Tom Petersen sat tall behind his desk. He wore tailored jeans, zippered boots, an aquamarine Ben Sherman shirt, and an aquamarine tie bearing large white polka dots. His blond hair was carefully disheveled. His hands were folded in his lap.

Spero Lucas, seated in a chair before the desk, was dressed in slim-cut Dickies work pants, a plain white T-shirt, and Nike boots. Lucas, Petersen’s investigator, took in the criminal attorney’s outfit with curiosity and amusement.

“What is it?” said Petersen.

“Your getup,” said Lucas. “There’s somethin about it.”

“I only wear a tie when I’m in court.”

“Something else.”

“Think of your father. It’ll come to you.” Petersen looked down at the contents of a manila file that was open on his desk. Beside it sat other files heaped inside a reinforced hanging folder. The package was thick as a phone book. “Let’s get back to this.”

They were discussing the case of Calvin Bates, a Petersen client. Bates had been charged with first degree murder in the death of his mistress, Edwina Christian.

“Where was the body found?” said Lucas. He opened the pocket-sized Moleskine notebook he carried and readied his pen.

“I’ll give you this short file when we’re done.”

“You know I like to take notes. The details help me work it out in my head.”

“Edwina’s body was discovered in Southern Maryland. A wooded spot in Charles County, off the Indian Head Highway. Are you familiar with that area?”

“I put my kayak in down there from time to time.”

“Edwina had been missing for a week. Once the police actively began to look into her disappearance, Edwina’s mother pointed them in the direction of her lover. Bates was a multiple offender who’d been having an off-and-on extramarital relationship with Edwina for years.”

“Both of them were married?”

“Bates was married. Edwina was single.”

“How’d the police find Edwina?”

“Bates led them to her in a roundabout way. He was in the High Intensity Supervision Program, run by Pre-trial Services.”

“HISP. I’m familiar with it. Bates was already up on charges?”

“Drug charges. Nothing violent, but he’d been violated, and he was looking at return time.”

“So he was wearing a GPS bracelet.”

“On his ankle. The device records longitude and latitude coordinates every ten seconds and uploads them each minute to a database run by a private company under contract with HISP.”

“What company?”

“It’s called Satellite Tracking of People. Orwellian, don’t you think?”

“Touch of Evil is one of my favorite movies.”

“Spero, sometimes you work too hard at being an aw-shucks kind of guy.”

“It serves me well. So, the company was called STOP.”

“You ex-military do love your acronyms.”

“And the law went to STOP to collect the data on Bates’s whereabouts.”

“Correct. The data was plotted onto a satellite-based map, progressed in real time in a video format. The results are accurate to within fifty feet. If the bracelet wearer is in a vehicle, its movement can be tracked as well.”

“Let me guess,” said Lucas. “The autopsy on Edwina Christian determined a general time of death. The coordinates on Bates put him down in Southern Maryland, where Edwina’s body was found, at that same time. Right?”

“It gets more damning. Bates had reported his Jeep as being stolen around the time of Edwina’s disappearance.”

“Model and year of the Jeep?”

“Two thousand Cherokee. Same as yours.”

Lucas drove a 2001, but there wasn’t enough difference in the model years to mention. It was the boxy Jeep with the I-6 engine, still seen in great numbers on highways, beaches, and city streets, though the car had not been produced in eleven years.

“The Jeep was found in D.C.,” said Petersen. “It had been doused in an accelerant and lit on fire. The Mobile Crime Lab guys had little to work with. No shell casings were found. No prints, no hair follicles. They did find brush and debris lodged in the undercarriage, which suggested that the truck had been recently driven off-road.”

“As they’re engineered to do. How’d the police find Edwina’s body?”

“The GPS coordinates led them to a farm alongside acreage that was heavily forested. They observed tire tracks on a dirt road leading into the woods. The imprints matched the tread patterns on the tires of the burned Jeep.”

“How’d they find Edwina exactly?”

“Technology got them to the area. Nature led them to the body. The detectives saw buzzards circling over the treetops. They eyeballed the general location of the buzzards and walked into the woods. Edwina had been shot once behind the ear at close range, a small-caliber slug in her brainpan. She’d been picked over by the wildlife pretty thoroughly.”

In the file, Petersen found several photographs, original size and blown up, and pushed them across the desk to Lucas. The photos were of the tire tracks found in Charles County. “Notice anything?” said Petersen. When Lucas did not reply, Petersen said, “The tires are kinda fat for that model Jeep, aren’t they?”

“Doesn’t mean anything. I have eighteens on mine. But I’ve seen twenty-twos mounted on those lifted Cherokees as well.” Lucas stared at one of the photographs. There was something there, but the reveal was yet to come. “Can I walk with these?”

“I made this file for you. I’ve got the State’s discovery material as well if you want to have a look at it here in the office. Three hundred and fifty pages’ worth.”

“I was gonna grab some lunch.”

“Stay here and read some of the material. I’m going over to Carmine’s on Seventh. I’ll bring you something back.”

“Calamari with red sauce, please.”

Petersen waved his hand dismissively. “Peasant food.”

“Don’t sleep on squid,” said Lucas. “It sounds like they’ve got your boy Bates dead to rights.”

“Not yet,” said Petersen. “But I’m playing an away game. The trial’s in La Plata. I’ve never worked in that courtroom, and I don’t know any of the black robes down there. I need your help. Anything you can give me.”

“You think Bates murdered her?”

“That’s irrelevant to me.”

“What would be his motive?”

“Edwina’s mother claimed that Edwina was trying to break up with him. That she decided she was done running around with a married man. Possible scenario? Bates couldn’t deal with the breakup. If she didn’t want to be with him, she wouldn’t be with anyone else. Something like that.”

Lucas stood. His back was beginning to feel the discomfort of sitting in one of the hard chairs on the uneven planked hardwood floors of Petersen’s office. The attorney refused to modernize the rooms of the nineteenth-century row house, set on a corner of 5th and D, near the federal courts. He said he preferred to keep its “integrity” intact.

“Between the Buttons,” said Lucas, as it came to him, looking at Petersen’s shirt and tie. At Petersen’s suggestion, he’d been thinking of his late father, Van Lucas, who had owned an extensive Stones vinyl collection, from their first eponymous release through 1981’s Tattoo You, which many, Lucas’s father included, believed to be the last Rolling Stones record that mattered.

“Very good,” said Petersen. “Charlie Watts is wearing an outfit like this in the cover photo. Of course, he’s also wearing a double-breasted overcoat in the shot, but it’s a bit hot for that today.”

“But why are you dressed like him? Do you subscribe to Teen Beat, too?”

“I’m partial to Tiger Beat.”

“Why that record?”

“Just having fun. It’s a very cool cover, and an underrated album, especially the UK version. ‘Backstreet Girl’ is one of the most beautiful songs the lads ever cut. The Beatles never recorded a song so honest or so real.”

Lucas had no skin in the Beatles versus Stones game, and offered no argument. In musical matters, particularly classic rock, he deferred to Petersen, who played no instrument but was a bona fide music freak. A few months back he had taken his annual trip to Jazz Fest, where he typically took in both weekends of the event and crawled back with sunburn, a headache, and ten extra pounds.

“Well, you look real spiffy,” said Lucas. “Like a hairstylist on Carnaby Street. Or something.”

“And you? Where did you buy that T-shirt? It’s not Fruit of the Loom.”

“American Apparel.”

“And I’m guessing it’s a medium, not a large. You’re wearing it a size too small.”

“For the fit. Your point?”

“Your look is just as studied as mine, in its own way.”

“Don’t include me in your club. I woke up this morning and threw this on.”

At an inch under six feet, Lucas was not particularly tall, and at 175, his summer weight, he was not imposing. Nor was he a strutting peacock. His hair was black, kept short by a Nigerian barber at Afrikutz on Georgia Avenue, and he wore no jewelry, outside of his crucifix and mati. He was not stunningly handsome, certainly not in the manner of his brother Leo, who was one year older and looked like a young Denzel. But he had something. When he walked down the street or into a bar, women noticed him. Some of them got damp. He had recently turned thirty-one, and he was as lean, cut, and fit as the day he walked out of boot.

“Which reminds me,” said Petersen. “While I’m out getting you lunch, no fraternizing with my interns.”

“Right.”

“Have you seen Constance lately?”

“No,” said Lucas.

“I had planned on promoting her here.”

“Guess she had other plans.”

“Whatever happened between the two of you, she didn’t want to cross paths with you anymore. That’s why she left this office. When you have an opportunity to be with a quality young lady like Constance... A woman as choice as her doesn’t fall into your hands every day, Spero.”

“We had fun,” said Lucas. “I liked Constance.”

He knew that she was special. But he had been to bed with another woman while he’d been with her. He hadn’t promised Constance, directly or implicitly, that he would be faithful. He was a young man, making up for lost time. He was sorry that it hadn’t worked out between them, but he had little remorse.

Petersen looked at Lucas, a marine veteran of Iraq who had fought in Fallujah, where the fiercest house-to-house combat of the war, perhaps any war, had occurred. A man who’d left his youth in the Middle East and come back looking for a replication of what he had experienced there every day: a sense of purpose and heightened sensation. Petersen sensed that there were night-black shadows beneath the surface of his investigator’s cool facade. He was fond of Lucas, at times close to fatherly, but in personal matters, out of respect, Petersen didn’t push him.

“On the Bates thing?” said Petersen. “Get me something.”

Lucas said, “I will.”

The next morning, Lucas read the Post while sitting on the back porch of his apartment as a robin tended to her nest in the eaves and a pair of mockingbirds tormented a cat crossing the alley. In Metro an article detailed the noted drop in homicides and higher closure rate under the stewardship of Chief Cathy Lanier. A cultural shift, a civil servant — based economy mostly immune to the recession, and gentrification had played a role in the city’s resurgence as well. Still, for many, tragedy was not a stranger, and several high-profile murders, both long ago and in the not-too-distant past, were on the mind of Washington’s residents.

The vicious murder of Catherine Fuller, a ninety-nine-pound housewife and mother, in a Northeast alley in 1984 was perhaps the most brutal and senseless crime in D.C. history, emblematic of a decade gone wrong. Fuller had been beaten to death and sodomized with a metal pipe for fifty dollars and the cheap rings she wore on her fingers. Her ribs had been broken, her liver torn. Several young men went to prison for the crime, and those who were still alive were now being retried. Allegedly, confessions had been coerced, false testimony given, evidence suppressed. The retrial, for some, had reopened wounds.

The loved ones of Nori Amaya, found murdered in October 2009 in her apartment at the Woodner, her fingernails removed to erase DNA evidence, had yet to find justice or peace. Nori’s killer was in the wind, and questions of investigative neglect persisted. Similarly, closure had not come to the friends and family of Lucki Pannell, eighteen, shot and killed in a drive-by. Racist reader comments in the Washington Post notwithstanding, Lucki was not a thug or corner girl, but a straight, vivacious high school student whose murder remained unsolved. District Councilman Jim Graham, when asked to comment, said that the victim was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Lucas could only shake his head when he’d read the quote. Wrong place? Lucki had been on the porch of her own house when she was shot.

For Lucas, the most haunting murder of late had been that of Cherise Roberts, found in a Dumpster, strangled, with traces of semen on her face and in her rectum, blocks north of Cardozo High School, where Lucki Pannell had also been enrolled, in March. Cherise had been a student of Leo Lucas, an English teacher at the school. After her death, Leo had counseled many of the students who had been her friends and classmates. Spero, who had seen much death, had done the same for Leo over beers on many late nights, and he knew Leo remained deeply troubled by her murder. Cherise’s killer still walked free.

Lucas ate some breakfast and packed a lunch. He lashed his kayak to foam blocks fitted on the crossbars of his Cherokee, stowed his bike and paddling gear, and drove down to Charles County, Maryland, via Route 210, which most still called the Indian Head Highway. The trip was only thirty-some miles south of the Capital Beltway, but culturally much further. He saw fundamentalist churches, Harley-riders with Confederate flag decals on their helmets, barbecue joints whose smoke made his mouth water, and many liquor stores. Lucas turned on Mattingly, the last possible left before hitting the entrance to the Naval Surface Warfare Center.

Lucas unloaded his boat near Slavin’s Launch, on Mattawoman Creek, and pulled the green Wilderness Systems fourteen-foot touring kayak down to the waterline. Fishermen, county locals, cast from the shore, while others used boats of various size and horsepower from the launch. Mattawoman was one of the richest fishing areas of all the Potomac River branches, home to largemouth bass, perch, river herring, and shad. It was a pristine area for paddlers as well.

Lucas approached a man who had just now pulled an aluminum V-hull out on his trailer. The man had a great belly and pants held up by camouflage suspenders showing geese in flight and shotgun barrels pointing out of tall grass.

“How was it out there?” said Lucas.

“This creek is a fickle bitch,” said the man. “I caught twelve healthy bass in one day, just a week ago, but today, nary a one. I did get these bad boys, though. Come see.”

Lucas went with the man to the side of the boat and watched as he reached over the gunwales and removed the cover on a Styrofoam cooler. In it were a half dozen long, fat fish whose bodies were scaled and marked in the manner of pythons. Lucas had not seen anything quite like them.

“Snakeheads,” said the man, grabbing one firmly with one hand and opening its mouth with a set of pliers he had removed from a hip sheath. Lucas saw rows of sharp teeth.

“What the hell?” said Lucas.

“Don’t know how they got introduced to these waters, but they’re here to stay. They’re predators, but nothin preys on them. And the females carry hundreds of eggs in their sacs, so it ain’t like they’re going away. Know what else? They got legs.” The man smiled at Lucas’s wide-eyed expression. “That’s right. They can walk on land.”

“What are you gonna do with them?”

“Oh, I’ll grill ’em up. I don’t take nothin from out the water that I don’t eat.” The man looked at Lucas’s kayak and grinned. “Don’t fall in. These suckers bite.”

Lucas paddled out into the creek, going left, away from the Potomac, deep into the freshwater marsh, along bottomland forest, wetlands, and acres of American lotus. He powered through wet grass, his stroke even and sure, the sun hot on his shoulders and back. He saw bald eagles in their distinctive gliding flight, and many egrets, and turtles, and a water snake swimming in an S-curve across his bow. After forty-five minutes the veins had popped out on his forearms and biceps, and his back had a pleasant ache. He pulled in to a sand berm at the end of a small island and beached his boat. From a collapsible cooler in the stern bulkhead he retrieved a spicy salami sandwich and a cold bottle of beer. He sat on a blanket, which he’d spread over shells and goose poop, and ate and drank under the spotted shade of a sparsely leafed tree, looking out at the sun mirroring off the creek and the deep green forest of oak and pine on a nearby shore.

