Do or Die Read online

  If I could understand her relationship with Short Change, then I could probably figure out some other stuff. I reminded myself that I needed to remain non-judgmental. No preaching or teaching because these women could probably show me a thing or two.

  I thought of different angles as I hurried along: Maybe Short Change decided to get Starr for her testimony. Maybe one of his other women had been jealous, had resented the fact that she broke out of the life and told their main man to kiss her butt. That kind of defiance probably had made the whole crew look bad. Or perhaps Travis was jealous of her, afraid of losing her. Maybe she had planned to free herself from him also. But why would he kill her that way when he could have used his gun?

  Charleston had given me only vague descriptions of the women and I had no idea what to expect. I surmised or hoped that all of them would be taking a breather and trying to reassess their options now that their pimp was no longer in the picture.

  I zigzagged my usual way through the side streets until I came to 123rd Street and Malcolm X Boulevard. At the corner, a sign under a large white cross erected in front of the Bethelite Community Church read: O.K. YOU WON THE RIGHT TO BE A LOSER. REJECT JESUS.

  Jeanette Beavers lived in a four-story faded-brick walk-up across the avenue from the church. I climbed two flights and knocked on the door at the end of the dimly lit corridor. Footsteps moved softly behind the door and I heard an even softer voice: “Hello?”

  “My name is Mali Anderson,” I said, deciding to tell the truth. Or at least begin with the truth. Where I went from there depended on Jeanette.

  “Mali who?”

  “Anderson. I’m Starr’s cousin and I need to speak to you about her father.”

  The door opened only as wide as the security chain allowed and I was able to glimpse an eye in a sliver of brown face.

  “You from the police?”

  “No. I’m trying to find out about my cousin Starr.”

  “What you want to know?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, still trying to stick to the truth. The eye narrowed and inspected me and I felt like a character in one of those old-time TV gangster movies knocking on the door of an old speakeasy where the panel slid back, somebody eyed you, and the door opened to admit you into whatever particular fantasy that had compelled you to be there in the first place.

  I waited patiently in the dim light, regretting now that I had not used the last will and testament tactic. The door would’ve sprung open by now. Then again, maybe not.

  “Okay,” I said, searching in my bag for my personal card. “If you think of anything, maybe you can give me a ring. Anything you remember will be—”

  The door closed for an instant and I heard the chain slide back. “Come on in,” she said, looking beyond me into the hallway. “Come on in.”

  I glanced behind me also, wondering if she was expecting anyone else. I stood inside her small foyer as she double-locked the door, then slammed a bolt in place.

  “So where’d you get my name from?”

  “From Starr’s address book.”

  “Mmhmm. So you know the deal. She wasn’t supposed to do that, keep different names and stuff. Ah, well, knowin’ Starr, I ain’t surprised. Nobody couldn’t tell her nuthin’. She was her own woman from day one. Anyway, I’m in the kitchen. Come on. I’m havin’ my third coffee and it ain’t even noon yet. It ain’t Starbucks, but it’s good.”

  I followed behind her and saw that this apartment was also small but in sharp contrast to Monday’s place. It was as if Jeanette had gone to Janovic Plaza Paints and gotten caught up in the store’s announcement: “The sale of the day is pale dove gray.”

  It colored the walls and ceilings from one end of the apartment to the other. Additionally, the living room had a small pale gray sofa, an armchair upholstered in gray, the television was covered with a light gray scarf, the small square rug was pale gray, and the curtains were a gossamer gray.

  I noticed that everything was extremely clean and precisely placed and there were no pictures to break the monochromatic cast of the walls. In the kitchen, the utensils and pots and pans were stacked in picture-perfect pyramids on shelves over the stove. And the fridge, which should’ve had at least one gray smudge, was as pristine as if it had been delivered yesterday.

  Without asking, she reached into the cupboard and retrieved a gray cup trimmed in white and placed it on the table before me. “Have a seat,” she said. “Now what’s this about Starr’s daddy? What’s goin’ on with him?”

