The Talking Drum

by Lisa Braxton

  He grinned, looking pleased with himself. “I’ve got me a job interview lined up.”

  She aimed the remote at the TV and clicked it off. “You never mentioned wanting to go to D.C.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Hadn’t thought about it until recently. But you get to know the right people, and opportunities open up.”

  She started to say something, but he held up a finger to stop her. “And not the way you’re thinking neither. This ain’t about no woman.” He lit a Viceroy, took a long puff, and blew the smoke out of the side of his mouth. “The mayor’s been working on this for a while. He’s the one who lined this up. I paid my dues with all I’ve done to build up Liberty Hill, to get people in here, businesses in here.”

  She tossed the remote on the couch. “You’re dreaming. It’s just an interview. You might not even get the job.”

  “Oh, I’ll get it. The mayor says the interview is just a formality.”

  “And if you get it, what would this job he got for you entail?”

  “Housing.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Department of Housing and Urban Development—I’m being offered a staff position.”

  “Doing what?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll be an assistant to one of the directors. It pays eight thousand dollars to start. I can work my way up to more.”

  “How come this never came up before?”

  He set the cigarette down in an ashtray. “How could it? I haven’t seen you to tell you what’s been going on. Seems like you’re always out with Miss Sydney and Inez or sashaying out to a study group or in some class.”

  Some class. Kwamé’s insensitivity angered Della, but she let it pass. Why did he continue to trivialize what she was doing? “Our life is right here in Bellport. It wouldn’t make no sense to move. My job is going well. I’m a property owner. Tenants pay rent on time. And I’m working on my degree. I’m staying put.”

  He stood up. “Exactly. Your job is going fine. Your life is going well. Your tenants are paying on time. Can’t you think of nobody besides yourself?”

  “And Jasmine, she hasn’t been acting up near what she used to. She’s doing better in school now. The teachers haven’t called me in weeks. You would want me to pull her out and take her to a place where she don’t know nobody? For some political job that could be gone as soon as a new administration comes in?”

  He took another sip of beer and put the can back on the table, creating another wet ring. “Here I thought you would support me. But I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s all about Della.”

  She stood up and moved just inches from his face. “I have been supporting you. I’m the one who bought this building that you live in. I’m the one who doesn’t charge you rent to run that half-assed record shop that don’t make no money. I’m the one who lets you borrow money to do those renovations on rundown shacks you can’t seem to make a profit on when you try to sell them. Since when have I not been supportive?”

  “I’ll tell you this,” he said, brushing past her on his way back to the kitchen. “As soon as I get that job, I’m going to Washington. You and Jasmine can stay up here, or you can come with me. It’s up to you.”

  Della watched him walk away. Who was he to treat her like this, like she was some kind of rag doll he could drag around anyway he wanted? What made him think that he could lord it over her and make decisions that could hurt both her and Jasmine? For all the time she had known Kwamé, she had deferred to him. He was worldly, city bred. She was country, backwoods Arkansas. But Kwamé was a selfish, skirt-chasing jackass who cared for one person—Kwamé. She walked into the kitchen. He was bent over, reaching into the refrigerator to grab another beer. She measured him with her eyes, angry enough to kick him in his flat behind. He was nothing but a pathetic, weak man, hiding behind all of his hip manner and talk.

  She grabbed him by the arm and spun him around.

  “Woman, what you think you’re doing?” he yelled.

  “You can do what you want. Go on down there to Washington. Do whatever you want. I have to look out for myself and Jasmine.”

  She saw a flicker of his unguarded self. His eyes got big, almost teary, like those of a child in a panic because he’d become separated from his parents at the carnival. But quickly he regained his composure, putting on his self-assured game face and pulling out another beer. “You say that now, but you don’t mean it.”

  “Oh? Try me. I’ll even help you pack.”

  He stared at her, his eyes narrowing into slits. “You’re talking crazy.” He took his beer and left the room.

  Della didn’t really care if he left without her. She’d had it. She was sick and tired of relationships that weren’t worth her time, like her marriage to Tucker.

  She went back into the living room. Kwamé was now sitting in the recliner, her recliner, staring into the television screen with the remote in his hand. He didn’t acknowledge that she’d come back in the room. She grabbed her car keys and left. She needed to get some air.

  CHAPTER 29

  IT WAS HARD for Sydney to accept that the Petite Africa she had come to know—a vibrant place full of life—was a neighborhood on its death bed. Groundbreaking for the Harborview Project was scheduled for the beginning of April. It was three months away. She felt a deep sadness as she processed prints in her darkroom. The images were searing. Seeing the devastation of a dying neighborhood isolated in an eight-by-ten photograph pained her in a way it hadn’t on the scene.

  Sydney had pitched an idea to Max. She would spend some time in Petite Africa taking pictures for a photo spread and article about the after-effects of the fire that destroyed The Commonwealth Arms and the other buildings. It was a tough assignment. Before the fire, Sydney had spent time getting to know the shopkeepers, mothers, and children in the neighborhood, winning their trust. They seemed to appreciate that she was documenting their lives, telling their stories. Sometimes they came from behind their street carts and out of their stores to give her a hug and get her to autograph copies of Inner City Voice. One of Max’s carriers began leaving free copies of the newspaper at Petite Africa businesses.

