Burning Heat

by David Burnsworth

  “God did not put me on this earth to beat up sinners.”

  I said, “You think God wants you to allow them to stand on the street corner and sell drugs?”

  He finished his iced tea and set the glass down.

  “All I’m saying,” I said, “is that I haven’t met any perfect people who had their lives together. You know what’s right and wrong. We needed information on Willa Mae. He would have talked sooner or later.”

  “Brother Brack,” he said, “man can’t afford to lose his own soul while he trying to do right.”

  Darcy gave me Jon-Jon’s city address, an apartment downtown on King Street overlooking the historic shop-lined lane. I had no other leads at the moment, and I wanted to see what the jerk-off did with his time. A quick search revealed the building was owned by Jon-Jon’s father, the senior jerk-off. After dropping off Brother Thomas, I found a parking spot close by and did a reconnaissance of the area.

  Across the street from Jon-Jon’s apartment stood a line of shops. I chose a store specializing in soap and body lotion that had a big front window—a good place to position myself and watch. I’d been standing inside for all of five minutes when someone cleared their throat behind me.

  I turned to see a very clean-cut kid about fifteen years my junior with spiked up hair in front wearing a really white polo.

  He asked, “May I help you?”

  I resumed scoping out the entrance to Jon-Jon’s place. “I’m just using your window to watch the building across the street.”

  “Wow,” the kid said, a little too excited, and a little too effeminate. “What are you? Some sort of private eye?”

  “No,” I said. “How much for you to leave me alone and let me stay here for a while?”

  “We’ll have to ask the manager. Hey, Elizabeth?”

  No one else had been in the store. I’d checked that before I walked in. My attention veered off target to the back of the shop as a pin-up beauty stepped from the rear office. Long, blond hair. Perky lips. Blue eyes. Everything. A slender aqua summer dress fit an hourglass figure. She strolled up to me like a runway model and stopped inches away. Her first words were, “You can breathe now.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and did, inhaling the fragrance of apricots.

  Her underling, the kid with the spiky hair, said, “This man, who looks so much like that guy from Mad Men that I call dibs, wants to use our window to spy. Should we let him?”

  Elizabeth asked, “Who are you spying on?”

  The kid said, “The building across the street.”

  The supermodel looked out the window at the residence of my mark. “Jonathan Langston Gardner lives there.”

  Apparently I wasn’t very good at this whole investigation thing. Either that, or I just seemed to walk headfirst into brick walls.

  “The biggest mistake of my life was dating Jon-Jon,” she said. “I hope you give him everything he deserves.” She spun on her heels and returned to the back room. If Elizabeth was twenty, she’d just had that birthday.

  Her coworker put his hands on his cheeks and said, “Oh. My. God.” He twirled around and ran after Elizabeth.

  I took their actions as indications that I could stay a little while longer.

  Ten more minutes passed. No customers came in. The staff stayed in the back room. And there’d been no sign of Jon-Jon.

  My back was stiff from standing in one place, but it stiffened even more when I smelled apricots again.

  Elizabeth spoke from behind me. “I made fresh coffee. Would you like a cup?”

  “It’s a hundred degrees outside,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “Can’t help it. I drink it all day long.”

  I turned to face her. “It’s gonna stunt your growth.”

  She did a slow spin, holding her arms out, saying, “Does it look to you like it’s affected me?” Her dress accentuated more shapes than an engineer’s French curve.

  I watched her finish the pirouette and then focused on Jon-Jon’s place again. “Got me there. I take mine black, hold the ballet. It’s a little too distracting.”

  “Just a little?”

  Still looking out the window, I said, “Okay. A little more than a little. You into older guys? Or just those who are after your ex-boyfriend?”

  I sensed her move close.

  She whispered, “All of the above.”

  Her breath touched my ear and I felt a shockwave run through me. As if on queue, Jon-Jon and a dark-haired girl about Elizabeth’s age exited his building, turned to their left, and walked up the sidewalk.

