Free Soul Circus by George P. Pelecanos

did believe this in his heart.
    “What I thought, too. Now look, he didn’t want me to tell you. Didn’t want to worry you or y’all’s moms. But I just thought it might be better if you knew.”
    “Okay, then.”
    “We all right, dawg?”
    Durham nodded. “Yeah, we’re good.”
    “We better be gone,” said Walker, placing his empty pilsner on the table.
    “Gotta see the troops get out for the night,” said Durham.
    “I’ll get you a bag for your guns,” said Foreman.
    Durham pulled a roll of cash from out of his jeans. “Fourteen, right?”
    “Fifteen,” said Foreman, standing from his chair.
    “Why you want to do me like that?” said Durham, but Foreman was ignoring him, already walking toward a side room where he kept his supplies.
     
     
    FOREMAN stood on the stoop of his house, watching the Benz go down the drive. He was under a pink awning that Ashley loved but he hated. It was a little thing, though, one of them concessions you make to a woman, so he told her that he liked the awning, too.
    He had played it right, telling Dewayne about Mario and the gun. Now there wouldn’t be no misunderstanding later on. If Dewayne didn’t like it, well, next time he’d give him some of that good smoke he kept in the family. Everything was negotiation in this business, nothing but a game.
    “It go okay?” said Ashley, coming up behind him with a fresh glass of wine in her hand.
    “Went good.” Foreman put his arm around her waist, looked her over, then kissed her neck. “Those boys were noticing you.”
    “You jealous?”
    “I don’t think you’re goin’ anywhere.”
    “You got that right, boyfriend.”
    “I better keep an eye on you, though. Fine as you look, someone might try to steal you out from under me.”
    “That’s where they’d have to steal me from, too.”
    Foreman kissed Ashley on the mouth. She bit his lower lip, and they both laughed as he pulled away.
     

Chapter
9
     
    YOU ever been back in there?” said Strange, looking through the windshield to the brick wall bordering St. Elizabeth’s.
    “Once,” said Devra Stokes. “This girl and me jumped the wall when we was like, twelve.”
    “I interviewed a witness there, a couple of years back.”
    “Hinckley?”
    “Naw, not Hinckley.”
    “I was just playin’ with you.”
    “I know it.”
    They sat in the Caprice, across from the institution, eating soft ice cream from cups that they had purchased at the drive-through of McDonald’s. Juwan, Devra’s son, sat in the backseat, licking the drippings off a cone.
    “It was this dude, though,” said Strange, “had pleaded insanity on a manslaughter charge, we thought he might have some information on another case. He seemed plenty sane to me. Anyway, we sat on a bench they have on the grounds, faces west, gives you a nice look at the whole city. This is the high ground up here. Those people they got in there, they got the best view of D.C.”
    “I wouldn’t mind getting taken care of like they take care of those folks in there. You ever think like that?”
    “It’s crossed my mind, in the same way that it would be easy to be old. Walk around wearing the same raggedy sweater every day, don’t even have to shave or mind your hair. But I don’t want to be an old man. And I wouldn’t want to be locked up anywhere, would you?”
    “Sometimes I think, you know, not to have all this pressure all the time . . . not to have to think about how I’m gonna make it for me and Juwan, just for a while, I mean. That would be nice.”
    “I know it’s got to be rough, raising him as a single parent,” said Strange.
    “I got bills,” said Devra.
    “Phil Wood’s not taking care of you and your little boy?”
    “Juwan’s not his. Juwan’s father —”
    “Mama!”
    Devra turned her head. The boy’s ice cream had dripped and some of it had found its way onto the vinyl seat. Devra used the napkin in her hand to clean the boy’s face, then wipe the seat.
    “Mama,” said