Right as Rain

Strange opened his newspaper clipping file. He went to a section he had marked, an interview with Chris Wilson's girlfriend, who had been with him earlier that night. The girlfriend confirmed that Wilson had been drinking on the night of the shooting and that 'he seemed upset about something.' She didn't know what it was that was making him upset, and he 'didn't say.' He made a mental note of the girlfriend's name.

Strange dialed a number, got the person he was trying to reach on the other end. After some give and take, he managed to make an appointment for later that afternoon. He said, 'Thank you,' and hung the receiver in its cradle.

"Scuse me, old buddy,' said Strange, pulling his feet gently from beneath Greco's head. 'I gotta get to work.'

Strange got into his leather. The dog followed him out of the room.

In the outer office, Strange stopped to talk to Janine while Greco found a spot underneath her desk.

'You talk to Lydell Blue?'

Janine Baker handed him a pink message note, ripped off her pad. 'Lydell ran Kane's name through the local and national crime networks. Kane has no convictions, no arrests. Never got caught with a joint in his sock. Never got caught doing something besides what he was supposed to be doing in a public restroom. No FIs, even, from when he was a kid. No priors whatsoever.'

'Okay. Remind me to give Lydell a call, thank him.'

'He said he owed you. Somethin' about somethin' you did for him when the two of you were rookie cops. Good thing you still know a few guys on the force.'

'The ones who aren't dead or retired. I know a few.'

'Hey, boss,' said Ron Lattimer from across the room. Ron wore a spread-collar shirt today with a solid gold tie and deep gray slacks. His split-toe Ke

'What?'

'Says here that leather of yours is out. The zipper kind, I mean. You need to be gettin' into one of those midlength blazers, man, with a belt, maybe, you want to be looking up-to-the-minute out there on the street.'

'You readin' that article about that book came out, on black men and style?'

'Uh-huh. Called Men of Color, somethin' like that.'

'I read the article this morning, too. That lady they got writing about fashion, she's got a fu

'Uh-huh. Says here that we black men "use style like a sword and shield",' said Lattimer, reading aloud.

'All of us do?'

'See, now, there you go again, Derek.'

"Cause I was wonderin', that old man, practically lives out on Upshur, with the pee stains on the front of his trousers? The one gets his di

'I get you, man.'

'I just don't like anybody, and I don't care who it is, tellin' me what black men do and don't do. 'Cause that kind of thinking is just as dangerous as that other kind of thinking, if you know what I mean. And you know some white person's go

'I said I heard you.'

'It's just another stereotype, man. Positive as it might look on the surface, it's just another thing we've got to live with and live down.'

'Damn, Derek,' said Lattimer, tossing the paper on his desk. 'You just get all upset behind this shit, don't you? All the article's saying is we like to look good. Ain't nothin' more sinister behind it than that.'

'Derek?' said Janine.

'What is it, Janine?'

'Where are you off to now?'

'Workin' on this Chris Wilson thing. I'll be wearing my beeper, you need me.' Strange turned to Lattimer. 'You busy?'

'I'm working a couple of contempt skips. Child-support beefs, that kind of thing.'

'Right now?'

'I was pla

'Want to ride with me this morning?'

'That Chris Wilson case isn't going to pay our bills. I do a couple pick ups, it helps us all.'

'Like to get your thoughts on this, you have the time.'

'Okay. But I got to do some real work this afternoon.'

'Give Terry Qui

'You're go

'I'm getting to know him like that,' said Strange. 'Anyway, I told him I'd keep him in the loop.'

Lattimer stood, shook himself into his cashmere, and placed a fedora, dented just right, atop his head.

'Don't feed Greco again,' said Strange to Janine. 'I gave him a full can this morning.'

'Can I give him one of those rawhide bones I keep in my desk?'

'If you'd like.'

On the way out of the office, Strange looked into Janine's eyes and smiled with his. That was just another thing he liked about Janine: she was kind to his dog.

Out on Upshur, Strange nodded at the fedora on Lattimer's head.

'Nice hat,' he said.

'Thank you.'

'That function as a sword or a shield?'

'Keeps my head warm,' said Lattimer, 'you want the plain truth.'

15

Strange drove the Caprice into Southeast. He popped 3 + 3, in his opinion the finest record in the Isley Brothers catalog, into the deck. Ronald Isley was singing that pretty ballad 'Highway of My Life,' and Strange had the urge to sing along. But he knew Lattimer would make some kind of comment on it if he did.

'This is beautiful right here,' said Strange. 'Don't tell me otherwise, 'cause it's something you can't deny.'

'It is pretty nice. But I like somethin's got a little more flow.'

'Song has some positive lyrics to it, too. None of that boasting about beatin' up women, and none of that phony death romance.'

'You know I don't listen to that bullshit, Derek. The music I roll to is hip-hop but on the jazz tip. The Roots, Black Star, like that. That other stuff you're talkin' about, it doesn't speak to me. You ask me, it ain't nothin' but the white music industry exploiting our people all over again. I can see those white record executives now, encouraging those young rappers to put more violence into their music, more disrespect for our women, all because that's what's selling records. And you know I can't get with that.'

'The soul music of the sixties and seventies,' said Strange. 'Won't be anything to come along and replace it, you ask me.'

'Can't get with that, either, Derek. I wasn't even born till nineteen seventy.'

'You missed, young man. You missed.'

Strange turned down 8th Street and took it to M.

'Where we headed?' said Lattimer.

'Titty bar,' said Strange.

'Thank you, boss. This one of those perks you talked about when you hired me?'

'You're staying in the car. This is the place I picked up Sherman Coles for you while you were admiring yourself in a three-way mirror. I just got to ask the doorman a question or two.'

'About Qui

'Uh-huh.'

'I heard Janine say that the man Wilson pulled that gun on, he was clean.'

'Maybe he was. One thing's certain, he made out. According to the papers, the department paid him eighty thousand dollars to make him happy. For the emotional trauma he went through and the back injury he sustained when Wilson threw him up against the car.'