On the paddle back to the launch, Lucas saw three more snakes cutting through the water. This was unusual and disturbing. Once, when he was a kid, he had awakened from a nightmare to find his father sitting on his bed. He told his dad that, in his bad dream, he had been chased by a snake, and he could not seem to get away.

“Only one snake?” said Van Lucas.

“Yes,” said Spero.

“Then you got nothin to worry about, boy. The Greeks say that when you dream of one snake, it’s your friend. More than one, it means something else.”

“What does it mean when you see more than one snake, Baba?”

“Something bad’s about to happen,” said his father. “But not to you. Now, you go back to sleep.”

“Don’t leave me, okay? Stay here.”

“I’m not goin anywhere, son.”

Twenty years later, while in the desert in Iraq, Spero saw two horned vipers sidewinding up a dune at dusk, and felt a melancholy drop in his stomach. Van Lucas died the next day, in Washington, of the cancer that had slowly eaten his brain.

Grace Kinkaid lived on the 2300 block of Champlain Street, in Adams Morgan, in a newish condo building set on the slope between Columbia Road and Florida Avenue. Her place was orderly, gender neutral at first glance, and minimally furnished. The walls were painted in pale shades of green and gold.

Lucas and Grace sat on her balcony in fold-out chairs, a small black table between them. Below them, in the light of a streetlamp, a father and son kicked a soccer ball back and forth.

On the table lay a manila folder. Grace was drinking Chardonnay from a large glass meant for red wine. Lucas had gone with ice water. From inside her living room, music played through her open sliding glass doors. Her stereo dial was set to 89.3, WPFW, the jazz station broadcasting from a building on Champlain, a half block north of where they sat.

“The painting,” said Lucas. “Can you describe it?”

“Take a look at it,” said Grace, opening the folder and pushing it across the table. The top sheet, one of many papers in the file, was a photograph of a framed oil painting mounted on a wall painted light green. Lucas supposed it had been taken while it hung in her condo.

“It’s nice,” said Lucas, to move the conversation along.

The painting was of two men, one middle-aged, one young, shown from the bare shoulders up, both of them looking directly into the eyes of the viewer. The middle-aged man had a gaunt face, a receding hairline, and a beard. The young man was clean shaven with a full head of black hair. The artist had painted a black backdrop for the older man and a brown backdrop for the younger one, giving the effect of separation within the frame. The portions of their chest and arms that showed were creamy white, while their necks and faces were burnished from the sun. Workers, thought Lucas. That, and the vaguely east-of-Europe features of the men, brought to mind one of those Russian proletariat posters... or something. He liked the painting, but he had no idea what he was looking at. Lucas didn’t “know” art.

“It’s called The Double,” said Grace. “The artist is Loretta Browning. Born in nineteenth-century America, studied in New York and Chicago, moved to Paris after the First World War. Known for her portraitures, landscapes, and still-life paintings. Died in California, mid-twentieth century.”

“You say she was known.”

“Not well known. Up until recently, that is. Some scholarly reassessments and a few key gallery showings have elevated her reputation to the general public in the past ten years.”

“And elevated the worth of her paintings.”

“Considerably. I got the painting fifteen years ago.”

“So you bought it relatively cheaply.”

“I didn’t buy it at all,” said Grace. “It was a gift from my uncle Ron before he died. He said, ‘Take good care of this, honey. It’s going to be worth a lot of money someday.’ He was right.”

“How much is it worth?” said Lucas.

“I had it assessed before it was stolen. The man who came here and looked at it said it was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand dollars.”

“That’s a pretty exclusive neighborhood.”

“I know.”

“And your uncle just gave you the painting? Why?”

“After my parents passed, my uncle became the father figure for me and my brothers. Then he came out as a gay man, officially, and my brothers, who weren’t the most enlightened guys at the time, sort of rejected him. My uncle was a fair guy and he offered the painting to all of us. But my brothers looked at it, connected the images to Uncle Ron, and saw a picture of two gay guys. They felt that it promoted a lifestyle, and they didn’t want it in their homes, what with their babies and all. Like a painting could corrupt their kids. Me, I just liked the way it looked, so I took it. Of course my brothers’ feelings on the issue have evolved, just like our president’s, but it’s too late.”

“It’s too late for them to cash in because you own it.”

“I used to own it.”

“What happened?”

“I believe it was stolen by a man I was in a relationship with. A guy named Billy Hunter.”

“Like it sounds, I assume,” said Lucas, scribbling the name in his Moleskine notebook.

“Yes,” said Grace. “I’m gonna have another glass of wine. Would you like something besides water?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t drink?”

“Not when I’m working.”

“Please don’t let me drink alone. I have some things to tell you that are somewhat difficult for me to talk about.”

“Okay. I’ll take a beer if you have it.”

“I have a variety.”

“Anything that’s not light.”

He watched her get out of her chair and, because he was that kind of man, watched her behind as she walked, somewhat unsteadily, into her apartment. She was a woman nearing her forties, or already there. Black hair undone, olive green slacks, a short-sleeve tangerine peasant shirt, simple sandals. Grace was attractive, with green eyes and an aquiline nose, but the eyes were needy, and her arms were too thin for her frame. Grace was untoned, with the spent look of a woman whose weight loss had come from stress.

She returned with a bottle of Dogfish Head and her own glass, refilled to the rim. Lucas guessed that Grace, on her third wine since he’d arrived, had a drinking problem. He’d seen the pattern in his mother, who had developed a dependency on alcohol after his father died.

Grace retook her seat and crossed one leg over the other.

Lucas sipped from his bottle. “That’s good. Thanks.”

“So,” she said.

“Tell me about Billy Hunter.”

“Where to start? I met him at the Safeway up on Columbia Road, by the vegetable and fruit bins. He asked me how to buy a ripe avocado, and the secret to a good guacamole. I thought it was a chance encounter. I now think it was a setup.”

“He followed you there?”

“I was a mark.”

“How so?”

“I’ll get to that later. Billy asked me out for coffee or a drink. I accepted. He was funny, he seemed to be a gentleman, he was handsome in a marina rat sort of way: tan, blond, blue-eyed, and fit. He was my body type, too. Strong legs, low center of gravity, powerfully built.” She paused.

Lucas nodded awkwardly. “Go on.”

“The next night, we met down at Cashion’s.”

“Columbia, off Eighteenth. I know the spot.”

“I guess I had one too many glasses of wine. I don’t normally take a man home with me on the first date, but I did. We made love that night and frankly it was wonderful. He was good in bed, with staying power. Tender when it was called for and rough when I wanted it to be.”

She watched Lucas, whose eyes had gone down to the pages of his open notebook.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” she said.

“I’m fine.”

“What I’m telling you is pertinent to the story. You’ll see where I’m going with this by the time I’m done.”

“Go on.”

“I started seeing him regularly. After that first night at Cashion’s, we never went out. Billy always came to my place and it was always the same thing. We were in the bedroom minutes after he walked through the door. And we stayed in there for hours. Whatever tenderness he’d shown that first time was gone. He knew what he was doing. When he was in bed the light that I had seen in his eyes initially, the playfulness, was gone. He enjoyed wearing me out. There wasn’t any lovemaking involved. He took me like an animal, and I liked it.”

Lucas reached for the bottle of beer and took a pull.

“I’m forty-two years old,” said Grace. “I’ve been with my share of men, but never anyone like him. When I wasn’t with him, I was thinking of him. Obsessing is a better word. Preparing for the next time he’d come over, debating what to wear, how to fix my hair, all of that. I wanted to please him. All my planning and preparation, and he didn’t even notice. He’d walk in, point to my outfit, and say, ‘Take that shit off.’ He’d put me right on my back. He’d put me on all fours, sit me on the bathroom sink, stand me up against a wall. I climaxed repeatedly, and every time I did, he laughed. It was like he’d won. For his part, he could only get there if I put him in my mouth. Then he’d get dressed without so much as a word and leave. You’d think I wouldn’t allow myself to be treated that way, but I found myself desperate for him to come back. And also dreading it. Because I was aware what he was doing to me. I ate very little. I drank more than I ever did before. I began to lose weight. I knew that I was just a receptacle to him. I knew it and I didn’t care.”

“You never went to where he lived?” said Lucas, just to say something.

“No. He said he had a housemate he was trying to get rid of, that the atmosphere wouldn’t be right.”

“So you don’t know his address.”

“I don’t.”

“Or where he worked.”

“All he said was that he was in finance.”

“You communicated by cell?”

“Yes, we texted back and forth and sometimes I called him.”

“You still have that number?”

“Yes, I have it.”

“Give it to me.”

Lucas wrote it down. “Did you see a credit card of his? A driver’s license?”

Grace shook her head. “The one time we went out, he paid the tab in cash.”

“So you don’t know if his name is actually Billy Hunter.”

“I can’t be sure,” said Grace. She picked up her glass and stood abruptly. There was sweat beaded on her face. Lucas’s shirt was also damp. “I’m ready for another glass of wine. Would you like another beer?”

“I would.”

“Meet me inside. It’s cooler in there. Bring the file with you, okay?”

She disappeared into her condo. Lucas sat for a few minutes, digesting their conversation, then followed her inside. The volume on the stereo had been turned down very low. She was on a couch set before a glass table, where she had placed a fresh glass of wine and a new bottle of beer. Lucas dropped the file on the table and sat beside her. He noticed that Grace had run a brush through her hair.

“Are you shocked?” she said.

“Not at all,” said Lucas, telling a lie. “How did this all end?”

“I came home one day to find that I’d been burgled.”

“The painting was gone.”

“Yes.”

“Just the painting?”

“Yes.”

“Was your condo broken into?”

“Nothing was broken. He had a key. I suppose he could have made an imprint of mine in putty, like thieves do. Or had one made off an original, then returned it discreetly. I keep an extra in a bowl by the door. ”

“He, meaning Hunter.”

“Of course.”

“You’re certain?”

Grace shrugged. “I haven’t heard from him since the burglary. Stealing that painting was his way of screwing me again, one last time. It’s in character for him, don’t you think?”

“You tried texting or calling him?”

“I did, and I got dead air.”

“He was probably using a burner,” said Lucas.

“What?”

“A disposable cell. Let me ask you something: did you and Hunter ever discuss the value of the painting?”

“We never talked about the painting at all.”

Lucas thought this over. “You said that you now think this was all a setup. That you were a mark. How so?”

“There are additional papers in that file. Take a look.”

Lucas opened the file and withdrew a set of pages paper-clipped together, a series of printed e-mails between Grace and someone named Grant Summers. The earliest dated e-mail, from Summers to Grace, read:

Below the name and battalion designation, the sender had included a replication of the Marine Corps insignia. Lucas felt his eyes narrow.

“I was looking for a Mini Cooper,” said Grace. “My pre-midlife crisis. I could have bought a new one, but I’m a bit of a bargain hunter. I found an ad for one on Craigslist that looked like a great deal. It was the exact color I wanted, too.”

“That’s how they rope you in,” said Lucas. He knew the rest but he allowed her to tell it.

“I e-mailed him back,” said Grace. “I asked if we could speak over the phone, but he returned with a message saying that deploying marines aren’t allowed to use a phone. He suggested we use an authorized third party for the escrow; I think it was Google Checkout.”

“I suppose he took the liberty of opening an account.”

“Right. Said he’d give me a five-day period to inspect and test-drive the car before the escrow account would release my payment to him. In that way, I would be protected... No disappointments, he said. He’d ship it free of charge with the title and two sets of keys. The money would have to be wired via Western Union. I was wary, but it was the car I really wanted at a very good price.”

“Did you do it?”

“I tried. Drove over to my bank, withdrew the cash, and went to the nearest Western Union office. I was all set to wire the money when the lady behind the counter, nice Pakistani woman, talked me out of it. She’d seen this scam worked before. When I came home, I called the FBI and reported the whole thing. The guy on the other end of the line took my name and number but he never called me back. ”

“The Feds don’t have the time or manpower to chase a couple of thousand dollars down a rabbit hole.”

“Is this a common crime?”

“It’s the Nigerian four-one-nine scam,” said Lucas. “So named for that country’s four-one-nine code, after this type of Internet crime. Shame the Nigerians get tarred for the car thing too, but there it is. Why do you think Hunter was connected to this?”

“One night we were talking,” said Grace. “One of those pointless conversations about what we’d do if we hit the lottery. Billy said, ‘You could buy that Mini S you’ve always wanted.’ And then he got a weird look on his face, like he knew he’d messed up. How would he know I had my eyes on a Mini Cooper S? I never told him. But Grant Summers knew, and I had given him my home address for the shipping of the car. Later on it made me think, maybe Billy Hunter and Grant Summers were the same man. That he saw me as an easy mark after the car thing and followed me from here to the Safeway that first night.”

“Did Hunter have a foreign accent?”

“No.”

“Most of the guys who pull these car scams are foreigners. Just by reading this top e-mail, there are several mistakes in the tenses and verbiage. That tells me that English was a second language for Grant Summers.”

“You don’t think the two events are connected?”

“I don’t know. It’s a stretch. But I’ll look into it. That is, if you decide to hire me.”

“Amanda said you get forty percent.”

“I take it in cash. In this case, that equals eighty thousand dollars, based on the assessed value of the painting. It’s a lot of money, Grace.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Frankly, I find it odd that you would spend eighty grand getting back a painting that you got for free.”

“Actually, I don’t have the eighty yet. But I do have a buyer for the painting. Assuming you retrieve it for me.”

“A buyer,” said Lucas, trying to keep the skepticism from his voice.

“A serious collector has given me a pledge, in writing, that he’ll purchase it for two hundred thousand dollars. When I sell The Double, I’ll cut your eighty thousand out of the payment.”

“This is real?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. But you could take that money and buy a fleet of Minis, brand new and loaded, and pay retail this time.”

“It’s got nothing to do with money,” said Grace. “I want to see that painting on my wall again, if only for a little while. In a way, he raped me, and he won. I need to take something back from him. When the painting is hanging on my wall, I can get started with my life again.”

Lucas wasn’t so sure. Grace Kinkaid’s washed-out eyes, her pencil-thin arms, her increasingly slurred speech all told him she had a long way to go before she’d ever be right. “You want me to provide some references?”

“Not necessary. Amanda says you’re competent and straight.”

“So I’m hired?”

“Yes.”

He touched his finger to the file. “Can I have this?”

“It’s for you,” said Grace, and she looked him over. “I hope you’re as advertised. Billy’s all kinds of twisted.”

“Thanks for the work, and your confidence.” Lucas picked up the file and stood. “I’ll be in touch.”

The following morning, Lucas worked at home. On his laptop, he typed in the names William Hunter and Bill Hunter and searched for them via his premium People Finder program. He came up with several hits in the District/Montgomery County, PG County, Maryland/Northern Virginia area, which folks now called the DMV. He recorded the most recent addresses of all the listings and, where available, the phone numbers, and made some calls.

