Early morning. Gray November light seeped in through the grimy basement window, mixing with the harsh glare of humming fluorescent tubes overhead. The office, used by whatever DA was assigned to “paper” cases, was barren of decoration. There was nothing on the drab yellow walls or the dirty gray metal desk. A dark bearded man sat scowling on a metal chair that was dwarfed by his bulk. Sargent Larry Williams. Facing him from the other side of the desk seated on a creaking desk chair with cracked plastic padding sat a slight, young white man in a blue suit, white shirt, and red power tie. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jimmy McFarland. Behind Williams a pale shambolic white man leaned wearily against the door. Lieutenant Allen Dixon. In the corner, a very pretty, light-skinned black man watched intently with a half-smile. Detective Smallwood. The three cops wore stained pants and shabby sweatshirts, the 3rd District Vice Squad’s uniform for “old clothes detail”. They’d been up all night and showed little interest in getting to know a rookie prosecutor. Like storm-weary fishermen, they just wanted to process their catch.

McFarland was trying to figure out what to make of the trio in front of him. Williams appeared threatening and angry, but then he pointed to a small metal pot perched on the corner of the windowsill by a pitcher of water, a canister of coffee, and a jar of sugar.

“You the coffee nut?”

“Mmmhm. One cup espresso machine. I don’t like the stuff down the hall.”

“You carry that around with you?”

“When I have to come down here at seven in the morning, I do.”

“Funky.”

“It makes good coffee. Want some?”

“Uh-uh. We’ve been sucking down coffee all night.”

“Lieutenant? Detective? Would you like a cup?”

Williams held up his big hands and the other two kept quiet.
“Let’s get this shit papered so we can go home to bed.”

“I gotta go to court,” Dixon said, shaking his head, “Judge Gilman.”

Smallwood groaned. “Oh, Christ, what a waste of time.” Judge Gilman was blind, colorful of expression, and very liberal of politics. He was a hero for the public defenders. Not so much for the cops and prosecutors. He’d dismiss a case, especially a drug case, on any technicality.

Dixon laughed and said, “Hey man, he just can’t see to send anyone to jail.”

“Oh,” said Smallwood, “he lock your sorry ass up if he could see you drinking outta that bag you take to court.”

“Yeah, Ms. Burke said she’d tell him, but maybe I’d be a sweetheart and not show up for her client’s case.”

Smallwood smirked and responded, “Well, sure, for her you do whatever. That babe got it goin’ on. You run into her yet, counselor?”

McFarland, listening to the exchange, grinned and said, “Mm-hm, tall, blond and ruthless. What do you have for me, gentlemen?”

Williams nodded to Smallwood who placed four case files marked “District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department” on the desk. The cover of each bore a defendant’s name; an MPD case number; the date, November 15, 1976; the criminal code provision that applied—possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute in each case; and the arresting officer’s name, Detective Amel Smallwood. Williams and Dixon didn’t want to go to court if they could avoid it and did their best to keep their names off minor drug arrest cases.

McFarland opened the top file and read the typed arrest form. It was the fourth carbon: the original went to the Third District Vice Squad, a copy to HQ, and another copy to the arresting officer.

The defendant was observed on the corner of 14th and U streets Northwest at approximately 2:40 am passing a glassine packet—a condom—to the driver of a late model blue Mercury Montego with Maryland plates. Having probable cause to believe a crime was being committed the detective, backed up by Sergeant Williams and Lieutenant Dixon, approached, displaying his badge. The car sped off. The defendant was searched and found to have five more glassine packets containing white powder and a large sandwich bag full of a grassy substance believed to be marijuana hidden in the lining of his jacket. He had $1,256 in cash in his pockets.

McFarland nodded and opened the second file. It described the same basic facts, with a different car and a different defendant. So did the third and the fourth. Smallwood saw McFarland wondering how to react.

“Busy night?” he asked Smallwood.

“The usual. We do our best to keep the nation’s capital free of this shit and get the scum off the streets.”

“How come these guys all pull the same dumb stunt when they’ve already seen you making arrests?”

“They ain’t too bright to start with, Counselor, and mostly they’re using.”

“No offense, but could you tell me what actually went down?”

Williams leaned forward reaching for the files.

“Fuck that shit. We’re going down the hall to someone who’ll get this done.”

McFarland pulled the files back. “I’ll paper the cases, but I’d like to understand what’s actually going on.”

Williams rolled his eyes, “Hey man, we’re cops, not teachers.”

