Free The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos Page A

eyes told him she was smiling.
    “Is that movie she’s watching appropriate?” he said.
    “It’s
Grease,
” said Regina.
    “I know what it is. But Travolta is air-humping over there and our daughter’s copying him.”
    “She’s just dancing.”
    “That’s what they call it now?”
    Ramone unwrapped his arms and stepped to her side.
    “Good day?” said Regina.
    “We had a bunch of luck. I wouldn’t say anyone feels good about it, though. Man wasn’t a criminal. He got crazy behind some crack and killed his wife because he was jealous and despondent. She’s in the morgue, he’s probably down for twenty-five, and the kids are orphans. Nothing good about that.”
    “You did your job,” she said, a familiar refrain in their home.
    He talked to her every night about his workday. He felt it was important, in that those cops who didn’t, in his experience, were headed for disasters in their marriages. Plus, she understood. She had been police, though now that seemed like a long time ago.
    “Where’s Diego?” said Ramone.
    “Up in his room.”
    Ramone looked into the pot. The garlic and onions, cooking in olive oil, were beginning to brown.
    “You’ve got the fire up too high,” said Ramone. “You’re burning the garlic. And those onions are supposed to get clear, not black.”
    “Leave me alone.”
    “The only time that flame ought to be on high is when you’re boiling water.”
    “Please.”
    “You making a sauce?”
    “Yes.”
    “My mother’s?”
    “My own.”
    “I like my mother’s sauce,” said Ramone.
    “You should have married your mother.”
    “Listen, turn that flame down, will you?”
    “Go see your son.”
    “I plan to. What happened today?”
    “He says he didn’t know his cell was on. One of his friends called him as he was coming out of the bathroom, and Mr. Guy heard it.”
    “Mr. Guy-guy.”
    “Gus…”
    “I’m sayin, dude has name a like that, he’s gonna have some issues.”
    “He’s not the manliest fellow on the planet, I’ll give you that.”
    “And they wanted to suspend Diego for
that?
”
    “Insubordination. He wouldn’t give up his phone.”
    “They shouldn’t have gotten up in his face to begin with.”
    “I know it,” said Regina. “But it’s the rule. Anyway, you gotta act like you’re upset with him, I guess. A little.”
    “I’m more upset with that school.”
    “I am, too.”
    “I’ll talk to him.” Ramone leaned over the stove. “You know, you’re burning the living shit out of that garlic.”
    “Go see your son.”
    Ramone kissed her on her neck, just below her ear. She smelled a little sweaty, and sweet, too. It was that body oil she liked to wear, with a touch of raspberry in it.
    As Ramone walked away, he said, “Turn that flame down some.”
    “You can turn the flame down your own self,” said Regina, “the day you step up to cook.”
    Ramone went down the hall, the sound of the Thunderbirds and the Pink Ladies singing at his back, and up the stairs to the top floor.
    He was having more than second thoughts about the decision to transfer Diego out to a Montgomery County school, but at the time he’d made it he felt he had run out of options. Ramone and Regina had been in agreement that the District middle in their zone was unacceptable. Physically it was in a state of perpetual disrepair, and it was always short on supplies, including pencils and paper. With the school’s low lighting, many of the fluorescents and incandescents either dead or nonexistent, and the metal detectors and security personnel stationed at every working door, it resembled a prison. Sure, plenty of money got pumped into the D.C. school system, but, suspiciously, little seemed to funnel down to the kids. And the kids themselves had begun to find trouble, both in school and out. In their zone, with many parents working two jobs and others absent or just not involved in their children’s lives, some of the kids had begun to go seriously off