  “Gotta go,” I said.

  “Wait!” Elizabeth grabbed my arm and handed me a business card. “Call me.”

  I stuffed the card in the front pocket of my shorts and bolted out the door. Jon-Jon was twenty feet ahead. The female, a slender brunette in pumps, did her best to keep up with him. I followed at a distance. They turned into the stairwell of a parking garage and I immediately knew my tail was over. Jon-Jon was going for his car.

  Lucky for me, there was only one exit. I jogged to where it was and positioned myself across the street. When Jon-Jon pulled out in his Cayenne, I used my iPhone to snap as many pictures as I could of his passenger.

  Ten minutes later I sat in my Mustang checking out the photos. The girl looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. So I did the usual thing when stumped and sent the best of the photos to Darcy along with a note asking if she could I.D. the girl.

  She called thirty seconds later. “That’s Eve White.”

  “And?”

  “And, what?” she asked. “I’m in the middle of something here. Look her up.”

  With that, she was gone.

  At least I had a name. Since I hated using my phone to do internet searches, I walked the four blocks to the library, entered through the big glass doors, and signed up for a computer. A few keystrokes on a real keyboard later and Ms. White stared back at me from the flatscreen monitor. The differences between her professional picture and the ones I sent Darcy were many. Whereas mine were side shots into a moving vehicle, the photo I was looking at showed Ms. Folly Beach—as she had been crowned—sporting a bikini and a smile.

  The guy using the computer next to me said, “Whoa. What site is that?”

  Ignoring him, I clicked off the newspaper’s site and found her own website. Apparently Eve White was an aspiring actress and model, no surprise there, with a string of local commercials to her credit. Since I didn’t have a TV in my house and kept the bar’s bigscreen on ESPN, I’d missed the privilege of seeing her in action. The bikini shot alone would have been enough of an audition for me.

  Not sure what help this information would be, I logged off and prepared to leave the library.

  I felt the figure behind me before I saw him and wondered how long he had been watching me. In hunting insurgents in Afghanistan, I had developed a keen sense of trouble. Via his reflection in the big glass doors, I sized up this new threat. A black male wearing shorts and a T-shirt, trouble appeared to carry a backpack over one shoulder.

  I exited the main branch of the Charleston County Public Library and walked down the sidewalk along Calhoun Street toward King. At a crosswalk, I stooped down to resecure a buckle on my sandal and glanced behind. In my periphery, I saw him focused on me. I stood and continued walking, trying to decide how to learn who he was without spooking him. At a coffee shop on the corner I opened the door and went inside. Four people stood in line at the register, and I joined them which gave me a chance to make sure my tail hadn’t vanished. He stood outside the doors pretending to watch the people walking by.

  When my turn came, an adolescent girl working the register said, “May I help you?”

  “I’d like a large regular and a mocha, please.”

  She totaled it up.

  Handing her money, I said, “Can you do me a favor?”

  The girl raised her eyebrows as if expecting me to turn into a pervert in front of her very eyes.

  I
pointed to the guy standing out front who’d been tailing me. “I’ll give you twenty bucks if you’ll deliver the mocha to that guy out there.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  I handed her the twenty. “Tell him I’d like to have a chat.”

  She looked at the Jackson in her hand and said, “Deal!”

  I picked up my coffee from the counter when it was ready, grabbed a local paper from a free stack, and took a seat at a table facing the front window. From my vantage point I also watched the cashier get someone to cover the register for her, take the mocha outside, and hand it to the guy who was doing a bad job of imitating a tourist.

  He gave her a look like she was crazy. She pointed me out to him through the window and walked back inside. I motioned for the stranger to come in and join me in the other chair at my table. First, he stared at me for a few seconds, then at the coffee in his hands, before coming inside and sitting down.

  He was early twenties, maybe my height. Familiar looking. As he settled in I said, “So you want to tell me why you followed me from the library?”

  His eyes avoided mine. “I wasn’t following you.”

