Shame the Devil by George P. Pelecanos Read Free Book Online Page B

God? Gimme a break.”
    “Where were we?” said Walters.
    Stephanie tried to catch Karras’s eye, but he was staring ahead. Picturing his son alive, Stephanie knew. She’d come to recognize
     that empty gaze of Karras’s face. Wilson looked at a spot on the floor between his feet and patted the shaved sides of his
     face.
    “Smoking,” said Karras. “Tonight’s theme.”
    “Right,” said Wilson. “All right, here’s something. I can remember the first time me and my boy Charles bought a pack of cigarettes.
     At the Geranium Market, up on the corner of Georgia and Geranium Avenue?”
    “That place is still there,” said Karras.
    Wilson nodded. “I don’t know who runs it now. But back then this Jewish guy had it. Man by the name of Schweitz. Yeah, kind
     old guy. I told Mr. Schweitz the smokes were for my moms. He was friendly with my mother and he knew my mother didn’t smoke.
     He sold them to us anyway, though. Probably knew we’d get turned off by it right quick. And did we ever. We took that pack
     of Kools —
had
to be double O’s ’cause we
knew
that all the bad brothers smoked those — over to Fort Stevens Park, and don’t you know we smoked them right after the other.
     I can still picture Charles, taking a pull off that stick, trying to blow rings, checking it out, lookin’ all cross-eyed and
     shit.… Damn, what was that, almost twenty-five years ago? Anyway, right about then, both of us got sick. You should’ve seen
     Charlie, huggin’ one of those Civil War cannons they have over at the fort.”
    “Bet you never smoked again,” said Walters.
    “Charles never did. But I did. See, I was never as smart as Charles. When I came back to D.C. after being away for a few years
     and Charles saw me lightin’ up, he wouldn’t let up on me, calling me a fool and everything else he could think of in front
     of the ladies. I stopped smoking soon after.” Wilson cleared his throat. “Charles always did look out for me like that.”
    “It’s good to remember it,” said Walters. “That your friend loved you, I mean.”
    “Yeah, we were like kin.” Wilson sat up straight. “Bernie?”
    “Let me think.” Bernie Walters tapped ash off his cigarette. “Right. The first time I caught Vance smoking was at this dance
     he was in charge of when he was in junior high. I don’t know what he had to do with it, exactly. He liked to put that kind
     of stuff on — do the promotion, decorate the gym, all that. I went to pick him up, and I saw him standing outside with a couple
     of his friends. They were passing a butt back and forth. I got pissed off, not because he was smoking but because of the way
     he looked with that cigarette. He was holding it up, pitchfork style, the way some women do. I guess he was trying to be…
     what do you call that, Professor?”
    “Cosmopolitan,” said Karras.
    “Right, like that magazine. So when I came up on the group, he knew he was busted. He took me aside and asked me not to yell
     at him right there in front of his friends. Well, I gave him that much. But on the way home I really let him have it. Told
     him he looked like a damn girl, smoking that cigarette.” Walters regarded the Marlboro between his fingers. “It was dark in
     that car, but I could see the tears come into his eyes. It hurt him so much for me to call him a girl. Not that he was confused.
     He knew who he was, even then. No, that wasn’t the problem; the problem was
me.
If I could have shown just a little understanding, it wouldn’t have been so rough on him, growing up the way he did. Hell,
     he didn’t even like cigarettes. The only reason he tried smoking at all was because I smoked. He thought… I mean, can you
     imagine what was going on in his head to do something like that? To smoke a cigarette to try and please your dad? You all
     ever hear of such a thing?”
    “The two of you got a lot of things straight before he died,” said Stephanie. “Don’t forget that.”
    “We