Do or Die Read online

  I was pulled by twin currents of music and laughter and understood what Dad meant when he described a time when “folks with nowhere to go got all dressed up and went to heaven just walking along Lenox on a summer night.”

  “So we meetin’ in this little hangout,” Myrtle said, cutting into my thoughts. “It’s kinda a out-of-the-way place where not too much is goin’ on. We like it ’cause it’s quiet and sometimes that’s what we need. Quiet.”

  At 117th Street, a few doors from the busy traffic of the avenue, we stepped into a small, dimly lit storefront that had no sign on the outside, just a small yellow light in the window, its weak glow slicing through the blinds as an invitation for those who knew what was happening.

  Inside was crowded with a half dozen small tables covered with checkered cloths. In the rear, a wooden counter served as the bar. The lighting was so dim, anyone on the lam could lounge in comfort and not be positively ID’d for at least six months.

  There was a large fridge and an icemaker and though there were no bottles in evidence, I knew the liquor was stocked under the counter. On the wall behind the bar, a large fluorescent-lit sign read:

  NASHEELA NORRIS BRAITHEWAITE

  BETTER KNOWN AS LITTLE DUMPLIN’

  IS WANTED

  DEAD OR ALIVE

  BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

  AND FORMER BOYFRIENDS

  IN CONNECTION WITH A INFECTION

  Spots like these, I knew, were usually operated by biker clubs, or the neighborhood numbers guys, or simply functioned as a place to hang and knock back a brew without the bother or benefit of a liquor license. As long as there were no murders and the mayhem was minimal and the cops got their cut, the place was allowed to remain open. The spot, I found out later, was called just that—the Spot.

  Three tables along the right wall had been pushed together to accommodate Monday (Amanda Johnson); Tuesday (Jeanette Beavers); and Friday (Martha Golden, who had returned for the occasion), and they all looked up as Myrtle and I approached.

  Monday, especially, cut me a look that had the B-word tattooed all over it.

  “Where’s the ladies’ room?” I said, looking directly at her. The pay-yourself-first girl got the message and rose from the chair even before the intros were finished.

  “I’ll show you!”

  I nodded and followed her down a narrow passage in back of the counter, impressed that the voice of a girl her size could have so much volume.

  The ladies’ room, such as it was, was only large enough to hold one commode, a miniature wash basin with no soap in sight, a small cracked mirror over the basin, and one thin roll of toilet tissue held to the wall on a wire coat hanger. The bathroom was designed for one, but we both squeezed in.

  I had intended to explain my presence and ask her to be cool but when she spoke, I knew she had already been drinking, and so standing face-to-face in the closet-size space was not the most pleasant experience, especially when her hand slid up from her side holding a switchblade.

  “So what you doin’ here, bitch? Why you lyin’ sayin’ you Starr’s cousin? What the fuck is goin’ on?”

  She had pressed the blade against my stomach, prepared to push it in. I had two options: Take the knife away and slice her with it to teach her a lesson, or take the knife, drop it outside, then whip her scrawny behind for being so stupid. She was half my height and weight and the space was so small, she had very little room to maneuver, knife or no knife.

  I chose option three and grabbed her hand just above the wrist and bent it back so fast, the knife fell to the floor as my other hand went to her throat and slammed her head into the wall.

  “Now you listen to me. I’m her cousin, dammit. And I really do work for the attorney who’s investigating that insurance claim, you understand? And I don’t like surprises, especially sharp ones in small spaces.”

  I underestimated my grip on her throat and she appeared ready to gag. I wasn’t about to have any secondhand alcohol ruining my dress so I relaxed my fingers and she coughed long and loud. When she was able to speak, she said, “You tell any of ’em about that policy?”

  “No. Their names are not on it. Why would I mention it? And I don’t expect you to mention it either, you understand? I’m Starr’s cousin and to hell with the policy and the money and everything connected with it. I’ll just tell the attorney that I’ve been threatened and to close the investigation.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “What happens to the money? Who gets it then?”

  “It goes to the State of New York,” I said, “one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. It’ll go where a lot of unclaimed money goes when folks act stupid.”

