THEY DROVE out to the old residential section of Beltsville, in Maryland, and parked in a neighborhood of ramshackle, trailer-type homes on a street between Route 1 and Rhode Island Avenue. There was little activity on the block, though there were many cars and trucks, three or four to a home. Some were in mid-repair; some had been left in weeds for seasons, perhaps years. Ornazian and Ward were near a government strip of land that served as a walk-through between blocks. Like the rest of the surroundings, this too had gone untended. Trees had fallen, blocking the path.
“That’s his,” said Ornazian, nodding toward a house on the edge of the walk-through.
“With the portable carport?” said Ward. “That’s some ghetto shit right there. In a different hood, the neighbors would call the county on this mug.”
The house was a one-story affair with a side addition fronted in the formstone commonly found on dwellings in Baltimore. The original structure had asbestos shingles and a few of them had fallen off, exposing tar paper. The carport was just a corrugated cover on four poles that sat free in the driveway. There was no vehicle beneath it.
“The pimps I knew in my day had more pride,” said Ward. “I mean, they never did have much money. Spent most of it on their rides and their vines. It was all about the show.”
“It’s smarter not to show.”
“How’d you mark him?”
“I talked to a girl, goes by the name of Monique. Did her a solid once. Regular john she had had stiffed her out some money. She’d been busted a couple of times for solicitation, and she’d seen me down at the courts.”
“You found the john.”
“Wasn’t hard. She was making out-calls to this guy, always used the same hotel, one of those new boutique jobs, down near the White House? Guy always valeted his car. I slipped one of the valet dudes some cash in exchange for the plate number. From there I found his home address. Married with kids, naturally. He’s the CFO of some tech company out on Twenty-Nine.”
“You blackmailed him,” said Ward.
“He shouldn’t have stiffed my friend.”
“So this girl, Monique, she hipped you to this pimp.”
“I asked her what was happening out there. You were a cop, so you know that prostitutes are the best sources on the street. They’re up all night. They see everything.”
“Indeed.”
“Monique told me about this pimp she had for a while. Goes by Theodore.”
“That’s not a very cool name for a player.”
“But it is,” said Ornazian, who was a hobbyist in the origin of words. “It’s from the Greek. Theo is ‘god,’ and doro is ‘gift.’ God’s gift. Get it?”
“You some kind of linguist?”
Ornazian grinned. “I’m a cunning linguist.”
“Finish your story, man.”
“Theodore’s got a stable, three women at all times. If they want to leave him or if they don’t earn, he lets them go. His philosophy is, there’s plenty more where they came from. He’s no gorilla pimp. He’s not into violence. He likes to smoke weed, and so do they, but it’s not part of his plan to make them dependent on harder drugs. He looks for girls who have problems, like problems at home, with their parents, all that. He listens to them. He makes them his girlfriends. Buys them gifts. Puts them up in a decent place. And then, he’s like, ‘All these good things cost money. You gonna need to contribute, girl. Take care of my man here and help me out. And this man right here.’ Like that. He holds the money they earn. They don’t keep any of it, but he takes care of all their needs.”
“Theodore,” said Ward.
Ward had said the name with hate. It was one of the many reasons Ornazian had asked Ward to come along tonight.
“Take a nap,” said Ornazian. “He’s not coming home for another hour or so.”
“How you know?”
“I been out here three nights this week. Man’s a creature of habit, just like anyone else.”
“I mean, how you know what he’s got?”
“He’s working three women. Monique says they each earn about a thousand a night on the weekends. Put that together with what he probably keeps in the house, and it could be a nice payday. The dude makes a couple hundred thousand a year, cash. Chances are some of it’s in his crib.”
“We gonna hit him before he goes in?”
“No. That window on the right side of the house, closest to us? That’s the bathroom. Every night, he comes home, the light goes on in there and then the window steams up.”
“I get it. The man likes to shower before he retires.”
Ornazian settled into his seat. “Take a nap, Thaddeus.”
“I gotta pee.”
“There’s an empty milk jug behind your seat.”
“I can’t if you’re watching.”
“I’ll turn away.”
Ward side-glanced Ornazian. “Could you tug on it a little?”
“Only if that will shut you up.”
AROUND THREE in the morning, Theodore drove his Chrysler 300 under the cut-rate carport and killed the engine. He got out of his black Green Hornet–style sedan and walked toward his house. He was tall and very thin and wore his hair in braids. He sported a down vest over a red buffalo-check shirt, jeans with appliques on the pockets, and Timbs.
“Don’t look like a mack to me,” said Ward.
