by Robert Greer
“Are we free to go?” asked CJ, locking an arm in Flora Jean’s and giving her a half turn before she could respond.
“Yeah.”
CJ quickly began walking Flora Jean down the alley.
“Take the hint, Ms. Benson,” Newburn shouted. “And Floyd, keep your ass close to home. I’ll come calling.”
CJ didn’t answer. He was too busy nudging Flora Jean toward the black SUV that had been idling fifteen yards beyond the police cruisers, air conditioner blasting, at the mouth of the blind alley for the last five minutes. The right front and rear doors of the vehicle swung open in unison as CJ and Flora Jean approached. “Hell, I thought you and Newburn was gonna stand there and spar forever,” said the man behind the wheel, shaking his head as CJ slipped into the front seat.
“I was beginning to wonder too,” Mavis called out from the back as Flora Jean, in full huff, slid in next to her.
Roosevelt Weeks, CJ’s best friend since kindergarten, snapped on his seatbelt and adjusted both hands on the steering wheel as CJ stared back to where Newburn and the deputy coroner knelt over Newab Sha’s partially uncovered body. “Wonder what that coroner found that’s so interesting?”
“Think about it later,” Rosie barked. “Air conditioning costs money, my man. Shut your door.”
CJ pulled the door shut and adjusted his rear in the seat before turning toward Mavis and Flora Jean. “Either I’ve got a vigilante guardian angel out there or Sha took a bullet for me,” he said, sounding puzzled. Mavis leaned forward and hugged him tightly around the neck. “I’m betting Sha’s bullet was meant for me.” A haunted look spread across CJ’s face. It was a familiar look that still frightened Mavis after more than thirty years, a look that CJ had worn night and day for close to two years after coming home from Vietnam. “Like my old patrol boat captain used to say after we docked up safe from a mission, ‘They missed us this time, boys, but there’s always more ammunition.’”
Mavis relaxed her grip, and tears welled up in her eyes as CJ turned his head to kiss her on the cheek. “It’s okay,” he said, stroking her cheek reassuringly as the big black SUV picked up speed and he began to think about just who might want to see him dead.
Chapter 3
The smell of spicy hot Southern fried chicken, candied yams, collard greens, and buttermilk biscuits hung in the air of CJ’s apartment. The food that had filled the bellies and soothed the fears of black America for countless generations had been delivered moments earlier by a coal-black near midget of a man wearing a baseball cap, bib overalls, and a grease-stained white apron. At Mavis’s request, the hastily delivered bounty had come from Mae’s Louisiana Kitchen, the landmark soul food restaurant that her family had owned for more than seventy-five years. The man quickly disappeared into the night before Flora Jean had the chance to offer him a tip.
CJ had lived in the second-floor apartment above the bay-windowed downstairs wing of the ninety-year-old Victorian that housed his bail-bonding business since the day he’d returned home from Vietnam. Over the years, he had refurbished the once near derelict of a building to its original painted-lady splendor so that it now sparkled as the lone jewel among seven decaying downtown Delaware Street Victorians that sat across the street from the Denver police administration building. The assemblage of painted ladies had become known as Bail Bondsman’s Row, and CJ’s gold-colored gem with its purple filigree trim stood out as the queen. Only his vintage 1957 drop-top Chevrolet Bel Air engendered the same kind of pride in his heart.
It was close to 10 p.m. when CJ, Mavis, and Flora Jean huddled around the antique inlaid walnut table that occupied most of CJ’s tiny dining room. Aside from the building, the table represented the only tangible piece of real property left by CJ’s uncle, the man who had raised him, when he had died twelve years earlier.
Watching CJ and Flora Jean devour their meals, Mavis shook her head. “You’d think the two of you had never seen food before.”
“They say it soothes the savage beast,” Flora Jean mumbled between bites.
“It’s not food that does that, Flora Jean. It’s music. And it’s ‘breast,’” said Mavis.
Flora Jean scooped up a forkful of collards, eyed Mavis, and shrugged. “Whatever.”
“At least it’s stopped the two of you from rambling on about Newab Sha,” said Mavis, who’d been forced to listen to CJ and Flora Jean dissect the evening’s events nonstop for nearly an hour.
