Jones breathed out slowly. "Drop this motherf.u.c.ker off somewhere, Kenneth, before I lose my composure."

"You need to go by your woman's before you drop me anywhere," said Dennis.

"Say what?" said Jones.

"You still owe me thirty. For the gage."

Willis ignitioned the Mercury and pulled it off the curb. Full night had come to the streets.

THIRTEEN.

YOU OKAY, LOVER?"

"I'm fine," said Frank Vaughn.

"Your eyes look kinda funny."

"Yours did, too. A minute ago, it looked like they were gonna pop right out your head."

"Stop it."

"Don't worry about me. I'm just a little dizzy. But it's a good dizzy, babe."

Frank Vaughn pulled out of the woman who was underneath him in her bed. Her name was Linda Allen. She caught her breath as he left her and rolled onto his back. He rested a beefy hand between the pillow and his head. The smell of Linda's s.e.x, the smell of their perspiration, and the smell of the liquor they had drunk and the cigarettes they'd smoked were strong in the room.

"I'm gonna go wash up," said Linda. "You want something?"

Vaughn checked his Hamilton wrist.w.a.tch. Gray and brown hairs sprouted through the links of the stainless band. "I got time for a short one, I guess."

Linda Allen got off the bed naked and proud, her posture straight. She shook her long hair off her shoulders as she moved. That was for him. Vaughn watched her with admiration. She was a tall, leggy brunette, now in her forties, a divorcee who had never had children and so had kept her shape. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were pink tipped, heavy, and stood up nice. Vaughn took in the cut of her muscular thighs, her ample round a.s.s, and that warm box that always held him tight. G.o.d, this was a woman right here. Reminded him of Julie London in her prime. He had been with Linda for almost ten years.

He thought of this apartment, a one-bedroom in the Woodner, down by the lion bridge on 16th, as his oasis. He visited Linda on his night shifts, one or two times a week. Sometimes he came for what he'd come for tonight. Sometimes he came to rest.

He heard the toilet flush in the bathroom and then the sound of water flowing from the faucet. He reached over to the nightstand, shook an L&M from the deck, and lit it with his Zippo, which was customized with a hand-painted map of Okinawa. He took a deep drag, coughed a little, and lay his head back on the pillow.

His wife, Olga, was the same age as Linda, but the similarities ended there. Olga no longer had any shape to speak of. Her a.s.s had flattened out, as had her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Linda talked very little; Olga talked all the time. Vaughn's e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns with Olga were typically no more sensational than urination. With Linda, he came like a stallion. The funny thing was, though, when Vaughn made love to his wife, he experienced emotions he never felt while he was f.u.c.king Linda. And he knew the difference was just that simple: One was love and one was just a f.u.c.k. A lucky man could get both from his wife, but Vaughn hadn't had that kind of luck. It wasn't anything to cry over. This arrangement worked just fine.

Vaughn heard Linda's heavy footsteps out in the living room. He heard her opening the lid on her console hi-fi. He heard a Chris Connor tune coming from the speakers. That was another thing about Linda; she shared his taste in music. Entertainers who dressed right, musicians who had been trained to play their instruments, singers who sang rather than screamed. None of that rock-and-roll s.h.i.t that his son, Ricky, now a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Maryland, listened to in his room.

Linda came into the bedroom, a clean, damp washcloth in one hand, a tumbler of Beam and water over ice in the other. Vaughn rested his smoke in the dip of the nightstand ashtray. She put the washcloth in his hand and sat on the edge of the bed. Vaughn ran the cloth over his uncut member, pushed out the last of his seed, and cleaned Linda's smell from his pubic hair. He sat up, leaned his back against the headboard, and dropped the washcloth to the floor. Linda had a pull of the drink and handed the gla.s.s to Vaughn. He rattled the cubes a little and tipped some cool hot bourbon into his mouth.

Vaughn swallowed slowly. "What you starin' at, doll?"

"Big old dog. I'm staring at you." She rubbed her hand over his flattop. "For luck," she said.

"I can use it."

Linda ran her fingers down Vaughn's shoulder, unconsciously touching the tattoo of his wife's name floating in a heart. "Think we can go see some music one night? We haven't gone out in a while."

"Where you wanna go?"

"I like that girl, sings upstairs at Mr. Henry's in Southeast. Remember her?"

"The colored singer, with the trio."

"Roberta Flack," said Linda, recalling the singer's name.

"Yeah, okay."

"Can we go?"

"Sometime," said Vaughn.

Vaughn touched her left breast, squeezed the tip of her pink nipple, and felt it swell.

"You keep that up, you're gonna have to stay."

"I can't," he said. "I gotta get back on the street."