Lucas reached a couple of men, discounted them due to age and their responses, and made a note to follow up on those William Hunters he couldn’t reach. But he was not encouraged or particularly hopeful. Billy Hunter was most likely a fake name the predator had created. It had come to Lucas at the tail end of the previous night, when he had returned from Grace Kinkaid’s apartment, smoked some herb, and sat thinking, expansively, in his living room chair.

Billy Hunter = Pussy Hunter.

A sociopath would create a name like that deliberately, and laugh about it.

Lucas opened the file Grace Kinkaid had given him. He looked at the e-mail from Grant Summers regarding the sale of the Mini Cooper S. Lucas figured that Summers’s e-mail address, ending with @msn.com, had been set up as a throwaway, as scammers tended to use companies like MSN, Yahoo! and Hotmail, which required no verification for the setup. Without a subpoena, which he had no chance of obtaining, tracing the address back to a specific computer or person would be impossible.

Lucas Googled and Bing-searched the address, and came up with nothing. He took the next step: e-mail tracking. Using three of his investigative database searches, IRBsearch, LexisNexis/Accurint, and Tracers, he attempted to identify the owner of the Grant Summers e-mail address. Again, nothing.

He was pretty sure the message had been sent from an Internet café in Paris, London, or Amsterdam, but for shits and grins Lucas highlighted the Grant Summers e-mail address and clicked on Options. A dialogue box opened, and at the bottom of the box there appeared a section, displayed in very small letters, called Internet Headers. There he found a series of numbers: the originating IP address of the Grant Summers e-mail. Using Melissa Data, he was able to locate the city, state, country, and zip code of origin, as well as the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of the e-mail’s origin. Looking at the information, he felt both high and caffeinated. He Google-Mapped the coordinates and came up with a row house on a local street. The location lookup was not an exact science, and there was a chance that this was not the house he was looking for, but it put him on a block, enough for a neighborhood canvass. Grant Summers, whoever he was, might well have been a foreigner, but he was operating his car scam out of D.C.

Lucas saved the data.

He did four sets of forty push-ups on rotating stands, and two hundred crunches, his prison workout and daily ritual. He took a shower, dressed in utilitarian clothing, and drove his Jeep over to Prince George’s County, where he had arranged an interview with the mother of Edwina Christian.

Lucas made a low hourly wage working for Tom Petersen, and he was looking at an eighty-thousand-dollar payoff on the Kinkaid job. A smart guy might have prioritized the work. But Lucas liked to honor his commitments, and he had promised Petersen he’d get him something useful before the trial. Also, he was curious.

Lucas drove over to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The longtime Washington hospital and attendant facilities, close to his apartment, had been recently shuttered, its wooded acreage between Georgia Avenue and 16th Street, just a handful of miles from the White House, too valuable to sit on any longer. It was a hump and inconvenience for Lucas to visit the hospital in the traffic-plagued city, but he continued to make the effort.

He drove through the security post without a hitch. He had been given a pass from his friend Gail Moore, an army public affairs officer who had previously been with AW2 — the Army Wounded Warrior Program — and now worked for the army’s chief of public affairs. Lucas lifted a box of books from the cargo area of his Jeep and took it into the building and down to the library.

Lucas had too many books in his apartment and he liked to pass them on to the wounded soldiers and marines who had little to do beyond their rehab. Some of the books were biography and history, and some were considered literary fiction, whatever that was. But like most people, the recovering veterans enjoyed a good story told with clean, efficient writing, a plot involving a problem to be solved or surmounted, and everyday characters the reader could relate to. Today Lucas had crime novels by Elmore Leonard, James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block, and James Crumley, and Westerns by Leonard, Jack Schaefer, Tom Franklin, Ron Hansen, and A. B. Guthrie. He had purchased a complete used Steinbeck paperback collection, all with the penguin on the spine, from Silver Spring Books the previous week, and had brought that along as well.

He slipped one of the paperbacks into his back pocket, left the others, and walked to the building housing Therapy Services. There he found Winston Dupree, here at his scheduled time in a large room crowded with patients, doctors, free weights, weight machines, treadmills, mats, medicine balls, and tennis balls. A golden retriever wandered the room, stopping occasionally to be petted, scratched, and talked to. Wounded veterans were working out or receiving PT, or road testing their recently installed prosthetic limbs. A young man in a harness, bearing new shin poles for legs, was gamely attempting his first steps, steadied by a therapist holding a leash.

Dupree sat on a raised stool, his thick right forearm resting on a padded table. Several adhesive electrodes, their cords attached to a nearby machine, had been stuck to the area around his elbow. Dupree was a tall, wide-shouldered man whose size was somewhat undercut by his wire-rim glasses and soft-spoken nature. He wore his hair in an unfashionable fade. Lucas removed the paperback from his pocket and pulled up a chair beside him.

“Luke,” said Dupree, his pronounced overbite triggered by his smile.

“Got this for you.” Lucas handed him the book. “Thought you’d like it.”

Dupree inspected the cover. “Is this one of those with the white protagonist and his black sidekick?”

“It’s not one of those.”

“’Cause I read that one. The black dude is suspicious of the white dude at first. He’s one of those angry black men who’s been feeling the brunt of racial injustice his whole life.”

“You mean, like a black militant.”

“He’s not wearing a beret or nothin like that. Got an attitude, is all. But the black dude comes around in the end, when he figures out that the white dude’s all right. He’s not like all those other insensitive white dudes that the black dude’s known in the past. And it makes the black dude think: maybe not all white people are bad. There’s hope for humanity, after all.”

“The black guy likes women,” said Lucas, getting into it, “but he doesn’t like them too much. He’s more into helping the white people solve their problems than he is nailing ass.”

“Yeah, we never actually see him in the act. Thereby subverting the stereotype of the oversexed black man with the extra large Johnson.” Dupree grinned. “Me, I’m quite the stereotype.”

“Minus the extra large Johnson.”

“I do like trim, though.”

“You like thinking about it.” Lucas nodded at Dupree’s bum arm. “What happened, were you pulling on your rod so hard that you hurt yourself?”

“No, I was pullin on yours. Don’t you remember?”

“That was you?”

“Actually, I was pulling a suitcase out of the trunk of a car, and I tore some shit around my elbow. Acute tendonitis, the doc says. Now they got me doing this ultrasound. It’s a stubborn injury. I bounced back from my combat wound quicker than I did this.”

Dupree had been an ace SAW gunner serving in the Second Battalion of the First Marine Regiment. He was fierce, dependable, and a key component of Lucas’s unit. Near the Jolan graveyard, in Fallujah, an AK round had passed through his calf and shredded its primary muscle. Dupree would walk with a slight limp for the rest of his life.

“I can’t even type on a laptop with this gimp-ass arm of mine,” said Dupree.

“They’ll fix you up,” said Lucas.

“Hard to find a job if you can’t work on a computer.”

“But you’re still looking, right? Anything going on?”

“With my leg, it’s tough. Wasn’t worth my time to put in an application with the police. Even rent-a-cop work’s pretty much out of the question. Not qualified for an office and I don’t want to be in one. I’m not about to stand up all day in some procurement center or factory. I guess I could apply to Bed, Bath, and motherfuckin Beyond or sumshit, but I doubt they’d want my broke-down self, either.”

The golden retriever appeared and rested his nose on Dupree’s thigh. With his right hand he scratched behind its ear. The frown that had come to Dupree’s face faded. “That’s a girl.”

“Maybe you should work with animals,” said Lucas.

“I do,” said Dupree. “There’s this organization, Paws4Vets, they get wounded soldiers like me to train service dogs for disabled veterans who are worse off than I am. You know, men and women who been blinded or generally can’t get around. I did a program with the Warrior Transition Battalion at Winn Army Hospital. Now I got a pretty chocolate Lab mix I been training, living with me in my crib. I’m gonna have to give her up when they find the right match for her. That’s the hard part, man.”

“So you’re working.”

“Volunteer work,” said Dupree. “Ain’t the same as getting paid. A man only feels like a man when he gets a paycheck.”

“And some pie.”

“No doubt.”

The dog lay down at Dupree’s side and rested his head on one of his feet.

“I need something to do,” said Dupree, looking directly into Lucas’s eyes.

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“I mean it, Luke.”

“I won’t forget.” Lucas stood and bumped Dupree’s fist. “Two-One, partner.”

“Two-One,” said Dupree.

Lucas valeted his Jeep outside a boutique hotel on the 1200 block of 16th Street, four blocks north of the White House. He wore a lightly textured powder-blue shirt, cream-colored 501s, and brown double-buckle monk straps made in Italy. He could clean up when he wanted to, and when it was appropriate. He’d heard about this hotel and its refurbishment in 2009. His brother Leo brought women to the bar here, if they and the occasion were special. Leo had said the place was first-class.

Lucas walked on a checkerboard marble floor through a lobby lit by lamps and dusk filtered through skylights. He passed a pedestaled bust of Thomas Jefferson and a library whose shelves held leather-bound books, and he walked on into the bar, clean and subtly lit, and saw her sitting at the stick. She was wearing a simple orange dress with a low neckline that clung to her nicely rather than cheaply. The orange lighting of the bar complemented her dress. He stepped up to her and reached out his hand. She smiled, took it, and gripped it firmly.

“I’m Charlotte.”

“Spero Lucas. Now we’re properly introduced.”

“Have a seat. I saved it for you.”

“I bet that wasn’t easy. A buncha guys must’ve been trying to score this seat.”

“Tons. I had to beat them off.”

“Your hand must be awful tired.”

Charlotte laughed charitably. “Please, sit down.”

He took a seat beside her in a high black chair. They were by the turn in the bar, nearest the windows fronting 16th. There were others in the room, but Lucas took no notice.

“I’m having wine,” said Charlotte. “Do you like Italian red?”

“Sure, why not.”

“This Barolo’s pretty nice.” She offered him her glass to try it.

He took a sip and nodded. “That’s good.”

Charlotte looked him over. “Let’s have a bottle. You want to?”

He stayed with her lovely blue eyes. “I’m game.”

The bartender, a slender, quiet man, soon came with a bottle, showed its label to Charlotte, then uncorked it and poured a bit in a fresh glass. She tasted it and made a motion with her chin, and he poured her a full portion and some for Lucas.

“Shall I leave the bottle on the bar?” said the tender.

“Please,” said Charlotte.

They tapped glasses. He watched her close her eyes as she drank. Now that he was close, he saw that she was older than him by several years. Late thirties if he had to guess. Her age was in her smile lines and the light imprints around her eyes, but it showed nowhere else. Her skin was smooth and her complexion was flawless. She smelled faintly of rainwater. He supposed it was her shampoo. For jewelry she wore a thin gold bracelet with a Grecian key inlay, and a strand of ice-blue crystals around her neck. A tan line showed on her ring finger.

“Work today?” she said.

“Yes. You?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a lobbyist over on K Street.” She gave him a brief history of her career. She had been a Hill staffer for several years and eventually had served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and traveled extensively overseas. The natural progression and her Middle East and Near East connections led her to lobbying, and her current firm.

“Who are some of your clients?”

“Pakistan,” she said.

“Wow.”

“It’s work. What did you do today?”

Lucas described his day. He said that the secret most investigators keep is that the bulk of their modern-day work is done via computer programs, but that he preferred to get out and talk to people when he could. He described the Virginia Christian conversation, that technically they were on opposite sides of the fence, but that he’d liked her, and he felt she’d liked him.

“I’m a marine,” he said, keeping it in the present tense, as he tended to do. He told her where he had served. He told her about his visit to Walter Reed, something he normally wouldn’t share with anyone but fellow veterans and family. It could come off as self-serving, but she seemed interested.

“You look like you came out of the war all right,” said Charlotte.

“I’m ahead,” said Lucas.

“Why’d you settle back in D.C.?”

“Home. Family.” And again, he began to talk unguardedly.

He told her that he was the son of Greek-American parents, one of four siblings, three of whom had been adopted. His sister, Irene, was the biological product of the marriage, and was now an attorney in San Francisco. She was emotionally distant and largely absent from their lives. Dimitrius, the oldest brother, was a charming, degenerate criminal, and currently in the wind. Another brother, Leo, was a local high school teacher and a standout individual in every respect since childhood. A combination of rock star, athlete, do-gooder, and stud. Spero was the youngest of the bunch. High school wrestler, not particularly gifted academically, but a hard worker. Tried community college, then joined the Corps. His father passed while Lucas was serving in Iraq. He was still close to his mom.

“Do you ever wonder who your real parents are?” said Charlotte.

“I know who my parents are,” said Lucas. “Van and Eleni Lucas.”

“Stupid question.”

“Not at all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Forget it.”

Charlotte leaned in toward him. “So what do you do for fun?”

“I ride a bicycle and I have a kayak,” said Lucas. “I like to get out there.”

“What else?”

“I’m into older movies and music. I read a lot of books.”

“What kind of music?”

“Smart lyrics with guitars. Solos get me off. That takes away my punk credentials, but hey. I like stuff with a Southern bent or feel. Lucero, My Morning Jacket, DBT. The Hold Steady, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth... guitar-heavy stuff. At home I’ll listen to reggae.”

“That means...”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t smoke marijuana,” said Charlotte.

“I won’t hold it against you.”

“It makes me sleepy.”

“We wouldn’t want that.”

“No, we wouldn’t,” said Charlotte.

Lucas studied the curve of her mouth as she poured him more wine. She poured a glass for herself.

“Why’d you leave me your phone number the other night?” said Lucas.

“I’m sure it’s not the first time it’s happened to you.”

“They didn’t look like you.”

“Stop.”

“You’re a knockout,” said Lucas.

“Thank you.”

“I mean it.”

“I liked what I saw in you, too,” said Charlotte. “Even in a white T-shirt and a pair of shorts, you left an impression. And when you walked in tonight...”

“What?”

She looked directly into his eyes. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

“Huh,” said Lucas, clumsily. He felt himself blush.

“Not that I’m all about that. Handsome alone doesn’t close it for me. I went back to Boundary Road the next night and talked with the bartender. She said good things about you. So it wasn’t much of a risk on my part to meet you here.”

“Here we are.”

“Yes.” She reached over and laid her hand upon his, right on the bar. He felt a warm current.

“What now?”

“You like the wine?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got another bottle in my room.”

“You have a room here?”

“Uh-huh. Why don’t we go upstairs?”

Lucas finished the wine in his glass. His trousers were tight, and he could feel his heart in his chest. He reached for his wallet, but she said, “No.” She paid the bartender in cash. Tan line on her ring finger, and she wasn’t leaving a paper trail.

Charlotte Rivers was a bundle of dynamite in a dress. She was smart, accomplished, and funny. She was also married. For now, Lucas didn’t care.

