DC By the Book

Excerpt: It was a Plymouth Fury, the GT Sport, a two-door 440 V-8 with hidden headlamps and a four-barrel carb. The color scheme was red over white, and its vanity plates read "Coco." White interior made it a woman's car. The bright finish and the personalized tags would render the vehicle easily identifable around town, but Robert Lee Jones was unconcerned. To him it was important that he be remembered and that what he did got done with style. Jones had bought the Fury for his woman, Coco Watkins whose Christian name was Shirley. She was in the wheel bucket of the Plymouth, a Viceroy in her long-nailed hand resting atop the driver's-side mirror. She and Jones were idling in park, facing south on 13th, between S and R, in Northwest. The in-dash radio was set on 1450. A Betty Wright number was playing.

Excerpt: Maybelline Walker lived in one of the apartment houses that lined 15th Street along the green of Meridian Hill, which many in the city now called Malcolm X Park. Drugged-out-looking whites, brothers and sisters with big naturals, and Spanish of indeterminate origin, some of the dudes wearing Carlos Santana-inspired headbands, streamed in and out of the park’s entrances. A person could kick a soccer ball around, pay for a hand job or get one free, or score something for his head at Malcolm X, depending on the time of day. Its makeup had changed these past few years, but it remained one of the most beautiful open-to-the-public spots in the city.

Excerpt: Vaughn drove down to 14th and U, once the epicenter of black Washington, now a weak reminder of its former vibrant life since its burning in '68. ...Whores were out on the street at night, witnessed all kinds of illicit events, gossiped out of boredom and because they were young, had good retention.

Excerpt: Coco Watkins's place of business was located on 14th, Northwest, between R and S, on the second floor of an old row house. On the ground floor was a neighborhood market, once a DGS store owned and operated by a Jew, now run by an ambitious Puerto Rican. Fourteenth, from U Street north to Park Road, had gone up in flames the night of Dr. King's assassination, and though the major fires had not burned this far south, the event had made the once-grand street a near commercial dead zone. But not every enterprise had been negatively affected. There was still a steady nightly stream of customers, married suburbanites and white teenage boys looking to lose their virginity, who kept one part of the economy alive.

Excerpt: "He's in there," said Jones, looking up to the face of the red-brick apartment house on the northeast corner of R. In a second-floor window, against a frayed curtain, was the silhouette of a small man.

Excerpt: Jones entered the building at 13th and R through a glass door set between nonfunctioning gas lanterns. He walked up a flight of stairs and stopped on the second-floor landing, which smelled of cigarettes and marijuana. In the air was the thump of bass coming from the stereo of one of the residents below, and he could feel it pulse through the wood floor. He came to the scarred door that he knew opened to the apartment of Bobby Odum, knocked on the door roughly, after a while heard a muddled voice say ,"Who it is?" and he answered, "Red."

Excerpt: "Roland Williams, went to Cardozo?" "Nah, not Ro-Ro Williams. I'm talking about Long Nose Roland, came out of Roosevelt. He been going up top. You know, coppin at that spot in Harlem they call Little Baltimore." "Where Long Nose stay at?" "Thirteen hundred block of T," said Odum. "Where exactly?" Odum did not know the address. He described the row house by the color of its shutters and the little porch out front. Jones saw it in his head.

Excerpt: She was stepping out of a Warwick-blue Firebird convertible, sitting on redline tires, when Strange first saw her. She had parked the Pontiac on 9th, near the Upshur Street corss. She was young, had prominent cheekbones and clean beige skin, wore her hair in a big natural, and was unrestrained in a print halter dress. The girl was fine. Purse in hand, her hips moving with a feline sway. Looked to Strange that she was headed towards his spot. He could see clearly through the wide plate glass window fronting his business. One of the reasons he liked this place: the open view.

