If I Should Die Page 14

  I felt tired and closed the book.

  Maybe I should give this stuff to Tad right now. Let him figure it all out—the Motor Vehicles printout, the calendar, my notes, everything. But then he’d be obliged to turn everything over to Danny and that would bring up too many other questions. Like how I came by the calendar in the first place. And the addresses of the license plates. Not to mention the notepad I got today from Erskin’s mother.

  And who knows? Despite Danny’s ambition, all of this might simply be filed away and forgotten. There’s a murder every week. Sheer numbers could grind down the most conscientious investigation. And the dust almost always gathers in an open file. I can’t let that happen to Erskin.

  I started through my own notes a final time before going downstairs to prepare dinner. Dad would be home soon with Alvin and both would be hungry enough to chew the leg off the dining table.

  Two murders, one attempt, and one attempted kidnapping. Morris’s hand was bleeding. The bloodstain is probably still in that car, wherever it is …

  Morris had punched Nightlife but who had actually driven the car? Who pulled the trigger? Were Erskin and Gary killed by the same gun? By the same person? And how come the police are moving so slow on this?

  I closed my notebook. Sometimes, moving away from a problem brought the solution. Sometimes when I least expected it.

  At dinner, I nodded politely at intervals as Dad talked about the Club Harlem. He was negotiating for a steady gig at their Sunday brunches and I only half listened until he said, “Bunch a gangsters, all of ’em, but I’m not settlin’ for nothing less than top dollar.”

  “Who owns the place?” I asked.

  “Who knows? They’ve probably set up so many dummy corporations, even the IRS would have a hard time trying to figure it out. But the street talk is that it’s a laundrymat for narc-dollars.”

  “You sure you want to work steady in that place?”

  “I don’t know. Is there any difference between that place and Wall Street? Or some of the precincts? Or some private clubs in Washington where the pols hang out? The very ones who write the laws against drugs? You know how many of those folks are literally drowning in drug money?”

  I had no answer but I knew that Wall Street and certain parts of Washington and the precincts were safe from the nightly drive-by shootings that were part of the street-level battle for control of the drugs. They were safe from boys barely in their teens who packed enough heat to start World War III. These kids traded Tec-9s like baseball cards and routinely blew away anyone stupid enough to step to the wrong corner phone.

  So if the Club Harlem was in the money game and something went wrong, who could stop an arsonist from easing into the basement and putting the torch to a custom-soaked tablecloth as the band played on?

  Dad glanced at me.

  “Listen, kiddo. Everything’ll be all right. I know how to quit a sinking ship. I know the exits.”

  It was as if he had read my mind. I did not feel any better.

  chapter eighteen

  Sunday morning dawned with a gray drizzle but cleared by the time I left the house to visit Deborah. The Lenox Avenue bus turned down Fifth and fifteen minutes later I stepped off into a neighborhood where private homes resembled small museums and the high-rises were guarded by doormen decked out like Russian generals.

  The rehab institute was an old converted mansion next door to a private club. The institute’s palm-filled lobby and soft music made it seem more like a small posh hotel than a hospital. I wondered if Deborah’s insurance covered all of this or if her sister was more well off than she appeared and was paying the cost to be the boss.

  On the fifth floor, a nurse, the only person I saw in uniform, left her desk to escort me down a carpeted hallway to Deborah’s room. It had been two weeks since anyone except family had been permitted to visit. Although I kept in touch with her sister by phone, I didn’t know what to expect.

  When I stepped inside, Deborah was sitting in a chair near the window, reading. When she looked up, her eyes were clear and her smile was radiant.

  “Mali! Am I glad to see you!”

  I stood near the door, shocked to hear the sound of her voice. She was speaking again. Her sister had never mentioned it; just said that she was doing all right.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” she said, rising from her seat. “Let me give you a hug. Come on now, Mali, don’t start crying. I’ve seen enough of Mama’s tears to last me a lifetime.”

  She had found her voice again, had pulled it back from wherever it had fled that horrible morning.

  “Deborah! Am I glad to see you! And glad to hear you, girl! It’s been a damn long time.”

  “To say the least. What I’ve been through, I wouldn’t wish on a dog, but everything—the treatment, the people in this place—has been wonderful. I’ve even had acupuncture and a few sessions of hypnosis.”

  “They managed to hypnotize you?”

  “Well, let’s put it this way. I think they tried. Anyway, the place isn’t bad at all.”

  “How long will you be here?”

  “Not much longer. As good as it is, there’s nothing like being home, cooking your own food and sleeping in your own bed.”

  She waved her hand around the room, taking in the small bed with its flowered coverlet. The window had matching drapes and there was a lamp, radio, small television, and a VCR. All it needed was a shelf or two of books and it could have been a well-appointed dorm room on any campus.

  She wanted to go home. I nodded but said nothing. Did she know that her sister planned to take her to Washington to live? Maybe not. One step at a time, her sister had said. The main thing was for Deborah to recover, then I suppose they’d deal with the other issues later. One step at a time.

  “You’re coming home. That’s wonderful, that’s good news.”

