A Dead Man Speaks

by Lisa Jones Johnson

  I took out my notebook—Andrew Haven, Business Partner.

  “Detective Greene.” He held out his hand.

  “Yeah.”

  “Andrew Haven.”

  I looked up into the eyes of a short black man. Funny, he seemed taller at the wake standing at the podium. But now that I was eyeballing him face to face, I could see he couldn’t be more than 5’4”, maybe 5’5” not more than that. A little guy with little hands and feet, wide face, eyes dark and set into his face. Little knots of hair stuck on the side of his face with nothing in the middle. Nothin’ to look at, even for a black man.

  “Sit down.” I pulled up a chair next to my desk. He looked around the station, his shiny new wing tips squeaking. His suit was dark blue crisp, with a red tie and white shirt that looked like some poor stiff in a Chinese laundry had been sweating over the iron, making sure that every crease lay flat.

  “Will this take long?” He glanced at his watch. Rolex. And me with a broken Timex on my dresser. Some people do have all the luck. I pulled out the file, turning my back to him as I flipped through it. This was my party now.

  “Why, you got someplace to go?”

  “I do run a business, Detective.”

  “So I hear.”

  He shifted in his seat again, scraping his heels against the floor. I could tell he was pissed.

  “Tell me, Mr. Haven, how long did you know the deceased?”

  “Twelve, thirteen years, I don’t remember exactly when we met. We’d seen each other in the halls, and then one day he introduced himself.”

  “This was where now?”

  “At Bender & Grace. We both worked there. He was in the training program at the time, and I’d been on the floor for two years at that point.”

  “On the floor?”

  “Trading. I traded municipal bonds at the time.”

  “What’dya think of him when you first met him?”

  He looked away, then turned back to me. “Driven. Absolutely driven.” He sighed. “There was no one like Clive.”

  His eyes kinda half closed like he was re-living every word, and then he started talking without me even prompting. But the funny thing was, it was like he almost forgot I was there, like he’d gone back to some place in time, remembering it more for himself than for me. So I sat back and just let him spill it out.

  “Clive was definitely one of a kind. I remember the first time I saw him. I was walking down the hall at Bender. I was late getting somewhere when I heard this voice behind me…”

  Now my eyes were opening again. The second set, the ones that could see what no one else could. I was inside of Haven’s head, and I was seeing what he was as if it was happening in front of me. Only it was ten years ago.

  * * *

  Through Andrew Haven eyes as he remembers Clive ten years earlier:

  “Yo…”

  I turned and faced a tall, lanky black man. He was handsome in a very unusual way. His face was chiseled and a light brown color. His black hair was cut neatly, and his large hands were thrust in his pockets. He seemed almost out of place in those halls. Filled with nothing but white people.

  “My name’s Clive January…I’ve noticed you, not too many brothers here you know…”

  “You’ve noticed. Five of us out of what three hundred…almost 1/10th of a percent…”

  I laughed. He smiled.

  “It’s good to meet you Clive. I’m Andrew Haven…”

  He clasped my hand, the brother shake.

  “So what’s the deal here, Andy…?”

  I flinched. Normally, I hated people calling me that. It always reminded me of being a fat little boy that everyone made fun of. Andy can’t do this. Andy can’t do that…but for some reason, the way he said it made it sound almost endearing, like a pleasant, familiar nickname instead of a childhood taunt.

  “What do you mean…?”

  He stopped for a moment, as if he weren’t sure whether to take me into his confidence or not, looking around.

  “Listen, were you heading home?”

  “You wanna grab a beer?”

  I almost said no. I had plans. But for some reason, I couldn’t say no. I felt somehow as if his will were controlling me.

  “Sure…let’s go to the Oak Bar, on Wall…” The bar was packed with the Wall Street regulars, old, white guys who’d been on the Street so long they were like a fraternity of college boys except the pranks were worth millions and could make or break a man in seconds. But Clive wasn’t looking at any of them. It’s like he’d blocked out the bedlam of clinking glasses, the off-color jokes and pale fingers clutching stools to steady themselves, and nails stained with cigar smoke. And as far as you could see, no women, and no blacks.