“I have to take these to the grand jury. They’re going to ask.”

“No, man, they ain’t. These pieces of crap will plead out, and you’ll never have to see ’em no more.”

“Sergeant, my name is going on these papers. I need to understand what’s going on.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, I do. I’m not jerking your chain; I just think it’s my job.”

Smallwood saw McFarland looking at Sarge, not angry but thoughtful. He coughed and said with a wan smile, “Dude wants to see, Sarge. Let’s take him out so he sees what a night on 14th Street looks like. We’ve got a job too.”

Williams examined McFarland intently. Sizing him up? Laughing inwardly? Calculating? Smallwood thought it was like watching a crocodile floating motionless by a riverbank deciding whether to make a lunge at a gazelle. Williams turned to Smallwood and gave a small nod.

Dixon roused himself from near comatose indifference and growled, “You ride with us, Counselor, you do the whole night, you keep your head down, you do what we tell you, and you keep your mouth shut.”

“That seems pretty clear, Lieutenant. Tomorrow night?”

“No, we’re off tomorrow. Thursday night. Eleven pm in front of Third District Headquarters. Wear old clothes.”

*****

Two nights later McFarland stood outside Third District Headquarters dressed in jeans, layers of sweatshirts, and an old wind breaker. The night was dank and cold. He was wishing he’d chosen warmth over appearance. The leather jacket had seemed too posh, but it would have been warm, and he wasn’t going to look as if he belonged here no matter what he wore. Smallwood drove up in a dirty unmarked Ford cruiser. No sign of Williams or Dixon.

McFarland gave a half salute and said, “Evening, Detective.”

“It’s Amel.”

“Evening, Amel, I’m Jimmy. Where are the Sergeant and the Lieutenant?”

“They’re already out there, Jimmy, patrolling.” The last word sounded euphemistic. “The lieutenant asked me to tell you, again, you gotta do what we tell you. That mostly means stay in the car. You start messing around playing lawman, you are gonna get yourself or one of us hurt. These streets are nasty and covered in shit. You don’t need to step in it. The Court House is your turf, this is our turf.”

“Got it.”

They drove off slowly. The car smelled of cigarette smoke and greasy food, and groaned whenever they turned sharply to the right.

“What is this, Amel, a retired DC cab? It’s a hunk of crap.”

“Old clothes, old car. Anyway, you wouldn’t want the MPD wasting taxpayer money on new cars for cops. Congressman Natcher makes sure that don’t happen down on his plantation.”

McFarland was surprised at the focus of Smallwood’s disdain. He agreed but would have expected him to blame the department or the city. Congress’s treatment of the Nation’s Capital was appalling. More colony than beacon of freedom. Even as Congress enacted home rule legislation ceding D.C. residents the right to elect a mayor and city council, Representative Natcher’s Appropriations subcommittee held onto control of the city’s budget.

They drove past shabby houses with small porches and tiny front yards, mostly vacant, some boarded up, front fences falling over. Some blocks were partially burned out. McFarland shook his head, “This…”, he gestured toward the windshield, “this destruction is all the effects of the riots after Dr. King was murdered?”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s been eight years.”

“Yeah, it has.”

McFarland saw no sign of rebuilding. The wide, numbered streets that ran north and south were lit, but the east-to-west lettered streets were mostly dark, a few cars parked or abandoned, one on its side in a front yard. “How far does this wasteland reach?”

“You’ll see a lot of it tonight.”

McFarland wound down the window, letting the chill air splash on his face, looking at the shabby facades of the town houses. He turned to Smallwood and said, “I live a few miles west of here. I travel across the city to Judiciary Square every day. I suppose I knew Washington was still scarred, but I had no idea it was still in ruins.”

“Why would you? That’s our job—keep it contained.” Smallwood pulled over somewhere on T street. “I gotta take a leak. You can get out if you want.” He went into a nearby yard and urinated, then stood quietly and lit a cigarette. McFarland wandered over to the young detective trying to imagine this neighborhood a decade earlier filled with Black working-class families. Where had those people gone? Smallwood held out a pack of cigarettes: “Smoke?”

“No. Never have.”

“Not even weed?”

“Man, I’m a prosecutor…”

“Lot of ’em do weed.”

“Yeah, well, like the sergeant said, I don’t want to know.”

Smallwood chuckled. Back in the car, they drove slowly, windows down. The cold air smelled slightly rancid. Rotting buildings? Burning garbage? It was a grindingly bleak landscape twenty blocks from the Capitol, and even nearer to the White House.