  Jeanette Beavers, otherwise known as Tuesday, was the kind of woman whose age would always be a mystery. She was about five feet six, with brown unlined skin, long fingers that were neither fat nor thin, and a face bare of makeup that looked almost pretty except for the dark circles under the eyes. Her light gray sweatsuit fit her and I didn’t notice any lumps or bumps. With her high cheekbones and small nose, she could have been thirty years old or fifty.

  “You know, I didn’t mean to intrude on your privacy,” I said, “but since Starr died, her father hasn’t been the same. In fact, he’s going downhill by the hour. Talking about doing something drastic.”

  She paused with the sugar dish in her hand. “Something drastic to who?”

  “To himself,” I said. “I can’t let that happen. He and my dad are first cousins. Starr was my second cousin. Her father was upset when Starr got involved with Henry Stovall and—”

  “—and he beat the shit outta Short Change,” she said. “Ruined his rep. Yes, he did.” She smiled at the remembrance, shaking her head. “I didn’t see the outbreak but I saw the evidence. You shoulda seen Short Change. Couldn’t hit the streets for weeks. And when he did, he cruised by real slow, real cool, lettin’ everybody know that he was still on the circuit and nobody was gonna cut into his turf. And you know who he took it out on? Us. I mean, the man was like mad. We had to work twice as hard, bring home twice as much cash. And because he needed to show he was all right, he traded in his wheels even though it wasn’t time yet.

  “He usually do that every two years but he traded for the new one soon as it hit the showroom. Had it specially customized. He even got his own special salesman, you know.”

  Indeed I did. I listened and would have laughed if it wasn’t so sad. His own special salesman. Just like those young new-money drug lords who strolled into those showrooms with pockets bulging and rolled out in models no other person in their right mind would even look at. Sixty-thousand-dollar vehicles “customized” with garish accessories and bizarre paint jobs to match their moronic mentality, and leaving behind a “special” salesman swimming in a river of money and straining to keep a straight face.

  “How did Starr meet Short Change?” I asked.

  Tuesday paused to turn the cup to her head and, hot as it was, didn’t stop until it was half empty.

  “Let’s see. I’m not exactly sure but I heard she’d been sittin’ in some bar or club waitin’ for someone else. That someone never showed or was late showin’ and she was gettin’ mad as hell and Short Change sent a drink her way and then stepped over to calm her down. You know, he can talk fast, talk soft, and talk shit. That’s his callin’. Make you think your life ain’t been lived ’til he stepped into it.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Two, maybe three years ago. She ain’t last long, though. When she found out the real deal, she wasn’t havin’ it. Said she wasn’t bein’ no ho for nobody but her own self. Even tried to talk some of us out of doin’ what we was doin’. I mean the girl was somethin’ and wasn’t scared of nuthin’.

  “I think Short Change’s pride was messed up, damaged by her. And it became a contest like, you know, who gonna come out on top of the game of life. He let her get away, especially after her daddy laid that pipe against his head. But he was schemin’ the whole time. Let a month or so slide, then he eased back, determined to get even.

  “As far as I could see, it wasn’t even about Starr no more. It was about the two men. Him and
her daddy, know what I’m sayin’? It was about payback time and Starr was the prize money. So he ran into her one night, probably been scopin’ her out the whole time, then eased that slick talk on her and next thing you know, he had got her on that dope. Coke first, then heroin. It was bad, bad, bad. I mean, the girl went down to nuthin’ ’til her daddy caught up with her and sent her away. Spent all them dollars to clean her up and look what happened.”

  “I know she went to court.”

  “Um-hmm. Testified against him. Told what she knew, which wasn’t that much. Hell, none of us really knew that much about his other business. We had a certain amount of cash to bring in every night and that’s all we mostly concentrated on, bringin’ it in. What he did on the other side of town, we ain’t had no time to find out.”

  “So her testimony didn’t amount to much?”

  “Not that I know of. Except to say that he had gotten her hooked, fed her her first shot.”