CJ reached across the table toward a platter filled with fried chicken. “For the moment,” he said, picking out a thigh.
Mavis set aside the partially eaten biscuit she was toying with and frowned, knowing that the meal was only a brief respite from the treacherous world CJ and Flora Jean negotiated every day—a world filled with what her seventy-eight-year-old father called pond scum.
Realizing he’d said the wrong thing, CJ inched his chair back from the table and smiled at Mavis. “Good thing my main squeeze owns a restaurant.”
“Cut the con, CJ.”
“Significant other, then.”
“Main squeeze, significant other, love of your life, whatever.” Mavis slammed the biscuit down in frustration. “In case you missed it, a few hours ago a man tried to kill us.”
“He’s dead,” said CJ, hoping to lower the flame under the waters he could see about to come to a boil.
“But whoever killed him isn’t, and the bullet he took may have been meant for you. Both you and Flora Jean as much as said so.”
“So somebody’s pissed at me.” CJ clasped Mavis’s right hand reassuringly. “That’s nothing new.”
“And that’s the problem. There’ll always be someone after you. Second-rate thugs, wife beaters, scam artists—the drunks you spend half your days bonding out of jail. They’re leeches, CJ, and they’re sucking you dry.”
“It’s what I do,” CJ said defensively, aware that he was getting older and slower, more callous, and clearly, in Mavis’s eyes, less charming. He turned to Flora Jean for support.
“I’ll get dessert,” Flora Jean said, heading for the kitchen, in no mood to become a lightning rod.
Looking defeated, CJ watched the swinging kitchen doors close behind her.
“And what you do is turning you into something I don’t like.” Mavis slipped her hand out of CJ’s and began nervously biting her lower lip.
“I’ll slow down. Promise.”
“No, you won’t, CJ. Your job’s your elixir. Has been since the day you came home from Vietnam. It’s your postadolescent phase, midlife crisis, old-age jitters, and adrenaline fix all rolled into one. The bungee cord that connects you to life.”
“I’ll try.”
“You’ve said that before.”
Looking frustrated, CJ said, “Then what do you want me to do, Mavis?”
“I don’t know.”
Watching tears well up in her eyes, CJ lowered an elbow onto the table and rested his chin in his palm. “Damn! Mavis. I’m way too old a dog to learn new tricks. But I’ll work on cutting back—let Flora Jean carry a bigger part of the load.”
“Promise?”
CJ clasped her hand again and nodded, watching as Mavis forced a reluctant half smile.
“Heard my name,” said Flora Jean, reentering the room with three plates, each one top heavy with a wedge of sweet-potato pie. Aware from the looks on their faces that the stormy seas had at least momentarily settled, she said, “Got pie?” failing miserably to sound like a celebrity from a got milk commercial.
“None for me,” said CJ, forcing himself to pass on his favorite dessert. “Had too much chicken.”
“Mavis?”
“No.”
“Suit yourselves.” Flora Jean placed the plates in the center of the table. “Guess that means more for me.”
“Guess so,” CJ and Mavis said in near unison.
Flora Jean inched one of the plates her way, hoping there’d be no more need to play referee that evening. On the heels of the temporary truce, the room turned s
ilent until she picked up a fork, tapped the plate in front of her lightly, and started on her first slice of sweet-potato pie.
The light rapping on the metal door that led to the fire-escape landing and the turn-of-the-century wrought-iron staircase that wound its way from CJ’s apartment to the driveway below was halting and barely audible. Mavis had said her goodbyes forty-five minutes earlier, leaving CJ and Flora Jean puzzling over how best to deal with the police investigation that was certain to follow the death of Newab Sha. Mavis had given CJ a departing I expect you to do better kind of kiss and said, “See you both tomorrow.” She had left without another word being spoken.
“Someone’s at the door, CJ,” said Flora Jean, interrupting CJ’s calculation of how long they had before Newburn resurfaced.
When CJ didn’t answer, she nudged the toe of his boot. “Didn’t you hear me? You got a visitor.”