“It looks,” McFarland said, “like a damn war zone.”

“It is a war zone. Most of us were in ’Nam and didn’t count on coming home to this shit.”

“Who’s winning?”

“What’s it look like? The dealers. The politicians. Seems like white folks do ok.”

“Mayor Washington is black.”

“Mayor Washington, the brand-new Mayor of Washington? Old Walter don’t run the city. I told you, a bunch of Southern sonofabitch Congressmen control everything and let my man Walter Washington hang out and play mayor.”

“Who do you work for, then?”

“Sergeant Larry Williams. He’s in charge on these streets.”

“Who’s the enemy?”

Smallwood started to say something, stopped, smirked, and said, “We’re cops. We don’t have enemies. We enforce the law on an equal opportunity basis.”

“Right. Sure. But you said it’s a war.”

“Well, you better see what you see, Counselor.”

Back in the car the radio squawked, and Williams’s deep voice drawled, “Smallwood, you active?”

“Twelfth and T, Sarge.”

“Come on across T. Watch for your man Gatorade. Didn’t want to say ‘hello’ to his old friend Sergeant Williams. He’s dirty. I want to know where he’s been.”

“OK, on my way with my guest.”

“Yeah. Keep it cool.”

They drove slowly west, Smallwood peering into the dark, holding the radio mike in one hand while he drove. McFarland saw a movement in front of a house about a hundred feet down the block. Smallwood spoke quietly into the mic, “Sarge?”

“You see him?”

“Yeah. He went into the old shooting gallery at 1347.”

“Good. Hang there. We’ll come up the alley.”

They waited in silence, Smallwood alert, engine running, lights off. McFarland was startled when Williams’s low voice came from the radio. “The back door’s open. Seems quiet. We’re going on in. Don’t bother with any motha coming out unless it’s Gatorade. If there’s no action in about three minutes you come on in. You can bring your tourist.”

Tourist? McFarland had a sudden vision of the MPD setting up a tourist division to generate cash. See the real Washington. Watch junkies shooting up. Drink disgusting coffee.

“Counselor?”

“Huh?”

“I am gonna be out here in case the vermin come out from their hole. You stay in the car ’til I tell you.”

“Is this a raid?”

Smallwood grinned and shook his head. “Uh-uh. More of a business meeting.”

He leaned casually against a car, but McFarland saw he had his gun in his hand in a jacket pocket. Sirens wailed in the distance, and the radio crackled
with an exchange about a fire up North Capitol Street. T Street was quiet. Smallwood gestured for McFarland to come. They went up the front stoop. The door was off its hinges, and the narrow front hallway was dark. Smallwood had holstered his gun and gotten out a flashlight. Someone had been using the hall as a latrine.

They heard voices from the second floor and climbed the creaking stairs. In a front bedroom lit by a couple of votive candles they found Williams and Dixon. Three figures were sprawled on the floor amid a litter of bottles, MacDonald’s boxes, and what would be described in the next day’s reports as “drug paraphernalia.” Dixon was holding a man by the arms from behind, though it wasn’t clear whether it was to keep him still or to hold him upright. Williams, almost featureless in the dark, stood in front of the sagging figure, emanating menace. McFarland thought that Williams was going to hit the guy. He imagined ribs breaking. But Williams didn’t actually move, the violence just hung in the air.

“You know me, Sarge—just a broken-down junkie. Why you messin’ wi’ me?”

“You’re dealing,” Williams growled.

“No, no, Sergeant, usin’.”

“Dixon, what did you find in the man’s pocket?”

Dixon reached into the pocket of his old coat and pulled out a paper bag full of smaller plastic bags of white stuff.

“Merchandise, Sarge.”

“Gatorade, we gonna take you to the station an’ lock you up for dealin’ coke…”

“Noooo!” he wailed, “That ain’t mine, Sarge, you know it ain’t mine. Why you settin’ me up?”

“Takin’ you to a nice clean cell. No dope there. Looks like you’ll get clean.”

McFarland watched wondering, ‘Are they staging this for me?’

Abruptly Williams asked, “Counselor? What’s the sentence for possession with intent? McFarland was surprised he had a role in this little farce. He was sure Williams knew the answer to his own question. Apparently, he needed a straight man.

“First offense?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Williams rumbled peering at Gatorade. “I reckon it’s a second offense—or maybe a third.”

“That would be mandatory life.”

