Right as Rain

'What did Wilson's mother get?'

'A hundred grand, from what I can tell.'

'Cost the police department a lot to make everyone go away on that one.'

'The money was never going to be enough to satisfy his mother, though.'

'You can dig it, right?'

Strange thought of his brother, now thirty years gone, and a woman he'd loved deep and for real back in the early seventies.

'When you lose a loved one to violence,' said Strange, 'ain't no amount of money in the world go

'How about revenge? Does that do it, you think?'

'No,' said Strange, his mind still on his brother and that girl he'd loved. 'You can never trade a bad life for a good.'

Strange parked on the street, alongside one of the fenced-in lots fronting the strip-bar and bathhouse district. He said to Lattimer, 'Wait here.'

The doorman who'd been at Toot Sweet when Strange had picked up Coles was there again today. He'd gotten his hair cut in a kind of fade, and he wore a baggy sweatsuit, which didn't do a whole lot to hide his bulk. Boy looked like some cross of African and Asian, but Strange figured the majority of it was African, as he'd never seen any kind of Chinaman that big.

'How you doin',' said Strange.

'It's still seven dollars to get in. We ain't gone and changed the cover since the other day.'

'You remember me, huh?'

'You and your friend. White boy did some damage back in the bathroom.'

Strange palmed a folded ten-dollar bill into the doorman's hand. 'I'm not coming in today, so that's not for the cover. That's for you.'

The doorman casually looked over his shoulder, then slipped the ten in the pocket of his sweatpants. 'What you want to know?'

'I was wonderin' about what happened back there in the bathroom.'

'What happened? Your partner fucked that big boy up. Went into the kitchen and got a tenderizing mallet, then went into the bathroom and broke big boy's nose real quick. Kicked him a couple of times while he was down, too. I had to clean up the blood myself. There was plenty of it, too.'

'What you do with the big guy?'

'One of my coworkers drove him to D.C. General and dropped him off. They got a doctor over there, this Dr Sanders, we've seen him put together guys got torn apart in this place real nice. So we figure we put him in good hands.'

'Why didn't you phone the cops?'

'The big guy didn't want us to. Right away I'm thinkin' he's got warrants out on him, right? And the management, they don't want to see any cops within a mile of this place. Not to mention, you and your buddy, I know you're not cops, but whatever the fuck your game is, you probably know enough real policemen to make it rough on the owner to keep doing business here, know what I'm sayin'? I mean, we're not stupid.'

'I didn't think you were.'

'Next time you bring white boy around here, though-'

'I know. Put him on a leash.'

The doorman smiled and patted his pocket. 'You want another receipt?'

'It's tempting,' said Strange. 'But I'll pass.'

On the way back to the car, Strange thought, Maybe I'm giving this Terry Qui

Qui

'Hey, Moon. Wake up, buddy, you gotta get going. Syreeta's coming in, and you know she doesn't like you sleeping back here.'

'All right.'

Moon got himself to his feet. He hadn't been using the showers at Progress Place all that often. That bad smell of street person that was body odor and cigarettes and alcohol and rot came off him, and Qui

'Take this,' said Qui

'A ducat,' said Moon, examining the one. 'Do you know, the term refers to an actual gold coin, a type of currency formerly used in Europe? The word was appropriated as slang by twentieth-century African Americans. Over the years it's become a standard term in the Ebonic vocabulary

'That's nice,' said Qui

'I'll spend it well.'

As he walked behind him, Qui

'The Stars My Destination, by Bester. It's not just a book, Terry. It is a mind-blowing journey, a literary achievement of Olympian proportions…'

'Bring it back when you're done.'

Qui

Qui

Qui

'Hey, Terry.' It was Lewis, standing before him, a box of hardbacks in his arms. Lewis's eyeglasses had slipped down to the tip of his nose. 'I finished racking the new vinyl. Now I've got to get these fictions shelved. You want to watch the register for me?'

'Yeah, sure.'

Qui

Qui