“That’s today’s pimp,” said Ornazian. “You know where you find guys wearing outrageous clothes, carrying walking sticks, and shit like that? At Halloween and frat parties.”
Theodore triggered a motion-detector light as he stepped up to his door.
“He got those security lights around back too?”
“Yeah,” said Ornazian. “So what? His house backs up to woods. Anyway, we’re gonna be inside quick.”
“Are there dogs?”
“No dogs.”
“I hate fuckin with dogs.”
“I crept around that house many times. He has no dogs. Trust me.” As Theodore entered his house and closed the door behind him, Ornazian said, “Okay.”
Ward had disabled the dome light of the Vic. They exited in darkness and went around to the rear of the car, where Ward popped the trunk. He fired up a mini Maglite he had produced from his jacket and put the butt end of it in his mouth, illuminating the trunk’s interior.
In the trunk was a great deal of weaponry, ammunition, and hardware, as well as various restraint devices. From a box, Ornazian and Ward pulled lightly powdered nitrile gloves, favored by auto mechanics, and fitted them on their hands. Ward unrolled a blanketed 12-gauge Remington pump-action shotgun, then lifted a Glock nine out of a case. He released its magazine, checked the load, and seated the magazine back into the gun. The Remington 870 and the Glock 17 were common police firearms. Ward fitted the pistol into the dip of his slacks.
“The Special’s you,” said Ward, nodding at a .38 revolver that was a version of the MPD sidearm Ward had carried when he was first in uniform.
“You know I don’t want it,” said Ornazian.
“It’s for show,” said Ward.
Ornazian broke the cylinder on the .38 and saw that its chambers were loaded. He slipped the gun in the side pocket of his lightweight jacket, then grabbed a friction-lock, retractable baton from a large steel toolbox and put it in a back pocket of his jeans. Ward handed Ornazian a package of women’s stockings. Ornazian pulled a stocking down over his face and Ward did the same. Finally, Ward put some plastic cuffs of varying lengths in his jacket, picked up the shotgun, cradled it, and shut the trunk. He nodded at Ornazian.
They moved to the side of the house, watched through windows as its interior brightened, waited for the bathroom light to come on, and stood outside its window for several minutes until they heard the sigh of pipes followed by the faint drum of water running in a shower. Ward followed Ornazian to the backyard. A security light flooded the area and Ornazian stepped into it, unfazed. He calmly used the steel baton to break the window of a rear door. He reached inside the broken window, unlocked the knob, and flipped the arm of the dead bolt.
They entered the house and walked through an odorous kitchen to a living area with a wide-screen television, a table holding game-console controllers and stroke magazines, and a matching set of large leather furniture. The house was rank with crushed-out cigarettes and the skunk-smell of weed.
Down a hall were a couple of bedrooms and, at the end, a bathroom door. Behind it, Theodore showered. Ornazian scouted the bedrooms while Ward stood in the hall, the shotgun resting on his forearm.
Ornazian found the bedroom where Theodore obviously slept and switched on the bedside lamp. The nightstand’s top drawer had a keyhole on its face. A smartphone, presently charging in a wall outlet, was on the nearby dresser. There was a wooden chair on which Theodore most likely sat when he put on his socks and shoes. An open closet showed many shirts, top-buttoned and neatly hung on a wooden rod. On the carpet of the closet, Nike sneaks and Timberland and Nike boots were paired, neatly aligned, and set atop their corresponding boxes.
Soon the sound of running water ceased. Ward, positioned outside the bathroom, pointed the shotgun at the door, fitting its butt in the crook of his shoulder, his finger inside the trigger guard. Theodore stepped out of the bathroom, still wet, wearing only a bath towel around his waist.
“Fuck is this,” he said, getting a look at the man before him holding the shotgun dead-on at his chest.
Ward racked the pump for drama. “You don’t know?”
“You fixin to rob me,” said Theodore. It wasn’t a question. He was trying to remain cool but his face had lost some color.
“Correct,” said Ward, jerking his head toward the bedroom on the left. “In there.”
Theodore walked into the bedroom and Ward followed. Ornazian had drawn the .38 and was holding it by his side.
“Drop that towel,” said Ward. Theodore did not comply and Ward said, “Drop it.”
Theodore pulled the towel free and dropped it to the floor. He stood naked before the men who held the guns. He was bird-chested and inadequately muscled.
“For a man who runs women,” said Ward, “you don’t look like much.”
In truth, there was nothing wrong with Theodore. He was all there, more or less. But Ward knew that a naked man was a vulnerable man. He was simply stripping him down further.
“Sit on that chair,” said Ward. To Ornazian he said, “Cover him.”