  I listened but didn’t pull out my notebook. I would do that once the visit was over. “Tell me,” I said, “how did Henry get the name Short Change?”

  Tuesday had taken my now empty cup, scrubbed it until I thought the color would fade, then turned from the sink to look at me. “Don’t you know?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, think about it, sweetie. That ain’t too hard to figure out.” She dried her hands and then glanced at her watch. “But looka here, I don’t mean to rush you, but I gotta go. Somebody’s waitin’ and I don’t like to be late.”

  I shrugged and gathered my bag. She smiled wide, eager to let me know that her current situation had changed radically and vastly improved.

  “You know, when you first rang that bell, I thought you was one of the ho’s from the stroll trying to recruit me. Some of the other pimps, they try to approach you, you know, sayin’ your man checked out and left ’im holdin’ this and that, you know, like a bill that ain’t been paid. And if you dumb enough, they try to make you responsible, work for ’em ’til it’s paid off. And everybody know that ain’t never gonna happen. You be strollin’ the rest of your life.

  “Three of ’em already rolled up on me, tried that shit, and I told ’em to go fuck themselves. Let their bottom bitch take care of it. As far as I’m concerned, the script has flipped. I’m on my own. When I fuck, I keep the buck. That’s my financial philosophy.”

  She put her own cup in the sink and went through the purifying process once more. “So like I say, sorry to rush you but I got a private-duty thing comin’ up. And I got to get dressed to impress.”

  When I left the house, I crossed the avenue and waited near the sign in front of the church. A few minutes later, Tuesday stepped out of the house dressed simply in a light gray blouse, ankle-length black skirt, mid-high heels, and swinging a small patent leather bag on one arm and carrying an attaché case in the other. She looked nothing like the girls who strolled the Point near the Bronx Terminal Market. A taxi stopped, she climbed in, and I watched as the car headed downtown.

  12

  The car merged into the rush of traffic and disappeared before I left my spot. I glanced at my watch, surprised that it was almost noon. Malcolm X Boulevard was crowded now with fast-moving folks who seemed to care little about the heat. I had a choice: walk to 112th Street near St. Nicholas Avenue and try to visit Myrtle Thomas, the Thursday woman, or return home to see if Dad was all right. It was still early enough to do both and I decided to see about Dad.

  A short distance from the corner of 133rd Street, I saw that the metal grille of Travis Morgan’s computer store was pulled up. It was a wide storefront with windows on each side of a center entrance. The left window displayed an array of PCs, laptops, and small television sets. Travis’s office occupied the space to the right of the door.

  I decelerated to a crawl, slow enough to see that Travis was not there. Chrissie was. She was slouched in front of a computer, her face in profile, concentrating on the information scrolling before her.

  I found myself changing course like a battleship in mid-ocean when it sights the enemy sub that had eluded it for so long. What I was prepared to say or do didn’t matter because I was not prepared at all. But something inside me shifted, like tectonic plates, and allowed a vaporous substance, hot and dangerous, to bubble up. I ignored my voice of reason, usually too soft and too slow to matter, as it tried to dissuade me.

  Mali, the cruise is over. Forget about what she did or what she said. It’s over.

  I listened instead to that other voice, the warring woman’s. I always liked what she had to say.

  Remember that lie she dropped on Miss Viv? Get her straightened out now, right now before it spreads any further. Who knows who else she’s telling this stuff to? And besides, you’re on home turf. Discretion is not a factor. Aboard ship you had to be cool. Didn’t want to mess up Dad’s rep by acting loud or drawing a crowd. Couldn’t act colored, you know.

  But you’re home now, sweetie, and isn’t it wonderful? It’s showtime.

  My shadow fell across her screen before the security chime sounded and when she looked up, I don’t know who was more startled, she or I. She swiveled her chair but remained seated as I stared in surprise at her ashen face. Where had all those lines and creases come from?

  It was as if she’d taken off a mask and finally revealed what lay beneath. Her neck looked like a chicken’s and her shoulders sagged. She leaned away from the screen, and under that tight sleeveless sweater, the bra department wasn’t holding up too well either.