“Ooooh, extended stay. See, man,” he looked closely at the cringing figure in front of him, “The Congress want this city cleaned up, and they declared war on drugs. They want you in a cage.”

“What you want from me, Sarge?”

“Like I said, I want to know what happened last week.”

“Whaddya mean?”

Dixon rolled his eyes, but Williams didn’t make a sound, he just stood and stared.

Gatorade lowered his head and put his hand on his crotch, saying, “I gotta go.”

“Huh?”

“Hall, piss.”

Williams nodded wearily. “I got him.” The two men disappeared into the dark.

Dixon and Smallwood were joking about two female rookie cops. Dixon, suddenly animated, said, “They come to the Third District Headquarters their first night, all in clean blue, shiny badges, polished leather, and the captain calls them in and says, ‘You ladies need to put on these clothes. You are going undercover. The Johns don’t know you yet.’ Undercover my ass! He gets them dressed up as street meat and says, ‘Well ladies, it’s undercover, but there’s not that much of you that is under cover. You have to show the product to make the sale, and you gotta make the sale to make the arrest.’”

Smallwood laughed. Dixon rubbed his hands and was about to go on, but Smallwood coughed, looking at McFarland, and he never heard what had happened next in the hazing of the two new women cops.

Williams reappeared, alone. McFarland looked at him, perplexed. Williams said, “Let’s go” and when they were in the hall turned to McFarland and said, “The man didn’t want to be seen talking to me. He gave me what I needed.”

“What was that?”

“Just some intelligence about who’s trying to move into the turf.”

“Worth cutting him loose for?”

“Like he said, Gatorade ain’t nothing but a two-bit junkie.”

“You believe what he tells you?”

“Some. He’s got family in the business.”

“Why’s he hanging out in—places like this?”

“It’s a business and they don’t coddle junkies.”

“Even family?”

“You are all full of——questions, Counselor. Drop it.”

McFarland shut up. He wondered what would have happened if Gatorade had kept his mouth shut. All Williams had to do was bust him for dealing and list McFarland as a witness in an arrest report, as he should do, and McFarland would get sucked into testifying, caught between cops he relied on and defense counsel trying to find a hook to undercut their credibility. And how would he explain why he was out there? Would a jury believe he just wanted to see what was going on? He thought about how he would handle it as defense counsel: “You spent the entire night cruising around unofficially because you were interested?” He could imagine the scorn in counsel’s voice. He could imagine his colleagues shaking their heads. He could imagine any of these guys spreading stories about him. And what would he have said about that bag of dope?

Smallwood coughed and said, “Maybe it’s time for some dinner. You hungry?”

“Sure. What is there around here at 1:00 in the morning?”

“Popeye’s by the bus station, or Big Mama’s. We eat in the car either way.”

“How come?”

“You kinda stick out.”

“Big Momma’s. My treat.”

Smallwood laughed, “Forget it. She never lets cops pay.” McFarland looked over at the young detective. Smallwood smiled knowingly, “You ask her about it, Jimmy. As long as I been here, Momma has served cops, and you know what? She ain’t been robbed once.”

Half an hour later they were parked on U Street, a hundred yards from the 14th Street intersection, lit by harsh streetlights and full of activity. The seat between them was littered with cardboard containers of fried chicken, pulled pork, pickles, biscuits, and fried onions. Smallwood was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak or eat.

“What’s the big deal? I don’t see it. I was being polite…”

“Oh, man, they are gonna be telling that story to their grandchildren.”

“What? What?”

“The brothers an’ sisters hanging out at Big Momma’s, the home of deep fat and cracklins, hungering for some late-night soul food. A very straight white dude comes in with a cop, introduces himself to Big Momma, shakes her hand for Chrissake, and asks what he oughta eat. She says, ‘Honey, you need some feedin’. I’m gonna get you pulled pork an’ biscuits’, and he asks ‘Does that come with a salad?’ That ain’t funny? You are even whiter than I thought.”

“Yeah, that’s probably right.”

“Uh huh.”

“Amel, did you grow up in DC?”

“Nope. Pittsburgh. I came here for Howard University. I was gonna be a lawyer.”

“And…?”

“And? And I didn’t get there. I quit because I was pissed off that the world’s unfair and the system is rigged for rich white people.”

“True enough.”

“And for that I got to be a soldier in a fuckin’ war that made no sense.”

“Yeah.”

“One thing, though…”

“What?”

“White boys and Black boys both got shot. How’d you stay out? Bad knees?”

“Nope. Educational deferment then a good lottery number.”