Excerpt: Vaughn parked the Dodge in 13th Street, near the corner of R, and entered the apartment building with the extinguished gas lanterns where Bobby Odum had resided and been chilled. There was music bleeding out into the hallway, but it was not coming from the unit he was headed for. He went there straightaway and with his fist he cop-knocked on the front door.

Excerpt: He had lunch at the counter of the Hot Shoppes on Georgia Avenue, in Brightwood Park, up around Hamilton. In its parking lot had been the famous fight between three badass white greasers and a dozen or so motivated coloreds, back in the '60s. Those white boys could mix it up. That kind of balls-out, bare-knuckled hate conflict was done now, too, thought Vaughn with nostalgia. The blacks had taken over the city, and race rumbles had gone the way of drop-down Chevys, Link Wray club dates, and Ban-Lon shirts. Vaughn had a Might Mo burger, onion rings, and an orange freeze, then followed it up with a hunk of hot fudge cake and a cup of coffee. The perfect local lunch. Pulling the coffee cup and an ashtray in front of him, he used his customized Zippo lighter, a map of Okinawa laid on its face, to light an L&M.

Excerpt: Linda Allen lived in an apartment in the Woodner, on 16th, near the bridge end-capped with the statues of lions.

Excerpt: Roland Williams lived on T Street, between 13th and 14th, in a house he rented, paying cash, always on time, no references required, no questions asked. The owner of the house was one of several slumlords who had bought rundown properties, pre- and post-riot, and methodically flipped them at an enormous profit to the U.S. government for their "urban renewal" projects. In the late '60s, the practice had been exposed in a series of Washington Post articles that had made a splash in the newspaper industry and on Capitol Hill. Reporters won prizes and promotions, but their work had little impact down here; five years later and the area continued to be in the grip of poverty and opportunists.

Excerpt: They parked on the 1300 block of T, drank off a couple more High Lifes, smoked cigarettes, and waited for near dark to come. They were watching a white brick row house with blue shutters, had a little old-time porch on the front. Jefferson had been watching the house for several nights.

Excerpt: The carryout on the west side of Georgia, in Park View, specialized in fish sandwiches. Case no one knew, the sign out front, featuring a big old bass leaping out of the water with a hook and line in its mouth. announced it. Strange asked the owner, Ordell Cobb, for a minute of his time. Cobb was in his fifities and wore an apron smudged with ketchup and blood. His manner was gruff. There were at the rear of the kitchen, near a door leading to an alley, workers hustling around them. The stainless steel sink that Odum had most likely stood over, its power nozzle hanging above, sat right besdie them. WOL was playing on the house radio. Strange knew, 'cause Bobby "the Mighty Burner" Bennett was introducing a song.

Excerpt: They ate in the living room, where Strange used to roughhouse with Dennis, sometimes just wrestling, sometimes full-out boxing, his father amused, sitting in his chair, reading the Washington edition of the Afro-American, listening to his Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson records on the console, or watching Westerns on his Zenith TV, or talking about that awful man who owned the Redskins and local-products-gone-pro like Elgin Baylor and Maury Wills. Strange had his father's albums in his own collection now, but the console stereo was still here, being used mostly as a stand for his mother's potted violets. / The place looked the same, a small living area, two bedrooms, a galley kitchen, even the wall decorations were the same, but it was too quiet, the only noise coming from the longtime tenants on the first floor. Made Strange sad to visit, thinking how still it must be when it was just his mother here.

Excerpt: He was done working for the day, and he had some time to kill, so he drove farther north on Georgia and stopped at a place called the Experience for a beer. It was a small joint, just a room with e a steel-top bar front to back, a few tables, and a jukebox. The juke stayed mostly unplugged, on account of the owner, a young dude named Grady Page, liked to play funk-rock music, the hybrid thing he loved, through the house system. The Experience was a neighborhood spot, had posters thumbtacked to its walls. It catered to a mix of local drinkers, heads, off-duty police officers, utility workers, security guards, and women who liked men who wore uniforms.

