Yeah, the picture on the set was all right. Truth of it was, though, he didn’t enjoy watching the game on the Mitsubishi any more than he had on his old chipped-up-cabinet thirteen-inch Admiral. In that way this new set was kind of like his new black metal-flake Trans Am. He’d always wanted one, sure, and he had it now, and it was top of the line. But he never enjoyed a car like he did his first, a used ’7 °Camaro, springtime gold with saddle interior. Now that was one beautiful car.
Strange about how the money meant very little to him anymore. You couldn’t bank too much of it, what with the paper trail and all that. So Murphy had to spend it on things.
Course, in the beginning, the money was going toward the adoption. A baby for him and Wanda. And the baby would need “things,” too. When they had first looked into it, after all the fertility quacks with their shots and cycles and drugs had bled his bank account dry, Murphy couldn’t believe how much an adoption cost. But he knew he’d have to find a way for Wanda, unhappy as she was.
He’d confided in Tutt about the hole he was in. And Tutt began to talk to Murphy, right about then, about taking a little bit here and there. Tutt said they could control the situation on their beat like that, keep the drug dealers and their foot soldiers and enforcers calmed down, not let them get crazy behind their violent territorial shit. Tutt made it seem sensible, or maybe that’s the way Murphy wanted to hear it. He almost had himself convinced it was the right thing to do.
Kevin Murphy didn’t think on it all that long. He began to take.
It was about that time, funny how it worked out, that Wanda started to withdraw. She had spent years fretting over their inability to have a child, and now that Murphy was making it possible for her, she was suddenly unsure. And acting weirder than a mothafucker, too, saying how the Lord had “told” her it wasn’t in the cards for them to have a child of their own. Even went on to say, during one of their many arguments, “Why would I want a baby, Kev, that someone else gave away?” This was a woman who, just a few months earlier, could no longer bear to be around their friends who had kids. Who had quit her government job because she couldn’t hide the shame of childlessness. Maybe Murphy should have seen that she had been fragile all along. Murphy’s brother, Ted, the reverend, had claimed when he first met her that Wanda had a “sick heart.” Ted always did have a knack for seeing inside people straight away, knowing how to help them before their problems got too bad. In the end, when Ted was down to ninety pounds, the only one he couldn’t help was himself.
Kevin and Wanda stopped seeing their friends. After a while, in fear that Wanda would break into uncontrollable laughter or hysterical tears, they couldn’t even have neighborhood couples over for barbecues. Out of the office environment and with only family dropping by occasionally, Wanda rapidly lost most of her social skills. Along with any kind of hope.
And though there was no longer a pressing need for the extra cash, Kevin Murphy continued to take. Because once you started, you couldn’t stop. There just wasn’t any such thing as a “reformed” cop. Sure, there was the option of quitting the force, just walking away. But he would never exercise it. As far back as he could remember, Murphy, just like his damned partner, had only wanted to be one thing. And it was everything now; in the face of what he had lost, being a cop was all he had.
The phone rang on the table beside him; Murphy picked it up.
“Yes,” said Murphy. He listened and said, “All right. See you there.”
He replaced the receiver. This game was ending, and there would be late games coming up. It would be good, for a little while anyway, to get out of the house.
Murphy walked across the knotty pine finished basement, the room he had redone just a few months back. Had a nice wood bar in it, with a Formica top, like his father had always wanted to own. Redskins memorabilia on the walls, plenty of signed glossies going all the way back to Bobby Mitchell, Sonny and Charley Taylor. And a full-size pool table under a big rectangular lamp.
He went through a door into the unfinished half of the basement, past a locked upright case with a glass front where he kept his shotguns, two Remington autoloads, racked. He brushed against the heavy bag he had hung from the beams of the ceiling. He reached above his workbench to an oak shelf. There were several handguns there: a double-action .380 Walther PPK, two S & W .357 Combat Magnums, and a 92F Beretta nine. He brought down the Walther case, opened it, picked up the PPK, checked the magazine, slapped it home. He safetied the gun, holstered it in his waistband, pulled his shirttails out over the bulge.
Kevin Murphy excelled on the range. He shot regularly and had won several marksmanship awards. He had never killed, though, or wounded a man. Of this he was proud.
Murphy went up the stairs to the bedroom, knocked on the door, and pushed it open. Wanda was lying on the bed, wearing that Kmart housedress of hers, her hands folded across her chest as if in death.
“I’m going out for a little bit, sweetheart.”
“Okay.”
“Want anything?”
“Uh-uh.”
“How about some of those chocolates you like?”
“I don’t care.”
“All right, sweetheart. I’ll be back soon.”
Murphy closed the door softly, snatched his car keys off a nail he had driven into the wall. Wanda hadn’t asked where he was going. Her eyes hadn’t moved toward him when he’d entered the room. She hadn’t even blinked.
Murphy left the house. He walked down the steps to his shiny new car.
Eight
Denice Tate first noticed Alan Rogers and that short, mean-looking boy he hung with about halfway into Chuck Brown’s show. Brown was doing a call and response to that big hit of his, “We Need Some Money,” and the packed house at the Masonic Temple seemed to move in unison as the jam went on and on, building to a sweat-soaked, natural high. Chuck Brown, the Godfather of Go-Go, was set to play with that other Godfather, James Brown, at the Convention Center later in the month, but Denice could not imagine a more bumpin’ show than this one right here. She hated lying to her father, but now, ’specially since she had seen Rogers, she sure was glad she had come.
“He’s looking at you, girl,” said her friend Ashley, doing a kind of deep dip, one step up, one step back thing.
“No he ain’t, Ash!”
“Trust me,” said Ashley.
Alan Rogers had been keeping on the lookout for that cute girl, the one they called Neecie around the way. Nice young girl like that, unspoiled, you could make a girlfriend out of her if you wanted. Now he had her in his sights, standing over there with another girl who didn’t look half as fine. Neecie looked good, too.
Short Man Monroe turned to Alan Rogers. “You ready, black?”
“Nah, Short. Gonna fuck with the show.”
“Gotta get out of here, man. Tyrell ’spects us to collect.”
“You go on. I wanna check this shit out.”
“I know what you be checkin’ out.”
“She got a friend, man.”
“I ain’t interested. Stay if you want. I’ll come on around back, pick you up.”
Rogers moved through the crowd, careful not to bump anyone hard, make anyone feel like they had to step to him. The whole city seemed to be here tonight. He saw some of Rayful Edmond’s boys from the Strip, and some Northeast boys out of Montana Terrace, and a couple of leftovers from the old Hanover Place crew on the west side of North Capitol. Rogers was chin-nod familiar with a few of them, but he didn’t look any of them in the eye.