Arnice Durham never questioned her son about his business, and she didn’t question her own involvement in it, either. Wasn’t any opportunity where Dewayne had come up, and the people in those schools where he went had barely taught him how to read. He was out here now, making his way the best he could, and he was doing fine.

She did worry about Dewayne’s safety, though, and she prayed for him regular, not just on Sundays, but every night before she went to bed. She prayed for her first son, Mario, too, but for different reasons. The Lord would watch over both of her sons, because at bottom they were good. This was something she believed deep in her heart. Sometimes, also, she said prayers of thanks for the life Dewayne had given her. She knew she was blessed.

Dewayne was seated at the dining-room table, running money through the cash counter. When he was done he read the number on the display and handed Bernard some bills. He stood and backed away from the table.

“You hear from Mario, Mama?”

“No,” said Arnice. “He’s all right, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yeah, I saw him today; he looked fine. Just checkin’ is all; thought he might have rolled on by.”

“He might be stayin’ up with that boy Donut.”

“All right then. Let me get on back to my place.”

Dewayne smiled at his mother. She had deep brown, loving eyes. She wore a new dress and she had a necklace on, spelled “Arnice” out in diamonds, all of the letters hanging on a platinum chain.

“You driving me to church this Sunday, Dewayne?”

“I’ll pick you up like always.”

He kissed her good-bye and left the apartment with Walker.

Dewayne tossed Walker the keys to the Benz as they walked across the lot.

“Drive me home, Zu. You can check on everything when you come back into the city, hear?”

Walker said, “Right.”

Walker drove into Maryland on Branch Avenue, headed toward Hillcrest Heights. Durham kept an apartment there, near the Marlowe Heights shopping center. The building he lived in looked kinda plain, but inside his crib Durham had it all: stereo and flat-screen TV, DVD, everything. It was real nice.

The rule was, you kept your business in the city, in the neighborhoods you came up in, but you lived outside of town. You needed to get out of the city to breathe, but you couldn’t get no love in Maryland or Virginia on the business side. There wasn’t no good way to get a bond, and you got charged with somethin’ there, you’d do long time. Plus, there was the PG County police, who had a rep for being ready on the beat-down and quick on the trigger. The only thing those states were good for, on the business tip, was to buy a gun. So you lived in the suburbs and you did your dirt in town.

Durham’s cell rang and he answered it. Walker made out that Dewayne was talking to Jerome Long, and when Dewayne was done, Walker asked him what was up. Durham told Walker about the drive-by over at the school, and who had done it.

“What you want to do about that?” asked Walker.

“Nothing now.” Durham slid down low in his seat. “I don’t want to think on it tonight.”

He tried not to, and closed his eyes.

STRANGE got up out of bed without waking Janine and went to the window that fronted the street. He knew he had dozed some and he could not remember hearing Lionel come in the house. There was his old Chevy, though, parked along the curb. Strange felt his hands relax. He reached down and patted Greco, who was standing by his side.

Lionel had detailed the car out, like he said, and it looked nice. The chrome wheels shined under the street lamp, and the tires had been sprayed with that fluid, made them look wet. Strange wondered when the last time was that Lionel had checked the oil.

Well, anyway, the boy was in the house.

Strange thought about Robert Gray, if anyone listened for his footsteps coming through the front door, or if that junkhead aunt of his or her hustler-looking boyfriend looked into Robert’s bedroom at night to see if he was covered up. And then he got to thinking about Granville Oliver, and if anyone had ever thought to show that kind of concern for Oliver when he was a kid.

It was hard to imagine that a killer and kingpin like Oliver had once been a boy. Strange couldn’t picture that hard man in manacles as one in his mind. But everyone started out as an innocent child. It’s just that the poor ones didn’t come out of the gate the same way as those who had money, a set of loving parents, and everything that went along with them. It was like those kids were crippled, in a way, before they even got to run the race.

Strange ran his hand through his beard and rubbed at his cheek.

“Derek,” said Janine’s groggy voice behind him.

“I know,” he said. “Come to bed.”

“Lionel get in?”

“Yes, he’s here.”

“You’re done working for today,” said Janine. “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop.”

He got back into bed. Because Janine was right. He wasn’t going to do anybody any good just standing by that window, and there wasn’t anything more he could do tonight. His day was done.

THE Granville Oliver trial was being held in Courtroom 19 at the U.S. Courthouse on Constitution Avenue and 3rd Street, in Northwest. Strange passed by the nicotine addicts standing outside the building in the morning sun. The air was still, and the smoke from their cigarettes hung in the light. It would be a hot spring day, a reminder that the dreaded Washington summer was not far behind.

Strange passed through a security station and caught an elevator up to the fourth floor. All of the courtrooms were active, with attorneys, clients, and the clients’ relatives and friends standing out in the hall. Outside of one room, a mother was raising her voice to her sloppily dressed, slouching son, and Strange heard a clap as she slap-boxed his ear. Most of the activity was down around 19, where a portable metal detector had been set up. Strange went through it, was thanked by a man in a blue uniform, and entered the courtroom.

The spectator section in the back of the room was half filled, with the first two rows of seats left unoccupied by rule. There were several young ladies, pretty, made up, and nicely dressed, seated on the pewlike benches. A couple of tough young men wearing suits, whom Strange pegged as being in the life, were among them, along with a woman who had the age on her to be a mother or an aunt. A young journalist, a small white male wearing black-rimmed eyeglasses and punkish clothes, sat alone.

FBI agents and other types of cops were scattered about the room. They were there to ensure that there would be no spectator intimidation directed at witnesses in the courtroom. Their hairstyles went from crew cut to flattop, and many of them wore facial hair, mustaches for the veterans and goatees and Vandykes for the young. Some had just made the height requirement, and Strange noted mentally that the shortest ones had bulked themselves up to the monkey-maximum. All of them filled out their suits. A few gave Strange the fish eye as he found a seat. They knew who he was.

In the body of the courtroom there were two tables for the defense and the prosecution. The defense team, from Ives and Colby, was all black, per the request of Oliver, though many of the firm’s white attorneys had been working the case from behind the scenes. Raymond Ives had already made eye contact with Strange, as it was Ives’s habit to watch the spectators as they entered.

Granville Oliver sat at the defense table wearing an expensive blue suit. He wore nonprescription eyeglasses, a nice touch suggested by Ives, to give him a look of thoughtfulness and intelligence. Underneath the suit he wore a stun belt, by decree of the court.

The jurors had entered the courtroom and were seated. The selection process had taken months, and its progress was heavily monitored in the local news. Nearly two hundred District residents had been excused because they had admitted on a questionnaire that they were unlikely or unable to render a death sentence. Prosecutors had been allowed to continue the process until they were satisfied that they had a “death-qualified” jury. So the jurors who were ultimately selected were hardly an accurate representation of the D.C. community, or its sentiments.