“You ready?” said Charlotte, getting down off her chair.

He was already standing. He stepped aside and let her lead the way.

Handy’s garage was located on a service road behind a strip center on the Cottage City side of Bladensburg Road, not far from the Anacostia River, which stretched up into Prince George’s County, Maryland. Lucas had ridden his bike along the river and paddled it many times, but this commercial section of fast-food, Chinese/steak-and-cheese, Laundromats, and check-cashing establishments was unfamiliar to him.

Lucas parked his Jeep in a small lot crowded with older vehicles, mostly GM products: Cutlasses, Caprice Classics, Regals, and Grand Nationals. The lot edged a set of open bay doors. Two men worked on cars in the bay. One was tall with gray hair. He was holding a crescent wrench and looking at the undercarriage of a cream-colored Deville that was up on lifts. The other man was heavyset with a moon-shaped face. He was gunning the lug nuts off a half-ton GMC truck that was the sister to the Chevy Silverado. It was a hot day and both wore long pants and long-sleeve shirts rolled back off the wrists, and they looked to be suffering in the heat. Lucas recalled his father’s words: “That’s why they call it work.”

An old Kool and the Gang track circa Wild and Peaceful played trebly from a boom box that looked like it had been through a paintball fight. Lucas’s brother Leo had called the group Kook and the Gang when he was a kid. Leo was a good English teacher but he had always mangled his words.

“Excuse me,” said Lucas, staying outside the bay doors, observing mechanic’s protocol. Walking into a garage unannounced was akin to boarding someone’s boat without permission.

“What can I do for you?” said the gray-haired man.

“I was looking to talk to Brian Dodson,” said Lucas. “He around?”

Eye contact passed between the gray-haired man and the moonfaced man, and Lucas caught it.

“I’m Handy,” said the gray-haired man. “That Cherokee givin you any trouble?”

“I take good care of it.”

“They get a little funny on the back end after a while. And I bet your check engine light is on, too.”

“It is,” said Lucas. “It stays on. That’s just an issue with air getting into the gas cap. These years had that quirk.”

“So you don’t need repair work done?”

“No. I’m just looking to get up with Brian Dodson.”

“I’m Dodson,” said the moonfaced man, and he laid down the lug gun, picked up a shop rag, and walked out of the bay into the hot sunlight. He stood before Lucas and looked down on him. Dodson was a tall man with broad shoulders and back.

“I’m an investigator. My name’s Spero Lucas.”

Lucas put his hand out. Dodson wiped his hands on the shop rag and made no comment or movement to reciprocate. His eyes were flat and devoid of any emotion.

“I’m here regarding the death of Edwina Christian. I understand the two of you dated. Is that correct?”

“You’re not with Homicide.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Homicide police don’t dress like you,” said Dodson, looking over Lucas’s blue Dickies, white T, and Nike boots.

“I work for an attorney,” said Lucas, leaving out the fact that Petersen was a defender. “Mr. Dodson, I’ll only take a few minutes of your time.”

“You ain’t gonna take no minutes of my time,” said Dodson, and he turned and walked back into the bay, where he dropped the greasy rag to the concrete and picked up his lug gun.

Lucas stood with his hands by his side.

“You might just want to get a new gas cap, on account of it’ll give you a better seal,” said Handy, helpfully and with good cheer. “That is if the check engine light bothers you.”

“It doesn’t,” said Lucas. “Thanks for the tip.”

“Don’t cost nothin,” said Handy.

Lucas went back to his Jeep and drove away.

Brian Dodson lived nearby in Colmar Manor, on the southern side of Bladensburg Road. His asbestos-shingled cottage stood on a short block that was a court butting up against the Colmar Manor Community Park, a large plot of forested land bordering the Anacostia River. The neighborhood seemed quiet and had a country feel.

Marquis drove past his street, avoiding the trap of the court. He turned around and stopped on the cross street, where they could get a look at Dodson’s house. Marquis and Lucas watched him park on the street and walk inside. There was a maroon Ford Excursion, Ford’s SUV version of a bus, in the driveway. Lucas jotted that down in his notebook.

“What if he’s in for the night?” said Marquis.

“Let’s give him a half hour,” said Lucas.

“I’ll just go ahead and finish my sandwich.”

As Marquis ate, Lucas dialed Charlotte Rivers, but got no pickup. He left a voice message, did so quietly. He thanked her for a wonderful night and asked when he could see her again.

“Thank you for a wonderful night,” said Marquis, smiling at Lucas. And then he softly sang, “When will I see you... a-gain?”

“Fuck you.”

“The Three Degrees,” said Marquis, feigning innocence. “My mother used to love that one when I was a kid.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sayin, that’s a real good song.”

Twenty minutes later Dodson emerged from the house with a daypack slung over his shoulder. He got into his black Grand National and fired it up. Marquis reversed his vehicle and deftly swung it into a more hidden spot.

“Nice move,” said Lucas.

They stayed several car lengths back and followed him down Bladensburg Road, which cleaved the Fort Lincoln Cemetery and dropped into D.C., then turned onto Benning Road. They headed east and crossed the Anacostia River via the Benning Bridge.

Dodson took the Anacostia Freeway and made his way to Martin Luther King Avenue, the entranceway to Anacostia, and jumped off and went over to Firth Sterling Avenue, which took them along the Barry Farms Dwellings, two-story public housing structures set on weedy grounds. Dodson parked his car and Marquis drove on past.

“Go up the hill and turn around,” said Lucas.

“What you suppose your man is doing in this part of town?”

“I don’t know. Guy leaves his nice, neat little neighborhood to come down here? I reckon he’s doing some kind of dirt.”

They made a turnaround and parked up the hill. They could see young men, mothers, and girls, some who were also mothers, out around the dwellings. A group of men were throwing dice. It was late afternoon, and this time of year folks stayed outside. Dodson got out of his car with his daypack and walked by a group of young men who eye-fucked him but said nothing. He passed under an archway and entered a door to one of the units.

“The Farms,” said Marquis. “This place was infamous when I was a youngster coming up in PG.”

“I’m working a case for a woman got murdered down in Charles County,” said Lucas. “The mother of the victim said her daughter was dating Dodson. Said he was a churchgoing type, steady worker, all that. Practically painted a halo over his head.”

“We don’t want to be sitting here too long, seeing as how we’re a salt-and-pepper team. We look like law.”

“I look like law,” said Lucas. “You look like Sabu.”

“Who’s Sabu?”

Wasn’t long before Dodson came out of the dwellings carrying his bag.

“What you think is in that bag?” said Marquis.

“Cash,” said Lucas. “Drugs... a gun. Who knows? Something bad, for sure.”

“Now you gonna tar all these people down here just ’cause they live in the Eights?”

“I’m not tarring anyone but Dodson. Tellin you, he’s wrong.”

“Want me to keep tailing him?”

“No,” said Lucas. “I’ve seen enough.”

Lucas met Abraham Woldu, a well-dressed middle-aged man with curly black hair and an open smile, in front of his properties on North Capitol the next morning. Lucas had been honest about the fact that he was an investigator, though he declined to elaborate on the nature of the case, citing confidentiality. Nevertheless, Woldu appeared to be willing to talk. In the first few minutes of their conversation, Lucas learned that he was an immigrant from Eritrea, educated in Italy. He spoke several different languages, fluently. He had a wife and three sons who were now men. He owned the properties here and several others around town, served as his own broker, and had a license to do so.

“Are you Orthodox?” said Lucas.

“Yes.”

“Me, too. We’re brothers.”

“Yes, we’re brothers. But you don’t need to grease me up. What is it you’re looking for?”

“I’ll get right to the point. I have reason to believe that someone was running an Internet scam out of one of your properties this past year.”

“What kind of scam?”

“It’s not important. What’s pertinent is that it was an unlawful operation. And if it was conducted under your roof, you’re connected. I’d really like to have your help on this. I’d hate to have to go to the Feds.”

“There’s no need for threats,” said Woldu.

“What I’m trying to say is, I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

Woldu looked toward one of the two properties, a ground-level portion of a turreted row home fronted by a plate-glass window. “I had a Jamaican in there for a while. He sold CDs, incense, juices, and the like. Before that, there was a coffee shop run by a lady from my country. Neither of them made it. You want those types of businesses to do well in the neighborhood. It’s good for property values, good for all of us eventually. But sometimes they just don’t work.”

“What about that one?” said Lucas, nodding to the first floor of the other Woldu property, the one with butcher paper taped over the window.

“That was a longtime hair and nail salon,” said Woldu. “The owner-operator died suddenly. I had a man in there for four months after that, a short-term thing, off the books.”

“What kind of business?”

“It was tax season. He said he was an accountant. He signed no lease. He paid me cash, well in advance, every month.”

“Off the books,” said Lucas.

“I reported the income to the IRS,” said Woldu. “It wasn’t me who asked for cash. He insisted.”

“Did you ever go in there and see what he was up to?”

“Only to collect the rent. There were a couple of desks, computers... crated goods. No decorations of any kind. He had the blinds drawn all the time. Just as quickly as he was here, he was gone.”

“Can I see the space?” said Lucas.

Woldu shrugged and pulled out a set of keys from his pocket. “Sure.”

They went inside. It was an empty rectangular room painted white. Lucas looked in the restroom, which was surprisingly large, with exposed pipes in the ceiling and a full bath.

“The lady who had the hair salon enlarged the bathroom,” said Woldu, seeing Lucas’s inquisitive expression.

“So, this tenant. He must have given you a security deposit. If he did, you sent it to an address later on, right?”

“He did, in cash. But he came down here and met me for the refund. I returned his deposit, again in cash.”

“For that meet, you must have communicated by phone.”

“I have his number in my contacts, right here.” Woldu produced a BlackBerry from his pocket. He scanned his contacts and said, “Serge Nikolai.” He said the phone number, and Lucas wrote it down.

“You ever see his name on an ID?” said Lucas.

“No.”

“Describe the guy.”

“Medium height, black hair, pale skin. He spoke with an Eastern European or Russian accent.”

That would be consistent with the mangled syntax of the e-mail message from Grant Summers to Grace Kinkaid, thought Lucas.

“Anyone else go in and out of the property while he was there?”

“Yes, there were people in there the few times I visited. Men in plain clothing.”

“Can you describe those men?”

“There was a young man. I can barely picture him in my head. He had a beard, I think. Another, older man, too. Blond-haired, I believe.” Woldu rubbed at a cluster of raised moles on his forehead. “When I saw them it was very briefly. I’d have to think about it.”

“I have your number.”

“And I have yours.”

“I didn’t mean to push,” said Lucas. “I apologize.”

“I have nothing to hide.”

“Habesha,” said Lucas.

They shook hands.

Tom Petersen sat behind his desk, reading the one-page report Lucas had typed and printed after his lunch at the Hitching Post. Lucas, seated before the desk in a wobbly chair, watched as Petersen dropped the sheet and folded his hands across his belly.

“I’m not sure what you’re saying here,” said Petersen. “Exactly.”

“I’m giving you a scenario,” said Lucas. “Edwina Christian was seeing a man named Brian Dodson at the same time she was seeing Calvin Bates. My source tells me that Dodson has been identified as a contract killer per Federal wiretaps.”

“That’s interesting.”

“When I interviewed Virginia Christian, she explained a quote I read in the discovery material, something to the effect of her daughter wanting to ‘take care’ of Bates. Virginia said that this meant Edwina wanted to help Bates. That she was on a mission from her pastor at church. But what if Edwina Christian wanted to take care of Bates in a different way? As in, take him out permanently. He wouldn’t leave her alone, and it had become a problem. She had a relationship with a low-rent hit man. Dodson would be the one she’d turn to.”

“I’m getting a warm feeling now.”

“What was the caliber of the slug found in Edwina’s brainpan?” said Lucas.

“Twenty-two.”

“Twenty-twos are used by professionals who like to work close-in.”

“Now the blood is flowing to my pecker.”

“And consider this: one of Dodson’s vehicles is a Ford Excursion.”

“I’m guessing it has a wide axle track.”

“Look up the specs online. It could be that Dodson’s Excursion is the vehicle that laid those tracks down near the woods in Southern Maryland.”

“Yes, it could be. But why?”

“Because it’s a heavy truck?”

“No, I’m asking, why would Brian Dodson murder Edwina Christian? What was the motive?”

“I don’t know,” said Lucas. “Maybe she paid him and he decided to do her instead of Bates. Maybe Dodson and Bates were in collusion.”

“Don’t stray too far into Candy Land.”

“Okay, but let’s stay with the theory that she paid Dodson to hit Bates. Go ahead and access her bank records. You might find a significant withdrawal before her murder.”

“Okay, I’m still with you. But there’s the matter of Bates’s presence near those woods, right around her time of death. The GPS records from his ankle bracelet don’t lie. What was he doing down there? And why would he torch his truck to cover up evidence if he was innocent?”

“Maybe someone else torched his truck and set him up.”

“Candy Land.”

“I’m only giving you some possibilities,” said Lucas. “You asked me to find something, and I did.”

Petersen stood. He paced the room, his cowboy boots clomping on the wood floor. “I’m going to trial in a couple of days.”

“Then subpoena Dodson and put him on the stand,” said Lucas. “At least you’ll put a, you know, seed of doubt into the jury’s mind.”

“And cut to commercial break,” said Petersen, with amusement.

Lucas got out of his chair. He stretched and picked up his notebook off the desk.

“You’re leaving?” said Petersen.

“I’ve got plans tonight.”

“A woman, I take it.”

“I’m like that.”

“‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.’”

“I intend to,” said Lucas. “By the way, I’m going to be out of commission for a while.”

“Side job?”

Lucas didn’t answer. He walked toward the door.

“Spero,” said Petersen, and Lucas stopped and turned. “Nice work on this one. Real nice.”

Lucas said, “I know.”

Three men sat in a white police-package Crown Victoria purchased at auction in Manassas, Virginia. They were in the lot of a Maryland rest area between Washington and Baltimore off Interstate 95. A middle-aged man approaching elderly had gotten out of a late-model Honda Accord and from its rear seat had retrieved a brown attaché case and a gym bag with padded handles. Now the man was walking, somewhat stoop-shouldered, toward the men’s room. The men in the Ford were watching him.

“He is taking the goods inside with him,” said Serge Bacalov from the backseat. He was dressed in tight jeans, a fitted T-shirt sporting a winged logo, and running shoes. His hair was curly and dark. He had thick lips, a simian-like muzzle, crooked teeth, and eyebrows that met above his nose.

In the passenger seat, Billy King made no comment. Bacalov tended to state the obvious and talked too much in general.

