Drama City

'I heard that,' said Lorenzo.

The BMW drove by them, Lee and the one called Rico smiling at Lorenzo as they passed. The rest of the cars began to pass them too. Loomis and the big man got into the Benz without further incident, the pit bull still barking itself crazy in the backseat, and left as well. Soon it was just Lorenzo and Mark standing in the alley, with only their Tahoe left in the clearing. A couple of elderly men had come out the back of their houses and were surveying the scene.

'We do anything here?' said Lorenzo.

'We hit the pause button,' said Mark, wiping sweat off his forehead with a damp sleeve. 'Maybe stopped a couple of animals from getting torn up.'

'Today.'

A Seventh District cruiser came down the alley toward them. The driver was taking his time.

'Here comes the cavalry,' said Mark.

Lorenzo shook his head and smiled. 'What you say to Twan to get him so riled?'

'I was just telling him about the dogfighting law we got in this city. It's a felony now, you know?'

'For real?'

'I was enlightening him.'

'Looked like he was responding in a real positive way.'

'You hadn't stepped in, I would have brought him around to my way of thinking. I mean, he was practically eating out of my hand.'

'Looked to me, way both of those boys were crowded around you, that the two of them was gettin' ready to hand you your ass.'

'That was a group hug.'

Two officers, a black and a white, got out of the cruiser. They walked toward Mark and Lorenzo.

'You want to talk to them?' said Mark.

'You do it,' said Lorenzo, handing Mark the clipboard. 'I got a little problem interfacing with the police.'

CHAPTER 9

Rachel Lopez sat on a living-room sofa in a home in Landover, Maryland, with a woman named Nardine Carlson. It was late in the afternoon, but Nardine, puffy eyed and disheveled, looked as if she had just woken up.

Nardine Carlson lived with her children and grandmother in Kent Village, a development of houses and apartments in various configurations and conditions. Nardine's place was on a trash-littered street of duplexes, where the cars outside the houses were much nicer than the houses themselves.

When Rachel had pulled her Honda up to the front of Nardine's house, she recognized a fat, unattractive man leaning against a new German import, talking to a cute younger girl wearing shorts that laced crisscross style up the front. The fat man, Dennis Palmer, went by the name of Big Boy on the street. He wore a wife-beater and was rolling out of it in all directions.

'Hey, Dennis,' said Rachel as she walked past him and the girl, Nardine's file in her hand.

'Miss Lopez,' said Dennis.

'Everything okay?' said Rachel, still walking.

'Don't worry, I'm still up at the Friendly's.'

'That's good. You must be doing all right, what with that new car and all.'

'Yeah, well,' said Dennis, 'you know.'

Rachel did not stop to talk to him. She didn't have to, as he was no longer on paper. His supervision period had ended six months earlier, and her involvement with him was done. Also, she didn't like him. He had a history of abuse toward women and, though he still held a job at an ice cream parlor, was probably re-involved in the sale of drugs. When she saw him, Big Boy Palmer always seemed to be around young, pretty girls. At a glance, it was unexplainable, as he was about as ugly as a man could be. But Rachel knew that certain kinds of women went for the players over the squares every time.

'I'll see you again, Miss Lopez,' called Palmer.

Yes, thought Rachel. Me or someone like me, for sure.

In the duplex, Nardine's grandmother, tired and light of bone, offered Rachel some iced tea. Rachel declined. The grandmother left Rachel in the living room in the company of Nardine and her two children, a six-year-old girl she was just now getting acquainted with and an eight-year-old boy. She was closer to the boy because she had spent more time with him than she had with the girl. Nardine had known her daughter for only a month before going off to do her time.

The children sat on a shag carpet before a television set, playing PS2. There were snack wrappers strewn around them, along with empty bottles of orange soda and Sierra Mist. The girl had her hand in a tube of Pringles now. Her other hand worked a controller. The kids were playing a game involving criminals, prostitutes, and guns. Points were given for shooting a police officer. The sound track to the game included music from Scarface.

'It's sunny out,' said Rachel, saying it to Nardine as if she were giving her some news. The curtains had been drawn, and it was dark in the room.

'They don't wanna go outside,' said Nardine, reading Rachel's implication correctly. 'They just wanna play that game.'

Rachel nodded, not pushing the issue, knowing it would do no good. It wasn't her job to raise other people's kids. Nardine didn't look like she had seen much daylight herself.

'How's the job search going?'

'It's hard.'

'I know it is. But you still have to do it.'

'I went up to the MacDonald's like you told me to. Saw that manager, Mr Andrews?'

'And?'

'They ain't have but one shift open. I can't work those morning hours. Kids be goin' back to school next month, and I need to be here to see them off. That's important, right?'

'What's important now is that you find a job,' said Rachel. 'Your grandmother can see the kids off to school.'

Nardine looked blankly at the carpet and breathed through her open mouth.

'Did Mr Andrews offer you the position?' said Rachel.

'He said that if I could do those morning hours, then he would give me a chance.'

'Well then, you need to get back over there and tell him you'd like to take the job.'

'I'm sorry, Miss Lopez. I am just not a morning kinda person—'

'Neither am I. But I still get up and go to work.'

'That's you, all right? I ain't never claim to be perfect or nothin' like it.' Nardine balled her fist and rabbit-punched her own thigh. 'Why you gotta press me like this?'

Rachel stared at her a bit harder now. Nardine looked away. She was too thin and had bad color and foul breath. She was irritable. These were signs that she was back on drugs.

'It's hard,' said Nardine, her voice trailing off.

'I know it is,' said Rachel.

I fall down too. I fail, just like you.

'Miss Lopez, I don't know if I can do this.'

'You can try. Now, you need to get yourself to work. And there's something else.'

'What?'

'You have to get over to the clinic'

'Again?'

'You have to drop urines regularly. You know this. You haven't done it for a while.'

Nardine lowered her head and began to cry. Her shoulders shook and tears dropped into her lap. Rachel allowed her to cry without comment. It could have been an act or it could have been real. It made no difference, really, in the end.

'Mommy, why you sad?' said the daughter.

'Just play your game, girl,' said Nardine with an angry slashing motion of her hand.

Rachel had fewer female offenders than she did males, but her female cases tended to take up a disproportionate amount of her time. Women were the most difficult offenders to reform. They often had children and leaned toward relationships with nonproductive men. In terms of their pasts, they came with the most baggage. Most of Rachel's female offenders had been sexually abused, either by family members or the boyfriends of their mothers, in their childhood and early-teen years. This, and their environment, had led them to drugs and drug addiction. They turned to scams, shoplifting, and prostitution to finance their habits, and graduated to crimes like armed robbery. Since the mideighties, at the acceleration point of the urban drug epidemic, the female prison population had more than tripled. The negative effects of this rippled out; two-thirds of incarcerated women had at least one minor child on the outside.