  I wondered if her sister had already closed up the apartment, packed her belongings, and shipped them to Washington. If she had, might this cause a relapse? Martha had been very closemouthed about her plans whenever I spoke to her, had refused to even stay in Deborah’s apartment, preferring a downtown hotel where she said it was safe. When I asked, she never said that Deborah had improved to this point.

  I saw a fight looming between these two. But right now Deborah looked great. And she was talking.

  “Take a look at this …” She pulled the collar of her blouse aside. The scar looked like a long deep scratch, visible in the arc of her neck. “Doctors did a good job, didn’t they?”

  “They did more than a good job. This is a miracle.”

  I gazed at the scar and knew then that what the old folks said was true: “Death could be dancin’ in your face but you make it on over to that hospital, honey. If you go in squawkin’, they guarantee you’ll come out walkin’.”

  But I didn’t mention this because when she went in, she wasn’t squawking. She barely had a pulse and her blood pressure was the lowest they’d seen in a patient in a long time. They not only brought her back, but there was little physical evidence of the horror she had gone through.

  “Another thing,” Deborah said as she settled back in her chair. “Someone from the police department came here to talk to me. Asked a lot of questions about what happened before that man assaulted me, wanted to know if he said anything. How am I supposed to remember what he said, if he said anything? Even if that memory returns, I don’t intend to speak to the police or anyone about it. Ever. It’s over and I want to forget it.”

  She twisted her fingers and I watched her face change and I cursed Danny Williams again and again. For his ambition and his “don’t give a damn as long as a case gets solved” attitude. But why would he still want to question her? What was he after? Finally, I said, “Don’t worry. I’ll let your sister know what’s happening. She can call the precinct and lodge a complaint. The goal is for you to get well, not to be subjected to any harassment.”

  She calmed a bit and smiled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean
to start yelling …”

  “You weren’t yelling.”

  “Well, I’m sorry.” She rose from the chair and began to pace the floor. There wasn’t much room to walk and I wondered if she did this often. “I’ll be all right once I get back to work, get busy again.”

  “You’ll be fine, Deborah. You’re all right now. You’ve been through a lot, but you’re coming along all right now.”

  I guided her back to the chair by the window and held her hands until she calmed down. “You’re coming along fine,” I repeated.

  She looked at me closely and I knew what she was asking.

  “Deborah, I’ve never lied to you. Never. You are getting better. Soon you’ll be one hundred percent.”

  She closed her eyes. Then: “Will you come see me again?”

  “I’ll come tomorrow.”

  “No. Sundays are the only days.”

  I looked around the room. “Do they permit telephones?”

  “I suppose they do, but up to now, I haven’t needed one.” She was relaxed now, able to smile at the joke.

  “Well, I’ll contact the nurse’s station. Maybe they can call you to the phone. Meanwhile, I’ll speak to your sister and have her go to the precinct. There’s no reason why Danny Williams should be harassing you.”

  She looked at me and shook her head, the silver in her tiny earrings glittering in the fading afternoon light.

  “No. His name wasn’t Williams. It was Honeywell. A Detective Tad Honeywell, who said he knew you. Very charming. And, let me tell you, girl, he was something to look at.”

  chapter nineteen

  When I came in from class, the message light was blinking on my answering machine, and even before I took my shoes off, I pressed the button hoping to hear Tad’s voice. Instead, the message that came on was so explicit I wondered where the caller got his ideas from. He couldn’t possibly be capable of doing all the things he suggested. Still, I lowered the volume so that the voice lost depth and took on the insubstantial quality of a small, squeaking rodent.

  It was a long call and I thought of speeding it up until a phrase caught my ear: “… then we’ll take care of your father and your nephew …”

  I replayed it, pressed the save button, and removed the tape. The calls were coming in more frequently now but the phone company had had no luck tracing them. Probably because whoever it was was calling from a public phone. I hadn’t cared because I assumed they had come from the precinct in reaction to the lawsuit.

  This message was a death threat.

  When the phone rang again, I picked it up on the first ring.

  “What’re you doing this evening? Feel like coming out?”

  “Tad?”

  “Well, who else would be calling to—never mind, let me start again. How about having dinner? I know a great chef over at a cozy Riverbend apartment overlooking the river …”

  “Really?” I whispered, already putting my shoes back on and slipping the tape into my bag. “What’s on the menu?”

  “You’ll see when you get here. Take a cab. I’ll have the wine chilled, the candles lit, and dinner on the table by the time you ring the bell.” There was a pause, and his voice softened. “Mali, I’m sorry about the other day.”

  “I’m sorry also, Tad. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Even as I said this, I was grabbing my jacket.

  I needed to tell him about this latest message, this threat against my family, and find out if it related to the lawsuit or my interest in the choir murders. Either way, it was something to take seriously.

  The choir murders. I was throwing a few things into my shoulder bag and paused when I realized I had used Danny Williams’s own phrase. The Choir Murders. Nice neat file name but what the hell was happening with it?

  I looked at the file on my desk and on the way out, impulsively swept the large envelope into my bag already stuffed with hairbrush, toothbrush, red silk teddy, and some strawberry-flavored personal stuff—just in case.

