“You’re a real Neanderthal, Frank, you know it?”

“C’mere, baby,” said Vaughn, patting his thigh. “Bring them gunboats with you.”

“They’re gunboots, you dummy,” said Olga, already walking toward him.

Olga had a seat on his lap. Her face was caked with makeup and her helmet of black hair was frozen in place. But her eyes were soft, the same as the night he’d met her, at the Kavakos nightclub down on H Street, back in the early ’40s. They looked at each other as the bass from upstairs buzzed the kitchen walls. Vaughn kissed her on the lips.

Olga moved her rump around as she settled into his shape. He felt himself growing hard beneath her.

“What’s that?” said Olga with a lopsided grin.

“You said I was a caveman,” said Vaughn. “That’s my club.”

Beneath his next kiss, he felt her smile.

STRANGE AND PETERS drove down Georgia in their cruiser. They were on the tail end of their eight-to-four. Their day had consisted of some field investigations, a report made at a home break-in scene, a petty larceny, one domestic disturbance, and the usual numerous traffic stops: exceeding the limit, red-light runners, incomplete stops, and the like. Nothing involving violence or, on their part, the use of force.

Peters was having one of his talkative spells, going on about LBJ, who would succeed him, King’s scheduled return to Memphis, and what would happen down there next. Strange mostly nodded and shook his head.

He had been quiet since they’d made a stop at the station, where he’d overheard some comments made by a couple of white officers out in the lot. One of them called Peters “Golden Boy” as he and Strange were walking back to their Ford. The other called them “the Dynamic Duo” and added, “Better Peters than me.” This was the same cop, Sullivan, who had called his nightstick a “nigger knocker” within earshot of Strange a few weeks ago, then smiled nervously and said, “Hey, no offense, rookie. I mean, we’re all brothers in blue, right?” Strange had nodded but hadn’t even tried to mask the hate in his eyes. He could take a lot, and he did, but there was something about Sullivan’s face, those Mr. Ed teeth protruding out from thin lips, that just made Strange want to kick his ass real good.

“Derek, you got plans tonight?”

“Why?”

“Thought you might want to come over, have dinner with me and Patty.”

“Thanks. But I was gonna hook up with Lydell. We were thinking of checkin’ out this party he heard about, over near Howard.”

“Some other time, right?”

Strange didn’t think it was likely. But he said, “Sounds good.”

They crossed the intersection at Piney Branch and approached the Esso station. Out by the pumps, a big pale guy, sleeves rolled up to show his arms, looked to be arguing with another guy, had full black hair and a solid build. Both wore uniform shirts. The bigger of the two was working his jaw close to the other guy’s face. Peters recognized the smaller guy as the pump jockey they’d seen the day before, when they’d stopped to talk to Hound Dog Vaughn.

“Looks like something,” said Peters.

“I don’t think so,” said Strange.

“Maybe we ought to stop.”

“The guy with the black hair will walk away. He liked to fight when he was younger. But I don’t think he does anymore.”

“You know him?”

“Ran with him some when I was a kid. We did a little shoplifting together one day, a long time ago.”

“You guys get away with it?”

“I got caught. He didn’t.”

“His lucky day,” said Peters.

“No,” said Strange. “It was mine.”

SEVENTEEN

ALVIN JONES HAD been driving a green-on-green Buick Special for the last six months or so. It was a basic four-door, radio-and-heater, bench-seat, automatic-on-the-tree model, and it turned no heads. Despite the name, wasn’t nothing special about it. Point of fact, it looked like something an old lady would be driving, her white gloves at the ten-and-two position, sitting up on a pillow so she could see over the wheel.

The Buick was a ’63. Dealer made him pay for it in full with cash money before he got handed the keys. Four hundred dollars, not a whole lot, but still, he wasn’t accustomed to laying out the ducats on the front end. Contrary to what he’d told Lula Bacon, there came a time when people really did stop giving you credit, and his credit was about as fucked as a man’s credit could be.

Anyway, the price was right and it was his. Soon as his luck changed, and it was gonna change real soon, he’d be under the wheel of something right. Recently, he’d seen this white-over-red ’67 El Dorado coupe with factory air, vinyl roof, electric windows and seats in the showroom of Capitol Cadillac-Olds, on 22nd, across town. That was gonna be his next ride. Once you got your mind set on a car, it was like seein’ a woman in a club and knowing you were gonna be killin’ it in your bed by the end of the night. He knew he was going to own that Caddy in the same way. Thing that hurt him, though, he’d owned a Cadillac nine years ago, at twenty-two, and here he was, grown man of thirty-one, driving a Buick. Seemed lately like he was walking backward through his life, passin’ hisself on the way down.

But right now, Jones felt good. He was wearing a new button-down from National Shirt Shop, his Flagg Brothers, and his favorite hat, black with the gold band, picked up the gold off his eyes. A.38 was wedged tight between his legs, right up against his dick. “Funky Broadway” was on WOOK, and Wicked Wilson was singing it loud. Broadway. He was gonna get up to that motherfucker someday, show them how they did in D.C. Drive up there in his Cadillac, too. By then he’d have it tricked with spokes.

Jones cruised down H, along the retail center of Northeast, heading toward 8th, where his cousin Kenneth lived in that little place he’d been staying in for a while, over the liquor store. Whole lot of grown people and kids were on the sidewalks, some carrying bags, some playing, some just moving along. Outside the liquor store stood a wino, asking passersby for change. Jones saw Kenneth’s Monterey, parked up a ways, and looked for a place to put his Special. They were gonna take the Mercury, on account of it was more reliable and had a little more horse. Jones wasn’t nervous about the robbery or nothin’ like that. Plus, he’d had a couple of drinks.

Jones saw a police car in his rearview and his hands, due to habit, tightened on the wheel. Then the car pulled over and stopped a little bit up from the liquor store. Jones looked ahead. Another police car was coming from the opposite direction. It went by him and he watched as it, too, slowed near the liquor store and came to stop, nose to ass with the first squad car. Alvin made a turn onto 9th, found a space, and cut the engine. He slid the pistol under the bench seat, got out of the Buick, locked it, and jogged on up to H.

When he got there, the squad cars had moved on. But he saw a couple of white men in street clothes, looked like police with their builds and the way they moved, kind of hurrying around the area of the liquor store. One of them ducked into the outside foyer area of a market and the other positioned himself with his back against the bricks beside the stairwell entrance to the second-floor apartments. The wino was gone.

Jones went to a pay-phone booth on the corner, dropped change into the slot, and dialed his cousin’s number. The phone rang and kept on ringing. The ring became a scream in Alvin Jones’s head. It told him that he was never going to see Broadway or ride down the street in that white El D.

“Come on, Kenneth,” said Jones. “Pick up the got-damn phone.”

KENNETH WILLIS HAD dressed in dark clothing and was rifling through his dresser drawer trying to find a pair of stockings this big redbone had left at his crib. He was gonna put one of the stockings over his face when the time came, the way his cousin Alvin had told him to do. “Funky Broadway” was playing from back in the living room, out this box he’d bought from the local Sears. He was charged up for what he was about to do, and Wilson going, “Shake shake shake,” and growling, “Lord, have mercy,” was charging him further still.