Do or Die Page 7

  “Here are some addresses, but one—Sara Lee Brown—I don’t have ’cause she moved. Got evicted from her place.”

  I looked at the list. Two of the names I had already gotten from Charleston, so Sara Lee Brown and Martha Golden were the weekend women and Sara Lee was missing.

  “When was Sara Lee evicted?”

  “At least six months back. I don’t know where she is now. You know, you kinda lose touch …”

  “What does she look like?”

  “Oh, about five-seven, pretty, with dark brown complexion, one hundred twenty pounds, about thirty-five years old, wore lots of blond wigs, ’cause blond hair catch the headlights, you know, especially in winter. It stand out real catchy when snow is fallin’.”

  10

  I left Monday’s apartment, not at all sure that she’d contact Elizabeth. I could have referred her to the social work department at the hospital but she was not sick. Stressed but not seriously ill. Besides, if she showed up on one of the days I was scheduled to work, it might cause a problem. Better to have her speak to Elizabeth.

  I maneuvered once more through the gatekeepers, who had not budged an inch to the left or the right since my earlier entrance.

  The block was also crowded with volleyball players, hopscotchers, and potential hoop stars. I threaded my way around the kids and at Powell Boulevard decided to return home. I needed to see how Dad was feeling before continuing my rounds. Perhaps he’d heard from Ozzie.

  I passed Mickey Dee’s, crossed the boulevard, and turned into the relative stillness of Strivers Row. When I opened the door, Dad was in his studio and Ruffin’s bark brought him upstairs. I stopped in my tracks when I saw his face.

  “Dad! What happened?”

  “It’s Ozzie.”

  “What? What happened to him? Has he been arrested? Was he—?”

  “Not yet, but he’s acting like a fugitive. He’s in hiding and won’t tell me where. I think he’s grieving more than actually hiding and he wants to be left alone. He called to tell me that he had Starr cremated.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. So there’ll be no funeral, no memorial service, no nuthin’. He has her ashes with him wherever the hell he’s at right now. I mean there’s nothing wrong with cremation if that’s what he wanted to do but he seems to have really gone off the deep end; he’s acting like a lunatic. I … I don’t know what I can do. He needs help, and I—oh, man!”

  I reached out and grabbed Dad’s arm. “Listen. Sit down. Sit down.” I led him to the sofa and we sat down together. Ruffin returned to his favorite spot in front of the fireplace, stretched out on the cool tiles, and stared at us, sensing that something was wrong.

  “If I could only catch up with him. If I only knew—”

  I listened, wishing that I had been home when the call had come in. Maybe I could’ve gotten a word, a hint of where he was.

  “Can you imagine,” my father continued, “Ozzie sitting alone at the crematorium, and God knows what thoughts were going through his head at the time? His only daughter dying the way she did and nobody but him to mourn her, not in privacy but in complete isolation. That’s enough to send the sanest person over the wall.”

  I understood what Dad was saying, understood that if someone—anyone—didn’t get to Ozzie soon, he would be lost, consumed by his own private rage. This was also affecting Dad, biting into the lines on his face, eating at him despite his best efforts.

  “I’m going back out,” I said. “See if I can find Too Hot. He usually hangs down at the Lenox Lounge when he’s not at the club. Perhaps he knows something or someone who does.”

  Upstairs in my room I kicked off my high heels, abandoning my investigator persona, and slipped into a comfortable pair of mid-heels, suitable for long walks. I tend to walk everywhere because I never know what news I’ll pick up along the way. I don’t own a car because driving, I’d probably miss everything but the traffic lights.

  The Lenox Lounge is an old, old bar on Malcolm X Boulevard between 124th and 125th streets which has somehow managed to hold on to its original Art Deco look since its doors swung open in 1939.

  I stepped into the dark interior and made my way toward one of the red leather banquettes that curved in half-moon configurations against the wall opposite the long bar. Each booth was sectioned off by a soft-lit vertical column.

