If I Should Die Page 21

  “No, I haven’t. They’re not moving on Erskin’s murder, and because Gary was so well known, they may not want to move on this. I mean, a prominent Wall Street broker tied to a black drug dealer? Gary’s dead. They won’t want to tarnish his image. They would probably take the tape and destroy it.”

  “Where did you get this … this tape?”

  “I’ve had it for quite some time. I had it and didn’t know what was on it. I heard it for the first time just an hour ago.”

  “An hour ago?”

  “Yes.”

  I watched him now as he leaned back in his chair, shaking his head, trying to absorb the thing he had just heard.

  “I can’t believe it! Gary! Mixed up with the biggest thug outside of Attica. And poor Erskin. Caught in the middle. Erskin and Johnnie were like night and day.”

  “That’s true, Lloyd. That’s why I came here right away, to find out what you intend to do about the tour … There’s too much at stake.”

  He looked at me, surprised. “What do you mean, too much at stake?”

  “Well, I was thinking … hoping that you’d consider canceling the tour.”

  “Cancel the tour?” He leaned forward, wide-eyed, as if I’d just asked him to leap from the top of the World Trade Center. “The Christmas tour? That’s out of the question. Out of the question.”

  He rose now and moved again from behind the desk and paced the floor in a wide circle, his arms held tightly to his midsection as if he needed to hold something vital inside.

  “Impossible. I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? Who’s going to know why you canceled?”

  “It can’t be done because … for one thing, we’ve just completed a very successful campaign to underwrite this tour.”

  I gazed at the artwork again as he spoke and wondered what his walls at home looked like.

  “We need this tour,” he said, “to counteract all the negative publicity we’ve had the last few months. We need this so we can get back on track.”

  I interrupted him. “What about the children, Lloyd? Aren’t you exposing them to a dangerous situation?”

  “How can you say that? I mean, there was no actual kidnapping. There was no threat.” He waved his hand as if dismissing a bothersome fly. “They don’t have a hostage tied up in a hideout somewhere threatening him to make us do what they want.”

  “But you heard Gary right there on the tape. You heard him say the drugs are there. Waiting.”

  “Whatever Gary said, I don’t believe anything’ll come of it. He’s dead. The plans have probably been changed.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I can’t be. But I’m certain of one thing.” He returned again to the desk to lean on it. “Mali, I want you to understand this. I’m not canceling! I’m not calling the police in on this. I’m not doing anything. We’ve suffered too much adverse publicity already. Any more and we’re dead as an organization. Our sources will dry up and our credibility will be zero.”

  I waited for him to continue. So far he had convinced me of nothing.

  “You don’t know how it is. You just don’t know,” he said. “I worked twenty years to get this organization to this point. Twenty years. I’m not about to let it go down the drain over some far-fetched deal which may or may not take place.”

  It was not so far-fetched. We both knew that drugs had been shipped in the cadavers of Vietnam casualties and more recently in the condom-packed stomachs of couriers. Why not the backpacks of choristers? Especially since someone was being paid to smooth the way.

  “Why won’t the deal work?”

  “I’m not saying it won’t work. I’m saying they won’t try it. Their main man, their connection, is dead. Gary took two bullets to the head right outside this very building. No one knows who did it. And personally, now that I know what he was all about, I don’t give a damn who killed him.”

  “But don’t you care about Erskin?”

  “Of course I do.”

  He moved away from the desk again and began to prowl around the office. Like someone or something suddenly caged and unable to find a bar weak enough to smash through. Then he seemed to remember that I was watching him and he turned to face me.

  “Of course I care about Erskin. Of course I do, but Mali, you’ve got to understand that this organization is larger than that. And it got large because of me. My sweat. My efforts. And I’m not going to let anyone destroy it.”

  He moved to the window now and stood with his back to me. “You have no idea what went into this. What it took out of me. I have no family. Never had time for one. And I don’t miss it because … because this is my family.”

  He turned to face me now and the dark flush had faded somewhat.

  “You know that in ordinary relationships, people get married, children are born; there are grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and in-laws all going through the life problems we all must face. Me, I married an idea and it became real because I went through hell to raise the money this idea needed. I smiled, begged, kissed up to people who, under other circumstances, I wouldn’t dream of saying hello to. Smiled and kissed corporate asses and sucked up until my jaws ached.

  “And even here in Harlem, I went through hell, all the while having to listen to that ‘brothers gotta stick together’ bullshit; all that empty hype. Smiling at those institutions who initially wouldn’t support us, going out and convincing children that it was all right to want to be a choir kid instead of a gangster. All this just to get the damn thing off the ground.

  “You know, my father used to be a backyard singer in the old days where four or five of them would travel through the backyards and alleys from tenement to tenement on Sundays, singing hymns. He brought the sound of gospel to folks who didn’t or couldn’t go to church. I was six years old then and I was the one who ran with my cap held out to collect the few nickels and dimes, but mostly pennies, that were tossed out of the open windows. I picked through the garbage and fought past the rats for those pennies. My father, my mother, and I very nearly starved but we kept at it.

