“But I don’t deserve… I don’t want to die,” he said meekly, his voice dripping resignation.
“Mr. Port,” said the Indian man, “you are already dead. It’s a matter now of how you are remembered.”
The black man raised his arm.
“Take off your clothes, Mr. Port. Let’s do it right.”
As his tears began to flow, Jordan Port slowly removed his camel’s hair coat.
The Indian man hung it in the closet next to Mendes’s suit.
About the author
Robert Andrews, a former Green Beret and CIA officer, has lived in Washington, D.C. for over thirty years. His last three novels, A Murder of Honor, A Murder of Promise, and A Murder of Justice, feature Frank Kearney and Jose Phelps, homicide detectives in the Metropolitan Police Department.
Jim Beane was born at Garfield Hospital in Washington, D.C. and spent his early childhood in Michigan Park near the city line. He grew up in the ’burbs. His stories have appeared in the Baltimore Review, the Potomac Review and the Long Story. He lives in Prince George’s County, Maryland with his wife and daughters.
Ruben Castaned covered the D.C. crime beat for the Washington Post from 1989 through the mid-1990s. He has also written for the Washington Post Magazine, the California Journal, and Hispanic Magazine. A native of Los Angeles, Castaneda, forty-four, lives in Washington.
Richard Currey grew up in Washington, D.C. and environs and lives there today. His stories have appeared in O. Henry, Pushcart, and Best American Short Stor collections, aired on National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts series, and performed at Symphony Space in New York. His novel Lost Highway was reissued in 2005 in print and as an audiobook.
Jim Fusilli is the author of the award-winning Terry Orr series, which includes Hard, Hard City, which was named winner of the Gumshoe Award for Best Novel of 2004, as well as Closing Time, A Well-Known Secret, and Tribeca Blues. He also writes for the Wall Street Journal and is a contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.
James Grad is the author of Six Days of the Condo and a dozen other novels. He has worked as a national investigative reporter and a U.S. Senate aide, and has published several award-winning short stories. Grady received France’s Grand Prix du Roman Noir in 2001 and Italy’s Raymond Chandler medal in 2004. He lives inside D.C.’s Beltway.
Jennifer Howard, a native of Washington, D.C., grew up in the Palisades section of town, around the corner from the old MacArthur Theatre. Her fiction, essays, reviews, and features have appeared in the Washington Pos (where she was a contributing editor from 1995–2005), VQR, the Boston Review, Slate, the Blue Moon Review, Salon, New York Magazine, and other publications. She now lives on Capitol Hill with her husband, the writer Mark Trainer, and their two children.
Lester Irby was born and raised in Northeast D.C. He was first arrested at age thirteen and later spent more than thirty years in federal prison for crimes ranging from bank robberies to two prison escapes. Irby wrote “God Don’t Like Ugly” while incarcerated in the Lewisberg Federal Penitentiary. He was released on parole in May 2005 and currently resides in Southeast D.C.
Kenji Jasper was born and raised in the nation’s capital and currently lives in Brooklyn. He is a regular contributor to National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and has written articles for Savoy, Essence, VIBE, the Village Voice, the Charlotte Observer and Africana.com. He is the author of three novels, Dark, Dakota Grand, and Seeking Salamanca Mitchell.
Norman Kelley is the author of three “noir soul” novels featuring Nina Halligan: Black Heat, The Big Mango, and A Phat Death. He is also the author of The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics, as well as the editor of R&B (Rhythm and Business): The Political Economy of Black Music. He was born and raised in D.C. and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Laura Lippman is best-known for her award-winning Tess Monaghan series, set forty miles to the north of Washington, D.C. She spent part of her childhood just outside the District line when her father was the Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Constitution. Lippman still frequents the city, home to some of her favorite people and restaurants.
Jim Patton grew up a D.C. suburb, then moved to the Left Coast. Back in the area after many years, he finds the summers even more stifling, the traffic more maddening. Worst of all, Shirley Povich is gone.
George Pelecanos is a screenwriter, independent-film producer, award-winning journalist, and the author of the bestselling series of Derek Strange novels set in and around Washington, D.C., where he lives with his wife and children.
Quintin Peterson is a twenty-four-year veteran police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C., where he is currently assigned to its Office of Public Information as a media liaison officer. He is the author of several plays and screenplays and two crime novels, SIN (Special Investigations Network) and The Wages of SIN.
David Slater is originally from the Jersey Meadowlands, and has called D.C. home for more than two decades. During that time, he has worked in several dive restaurants and, for the last fifteen years, in environmental conservation. He currently lives with his wife and two kids in the Clarendon section of Arlington, Virginia.
Robert Wisdom grew up in the Petworth area of Northwest Washington, back when D.C. was still a town. He attended D.C. public schools and graduated from St. Albans. He was called Bobby growing up, which gave way to Bob in the world after D.C., got the nickname Bayobe from his Brazilian capoeira master, and currently plays a character named Bunny on HBO’s The Wire. He’s all about the B’.