The Stahl brothers were up front on stage, Peter at the mike and Franz ripping his ax, with Skeeter Thompson anchoring on bass and Kent Stax’s sticks pounding the skins. They were finishing “Feel Like That” when Karras felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around.
Karras recognized the guy standing before him. Late twenties, black jeans, fifties-style sport jacket over a tails-out oxford shirt. Greek kid; he knew him, but he had aged, changed...
“Nick Stefanos,” the guy said, holding out his hand. “Dimitri Karras, right?”
“Right.” Karras shook his hand.
“You remember me?”
“Sure,” said Karras with a smile.
He did remember him, now. Stefanos was the grandson of this old guy, also named Nick Stefanos, owned a diner down on 14th and S, a place where Karras’s father had worked back in the late forties, at the time of his death. The last time Karras had seen the Stefanos kid was Bicentennial weekend, right after that bad shit had gone down with Wilton Cooper and the others. Stefanos had been heading out of town with this friend of his on some road trip, and Karras had gone to see him off. He could no longer remember why.
“How you doin’?” said Karras.
“Doin’ good, man.”
Karras had a look at the kid. He knew a member of the club when he saw one. He leaned forward, put his mouth near Stefanos’s ear.
“Wanna do a bump?”
“Yeah,” said Stefanos. “Sure.”
Karras pointed Donna to a spot over by the left wall. He winked at her, told her he’d be right back. Her eyes were eager and bright. She was wired, but he knew she’d be okay by herself. No one had even looked at the two of them since they’d entered the hall.
Karras and Stefanos went to the bathroom, found an empty stall. Karras latched the door, leaned against it, pulled his amber vial from his jeans. Stefanos made a fist and turned it up; Karras dumped a mound on the crook of his hand. Stefanos hit it, took in another mound through the other nostril. Karras used the cap-spoon for himself.
“Nice shake,” said Stefanos.
“Always,” said Karras. “What’re you up to, man?”
Stefanos held up his left hand Indian style, flipped it so Karras could see the ring.
“You got married.”
“Yeah, last year.”
“Congratulations. Greek girl?”
“Nope. White girl named Karen. Met her down at the Local. Teresa Gunn was playing that night. Karen looked just like Chrissie Hynde. That is, she did back then. We partied and, you know, kind of fell in love.”
Karras didn’t think Stefanos looked too happy about it. He said, “She here?”
“Uh-uh, not her scene. Not anymore, anyway. She’s at home. I’m outta here, too, right after the Scream set.”
“Not staying for Black Flag?”
“Rollins? Nah.”
Karras had the vial out again. He set Stefanos up the same way.
“Thanks.”
“Tipota.”
“So what are you doing?”
“Good flake.”
Stefanos laughed. “Besides that.”
“Working with my buddy Marcus Clay. You remember that record store—”
“Real Right.”
“Yeah, there.”
They were talking awfully fast. Karras did a couple more jolts. Stefanos lit a Camel he had pulled from the inside pocket of his jacket.
“You mind?”
“Uh-uh.”
Stefanos hit his cigarette hard. He held the smoke in deep, let it out while he took another drag.
Karras said, “What’re you doing now?”
“Still working for Nutty Nathan’s.”
“On Connecticut Avenue?”
“Yep.”
“My dealer’s over that way.”
“Stop in, man, say hey.”
“You were a stock boy—”
“I’m a salesman. Been one for years. Karen wants me to go for management.”
“Go for it.”
“Yeah, right.”
“What do you want?”
“Fuck, man, I don’t know. I been doing this other shit, too, with this guy I work with, Johnny McGinnes? Process serving. We find people. Follow them and find ’em. I don’t know, I can’t seem to get too serious about anything, you know? Shit, man, I’m twenty-seven years old; I’m still having fun.”
“Me, too.”
“You’re twenty-seven?”
“Get outta here, re.” Karras wiped at something dripping from his nose. “Am I bleeding?”
“No, you’re all right.”
“So, what about your grandfather. He still alive?”
Stefanos blew smoke at the ceiling. “Yeah, he’s... Papou’s okay. He sold the grill. He’s nearly blind now, walks with a cane. I go over there to Irving Street, have dinner with him once a week.”
“Good man.”
“Me?”
“Your papou.”
“The best.”
“Want another taste for the road?”
“Okay.”
Stefanos pitched his butt in the toilet before they left the stall, had another lit by the time they hit the auditorium. They shook hands and clapped shoulders. Stefanos headed for the stage, where Scream was really blowing the roof off. Karras moved quickly toward Donna.
It was good to see the Stefanos kid. Good, and kind of sad at the same time. He didn’t quite know why. Karras made it to Donna, told her it was time to go. He needed air. He needed to be outside.
“Glad you could make it,” said Richard Tutt.
Kevin Murphy said, “I needed to get out of the house.”
They were driving south on 13th in Tutt’s Bronco. They had met at their usual spot, outside a bar called O’Grady’s on Longfellow and Colorado, where Murphy had left his Trans Am.
“How’s Wanda?”
“She’s doin’ okay.”
Tutt figured Wanda Murphy for some sort of head case. Last time he’d seen her, she’d come to the door in some piece-of-shit housedress, looking like someone’s maid. Had some wicked body odor coming off her, too, like she’d blown off showers for a week. Tutt knew from experience that black women liked to smell nice, sometimes even went overboard with that sweet perfume of theirs. But Murphy’s wife had long since given up on hygiene or caring for the way she looked. She’d become a wall-hugger, always had to think real hard on what she was going to say. Vacancy signs hung in her eyes. You asked Tutt, she was way past gone.
Tutt made a point of keeping the Wanda conversations to a minimum. Murphy, he was acting kind of touchy lately, too.
“You see the mayor on TV today?” said Tutt.
“Nah, Tutt.”
“His deputy resigned under a... what do you call it?”
“A cloud of suspicion.”
“Yeah, a cloud. Citywide corruption, baby, and now another one of those geniuses went and fell out of the tree. Reporters were askin’ questions; the mayor kept on saying, ‘You people got no cause to question my veracity.’ Pattin’ his head with that handkerchief of his. I do believe our mayor got a case of the cocaine sweats.”
“Yeah,” said Murphy tiredly, hoping to put the conversation to an end. “They got their problems down there at the District Building.”