  Somewhere along the line, I’d get around to asking about Tad’s visit to Deborah and we could go over Erskin’s notebook. But all of that would come later in the evening, probably more toward morning. First things first.

  Dad took on a grim look when I mentioned where I was going.

  “In my day,” he said, “young men came to the house, or at least to the door, to pick up their date for the evening. They might even have a few words with the family before stepping out. But, of course, that was in my day—horse-and-buggy era—so don’t let me interfere with anything you want to do.”

  I wanted to count to ten under my breath before I answered but that would’ve taken too long.

  “Dad, please,” I called to him as he made his way toward the kitchen. “It isn’t as if you hadn’t already met him, or didn’t know him.”

  I heard the door of the fridge slam shut and the rattle of jars and dishes and wondered how he could still be hungry so soon after dinner.

  “Technically,” he called, “you’re right. I did meet him. But I really don’t know him.”

  I waited for him to continue but felt my stomach tightening. I was thirty-one years old, not thirteen. Most women my age were already married to or divorcing their second husbands or sprouting a second crop of kids. In nine short years, I’d be looking in the mirror at a forty-year-old face and body and trying to figure out what had happened. Or more to the point, what had not happened, and how I had allowed my life to drain away.

  Dad returned to the living room and made his way to the sofa with a small tray loaded with spectator food—beer, soda, chips, and a couple of hard-boiled eggs. He turned on the television and settled himself in for the Knicks game. Alvin would soon come down to keep him company.

  And once Patrick Ewing hit the court, it wouldn’t matter if I stayed home or not. I could go into cardiac arrest right there in front of the set, and if it happened before halftime, I would be out of luck.

  “Dad, can we finish this discussion when I return?”

  He snapped the sound off and looked up, noticing my heavy shoulder bag. “What do you have in there? Books, I hope. The semester’s ending and I don’t see you burning the midnight oil.”

  “Dad, I just spent the entire afternoon after class in the library. The print was starting to swim before my eyes. I can stand to take a break.”

  He hesitated, then said, “Well, call me if you’re gonna be out late.”

  I reached over and kissed him on the forehead. “I’ll be careful. Don’t worry.”

  It had gotten dark fast. The trees were thick with new leaves and the streetlights only filtered through at intervals as I walked toward Seventh Avenue. Most of the houses had their windows shut and curtains drawn against the evening. Cars were parked bumper-to-bumper on both sides of the street, and despite the warm weather, there were no dog walkers or cars passing through. I was the only one on the block.

  Twenty feet away from the confluence of Seventh Avenue’s bright lights and busy arena, someone came up behind me. Fast and quiet.

  “Give it up!”

  Before I turned, his hand was already at my shoulder, pulling the bag away.

  “No! No! Let go of me!”

  He snatched at the strap but my fingers were frozen to the body of the bag.

  “Fuckin’ bitch! Let it go! Give it up! I’ll kill you!”

  “No!”

  One strap broke as he jerked the bag, the force pulling me off my feet. I fell down, screaming. Two men crossing the avenue looked back, then came running.

  “Yo! What’s goin’ on? You all right, sister?”

  “Help me! This man is—”

  “Look, brothers, mind your business. This my woman and she got somethin’ belong to me. Okay. So step off.”

  I was on my feet now and trying to ease an inch at a time toward the avenue, toward lights, toward more people.

  “No—wait a minute. I don’t know this man! He’s trying to rob me. He’s a thief. Call the police!”

  I pr
essed the bag to me, staring at the man who wanted it. A dark, wiry man of about thirty with thin braided hair who was actually grinning at the other two. Grinning in a brotherly way.

  “You know how it is … You break up with your old lady and—”

  I stared at him, openmouthed, then at the two men, one of whom had begun to hesitate, wondering if he had done the right thing.

  “Well, look, brother, I don’t know. I don’t get between no man and his woman …”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. This thief. This bum, this son of a bitch, was actually convincing them that it was all right to do what he was doing.

  “Walk me to the corner,” I said to them, “and we’ll find a cop and settle this right now. I’m telling you this man is trying to rob me!”

  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, bitch. You comin’ back home with me!”

  I saw the two men glance at each other. This thief was convincing.

  The taller of the two shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, brother, but you ain’t got to disrespect the sister, you know, callin’ her out her name and knockin’ her down ’n’ stuff. You ain’t got to—” Then he looked closely. “Heyyyyy, I thought I seen you before. You hang uptown, but I seen you in the joint. Come on, Nightlife. You know this ain’t your woman. Sister got too much style. And I mean, you just got out, man. Just got out. Drop it, okay? ’Less you like it better on the inside liftin’ them weights.”

  Nightlife had been holding onto the broken strap but dropped it cold.

  “What that prove, motherfucker? You seen me in the joint, so what that prove? You smarter ’cause you out now? Your big-ass mouth wider than the Lincoln Tunnel. Who ast you?” He reached inside his jacket. “I got somethin’ for a runnin’ mouth!”

  “Now wait a minute, Night—don’t be gittin’ crazy …”