  “My folks are gone now but if I learned anything from them, it was the power of faith and a dream and I’m here to tell you it finally paid off. The only family I have is here. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s alive and well so I have no intention of letting two men—two dead men—send me back to square one. No way.”

  He paused and went over to the wall and touched the Bearden collage, correcting a slight misalignment.

  “Nice collection,” I murmured.

  “Yes it is. These pieces were a gift, a very generous gift.”

  He did not turn around and I knew Gary had loaned them. Now that he was dead, the loan had become a gift.

  He finally sat down and we both glanced at the cassette and reached the same conclusion.

  “That’s a copy,” I said.

  “Oh.”

  He leaned across the desk and handed me the tape. “Mali, I can’t ask you to keep quiet about this.”

  “No. You can’t,” I said, rising from my chair and not at all impressed with his personal history. The power of faith and a dream was one thing, but what about integrity? What about all those strict rules applied to the kids? Shouldn’t they apply to the adults also? It was a neatly wrapped speech but as far as I was concerned, it was neatly wrapped bullshit. He was acting as if he’d cornered the market on hard times, but everyone I knew caught hell coming up in Harlem. It was our national anthem.

  At the door, I turned at the sound of his voice.

  “Well, listen … Give me a couple of days. To think about what to do. We can work around this. Perhaps change dates, move the tour up, think about beefing up the group’s security or something. I don’t know. I just need the time. This has been … this has been one hell of a surprise.”

  His flush had faded entirely, and except for his eyebrows, he seemed to have regained his composure. He was again the administrator in charge.

  “Fair enough
,” I whispered, hoping that Tad would be back by the time I got home. I closed Lloyd’s door and walked past his frosty secretary, who did not even bother to look up.

  chapter twenty-eight

  The news had been a shock to Lloyd, but it had been more than that for me. Outside the rehearsal hall, I tried to decide what to do. Go home or go for a walk. I needed to clear my head and at Malcolm X Boulevard, I turned and headed downtown, walking slowly, with no particular destination.

  I looked in the windows of Liberation, the small crowded bookstore I’d visited many times, sometimes dropping in just to chat with the two sisters. I didn’t go in now because I needed to concentrate on other things. Erskin’s voice, so vibrant and strong on the tape, competed with my memory of his vacant eyes and I needed to come to terms with those conflicting images.

  The breeze brought the late afternoon strollers and the usual mobile vendors to the avenue. Stoops were jammed and young girls in front jumped double Dutch, skipping into the ropes, spinning around with braids flying and arms pinned to their sides. Someone called the beat: “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black, with silver buttons, buttons, buttons, all down her back, back, back …” Then the ropers changed, switching from double Dutch to double orange and the pace quickened. “Asked my mother for fifteen cents, to see the elephant jump the fence. Jumped so high, touched the sky. Never came back till fourth a July.”

  Sneakers and sandals cleared the ropes, slapping the hot concrete fast and serious. A tight knot of onlookers clapped to the beat and I wanted to join the girls, just for a second, to lose myself in the slapping rhythm and recapture some of their innocence.

  At 116th Street, I walked past the mosque and waved to the bow-tied brothers, several of whom I’d held serious conversations with years ago in their restaurant.

  “As-Salaam Alaikum, Sister Mali. You’re looking well.”

  “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam, Brother John. Thank you.”

  I bought a bean pie and a newspaper and continued my walk.

  At 110th Street, I sat on the grass facing the lake but my mood did not change and I still had no appetite, despite the pie. I wondered if I had done the right thing speaking to Lloyd so quickly. Why couldn’t I have waited for Tad? But who knows when he’s coming back? Had I expected Lloyd to do what? See things my way?

  And there was Gary, setting up a deal and violating a trust and not giving a damn about anything. Just like he’d done on Wall Street, only this was worse. The children had meant nothing to him. Nothing. He had worked his scene like a cold hawk, yet when I saw him, he’d been shaken to the bone.

  On the tape, he said he’d take the word to Johnnie and get things rolling. Used Johnnie’s name a lot. But I wonder if Johnnie actually knew what was going down. Maybe someone else strong-armed Mark with the idea of using the kids. Using them in exchange for something. And when Mark couldn’t make it work, they took him out. So when I saw him, he hadn’t been shaken by Erskin’s murder so much as he’d been paralyzed by the fear of his own.

  I gave the pie to a homeless man and left the park, heading back the way I had come.

  It had been a mistake to try to talk to Lloyd. His program was his life and he intended to do what it took to protect it. Asking me to wait was just a stall.

  Heading home, threading my way among the strollers, skaters, and bike riders, I tried to ignore the uneasy feeling that floated out of the humid evening to wrap around me like a cloak.

  Night had not quite fallen when I turned into the block and the delicate moment between daylight and streetlight had bathed houses and trees alike in a grainy monochrome. This was the best time of day for me and I’d soon be out walking with Ruffin in quiet solitude.

  I climbed the steps and touched the knob and the door swung open even as I fumbled in my bag for the key. I stood there, wondering if I had forgotten to lock it. In all these years, that had never happened, not for me, my sister, my father, or my mother.

  In the foyer, I felt my heart race when I reached for the light switch and nothing happened.

