Lakeisha descended the steps and crouched down. Jasmine rubbed her snout in Lakeisha's outstretched hand and wagged her tail as Lakeisha patted her belly and then ran her fingers down her coat. Lorenzo leaned, with deliberate cool, against a brick post. Rayne had a seat on the top step, a glass of white wine in her hand. Now that she was out from under the roof of the porch and in the moonlight, Lorenzo could see her face and figure more clearly. Lorenzo thinking, as he always did when he ran into her, She is fine. Realizing that he was staring, he looked down at Lakeisha and Jasmine.
'She's a natural with my dog,' said Lorenzo. 'She'd be a good candidate—'
'Don't say it,' said Rayne, smiling a little. 'I got enough mouths to feed. Anyway, you off the clock, right? You don't need to be working that pet adoption thing all the time.'
'What, you don't think about cutting hair when you're out the shop?'
'Please. After standing up for eight hours straight? I try to forget it when I'm not there. Trouble is, my feet won't let me.' She looked him over. 'How'd you know I was a stylist?'
'How'd you know I was dog police?'
Lorenzo and Rayne chuckled. She had a nice smile. Rayne was the first to look away. He liked the shyness of her too.
'This is pretty right here,' said Lorenzo.
'What is?'
'This song.'
'"Miss Black America"?' said Rayne. 'Lakeisha likes it. It takes me back myself. My mother had the album when I was a little girl. She used to play it for me, right here in this house.'
'That was the one with Mayfield on the cover, wearing that lemon yellow suit.'
'You remember it?'
'Just called Curtis. A friend of mine's mother, she had it too.'
Now it was Lorenzo's turn to cut his eyes from hers.
'You feel like goin' out sometime?' said Rayne.
'Huh?'
'For coffee or something.'
'Sure,' said Lorenzo, standing straight. 'Or, you know, we could do something, like, all of us together. With Lakeisha, I mean. Go to, I don't know, Six Flags. Or go down to Hains Point and just walk around some. Somethin' like that.'
'That would be good.'
'But listen,' said Lorenzo, the words coming freely from him now. 'Before we go making plans, I got some things in my past that you need to know about.'
'You're under supervision,' said Rayne. 'You were incarcerated on drug charges.'
Lorenzo nodded slowly. 'That's right.'
'Seems to me like you got your head on straight now.'
'I'm tryin',' said Lorenzo. 'What else you know?'
'You got a little girl of your own, about Lakeisha's age. She stays up in Manor Park with her mother.'
'Okay.' Lorenzo stroked the hairs on his chin. 'Question is, how you know so much?'
'How you think?' said Rayne, smiling again.
'The old girl been tellin' you everything, huh.'
'She just being neighborly,' said Rayne.
'Mama,' said Lakeisha, moving her cheek off Jasmine's coat, where she had been trying to listen to her heart. 'Can I keep her?'
'No, baby. That's Mr Lorenzo's dog.'
'Tell you what, little princess,' said Lorenzo. 'You can visit with her anytime you want.'
'You gonna bring her back?'
'Are you?' said Rayne.
'I reckon,' said Lorenzo, tugging on Jasmine's leash, walking toward his grandmother's house.
'Bye, Jazz Man,' said Lakeisha.
Lorenzo turned his head and looked back at Rayne. 'I'm gonna call you, girl.'
Rayne sipped at her wine.
Lorenzo used his key to enter the row house next door. He removed Jasmine's leash and draped it over a jacket peg by the door. The house smelled of his grandmother's cooking.
Willetta Thompson came forward from back in the living room and hugged him roughly. She was a tall, strong woman with lively eyes, not yet sixty-five. A graduate of Strayer's Business College, she had worked as a HUD secretary, in the same office, for over thirty years. Her hair was shop styled and gray.
'Hello, son,' she said.
'Mama,' said Lorenzo.
They thought of each other that way.
'Saw you through the window, talking to Rayne.'
'Uh-huh.'
'That's a good woman right there. Responsible.'
'You just about gave her my whole life story.'
'Someone had to,' said Willetta. 'Didn't look to me like you were gonna do it.'
'That chicken I smell?'
'I saved the thighs for you.' Willetta pulled on his hand. 'I put a little somethin' aside for your animal too.'
'Dogs shouldn't be eatin' on chicken bones.'
'This one's plenty big,' said Willetta. 'She won't choke on it.'
Lorenzo and Willetta went toward the dining room, walking down a plastic runner Willetta had laid on the carpet to keep it new. Jasmine's tail wagged as she followed, sniffing at their heels.
CHAPTER 13
Rico Miller dropped Melvin Lee at his place on Sherman Avenue. They had barely spoken since the incident on Otis. For Lee, the silence had been excruciating.
Lee no longer communicated with his blood relatives. When he'd come out of prison, his siblings, who had never written or visited once during his stay, refused to speak to him. His mother had died long ago. He didn't know his children or where their mothers stayed. As for the friends he'd come up with, they were in the cut or dead. Only thing he had now was his work with Deacon Taylor. Closest thing to a son he'd ever have was Rico. And now he'd been punked right in front of him. He wondered if Rico Miller could ever look at him the same way again.
Lee walked down the sidewalk, his shoulders slumped. Miller drove away.
Miller went down Georgia. Past Howard University, at Florida Avenue, he drove east. Farther along, he crossed the Benning Bridge over the Anacostia River and took Minnesota Avenue to the Deanwood area of Northeast. He parked in front of a bungalow at 46th and Hayes.
His house was set on a fairly large plot of land. The block he lived on had many decent homes, but others were run-down, blighted by plywood doors, sagging roofs, and hanging gutters. Some had cardboard stuck in their window frames. A few had been recently abandoned or had stood unoccupied for years. Raccoons nested in their chimneys and rats moved freely beneath their porches. The shades were always drawn so that inspectors could not look inside. Long as the owners cut the grass on a fairly regular basis, these houses could not be condemned.
Miller had found this house, in fact, when he saw the owner outside it, mowing its weedy lawn. One wall of the house had been spray-painted with tags: a '46' and an 'RIP Mike.' This meant there was gang activity on the street. In areas such as this, neighbors were typically frightened or plain tired of calling police and so they minded their own. Miller had been driving slowly on this particular street because it looked like the kind of place where he needed to be. Didn't look like anybody gave a good fuck about it, and it wasn't near a major road crossing. It seemed like a smart spot to hide.
He offered the man a thousand dollars a month, cash up front, three months in advance, as is, to rent it. The money would cover utilities as well. For phone service, Miller would use his cell. Rico told the owner to leave the lawn mower and gas can, and he'd take care of the grass. The man took the deal.
Miller had another month, prepaid, on the house. He'd move on to someplace else, like he always did, after that.
He left no records. Even his car, the BMW, was a rental. He'd got it from this man, Calvin Duke, lived by the railroad tracks at 35th and Ames. It was known in certain circles that a young man like Rico could get damn near anything from Duke. The man had the rental business cornered in Northeast. Called his self Dukey Stick; Miller did not know why.
Except for the landlord and Calvin Duke, no one knew where Rico Miller lived. Not Melvin Lee and not Deacon Taylor. They wanted him, they could get him on his cell. Since he'd left Oak Hill, that juvenile facility they'd put him in, he'd been on his own. If anyone was looking for him, they hadn't caught up with him yet. He aimed to stay free.