Excerpt: Strange put Al Green Gets Next to You on his stereo and poured some Blue Nun as "Are You Lonely for Me Baby" set the mood. It was Al's deep-soul record, full of grit and fire. They drank the too-sweet white by the open French doors on the south wall, Carmen sitting close to him, his arm around her shoulders as they talked about their day, looking down on the city lights below. His play was on the edge of the Piedmont Plateau, a low-rent district, but no rich man had a better view of D.C.

Excerpt: The new Stylistics song, " People Make the World Go Round," was on the radio and playing low, Russell Thompkins Jr.'s angelic vocals an apt, melodic narration to the life they were seeing, tableau-form, through the windshield. On 13th, a tired woman shuffled down the sidewalk, carrying a bag of groceries. A group of young girls double-Dutched on the corner, and on a nearby stoop a man was pleading with a woman, gesturing elaborately with his hands to make his case. "City ain't all that different since I been back," said Wallace. "Little burned around the edges, maybe. But still the same rough old ghetto."

Excerpt: Lou Fanella stood beside the bed of Roland Williams in D.C. General Hospital. Gino Gregorio leaned against a wall. There had been a nurse taking William's vitals when they'd arrived, and Fanella had asked her to give them some privacy. He'd smiled at her in a way that implied no kindness and said, "Don't go telling anyone we're in here, sweetheart. I might take that to mean we're not friends." She left them with her eyes downcast and closed the door behind her. Outside the hospital, dusk had come, throwing long shadows on the stadium-armory complex grounds. A faint gray light had settled in the room.

Excerpt: Lou Fanella and Gino Gregorio had come down from Newark on the Turnpike, taking the BW Parkway south into D.C. They entered the city via New York Avenue in a black '69 Continental sedan with suicide doors and 460 V-8. "What a shithole," said Farnella, big and beefy, with dark hair and Groucho eyebrows. His thick wrist rested on the wheel as he drove, a cigarette burning between his fingers. He was looking at the run-down gateway to Washington that was the first impression for many visitors to the nation's capital, a mix of warehouses, liquor stores, unadorned bars, and rank motels housing criminals, prostitutes, last-stop drunks, and welfare families.

Excerpt: Night had come to the city. The Calendar said close to summer, and there were folks dressed lightly and out on the street. On 14th at R, a spring-gold '70 Camaro, up on HiJackers, was curbside, idling. A white girl in white hot pants and a red gingham midriff shirt was leaning into its open driver's-side-window, negotiating with the muscle car's occupants. Music was coming loudly from the eight-track system, but to Vaughn it was just scream and guitars. His focus was on the girl, a minor from the looks of her, and the heads of the five long-haired young men squeezed into the car. "It's somebody's birthday, " said Vaughn. "One of the boys in the backseat just turned sixteen," said Passman. "His pals are buying him a present." "The Fourteenth Street cherry-bust. A rite of passage in this town."

Excerpt: Alfonzo Jefferson had a spot in the high fifties, in a place known as Burrville in far Northeast, the populous but least mentioned quadrant of the city, forgotten by many in power, mysterious and virtually unknown to most suburban commuters. Jefferson rented a two-story asbestos-shingled house near Watts Branch Park, on a sparsely built block whose houses sat on large pieces of land. It was an urban location with a country vibe. A few kept chickens in their backyards, and one old man had a goat on a chain. It was quiet here, and that suited Jefferson fine.

Excerpt: 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 and plain wasted. Others walked toward their homes, minding their own. But the general landscape was quiet. Even the punchboards had called it a night.

Excerpt: He stood silently in a kind of small foyer and listened. He heard nothing but the ticks and creaks an old house made in the middle of the night.