Smallwood wiped his hands on a sheaf of napkins Momma had shoved in the box with their food, rinsed his mouth with soda, and lit a cigarette. He checked his watch and drove closer to the intersection. McFarland asked, “Amel, were you in DC when LBJ called out tanks to take control of the streets?”

“Naw, I was in Southeast Asia fighting LBJ’s other war.”

“The tanks must have come right through here eight and a half years ago. Now you watch young white professionals in late model cars with suburban license plates cruising through looking to score.”

He could see half a dozen women in short skirts and tight tops looking cold on the east side of the street. On the opposite side a couple of shabby figures lurked in the doorway of a boarded-up storefront. Most of the storefronts were boarded up. Amel said, “The east side’s the meat market. The two girls in the boots are young cops. The one in the fake fur is actually a guy.”

“Very convivial. The prostitutes don’t know?”

“Oh they knew as soon as they saw them. Our girls are going for the Johns tonight and leavin’ the hookers be.”

“Do they make arrests out here? Wouldn’t that scare off the clientele?”

“Mmhm, and the John’s would say it was all a misunderstanding. The girls get in the guy’s car and ride up to one of those motels on New York Avenue and bust them there.”

A car stopped on the west side and a figure in sweats and a dirty gray overcoat scurried forward, speaking for a moment with the driver, then gesturing to another figure in the doorway. McFarland asked quietly, “You going to make an arrest?”

“Nah. That looked like a nickel bag of weed. Let’s see what else goes down.”

An hour later Smallwood had busted up several sales and made one arrest. He had him cuffed in the back of the car, whining and sniveling, forcing them to open the windows to let the smell out. He only moaned when McFarland asked why the hell he stayed there when he knew there were cops around.

Smallwood said, “Jimmy, you ever watch those nature shows. You see a big mother fuckin’ lion stalking a bunch of antelope? They know the lion’s there and they’re jumpy as hell, but they don’t bolt till the lion actually makes a move. They just keep grazin’ and twitchin’ their tails. That’s what you got here. These people are desperate to make a few sales. Twitchy, but this is their place of business.”

A couple of the women disappeared into cars with clients, one was back in minutes.

“Bad date?” McFarland asked

“Probably a fast blow job.”

Williams’s voice broke in over the radio. “Smallwood, time to go. Get the women and get outta there. Make noise, run your lights, see if you can break up the party.”

“Something goin’ down?”

“We’ll talk later. Get on it.”

“Backup, Sarge?”

“Get your ass moving, Smallwood.”

Smallwood picked a blue light up off the floor, plugged it into the lighter, and put it on top of the dash. He careened noisily into the intersection. Now the sedans scattered like frightened prey. The women on the east side of the street shifted uneasily as Smallwood pulled up. “Creighton…Abrams. You’re done. Get in the car.” They looked startled and hesitated while the other women laughed. “Goddammit, get your asses in here! We need to move.”

The young officers finally grasped that this was their colleague, and he was dead serious. The other women looked uneasy. One shouted “Amel, what’s up?” He yelled for them to get the hell outta there, and from a block away they heard the sharp pop of a pistol. Smallwood pulled out turning onto U Street.

“What the fuck was that?” McFarland asked.

“Pistol, a twenty-two probably. Not MPD.”

“Yeah, but what’s going on?”

One of the women groaned, “Aww, Detective, this guy stinks like a shit house.” Smallwood stared straight ahead and said, “Let’s see what the sergeant wants to tell us.”

The man who was the last of the night’s catch asked, “One of you nice ladies got a cigarette?”

Yellow light flooded from squat brick district headquarters building as they pulled through the alley into a parking lot surrounded by a ten-foot chain link fence. The two women cops got out laughing. Relief? Smallwood led his arrest in through the heavy metal door and down the hall to be booked, though he seemed to know the way. Smallwood told McFarland, “That’s it. You might as well get home and get some sleep.”

“Are you shitting me? I want to hear what the sergeant has to say.”

“Up to you. I guess it’ll be a while. You know he’s over your way all the time.”

“He isn’t going to tell me shit, is he?”

“Dunno, probably not.”

“Will you?”

“We’ll see.”

“I appreciate you taking a tourist out with you. We’ll have to do it again soon.”

“Not too soon, Jimmy, everyone’ll wonder what the fuck’s going on.”

“I’ll take the risk.”

Smallwood looked at him with the half smile McFarland had noticed two mornings ago. “Yeah, well I’m glad you want to see for yourself.”