Billy was in his midthirties and wore khaki pants, leather boat shoes without socks, and a sky-blue polo shirt stretched tight across his heavily muscled shoulders and chest. His thinning blond hair was combed to the side and some of it fell across his flat, tan forehead. His eyes were pale blue and lacked warmth. He was the type seen in beach towns and marinas in November, frayed shorts and brown Reef sandals, his sunglasses hanging on a leash, sitting at the bar next to an older divorcée, preparing to move in to her settlement-house for the winter.

Beside him, behind the wheel, was a younger man named Louis Smalls. He was tall, reedy, and quiet. His eyes were deep brown and could move quickly from needy to cool. He typically dressed in jeans, faded T-shirts, and Vans, wore his hair shaggy, and had a full beard in the manner of a singer-writer circa 1970 or a sensitive, hungry young poet. Of the three men, he was the only one carrying a criminal conviction. He had done time in Hagerstown for a series of convenience store robberies, which he’d committed using a ski mask and a snub-nosed .38. He had served out his full stretch deliberately, so as to avoid supervision. Despite his innocent looks, he was capable in complicated situations, ice when things got heated, and deft in the handling of cars.

King, Smalls, and Bacalov used different last names whenever the situation demanded it. They mostly used their real Christian names. Otherwise, a man could forget who he was and not respond when being spoken to. They all possessed multiple IDs. The IDs would not be passable to the eyes of trained law enforcement professionals, but for laymen they were fine. In the city, these were easy to obtain.

“I’ll do it,” said Bacalov, eagerly, reaching under the front seat and slipping something short and substantial under his shirt.

“Go with him, Louis,” said King. “Abort if anything looks wrong.”

Smalls nodded. He and Bacalov got out of the car and went where the old man had gone. King could not see much, as a row of hedges blocked his view of the facility, but he trusted Louis to make the right call. King sat calmly and waited.

Five minutes later, Bacalov and Smalls returned and took their spots in the car. Both were empty-handed.

“What happened?” said King.

“Fucking people,” said Bacalov. The numerous tourists, truckers, and I-95 commuters milled around the facilities, some heading in and out of the bathrooms, others there for the Travel Information Center, or simply standing, smoking, walking their dogs by the picnic tables, or stretching in the lot.

“Too many,” said Smalls. “And there’s a camera mounted over the door to the men’s room.”

Smalls was particularly sensitive to the placement of surveillance cameras. He had been convicted based on the video obtained from a 7-Eleven he’d done in Burtonsville, Maryland. He had been wearing a mask, but his distinctive forearm tattoo, a skull cleaved by a dagger, had been visible in the shot. He’d rolled his sleeves up before he’d gone in, because he’d been hot. A mistake of youth, one he would not make again.

“He’s in the bathroom?” said King.

“Serge followed him in,” said Smalls.

“He is leaving shit,” said Bacalov.

Taking a shit, you dumbass, thought King. But he made no comment.

Soon Rubin emerged from around the bank of hedges, goods in hand, and went to his Honda. He started the Accord, drove out of the lot onto the long exit road, and merged back on to 95 South. Smalls kept the Ford back and followed.

“He lives in Rockville,” said King. “That’s another half hour away. Old fuckers have weak bladders. Maybe he’ll have to stop again.”

“You hope,” said Bacalov.

King grew doubtful as Rubin moved down the highway. They passed the exits for Route 216, then 198. They blew by an omnibus sign advertising lodging and fast food. Rubin hit his right turn signal at the next exit, Route 200, heading toward Calverton. Smalls let a Pathfinder get ahead of him, and as its driver put his car between the Crown Vic and the Accord, he too exited. On Powder Mill Road the Accord slowed down and turned into a lot of a McDonald’s, and Smalls did the same, swinging into a spot far from where Rubin had parked. Rubin again got the attaché and gym bag out of his car and entered a side door of McDonald’s.

“He saw the Golden Arches on the sign,” said Bacalov. “Americans cannot resist.”

“Why the side door if he’s going to order food?” said Smalls.

“He’s gonna wash his hands first,” said King. “This could be our last chance. The next stop for Rubin is his house. I don’t want to do an invasion. There’s no need for that.”

Ira Rubin was a coin dealer who had a retail storefront in the Wheaton Triangle. He was returning from a convention in Trenton, New Jersey, with many items he had bought in meetings held in private suites. While there he had successfully negotiated the purchase of a collection of uncirculated 1908-S twenty-dollar St. Gaudens gold pieces housed in thick plastic cases. Each could be resold for about nine thousand dollars, though Rubin had negotiated a far lower price. The collection, when sold together, was worth close to a hundred thousand dollars on the open market, and would soon be even more valuable, thanks to the recession and the attendant investment flight to gold. He had also purchased a rare, uncirculated 1926-D that was worth twelve thousand dollars.

King did not have knowledge of these transactions or details. But he knew that Ira Rubin was a large regional player in the coin world because he had read about him on several specialty Internet sites. He had also visited Rubin’s shop. From message boards on those same sites, he had learned that Rubin would be attending the convention in Trenton and that he was “coming to buy.” A story in the Washington Post about a coin dealer who was robbed in his own driveway in Arlington, Virginia, had further piqued King’s interest. This was a job that could be easy and relatively safe.

King, Smalls, and Bacalov had once taken off a check-cashing store in a poor neighborhood of the District, but the monetary rewards had been paltry. With the cameras and the potential for armed employees, that type of thing carried too much risk. Only Bacalov seemed to enjoy the experience. In comparison to a retail job, hitting an old coin dealer seemed like a walk. Plus, gold was up to almost two thousand dollars an ounce. And, as always, Bacalov was game and had experience. He and his Russian friends had been involved in this kind of thing before. As for Smalls, he didn’t object, which was like saying yes, for him. King thought, Why not?

It had cost them some seed money. They had tailed Rubin from his house to New Jersey, had to spring for a couple of rooms at a Motel 6, fill their tanks many times with gas, buy meals and liquor. There had been no good opportunity for the takeoff up north.

Now they would see if the expense and time had been worthwhile. But it had to be now.

“You and me,” said King, to Bacalov. “Let’s go.”

Smalls kept the motor running and watched King and Bacalov walk toward the fast-food house. King was talking, Bacalov nodding his head.

“I’ll stand by the door,” said King.

“Good.”

“You have to do it fast, fella.”

“Yes, of course.” Bacalov smiled thinly. “I will give him a goodnight kiss.”

They entered the side door of the McDonald’s. It was not particularly full, some booths and two-tops occupied, many others empty. Bacalov went straight to the men’s room door, pushed on it, and stepped inside. Billy King stood near the door, took his smartphone from his pocket, and studied its screen as if he were reading messages. From outside the door, he heard a thud, like laundry being dropped to the floor.

As soon as Bacalov entered the small men’s room and saw the open stall door, he knew that he and Rubin were alone. Rubin had the attaché case and the gym bag wedged between his feet, and he was standing over the sink, splashing water on his face. He stood before a mirror but his eyes were closed, and Serge withdrew the sap he had wedged in his waistband. He raised it, stepped forward, and swung it with great force to the back of Rubin’s head. Rubin said, “Ah,” and his eyes rolled up as his knees buckled. His face hit the sink counter on the way down to the floor.

There was copious blood, a pool of it widening around the man’s head. Bacalov did not check on him. He picked up the attaché and gym bag and went back toward the door. King had said not to dead the old man and he had not intended to, but there was only one way to get in and get out quickly, and that was to turn off Rubin’s lights. Anyway, Bacalov had the goods.

Bacalov and King went through the side dining area, passing adults and their children busily eating their fast food. None of them looked up or seemed to notice anything at all.

“Did you hurt him?” said King, as they moved through the lot.

“Yes, I think so,” said Bacalov.

Louis Smalls put the Ford in gear as they settled into their seats. He drove quickly out of the parking lot, careful not to leave rubber or make any significant noise, and soon the three of them were back on 95. There was a stony silence in the car, and Bacalov knew it was meant for him.

“I fucked up,” said Bacalov, with a careless shrug. “Okay?”

“Serge hit the old man too hard,” said King.

“You kill him?” said Smalls.

“No,” said Bacalov. But he thought maybe he had.

In the next few days, after the accident in the hotel room, it seemed to Lucas that he had accomplished little. Later he’d know that he had done significant work in this period, but it would not come to him just yet. He was mainly frustrated and confused.

His hand was part of the problem. It bothered him to be a gimp. A man didn’t like to walk down the street without the full ability to defend himself, and this was how it was for him now. He had sustained no significant injuries in Iraq outside of cuts, scrapes, and bruises, and had experienced the usual maladies, like dehydration, diarrhea, ingrown toenails, and athlete’s foot, but he was not used to being hampered like this. He had once thought that Christ had been looking after him in the Middle East, but after witnessing many accidental deaths in the war, he knew he had been spared by virtue of dumb luck. Neither God nor luck had anything to do with this injury. Inattention had caused him to trip. Idiocy had put his hand out to break his fall on a floor of broken glass.

Underneath his bandage, his hand was heavily slathered in Neosporin. The crescent-shaped cut on the heel of his palm was stitched like a baseball. Still, he managed to maintain his exercise regimen. He could use the push-up stands if he didn’t grip the handle too tightly and could ride his bike the same way. That left work.

He found it difficult to concentrate, but that wasn’t because of his injury. It was Charlotte Rivers. His brother would say he was drunk on pussy, and that was part of it, but not all. He wanted her to be his girlfriend. He wanted to walk with her out in the world, as he would with any other woman. See her outside that suite, take her to a movie, hold her hand across the dinner table of a nice restaurant, Mourayo on Connecticut, or Petits Plats, the little French place he liked in Woodley Park. But Charlotte wasn’t answering her phone or returning his texts. Of course she wasn’t. She was married, and she owned a disposable cell for secretive purposes only. She turned on the burner only to contact him when she wanted to. Spero Lucas, her young lover. Her lover boy whom she summoned whenever she had the need.

“Fuck this,” said Lucas, to no one, seated alone at his table, reading the morning Post.

He turned his attention to the Metro section of the newspaper. Among the usual violent deaths of blacks and Hispanics buried inside the section, one story got extra column inches and ink. An elderly coin dealer, Ira Rubin, well known in the area because of his longtime retail operation in Wheaton, had been severely injured and robbed of his goods inside a McDonald’s bathroom in Beltsville. The man was listed in critical but stable condition, which typically meant he was going to recover. Rubin had been hit by a blunt object from behind, and the force of the blow had split his skull. Bad Day at Black Rock, thought Lucas. But at least he’s alive.

Lucas got into shorts and a T, rode his bike up to Silver Spring, and locked it to a pole outside Kefa Cafe on Bonifant Street, his favorite coffee shop in his old neighborhood. Sitting at a table among the laptoppers and City Paper readers was John Starr, a private investigator who had garnered a rep around town in the past twenty years. Starr had been a guitarist and vocalist in one of the premiere bands recording for Dischord in the early nineties and, like many in the original Positive Force movement, had put his ideals to work as he moved along into his middle age. He mainly took cases or incidents when he thought that the defendant was being railroaded or wronged. Lucas had met him down at the federal courthouse one day while both of them were waiting to testify in separate trials. They’d hit it off.

“What’d you do, drop your wallet on your hand?” said Starr.

“Just garden-variety stupidity,” said Lucas.

Starr was drinking coffee; Lucas, iced tea.

“So you want to draw this guy out?” said Starr.

“I think he’s in town,” said Lucas. “Him and another guy I’m looking at for something else. They’re together.”

“Together in what?”

“Criminal shit,” said Lucas. “Scamming and thievery. At least one of them’s a sociopath. There’s a third guy, too, someone I know nothing about.”

“But the one you’re looking for first is the guy who ran the Nigerian four-one-nine thing?”

“I think he’s going to be the easiest to find. The name on his e-mails was Grant Summers, but his real name is Serge Nikolai. If that’s his real name. I really don’t know.”

“After you called me, I contacted a Swiss friend who specializes in this type of fraud. He said that most of these guys are organized and operate out of Internet cafés overseas.”

“I don’t know how organized they are. The other one, Billy Hunter, he left my client a total wreck after he stole something out of her apartment. Used her till there was nothing left of her and then walked away with a valuable piece of art. They’re leaving behind a trail of hurt, man. That makes them sloppy.”

“What’s their motivation? Is it money?”

“In part, I would imagine.”

“So tempt them with more. The Internet scammer first.” Starr sipped from his coffee cup. “I assume the ad for the Mini Cooper has been taken down from Craigslist.”

“Yes.”

“But you still have the Grant Summers e-mail address. So reach out to him. Try to ferret him out. Tell him you want that particular car and will overpay to get it. Let him lick his chops while you dig out pieces of information that you can use to identify him. Basically, bait him. If he’s about money, he’ll surface.”

“You think?”

“He’s a lowlife,” said Starr. “Dangle some dollars in front of his face. He’ll rear his ugly head.”

A message from Grant Summers appeared on Lucas’s laptop the next morning. In it were steps for setting up an escrow account and instructions for wiring the money. It was the identical system Summers had proposed for Grace Kinkaid, along with the identical guarantees, stating the money would be held in escrow for five days while Lucas drove the car, inspected it, and was fully satisfied with the vehicle.

Lucas replied: As I told you, I need to inspect the Mini myself before I give you the money. I am not a tire kicker. I want this car. I am only protecting myself. I think you would do the same if you were in my position. Sincerely, Rick Bell.

He got no response. Lucas changed into his bike shoes, lifted his LeMond onto his shoulder, and walked it downstairs. Out in the front yard, he used Miss Lee’s garden hose to fill his water bottle, and saw his young neighbor Nick Simmons out in the street, detailing his beloved baby blue El-D with the gold spoke Vogue wheels, which he co-owned with his dad. Nick, his hair in full Rasta, his beard untrimmed per the Old Testament he studied assiduously, deuced Lucas up with a two-finger salute.

Lucas swung onto his saddle and rode his bike north over the Maryland line, pedaling along the shoulder of the flat Sligo Creek Parkway, and into the hilly woods of Wheaton Regional Park. There he turned around and retraced his path. It was a solid twenty-mile ride.

When he got into his apartment, pleasantly sweaty and loose, he checked his laptop. Grant Summers had replied: I cannot come to you with the car. I am about to deploy to Afghanistan. They do not allow us to leave base.

Still deploying, thought Lucas, after all these months. Lucas hit him back with a phone number for one of several disposable cells he owned and said, Call me so we can discuss.

Immediately Summers replied, I cannot use phone, it is against regulations for deploying soldiers.

You mean, you cannot use the phone, thought Lucas. And you’ve forgotten, you’re not in the army. Marines don’t call themselves soldiers. They’re marines.

Lucas wrote back: I am willing to pay you seven thousand dollars over your original asking price, cash. If you want to make this deal, I need to see the car first. Respectfully, Rick Bell.

