Right as Rain

'Careful not to take too much, now,' said Earl. But she was already cutting another line.

When she was done, Earl gently pushed down on her shoulders, and she dropped to her knees on the wet tiles. He unzipped his fly because she was slow to do it and wrapped his fingers through the hair on the back of her head.

When he felt the wetness of her mouth and tongue, he put one hand on the steel of the stall and closed his eyes.

'Baby doll,' said Earl. And then he said, 'God.'

Ray checked his wristwatch. Fifteen minutes had passed and still his old man had not showed. Ray was ready to leave this place, the Junkyard and the city and the trash who lived in it. He flicked the ass end of a 'Boro against the cinderblock wall and watched embers flare and die.

It disgusted him, thinking of what his daddy was doing back there with that high-yellow girl. She did have white features, but she was mud like the rest of them, you could believe that. His father and him, they disagreed on a few things, but none more than this. What was Earl thinkin', anyway? Didn't he know how that girl got to keep that stall on the end of the row? Didn't he know what a prime piece of real estate that was, what you had to do to keep it? Ray knew. If you were a man you had to fight for it, and if you were a woman… girl was probably on her back or on her belly, or swallowing sword ten times a day just for the right to squat in that shit hole. Didn't his father think of that?

But Ray was tired of pressin' it. Once he had made the mistake of calling that girl common nigger trash, and his father had risen up, told him to call her by her name. Hell, he could barely remember her name. It was Sandy Williams, somethin' like that.

Ray Boone flipped open the top of his box and shook another smoke from the deck.

Sondra Wilson. That's what it was.

7

Terry Quinn was behind a display case, sitting beside the register reading a book, when he heard a car door slam. Quinn looked through the plate glass window of the store and out to the street. A middle-aged black guy was locking the door of his white Chevy. Then he was crossing Bonifant on foot and heading toward the shop.

The car looked exactly like a police vehicle, and the gray-haired, gray-bearded black guy looked like a plainclothes cop. He wore a black turtleneck under a black leather, with loose-fitting blue jeans and black oilskin work boots. It wasn't his clothes that yelled 'cop' but rather the way he walked: head up, shoulders squared, alert and aware of the activity on the street. The guy had called, said he was working in a private capacity for Chris Wilson's mother, asked if Quinn would mind giving him an hour or so of his time. Quinn had appreciated the direct way he had asked the question, and he'd liked the seasoning in the man's voice. Quinn said sure, come on by.

The chime sounded over the door as the guy entered the shop. Just under six foot, one ninety, guessed Quinn. Maybe one ninety-five. All that black he was wearing, it could take off a quick five pounds to the eye. If this was the guy who had phoned, his name was Derek Strange.

'Derek Strange.'

Quinn got out of his chair and took the man's outstretched hand.

'Terry Quinn.'

Strange was looking down slightly on the young white man with the longish brown hair. Five nine, five nine and a half, one hundred sixty-five pounds. Medium build, green eyes, a spray of pale freckles across the bridge of his thick nose.

'Thanks for agreeing to see me.' Strange drew his wallet, flipped it open, and showed Quinn his license.

'No problem.'

Quinn didn't glance at the license as a gesture of trust. Also, he wanted to let Strange know that he was calm and had nothing to hide. Strange replaced his wallet in the back right pocket of his jeans.

'How'd you find me here?'

'Your place of residence is listed in the phone book. From there I talked to your landlord. The credit check on your apartment application has your place of employment.'

'My landlord supposed to be giving that out?'

'Twenty-dollar bill involved, supposed to got nothin' to do with it.'

'You know,' said Quinn, 'you get your hands on the transcripts of my testimony, you'll be saving yourself a whole lot of time. And maybe a few twenties, too.'

'I'm gonna do that. And I've already read everything that's been written about the case in the press. But it never hurts to go over it again.'

'You said you were working for Chris Wilson's mother.'

'Right. Leona Wilson is retaining my services.'

'You think you're gonna find something the review board overlooked?'

'This isn't about finding you guilty of anything you've already been cleared on. I'm satisfied, reading over the material, that this was just one of those accidents, bound to happen. You got two men bearing firearms, mix it up with alcohol on one side, emotion and circumstance, preconceptions on the other-'

'Preconceptions?' You mean racism, thought Quinn. Why don't you just say what you mean?

'Yeah, you know, preconceptions. You mix all those things together, you got a recipe for disaster. Gonna happen from time to time.'

Quinn nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studied Strange.

Strange cleared his throat. 'So it's more about exonerating Wilson than anything else. Wiping out the shadow that got thrown across his name, what with everything got written and broadcast about the case.'

'I didn't have anything to do with that. I never talked to the press.'

'I know it.'

'Even his own mother should be able to see that.'

Quinn spoke quietly, in a slow, gravelly way, stretching his vowels all the way out. Out-of-towners would guess that Quinn was from somewhere south of Virginia; Washingtonians like Strange knew the accent to be all D.C.

'Have you spoken with his mother?' asked Strange.

'I tried.'

'She's single-minded. Probably didn't make it too easy on you.'

'No. But I can understand it.'

'Course you can.'

'Because I'm the guy who killed her son.'

'That's a fact. And she's having a little trouble getting beyond that.'

'The finer points don't matter to her. All those theories you read about, whether or not I was doing my job, or if I made a bad split-second decision, or if it was the lack of training, or the Glock… none of that matters to her, and I can understand it. She looks at me, the only thing she sees is the guy who killed her son.'

'Maybe we can just clear things up a little,' said Strange. 'Okay?'

'There's nothing I'd like more.'

Quinn put the paperback he had been reading down on the glass top of the display case. Strange glanced at its cover. Beneath it, in the case, locked and lying on a piece of red velvet, he saw several old paperbacks: a Harlan Ellison with juvenile-delinquent cover art, a Chester Himes, an Ironside novelization by Jim Thompson, and something called The Burglar by a cat named David Goodis.

Strange said, 'The owner of the shop, he into crime books?'

'She's into selling first editions. Paperback originals. It's not my thing. The collecting part, and also those types of books. Me, I like to read westerns.'

'I can see that.' Strange nodded to Quinn's book. 'That one any good?'

'Valdez Is Coming. I'd say it's just about the best.'

'I saw the movie, if I recall. It was a little disappointing. But it had Burt Lancaster in it, so I watched it through. That was a man, right there. Not known especially for his westerns, but he was in some good ones. Vera Cruz, The Professionals-'

'Ulzana's Raid.'

'Damn, you remember that one? Burt was a scout, riding with some wet-behind-the-ears cavalry officer, played by that boy was in that rat movie… yeah, Ulzana's Raid, that was a good one.'