” said Clay, looking hard into Tate’s eyes.
“Why not?” said Marchetti.
“See,” said Clay, “it’s a bunch of brothers runnin’ the operation. Word is, they been payin’ top dollar to the white men been comin’ in. Figure they can take the bloods for a lower price, I guess. Now, they see a man of your stature walkin’ through the door, a Caucasian gentleman they figure knows how to negotiate professionally, they’re gonna have to be a whole lot more generous.”
“He’s right, Clarenze,” said Marchetti. “I better handle this one personally. No offense, of course.”
Tate said, “None taken.”
“Thank you, Mr. Clay,” said Marchetti.
“Well.” Clay reached across the desk, shook Marchetti’s hand. “I best be on my way.”
“Pleasure doin’ business with you,” said Marchetti.
Clay smiled, nodded meaningfully at Tate, turned and walked across the room. Tate watched Clay move with that head-held-high way of his, and Marchetti gave Clay a final once-over as he disappeared out the door. They listened to his footsteps on the stairs.
“You know, Clarenze?” said Marchetti. “Even with everything that went down, I like that guy.”
“I kind of like him, too.”
“Now all I got to do is turn over that merchandise and I’ll be on my way.”
“You leavin’ D.C., Eddie?”
“I am. Gonna take my winnings and head back up to Jersey.”
“Smart move. You want to know the truth, this ain’t your town, Eddie. You don’t belong here.”
“I guess you’re right.”
Marchetti and Tate heard the Riviera’s engine turn over outside the warehouse.
“You know something, Clarenze?”
“What?”
“I was lookin’ at Clay just now, walkin’ out of here? That’s one big man, you know it? I never realized how big he was!”
“Up till now,” said Clarence Tate, “neither did I.”
Thirty
At the top of Irving Street, on the corner of Mt. Pleasant, Dimitri Karras stood in the sun, leaning against the side of his Karmann Ghia. He checked the time on his wristwatch and saw that it was a little past eleven.
A hot wind blew trash across the street. An old man, nearly blind, stood at the bus stop and tapped his cane on the quartz-reflecting sidewalk. In the front yard of a nearby row house, a young Puerto Rican doubled over and vomited in the grass.
Karras turned his head.
A black ’69 Camaro, jacked up in the rear, approached, coming fast up Irving. Karras stepped out in the street and flagged the car down.
The driver of the Camaro pulled over to the side of the road. The driver and his passenger had a short discussion, and then the passenger door opened. Young Nick Stefanos stepped out of the car.
Stefanos walked toward Karras. Karras watched a kid with longish blond hair get out of the driver’s side and light a smoke. He tilted his chin up at Karras and smiled; Karras didn’t like the smile or the kid’s face.
“Hey,” said Stefanos.
“Hey.”
They shook hands.
“Dimitri Karras, right?”
“That’s right, yeah.”
“What’s happenin’, man?”
“Leavin’ for your trip?”
“Just said good-bye to my papou. Me and Billy are on our way to pick up the boat and head south.”
“Thought I’d catch you before you left.”
“How’d you know—”
“Irving’s one way headed east. You told me you’d be shoving off about eleven.”
“Okay,” said Stefanos, digging his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He waited for the older guy with the haunted face to speak.
Karras said, “I just wanted to talk to you, that’s all.”
Stefanos looked at Karras’s wrinkled Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned to the navel, the man’s unclean face, his dirty feet. There seemed to be blood or something streaked on the man’s jeans.
“You been up all night?” said Stefanos in a friendly way.
“Up?” Karras looked down at his shirt in surprise, as if he was seeing it for the first time. “Yeah, I guess.”
Stefanos glanced over his shoulder at his smirking friend. “Listen, Billy’s in a hurry—”
“I know.”
Karras had planned to ask if Nick Stefanos knew the Castle boy. He had planned to tell him about the accident, tell him to take care. But he remembered then that the two boys had gone to different high schools. And in truth, he knew the conversation would be pointless. Stefanos was nineteen years old; he would not understand, or care to understand, the gravity of death.
“Nick,” said Karras.
“Yeah?”
“I only wanted to tell you—”
“I know. ‘Have fun.’ You told me the other day.”
Karras shifted his feet. “Look... what I really mean to say is, don’t waste your time. You think you’re just having fun and then ten years pass and you figure out that you haven’t done a goddamn thing. All you’ve been is high, and you can’t even remember what was so good about that.”
“Right.” Stefanos cocked his head and nodded slowly. “I hear you, man.”
No you don’t. Goddamnit, you don’t.
Karras bit down on his lip. He reached into his pocket, pulled free a slip of paper with a shaky hand. “Anyway. I put my address on here for you. In case you want to write. I know you won’t write your grandfather, but you can write me. A postcard’ll do it, so I can just tell the old man I heard from you and you’re okay. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Sure.” Stefanos took the slip of paper, looked at it. “Real Right Records. I bought a couple of LPs there once.”
“I work there,” said Karras. “That is, I’m going to be.”
“Cool.” Stefanos looked back at his friend once again. “Look, Dimitri, if that’s it—”
“You gotta go.”
“Yeah. I better go.”
“All right,” said Karras. “Go.”
Stefanos went to the car, dropped into the shotgun bucket. Billy Goodrich had gotten back behind the wheel.
“Who was that guy?” said Goodrich.
“A friend of my grandfather’s.”
“Your papa send him to talk to you?”
“Papou.”
“Whatever. He send that guy to tell you to be careful and shit?”
“He’s just a friend.”
Goodrich smiled. “What’d he want, then, Greek?”
“I don’t know,” Stefanos said truthfully. “Come on, Billy, let’s ride.”
Goodrich cooked the 327 and pulled away from the curb. Nick Stefanos looked in the sideview mirror at Karras, still standing in the street, watching them drive away. The Camaro went over a rise and crossed 16th.
Stefanos glanced back in the mirror. Dimitri Karras was gone.
Nick Stefanos and Billy Goodrich picked up the Larson in Alexandria and put the boat on the hitch. Their next stop was a market, where they bought a cold six-pack of beer. Though it was barely noon, they grabbed two Buds out of the bag, pulled the rings, and tapped cans.