“Oh!” CJ rose from his chair, moved slowly to the door, still crunching numbers in his head, slid back the deadbolt, and swung the door open without his customary glance through the peephole. He found himself facing an exotic-looking woman. Her face was illuminated by a dim yellow, insect-caked, sixty-watt bulb that jutted from a globeless fixture above the door. Even in the unflattering light, the woman was stunning. Her skin was smooth, the color of butter caramel, and her deep-set eyes were an intriguing shade of aquamarine. In contrast to his six-foot-three, 240-pound girth, she seemed very small. Taking a step back, he noticed that she was dressed in a loose-fitting, eggshell-white blouse, stylish designer shorts, and the kind of casual seaside wedges that added a few inches of height.
“Pardon me, but I was told that I could find Flora Jean Benson here.”
CJ looked the woman up and down, concluding that she was Asian or Polynesian and noticing that she wore her closely cropped jet-black hair much the same way as Mavis.
“It’s past midnight.”
“I’m sorry, but this is important.”
“Hope so.” CJ called back into the house, “Flora Jean, got a visitor.”
Flora Jean came to the door, looking perplexed. Eyeing the woman with a hint of suspicion, she asked, “What can I do for you, sugar?”
The woman flashed a look of relief at hearing Flora Jean’s signature greeting. “I’m Carmen Nguyen. I’m in Denver doing a sabbatical at the University of Colorado Cancer Center.”
Flora Jean’s lower jaw relaxed momentarily before dropping open. “Damn!” She edged past CJ and wrapped her arms around Carmen, smothering her in a hug. Turning to CJ, she said, “Don’t just stand there, let the sista in. And that’s doctor sista,” Flora Jean boomed.
CJ stepped aside to let Carmen in, surprised that Flora Jean would refer to someone so exotically Asian looking as a “sista.” But as Carmen walked into the room’s light, he recognized the subtle facial features of a person who was also African American.
“The man in the doorway looking totally befuddled is none other than the elusive boss I’ve told you about, CJ Floyd.” Flora Jean shot CJ a broad gotcha kind of grin.
“Pleasure,” said CJ, nodding as Carmen extended her hand.
“Believe it or not, this is the first time Carmen and I have met. We’ve talked to each other a lot, but always by phone. She’s the one I told you about who got her butt in a sling over in Grand Junction a year or so ago behind some nutcase mad scientist type tryin’ to develop a uranium-based potion capable of creatin’ supermen. Carmen blew the whistle on him.”
Recognition spread across CJ’s face. “Yeah.” He remembered Flora Jean telling him about saving the bacon of a former marine buddy of hers and some Amerasian doctor, but he’d always thought the woman was some white-bread GI’s war baby, not a brother’s. Aware that children fathered by GIs during the Vietnam War were called my den and were treated in Vietnamese society as half-breeds who were no more than trash, most ending up as street thugs, hookers, drug dealers, or lost souls, he was curious as to how Carmen had been able to escape that cycle. “You’re the lady whose boyfriend served with Flora Jean during Desert Storm.”
Flora Jean answered before Carmen had a chance. “Right on the money, sugar. By the way, how is our lover boy, Rios? Still runnin’ that river-raftin’ business of his?”
“Sure is,” said Carmen, blushing. “Right now he’s on a whitewater shoot down in South America with his brother.”
“Men!” Flora Jean pivoted to face CJ. “Sometimes I think they’re nuts.”
Carmen hesitated before responding, as if hoping not to offend CJ. “But before he left he gave me this.” She extended her left hand to show Flora Jean the two-carat diamond engagement ring on her finger.
“Hot damn! Diamonds on the soles of my shoes. Go on, sugar.” Looking directly at CJ, she mouthed the word Mavis. “Maybe someone around here should take a hint.”
“What?” said Carmen, looking confused.
“Nothin’.” Flora Jean examined the ring, making certain CJ took notice, until Carmen slipped her hand out of Flora Jean’s and smiled self-consciously. There was a brief moment of silence before Flora Jean said, “Now, sugar, sabbatical or not, I know you didn’t come all the way over here from Grand Junction just to show off that ring. What’s up?”
Carmen flushed.
“Ain’t no problem with your aunt, is there?” asked Flora Jean, aware that Carmen’s overly protective sixty-one-year-old aunt had been the one to end Carmen’s troubles with the rogue scientist by taking out the hit man he’d sent after Carmen and Walker Rios with a point-blank blast from her shotgun.