  An archway of etched glass separated the back room, which held a grand piano and clusters of chairs and tables. This room, once called the Zebra Room because the walls had been covered with zebra skin, now exhibited glossies of Sammy Davis, Jr., Eartha Kitt, Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughan, and silhouettes of Nubian princesses highlighted by small red wall lamps. The floor of small hexagonal white, gray, and terra-cotta tiles was still intact despite sixty years of heavy traffic. A leather ceiling, tanned from decades of cigarette smoke, accentuated the thirties ambience.

  Too Hot was seated in a banquette near the jukebox and he signaled me to join him. He was seventy-two years old now and newly retired from his numbers enterprise but he still kept his eye on the action, still hung out in the jazz spots, clubs, and any restaurant that knew how to serve a good dinner. Now he sat sipping his usual Walker Black, straight up, and called to the barmaid, “I’ll have another and bring this young lady an Absolut and orange, please.”

  As usual, he was dressed impeccably in a pale linen suit, dark cotton shirt, custom shoes, and his favorite five-hundred-dollar Panama rested on the table near his glass. He turned to me and I caught his smile in the dim light.

  “So you was on that cruise. Musta been a real treat listenin’ to all that jazz. I shoulda been there. By the time I’d made up my mind, the ship was sold out stem to stern. Couldn’t even hitch a seat in the rowboat section. Your pop was tellin’ me he played with the best. Good for him.”

  He shook his head in despair. “Next year, though, look out. I’m gonna take care a’ business early, no more CPT for me.”

  I laughed. Mom used to say making plans on Colored Peoples’ Time has caused black folks to miss out on every thing except bad luck. And the longer I lived, the truer it seemed.

  “So how’s Ozzie?” he said, changing the subject. “Is he hangin’ in there? Damn shame about Starr. She was a beautiful girl. Smart, ambitious, got sidetracked for a minute but he had gotten her straightened out. That was a hell of a blow to have her die the way she did.” He bowed his head, in sympathy, it seemed, and sipped his drink. He always sipped, and very slowly.

  “Ozzie’s taking it pretty hard,” I said, lowering my voice even though the place had gotten crowded and no one was paying particular attention to us. The booths were filled and every seat at the bar was occupied.

  Someone punched up the jukebox and Jeffrey Osborne’s smooth sound drifted over the hum of conversation. “Can you woo-woo-woo?” he wanted to know.

  I remembered the night Tad had virtually wiped out that CD. We had popped a bottle of bubbly for no particular reason other than we were together on his terrace and the breeze wafting off the river was soft and cool. The jasmine-scented candles had deepened the color in Tad’s eyes and when he smiled, I felt the world slow down.

  We listened to You should be mine … Over and over and over.

  Until someone from a nearby terrace advised, “Brother, if the babe ain’t ready by now, change your tune. Hit it or quit it so I can cop me a nod!”

  We lowered the volume to a whisper, then all I heard was Tad’s own whisper. I felt his breath in my ear and his hands moving in a warm slow dance over my stomach. “Can you woo woo woo?”

  Ah, yes, indeed, sweetie. Yes, indeed. I could. There under the stars and in that soft breeze. Yes, indeed, I could.

  “… so like I was saying, Mali, I don’t know if Ozzie—”

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  In the dim light, Too Hot squinted at me over the rim of his raised glass. “You feelin’ all right? You lookin’ a little dazed.”

  “A littl
e tired, that’s all,” I lied.

  “Maybe you need to chill out. Get on home and catch a wink.”

  “Not right now. I’m worried about Ozzie. He’s disappeared and no one, not even Dad, knows where he is.”

  Too Hot put his glass down and leaned toward me. “Mali. Don’t tell me he went and got to Short Change.”

  “I don’t know. I thought you might’ve heard something.”

  Too Hot stirred his drink and looked around. The bar, already crowded, seemed to expand to accommodate several more people who had just entered and were now standing three deep at the bar. Some waved in his direction. He scanned them and waved back, then turned to me, shaking his head.

  “Too early. But stick around. You know how things work.”

  I said nothing and made up my mind to wait.

  “Now,” he said, “what exactly are you lookin’ for?

  No point in trackin’ somebody, then when you find him, all you want to say is hello.”

  “Well, right now, that’s all I have in mind. Ozzie’s grieving more than he’s hiding. And Dad’s affected by all this. My father’s about to fall apart.”