  In the dim light, I could see the tears gather, but I didn’t know if it was because of Starr or the impending loss of the money or the fact that she had nearly been choked senseless.

  Greed won out and she whispered, “Damn. I didn’t know what I was doin’. Look, I’m … sorry. I don’t want this to go any further outside this room.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” I said, opening the door and stepping out to breathe relatively fresh air. She remained inside, probably searching in the dim-lit space for the knife. I returned to the table and took a seat at the other end, as far away from her as I could get.

  A CD player on the counter was playing “Darling Nicky,” an old lament by The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, and everyone at the table was trying to talk above it. Finally Myrtle called out, “Can we turn that damn screamin’ down? It ain’t like we at some fuckin’ Meadowlands concert!”

  “That mouth gotta be Myrtle,” the bartender yelled as he adjusted the sound. “I’d know that ‘fuck’ anywhere.”

  “Well then, fuck you!” she cried. “And gimme a drink while you at it!”

  I looked from one to the other. A knife had been drawn in the bathroom. Now here was more loud and loose talk that might or might not end in a throw-down. And the quiet evening hadn’t even begun.

  The switchblade artist returned to the table and slipped into her seat and avoided looking in my direction. The bartender, a clean-headed short dark man in his late sixties with a round stomach, approached the table and plopped down two plastic buckets of ice, then wiped his hands on his shirt.

  “Okay, talk to me, ladies.”

  “I’m havin’ Dewar’s tonight so I don’t have no hangover tomorrow,” Myrtle said.

  “And I’m havin’ me a vodka and orange soda,” Jeanette smiled, “ ’cause I know you ain’t got no juice.”

  The bartender looked at her and a smile flickered.

  “I got plenty juice, baby …”

  “Yeah? What flavor you got?”

  “What flavor you want?”

  “See. I told you he ain’t got no juice. Gonna gimme some a’ his private stuff.”

  “Baby, you know I’m still young, dumb, and full a’ come.”

  Amid the laughter, Jeanette leaned back, squinted, and focused her sights on the spot below his potbelly, holding her hand over her brow like a sailor searching the horizon and finding nothing.

  “Man, you so old, what you got I can’t hold. Just gimme a orange soda. At least I can taste that and belch some gas afterwards.”

  “Awh, girl. One a’ these days you gonna break my heart.”

  He moved, still laughing, to take the rest of the orders. I didn’t bother to specify the brand of vodka I wanted because I knew that Absolut, Smirnoff, and Stoli would all be poured from the same five-dollar-a-gallon jug.

  He returned with a tray loaded with enough alcohol to intoxicate an army. The liquor had been poured into eight-ounce plastic cups and three cups were placed in front of each of us.

  “Hey,” he said, placing more ice and then the chasers on the table, “tonight is three for one and since y’all here to wake Starr, lemme know if you need some chips and stuff.”

  Everyone lifted a cup in a toast. I took a quick sip of something that bore no relat
ion to vodka and quickly put the cup down. Everyone else drank and the talk began.

  Amanda started off as if she had been earlier interrupted and now continued without pause:

  “—and y’all know truth from a lie. Sure I wanted something but I had to get out of there to get it. Woman lyin’, sayin’ I tried to take her husband. Fuck her. He didn’t want her and I didn’t want him and so far as I was concerned, we all was even. I couldn’t help it if I was half her age. I ain’t had nuthin’ to do with God’s plan. I mean, the man put all a’ them dollars in my lap ’cause my titties stood up better than his wife’s ever did. He said so. So why she jump bad with me? She shoulda got down on her knees and prayed for a new set. And she shoulda sliced him, not tried to get at me.

  “Anyway, he didn’t have enough for me so I left. I knew what I needed and intended to get it. One way or the other. Do or die. Even Short Change with all his slick talk was for me just a short stop on a long road.”

  The voices rose in approval and Jeanette, the Tuesday woman, looked at her. “You was kinda young to be so grown but I guess that’s what Short Change liked. That’s what he liked about Starr too. Until sister got bad enough to tell him to kiss her royal black ass.

