What It Was by George P. Pelecanos Page A

Jones.
    “They weren’t the only ones,” said Bowman. “Two other white boys came by, looked like professionals. When they left, the nurses came runnin and shit, ’cause those white boys had laid some kind of hurtin on Williams.”
    “That means Williams talked to them, too,” said Jones. “I shoulda killed that motherfucker dead.”
    “What’d the white boys look like?” said Jones.
    “Spaghetti benders,” said Bowman. “One dark, one blond.”
    Bowman didn’t say much unless it was important, but he had a way with a phrase and an offbeat sense of humor. Used to do these funny imitations of neighborhood folks when he and Jones were kids, back when they were just starting out, learning from the older hustlers in the original Temperance Court. That was before the government moved their families to another location. Some still called the old alley dwelling Square 274, with bitterness and fondness, both at once, in their tone.
    “They lookin for the heroin we took,” said Jones. “Must be from up north.”
    “What’s that got to do with me?” said Bowman.
    “Nothin,” said Jones.
    “Then say why you brought me here,” said Bowman. “I got a freak waitin on me in the car.”
    “Want you to do your thing,” said Jones. He crushed out a smoked-down Kool in an ashtray.
    “Roland Williams?”
    “I’ll take care of him my
own
self.”
    “Who, then?”
    “The prosecutor.”
    “Cochnar?” said Bowman. “That’s some high-profile shit.”
    “You’ll be paid.”
    “I’m gonna have to be
well
paid.”
    “Ain’t no thing. Me and Fonzo are flush, and we about to get richer.”
    “I know you’re good.” Bowman abruptly got up, smoothed the front of his triple-pleated slacks, and put out his hand. “Two Seventy-Four.”
    “Two Seven Four,” said Jones, giving his old friend a thumb-grip shake, moving their hands from side to side.
    Bowman nodded at Jefferson and left the house.
    “Your boy look like Rafer Johnson,” said Jefferson.
    “Clarence’s face cut the same way,” said Jones.
    Jefferson got up and put an album on the platter of his compact system. It was the new Kool and the Gang,
Music Is the Message.
He dropped the needle on the song called “Soul Vibrations.” As it came forward he said, “This jam is
bad
right here.”
    Jones made no comment. He didn’t care much for music or books. He liked movies when he had the time, the ones had black men in charge, but mostly his focus was on work. He aimed to leave behind a name that would be remembered. That would be something. Maybe the only thing. The one way you could win. ’Cause everyone was bound for a bed of maggots in the end.
    “I could use another blonde,” said Jones.
    Jefferson called out to his woman, and soon Monique appeared in the room. She was taller than Jefferson. The tops of her globes came bold out of her shirt, and she had straightened hair that was left uncombed. Monique had a mean-mustang look to her that Jones liked. He wondered what it would take to make an untamed country girl like her smile.
    “Get us two more High Lifes, Nique,” said Jefferson.
    Monique flattened a palm on her hip. “Your legs broke?”
    Jefferson smiled a row of gold. “Shake a tail feather, baby.”
    Monique turned on one heel and went to the fridge to get their beer.
    “Lotta woman right there,” said Jones.
    “That girl can buck.”
    After she returned with their beverages and left the room again, they discussed their plans. There was much to do.
    STRANGE PULLED his Monte Carlo over to the curb on 14th a block north of the house where Coco Watkins plied her trade. It was now well past two in the morning. Last call had come and gone. The licensed bars had closed their doors, and though there were many after-hours establishments down here, bottle clubs, floating card games, and such, most were in side street row homes, not on the main avenue. There were folks here and there, some standing on corners, a couple of them staggering