  I watched his face, trying to read it in the dim light. He took another slow sip before he spoke. “My favorite bass man and the best piano I ever heard might be out of action. Ain’t that somethin’. Ain’t that somethin’.”

  “So it’s not just Ozzie I’m interested in,” I said. “It’s whoever might’ve been seen with Starr before she died.”

  “Well, like I said, stick around. You never know.”

  He was right. One never knows from one minute to the next what to expect. The barmaid returned to the table but I was still on my first drink. She waved and melted into the crowd again.

  Someone changed up the menu and for the next half hour the jukebox pumped out the rhythm of the Afro-Cuban All Stars, vibrant stuff that made your foot itch to leap up and dance on the table. It was loud and strong and the volume of conversation rose accordingly, so loud that neither of us heard when the man approached our table.

  “Hey, Hot, how’s it goin’?”

  Too Hot looked up and nodded. “Not bad. Not bad at all. Grab a seat and rest your feet. Want you to meet a friend of mine.”

  I looked from one to the other. Too Hot would not have invited him to join us to waste time.

  “Mali, meet Sno.”

  I shook his hand and moved over to allow him to join us. I watched Too Hot signal the barmaid and like magic she materialized through the dense crowd.

  “Set my man up. Whatever he’s havin’.”

  “Harveys on the rocks, please,” Sno said.

  I stole a glance at him as he watched the rhythm of the girl’s hips as she moved away from the table. Someone once said that if you knew ten people in New York, you knew everyone, and that seemed to apply particularly to the folks in Harlem. I knew that Sno’s real name was Errol Coddington and that he was about 50 years old, had migrated from Antigua years ago and, after failing at several small retail ventures, had bought a pushcart and went into business as an ICEY vendor. I also knew that he worked two shifts: The daylight hours found him selling syrup-flavored snow cones to the kids and making a lot of money.

  Early evening, when he had gotten his second wind and a fresh uniform, he hit the streets again around eleven. To make even more money. The fruit-flavored menu was changed up, night rates kicked in, and the snowcones came saturated with Bacardi Limon, Absolut Currant, Hennessy Cognac, Appleton Estate Special, Myer’s Dark, and Dewar’s White Label.

  Sales were brisk but limited to the adults who lounged on stoops and leaned out windows shooting the breeze and catching the news and who, like that famous dog, rushed to line the curb at the sound of the tinkling bell.

  Sno made enough money to be highly selective. When a too-young or too-suspicious face approached, he switched to the emergency backup fruit flavors. He had a reputation to protect and it wouldn’t do to have some angry parent chasing him down with a baseball bat.

  Folks who love to boast about other folks’ money said that Sno had a large investment portfolio. I only knew that he had real estate in Antigua, to which he retired every winter.

  When the weather warmed, he returned to his three-story brownstone on 120th Street near Garvey Park to dust off his wagon and roll through the blocks again.

  I knew all this and although he shook my hand politely, Harlem being what it is, I’m sure he knew me as the ex-cop who had sued the NYPD after being fired three years ago. There are few secrets here and most folks tend to live and let live.

  “Mali was on that jazz cruise,” Too Hot said, opening on a neutral note. Sno looked at me, smiling in the dim light. His face was dark and almost moon-shaped. His eyes appeared to be at perpetual half-mast but probably missed very little. When he spoke, there was a hint of island accent. “No kidding. How was it?”

  “Pretty nice. My dad’s group was in the lineup. Jeffrey Anderson.” I said this with a trace of pride, knowing that he’d already made the connection.

  “Oh. Oh, yeah. I know him … good bass man,” he said. “Good sound.”

  “Ozzie Hendrix is his piano man,” Too Hot said in the same low voice. “Shame what happened to his daughter.”

  I tried to watch Sno closely as Too Hot spoke and I thought I saw a flicker in his lidded eyes but he remained silent as Too Hot went on.

  “That pimp got knocked the other day also. Rudy said crime goin’ down but I wonder …”

  “Probably messin’ with those statistics like that captain did in the Bronx,” Sno said. “You know they ain’t reportin’ all the stuff that go down unless it’s somethin’ spectacular. Somethin’ that somebody gonna talk about.”