  “You know what Short Change said to me one night?” She raised her cup, frowning in remembrance. “Said get all you can while you can ’cause tomorrow’s dollars ain’t promised. Work it ’til you hurt it and by that time it won’t matter ’cause by then you’d have made your million and you can quit. You can quit. Ain’t that some shit?”

  “Did he say that?”

  “Did he?”

  The laughter drowned out the opening chords of “When Doves Cry,” the best record that Prince ever made. I hadn’t heard it in years and with all the noise, it was unlikely that I would hear it now.

  Myrtle, the Thursday woman, broke into their laughter. Her voice had that cigarette rasp, as if she had just gone through an entire carton nonstop.

  “I was special,” she said. “When I met him, I knew I wasn’t goin’ out on no stroll. Not me. When I hooked up, I came with names and numbers, private, unlisted shit. Didn’t have to fight that heat and snow and wonder if I was gettin’ into the wrong car and end up bein’ rolled out on the other side of a highway. Not me. I was in demand from the best men. Downtown men who couldn’t tire you out even when they sweated like hogs. They were the strangest, the ones who sweated and begged you to do the strange shit.”

  She lit a cigarette and the smoke rose in a white spiral. “It beat workin’ as a live-in and havin’ to fuck the man of the house for free while his wife went off to her bridge game. I mean I got paid, but not for what I did, but for what I didn’t say when the woman come trottin’ back home. Shit, the grin on her face make me think she was out probably fuckin’ somebody’s husband her own self. When I saw how much I could make just by leanin’ back? Girl, please. Instead of turnin’ mattresses, I was layin’ on ’em. Nice, soft, expensive ones.”

  “Yeah, but Starr wasn’t havin’ none a’ that,” said Martha.

  “Well, she didn’t need to,” Jeanette said. “She come from a different thing altogether.” She turned to me now. “You her cousin. Tell us how come she hooked up with Short Change.”

  “Starr wanted to be just that. A star,” I said. “She had a damn good voice and wanted to sing. I don’t know what Short Change said to her but once she got hooked on the drugs, everything else went out the window.”

  “That’s ’cause she wasn’t havin’ none a’ Short Change’s program,” Martha Golden, the Friday woman, said.

  Like Amanda, Martha also appeared to be barely out of her teens, with small features, smooth dark brown skin, and short processed hair that gave off an unnatural glow in the dim light. Her voice was soft and her manner seemed slow and thoughtful, but it was hard to ignore the jackhammer toughness lurking just below the surface.

  “Short Change was just one more son of a bitch, far as I’m concerned,” she said. “When I met him, bad things had been happenin’ to me for so long I figured one more thing wouldn’t make much difference. My mama was the kind who saw and didn’t see, you know what I’m sayin’. Her man wasn’t my father. He helped himself to both of us and she didn’t do a thing. Nothing. Didn’t want to disturb her happy home. Kept her eyes closed and her mouth shut and had his kids fast, like rabbits, and all along treated me like I was the outside one.

  “Well, the last time when he come at me, I grabbed my blade and sliced him three ways: Long. Deep. And serious. Mama, she hear the commotion and come bustin’ in, saw what the deal was, but she slapped me instead. The bitch slapped me! Well, I went off, you hear me. Read her dumb, blind ass while he rollin’ on the floor, blood splashin’ everywhere. And I really was outside from then on.

  “I kept steppin’ and made up my mind that when I went back, I was goin’ in style. That’s what I lived for.

  And didn’t I do it, baby? Didn’t I do it?”

  “Yes, you did.” Everyone raised their cups now. “You damn sure did.”

  “Damn right I did. Married that old preacher man who been after me all his life and built us a house so big you could drive a bus through it and not touch anything.

  “No, I don’t love him the way I should because I don’t know how, but he treats me right and I’m gonna learn. Meanwhile, the stuff I lay on him make him go to sleep with a groan and wake up with a grin.”

  The sound of the CD had lost out and the bartender turned it down so low, only he could hear it. He sat at the bar sipping a beer and snapping his fingers in time to an imperceptible beat. He was the only other person in the place, though I imagined as the night wore on, especially toward dawn, the place would be packed.

