Free What It Was by George P. Pelecanos Page A

slightly visible beneath his apron. He sported a full head of hair, black on top, silver on the sides, and a pleasant, confident smile.
    “Anything else I can do you for?” said Nick.
    “You can warm up these coffees,” said Vaughn.
    Nick put his hands around Vaughn’s cup and, with great exaggeration, rubbed it. “How’s this?”
    “That gag’s got gray hair on it,” said Vaughn.
    “Like us.”
    Nick picked up their cups and saucers, went to one of his big urns, flipped down the black valve-style lever, and poured fresh coffee. He served Vaughn and Strange, emptied Vaughn’s ashtray, and put it back in front of him. Vaughn promptly lit an L&M with his Zippo and placed the lighter atop his newly opened pack.
    “I like this place,” said Vaughn.
    “It’s all right,” said Strange.
    They had just eaten a breakfast of scrapple and eggs. The food was on the bland side by design, as the diner catered to white-collar whites. The crew behind the counter, hot station, cold station, waitress, and dishwasher, were black. The woman working hots had fried some onions and pepper into the eggs for Strange and he had further spiced up the plate with Tabasco. Strange’s father had been a grill man for the Three-Star, a place on Kennedy Street very much like this one. Darius Strange had also worked for a Greek, Mike Georgelakos, who had dropped dead of a massive heart attack in 1969.
    “So you’re looking for a ring,” said Vaughn.
    “Maybelline Walker’s. You met her.”
    “Nice-looking lady. Teacher, I recall.”
    “She’s a math tutor.”
    “Right.” Vaughn dragged on his cigarette. “I don’t think she cared much for me. I wouldn’t let her look around Odum’s apartment.”
    “She had a key. Let herself in after y’all closed the scene.”
    “The resourceful type. What’s so special about the ring?”
    “Has sentimental value, she says. Costume jewelry. Says she and Odum were friends. Odum was gonna get the ring assessed for her, to see if it had any value. Stones were a cluster of glass but the body of it was gold.
She
says.”
    “You don’t believe her.”
    “She hired me to find the ring. Don’t much care about the why.” Strange looked at Vaughn, who was exhaling a thin stream of smoke over the Formica-covered counter. “You didn’t happen to see it, did you?”
    “A ring? No. There was some women’s jewelry we found in his bedroom dresser. A bracelet and a necklace, too, if I remember right.”
    “Real shit?”
    “I wouldn’t know. Bobby used to do Burglary Ones, years ago. Said he lost his ambition after he fell in love with smack. Maybe the trinkets in the bedroom were some old pieces he was holding on to.”
    “What happened to that jewelry?”
    “Property’s got it,” said Vaughn. “You think Odum’s killer took the ring?”
    “Or one of the uniforms on the scene slipped it in his pocket.”
    “It happens. But I’d put money on the one who chilled Odum.”
    “You got a suspect?”
    Vaughn showed Strange his choppers. “You’re cute. You know it?”
    “We might be able to help each other out.”
    “That’s what you said on the phone. But I haven’t heard a goddamn thing yet.”
    “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” said Strange.
    Vaughn chuckled. “For a nickel I will.”
    It was an old vulgar joke about a colored girl. Vaughn was indelicate. Vaughn’s kind were about to be extinct. He was the type of man Strange’s mother would charitably call “a product of his time.” Strange knew that Vaughn was that way. He was also good police.
    “What I got for you is real,” said Strange. “That’s a promise.”
    “Now you’re gonna bargain.”
    “Why wouldn’t I?”
    “You always were smart. It’s a damn shame you left the force.”
    “I had to,” said Strange.
    Vaughn tapped ash off his cigarette. “I like a guy named Robert Lee Jones for this one. Goes by Red.”
    “Red Jones.”
    “You heard of him?”
    “Sure.”
    “Got a nice long rap