  “Dad?”

  No answer, but that thin, empty-house echo was not there. Another wall light in the hallway leading to the living room was also out.

  … Try another lamp, one in the living room, then go check the box downstairs …

  I made my way into the living room, searching in the dark.

  … Where the hell was the lamp that should have been on the table near the sofa?

  My hand fanned the air and I had a fleeting thought that I might have wandered into the wrong house but in all the years I’d lived here, sometimes staggering home less than sober after a night of parties, I’d never done that. Drunk or not, I at least knew where I lived.

  I had left the front door open but the streetlight stretched no farther into the room. I kept feeling for the chairs, the bar, the coffee table. Once I reached the sofa, the largest thing in the room, I’d get my bearings.

  Instead, I stumbled across something soft. I bent down, touched a form, and backtracked to the foyer to snatch the large flashlight from the ledge above the door. When I snapped it on, I took several steps back.

  This … is … not …

  The large beam swept the living room and I didn’t recognize it.

  Dad! No … This isn’t … it can’t be …

  He lay sprawled on the carpet near the bottom of the stairs.

  … This isn’t my dog. This isn’t …

  Ruffin lay near the fireplace where the sofa should have been.

  The light beam caught the overturned furniture, the smashed mirrors, the dark stains streaking the walls, and then wavered. I dropped it and ran screaming next door to Dr. Thomas.

  chapter twenty-nine

  The Harlem Hospital emergency room was a war zone. People in various stages of trauma were strapped to gurneys, or slumped in chairs, while others leaned against the walls. The corridors were crowded and every chair and bench was occupied.

  Someone with a clipboard and lots of pencils approached, and words like coverage and insurance filtered through to me. I must have answered because eventually the clipboard and pencils floated away, to fasten on someone else.

  I moved to a corner and sat on the floor to wait. Dr. Thomas had eased Dad quickly through triage and had gone upstairs with him directly to surgery. I could do nothing but wait and watch the movement curling around me.

  A young man was brought in by two others, placed on the floor near me, and abandoned, simply left on his own. His eyes were swollen shut and his tongue protruded, spilling a purple-streaked spittle. He made no sound, and except for the slow rise of his stained sweatshirt, it was hard to tell he was even alive.

  A long time ago, all this would have been part of a night’s work: complete a form, file the report, and return to the beat to look for, or at least try to prevent, the next crisis. Now Dad was here and we were in crisis, and there were no reports for me to file.

  An overworked nurse and intern stooped over the man, checking his vital signs, deciding whether he was serious enough to move to the head of the line.

  The doors to the corridor moved back and forth, each swing bringing in another wave of people. Screaming children pressed against frightened mothers—women who had, by their expression, moved beyond fatigue years ago.

  Everyone, those who could speak, talked at once, competing with the sound system, demanding attention. Now. Those who could not speak seemed to sit in dumb amazement, not understanding what had brought them here in the first place.

  I closed my eyes to shut out, if not the sound, then at least this vision. But I again saw my living room and door and stairs against the red of my closed lids. A bright red once Dr. Thomas had gotten the lights on. A bright red once the police had come.

  “Did your father have any enemies?”

  A red so radiant it blinded when Dad was placed in the neck restraint and lifted to the stretcher. In the ambulance, I knelt near the stretcher.

  “Did you
have any enemies?”

  I don’t know who asked this question and I did not try to answer. We have enemies the day we are born. I leaned near my father’s ear, wiped away the crisp flecks of dried blood, and whispered so that no one but him could hear.

  “Daddy? Listen. You remember what the old folks said? If you go in squawkin’, you’ll come out walkin’. Remember? Remember?”

  There was more red when Dr. Thomas’s twin sons had taken Ruffin, barely breathing, wrapping him in a blanket like an oversize broken toy to rush away and be fixed.

  Red color thick and dense and turning brown where it had sprayed the walls and clotted there and turning black where it soaked through the carpets.

  I could not keep my eyes closed, not even to pray.

  Straight ahead, a woman sat in a chair gripping a towel to her left arm. Her gray braids were a bright contrast against her walnut skin. She cried as a small boy rubbed her shoulders and tried to hold the towel in place. Blood had soaked through it to her print dress and I gazed at the fabric. The large pink flower turned dark before prayer came.

  Dear Lord! Please. He’s an old man. Don’t let him go out like this. He’s my father and all I have. All I have. Let me … keep him a little longer. Just a little longer …

  When Dr. Thomas approached, his tall, spare frame slowly threading through the crowd, his careful expression told me nothing until he touched my shoulder.

  “Mali?” He whispered as if he wanted to wake me from a dream. He pushed his glasses back on his nose and I saw the fine features were wet with perspiration. “He’s still in surgery. I came down to let you know. And to see how you’re doing.”

  “So, no one knows anything?”

  “Not yet. But be strong, girl. I don’t have to tell you that it’s not over till it’s over. Stay strong. I’ll be back soon as they tell me something.”

  Five and a half hours later he tapped my shoulder and I jerked awake. The lady in the print dress and her little boy were gone, and most of the casualties had been processed and replaced by a new wave.