BUZZ STEWART, DOMINIC Martini, and Walter Hess drove downtown in Walter's '631/ 2 Galaxie, a red-over-black beauty, drinking beer all the way. Hess had heard about the Ford from a cell mate of his and bought it from a mechanic up in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, when he was released. It had a 427 under the hood, a four-speed on the console, small hubcaps, rear skirts, and the chrome dress-up option from the factory. It was the cleanest vehicle of its kind on the street. Martini, and Walter Hess drove downtown in Walter's '631/ 2 Galaxie, a red-over-black beauty, drinking beer all the way. Hess had heard about the Ford from a cell mate of his and bought it from a mechanic up in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, when he was released. It had a 427 under the hood, a four-speed on the console, small hubcaps, rear skirts, and the chrome dress-up option from the factory. It was the cleanest vehicle of its kind on the street.

Hess worked in a machine shop on Brookeville Road and put every extra dime he earned into the car. He had few expenses outside of beer and cigarettes, the amphetamines he bought with regularity, and the Ford. He lived with his mother and father in a bungalow on the 700 block of Silver Spring Avenue. He bought his speed from bikers who rented a group house on the same block. His pills of choice were Black Beauties. When the bikers were out of Beauties, he bought White Crosses and ate twice as many. Whatever it took to get that tingle going in his skull.

Hess felt he had grown up some since his stay in prison. Certainly he had not hurt anyone as badly as he had in that final incident, the last of several similar but less serious attacks, that got him sent away. He had been standing on Cameron Street off Georgia, smoking a b.u.t.t outside Eddie Leonard's sandwich shop, when a group of young men drove by in a new Chevelle, yelling out the window at him and laughing, calling him "little greaser" and s.h.i.t like that. It had got his back up and made him yell back, screaming "college f.a.ggots" at them 'cause he'd seen the Maryland U decal on the rear window of their car. Right away, they stopped the Chevy in the middle of Cameron. A big guy wearing a leather jacket with a football sewed over the M got out of the car. Hess pulled his hunting knife, a six-inch serrated stainless job he was carrying at the time, from the sheath in his boot and held it tight against his thigh. When the football player reached him, Hess brought the knife up and stabbed him in the face, just below his left eye. He then opened him up from his cheek clean down to the collarbone. All that blood. One of the college boys puked his lunch it was so bad. Walter Hess knew right away he was going to get sent up for that one. Too many witnesses, and there were his a.s.sault priors, too.

He had expected to get offered a deal like some of his friends had gotten back then. Join the Corps and we'll drop the charges, like that. He brought it up to the lawyer the court gave him, but the fancy guy just shook his head. "They don't want people like you," the lawyer said. In his cell at night, Walter would sometimes think about that and get confused. The army trained guys to kill, didn't they? He didn't even need training; it came natural to him. And if they took pretty-boy p.u.s.s.y boys like Dominic Martini, why wouldn't they take a man like him?

"Pull over," said Stewart. "Anywhere around here's good."

"Not yet," said Hess.

Hess drove by the bus station, where people stood out front on the sidewalk, killing time and catching cigarettes. Martini watched the eyes of the young blacks tracking them as they pa.s.sed. He and his companions looked like trouble, he guessed. Trouble and hate.

"Park it," said Stewart, seeing an empty spot. They were on the 1200 block of New York Avenue, headed for the Famous.

"I need to find a spot closer to the club," said Hess. "I don't want none of these boofers down here f.u.c.kin' with my ride."

"Right there," said Stewart. "s.h.i.t, Shorty, what you want to do, park it in the bar?"

Hess cackled like a witch. "Think they'll let me?"

They parked and went inside. Immediately they found folks they knew among the white blue-collar crowd. Bikers from various gangs mixed with hard cases, construction workers, electricians' apprentices, pipe fitters, waitresses, secretaries, and young men from good homes who had no business being there but aspired to grit. Some of the women had tattoos, both store-bought and home inflicted. One girl, who called herself Danny and had the tat to prove it, had lost a tooth in a fight with her old man but had not replaced it because, she said, the hole made a good place to fit her cigar. Stewart bought her a CC and Seven as soon as he came in. He had done her one night a year back, before her boyfriend had ruined her face, and felt he owed her a drink. The girl was sloppy, but she was all right. Stewart was feeling generous. He was happy to be with his people.

Martini stayed with beer. Stewart and Hess went over to the hard stuff as Link Wray and his latest version of the Raymen took the stand. Between the British Invasion, the white blues revival, Dylan, psychedelia, and the soul revolution, Wray's music had not gotten much radio time these past few years, but he was still bringing in the local crowds. His set now consisted of his early smashes with some Elvis covers thrown into the mix. He opened with "Jack the Ripper," his last big hit, from '63. The place got moving straightaway. Stewart rested his back against the bar. He saw Dominic smiling, tapping his foot to the music. h.e.l.l, when Wray turned up his amp and let it rip, even that dumb s.h.i.t could find a way to have a good time.

Stewart wondered why the world couldn't be the way it was in here, right now, all the time.

"Buzz," said Hess, standing beside him, a shot of Jack Daniel's in one hand, a draft beer in the other.