  I slouched in my seat and hung an arm over the back of my chair. It took me a moment to figure out where I’d seen this guy—in the photos I’d been shown on the Jameson’s porch together with Brother Thomas. Mrs. Jameson had called her grandson Trevor. I said, “I’ve seen you before in some pictures.”

  He glared at me. “Blacks must all look alike to whites.”

  “Not me. I’m usually pretty good at facial recognition.”

  “Gee,” he said, “that makes me feel so much better.”

  “Back to what I said earlier, I’ve been looking for what happened to a woman named Willa Mae. You know her?”

  His glare seemed to hold a lot of anger. “What about it?”

  “Well, if you know her I’d appreciate anything you can tell me.”

  He stood up and yelled, “You best stay away!”

  Everyone in the coffee shop looked at us.

  I rested my hands on the table. “I would if I knew where she was. Is she still alive?”

  He shoved his chair forward, knocking the table toward me a couple inches, almost spilling the coffees, and stormed to the exit.

  I called to him. “Trevor!”

  He turned around at the door.

  Gotcha!

  In the silence of the crowd, I said, “Her six-year-old sister hasn’t seen her in a week. If you don’t want to talk to me, have Willa call her. Okay?”

  He pushed through the door and walked away. Soon, the sound of clatter and conversation filled the room again. I finished my coffee and had the untouched mocha for dessert, wondering if I’d ever find Willa Mae, dead or alive.

  Before I could plan my next step, my phone rang.

  Paige, my bar manager, said that a State Liquor Commission Representative happened to show up at our doorstep. Our missing license to sell alcohol, the one that had been put in a frame and hung behind the bar for all to see until it had been stolen, had caused a problem. Not being able to produce it was a violation.

  And now we were looking at a nice fine. Of course, the fine would be dropped when we received our replacement license, but it was still not a good situation.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The next morning, Thursday, Brother Thomas called and asked me to meet him at his church. He said he’d gotten another tip that might help us locate Willa Mae. After he and I piled in my truck because I didn’t feel like exposing my vintage Mustang to any more bullet holes, he guided me to a part of the city I’d never been in before.

  “People live here?” I asked.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  The shotgun homes lining the street were different shades of a single color—crumbling. A roof had caved in on the house closest to me. Everywhere I looked weeds broke through the asphalt and sidewalk and stood straight up as if reaching out to God for rescue.

  A frail black man in tattered clothes stumbled along the sidewalk in a daze, mumbling to himself as he passed us.

  Brother Thomas waited until the man was a safe distance away before he said, “Okay, let’s check it out.”

  I scanned the area once more, took a deep breath, and opened my door.

  The thick air held a musty, mildewy smell from the rotting structures. In the lowcountry heat, beads of sweat appeared on Brother Thomas’s forehead. As always—religiously, I might say—he wore his black pants and black shirt with his minister’s collar. It was not exactly summer wear in the Deep South.

  I asked, “Don’t you own a pair of shorts?”

  He laughed. “People knew Jesus because of who He was. These same people look at me, all they see is a old, fat, black man. My clothes try to give them a little hint.”

  A loud crash made us turn around. A man had dropped a large plastic bag filled with empty cans. He snickered. “Made you all jump, I did.”

  Brother Thomas raised his hand to his forehead to shade his eyes from the sun. “That you, Scooter?”

  The man called Scooter watched us intently. He wore a tattered red T-shirt that didn’t quite cover solid-looking shoulders and arms. His brown pants were grease stained, along with his torn and dirty tennis shoes. A wheeled dolly beside him had three milk crates strapped to it with a bedding roll. “What you doin’ out this way, Brother? You lookin’ for more folk come to service Sunday?”

  “I’m always lookin’ for souls to save,” the minister said. “Today, I’m lookin’ for a girl might live out here named Willa Mae. You know her?”

  Scooter pressed a finger to his right nostril and blew out the other. “Naw. But I don’t hang around here, much. No good cans.”

