Soul Circus

“Thank you, Derek,” said Qui

Strange ignored him, settling low on the bench. He smiled as the vocals kicked in. “Just listen to this, man. Philippe Wy

STRANGE found Devra Stokes on their third stop. He had first gone to the Paramount Beauty Salon on Good Hope Road, where no one claimed to remember the girl. Strange checked his files, located in the trunk of his car: Janine had located Devra’s mother, Mattie Stokes, using the People Finder program on her computer. Strange found her, a tired-looking woman in her late thirties, at her place in the Ashford Manor apartments, down by the Walter E. Washington Estates off Southern Avenue. She informed Strange that her daughter was working in another beauty parlor on Good Hope Road, a block east of the Paramount.

Qui

Ten minutes later Devra Stokes walked over to Strange and sat down beside him. Time and her environment had not yet bested her. She had almond-shaped, dark brown eyes and a wide, sensuous mouth.

“You lookin’ to talk to me?”

“Derek Strange.” He flashed her his license. “Investigator, D.C.”

“This about Phillip and them?”

“Yes.”

“Knew y’all would be along.”

“Will you speak with me?”

“I can’t today. I got appointments.”

“But you will?” Devra looked away. Strange gently touched her arm to bring her back. “You filed a brutality complaint against Wood.”

“That was a while back.”

“When the time came to take the stand, you changed your mind.”

Devra shrugged and looked in the direction of the little boy, still playing beside the chair. Strange was certain that Phillip Wood had paid her to stay away from court. It was possible, also, that Wood had fathered her child. Wood would be put away forever, and with him any money he could provide to Stokes and her son. Strange was counting on her awareness that she’d been permanently dogged out. He hoped it burned her deep.

“I just need some background information,” said Strange. “Chances are you won’t have to testify.”

“Like I say, I can’t talk now.”

“Can I get up with you here?”

“Where else I’m go

“What time you get off today?”

“About five, unless my clients run over.”

“Your little boy likes ice cream, right?”

“He likes it.”

“How about I see you around five? We’ll find him some, and we’ll talk.”

Devra’s eyes caught light and her mouth turned up at the sides. She was downright pretty when she smiled. “I like ice cream, too.”

Course you do, thought Strange. You’re not much more than a kid yourself.

AT the Metro station Strange idled the Caprice while Qui

Strange watched a cocky and squared-up Qui

But it often didn’t happen that way. And when Qui

Something was said by a couple of young males to Qui

“You all right?”

“Guy told me to give him a dollar after he called me a white boy. Like that was go

“It was the boy part got your back up, huh?”

“That was most of it, I guess.”

“Think how it felt for grown men to be called boy every day for, I don’t know, a couple hundred years before you were born.”

“Yeah, okay. So now it’s my turn to get fucked with. We all gotta have ourselves a turn. For some shit that happened, like you say, before I was even born.”

“You don’t even want to go there, Terry. Trust me.”

“Right.” Qui

“Who’s she looking for, anyway?”

“Girl named Linda Welles. Fourteen years old, ninety-nine pounds. She ran off from her home in Burrville last year, over near Woodson High, in Far Northeast? Couple of months later, her older brother recognizes her when he’s with his boys, watching one of those videos they pass around.”

“She was the star, huh?”

“Yeah. It was supposed to be a house party, freak-dancing and all that, but then a couple of guys start going at it with her back in one of the bedrooms, right on the tape. Not that she wasn’t complicit, from the looks of it.”

“Fourteen years old, complicit got nothin’ to do with it.”

“Exactly. The brother recognized the exterior shot of the street where they had the party. It was on Naylor Road, up around the late twenties, here in Anacostia. That was a while back. The girl’s just vanished, man – nothing since.”

“So, what, you go

“Just passing out flyers.”

“ ’Cause you’re go

“But I feel the love,” said Qui

They drove back to W Street, passing the Fredrick Douglass Home, then cut up 16th toward Mi