  Clive ordered a whisky and didn’t drink a drop. He just talked like he’d been waiting for a sounding board. “How does a brother make it around here? I mean really make it. I’m talking stupid money, all the shit the white boys got.”

  “You work hard…”

  “Aw c’mon, man. You know that’s bullshit. You’re telling me that every trader on the floor that’s pulling down half a mil a year is doing it ’cause he’s just working hard. That’s total bullshit.”

  I was a little put off by his intensity. He was like a hot, white fire that was just starting to burn at the edges. “Well, finding a rabbi doesn’t hurt either…”

  “A rabbi?”

  “A mentor, somebody who will pull you up with him.”

  He twirled the glass around in his hand, still hadn’t touched the whisky. “So in other words, the right ass to kiss.”

  “You could put it that way.”

  He leaned back in his chair, in deep thought. His eyes sunk into his face. And in the half light of the dark bar, he assumed an almost ghostly air. “Me and this buddy of mine, a white guy I knew in college, are thinking about starting a business.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah, buying and selling stock of small companies that nobody’s doing much with.”

  “Interesting but risky.”

  He smiled. “Isn’t that the only way to make the real money?”

  “I suppose so.”

  He looked at me curiously. “How long have you been at the firm?”

  “Two years, almost three.”

  “And you?”

  He leaned back in his chair, a half smile lighting across his face. “Three months.” He pushed his whisky away and leaned his elbows on the table. Staring at me, like he was trying to bore a hole in my soul. “So would you like to work with us?”

  I probably should’ve laughed. I mean really. The nerve. I was a second year trader, making probably five times as much as he was, and he had just barely gotten out of the training program. “You’re kidding right?”

  “No. I’m not. You’ve got the kind of experience we need and I like you.”

  “Well thanks for the offer, but…I think I’ll stay at Bender…”

  He shrugged his shoulders, seemingly nonchalantly. “Hey, you may regret that…’cause we’re gonna make it big. Stupid big.” He grabbed the check. “My treat.”

  * * *

  My eyes were closing. I knew I wouldn’t see anymore. So I turned to Haven, cutting him off. “So when did you start working together?”

  Haven jumped. “Oh, not for years later—ten years later.”

  “Did he start that other business, with the white guy?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so, something happened to him.”

  “Who?”

  “The white guy. I don’t know what. I left Bender a few months later and moved to Chicago. I lost track of Clive until he approached me about being a partner in the business.”

  I glanced at the clock. Five-thirty. Shit. I was supposed to meet Margie. She’d finally agreed to see me.

  “Listen, Mr. Haven, I gotta be somewhere in a few. You mind if I stop by your office? I can look around, speak to some of your people, you know the drill.”

  “No, anytime.” />
  He snapped open a thin silver cardholder and handed me a card. “Just call me and speak to Cindy, my assistant. She’ll set everything up.”

  “Thanks.”

  I glanced at his card, ANDREW HAVEN, PRESIDENT. Didn’t take long to change the cards, I see. I pulled out one of Clive January’s cards from the file: CLIVE JANUARY. PRESIDENT.

  Like I said, didn’t take long.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Margie looked different—not better or worse, just different—standing on the corner waiting for me with all of New York rushing past her. Her cheeks were tinged red, the way they always were. Her dark hair was stuffed in a huge red wool hat that made her look like one of Santa’s elves or something.

  She didn’t see me just yet, but I spotted her right away, always could. For a minute, I got that little jump in my throat I’d get when I first saw her. Like the first time we went out.

  “You look great,” I said

  “Thanks, you don’t look that bad yourself.”

  She looked more than just great. Shit, she had on a black knit dress that showed off every curve in her body and picked up the little light brown flecks in her eyes. Her thick dark brown hair was done up in some fancy way on top of her head and made her seem even taller and more like some Greek statute. Damn. She looked good. But there was something in her eyes—like I’d really fucked up bad and was probably never gonna be able to make it up.

