“I‘m trippin’, man,” said Clay. “’Bout ready to bite down on my tongue.”
“That Turkish coffee,” said Karras, taking the hill down 16th alongside the park, once called Meridian Hill, now named Malcolm X.
“Guess that’s why they only serve you half of a half a cup.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Drink enough of that, you wouldn’t need that powder of yours to get up.”
“I’d probably still need it,” said Karras, speaking softly. “It likes me too much, if you know what I mean.”
“I do,” said Clay. “Never did take to that drug myself. I tried it a couple of times, but I figured something made you feel that good just had to be wrong. And I was right. I mean, look at the things it makes people do. Now, smokin’ herb was all about gettin’ together, sharing. With cocaine, you go to a party these days, everybody’s always disappearin’, duckin’ off, so preoccupied with their next jolt they can’t even relax around their own friends. That is if they still have friends.”
Karras felt Clay’s stare. “You talkin’ about you and me, Marcus?”
“No. You and me are always gonna be friends, I expect. But I been watchin’ you go down this road for a long time. Wastin’ money your mother saved her whole life. It’s hard for me to see it... Anyway, you’re a grown man. You know you’re gonna have to give it up someday. The thing I wonder is, do you ever think about how you usin’ that shit affects the world around you? How every time you cop a gram you feed the dragon that’s makin’ kids kill other kids all over this city?”
“I have thought about it. And I’m not proud of myself.”
Clay leaned toward Karras. “You know the worst thing, Dimitri? You been lyin’ to me, man. It’s what that drug makes you do. And you never did lie to me before.”
Karras nodded. “I know what I’ve got to do. Only thing I can promise you is I’m gonna try.”
They drove down a quiet and nearly empty U Street. Karras parked the 325 in front of the store. Clay stayed in his seat, staring through the windshield.
“You comin’?” said Karras.
“Yeah. Can’t get that old man out of my mind is all.” Clay cocked his head. “What he said about those men shakin’ him down in his own store, it hit me deep. Made me think about back when I was first gettin’ started. How much I wanted this business I got. How I been layin’ down lately, lettin’ it get away from me. Made me think real hard about tonight, too. How Tyrell Cleveland and them think they’re gonna come into my place and tell me what to do.”
“What are you sayin’?”
“Not gonna let that happen. And you, me, and Clarence could use a little help.”
“Help from who?”
“Al Adamson,” said Clay. “Remember him?”
Al Adamson had his head under the hood of a ’63 Lincoln when the phone rang in his garage. He moved the drop light, wiped his hands on a rag, and picked up the phone.
“Yeah... Marcus, how you doin’, man?”
Adamson listened until Clay had finished speaking. He said, “I’ll be there. You want me to bring anything?... You sure?... Okay, I’ll see you then.”
Adamson took a shower, changed into dark clothing, and went back down to his garage. He’d only seen Marcus Clay a couple of times since Vietnam. Once on the street in 1982, and with that trouble they’d had during the Bicentennial weekend, back in ’76. Al Adamson’s brother, Rasheed, had worked in Marcus’s first record store over at Dupont Circle. When Rasheed saw tragedy at the hands of some hard mothafuckers up from the South, Marcus had stood by Al to see that Rasheed had been avenged. Al didn’t have to see Marcus that often for their bond to hold; Marcus knew that whenever he needed him, Al would be there.
Al Adamson found his sheathed Ka-Bar knife in the bottom drawer of his tool cabinet. He put the sheath in a kind of holster he had rigged to hang under his armpit and fitted it so the handle of the knife sat fairly flush against his chest. He put on a black sport jacket over his black fishnet T-shirt and shifted his shoulders. Later, in his bedroom’s full-length mirror, he admired the jacket’s drape. He pulled on the laces of his oilskin shoes and tied them tight.
Marcus had said no guns. He hadn’t said nothin’ about knives.
Marcus Clay stared out the window at the gathering darkness on U. Cootch had finished his paperwork and gone home. Clay and Karras were locked inside the store. Karras stood on a ladder taping a big Janet Jackson poster, given to him by an A & M rep, to the wall.
The phone by the cashier’s stand rang.
“I got it,” said Clay, going to the counter and lifting the receiver. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and said to Karras, “It’s that McGinnes guy.”
Karras climbed down from the ladder and walked across the room.
Clay said, “You can talk to me. Speak up, man, I can’t hear you.”
“That’s ’cause I’m in a bar,” said McGinnes, who stood at the pay phone of La Fortresse, holding a full tumbler of scotch. Nick Stefanos, half in the bag, leaned against the wall, a glass of bourbon in his hand, a burning Camel lodged between his fingers.
“Give me what you got,” said Clay.
“We followed your boy. Here’s the address.”
Clay wrote it down. “Who’d he go to see?”
McGinnes described the men they had seen, the cars, the scale on the table, the gun beneath the towel.
“Good work,” said Clay.
“You hire the best,” said McGinnes, “you get the best. Wanna talk to Nick?”
Clay said to Karras, “You got anything you want to say to Stefanos?”
“Tell him to go visit his grandfather,” said Karras.
“He says for Stefanos to go see his grandfather. He’s gonna have to anyway, ’cause that’s where we dropped the hundred. And he should.”
“Thought maybe you’d sweeten the hundred,” said McGinnes, “all the extra info we got.”
“You want more,” said Clay, “you gotta give me some more.”
“Okay,” said McGinnes. “How about this. Your muscle cop, he met someone first before he met with those dealers. Black guy, handsome, with a mustache. They drove together to the house. I thought I recognized him, so I called the store, had a salesman go back through my tickets. Turned out I sold this guy a TV set, nice Mitsubishi, a couple of months ago. Guy by the name of Kevin Murphy. Yeah, Murphy. No, I’m not mistaken. Like I’m always tellin’ Nick, I never forget a customer — hey, you there? Hello?”
“What happened?” said Stefanos.
“He hung up on me. How’s that for gratitude?”
“Prob’ly just got cut off. Anyway, we got the money, right?”
“Yeah, it’s over at your papa’s.”
“Papou’s.”
“Whatever. Have a drink with me before you go. Got to get down when you’re at La Furpiece.”
“I’m already drunk.”
“Just one more, Greek.”
“Okay,” said Nick Stefanos. “One more.”
“What’s wrong with you, Marcus?”
“Hold on,” said Clay. “Need to make one more call.”
Clay misdialed, cursed, and dialed again.
“Clarence Tate.”
“Clarence, it’s Marcus.”