  Out of all of the rolls she developed, she was most disturbed by the photo of an old woman standing knee-deep in the crumbled and charred remains of her home. Her face was expressionless. When Sydney was there taking the pictures, the woman hadn’t seemed to notice her. Sydney had watched the woman dig her hand into the rubble and pull out the head of a doll. The woman held up her treasure and her lined face broke into a smile. She took close-ups of the woman with the doll and kept the rubble in the background out of focus, adding texture to the frames. Sydney wondered how the woman could find joy enough to smile when she had lost everything. Sydney hung the picture to dry along with the others.

  She heard Malachi coming up the stairs. He waited until she completed developing her photos before coming into the darkroom.

  “We’ve got a problem downstairs,” he said, turning to the stairway. “Please, come with me.”

  When they got downstairs, Malachi went behind the front counter, opened the cash register drawer, and pulled out two handfuls of cash and checks. Next to the cash register with its motor humming was the adding machine. “I keep coming up two hundred dollars short, and I don’t know why,” he said.

  “Maybe you should go through it again, make sure.”

  “I have. Twice.”

  “Maybe a fresh pair of eyes would be helpful.”

  “Sure,” Malachi threw up his hands. “Why not?”

  They switched places. Malachi paced the floor as Sydney painstakingly punched numbers into the adding machine and checked off figures.

  “I come up with a different amount,” Sydney said finally. “By my count, you are actually two hundred and sixty short. That’s a lot of money. This can’t be bad bookkeeping There’s got to be so
mething more.”

  Malachi and Sydney switched places again, and Malachi put the money and receipts back in the drawer. He put on his glasses. “Let’s check the safe.”

  She followed him into the locked storage room where they had the safe hidden under the industrial-sized sink. “You did make the night deposit, didn’t you?” she asked.

  His shoulders slumped. “You know I can’t get to the bank every night.” He crouched down, his hand trembling as he worked the combination.

  The dial on the safe clicked as Malachi turned it to the last number. He turned the crank and pulled open the door. Sydney was relieved to see that the burlap money bag was there, bulging. “At least we can relax about this,” he gave a sigh of relief and handed her the bag.

  But it seemed lighter in weight than she was used to. She rationalized that it must have less money in it than it had other times she’d handled it. She unzipped it and upturned its contents. She was stunned. Yellow strips of construction paper fell to the counter.

  “What the hell is that?” Malachi asked, staggering to his feet.

  “Who would do this?” Sydney demanded.

  “I don’t know.”

  When they met eyes, Sydney was certain they were both thinking the same thing. Malachi leaned against the sink. “Maybe Lawrence was telling the truth.”

  “Poor Lawrence.”

  “Now I wonder about those paintings we thought he took.”

  They said nothing for a while.

  “But what about the books that he took?” Sydney mused. “The ones I saw him take at the grand opening. Lawrence claimed that Willie wanted to see them, and later, when I asked Willie, he told me he didn’t know anything about them.”

  Malachi ran his hand over his thick Afro. “All I know is that I should have believed Lawrence until I had absolute proof that he was lying. Here I was trying to mentor him. Instead I kicked him out, accused him of a crime he probably didn’t commit. I blamed Lawrence when the real crook was probably somebody else.”

  They stood there looking at the slips of yellow paper. Then Malachi said, “It has to be a professional, someone who could figure out the combination to the safe.”

  “We’ve had a lot of customers passing through.”

  “You think somebody’s been casing the place?”

  Sydney thought for a few moments. “Who knows?”

  Officer Wilson Stribling flipped to a fresh page on a small white notepad as he looked over the spot in the hallway where a Ronald Bridgewaters painting had been. He had already jotted down a list of the cash, books, and personal effects that were missing. “This could be an inside job,” he said.

  “How can you tell?” asked Malachi.

  “No signs of anyone breaking in here. It’s as if the person who robbed you knew exactly what he wanted, took those items, and left.”

  Malachi led the way down the hall to the storage room where the safe was kept. “I’ll have the door of the safe dusted and let you know if we come up with anything,” Stribling stated. “We’ll check out the alarm system, too.”

  “That’s it?” Sydney asked.

  The officer grinned. “Mrs. Stallworth, you’ve had too many people in this place to dust anywhere else and come up with anything we could use.”

  “How could somebody get into the safe?” Malachi asked. “Syd and I are the only ones with the combination.”

  “And my parents,” added Sydney. “But, of course they wouldn’t be suspects.”

  “It could be someone who is here often enough to get to know the building, where things are,” the officer said. He examined the burlap money bag. “How come you didn’t call us the first time, when the drawer was short?”

  “I thought I’d added things up wrong. Then we thought it was one of our employees,” Malachi explained. He continued that he and Sydney thought that letting Lawrence quit had taken care of the problem.

  Stribling flipped to a new page, “Who’s in here on a regular basis?”