  “How’re you doing?”

  Her smile seemed different, too. Confident, in charge. “Good. In fact really good.”

  I wished I could say the same, but I’d be lying if I said I was doing anything but just okay.

  I got a little closer to her. “So you wanna get a cup of coffee or something?” I really didn’t feel much like hanging on a corner. A half-drunk bum staggered past us and collapsed in a heap against the light post. Since this was New York, nobody noticed. Nobody gave a damn. Including me. All I really wanted was to somehow get Margie back, even if it was just for a cup of coffee. Hell, it was better than nothing.

  “No, I can’t. I’ve got something to do at six…”

  “Oh yeah, what’s his name?”

  “Fuck you, Bob.” She jammed her hands in her coat angrily. “I don’t need it today, okay.”

  “Yeah right, tell me I don’t have reason to wonder. You walk out on me after ten years with not so much as a see ya later Bob, and you wonder if I don’t wonder if you ain’t screwing somebody else.”

  “You just can’t face the truth can you? How many times did I try and talk to you, try and tell you about the things that were bothering me? Then when I finally decide after ten wasted years that I was moving on, you insist on thinking that it’s got to be somebody else. It’s you, Bob. Just you. You’re the reason I left, ’cause you’re a selfish shit. And I’m tired of it.”

  “So why the hell did you want to see me?”

  She pulled her hat down lower over her face, the way she always did when she didn’t want to say something, or didn’t know how to say it. At that moment, I just wished I could grab her and pick her up, and we’d land on my old plaid couch, just the two of us: with a couple of beers, the TV, the sound of kids outside the window and the feel of her next to me. Like nothing else.

  “I’m…um…joining the force.”

  “You’re what?”

  “I’m gonna be a cop.”

  “No fuckin’ way!”

  I knew I was hearing wrong. My ex a cop. Shit. Like they say, be careful what you ask for. I wanted her so bad, now I got her.

  Her eyes flashed angrily. “It’s a free country, I can do whatever the hell I want to do and be whatever I want to. You don’t own NYPD.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re doing this to mess with me, aren’t you? Just admit it. Walking out on me wasn’t enough. Now you gotta fuck with me on my job, too.” Even though I was damn near yelling, no one noticed. The early evening passersby only knotted their scarves more tightly around their faces and pressed their bodies more determinedly into the icy winds. Nobody wanted to notice a red faced guy getting more agitated by the minute.

  Margie continued wearily as if she was tired of having this conversation. “Believe it or not, the world doesn’t revolve around you, and I don’t make every decision in my life just to spite you. And before you think I was on some vendetta or something, you should know that I didn’t want to be in your division.”

  I couldn’t believe there was more.

  “I tried to get a transfer but—”

  “Shit, Margie!”

  I needed a drink, but I was too stunned to move. “You mean to tell me that you can’t live with me, you think I’m a selfish shit or whatever, but now you’re gonna go and work with me!?”

  “It wasn’t my choice. I asked to be placed in another precinct, but they put me where there was a vacancy.”

  “What about your job at Nynex?”

  “They were gonna lay me off. I hadn’t been there long enough to get any kind of real severance or pension, so I did what I had to. One thing about New York, there will always be criminals, so they’ll always need cops.”

  A mean-assed headache started at the back of my head and moved up to my temples. I had to sit down. I crumpled on the bench.

  Margie was silent for a while, then she slung her purse over her shoulder and turned to leave. “I just wanted you to know.” And then she left.

  Fuck. Goddamnit! Like my job wasn’t hard enough already without having to see Margie’s face everyday and know that she wasn’t mine. That some other knucklehead was going to be screwing her. I massaged my aching head, wondering how I was gonna get through the next few months, before I could get a transfer or something. And that damn January case, still no further along than when I started. I wanted to go home sit in front of the tube with a bottle of Jack and watch cartoons. Forget everything. But I couldn’t. I had to keep on going.