“No, Ket’s fine. It’s … it’s my father.”
“What? Thought you told me he got killed during Vietnam.”
“No. Just forgotten.” Carmen’s face was awash in guilt. “And now I’m afraid he’s headed for trouble. Serious trouble. The kind that could get him killed.”
Flora Jean had heard snippets of the details surrounding Carmen’s father’s Vietnam military stint, including his reported desertion from the army, from Walker Rios. Rios, a Persian Gulf veteran and a former marine intelligence officer, had done some homework concerning his disappearance, and he’d told Flora Jean that he had serious doubts that the highly decorated first sergeant had deserted. But Carmen had accepted the fact that her father had deserted not only the army but her and her mother as well. He’d always been an erased memory for her.
“Always thought the two of you were, what’s the word I’m lookin’ for,” Flora Jean said before finally blurting out, “estranged.”
Carmen’s response was terse. “You can’t be estranged from someone you’ve never known. But you’re right. Until recently I had no use for him.”
“What changed your mind?” asked CJ, walking to a nearby coffee pot and pouring himself a cup of thick, syrupy brew well past its prime.
Carmen eyed Flora Jean sheepishly, hesitant to respond.
“Spit it out, sugar. Talkin’ to CJ’s the same as talkin’ to me.”
“Ket,” said Carmen in a barely audible tone. Looking at CJ, she anxiously asked, “May I have a cup of coffee?”
“Stuff might kill you. It’s just this short of tar,” Flora Jean responded, snapping her fingers.
“I’ll chance it.”
Smiling defiantly, CJ took a cup out of an overhead cabinet and filled it to the brim with bitter-smelling coffee.
“Thanks. I’m a little nervous.” Carmen took the cup and clasped it thoughtfully with both hands before taking a couple of sips, setting the cup aside, and slipping a worn newspaper clipping from her pocket. “It all began with this about four months ago.” She handed the Denver Post clipping to Flora Jean.
The headline at the top of the well-worn clipping read, “Margolin Well Positioned for Senate Bid.” The two columns of newsprint that followed read more like an editorial endorsement than news copy as the article touted the fact that Peter Margolin, currently a third-term congressman from Colorado’s First Congressional District, was poised to capture one of Colorado’s U.S. Senate s
eats.
“What’s Margolin’s runnin’ for the Senate got to do with your father?” asked Flora Jean.
“Ket claims that Margolin knows why my father deserted.” The way the word deserted lingered on Carmen’s lips told Flora Jean that it dearly wasn’t her father’s military desertion that Carmen was most concerned about. “Ket as much told me so. Ten days ago she broke down—said my father might still be alive and that if he was, I might be able to get in touch with him.”
“Did you?” asked CJ, attentively leaning forward in his seat.
“I sent him a letter,” said Carmen, surprised that the question had come from CJ instead of Flora Jean. “All Ket had was an old general delivery address. She wasn’t sure if it was any good. I sent it there.”
“Where’s there?” asked Flora Jean.
“To a backwoods P.O. box in West Virginia. Ket told me that the address came to her scrawled on a postcard two days before Christmas twenty-five years ago.” Carmen took another sip of the bitter coffee and forced back a frown. “She’d kept the card all these years.”
“Any response to your letter?”
“Not a word. That’s why I came to see you. I want you and CJ to find him.”
“In West Virginia? That’s a bit east of our normal beat,” said CJ.
“I’ll pay you. Double your normal rates, triple if necessary.”
“Damn, sugar. Sounds like you wanna hook up with your daddy real bad. Why not just wait for a response to your letter?”
Carmen swallowed hard. “I can’t.”
Flora Jean looked puzzled. “Why not?”
“Because Ket’s beside herself over giving me that West Virginia address. She’s spent years claiming to hate the man who deserted her sister. Now I think she’s having second thoughts, even feeling guilty. I have the feeling that Margolin’s run for the Senate has opened up a whole set of old wounds for her—scratched her conscience—and made her wonder if she’s been wrong about my father all these years. She even told me that if he’s still alive, my letter to him could end up getting him killed.”