Theodore took a seat on the wooden chair. Ward placed the shotgun on the bed as Ornazian pointed the pistol at Theodore. Ward used the plastic cuffs to bind Theodore’s wrists in front of him and the longer ties to secure his ankles to the legs of the chair.
Ward looked at Ornazian, whose eyes said, Go ahead. They had discussed the plan in the Crown Vic. Ward had interrogated prisoners in Nam, and he had questioned countless suspects in police stations all over the District with, one could assume, often unorthodox tactics. Ward had experience. Ornazian was happy to let him lead.
“I see you got a lock on that nightstand,” said Ward. “Where the key at?”
“In the drawer below it,” said Theodore.
“Course it is,” said Ward. He knew that everyone, straights and criminals alike, kept their money and valuables in their bedrooms, close by, within reach.
Ward opened the lower drawer, saw condoms, lubrication, loose change, and a key wrapped up in a piece of tissue paper. He used the key to unlock the upper drawer. Inside that drawer was a semiauto Beretta, an extra magazine, and rubber-banded stacks of cash. Ward pocketed the gun and the magazine, fanned through the cash, and tossed the stacks on the bed.
“Where’s the rest of your money?” said Ward.
“That’s all of it,” said Theodore, staring straight ahead.
Ward went to the closet, pulled the shirts aside, and looked behind them. Then he got down to floor level and checked the shoeboxes. All matched up except for a fresh pair of Jordans sitting atop a box with the brand name Stacy Adams. Ward pulled this box out from under the sneakers and looked inside. More money. Stacks of it.
“You tryin to bankrupt a man,” said Theodore.
“Is that all of it?”
“You cleaned me out.”
“All the money you make, and this is it?”
“I got overhead,” said Theodore.
“The pimp’s lament,” said Ward.
Ward took the money off the bed and put it together with the money in the Stacy Adams box. He went to the dresser, unplugged the iPhone from its charger, and dropped the phone in Theodore’s lap. It slipped off his thigh and fell to the floor.
“After we leave,” said Ward, “you can figure out a way to pick up your phone and hit up one of your girls or whoever. You got a toolbox somewhere in this mess. Won’t be hard for someone to cut you free.”
“I ain’t gonna forget this.”
“Don’t speak. Let me tell you how it’s gonna be.” Ward handed the shoebox to Ornazian and picked up the shotgun. “You will forget it. What you need to do now is, you got to put a Band-Aid on your pride and move on. ’Cause if you try to find out who we are, if you ask your neighbors if they seen a car out front tonight, anything like that…if I go down in any way, if I get locked up, even if I die of natural causes? Someone gonna step out the shadows one night and murder your ass. Do you understand me, Theodore?”
“I understand that you messed with the wrong man.”
“Thought I told you: not another word.”
“Fuck you, old man.”
Ward reversed his grip on the shotgun and swung its stock. Ornazian looked away.
THEY DROVE south on Route 1, stopped at an IHOP in College Park, and had breakfast among nightcrawlers and University of Maryland students eating off their highs and drunks. Back out in the car, Ornazian counted out the money below the sight line of the dash.
“Eight thousand each, give or take,” said Ornazian, handing the shoebox to Ward. “After my expenses. I’m going to give a thousand dollars to Monique.”
“What else you gonna give her?”
“Say what?”
“You tappin that ass?”
Ornazian shook his head. “I’m spoken for.”
“Mr. True Blue,” said Ward. “Call me if you got something else. That was easy money right there.”
“It’s four mortgage payments,” said Ornazian. “That’s what this is about for me.”
“That’s not all it is. You like it. You ’specially like when we out here saving someone. Like that woman and her kids got kidnapped by that crew on Kennedy Street? You were all fired up on that one.”
“So were you.”
“Least I admit it,” said Ward.
“It was a job.”
“Nah, Phil. I knew dudes like you in the Nam. Had that hero thing goin on. Couldn’t keep their heads down, even though they knew better. Had to run to the action. Not for nothing, some of those guys didn’t come back.”
“That’s not me.”
“No?”
“I’m just trying to take care of my family.”
“You didn’t enjoy it tonight?”
“Not like you.”
“You talking about Theodore? You think I liked that?”
“A little,” said Ornazian.
“It was about respect. I told him not to run his gums. Boy couldn’t help hisself.”
Ward ignitioned the car. They drove back into Northeast, saying nothing further, the silence between them not uncomfortable in the least, as it is for certain kinds of men. Ornazian was thinking of his wife and children. Ward had planned a dinner with his daughter for later that day. He’d order food in. Maybe they would watch a game on TV.