'Hello.'

'Derek here. You remember which house is mine?'

'Sure.'

'Better get on over here, man.'

'I'll be right there,' said Quinn.

Cherokee Coleman pressed 'end' on his cell and laid the phone on the green blotter of his desk. 'They're here.'

Big-Ass Angelo adjusted his shades so that they sat low on his nose. 'We ready for them to finish this thing?'

'Tomorrow night. We been sellin' this shit faster than I thought we would. We'll send our boys out there to Shitkickersville and let them bring back the last load. Bring back our money, too. Doom all those motherfuckers out there, so I can tell my Colombian brothers I went and avenged the deaths of their own. Stay in their good graces so we can keep on makin' that bank. Like to see those cracker cops out in Fredneck County when they find all those bodies, scratchin' their fat heads and shit, tryin' to figure out who and what and how come.'

'Let God sort 'em out.'

Coleman looked up. 'That's a good name for this next batch, Angie.'

'We used it, man.'

'Fucked in D.C.?'

'That ain't bad, right there.'

Coleman got up from his chair and walked to the office window. Two men got out of a black Maxima and were met by several younger men.

'Delgado got himself a brand new short,' said Coleman. 'Got some nice rims on it, too.'

'He just wants what we got,' said Angelo.

'Let him keep wantin' it. The want is what makes this world go round, black.'

'How his partner look?'

'Boy has got some teeth.'

'Wil-bur,' said Angelo, whinnying like a horse and using his foot, dragging it front to back on the floor, to count to three.

Coleman and Angelo were still laughing as the two men entered the office.

'Somethin' funny?' said Delgado.

'Angelo here was just tellin' me a joke,' said Coleman.

'How you doin', Bucky?' said Big-Ass Angelo to the second man.

'I told you not to call me that,' said the man. 'The name's Eugene Franklin, understand?'

30

Quinn sat on a hard-back chair in Strange's living room, the tablet-sized notebook and an empty bottle of beer on the floor at his feet, the package of photographs clenched in his hand. There were two photographs of Eugene Franklin and Adonis Delgado in the bunch, wearing street clothes and walking from Eugene's civilian car to the row house of Cherokee Coleman. Quinn had yet to read the contents of the notebook, but Strange had filled him in on the pertinent details.

'You want another beer, man?' said Strange, who sat on a slightly worn living room sofa.

'No,' said Quinn. 'I better not.'

Quinn's eyes were blown out in his pale face, and jaw muscles bunched beneath his tight skin.

'Play me the tape again. The part where Eugene was talking in Erika's.'

Strange played the tape. Eugene's voice filled the silence of the room: 'I saw where Wilson's gun was headed. I saw in his eyes what he planned to do. There's no doubt in my mind, if Terry hadn't shot Wilson, Wilson would have shot me.'

Strange hit the stop button on the micro recorder.

'Wilson would have shot me,' said Strange. 'Franklin slipped right there.'

Quinn nodded obtusely at the recorder. 'Play the tape of me. The first conversation we had, down at the scene, on D Street.'

'We already did this once.'

'Play it,' said Quinn.

Strange popped in another tape. He cued up the spot that he knew Quinn wanted to hear.

Strange: 'You do what next?'

Quinn: 'I've got my gun on the aggressor. I yell for him to drop his weapon and lie facedown on the street. He yells something back. I can't really hear what he's saying, 'cause Eugene's yelling over him-'

Strange stopped the tape. 'Your partner was yelling over him 'cause he didn't want you to hear what Wilson was sayin'. He was adding to the confusion, and he didn't want you to know that Wilson was a cop.'

'Play the other part,' said Quinn.

Strange: 'What happened when he looked at you, Quinn?'

Quinn: 'It was only for a moment. He looked at me and then at Gene, and something bad crossed his face. I'll never forget it. He was angry at us, at me and Gene. He was more than angry; his face changed to the face of a killer. He swung his gun in our direction then-'

Strange: 'He pointed his gun at you?'

Quinn: 'Not directly. He was swinging it, like I say. The muzzle of it swept across me and he had that look on his face… There wasn't any doubt in my mind… I knew he was going to pull the trigger. Eugene screamed my name, and I fired my weapon.'

'That's enough,' said Quinn.

Strange stopped the recorder.

'Here's the way I see it,' said Strange, speaking softly. 'Your partner was driving the cruiser that night. Y'all comin' up on Chris Wilson like that, it wasn't an accident. Franklin turned down D Street because it was a setup. He knew Kane was going to lure Chris Wilson there. He knew it wouldn't take much for Kane to get Wilson to draw his gun.'

'Or for me to fire mine,' said Quinn.

'Maybe. The fact remains, your partner was involved. We got the photographs and Chris Wilson's notebook. That young man did some really fine police work, putting it all together. The tapes I got corroborate-'

'I just don't want to believe it, Derek.'

'Believe your own words,' said Strange. '"He looked at me and then at Gene, and something bad crossed his face." "His face changed to the face of a killer" when he saw Eugene. Your own words were, "The muzzle of the gun swept across me." Chris Wilson wasn't lookin' to hurt you, Terry. He was pointing his gun at a sold-out cop. A dirty cop who was in the pocket of the drug dealer who had put his sister in a junkhouse. You understand what I'm tellin' you, man?'

'Yes,' said Quinn, staring at the floor.

'All right, then. Now, who's Adonis Delgado?'

'Big, bad-ass cop. He was sitting at the bar of Erika's the day we spoke to Eugene.'

'Muscle-bound and ugly, with a stoved-in nose?'

'Yeah.'

'That's the one tried to step to me in the bathroom. Wanted to send me some kind of message, I guess.'

'Eugene,' muttered Quinn.

'You're goddamn right, Eugene.'

Quinn stood out of his chair. He lifted his leather off the back where he'd hung it and put it on.

'Where you goin'?'

'To get the rest of it.'

'You need my help?'

'This one's me,' said Quinn. He turned as he reached the front door. 'Don't go to sleep.'

'I'm gonna see you again tonight?'

'Yeah. Gonna bring somethin' back for you, too.'

Eugene Franklin had a one-bedroom apartment in a high-rise across the road from the Maine Avenue waterfront in Southwest. Franklin, like many single cops, considered his apartment little more than a place to eat, sleep, and watch TV. The living area was sparsely decorated and furnished, with a couch and chair facing a television, a coffee table, and a telephone set on a bare end table beside the couch. Franklin answered the ringing phone.

'Yeah.'

'Gene, it's Terry, man. I'm at the front door in the lobby.'

'Terry-'

'Buzz me in, buddy. I got somethin' I need to talk to you about.'

Franklin pressed a button on the phone. He stood from the couch and ran his finger slowly over his protruding upper lip. It was a habit of his to do this when he was troubled or confused.

Franklin went to the door of his apartment, opened it, and stood in the frame. Quinn was walking toward him, down the long, orange-carpeted hall.

'Hey,' said Quinn, a smile on his face.

Quinn's long hair bounced as he walked. He was moving very quickly down the hall, his head pushed forward. Franklin was thinking, He's like one of those cartoon characters, determined, walking with purpose… and now he could see that Quinn's smile was not really a smile but more of a grimace, a forced smile that had pain in it and something worse than pain.