  “Not many folks talkin’ about this,” Too Hot said as he lifted his glass.

  “Which one?” Sno asked.

  “Starr Hendrix, Ozzie’s kid.”

  “Cops think she may have been killed sometime between late Saturday night and early Sunday morning,” I interjected. “Ozzie found her Monday afternoon when we returned. He hasn’t been the same since.”

  “Late Saturday and early Sunday, you said?”

  “Yes.”

  The waitress finally returned to place a small bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream sherry and a small, ice-filled glass on the table. Sno broke the seal, poured a drink, and took a sip. He did not say a word. The Afro-Cuban All Stars dropped their sound to a tune low and slow and the voices at other booths could be heard now. We three sat in silence and Sno’s attention seemed focused on the people at the bar. I tried to think of something more to say but nothing occurred to me so I remained quiet and waited.

  Finally he glanced at his watch and said, not to me, but to Too Hot, “Be talkin’ to you soon.”

  Then to me: “Nice to meet you, Mali. Tell your dad I like his sounds. I like ’em a lot. Tell ’im I like Ozzie too.” And with that, he left the booth, made his way through the crowd, and was out the door.

  Something had transpired but it was something I had missed because it was something unsaid, so I lifted my glass and concentrated on matching my small sips with Too Hot’s. A minute later, I noticed the edge of a frown creeping over his brow. He tapped his fine, manicured fingers against the table and said, “Tell your pop to hang in there.” Then just as quickly the frown disappeared: “So tell me more about the cruise.”

  He ordered another round and we listened to Nina Simone glide through a rendition of “Just in Time.” Her voice seemed to pour from the jukebox like smoke.

  I talked about Lou Rawls in the spotlight, his voice rolling over the crowd in waves, and how the applause rolled back, endless.

  Too Hot closed his eyes, probably imagining the picture. Then Nina’s voice again broke through the hum of conversation at the bar. “Don’t take my teeth,” she warned.

  “Great. Great voice,” Too Hot sighed, opening his eyes. “Too bad she singin’ over there and not here. Haven’t been here in years.”

  “Too bad,�
� I agreed.

  “Too bad about Starr, too. Nobody’ll hear her ever again.”

  I thought about that and listened to Nina and thought about the aching hole someone had punched in Ozzie’s chest.

  11

  The next day, Thursday, dawned with an overcast sky but it had cleared by the time I had showered, fixed Dad’s breakfast, and taken Ruffin for a brief run in St. Nicholas Park. Dad had not been encouraged by my meeting with Too Hot and only grumbled when I told him about Sno.

  “So he’s got the word out. So what. You need to be putting some pressure on Tad. What’s he doing about all this? Suppose Ozzie decides that suicide is the way out. He could’ve been saved if somebody had acted sooner.”

  “Dad, please. Ozzie’s strong. He’s not about to go that way. Trust me.”

  “Right now, I don’t trust anybody or anything,” he said and stomped down to the sanctuary of his studio, leaving me to sit in silence. I held my head in my hands. Suppose Dad was right? No one was there to prevent Ozzie from taking that way out. No one available to talk down the pressure of that soul-destroying anger. I closed my eyes tightly and a prayer came. Hold on, Ozzie. Please hold on. You know we love you.

  ——

  Upstairs, I changed into a wrap skirt and sleeveless tee, then scanned my notebook. If I started out early enough, I could cover more territory than I had planned.

  It had been after nine last night when I left the Lenox Lounge, too late to visit the Tuesday woman, Jeanette Beavers. Now I thought about how to approach her and the others. I was certain that Amanda had not called to alert any of them. She understood that my visit involved money—or the possibility of receiving some—so the pay-yourself-first-girl was smart enough to keep certain other things to herself. I put my notebook in my bag, grabbed my straw hat, and left the house.

  The sun broke through the gray-edged clouds and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard was bathed in radiant early morning light. Few people were out and the avenue was quiet enough for me to think about my next move. I needed to stick to my purpose: to get a clearer picture of Starr. For all the years I’d known her, apparently I hadn’t known her well enough.