Excerpt: Red Jones and Alfonzo Jefferson sat in the gold Electra, parked nose east on Oglethorpe Street, in a neighborhood called Hampshire Knolls in Northeast. Their clothing was brightly colored, their heels were high, and the collars of their shirts were laid out wide across their chests. Jones had his .45 on the seat, resting against his leg. Jefferson's police-issue .38 was fit snugly between his legs. Small homes, attached to one another in pairs, lined the block. The houses, built in 1950 and sold under the GI Bill, had originally gone for $12,000, with a mere $500 down payment the ticket in. Nearly all of those veterans and their young families were gone now, having moved out to suburban Maryland in search of better schools, safer streets, and whiter neighborhoods.

Excerpt: Ward lived on one of the tree-and-flower-named streets of Shepherd Park, the northernmost neighborhood before the Maryland line, west of Georgia and east of 16th Street. Most recently, its residents had actively resisted blockbuster realtors who had preyed on the fears of whites in post-riot D.C. Here, middle- and upper-middle-class blacks and whites lived side by side, and sometimes they lived under the same roof. It was one of the few uptown, upscale areas friendly to interracial couples. At one time, Jews who owned nearby Georgia Avenue business couldn't live in Shepherd Park. But that restriction, too, had been buried long ago with the other rotted corpses of the past.

Excerpt: Maybelline Walker lived in one of the apartment houses that lined 15th Street along the green of Meridian Hill, which many in the city now called Malcolm X Park. Drugged-out-looking whites, brothers and sisters with big naturals, and Spanish of indeterminate origin, some of the dudes wearing Carlos Santana-inspired headbands, streamed in and out of the park's entrances. A person could kick a soccer ball around, pay for a hand job, or get one free, or score something for his head at Malcolm X, depending on the time of day. Its makeup had changed these past few years, but it remained one of the most beautiful open-to-the-public spots in the city. It wasn't but a short walk from Strange's crib; he often came over here when the sun was out to look at the talent and clear his mind.

Excerpt: There were three owners whose cars fitted the description of a gold '68 Buick Electra registered in the District of Columbia. The first on the list, written neatly in his notebook, was a Dewight Mitchell. Mitchell's given address was on Adams Street in Bloomingdale, tucked in south of the McMillan Reservoir, just behind Howard U. Vaughn put his hat on, stepped out of his Monaco, and went up the steps to a brick house that held a steel-framed rocker sofa on its porch. There was no Electra on the street, but Vaughn knocked on the door anyway and did not get a response. From inside the house, a calico cat looked at him with boredom through a rectangular pane of glass. Vaughn walked down to 2nd Street and cut into the alley that ran behind Adams. It was not a hunch but rather good procedure for D.C. investigators and uniformed police to check the alley was when seeking interview subjects. For many Washingtonians, the alley served as the front yard.

Excerpt: Maybelline Walker had taken Military Road off 16th and cut down Oregon Avenue. Crossing Nebraska Avenue and hanging a left on Tennyson Street, just past the Army Distaff Hall, she came to a stop in front of a center-hall brick colonial in a neighborhood called Barnaby Woods.

Excerpt: Strange had time, and he was hungry. He drove down to the Hot Shoppes on Connecticut, below Albermarle Street, sat at the counter, and ate a Teen Twist with fries and a Coke. The waitress mentioned that Mr. Isaac Hayes was across the street at the WMAL studios, doing an interview in advance of a local performance. When Strange was finished with his meal, he settled up, went outside, and stood on Connecticut Avenue. Wasn't long before Isaac Hayes came out of the building across the street and walked toward a waiting limousine. Hayes was shirtless, his big chest and shoulders draped in the multiple, thick-link gold chains he'd worn at Wattstax and on the cover of Hot Buttered Soul. He checked his watch. Reckoning that Maybelline would be in that house tutoring for another hour or so, Strange walked a half block north to the Nutty Nathan's stereo and appliance store and had a look around. A mustached salesman, pink eyed and smelling of weed, malt liquor, and breath mints, got a hold of him and promptly led him to the sound room in the back of the store, where he put an album on a BSA platter and demoed a high-amp sound system played through the much-touted Bose 901 speakers. A stinging guitar intro came forward.