"Yeah."

"You see that f.u.c.kin' girl girl over there in the corner?" over there in the corner?"

Stewart looked in that direction. He saw a guy, drinking a beer, grinning, listening to the music, not bothering a soul. Stewart looked at Shorty, his eyes somewhat crossed, nodding his head rapidly for no reason except that the speed was telling him to.

"So?"

Hess threw his head back to drain his mash, placed the empty gla.s.s on the bar. "I don't like the way he's smiling."

"s.h.i.t, he ain't smilin' at you."

Hess stepped forward. Stewart grabbed the sleeve of his leather and pulled him back.

"Let him be, Shorty. He's just havin' a good time."

Stewart felt the bunched muscles of Hess's arm loosen under his grip.

"Buy me another shot, will ya, Buzz? I can stand another brew, too. Man, I'm thirsty as s.h.i.t."

Course you are, thought Stewart. All that speed you got in you.

They had two more rounds. After the set, Stewart got a go order from the bartender and motioned Hess and Martini toward the door. They killed a six on the drive uptown.

DEREK STRANGE HAD parked his Impala on Princeton Place under a street lamp and was locking it down when he saw Kenneth Willis's green Monterey coming up the block. Willis slowed and pulled up to the curb, stopping behind the Impala. Strange saw that Alvin Jones, a crawler who never had been no good or brought any good along with him, sat beside his younger cousin. Dennis was in the backseat. parked his Impala on Princeton Place under a street lamp and was locking it down when he saw Kenneth Willis's green Monterey coming up the block. Willis slowed and pulled up to the curb, stopping behind the Impala. Strange saw that Alvin Jones, a crawler who never had been no good or brought any good along with him, sat beside his younger cousin. Dennis was in the backseat.

Strange waited for his brother to get out of the car. Jones leaned on the window lip, crossed his left hand over his right forearm to ash his smoke. As was Strange's habit, he scanned the physical details: Jones wore a gold Ban-Lon shirt and a black hat with a bright gold band. He smiled as his eyes sized up Strange.

Strange straightened and gave Jones his full height and build. It was childish, he knew. Still, there were some things a man never could stop himself from doing, no matter how mature he was supposed to be. One was letting another man know that he had the goods to kick his a.s.s if that's what he had a mind to do.

"Lawman," said Jones. "Must feel all naked and s.h.i.t, out of your uniform. Where your sidearm at?"

Right under my shirttail, thought Strange. In my clip-on.

"Brother, you gonna hurt my feelings, you don't say somethin' soon."

Strange said nothing. Through the windshield, he could see Willis's big old row of buckteeth as he smiled. Willis, who had done time on a statutory charge, worked as a janitor, lived above a liquor store on H, and thought he was a stud. He saw Jones and Willis touch hands.

"My man," said Jones, his smile gone, looking directly at Strange with his cold light eyes. "Makin' the world safe for Mr. Charlie." Jones took a drag of his Kool and let the smoke dribble from his mouth.

Dennis shut the door and slowly made his way from the Mercury toward Derek, clutching a paperback in his hand, wincing a little as he took an errant step. Sitting in a car, and getting out of it, were hard on his back.

"Remember what I told you, boy," said Jones. "Hear?" But Dennis didn't look his way.

Dennis met Derek by the Impala. Together they walked toward the steps up to the row house where they'd both been raised. They heard more comments coming from behind them. Jones said something about the police and then mentioned Darius Strange's car, "another repop," which made Willis laugh. The brothers did not turn or acknowledge them. Soon there was the sound of the Mercury turning in the street as Willis drove back toward Georgia.

"What you been doin', man?" said Dennis.

"Worked today. Took this girl to the movies. You?"

"Just drove around some."

"With those two?"

"Yeah."

"Where'd you go?"

Dennis fingered the check in his pocket. "Jones knows this woman. We was just over at her place for a little bit, you know."

I do know, thought Derek. Whatever you were doing, it had something to do with bad. Always would, with Jones and Willis around. Buying or selling something that was wrong. Maybe running for that dealer, Hayes, stayed over on Otis.

"What were y'all doing over at this woman's woman's place?" place?"

"d.a.m.n, boy, you gonna run me in?"

"Just curious."

"We were gettin' our heads up. You happy?"

Derek looked at his older brother with disappointment. It was a familiar look to Dennis, and he cut his eyes away.

"You gotta get high before family dinner now, too," said Derek.

"Ain't like you never burn it."

"Yeah, but I don't make it my everything."

"Father Derek," said Dennis, shaking his head.

"That woman y'all were visiting," said Derek, not able to back off. "Is she that Bacon girl Jones stays with in LeDroit Park?"

"How you know about her?"

"You told me. Hard to forget a name like that."

"This was another girl, had his baby. Lives over your way."

"Just what we need down here, more children bein' made by no-account brothers like Jones."

"So now you put on that uniform, you lose your color?"

"Bulls.h.i.t."