  “Kwamé,” Malachi replied.

  The officer looked up from his notepad. “Kwamé Rodriguez?”

  “Yes,” Malachi continued. “He’s a buddy of mine. I trust him.”

  The officer jotted something down on the pad.

  “Kwamé’s wife. I trust her,” Sydney said.

  “What about those tenants in the basement?” asked Stribling.

  “The Taylors?” Sydney laughed. “They’re an elderly couple. Mrs. Taylor can barely get around. She’s frail. They take little walks around the neighborhood, but other than that I don’t even know that they’re there. I don’t think there’s any reason to be concerned about them.”

  Stribling maintained a blank expression. “Do they have access to the main level of the house?”

  “No,” answered Malachi. “They can’t enter the main floor from the basement. It’s a separate apartment. We keep the door to the basement locked on our side. The only way they could come in is if they went outside from the basement and came through the front door.”

  “When the store is closed for the evening we put the alarm on,” added Sydney. “So we’d hear them if they tried to come in. And the alarm has a motion detector on it.”

  Officer Stribling led the way up the hall. “We have to at least talk to them, see if they’ve noticed anything suspicious.”

  “But they wouldn’t know anything,” Sydney said. “They’ve been in and out of town for the past several weeks.”

  “Who has keys?” Stribling asked.

  Malachi went upstairs to get the spare set. When he came back, he undid the bolt lock leading to the basement.

  “Is it okay that we’re doing this?” asked Sydney as the three of them walked down the steps.

  “Syd, we’re the landlords.” Malachi responded sharply. “We have the right to go in.” He got no response when he knocked on the Taylors’ door.

  “Try it again,” the officer said.

  After more knocking, Malachi put the key in the lock. When the door swung open Sydney was stunned. The living room was empty except for Inez’s silver tea service on the serving cart. All the furnishings were gone, the kitchen table, chairs, the living room furniture.

  “Any idea what’s going on here?” asked the officer.

  “This is strange,” Malachi said, his eyes sweeping the living room.

  “They never said they were moving out,” Sydney wondered. “Why would they do this to us?”

  “Why? They’re low-life thieves. That’s why,” Malachi replied.

  Sydney walked into the kitchen where she found an empty box of Earl Grey tea bags. The album cover of Handel’s Water Music was lying on a front stove burner.

  Stribling pushed aside the translucent beads in the living room doorway and went down the hall. “I found something in here,” he called out a few minutes later from the bedroom. The room was empty except for an open suitcase.

  Sydney knelt down to examine the contents: a crystal vase and picture frames she and Malachi had been given as wedding presents, a charm bracelet, and miniature ceramic knick knacks from her grandmother and the leather journal Inez had given her. She saw something sticking out of the flap of the suitcase. It was her savings bank passbook. Sydney’s eyes began to ache in their sockets as she flipped through the passbook. Her name was forged for several withdrawals. The Taylors had taken all but one dollar from the account, removing several thousand that Sydney had put away over the years. She felt dizzy as she looked up at the officer. “How did they get onto the third floor?” she wondered.

  “They could be professional criminals,” he responded.

  “But she had a stroke,” Sydney felt her voice go up an octave but couldn’t stop it.

  “I don’t know about that.” The officer crossed the room and reached behind the closet door. He held up Inez’s silver-handled cane.
>
  “You mean all this time she was faking?” asked Sydney. She began to feel like a fool for trusting the woman.

  They followed Officer Stribling into the kitchen. “I think I know how your tenants did this,” he said. He slid open the compartment on the dumbwaiter. “It’s the perfect size.”

  “For what?” asked Malachi.

  “To fit a little old lady and send her upstairs,” Officer Stribling responded. “She had her own elevator service. She could get to any floor and take only a few steps out to grab small paintings and whatever else she wanted. She didn’t weigh that much, so that’s how she got around setting off the motion detector. She went up and down in the dumbwaiter while her husband, assuming he is her husband, operated the pulley system from here in the basement.”

  The dumbwaiter made a screeching sound as the officer tugged on the rope. “Every so often I heard a sound like that,” Sydney said. “Sometimes it was in the middle of the night. I could never figure out where it was coming from.”

  “They were probably practicing, doing test runs,” Malachi said.

  “You think they were lying about being a married couple, too?” Sydney asked.

  “I wouldn’t trust a word that came from their mouths,” answered Stribling. “They’re criminals and criminals lie.”

  Sydney felt dizzy. She sucked in deep breaths to keep the room from spinning. She couldn’t believe what they were seeing. All this time, they had been manipulated by the Taylors. Every little thing the Taylors had done for them, for their shop, had been a smokescreen, a way to gain their absolute trust so they could be robbed right under their own noses.

  “Every time Inez and Willie were on the merchandise floor they must’ve been casing the place,” reasoned Malachi, “figuring out how to beat the system.”

  “But how did they get things out of here?” asked Sydney. “They didn’t have a car.”

  The officer flipped back a few pages on his notepad. “You mentioned that they liked to take walks around the neighborhood. Did you ever follow them?”

  “Why would we?” she asked.