Drama City

Rachel Lopez, the windows down in her Honda, listened to a Brooks and Dunn on the radio and smoked a cigarette as she drove up 7th Street.

She was careful to stay in her lane and she watched the speedometer as well. She glanced in the rearview and saw no police. Looking at her reflection, she noticed that her makeup had run in streaks from around her eyes. She was ugly. She supposed she had cried.

It didn't matter. Tomorrow she would be back on the job, sober and straight. This was Rachel at night.

CHAPTER 15

Lorenzo Brown opened his eyes. He stared at the cracked plaster ceiling and cleared his head.

Jasmine's warm snout touched his fingers. Lorenzo rubbed behind her ears and breathed out slowly. It was time to go to work.

He did curls with forty-pound dumbbells while listening to Donnie Simpson on PGC. Simpson was playing an old EWF, 'Keep Your Head to the Sky.' It was a song released well before Lorenzo's time but one that he was familiar with and loved. The newsman came on and talked about the war and a helicopter downed by a rocket and the death of three young servicemen. He talked about some people who had been in charge of the local teachers' union and how they'd stolen from out the pension fund. He mentioned briefly a double murder in Northwest.

Lorenzo finished his workout. He showered, ate his breakfast, changed into his uniform, and walked Jasmine. He left food and water for her, directed the fan toward her bed, and got on his way.

Cindy, the dispatcher, was just settling in behind her desk as he entered the Humane Society office. He could hear the sound of one dog barking down in the kennel.

'Mark in yet?' said Lorenzo.

'Downstairs,' said Cindy.

Lorenzo found Mark in the basement, wrapping a bandage around his hand. He was standing beside the cage of the pit bull rescued from behind the storefront church.

'Lincoln get you?' said Lorenzo.

Mark nodded, his face colored with embarrassment. 'I didn't think he'd bite me.'

'It's not your fault,' said Lorenzo. 'You can't trust him. I mean, he don't trust nobody himself, after what got done to him.'

'I know it.' Mark stared at the blood seeping through the gauze on his hand. 'I was trying to get through, is all. Irena's getting ready to sign off on him.'

'She has to. That dog's not adoptable. You see that, right?'

'Yes.'

'Some animals just got to be put down, Mark. Not every one of 'em can be saved.'

Lorenzo stepped over to Mark, unwrapped the gauze, and examined his hand.

'He didn't go deep.'

'I'm fine.'

Lincoln had backed himself to the rear of the cage. He looked up at Lorenzo shyly.

'What've you got today?' said Mark.

'Gonna check my answering machine first. Take a cat back to some old lady. Make some follow-up calls. I'm gonna try to catch a meeting round lunch time. You know, see how the day goes.'

'I'll be out on calls too,' said Mark. 'You need me, you can get me on the radio.'

'Leave me the Tahoe,' said Lorenzo.

'Yeah, all right.'

'I mean it, man. I know you like that CD player, but you can listen to the radio for a change. I'm tired of gettin' bounced around in that Astra.'

'I said I would.'

Mark went up to the lobby area. Lorenzo stayed behind and crouched in front of Lincoln's cage. He whistled softly and put his knuckles near the grid. Lincoln moved forward, snapped at Lorenzo's hand, growled for a few seconds, and stepped back. The other dogs in the kennel began to bark.

'You can't help who you are, can you, boy?' said Lorenzo, looking into Lincoln's eyes. 'It's gonna be better soon.'

Up in his office, Lorenzo sat at his desk and washed down two ibuprofens with house coffee while he checked his messages. A man named Felton Barnett had called the day before to complain about a dog barking in an apartment in his building. He had phoned Lorenzo directly because he had dealt with him on 'another matter' and been satisfied with the service. Also, the old lady off Kennedy Street had called about her cat. Jerry, a huge multitattooed Humane officer who had a desk nearby, dropped the Metro section of the Post on Lorenzo's desk without comment before walking heavily from the room. In the morning, Jerry left the newspaper for Lorenzo, section by section, as he finished it. Lorenzo automatically went to Metro's page 2, where they had the Crime and Justice feature, which many called the Roundup and some cynical types still called the Violent Negro Deaths. Lorenzo read this feature religiously, even in prison, back when it was just called Around the Region. There, under the heading The District, and then under the subheading Homicides, he read the following:

A twenty-four-year-old man and a seventeen-year-old youth were found fatally shot in an alley off the 500 block of Crittenden Street, N.W., late last night. Police said the man, DeEric Green, and the youth were both pronounced dead at the scene. The identity of the youth is being withheld until notification of relatives. Police are treating both fatalities as homicides.

Lorenzo dropped the paper on his desk. He reached for his coffee cup but did not lift it. He moved the cup in small circles.

He didn't have Nigel's number anymore. But he did still have his mother's memorized. Lorenzo picked up the phone and punched her number into the grid.

'Hello.'

'Miss Deborah?'

'Yes'

'Lorenzo Brown here.'

'Lorenzo! My goodness, it's nice to hear your voice.'

'Yours too. I'm trying to reach Nigel. I was hoping you could give me his number.'

'Nigel kinda funny about that, Lorenzo.'

'I understand. Let me give you mine, then. Maybe he can get up with me, he has the time.'

He gave her his cell number and listened to her chewing on something as she wrote it down. The woman loved to eat. She enjoyed feeding guests, especially kids, too. She'd filled him with plenty of good food in that warm kitchen of hers when he was a boy.

'Thank you, Miss Deborah.'

'Come visit, Lorenzo.'

'Yes, ma'am. I will.'

Lorenzo gathered his files and accessories, put them in a backpack, and went downstairs. Queen, the old lady's calico, had been delivered by the spay clinic to the cat kennel, situated behind the lobby. The cat was docile, lying on her side in a cage. Lorenzo took her out and found a portable carrier.

'You ain't so frisky now, are you?' he said, placing her in the handled box. 'Don't fret. You goin' home.'

Passing the pegs by the back door, Lorenzo saw that the keys to the Tahoe were gone. He mumbled under his breath and took an Astra key off the peg. He stepped out into the alley with Queen in hand, going up the small hill to Floral Place. Mark was there in the court, standing in front of the Tahoe, grinning, swinging the keys from his bandaged hand.

'Looking for these?'

'You had me cursin' your name, Boy Scout.'

Mark and Lorenzo exchanged keys. Lorenzo threw a soft right to Mark's head. Mark dodged the punch.

'You're not mad, are you?'

'Nah,' said Lorenzo, 'I'm straight.'

Driving south on Georgia a few minutes later, Lorenzo thought of Green and Butler, and how Nigel was going to carry their deaths, and the waste. Lorenzo had a pretty good idea who was involved in the killings. He realized that he could have called the police with the information first thing. Instead, he had tried to call Nigel.

Straight.

I'm a long way from straight.

Rachel Lopez had two assistants on staff charged solely with handling the paperwork related to her caseload. Rachel had planned on finishing her field calls but decided to drop by the office first to see how the assistants were coming along and to check her messages. It had been a struggle to get out of bed and out of her apartment. She could not even think of food and had not smoked her usual morning cigarette. A shower had revived her, but not by much.