'Not really, no. Get in, sell it, get out; that's all I'm interested in. Wasn't for the money, I'd just as soon never set eyes on that city again. Let them all kill themselves over this shit for all I care.'

'You wouldn't want that,' said Ray, smiling at his father across the bench. 'Wouldn't have no customers, they all up and died.'

'Critter?'

'What.'

'Someday, you and me, we're gonna wake up and figure out we got enough money. You ever think about that?'

'I'm startin' to,' said Ray, goosing the Ford into the passing lane.

Truth be told, Ray had been thinkin' on it for quite some time. Only piece missing was a way to get out. That's all he and his daddy needed: some kind of plan.

By the time Earl had killed another beer, Ray had gotten off the Beltway and was on New Hampshire Avenue, heading south into D.C. Later, on North Capitol, down near Florida Avenue, he made a call on his cell phone and told Cherokee Coleman's boys that he and his father were on their way in.

He turned left onto Florida when things were really starting to look rough, and went along a kind of complex of old warehouses and truck bays that had once been an industrial hub of sorts in a largely nonindustrial town but were now mainly abandoned. The entire area had been going steadily downhill since the riots of '68.

Ray passed by Cherokee Coleman's place of business, one of several small brick rowhouses in the complex, indistinguishable from the rest. Coleman's place was across the street from what folks in the area called the Junkyard, a crumbling warehouse where crack fiends, blow addicts, and heroin users had been squatting for the past year or so. They had come to be near Coleman's supply.

Ray drove slowly down the block. Coleman's army – steerers, pitchers, money handlers, lookouts, and managers – was spread out on the sidewalk and on several corners of the street. An M3 BMW, an Acura Legend, a spoilered Lexus, and a two-seater Mercedes with chromed-out wheel wells, along with several SUVs, were curbed along the block.

A cop car approached from the other direction. Ray did not look at its uniformed driver but rather at the large numbers printed on the side of the cruiser, a Crown Vic, as it passed.

'Ray,' said Earl.

'It's all right,' said Ray, matching the numbers on the car to the numbers he had memorized.

In the rearview, Ray saw the MPD cruiser make a right at the next corner, circling the block. Ray punched the gas and made it quickly to a bay door at a garage on the end of the block. He honked his horn, two shorts and a long. The bay door rose and Ray drove through, into a garage where several young men and a couple of very young men waited.

The door closed behind them. Ray got his gun out of the glove box trap and pushed his hips forward so that he could holster the nine beneath the waistband of his jeans. He knew his father had slipped his.38 into his jacket pocket back in the barn. He didn't care if the young men in the garage saw the guns. He wanted them to see. Ray and Earl got out of the car.

There was no greeting from Coleman's men, no nod of recognition. Ray knew from his prison days not to smile, or show any other gesture of humanity, because it would be seen as a weakness, an opening, a place to stick the knife. As for Earl, he saw hard black faces, one no different from the other. That was all he needed to know.

'Money, clothes, cars,' rapped a dead, even voice from a small stereo set up on a shelf. 'Clockin' Gs, gettin' skeezed…'

'It's behind the bumper,' said Ray to the oldest of the bunch, whom he'd seen on the last run.

'Then get it, chief,' said the young man, the manager, with a slow tilt of his head.

'You get it,' said Ray.

Now you're gonna look at each other for a while, thought Earl, like you can't decide whether to mix it up or fall in love.

That's what they did. Ray stared them down and they stared him down, and a couple of the older ones laughed, and Ray laughed some, and then there were more hard stares.

And then the manager said, 'Get it,' to one of the younger ones, who nodded to the guy next to him. Those two dismantled the bumper and got the heroin packs out of the space.

Coleman's employees scaled the heroin out quickly on an electronic unit that sat on a bench along a wall while Ray and Earl smoked cigarettes. They did not taste it or test it, not because they trusted these two but because Coleman had instructed them to leave it alone. Coleman knew that Ray and Earl would never try and take him off. What they had with him, it was just too tight.

'The weight's good,' said the manager.

'I know it's good. Call Cherokee and tell him I'm coming in. We'll be back for our car.'

The group began chuckling as the Boones walked from the garage, after one young man started singing banjo notes. Ray didn't care, all of them would be croaked or in the joint soon anyway. It felt good walking out of there, not even looking over his shoulder, like he didn't give a good fuck if they laughed themselves silly or took another breath. He felt strong and he felt tall. He was glad he'd worn his boots.

Ray and Earl stepped quickly down the block. The cold wind blew newspaper pages across the street. Ray met eyes with a young man talking on a cell, knowing that the young man was speaking to one of Cherokee Coleman's lieutenants. They kept walking toward Coleman's place, and when they neared it a door opened and they stepped inside.

They were in an outer office then, and four young men were waiting for them there. One of them frisked Ray and Earl and took the guns that he found. Ray allowed it because there was no danger here; if something was to have gone down it would have gone down back in the garage. Coleman didn't keep drugs, handle large amounts of money, or have people killed anywhere near his office. He had come up like everyone else, but he was smart and he was past that now.

The one who had frisked them nodded, and they went into Coleman's office.

Cherokee Coleman was seated in a leather recliner behind a desk. The desk held a blotter, a gold pen-and-pencil set, and one of those lamps with a green shade, the kind they used to have in banks. A cell phone lay neatly next to the lamp. Ray figured this kind of setup made Coleman feel smart, like a grown-up businessman, like he worked in a bank or something, too. Ray and his father often joked that the pen-and-pencil set had never been used.

Coleman wore a three-button black suit with a charcoal turtleneck beneath the jacket. His skin was smooth and reddish brown against the black of the suit, and his features were small and angular. He wasn't a big man, but the backs of his thick-wristed hands were heavily veined, indicating to Earl that Coleman had strength.

Behind Coleman, leaning against the frame of a small barred window, was a tall, fat, bald man wearing shades with gold stems. He was Coleman's top lieutenant, Angelo Lincoln, a man everyone down here called Big-Ass Angelo.

'Fellas,' said Coleman, lazily moving one of his manicured hands to indicate they take a seat before his desk.

Ray and Earl sat in chairs set lower than Coleman's.

'How's it goin', Ray? Earl?'

'How do,' said Earl.

'How do what?'

Angelo's shoulders jiggled, and a sh-sh-sh sound came from his mouth.

'Looks like everything checked out all right,' said Coleman.

'No doubt,' said Ray. 'The weight's there, and this load is honest-to-God high-test. Eight-five per.'

'I heard.'

Coleman didn't feel the need to tell Ray this purity-percentage stuff was straight-up bullshit. If the shit was eighty-five, ninety percent pure for real, you'd have junkies fallin' out dead all over the city, 'cause shit that pure was do-it-on-the-head-of-a-matchstick stuff only. Got so even the dealers were startin' to believe the press releases comin' out of the DEA.