Lucas waited and got no reply. He did some research on regional American painters on the Internet and found an artist who was neither nationally famous nor unknown, which made her suitable for his purposes. This took about an hour, and in that time he still had not received a response from Summers. It didn’t seem fruitful to wait around the apartment any longer. He wondered if he had been too aggressive. Perhaps he had pushed too hard and scared Summers off. Anyway, he had sent the e-mails. He couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle now.

Lucas had a shower, dressed in nice clothing, and drove over to the Fort Totten Metro Station, where he took the Red Line around to the Dupont Circle stop. He was hoping to talk to an art appraiser. Specifically, he was looking for Charles Lumley.

The next day, Lucas met Marquis Rollins and Bobby Waldron at the bar of the American Legion, Cissel Saxon Post 41, on Sligo Avenue in Silver Spring. After he was buzzed through the security entrance, he slid onto a stool between Marquis and Waldron at the double-sided stick.

There were several solitary drinkers today and sets of two and three as well. The place was sparsely decorated in the manner of a school auditorium, and not well lit, but the draw wasn’t the decor or the ambience. It was a second home to many veterans in the area and some who visited from out of state. People liked to drink with others who shared their experiences, and they liked to be with their own kind. Plus, the beer was cold and very cheap.

“What’d you do to that hand, lover?” said Marquis, nodding at Lucas’s bandage.

“I fell down in some broken glass,” said Lucas.

“Sure you didn’t put your paw where it didn’t belong?” said Waldron.

“There was a woman,” said Lucas.

“Always is, with you,” said Marquis.

The bartender put a Budweiser in front of Lucas. Here at the Legion he drank from brown bottles. He tapped his with Marquis’s and Waldron’s.

“Success,” said Lucas.

“Hear, hear,” said Marquis, looking smart in his matching outfit, a billowing print shirt and pants. His New Balance sneakers somewhat reduced the sartorial effect of his getup, but not entirely. Sneaks were the only kind of shoe he could comfortably wear on the end of his prosthetic leg.

“I’m for it,” said Waldron, wearing a T-shirt with cutoff sleeves, the better to show off his guns and tiger-stripe tats. The “dots” on his forearm, small bits of shrapnel permanently embedded under his skin, were augmented with tiny dots inked in as well. “When I can get it.”

“Still doing security work, Bobby?” said Lucas.

“The boss man’s got me holding down an Urban Outfitters,” said Waldron.

“It does have urban in the name,” said Marquis. “So that means it must be dangerous.”

“It’s a jungle out there,” said Waldron. “In Georgetown.”

“Yeah, how’s it feel to be back in uniform, Waldron?”

This came from Tom Kaniewski, seated on the other side of the bar, five beers deep into the afternoon. Kaniewski was in his late forties, a marine who had participated in an infamous Reagan-era military action. Waldron had been a PFC in the army, posted for recon at a firebase in the Korengol Valley of Afghanistan. The animosity between the branches of the service was real for some, almost a tradition, but Waldron plain didn’t like Kaniewski, a decent guy ordinarily whose mouth overloaded his asshole when he drank. As for Lucas, he had nothing but respect for the guys in the army. They’d caught it in Fallujah, and dealt it back.

“Fuck you, Tommy,” said Waldron.

“I’m just playing with you,” said Kaniewski.

“Play with this,” said Waldron. “I should be more understanding of you, I guess. You’re still living with the posttraumatic stress of that Grenada invasion.”

“That again.”

“The climax of Heartbreak Ridge had me on the edge of my seat.”

“Excuse me,” said Kaniewski to the guy seated next to him, and clumsily got off his stool and headed toward the bathroom.

“Where you goin, Kaniewski?” said Waldron. “Is it time to change your tampon?”

A couple of the men at the bar smiled charitably. Then they kept drinking.

“I’m gonna catch a smoke,” said Waldron, and he headed for the side door, which led out to a patio and yard.

“What’s eating him?” said Lucas, after he was out of earshot.

“Bobby’s just ornery like that,” said Marquis. “You gonna hit him up for some iron?”

“I don’t think so,” said Lucas. “Not yet.”

Waldron had an arsenal of firearms, ammunition, knives, combat gear, and body armor he sold and rented out to select people he could trust. He bought the hardware at gun shows and from private dealers. The ammo and armor had been easily purchased over the Internet.

“So this thing you called me about,” said Marquis. “Should I be updating my will?”

“I don’t know. We’re dealing with three guys. One’s an Internet scammer, the other’s a thief and, when it comes to women, probably a sociopath. The third one, I’ve got nothing on him. But I’m not looking to bring a gun to this party. You pull a gun, you have to shoot it.”

“What you gonna do if they have guns? Point your finger and go bang?”

“If it works out like I want, I’m just gonna piss this guy off enough for him to leave.”

“And me?”

“We’ll take two rentals. I’ll go in for the meet, you hang outside the perimeter. When he leaves, tail him or his crew to wherever they go. I need to find out where these guys stay. Once I do that, I can figure out a way to get into their crib and steal back the painting.”

“You make it sound like a picnic in Rock Creek Park.”

Lucas shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

“What about the lay of the land?”

“The dude just gave me the location this morning. It’s over there in Ward Nine.”

After the increased migration of east-of-the-river residents from the 7th and 8th Wards of D.C. into Maryland, and the attendant rise in crime, some folks had been describing PG County as Ward 9. It was not a term of endearment.

“We Prince Georges County residents don’t like it when you describe our home in that derogatory way.”

“Sorry. The spot he picked used to be a strip mall in Oxon Hill. Now it’s a bunch of empty stores with no tenants.”

“A deserted strip mall.”

“He wants me to meet him around back.”

“Where it’s even more deserted. This gets better the more you talk about it.”

“We’re gonna check it out first, of course.”

“Of course.”

Lucas drank some Bud and placed the bottle on the bar. He looked at Marquis’s outfit and grinned. “Can’t touch this.”

“Huh?”

“MC Hammer’s closet has some empty hangers in it today.”

Marquis reached over and flicked the leg of Lucas’s Dickies. “I used to have a pair of trousers like that.”

“And then your father got a job.”

“You should own two pairs.”

“One to shit on, and one to cover it up with.”

“You heard all those, huh? And here I was, thinking I was gonna make you smile.”

“Let’s finish these beers,” said Lucas. “Go have a look at that mall.”

The strip mall had been built in Oxon Hill, near the Henson Creek Golf Course and Henson Creek Park. The developers had hoped that the golfers and park users would generate sufficient traffic to support a small low-rise shopping center, with a Kmart as an anchor. But the Kmart went belly-up, and the satellite establishments — a video store, a dollar store, a hair and nail salon, a cut-rate furniture house, and a Chinese/steak — and-cheese house — soon followed. The center was scheduled to be demolished, but in the meantime it stood intact, albeit with an empty parking lot where weeds sprouted out of its cracked asphalt and concrete.

Behind the buildings was a smaller lot designed for truck and tractor trailer deliveries, and at its edge, a narrow but dense forest. This was where the meet would take place.

After the traditional pre-job breakfast at the Tastee Diner in Silver Spring, where Lucas had his cream chipped beef on toast and Marquis flirted with the Ethiopian waitresses, Lucas and Marquis went to a nearby car rental spot. Lucas, who had a standing deal with the manager, chose a nondescript blue Ford Fusion with a V-6 package. Marquis went with a black Maxima that had more horses but also would not stand out in traffic. There in the lot Lucas handed Marquis a business-grade two-way Motorola radio and an earpiece with an in-line voice-activated mic.

“You remember how to use that?” said Lucas.

“I know the drill,” said Marquis, moving the black-framed glasses he wore for distance to the crown of his head so he could get a good look at the unit. “But I don’t like wearing this headset. I’m talking about all these cancer-causing radio waves shooting into my ear.”

“The waves go to the device.”

“Yeah, but how do those waves know to go directly to the device? I’m sayin, do they make a shortcut and go through my brain first to get there? Or do they enter through my other ear? Radio waves can’t think. They got no conscience.”

“You survived the war, and you’re worried about this?”

“Exactly. Life is precious, man. To go through all that and then come back and let technology kill me? Uh-uh. There’s too many women out here, waitin on Marquis Rollins to service them. I check out early, they’re gonna miss out.”

“Oh, so now you’re talking about yourself in the third person.”

“It’s just more dramatic like that. It makes my point.”

“Let’s go, LeBron. We got work to do.”

They took 295 and picked up the Indian Head Highway, keeping in contact via their radios as they made their way to the strip mall. On Livingston Road they passed a fire house and made other turnoffs and found the strip mall they had studied the day before. Lucas saw no cars in the front lot, but he kept driving south, down a hill, and Marquis followed. They parked and idled on the shoulder of the road, about a half mile past the mall. Lucas got out of his vehicle and walked to the Maxima as the driver’s side window slid down.

“There ain’t nothin around that mall but weeds and trees,” said Marquis. “Where can a handsome fellow like me be inconspicuous?”

“The meet time is in a half hour. You stay right here. I’m gonna go behind the mall and wait in my car. When he comes, I’ll key the mic and you’ll know it’s on. Drive up the road and park on the shoulder near the entrance to the parking lot. When he or they come out, you follow as best you can. I’ll be behind you. Stay in contact via your headset.”

“Sounds foolproof.”

“I know, it’s fucked. The dude chose a spot to his advantage. What can we do?”

“I am getting paid for this, right?”

“You mean, money? I bought you breakfast.”

“Monkey-lover.” Marquis was a churchgoing type who tried not to curse.

Lucas got back in his Ford. He drove up the road and around back of the strip mall, behind the loading docks of the former Kmart. To his left the land sloped up into a forest of oak, maple, and pine. He sat in the driver’s seat and listened to a mix he’d burned, guitar-driven Southern rock to keep his blood up. In the cup holder of the console rested the disposable cell that carried the number he’d given to Serge.

Lucas waited. There wasn’t anything else to do.

Lucas called the rental car manager, a man he’d done business with many times before, and explained the situation. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation, but it ended reasonably well and freed Lucas to find some medical attention for Marquis. Over Marquis’s mild protests, Lucas drove him to the VA Medical Center on Irving Street in D.C.

Lucas sat in the waiting room with veterans of Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, and various Middle East wars while Marquis saw the doctor. A WWII veteran in his late eighties, assisted by an oxygen tank and caregiver, sat waiting, too. Some of the patients had no visible ailments, some of them were amputees with prosthetics or no limb replacements at all, others were wheelchair bound, and one bore the unmistakable neurological damage of Agent Orange. Now middle-aged and elderly, they’d been treated in places like this one since they were young men and women. They’d continue to be under VA care for the rest of their lives. No one would ever film a Budweiser commercial here.

It was late afternoon when Marquis emerged from a treatment room. He had some ointment on his face from where the air-bag fuel had stung him, and he was walking a little more stiffly than usual.

“Everything in working order?” said Lucas.

“Doc said I’ll be pretty sore tomorrow. But I’m fine.”

“They give you anything good?”

“Vicodin. But you know I don’t like pills.”

“I’ve got some good smoke if you’re interested. It’ll take your mind off damn near everything.”

“Much appreciated,” said Marquis. “They had a fine nurse back in there, man. I was hoping she’d give me a thorough examination.”

“They don’t nut-check car accident victims.”

“A man can dream.”

Lucas had dropped Marquis off when they’d arrived. As they walked out the front doors of the hospital, he pointed across the lot. “There’s the car.”

“Can’t you get it and pick me up?”

“Don’t be a bitch.”

Lucas stopped at his apartment for some weed, then drove Marquis to the rental car agency and dropped him off at his Buick.

“I’m real sorry about this,” said Lucas.

“Ain’t no thing,” said Marquis.

They bumped fists.

In the morning, Lucas made a couple of calls, packed a heavy-duty nylon bag, picked up a Buick Enclave SUV from his increasingly less-tolerant car rental agent, and drove over to North Capitol Street, where he met Abraham Woldu and traded a key in exchange for cash. Lucas then drove over to Winston Dupree’s apartment, which took up the first floor of a 4th Street row house, just south of Missouri Avenue, in Manor Park.

On the street, Lucas parked the Enclave behind Dupree’s truck, a Redskins-burgundy F-150 with a ’Skins headdress decal centered in the rear window. Two spots down, a similar half-ton truck sat parked with the Cowboys star decal on its bumper. Lucas had a sick feeling in his stomach whenever he saw the Star. He rooted for two teams: the Washington Redskins and whoever was playing the Dallas Cowboys.

A second door had been added to the row house when its owner had sectioned off the rental unit. Lucas, bag in hand, went through it when Dupree answered his knock, a chocolate-colored dog that was almost a Lab by his side. Dupree was wearing a Robert Griffin III jersey and black Nike shorts. Before his war injury, he’d been quick and athletic. He was still big enough to play on Sundays.

“Nice-looking dog,” said Lucas.

“He got named Flash when he was a puppy,” said Dupree. “But he’s got too much ass on him to live up to it.”

“Looks like he’s carrying a little pit. His head’s too squared off for full Lab.”

“He couldn’t hurt anybody.”

“He would if they fucked with you.” Lucas saw the way the dog was looking up at Dupree, listening to his voice with full devotion.

“This boy’s gentle. Some lucky veteran’s gonna get him soon. Come on in and sit.”

They moved into a living room crowded with overstuffed furniture, passed down from Dupree’s mother, a woman who’d recently died of complications related to her weight and diabetes. Dupree had grown up nearby, off Kennedy Street, in a time when drug-dealing and gangs were prevalent, in a neighborhood where some of his peers had been killed or shipped off to out-of-state prisons. Dupree’s mother was a single parent to him and his brothers, with strength tempered by a strong belief in the Lord, and all of her boys had somehow managed to avoid the lure of the streets. Dupree had gone to DeMatha, the storied Catholic high school in Hyattsville, and had played safety for Coach Bill McGregor on the football squad. His brothers, who had gone on to professional careers, were DeMatha grads as well. Winston had Division I scholarship offers but, like Lucas, had elected to join the Marine Corps after September 11. Neither of them had enrolled in college after their tours. In this, in their love of the ’Skins, and in their shared combat experience overseas, they had bonded.

They sat on a couch, Flash lying at Dupree’s feet, as Lucas explained the Grace Kinkaid job. He told Dupree what he had in mind for taking the task to the next level, and made him a monetary offer. When Lucas was done, Dupree took off his wire-rim glasses, fogged the lenses with his breath, and wiped them clean with his jersey.

“You sure about this?” said Dupree.

“The biggest risk is in taking him off the street. We do that without getting burned, we’ll be all right.”

“You got a place to take him?”

“We’re set. I’ve got a one-day rental.”

“That’s all well and good. But what you’re fixin to do to this man is...”