Excerpt: The second name on Vaughn's list took him to the neighborhood of Brightwood, off Georgia Avenue. He was looking for a Costas Lambros, who was the registered owner of a '68 gold Electra. Lambros lived on Tuckerman Street in a small neat house of brick and shingle. A large healthy fig tree was set against the south wall of the colonial. From his years on patrol, Vaughn knew that one could identify the past and present Greek-owned homes in any community by the fig trees growing in their yards. Vaughn inspected the Buick that was parked out front. It was a base-model Electram stripped down and stock from the factory, with a white roof. It was a nice vehicle, but it was not a deuce. An old man came out of the house, his pants cinched sloppily above his waist with a mangled leather belt. His wife, her gray hair tied up in a bun, wearing a housedress, orthopedic shoes, and calf-length stockings, followed. Both of them walked with difficulty. As he approached, the old man's lips were moving, but there were no sounds emanating from his mouth. Costas and Voula Lambros wanted to know why Vaughn was standing by their car. They had to be mindful of strangers. The neighborhood had changed for the worse, what with the "mavri" moving in. Costas had owned a fruit-and-vegetable stand in the Eastern Market for many years, and his wife, Voula, had worked beside him. Their kids had families of their own and were living in the suburbs. Nixon had to do something soon about the welfare and all the crime.

Excerpt: Clarence Bowman parked his Cougar on 11th, walked around the corner, and entered the diner that remained one of the few spots of thriving commerce and life on U Street since the riots. Bowman saw Gina Marie at the counter, seated on one of its red-cushioned stools. To the left of her was another streetwalker who went by Martina. Martina was picking at a basket of fries drowning in ketchup. All the counter seats were taken, as were most of the two- and four-tops spread about the front of the house. The diner's storied jukebox was playing "Talking Loud and Saying Nothing," James Brown's new one, Parts I and II, and hard-at-work employees and patrons alike were moving their heads to its surging, infectious groove. Bowman stood over the shoulder of a man who was sitting to the right of Gina Marie and waited. The man felt Bowman's presence, turned his head and gave him a look, then a double look, and got up off his stool, basket of lunch in hand. Bowman had a seat.

Excerpt: Strange went over to Park View, drove his Monte Carlo down an alley, and parked behind the kitchen entrance to Cobb's the fish place on Georgia. Cobb, in his bloodstained apron, was sitting on an overturned milk crate, smoking a cigarette. Strange walked through the long shadows of late afternoon, noting with satisfaction that he had put much work in today.

Excerpt: Vaughn bought a ticket at the Lincoln box office and went though the lobby to the auditorium. The 5:30 show was about to begin. Buck and the Preacher had been held over, but first the projectionist was running a reel of trailers for the current features playing at other District Theaters, a chain whose bookser programmed films for black audiences in black neighborhoods. Vaughn let his eyes adjust and watched the promo for The Legend of Nigger Charley, currently running down at the Booker T. How the West Was Rewritten, thought Vaughn, as he spotted Martina in one of the middle rows and made his was to a seat beside him.

Excerpt: Clarence Bowman parked his Cougar on 13th and Otis Street, Northeast, near Fort Bunker Hill Park. Gathering his guns, he slipped the .38 into the side pocket of his black sport jacket and wedged the .22 under the rear waistband of his slacks. He then walked south, toward Newton. The neighborhood of Brookland held a mixture of blacks and whites, working- and middle-class, employed at the nearby Catholic University, at the post office, in the service industry, or in civil service positions downtown. Bowman, a black man in clean, understated clothing, did not stand out. On Newton, he approached the Cochnar residence, a Dutch Colonial with wood siding set on a rise. Rick Cochnar's green Maverick was parked out front. The young prosecutor was home.