  The first cups were empty and everyone had started on the second round. The chorus grew louder:

  “Girl, that was some deep shit!”

  “Me, I wouldn’a taken it!”

  “Oh, yes, you would have.”

  “No, there comes a point where you—”

  “Well, she cut the mother fucker, didn’t she?”

  “Don’t tell me—”

  “Reminds me of somethin’ Starr woulda done.”

  “Damn, I miss her.”

  “Just think, if we had listened to her, we’d probably be unionized and them fuckin’ pimps would be on the unemployment line.”

  Amanda broke in again. “Listen, we here to wake Starr. Not to talk about no fuckin’ pimps.”

  “Well, what’s a ho without a pimp?”

  “Fuck you!” Amanda jumped up and I thought the thugette was going to bring out her carver. “Starr was no ho,” she cried. “That’s what got her killed!”

  “How you know what got her killed unless you did it?” Tuesday said.

  Amanda stared at her openmouthed, then leaned forward, placing her hands on the table. “Listen, bitch, what’re you tryin’ to say?”

  “I’m sayin’ you was jealous of Starr and you know it! Ain’t nobody was more jealous than you,” Tuesday shot back. She had risen quickly and despite the amount of alcohol, she was steady on her feet and ready for a fight. “Starr quit ’cause she wasn’t takin’ no shit. You got beat every time S.C. looked at you.”

  I glanced at the bartender sitting on his stool with his back against the wall. His eyes were at half-mast and he remained silent, as if this spectacle was nothing new. He was probably waiting to see who would make the next move before he reached behind the counter for his bat.

  “Both a’ y’all shut the fuck up,” Thursday shouted.

  “Starr ain’t quit. You got to be in somethin’ to quit somethin’ and all of us except her was in up to our tired tonsils. We—”

  “What you mean I got beat?” Amanda persisted, ignoring Thursday’s opinion. Her thin nostrils flared like wings and I thought she was going to take off and crash against Tuesday like a kamikaze.

  “You did. Tried to play him and got beat,” Tuesday answered, enjoying the tantrum.

  Amanda’s hands
flew to her hips and she drew herself up to her full five-feet-three-inch height. “Well, lemme tell all you ho’s somethin’. I got some licks but I got some cash too. Got more cash stashed than all y’all put together.”

  “What a liar.”

  “Who you callin’ a—?”

  Suddenly a soda can crashed in the middle of the table. Thursday lifted it again and held it high, preparing to bring it down once more.

  “All y’all mother fuckas listen up. If it was anybody did it, it was S.C.”

  A silence followed. I watched Jeanette move her cup over the tablecloth, concentrating on the checkerboard pattern. “You on the money,” she whispered. “I always thought Short Change did it, or had somethin’ to do with it. I’m glad the motherfucker got taken out.”

  The tension at the table did not entirely evaporate but lowered to a simmer, ready to flare up at the snap of a misdirected finger.

  But the women nodded, synchronized, it seemed, to the idea that it could have been their pimp who’d knocked Starr off. Myrtle spoke up: “I ain’t so sure about that. The only one who’d know the real deal is Sara Lee. She the one used to live with him.”

  “Well, who knows where Saturday is? Got kicked to the curb and probably dead by now.”

  This brought another moment of silence. I looked at each in the dim light and saw not reflection but fright, a moment in which each was probably looking at her own future.

  Four men strolled in, took seats at the bar, and checked us out. Myrtle and Amanda recognized them and waved and two of them brought their cups to the table. Their presence ended the wake.

  I rose to leave, knowing that Myrtle would eventually fill in the story of Starr’s cremation. This had not been a wake but an alcohol-soaked, feel-good session full of self-congratulation for having survived life with, and the death of, S.C.

  And Starr had been done in by him because she told him to kiss her ass. Not likely. I had to find Sara Lee, the Saturday woman.

  15

  Alight rain had come and gone but folks who were usually out at 2 A.M. had retreated indoors and stayed. Cabs had also disappeared at the first drop and didn’t return.