  * * *

  what a pitiful shit. and this is who i’ve got to depend on to find out who killed me. a screwed up cop who can’t even control his woman. i knew how to control a woman, never let her get to you, never let her know that you wanted her, or worse that you needed her. there was only one woman who i couldn’t control. no matter what i did, i couldn’t stop loving her.

  and i keep thinking about her. the last time i saw her when she handed me the pipe and disappeared out of the room, and then the gun shots. did she do it? she couldn’t have. she loved me. or so i’d thought. but now i wonder was i ever capable of being loved or loving. maybe it was all an illusion. my wife didn’t love me. but she had, and i guess that i’m to blame for what happened. monique. sweet monique, turned to bitter bile.

  i wonder where she is, what she’s doing, does she miss me or is it relief she feels? i want to see her and our daughter, baby ariel, does she miss me or has she been poisoned against me, too? i feel like i’m moving, like i’m going somewhere. now i see. i’m floating over our apartment. i can see monique. i can feel what she’s feeling, and think her thoughts…now i’m in her head. i wonder does she know i’m here…

  * * *

  Monique

  I looked over at my mother-in-law dozing peacefully in Clive’s leather recliner. She had unofficially claimed it as her own since he’d died. My daughter, Ariel, was asleep in her arms. The bond between them was strange. They were almost inseparable from the moment she’d arrived at our doorstep on that rainy April night. And Clive, strong Clive, who taunted the world and everyone in it, for the first time looked like somebody had pulled the rug out from under him when he saw his mother’s face.

  “Clive, there’s um…someone…You just better come here.”

  He curled the ever present portable phone under his chin, frowning in annoyance. “Monique, I’m on the phone.”

  “I can see that, but there’s a woman who says…” I couldn’t keep my eyes off the tall solemn woman standing in the open doorway. Before she told me who she was, I knew already. Because no matter what
Clive said, no matter what lie slipped so easily from his mouth, I knew who she was: same tall thin frame, long face, high cheekbones and piercing intense eyes that could cut through you in a glance.

  “She says that she’s your—” Before I could finish the sentence, Ariel tottered into the room, walking uncertainly almost curiously toward the tall distant stranger.

  The woman, my mother-in-law, picked up Ariel, cuddling her into her damp body. “This must be my grandbaby.”

  Clive bolted into the room and literally snatched our child from his mother. “Noooo! Get your fuckin’ hands off her!” He turned to her with a viciousness and hatred that seemed to bubble up from somewhere deep in his soul that I, nor I think anyone else, had ever seen. “You are not my mother!”

  Ariel started screaming loudly, a tiny pawn between the woman that she had only met a moment ago, and the father that she’d known her entire short life. And for a moment, just a moment, I felt superior to my husband because this time there was no easy answer. Truth was staring at him plainly in the face.

  “You never could lie good.” His mother’s words sliced him.

  Shaking, he shouted. “Get out! I don’t know how the fuck you ended up here, but get out. I don’t know you!”

  My mother-in-law smiled smugly. “My grandbaby knows her grandma, don’t you baby?” Ariel stopped crying and smiled hesitantly through her tears at her grandmother.

  Clive looked as if everything that he had become had suddenly been snatched away from him in a single moment. And now his voice was low and terse. All of the violent emotion gone. He turned to me, slowly. “Tell this woman that if she ever comes here again, I will call the police and have her immediately removed.”

  “But, Clive, she’s your mother!”

  “I will call the police, and I will have her removed.” He turned, carrying our daughter out of the room.

  His mother’s dark cold eyes followed him out of the room. She smiled strangely, as if somehow none of this was a surprise to her. “Don’t worry none, Monique. He’ll come around. I know my boy.” The way she said my name made me shiver. “How do you know my name?”

  “Oh, I knows, lots, lots more than he thinks.” She wrapped her thin coat around her shoulders. “You kiss my grandbaby for me.”