  Her eyelids were swollen and I wondered if it had been lack of sleep or too many tears. I stood there, at war with myself now, trying to decide if I should get right to it and slap her face, or apply a light cussing out, or, better yet, offer some soul-crushing observation that would send her running to the nearest plastic surgeon as fast as her credit cards could carry her.

  Or just forget the whole idea.

  She looked as if she’d stepped into the path of an SUV that hadn’t a chance to brake.

  We stared at each other and as it turned out, her surprise evaporated faster than mine.

  “So what brings you to this neck of the woods?”

  Even her voice had lost its sickly sweet pitch and now sounded as though she’d gargled with gravel.

  “Nothing important,” I said. “Just you.”

  “What about me?”

  I saw this tête-à-tête moving into a twenty-questions session so I ignored her sad state and got to the point.

  “Listen, Chrissie, I didn’t appreciate the way you came on to my man aboard ship.”

  She leaned back and squared her shoulders in an attempt to resurrect at least a part of her old persona, but I looked at her sweater and slacks, an expensive set but in need of a serious size adjustment, not to mention style. The outfit, a floral-print number, was meant for a girl at least thirty years younger and thirty pounds lighter. Had we been on different terms, I would have taken her in hand and led her over to Eighth Avenue, where the Afrocentric sisters of the Harlem Collective would have set her on the right track, then we would have breezed on over to Brooklyn, to Court Street, where the Gourd Chip sisters would have worked more fashion magic. As it stood now, Chrissie looked as if she’d fall apart if she sneezed.

  I thought of Travis and what he’d said when he stepped out of Elizabeth’s office: “The sooner the better.”

  I glanced at the spreadsheet but she pressed the screen saver, bringing on a tableau of floating bubbles. Though the print had been too small to read, I had the impression she was checking Travis’s business accounts. Sometimes putting two and two together, I knew, could actually add up to the right number.

  Despite Elizabeth’s tight lips, I gathered that Travis had probably filed for a separation or a divorce. And here was Chrissie busily checking his assets. Sweet girl.

  As tacky as she looked, I couldn’t summon up an ounce of sympathy but I did the right thing and cut my conversation short with a warning: “I won’t forget th
is,” I said, and turned to leave.

  But she was feeling bolder than she looked and her voice came at me like a missile from a slingshot. “Did you say ‘your man’? Your man? I didn’t notice any rings on him and don’t see any on you now!”

  I turned and was in her face in less than a blink. “Watch me tie a ring around your neck, you bitch!”

  She scrambled out of her chair and edged around the desk. We faced each other, breathing fire, and before I could reach across the desk and rearrange her smirk, the bell chimed. We stepped to neutral corners just like pro fighters as a woman and two teenage boys walked in. One boy pointed excitedly at a laptop in the window. “See, Ma. That’s the one. That’s the one.”

  “Okay. Okay.” The woman raised her hand for silence, looked at me, then at Chrissie. “Can one of you help me? We’re interested in—”

  I did not reply and neither did Chrissie but the hard sound of her breathing filled the room. The woman’s glance flitted between the two of us, probably trying to figure out what was happening. I ignored the woman and pointed a finger at Chrissie. “You and I will meet again,” I said, and walked out the door.

  The encounter slowed me down as I indulged in all the things I could’ve, would’ve, and should’ve said and done had I not been interrupted. Hindsight is good but all it did was make me angrier.

  And I had to listen to the voice of reason again. That damn voice that said: Forget about it, Mali. Think about the cruise. The last few days were heaven. Chrissie drank too much and got sick, remember?

  I remembered. I tried hard to concentrate but memory made me even angrier.

  In Newport that Friday afternoon everyone was going ashore for the evening concert and I was glad, knowing that I wouldn’t have to sit through another of Chrissie’s dinner performances. The night before, she had ordered two bottles of champagne from the smiling sommelier and managed to polish off half of the first as if it were ginger ale. When I declined a toast, the Möet further loosened her tongue and she called me out on it.