  “He’s more right than he knows,” I said. “No good cans and no rich johns. She won’t be here. She’s already moved up the food chain.”

  Scooter picked up his cans and moved towards us close enough so we could smell him. “Can you help a man down on his luck?”

  I reached for my wallet but Brother Thomas put a hand on my arm.

  “I can do better than that,” he said, handing Scooter a business card. “Come by Saturday mornings. We got good food and a lot of clothes. Fix you right up.”

  Scooter looked at the card, then at Brother Thomas.

  “We also got a bunch of cans,” Brother said.

  With that, the poor man’s face lit up. “Really? Okay, Brother. I’ll make it.” And he turned away.

  For the rest of our time in this part of town, we didn’t find anything or anyone that would help us. In the silence of the drive back, I asked, “Everything all right, Brother?”

  “That girl done lied to me,” he said, “and I’m gonna find out why.”

  He didn’t have to tell me who he was calling a liar. Sister Mary Ellen would have some explaining to do if we caught up with her. Brother Thomas guided me up another side street and into another rough part of town. More run-down homes and beat-up cars. Black teen-agers played basketball at a cracked asphalt court. The hoops had no nets.

  “Where do we happen to be?” I asked.

  “Sorry, Brother Brack. This place ain’t one I’d normally bring you to.”

  “I don’t have a gun, you know.” After all the gunfights last year, I’d vowed not to want another. But lately, I’d begun to change my mind.

  “I know.” He had me double-park beside a ten-year-old Lexus with big rims. “You can come with me or stay here if you want. Not sure which would be safer.”

  Six young black men, all wearing the same red bandanas, stood beside a doorway like pillars of the community.

  “I guess I’m your wingman,” I said.

  I could compare any situation I found myself confronting to my time in Afghanistan. I’d seen women fully covered except for their beautiful eyes strap C4 explosives to their bodies and kill hundreds of people along with ending their own lives. I’d seen young boys eager to prove themselves machine-gun into crowds because they believed in a deity that rew
arded them for hating others. Compared to that, visiting the poor section of North Charleston was like a day at the spa. Or would be if I’d had a firearm.

  We got out of the truck and I followed Brother Thomas. The pillars watched us approach and stop a few feet away from them.

  “Afternoon, gentlemen,” Brother Thomas said.

  A kid about seventeen took a drag from his cigarette and said, “Brother.” He had an air of confidence about him that indicated leadership. His piercing stare suggested having seen a lot in not so many years. The others with him glared at me. I made no eye contact, focusing on an ear or a forehead.

  “What you want?” the spokesman asked.

  “Raymond,” Brother Thomas said. “If Mary Ellen is here, I’d like to speak with her.”

  “She ain’t here, and my name’s Pain.”

  Brother Thomas asked, “Where might we find her?”

  Pain looked at me. “I know you?”

  Brother Thomas put his hand on my shoulder. “This here’s a friend of mine. He’s helping me around the church.”

  A kid about my height came up to me, invading my space. His eyes locked on mine. “Looks scared to me.”

  I smiled.

  Sneering, he asked, “What you smiling at?”

  In a calm voice I said, “Why don’t you tell me?”

  The kid pulled out a knockoff Beretta automatic and stuck it under my chin. “You laughing at me?”

  Brother Thomas said to Raymond, “Call him off before someone gets hurt.”

  The kid pushed the muzzle into my skin. I kept my eyes on his, not giving him anything.

  Raymond said, “D-Go’s just playing, Brother. He don’t wanna hurt nobody. Specially no scared white boy. Do ya, D-Go?”

  In my periphery, I saw the other kids look at Brother. Then, one by one, they laughed. D-Go lowered the pistol. I felt a familiar burning sensation start in my stomach and begin to make its way through my bloodstream, like caged fire looking for an exit.

  Brother Thomas squeezed my shoulder to stop me from doing anything that might provoke someone to start shooting at us. “We’re just looking for Mary,” he said. “We talk to her, then we gone.”