“I can’t, man.”
“Why not?”
“My mother.”
Vaughn leaned forward. n leaneward. “Tell me about it.”
“They threatened to do my mom if I didn’t turn myself in.”
“Jones?”
“And his partner.”
“Little man with gold teeth.”
“Alfonzo Jefferson.”
Vaughn pulled a pen from his jacket and wrote the name down on a pad. “Does your mother have someone she can live with until we can get these guys off the street?”
Butler nodded. “My sister stays over in Maryland with her husband and kids.”
“I’ll send someone to your mom’s place. We’ll tell her to move to your sister’s for a while.”
“My brother-in-law’s not gonna like that,” said Butler. But he gave Vaughn his mother’s address.
“They worked you over pretty good,” said Vaughn.
“It was mostly Fonzo.”
“Why’d he have to do you like that?”
“Had to got nothin to do with it.” Butler lit his second cigarette off the one still burning.
“Where can I find those two?”
“I don’t know. I was supposed to meet with, you know, this girl I see. I went to the spot, and they rolled up on me instead. Took me into an alley.”
“Rolled up in what?”
“Gold deuce-and-a-quarter with skirts. Nice-lookin car… a sixty-eight.”
“Hard or soft top?”
“Hard.”
Vaughn wrote this down. “The girl is the one out in the office with the mole on her face. That’s how you got involved in all this?”
“Shay,” said Butler. “Nice little gal.”
“She looks it.”
“Don’t be rough on her, man. She didn’t know. Red told me so hisself.”
“I’m not looking to add to her problems.”
“She ain’t had no problem with me.”
“No?”
“I hit that thing right.” Butler smiled reflectively. “She got some good pussy on her, man.”
“It’s all good when it’s young.” Vaughn got up out of his chair. “You need some medical attention before they put you back. I’ll just get that going for you. Get you some more cigarettes, too.”
“Y’all talk to my mother,” said Butler, “please don’t tell her I got beat. I don’t want the old girl to worry.”
“Not a problem.”
Vaughn left the room and closed the door behind him. Passman was still working, but Coco, the ladies, and their lawyer were gone. Vaughn gave some instructions to Officer Anne Honn regarding Butler’s treatment and his mother. He then went to his desk, had a seat, picked up his phone, and got Derek Strange at his apartment. He told Strange what he’d seen in Coco’s bedroom, and the window of opportunity that existed, most likely, for just one night. He described the layout of the building and its front door.
Vaughn then phoned Olga. He told her he loved her. He told her he had paperwork to do and not to wait up.
Out in the lot, he got into his Monaco and headed uptown. Vaughn stopped at the Woodnar on 16th Street, past the lion bridge, and went up to Linda Allen’s apartment.
“How about a drink for an old friend?” said Vaughn when Linda opened her door.
She put a June Christy record on the console stereo and fixed a couple of cocktails. They had some laughs and fucked like animals in her bed.
ELEVEN
Alfonzo Jefferson had a spot in the high fifties, in a place known as Burrville in far Northeast, the populous but least-mentioned quadrant of the city, forgotten by many in power, mysterious and virtually unknown to most suburban commuters. Jefferson rented a two-story asbestos-shingled house near Watts Branch Park, on a sparsely built block whose houses sat on large pieces of land. It was an urban location with a country vibe. A few kept chickens in their backyards, and one old man had a goat on a chain. It was quiet here, and that suited Jefferson fine.
Jefferson had no checkbook or Central Charge card. He paid a man cash to live in the house. The rent was a little bit more than the surroundings warranted, but the extra was for utilities and such. Jefferson didn’t want his name on any bills. As for his car, he had bought it from the Auto Market at 3rd and Florida and had this girl, Monique Lattimer, put her name on the title and registration. Come tax time, Jefferson wrote “handyman” in the space they had for occupation. He claimed he earned little income and paid nothing or sometimes pennies to the government. He used his mother’s address when he had to, and it was an old address. He was as invisible as a man could be.
He was seated in the living room, which held worn, heavily cushioned furniture grouped around a cable spool table. Jefferson, wearing a woven brimmed hat indoors, looked small in the big high-back chair. Red Jones and Clarence Bowman were on the couch. They were drinking Miller High Lifes out of bottles and huffing cigarettes. Monique Lattimer was somewhere in the house, but Jefferson had asked her to leave the room. They could hear her moving around up on the second floor.
“Tempchin say Coco and the girls gonna be out tomorrow,” said Jones. “She vp h got word to me through the lawyer. Said it was that detective, Vaughn, was in on the bust. He’s lookin for me on the Odum thing.”
“Thought you left outta there clean,” said Jefferson.
“I did,” said Jones. “The loose piece was Roland Williams. Ain’t that right, Clarence?”
Bowman, who wore a security guard uniform during the day, was now smart in street clothes from the Cavalier Men’s Shop. He was the quiet type and had spoken little since arriving at Jefferson’s house. “Vaughn and that half-man prosecutor paid him a visit.”
“Cochnar,” said Jones.
“They weren’t the only ones,” said Bowman. “Two other white boys came by, looked like professionals. When they left, the nurses came runnin and shit, ’cause those white boys had laid some kind of hurtin on Williams.”
“That means Williams talked to them, too,” said Jones. “I shoulda killed that motherfucker dead.”
“What’d the white boys look like?” said Jones.
“Spaghetti benders,” said Bowman. “One dark, one blond.”
Bowman didn’t say much unless it was important, but he had a way with a phrase and an offbeat sense of humor. Used to do these funny imitations of neighborhood folks when he and Jones were kids, back when they were just starting out, learning from the older hustlers in the original Temperance Court. That was before the government moved their families to another location. Some still called the old alley dwelling Square 274, with bitterness and fondness, both at once, in their tone.
“They lookin for the heroin we took,” said Jones. “Must be from up north.”
“What’s that got to do with me?” said Bowman.
“Nothin,” said Jones.
“Then say why you brought me here,” said Bowman. “I got a freak waitin on me in the car.”
“Want you to do your thing,” said Jones. He crushed out a smoked-down Kool in an ashtray.
“Roland Williams?”
“I’ll take care of him my own self.”
“Who, then?”
“The prosecutor.”
“Cochnar?” said Bowman. “That’s some high-profile shit.”
“You’ll be paid.”
“I’m gonna have to be well paid.”
“Ain’t no thing. Me and Fonzo are flush, and we about to get richer.”
“I know you’re good.” Bowman abruptly got up, smoothed the front of his triple-pleated slacks, a {tedol in and put out his hand. “Two Seventy-Four.”
“Two Seven Four,” said Jones, giving his old friend a thumb-grip shake, moving their hands from side to side.
Bowman nodded at Jefferson and left the house.
“Your boy look like Rafer Johnson,” said Jefferson.
“Clarence’s face cut the same way,” said Jones.
Jefferson got up and put an album on the platter of his compact system. It was the new Kool and the Gang, Music Is the Message. He dropped the needle on the song called “Soul Vibrations.” As it came forward he said, “This jam is bad right here.”