Upon its opening, the Cactus had been touted in the Post's dining guide and in Washingtonian, and had become 'the place' for that particular year. Strange had come here once when he was trying to impress a woman on a first date, always a mistake. He had dropped a hundred and twenty-five on three appetizers, portioned to leave a small dog hungry, and a couple of drinks. Then the waiter, another bright-eyed boy with bleached-blond hair, had the nerve to come out with a dessert tray, and try to get them to sample a 'decadent,' twelve-dollars-a-slice chocolate cake that was, he said with a practiced smile, 'architecturally brilliant.' It had ruined Strange's night to feel that used. And to make things worse, the woman he was with, she hadn't even given him any play.
A waiter wearing a thin line of beard came up to the service end of the bar and said to the bartender, 'Absolut and tonic with a lemon twist,' then added, 'Did you see that tourist with the hair at my four-top? Oh my God, what is she, on chemo or something?' The waitress standing next to him, also waiting on a drink and arranging her checks, said, 'Charlie, keep your voice down, the customers will hear you.'
'Oh, fuck the customers,' said Charlie, dressing his vodka tonic with a swizzle stick as it arrived.
Strange wondered how a place like this could stay in business. But he knew: people came here because they were told to come here, knowing full well that it was a rip-off, too. Same reason they read the books their friends read, and went to movies about convicts hijacking airplanes and asteroids headed for earth. Didn't matter that none of it was any good. No one wanted to be left out of the conversation at the next cocktail party. Everyone was desperate to be a part of what was new, to not be left behind.
'You okay here?' asked the bartender, a clear-eyed blonde with nice skin.
'Fine,' said Strange. 'I do have a question, though. You remember a guy used to work here, name of Ricky Kane? Trying to locate him for a friend.'
'I'm new,' said the bartender.
'I remember Ricky,' said Charlie the waiter, still standing by the service bar. Would be like old Charlie, thought Strange, to listen in on someone's conversation and make a comment about it when he wasn't being spoken to.
'He's not working here any longer, is he?' said Strange, forcing a friendly smile.
'He doesn't need to anymore,' said Charlie. 'Not after all that money he got from the settlement.' Charlie side-glanced the brunette waitress beside him. 'Course, he never did need to work here, did he?'
'Cause old Ricky had his income set up from dealin' drugs, it suddenly occurred to Strange.
'Charlie,' admonished the waitress.
Charlie chuckled and hurried off with his drink tray. The bartender served the brunette waitress her drinks and said, 'Here you go, Lenna.'
After Lenna thanked her, the bartender came back to stand in front of Strange. 'Another ginger ale?'
'Just the check,' said Strange, 'and a receipt.'
Strange walked around the corner and four blocks up Vermont Avenue, then took the steps down to Stan's, a basement bar he frequented now and again. It was smoky and crowded with locals, a racial mix of middle-class D.C. residents, most of them in their middle age. Going past some loud tables, he heard a man call his name.
'Derek, how you doin'!'
'Ernest,' said Strange. It was Ernest James from the neighborhood, wearing a suit and seated with a woman.
'Heard your business was doin' good, man.'
'I'm doin' all right.'
'You see anything of Donald Lindsay?' asked James.
'Heard Donald passed.'
'Uh-uh, man, he's still out there.'
'Well, I ain't seen him.' Strange nodded and smiled at Johnson's lady. 'Excuse me, y'all, let me get up on over to this bar and have myself a drink.'
'All right, then, Derek.'
'All right.'
Strange ordered a Johnnie Walker Red and soda at the bar. At Stan's, they served the liquor to the lip of the glass, with the miniature mixer on the side, the way they used to at the old Royal Warrant and the Round Table on the other side of town. When Strange felt like having one real drink, and being around regular people, he came here.
Sipping his scotch, he felt himself notch down. He talked to a man beside him about the new Redskins quarterback, who had come over from the Vikings, and what the 'Skins needed to do to win. The man was near Strange's age, and he recalled seeing Bobby Mitchell play, and the talk drifted to other players and the old Jurgensen-led squad.
'Fight for old D.C.,' said the man, with a wink.
'Fight for old Dixie, you mean.'
'You remember that?' said the man.
'That and a lot of other things. Shame some of these young folks out here, talkin' about nigga this and nigga that, don't remember those things, too.'
'Some of our people get all upset 'cause the word's in Webster's dictionary, but they hear it from the mouths of their own sons and daughters and grandkids, and they let it pass.'
'Uh-huh. How are white people gonna know not to use that word when our own young people don't know it their own got-damn selves?'
'I heard that.'
Strange's beeper sounded. He read the numbers, excused himself, went to the pay phones back by the bathrooms, and made a call. It was Quinn on the other end of the line.
'Lookin' forward to it,' said Strange, when Quinn was done talking.
'Us too,' said Quinn. 'Where should we meet?' Strange told him, racked the phone, and checked his wristwatch. He paid his tab, bought the man at the bar another round, and left Stan's.
At his row house, Strange dumped all the matchbooks and the photograph of Sondra Wilson onto his office desk, went through his mail, and changed into sweats. He went down to his basement, where a heavy bag hung from the steel beams of the ceiling, and listened to the soundtrack of Guns for San Sebastian on his boom box while he worked the bag. He fed Greco, then stripped off his damp clothing and went to take a shower. If he hurried, he'd have time to visit his mother at the home before picking up Janine for the fights.
19
Ray and Earl Boone stopped at the red light on Michigan and North Capitol. Ray dragged on his cigarette and Earl sipped from a can of Busch beer. On the corner, a neon-colored poster was stapled to a telephone pole, announcing some kind of boxing event that was scheduled for that night.
'Feel like goin' to the fights tonight, Daddy?' said Ray, knowing full well that his father didn't even like to step outside the car in D.C. 'They got some good ones over at that convention center. Looks like Don King's gonna be there, too.'
'Don King?' said Earl. 'I'd sooner have a dog lick peanut butter out the crack of my ass.'
'That a no?'
'You got a green light, Critter. And stop bein' so silly, too.'
Ray made a call to Cherokee Coleman's office, told one of Coleman's people that he and his father were coming in. They drove into the old warehouse district off Florida Avenue.
Ray saw an MPD cruiser idling on the street near Coleman's office. He recognized the small numbers on the bumper of the Crown Vic and the same numbers, printed larger, on its side. Coasting past the driver's-side window, Ray caught a quick glance of the uniform behind the wheel, a big, ugly spade who was staring straight ahead. Coleman had once told him the name of their pocket cop, funny kind of name for a man, funnier still for such a big one, but Ray could not exactly remember what the name was. Sounded like Madonna, some bullshit like that.
They dropped the kilo off at the garage. The usual types were waiting, with a couple of new, young faces in the bunch, skullcap stockings worn over the tops of their heads, dead eyes, kill-you-while-I-laugh smiles. There was a north side-south side argument going on as Ray and Earl stepped out of the car, one kid playfully feinting and jabbing another as the rest moved their heads to some jungle-jump coming from a box. Ray could give a good fuck about any of them. And as he and his father smoked and watched them scale out the heroin, he could only think, Everything goes right, this'll be the last time I ever set foot in this shit hole of a city again.