“A little extreme,” said Lucas. “You in?”

Dupree nodded. “I got nothing else goin on.”

“You’re gonna need to change out of that RG-Three jersey.”

“I wouldn’t want to soil it.” Dupree nodded at the nylon bag Lucas had set on the coffee table. “What you got in there?”

Lucas unzipped the bag. Dupree moved a small bolt cutter and a roll of duct tape aside and had a look at the rest of the contents.

“Damn, boy,” said Dupree. “Where’d you get that stuff?”

“Amazon dot com.”

“That piece right there, in that holster? It’s illegal to receive it in D.C.”

“I had it shipped to my mom’s house in Silver Spring.”

Dupree’s teeth bucked as he smiled. “Do I get to be the good guy or the bad guy?”

“We’re both gonna be bad,” said Lucas. “Change into something less conspicuous and let’s get going.”

“I got a ninja suit hanging in my closet.”

“Bring your throwing stars, too.”

In the morning, Lucas met Winston Dupree at his apartment on 4th and drove out to Rockville, Maryland. There, in a neighborhood of modest GI-Bill homes off Veirs Mill Road, they found the Waldron residence, a tidy rambler with a small, trimmed yard and an American flag hung above the front door. Bobby Waldron lived here with his parents, in the basement of the house in which he’d been raised.

They were greeted by Rosemary Waldron, a boisterous redhead, retired from a career-long slog in the cafeterias of the Montgomery County school system. Her husband, Bobby’s father, was a master plumber and self-employed. When Bobby was a boy, his father had painted the words Waldron and Son Plumbing on the sides of his truck, but Bobby had expressed no desire to learn the trade. Instead, he enlisted in the army straight out of Richard Montgomery High.

Rosemary Waldron let Lucas and Dupree in and offered them a couple of Miller High Lifes. They declined. She knew Lucas but not Dupree and, assuming he was a veteran, asked about his deployment and war experience. After Dupree detailed his military background to her in front of a fireplace mantel holding photographs of Bobby in football and army uniforms, he and Lucas excused themselves and met Bobby at the foot of the basement stairs. He was wearing jeans and a Champion jersey with cut-off sleeves, revealing his thick arms and tiger-stripe tats.

Waldron had drunk beer with Dupree at the American Legion bar in Silver Spring many times, but they had not hit it off. Waldron had a short-man complex, for one, and there was the matter of Dupree’s size. Also, Waldron liked to play that Marine Corps versus army game, a dick-size contest that no one could ever win. Lucas made it a point never to dip his toe, or anything else, in those contaminated waters.

“Come with me,” said Waldron.

They followed him to his dark, windowless room, which smelled of Marlboros and Axe body spray. A dime would bounce off Waldron’s bed if tossed onto it; against the wall, many pairs of sneakers were perfectly aligned. It was more barracks than bedroom.

Waldron closed the door, locked it, then went to his closet and retrieved a couple of duffel-sized ripstop bags. He dropped the bags on his bed and unzipped them.

“Short notice,” said Waldron. He looked up at Dupree and shrugged elaborately. “If you’d given me some time, I could’ve got you one of those SAWs.”

“For real?” said Dupree, putting a little edge into his voice. He doubted Waldron could have come up with an M249, a machine gun capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute. But then again, they were in America.

“Yeah, for real,” said Waldron.

“What do you have for us, Bobby?” said Lucas, hoping to cut the tension and move things along.

“Shotguns, to start,” said Waldron. “Mossberg Five Hundreds.” Waldron pulled a pump-action twelve-gauge from one of the bags. “I know you guys used Benellis...”

“We used anything we could get,” said Lucas.

“The Mossberg will do,” said Dupree.

“Military spec,” said Waldron.

“Pistols,” said Lucas.

“I got you a choice of revolvers, Luke. I know you like the no-jam insurance.”

“Talk to me.”

“S and W Combat Magnums. If you’re looking for a hand cannon, I’ve got a three-fifty-seven.”

“Too much.”

“A thirty-eight, then.”

“Let me see it.”

Waldron handed Lucas a six-shot Smith & Wesson Special with a four-inch barrel and soft rubber grips.

Lucas hefted it in his hand. “I like this.” He placed it on the bed.

“Now the semis,” said Waldron. “You jarheads favor your Italian pieces. I came up with a couple of M-Nines in pristine condition.”

Waldron handed a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol to Lucas. He ran his thumb over its black checkered grip. He turned the gun sideways and worked the slide. When it locked open, he inspected the chamber.

“Looks clean,” said Lucas.

“I stripped and bored them myself,” said Waldron.

“Military-issue mags?”

“Beretta, dad.”

“Better,” said Lucas. “We’ll take ’em both. That okay by you, Winston?”

“Yep.”

Waldron grinned. “The barrel on one of these was pre-threaded to accept a suppressor.”

“You got it?” said Lucas.

“Right here,” said Waldron, producing an SRT Arms silencer from the bag. Lucas took it and examined it with interest.

“What you need that for?” said Dupree.

“Need got nothin to do with it,” said Lucas.

“All with holsters and bricks,” said Waldron. “Shaved numbers on the pistols. You get popped, you’re on your own.”

Lucas nodded. “Understood. We’re gonna need some goggles.”

“Sure, I got NVGs.”

“Throw those in.”

“Kevlar?”

“Two vests,” said Lucas.

“You need me to show you how to work the goggles?” said Waldron, looking at Dupree. “The Marine Corps only issued them to officers, right?”

“If you can figure it out, we damn sure can,” said Dupree.

“Let me ask you somethin, Winston,” said Waldron. “Why’d your mama name you after a cigarette?”

“Why do you look like that character on the Frosted Flakes box?”

They showed each other teeth.

“Put it all in one bag, Bobby,” said Lucas. “We gotta get on our way.”

Lucas gave him cash.

On the way out of the house, Lucas, carrying the long, heavy bag, stopped to say good-bye to Rosemary Waldron, now drinking a beer, seated in front of the living room television set.

“Sure you two don’t want a couple of cold High Lifes?” she said.

“No, thank you,” said Lucas.

“What you got in the bag, Spero?”

“Bobby loaned me his Xbox and some games.”

“You boys have fun.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Dupree. “We will.”

They headed to the Jeep.

Late that night, Lucas dropped off Dupree at his apartment.

“So we gonna do this thing tomorrow night?” said Dupree.

“While King’s out of town,” said Lucas. “I’ll call you in the morning and we’ll firm it up.”

Lucas had promised Dupree there would be no shooting. The only way to keep his word was to leave Dupree out of it. His friend had been a fierce and reliable brother on the battlefield, but clearly that part of him was done. Upon his return to the States, Lucas had continued to embrace his warrior nature, for reasons he himself didn’t fully understand. Dupree had left his behind in the streets and deserts of Iraq.

Lucas felt that he’d been reckless to put his friend in harm’s way for a money job, in the same way he’d been careless with Marquis. Lucas had made the decision over dinner, looking across the table at Dupree in the restaurant on Route 301. He’d compensate him for the work he’d already done, but Dupree was not going back with him to the house in Croom. Lucas would go in alone.

Lucas had humped the half mile through the woods wearing his night vision goggles while carrying a bag heavy with gear and iron. He was in superior shape, but still, by the time he reached the tree line bordering the house, he needed to rest. He peeled off his goggles, allowed his breathing to slow, and opened the bag that he’d dropped beside him. He then removed the Beretta .9 and S&W .38 from the bag and fitted them in the holster belt looped into the pistol vest. The vest held shotgun shells, an extra mag for the.9, and hollow point rounds. He took the Mossberg from the bag and placed that on the ground beside the NVGs.

Lucas looked at the yard, where a single car, the white Crown Victoria that had rammed Marquis, was parked. One car, one driver: the young man with the beard, the one called Louis. But this didn’t mean there was only one person in the house. Maybe Bacalov didn’t own a car. Maybe he didn’t drive.

Lucas looked up at the house. One window had a light in it; the others were dark. Dark windows had been a primary danger area in Iraq. So were doorways and doors.

The front door of the house opened. Louis closed it behind him, locked it, and stepped onto the porch. As he did, the motion detector came on and sent light out into the yard. Lucas remained still. He watched Louis stand there and light a cigarette.

Carefully, quietly, Lucas got two pairs of double-cuff restraints from the bag. Keeping his eyes on Louis, he put them in a pouch of his vest. He then retrieved the roll of duct tape and slipped that into the pouch holding the loose hollow points. He picked up the shotgun with his left hand; he needed his throwing arm now.

Lucas felt along the earth until he found a stone. He rose from his crouch and stepped out of the woods, into the portion of the yard still in darkness. He planned to use a box tactic; he would avoid the area exposed by light, move in the blackness, and stay inside its line. He got as close to the house as he could without crossing that line, then threw the stone, arcing it high into the woods on the other side of the house. Louis turned his head in that direction as the rock skittered through the branches of trees. Lucas moved the Mossberg to his right hand and broke into a run.

He was on the porch quickly, taking its steps while barely touching them, reaching Louis, startled and frozen, within seconds. Lucas swung the shotgun, putting his hips into the motion. The stock connected under Louis’s jaw. He lost his legs, and Lucas hit him again in the temple as he was going down. Louis fell to the gallery floor. Lucas turned him over, flex-cuffed his hands and ankles, and wound duct tape around his head and mouth. He checked his breathing and searched his jeans pockets. Found a phone, a brown envelope holding money, a wallet, matches, and a ring holding keys. On the ring were the keys to the Ford. A house key, too.

Lucas moved to the door.

Lucas slept peacefully and got up late. He’d disposed of Bacalov’s laptop in a Dumpster the night before after breaking it into pieces on an alley floor. He’d built a compartment under a wood cutout in his bedroom closet, and there he’d stashed the guns. He’d return them to Bobby Waldron when he was certain that no heat had collected around the shooting.

He phoned Charlotte Rivers on her disposable and left a message. He read the Post out on his porch, did his prison workout, and had some lunch. Charlotte did not return his call.

He took a long bike ride, going north into Maryland, all the way out to Lake Needwood in Rockville. The trip took hours. When he returned to his apartment, he showered and phoned Grace Kinkaid. For straights, it was the end of the working day. She just gotten off work at her nonprofit and said she could be at her place in a half-hour’s time. Lucas agreed to meet her there.

Billy King had been shacking up with Lois Wilson for a few days in her waterfront house, a brick two-story on Dyer Road in Newberg, Maryland. Courtesy of her ex-husband, the home was furnished handsomely, with new appliances and an up-to-the-minute home entertainment center. A hundred yards from its back porch sat a dock, complete with boathouse, on a brackish deepwater creek leading out to the Wicomico River. In the boathouse was a nearly new twenty-two-foot Whaler powered by a big Merc engine. King figured he could spend some quality time in this place and live princely like the stud he was. But he was restless.

Not that he wasn’t wanted here. Lois was hungry, and he gave it to her until it seemed she couldn’t take any more. Then, when he hinted he might go, she begged him not to leave. He had her where he wanted her, but he’d gotten tired of her quick. Old stuff was all right in a low-lit bar, but when you got it home under stark incandescence it sure did look its age, and some things couldn’t be hid. Lois’s cans had been worked on, and her crow’s feet had been erased, but her thighs were oatmeal, and when the Spanx came off there was that dreaded roll around her waist. Still, she had some nice jewelry lying about on her bedroom dresser, a pearl necklace, diamond earrings and such, and a sweet emerald-and-diamond ring.

King was about to leave her for a while, but he’d return. For now, he had business in D.C.

The unsold paintings were bothering him. He’d worked hard to get them, two from the crinkle-bunny who lived at the Wyoming, and the last one from that juicer on Champlain Street. Jobs like those were an investment in time and effort. Now the paintings were sitting there at the house in Croom, wrapped in brown paper. That was real money, gathering dust. Charles Lumley needed to do his job and move the goods.

But Lumley wasn’t returning his calls. This disturbed King and made him suspicious. He didn’t like to be ignored. Worse, his phone calls to Serge had gone unanswered and unreturned as well. And now Louis had become unreachable. This was Louis, who followed King around like a broke-dick dog. Something was wrong.

King walked out of the house carrying his bag. He opened the rear lid of his Monte Carlo SS and stashed the bag in its trunk.

Lois followed him from the house wearing a bathrobe, cigarette in hand.

“Billy,” she said, reaching him as he opened his driver’s-side door. “Where you going, hon?”

Hon. Lois liked to brag that she hailed from Baltimore, and King gave a fuck.

“Work, doll.”

“You’re coming back, right?” She clutched at her robe, let it fall open slightly to give him a look at her retooled globes. She was going for sexy, but the sunlight did her no favors.

“Oh, yeah,” said King. “I wouldn’t leave a dish like you alone for too long.”

She moved to kiss his mouth. He let her, but held his breath. She smelled like an ashtray.

King fired up the SS.

Lucas had his stitches removed in the small white room of an urgent care clinic in Manor Park. He sat in a wooden chair as a Dr. Nikolic snipped and pulled the sutures using a set of clippers. It stung a little when the threads passed through his skin, but he didn’t let it show on his face. The doctor was a knockout, and he was going for tough.

Tanya Nikolic was tall and on the cusp of thirty, a black-haired beauty descended from Eastern European stock. She examined his wound closely and then poured hydrogen peroxide over it. Lucas watched it bubble over the raised crescent mark. When his hand was dry she affixed a butterfly bandage to the cut.

“That ER doctor did a good job,” said Nikolic. “It healed nicely.”

“What about that scar?” said Lucas.

“It’s real. You’ll have it for life.”

“Is that it for us?”

“What else would you like me to do?”

“You could take my blood pressure. I think it’s up right now.”

“Why’s that?”

“It always happens to me when a good-looking woman walks into a room.”

“You’re the first patient that’s ever said that to me.”

“Really?”

“No.” Dr. Nikolic smiled a little as she removed her gloves. “Just let that bandage fall off naturally. You’re good to go.”

Lucas left the clinic and headed downtown. Petersen had asked him to come in. Something to do with Calvin Bates.

Grace Kinkaid had a light day of work at her nonprofit and could have gone home early, but she usually stuck around till after five. She enjoyed the company of her coworkers. Also, if she went back to her condo too early, she’d start drinking, and the night would be too blurry and long. She was aware of her problem with alcohol and was making an effort to cut back. She’d heard that drink-counting was a warning sign of dependence, but she’d taken to doing just that, looking to keep her intake to three, four glasses of wine per day. Her intention was to get it down to two. As of yet, she’d not come close to achieving that goal. But she was trying.

Her office was on the sketchy side of the Hill, on one of the low-numbered streets in Northeast, between Constitution and H, but closer to H. She was an attorney but she earned a modest salary, not much more than the younger folks she worked with, who only had undergraduate degrees or no degree at all. The organization was called Food for Children, which was good for fund-raising and solicitation. People saw those words on a mailer, it was hard to throw away.

