Strange looked into his binos. McKinley and his sidekick, young dude with some long-ass arms, were getting out of the Benz. McKinley, big as he was, and with a strained look on his face, tired from all that weight, was getting out more slowly than the other young man.
There were three people standing at the top of the rambler’s steps, on a small concrete porch under a pink awning. The color of the awning told Strange that a woman lived in the house. Two of the three people, a handsome young man and an attractive woman, were in their early twenties. The third was a bulked-up man heading toward the finish line of his thirties. The older man, smoking a cigar, wore a ribbed shirt highlighting his show muscles. He descended the steps to greet McKinley. With that barracuda smile of his, the bulked-up man looked like some kind of salesman.
Strange lowered his binoculars. Was this McKinley’s drug connect? Probably not. Most of the major quantities sold down here came from out of town. But this here looked like more than a backyard barbecue. The muscleman was selling something.
Strange stepped back about twenty yards and phoned Quinn. He told him to park beside the Citgo station, and where he could find him, approximately, in the woods.
HORACE McKinley shook the hand of Ulysses Foreman, taking the pliers-like strength of his grip, Foreman always eager to show off what he had.
“Damn, big man, you ain’t lost nothin’.”
“You the big man, dawg,” said Foreman, nodding at Mike Montgomery but not bothering to shake his hand.
McKinley wondered where that white rhino of Foreman’s was. She was usually here to greet them, too, trying to talk like a black girl, coming off like some strand-walking ho, showin’ off her big pockmarked ass cheeks.
“Where your woman at?” said McKinley.
Foreman dragged on his cigar. “She went off to see her daddy down in southern Maryland.”
“I’ll catch her next time, then. You got somethin’ for me?”
“C’mon in.”
McKinley and Montgomery went up the steps to where the young man and woman stood. It was crowded up there, and the woman backed up as McKinley introduced himself, extending his hand to her, ignoring the man.
“Couple of associates of mine,” said Foreman from behind them, not bothering to state their names.
“Horace McKinley. Pleased to meet you, baby.” Horace turned to the young man, then made a gesture to the Avalon with the Virginia plates parked in the drive.
“That you?”
“Yeah,” said the young man, smiling with pride.
“Why don’t you get you a real car? Avalon ain’t nothin’ but a Camry with some trim on it, and a Camry ain’t nothin’ but shit.”
The young man didn’t know how to react. He had been disrespected in front of the girl, but he wasn’t going to step to this Horace McKinley. Probably a dealer, ’cause that’s who Foreman did business with. Looking at him, wasn’t no probably about it; with all that ice, the four-finger ring and the necklace, he was a drug dealer for sure. Wouldn’t do any good to his health to show the fat man any kind of defiance.
“I got my eye on a Benz I like,” said the young man, but McKinley had already moved his attention back to Foreman, standing at the bottom of the steps.
“Where we goin’?” said McKinley.
“Down to the rec room,” said Foreman.
“Nah,” said McKinley. “Nice day like this? Why don’t you get me one of them good cigars you smokin’, and a cold beer or two, and meet us out on the back deck. We can do our business out there.”
“Fine. Go on through the house and I’ll see y’all out there.”
McKinley and Montgomery went into the house. Foreman came up to the porch, reached into his jeans, and extracted a roll of bills. He peeled some money off and handed it to the young man.
“Let me give this to you now,” said Foreman, “lighten up this wad I got.”
“What you want me to get?” said the young man, taking the money and slipping it into his khakis.
“I got to think on it,” said Foreman. “Come down to the basement while I take care of him. You and your girl can kick back and shoot some pool, or just watch some TV, while I’m working things out with the fat man.”
The young man grinned sheepishly. “Can I get one of them cigars, too?”
“THAT didn’t take long,” said Strange.
“I followed your scent,” said Quinn. “Fill me in.”
“Nothin’ for a while now.” Strange looked at the house. “Dude with muscles, between your age and mine, lives there. He met McKinley and his boy out front. That’s their Benz, the one followed me the other day. The Toyota with the chrome on it belongs to a young man, has a nice-looking girl with him.”