Excerpt: News of the Soul House shooting spread quickly and soon reached the Third District headquarters, where Vaughn had booked Clarence Bowman for firearms violations and secured him in a holding cell. The jail was crowded that evening, as welfare checks had recently hit the street. The sudden infusion of cash into the city initiated an increase of alcohol and drug use, which led to incidents of mayhem and domestic violence.

Excerpt: Fanella and Gregorio got into the Lincoln and headed into the city. Reaching their general destination, they pulled over on 14th and let the Continental idle. Fanella rested his smoking-hand on the lip of the open driver's-side window as he had a look at the scene. They were in a commercial and residential district gone to seed. There weren't a whole lot of straight citizens out, but there was life. People moving about furtively in the darkened doorways of shuttered businesses, heroin addicts, pushers, hookers, a guy dressed outrageously in a purple suit and hat, the Halloween version of a pimp. They had both noticed the unusual number of police cars cruising the area too.

Excerpt: Strange went to the big lot off 16th Street at Carter Barron and found a space near the amphitheater set in the woods of Rock Creek Park. He and Carmen walked with the moving crowd of stylishly dressed black Washingtonians down an asphalt path, past the box office, and through the turnstiles, where Strange presented his tickets. They found their seats in the bowl, under a clear night showcasing stars. The amphitheater had been built on a slope, designed so that the sound would reach all spaces equally, and there were few undesirable seats in the house. Strange felt that there was no better outdoor venue in the city to watch a musical performance. He reached for Carmen's hand.

Excerpt: Strange knocked on Carmen's door, a narrow row home off Barry Place that had been cut into two apartments. Hers was on the ground floor. The house was a wood-shingled affair, fronted by a small stoop more common to Baltimore than D.C.

Excerpt: Vaughn and Strange sat in the Monaco, idling on the north end of Mount Pleasant Street. The Dodge's recently charged air conditioner blew cool against them. Vaughn was in a light-gray Robert Hall suit; Strange wore bells, a loose-fitting shirt, and suede Pumas in natural. The block was the commercial strip of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, and there was much activity. Puerto Ricans, Hungarians, Greeks, blacks, mixed-race couples, and young residents of all types in post-hippie group homes made up the scene. The road still carried streetcar tracks, but the old line was inactive, and buses came through regularly. Henry Arrington had taken a D.C. Transit north on 16th after he had been bounced from lockup. Vaughn and Strange had tailed him as he got off and walked to his destination. Arrington had just stepped into the liquor store near the end of the block.

Excerpt: Shay gathered a cosmetic case the size of a hatbox, and a small red suitcase that held a couple of dresses, slacks, shirts ,and undergarments, and some cash, and took the fire escape down to the alley that ran behind the row house on 14th. She went through it and on S she turned right and went over to 14th, glancing down the street at the unmarked police car she had scoped out earlier. The one Coco had said would be there. The unmarked car did not move. No reason why it would. The man inside it was looking for someone fitting the description of Coco, not Shay. Shay was plainly dressed in jeans and a chambray shirt. She was an attractive female, but in these clothes she did not stand out. It was somewhat unusual for a young woman to be walking in the city with a suitcase and a hatbox, but now she was a block north of Coco's house and was among the sidewalk crowd. She went one block farther and and at a bus stop waited for a D.C. Transit, and when it came she got on it and dropped into an empty turquoise seat. An older man who stood with a hand on the top rail gave her a long look the way men do. Reflexively, she touched the mole on her face.

Excerpt: Vaughn and Strange crossed the Benning Bridge over the Anacostia River and headed into Far Northeast. At Minnesota Avenue, Vaughn hung a left and drove along a busy commercial strip of overpriced convenience markets, unhealthy food establishments, and an appliance-and-furniture merchant whose profit was not in the sale of household goods but the pushing of credit and high-interest loans. "These people down here don't have a change," said Vaughn, with an overly solemn shake of his head. "Course, they could try to better themselves. Work a little harder, maybe, so they don't have to live in these neighborhoods."