Grace didn’t have the high salary that came with a law firm, or its politics and rigidity. She liked the fact that she was doing something positive for her native city. Her work was mostly administrative, but in her mind she was helping to feed hungry kids.

“Good night, Neecie,” said Grace, to an overweight, pretty-faced woman with red lipstick, who sat at a nearby desk.

“Have a good one, Grace.”

Grace walked from the offices out to the street. There were neighborhood folks around but not too many, as most had not come home from work yet. Her car, a late-model Jetta, was parked down the block.

Grace had not yet gotten the money she owed Spero Lucas. Her intent was to close the deal with the painting’s buyer soon. She’d blown it off in part because he’d not reminded her, though she realized the responsibility was not his. It was funny about Spero. He didn’t even seem to want the money when he’d returned the painting. It was like it wasn’t important to him.

As she walked down the sidewalk, her purse in hand, she idly noticed a man get out of a nondescript sedan. In fact, it was an old Ford Taurus, a hack with stolen plates that the man had rented for one day from a resident of Lincoln Heights. The man wore a multicolored knit tam that normally covered dreads, but today covered wads of paper resting atop a modified Afro. His face had been shaven clean hours earlier, except for a thin Vandyke missing spots he couldn’t “get.” He wore aviator sunglasses with large lenses. To some, he went by Jabari Jones, but his surname was Alston. He was in disguise.

Grace did not pay much attention as the man approached her, and paid little more attention when he reached under the tail of his shirt. As he neared her, she saw his hand come out with a knife. It was long and serrated, and as he raised it, late-afternoon sun winked off its blade. Grace dropped her handbag to the sidewalk and turned her head, as if by looking away she could stop this. Alston grabbed Grace by the throat, came down with the knife, and stabbed her deeply in her right breast. Grace said, “Oh,” and felt the air go out of her as her knees buckled. Alston held her up and again plunged the knife into her chest. He released his hand from her throat, and as she fell, she felt blood leave her. Then a great deal of pain, but only for a moment, because she was going into shock. One leg twitched in spasm as she lay on the ground. Alston picked up her handbag and walked away.

A witness later described the assailant as “a Rasta dude with shades.” She said he’d gotten into an old blue “Ford or Chevy” and drove away. She noted that he’d looked “sick” as he’d quick-stepped to his car.

Billy King wore a faded red polo shirt, frayed khaki shorts, and Sperry topsiders with no socks. His sunglasses hung on a leash over his broad chest. He was seated at a two-top across from Lucas, in a new Ethiopian-owned coffee shop on Georgia Avenue, in Petworth, located on the second floor of a house.

Lucas had arrived a half hour early and found a seat with its back to a wall. When King had walked in, moving with a jaunty strut, he made an impression. Close up, he was even larger than Lucas had remembered. Below the waist, he was an animal. Freakishly flanked, a full-on beast. He’d be hard to take down.

The morning rush was over, but there were still several patrons seated at tables and on couches, killing time, working on their laptops, using the free Wi-Fi. Others stood by the go-counter, picking up stirring sticks and napkins, glancing at their phones before hurriedly leaving the shop.

“Suckers,” said King, pointing his chin in the direction of two young go-getters who were heading out the door. “Where they going that’s so important?”

“I imagine they’ve got jobs.”

“I work. So do you. But you and me, we don’t have to be anywhere at a certain time. We don’t walk fast unless we want to.” King brushed blond hair off his forehead. “So you’re an independent contractor?”

“Something like that.”

“Like one of those Blackwater guys.”

“No, not like them.”

“You find things.”

“Sometimes.”

“I’m curious. How’d Grace Kinkaid pay you? A flat fee or a commission?”

“Aren’t you gonna ask me how she’s doing?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She’s going to recover,” said Lucas. “I’m not sure if that bothers you or makes you happy.”

“Oh, has she been ill?” King furrowed his brow in a comic manifestation of concern.

“Cut the bullshit. You didn’t have to do that to her. This was between you and me.”

“She hired you, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Then she brought this on herself.”

“You’re a coward, Billy.”

“Careful.” King smiled pleasantly, showing Lucas his white teeth.

“Your man gave you your money’s worth. He almost cut off one of her breasts.”

“That’s a damn shame. Grace had nice tits. A little smaller than I normally like, but nice. And she had a real tight pussy, Lucas. For her age, I mean. Fit me like a glove.”

“Fucking degenerate.”

“I’m supposed to be ashamed? Of what? I got a big pipe and I like to use it. I make women come. I don’t buy ’em flowers or expensive dinners or any of that bullshit, because that’s all smoke and a waste of time. I take them straight to the bedroom and I give them what they want. It’s as simple as that. You know damn well what I’m talking about. You’re a healthy young man. You’re the same way.”

Lucas thought of Charlotte, naked beneath him, her mouth open, her face contorted in climax.

Lucas said, “No.”

“Sure you are. You ever fuck a woman against her will, Lucas?”

“Never.”

“Not even in high school, in the backseat of a car? Girl says no, but you keep trying, right? You talk her into it, or she gets tired of fighting and lets you in. Your cock’s so hard a cat can’t scratch it, and all you can think of is you. You’re not concerned with that girl’s feelings anymore. You just need to bust. Isn’t that right?”

Lucas said nothing.

“Don’t be so high and mighty,” said King. “It’s the same for you as it is for me. Once you get inside that box, your conscience goes out the window.”

“How would you know?” said Lucas.

“What’s that?”

“I hear you can’t get there unless you put it in a woman’s mouth.”

King sat back. For the first time Lucas saw the infinite nothing in his blue eyes.

“Let’s get to it,” said King.

“Fine.”

“What are we doing here?”

“You’re all alone now. Your crew is gone. Think about that.”

“I have. But I don’t need ’em, see? I’m stronger when I go solo.”

“Then go elsewhere,” said Lucas.

“You’re in no position to threaten me.”

“You paid someone to put a woman in the ER. You’re as guilty as the man who used the knife.”

“And you’re a murderer. You can’t go to the police.”

“I don’t plan to,” said Lucas.

They looked at each other across the table.

“I’ll leave,” said King. “But not without the money Grace paid you. How much was that?”

“Eighty thousand dollars,” said Lucas.

“That’ll get me started in another town. That’ll be just fine.”

“What if I say no?”

“If I have to stick around and wait for my money, there’s no telling what could happen to your friend Grace when she gets out of the hospital. That would be awful, seeing as how she’s so traumatized. You know what I mean?”

“I think so.”

“You do have the money, right?”

“I can get it,” said Lucas, without hesitation.

“Well, then. You know what to do. But don’t even think about bringing a newspaper in a backpack, like you did to Serge. I won’t like that.”

“I’ll bring what you need,” said Lucas.

King’s eyes assessed Lucas. “Serge said you lectured him about impersonating a marine. Is that what you are?”

Lucas did not reply.

“Tough guy,” said King.

“Just a guy,” said Lucas. “I’ll be in touch.”

King got up and walked from the coffee shop, a spring in his step.

Since he’d been staying out in the Croom house, Billy King had gotten into a morning routine. He’d wake up early, down a cup of coffee in the kitchen, drive to a diner on 301, and load up with a full-on breakfast. After, he’d head over to the boat launch at Jug Bay, bullshit with the fishermen, talk bait, hulls, and engines. There wasn’t much marina action to speak of down there, which meant few loose women, but the Patuxent River area would have to do for sport until he could get himself to a livelier place. Deep water, powerboats, trim, and drink. It was what he was made for.

King had never owned a boat, but he had ambition. As of yet, he hadn’t amassed the kind of cash a man needed to afford even a used runabout, let alone a Parker or Shamrock. The maintenance, the slip fees, winter storage, hell, the cost of gas alone... You had to have bank, or be born with it.

The eighty thousand that Lucas was going to deliver would get King closer to his goal. He’d never had that kind of money, all at once, in his life. Now he was about to score.

He’d grown up with only the bare essentials. Food on the table, little more. His old man was career military. Glenn King turned a wrench for the air force, and in Billy’s early years, the family moved quite a bit. It was a stretch to call it a family; there was little warmth in the dynamic, and Billy was an only child. His mother was a plain, quiet woman, submissive, obedient to the father, fearful of him when he drank. The father was a beer man who went for quantity, cans, and price over taste. Rheingold, Hamm’s, or Schlitz, depending on where they lived. At the end of the night, the father would sometimes go into his bedroom and wake up the mother, and Billy would hear the creak of the bedsprings and the father’s grunts. But never a sound from his mom.

The father didn’t praise him or notice him much at all. Glenn was a big man, so Billy, who already had some bulk on him by the time he was thirteen, vowed to get bigger and started throwing weights as soon as he could get into a gym. By the time they moved to Florida, where Glenn was stationed at Eglin AFB, on the Emerald Coast, Billy had grown huge and was recruited to play high school football. In the off-season he wrestled as a heavyweight, and because of his strength and athleticism, he dominated the mats. But football was his sport. Being an accomplished football player meant something in Florida; he was known. He partied with kids who had money, sometimes on big, beautiful powerboats docked at exclusive marinas in the Gulf. The rich kids told him, in subtle ways, that he wasn’t one of them, which only made him more determined to gain entrance to their club. In the locker room, the other guys joked with him about his big pipe, and the word got out, which made him very popular with the girls. Billy banged them in cars, under the mangroves, on the beach at night, and in bathrooms at parties. He got a rep as a guy who could last. He liked to hear the noises the girls made when he was fucking them, and chuckled low when their faces changed as they were about to come. He laughed out loud when they begged and said please. He took little pleasure in the act himself. He’d never loved any of them, or even liked them. Females were whores to him, nothing more than holes.

The important thing was, he’d outmanned his father. He knew how to cause a girl to make those sounds. He was bigger than his old man, and stronger. He drank bottled Heineken, not piss water in cans. He had a future. He’d never wear a military uniform or have a boss. Billy was going to own a boat.

But he didn’t get to tell the old man any of this or shove it in his face. Glenn King died of a massive heart attack on base one day while Billy was at school.

The way it turned out, high school was the highlight of Billy’s life. A torn ACL ended his football career. His grades were shit, so college was out of the question. He was slick but not smart. All he had left was his good looks and size. That got him out of town, and a long way further, for a while.

Now he was an aging stud nearing his expiration date. He knew this. The sun had wrinkled him prematurely, and though he was as muscled up as ever, he was carrying too much weight. Time seemed to be moving fast. There’d come a day, not too far off, when women would stop wanting Billy King.

But he had a plan. Secure the money from Lucas, take care of him, and get out of this house. Head back down toward Cobb Island and shack up with Lois. Use her till she was dry, pinch her for her jewelry, and get gone. Move to the South, where life had been good for him. He’d heard the Flora-Bama coast was real nice. Settle somewhere down there, maybe even get a job. Buy himself a boat.

King went to his bedroom dresser and opened its top drawer. There he kept his cash and a shoe box that had once held his first pair of Chuck Taylors. In it were the things that meant the most to him since his childhood. A baseball signed by an Atlanta Brave, a buffalo nickel coin collection, a pen with multicolored ink that he’d saved up for as a kid, and a cardboard crown. The crown had been made just for him and put on his head at a homecoming dance, when they’d named him Senior of the Year. In sloppy, glittered letters, someone had written “King Billy” on the front of it. King looked at the crown and issued a small smile. This faded as a familiar feeling dropped through him like a black curtain, an emptiness that could never be filled.

He reached under his socks, took some cash from a roll, and closed the dresser drawer.

Billy walked downstairs to the living area of the house. He’d cleaned it up as best he could. In a closet he found an aluminum bat he’d purchased the previous day. He leaned this against the couch. The couch back had been shot to hell. A .45 with a full magazine was wedged beneath one of the cushions. He’d placed it there himself. Though King wasn’t good with guns, it was there for insurance. He could overpower Lucas. He’d do it with his hands. Or use the bat.

Billy went to the kitchen in the back of the first floor and made himself a cup of instant coffee. When he was done drinking it, he locked up the house, got into his Monte Carlo, and headed for the diner and a full breakfast. He was going to fortify himself with some food. Come back and dig a hole in the woods. Wait for night, and Lucas.

Lucas stood before the bathroom mirror of his apartment. One ear was torn and bloody, and several knuckles were raw and skinned. His face had sustained scratches from the close-in fight. His jaw was swollen and bruised. It was difficult to fully bite down. When he raised his arms to remove his T-shirt, his left shoulder pained him greatly, telling him that his rotator cuff had been strained or torn in the fall down the stairs. It hurt to take deep breaths. When he smiled he could see the space where his incisor had been. He looked like a hillbilly meth dealer who’d taken a beat-down at the hands of police.

Lucas took a long shower. After he’d dried off, he phoned Marquis Rollins.

“I could use some help,” said Lucas. “I’m at my apartment.”

“What do you need?”

Lucas gave him a list. “No questions, Marquis.”

Marquis said, “Right.”

The days remained warm as summer turned to autumn, even as the nights grew markedly cooler. Lucas slept with the windows open and woke at dawn to scores of blackbirds calling from the trees of 16th Street Heights. He recommenced his prison regimen of sit-ups and push-ups, and rode his bike daily. He kayaked several times a week. He was busy with his rehabilitation and flush with money. He didn’t need to work, but he was restless.

He twice phoned Detective Paul Strong, of Homicide and Violent Crimes, to get an update on the investigation of the Grace Kinkaid assault. The first time, Strong reminded Lucas that he was not police, and added that only immediate family could expect to get the information he was looking for. The second time Lucas called, Strong told him to piss up a rope, then informed him that the perpetrator, most likely, would never be found. Lucas told himself that he was merely curious. He had simply wanted to know the suspect’s name.

One night he rode his bike down to Park View and followed Percy Malone once again as he made the loop from home to liquor store and back. Lucas had now committed Malone’s route to memory. He knew why he was tailing him and where this was headed.

This novel references and honors the work of John D. MacDonald, Charles Willeford, and Don Carpenter. Those authors, and many others, were influential in the creation of Spero Lucas and The Double. Many thanks to Jon Norris, Joe Aronstamn, Andy Moursund, and Natalie Hopkinson for their help during the research phase. Thanks go out as well to Michael Pietsch, Marlena Bittner, Tracey Williams, Betsy Uhrig, Keith Hayes, Heather Fain, Karen Torres, and all at Little, Brown. My editor and friend, Reagan Arthur, worked this into shape. I’m blessed to have her on my side. Sloan Harris, gentleman lit agent, raconteur, and sportsman, did what he does best. Alicia Gordon and Greg Hodes represented on the film and TV side. Finally, my sincere thanks to the readers. Long live traditional publishing, long live books.