Free Shoedog by George P. Pelecanos Page A

dollars for a day’s work. Not bad for where he came from. Not bad at all.
    In the stockroom, he tried to remember the sizes as he picked out the shoes. Nine, seven and a half, and … the West Virginia–lookin’ ho, with those country-ass feet—she had said nine. But she meant ten.
    L ATER , when the rush had ended, just as Felix and his girls had left the store, Randolph looked across the littered sales floor to the bench in the corner, where the man with the long black hair still sat. The Isley Brothers’ “Groove with You” came sweetly from the store speakers—Antoine had taken the funk down a few notches for the post-rush chill—while Jorge stood in the stockroom, putting dead soldiers back up on the shelf. It had been a good day, and Randolph had made some money. Now he’d see what that man had on his mind.
    He crossed the sales floor, stepped up to the man. The man had risen out of his seat, a near friendly smile on his thoughtful face. He was taller than medium, like Randolph, though not as solid, more on the loose-limbed side.
    Randolph stroked his black mustache, looking hard into the man’s blue eyes. “All right, man. What you want?”
    The man took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Randolph. Randolph took it, read it, tossed it on the bench.
    “Right now?” Randolph said.
    “Yes,” the man said.
    Randolph shrugged sadly and headed for the front door, the man walking beside him. Before he reached the glass, Randolph shouted over his shoulder, to the manager. “I’m takin’ the rest of the day off, Mr. Rick.”
    Mr. Rick, running a tape on his calculator, did not look up. “See you in the A.M .,” he said.
    Antoine shouted from the entrance to the stockroom in the back of the store, pointing down at the erratic pile of shoe boxes at his feet. “Where you goin’, Shoedog? You ain’t goin’ nowhere till you put up these thirty-fours!”
    “You put ’em up, Spiderman. I got something I got to do.”
    Antoine shook his head slowly as Randolph and the man walked out the door.
    Out on the sidewalk, Randolph turned to the man. “You got wheels?”
    “Right over there,” the man said, pointing.
    Randolph looked it over, said, “Uh-uh.” He nodded to a late-model T-Bird parked on the street. “We’ll take my short.”
    They walked to the T-Bird, Randolph tipping a bill to an old man who sat by the car, putting quarters in the meter on the half hour. Randolph gave the old man some parting instructions, along with a handful of change. The old man thanked him and walked slowly up the street.
    Randolph went to the driver’s side, put his key to the lock. He peered over the roof at the man with the long black hair, who was standing by the passenger door, waiting to be let in.
    Randolph studied the man. “You’re new,” he said.
    “That’s right.”
    “You got a name?”
    The man pushed his thick hair behind his ear, reached into the pocket of his denim shirt, and withdrew a cigarette. He paused before putting the filter between his lips, and squinted his blue eyes.
    “Yes,” he said. “I’ve got a name.”
    Randolph said, “What is it?”
    And the man said, “Constantine.”

Chapter

8
    W EINER looked down and studied the contents of the glass case. The ring he wanted sat near the back, wedged in the slotted felt of the display. He pointed in the general direction of the ring, waited for the liver-spotted hand of the clerk to light on the correct one.
    “That’s it,” he said. “May I see it?”
    “Of course,” the woman said, spreading cracked lips to reveal a perfect row of artificially white teeth. She retrieved the ring and laid it on a square of blue felt that she had spread on the glass.
    Weiner picked it up—a simple number, a tiny diamond set in 14-karat gold—and examined it as he fingered the track winnings that were rolled in the pocket of his trousers. Nita had said, innocently enough, that she had never owned a diamond anything. She had said it