One night he rode his bike down to Park View and followed Percy Malone once again as he made the loop from home to liquor store and back. Lucas had now committed Malone’s route to memory. He knew why he was tailing him and where this was headed.
One day, at the end of the month, he got a call from Charlotte Rivers. She apologized for being out of touch for so long, and wondered if he would like to meet her for a drink.
“Just a drink,” she said, sensing his hesitation on the other end of the line. “Tonight, at our usual spot. I’d like to see you again.”
“One last time?”
“We should talk face-to-face.”
“I don’t know if I can make it,” said Lucas.
“I’ll be at the bar,” she said. “Try to come.”
Lucas told himself he shouldn’t meet her, that it was better not to. But as the day went on, and he thought of her more and more, he knew that he would. It wasn’t just curiosity. She was still in his head.
Around 6:30, he dropped off his Jeep at the door of the boutique hotel, four blocks north of the White House, and went inside. Walked the checkerboard marble floor of the hall that led to the bar, and found her there, seated at the turn, on a high-backed stool. She was wearing the orange dress with the low neckline that she’d worn the first night they’d met, and she was every bit as lovely. He kissed her cheek and took the empty seat beside her.
“Would you like some of this?” she said, pointing to the bottle of Barolo on the bar. “It’s nice.”
“You know, I’m not much of a wine man, to tell you the truth. I’d rather have a beer.”
The quiet, attentive bartender heard this, asked Lucas for his preference, and returned with something in a green bottle. Lucas had a pull as Charlotte looked him over. He was healed, more or less, but not entirely. His ear was scabbed, and the scratch marks on his forehead and nose, where the blood flowed less freely, still faintly showed.
“You’ve been in a fight,” she said.
“I had a little trouble,” said Lucas. “But not too much.” He gave her a reassuring smile and revealed the gap in his row of incisors.
Her eyes flickered. “Spero, what happened to you?”
“It’s fine. I just haven’t got around to the dentist yet.”
“You stopped phoning me. Were you in the hospital or something?”
“I stopped because you weren’t calling me back.”
“I apologize for that. I do.”
“I figured you were sending me a message. I took the hint and stepped back.”
“It wasn’t that, exactly.”
“What was it?”
“I needed some time away from you.”
“Because, what, we weren’t getting along?”
“We got along fine.”
“I don’t recall any complaints.”
“We were perfect,” said Charlotte, and she touched his arm. He drew it back.
“Tell me,” said Lucas.
Charlotte took a sip of wine and set the glass on the bar. “You’re a little intense.”
“I know it.”
“You don’t give up much.”
“That’s true.”
“When we started seeing each other, I couldn’t foresee that it was going to get as deep as it did. In the beginning, I was looking for a break from my routine, not more complication. After a while, you were all I thought about. I thought about you at work, I thought about you when I was with my husband... You were taking up too much space in my head. What was happening between us scared me.”
“And you felt you had to end it. Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”
“I didn’t know how you’d react.”
“Shit,” said Lucas.
“No, listen. You want me to be honest with you, so let me say it.”
“Go ahead.”
“My husband is a steady guy. Maddeningly so. I told you this from day one. But with that came a stability I could rely on. I started to think, I should meet him halfway. Initiate more intimacy instead of just waiting for him to make a move. Make him go out on dates, or book weekends out of town. Talk to him more. Try to recapture what we had when we first met. Try. Because I wasn’t going to leave him.”
“Leave him for me, you mean.”
“For anyone. I didn’t mislead you about that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Truthfully, I never stopped caring for him. And if I was going to stay with him, I knew I was in for a long world of hurt and frustration if I just allowed things to stay the way they were.”
“So my intensity made you appreciate your husband’s steady personality. Is that it? You’re saying being with me drove you back to him?”
“In a way. You were a bridge.”
“Glad to be of service.”
“Please, don’t be that way.”
“Charlotte, what’s going on? For real.”
“My husband and I are taking small steps. That’s all I know for now. As for you and me...” She wrapped her fingers around his biceps and this time he let her. “Spero, I’m sorry.”
In his movie, he saw her asking him if he’d like to go up to her room, one last time. He’d consider it, because she was beautiful, and he knew how it would be between them, and he loved her. She’d ask, and he’d turn her down. He’d be the one to drive the final nail in, not her. Walk from the bar unscathed, with his head up.
But Charlotte didn’t ask him. Instead, she told him that she needed to get home. She reached for her wallet, but he stopped her and paid the tab in cash.
Out by the valet stand, waiting for his Jeep, he looked down at the palm of his hand. The wormy, crescent-shaped mark, pale red and pronounced, had settled into the shape of a C.
Lucas laughed.
C for Charlotte. He’d wear her scar for the rest of his life.
One evening in October, as the sun began to set, Lucas dressed in black shorts, a black T-shirt, and bike shoes, and put some items into a backpack. His face was grim as he worked.
Lucas had checked D.C. Homicide Watch daily to see if there had been any movement on the Cherise Roberts case. There had been none.
On three occasions, Lucas had surveilled Percy Malone, who always left his apartment at the same time for his walk and liquor store run. Lucas had waited weeks for nightfall to coincide with Percy’s habitual behavior. In August, when Lucas had first followed him, there had still been daylight as Percy had stepped out his front door. Now Percy left at night.
There was no internal debate. Lucas put his bike on his shoulder and carried it downstairs. With his bag slung over his back, he pedaled down to Park View in the gathering dark.
Percy Malone stepped out of his apartment at the usual time. He stood on his stoop and eyed the street like a sick, hungry animal emerging from the woods. Lucas was at the bottom of Princeton Place, leaning on his bike. He watched Percy go east on foot toward Warder. He watched him stop to light his weed, and then he waited as the spidery man moved on. Percy was walking his smoke.
Lucas followed, granny-gearing up the hill. At Princeton and Warder he saw Malone turn right past the rec center, onto Otis. Lucas took his daypack off and from it removed his lead-filled sap, wrapped in black electrician’s tape. He slung the pack over his shoulder and held the sap loosely in his right hand. He got back on his saddle and pedaled to Otis, where he cut right and went down to 6th. There he made another right into the short stretch of alley. It was full dark.
Lucas waited. Percy Malone would now be walking south on the alley that ran behind Princeton. Lucas heard the deep bark of a large dog coming from a yard. He proceeded to ride. He took the short stretch and turned left at Princeton’s alley. He coasted now and let his momentum take him down the hill. Percy was halfway down the alley, walking. He turned his head at the sound of Lucas’s bike, turned his head back, and stepped slightly to the right to let the white-boy biker pass, and as the bike came alongside him, its rider swung the sap violently. It made a wet sound as it connected to the back of Percy’s head. Percy fell forward, unconscious on his way to the alley floor. The dog, a dark figure moving about excitedly in a nearby yard, continued to bark, but no one came outside.