BLACK AND RED
“Unbelievable.” Salt exaggerated the word under her breath. “A picket fence, an actual white picket fence.” She was sitting in the Taurus, parked in front of the house Man shared part time with the mother of two of his daughters. She’d known about his house in the suburbs and a couple of days ago had asked the county cops to keep their eyes out for him and to let her know when he was home. The call came and this morning she’d been there. His SUV, as reported, in the driveway. Two little girls, both bearing a strong resemblance to Man, ran out the door to catch the school bus, their cartoon character backpacks strapped around their shoulders.
She punched his number in her phone. “Out front,” she said when he answered.
The cul-de-sac street of middle-class homes was quiet, a few cars leaving for the morning’s commute. Man strode from the house, his bowlegs giving him a bit of side-to-side gait. Warm-up jacket unzipped and flapping against his bare chest, he grabbed the handle of the passenger-side door, opened it, and stuck half his body in. “What the fuck?”
“Latte or plain, light or dark roast?” She offered him one of the two coffees she’d bought from the coffee chain store around the corner.
“What?”
“Have a seat, Man. Or would you rather invite me in?” She smiled.
“Latte,” he said, slipping into the passenger seat, closing the door, and zipping his jacket. “You want to tell me why you violating my personal space by coming here?” He took a sip of the coffee and looked at the logo on the take-out cup.
“Good?” she asked.
“I ax you a question,” he said, turning to face her.
She looked past him to the fence. “A picket fence, Man? Come on. I don’t believe you,” she said, still grinning.
His lips tightened in a crooked smile. “You love it, huh?”
“Those little girls—pretty cute. They look like you.”
The smile disappeared. “Don’t go there, Salt.”
“I had no intention of intruding, but you didn’t hold up your end of our agreement. I need those boys to come in for a lineup, to ID the white guys in the truck. Downtown looks like Beirut. There’s been looting. Traffic’s a nightmare. People want arrests for those girls’ deaths.”
“I been busy.”
Salt took a breath, closed her eyes, slowly exhaled, and turned to look out the window. “You’ve been busy.”
“All right, all right. It was Rodderick and Orphan. I’ll bring them to you myself.”
“Orphan? How old are they?”
“They at least sixteen. Yeah, Orphan.”
“Still starting them young,” she said, thinking of how young Man and Lil D and Stone had been when she first saw them working the trap. She said, “They found Glory.”
Took him a beat but then Man shrugged and stared straight ahead, out to the suburban street. “What you mean ‘they’? Who else lookin’ for her ’sides you?”
“Somebody else was. She was shot and dumped in Bellwood Quarry.” When he didn’t say anything, she added, “Just another dead stripper?”
“Naw. She all right,” he said quietly in a low tone.
“Comes with the job, huh? And being female?”
“What you want me to say, Glory be a ho. Hos be gettin’ theyselves kilt.”
“Getting themselves killed? She wasn’t that much older than your girls, Man. How is it you don’t feel some responsibility? They worked for you.”
“I told you not to bring my kids in this. Glory and JoJo, they part of the game—they hos. Game fixed. Ain’t no hos gone win. I play the cards I been given and I’m stackin’ the deck for my kids.”
It was her turn to look off to the distant horizon. “I think that’s what all parents want, Man. But the fathers’ sins keep coming back on the children.”
“You out of line comin’ out here talkin’ ’bout my sins on my children.”
Then she asked him, “You have any idea where JoJo is?”
Man shook his head. “No, I do not. You need to take what I’m givin’. I’m already bringin’ them boys to you.”
“Tomorrow. Six-thirty. I do not want to bother you again by coming here.”
“Best not.” Man got out, taking the latte and slamming the car door.
EVERYMAN
She and the man were the only two on the slow-moving elevator. He smiled, nodding politely at her as they moved to the back corners. She saw that he’d punched the floor number for Homicide and, except for the whiff of gun oil, had considered that he might be there to fix the printer or take care of some mid-level management issue regarding the move. Stocky, brown eyes, a bit more hair than Wills but otherwise could have been his brother, and was dressed a little better: blue chambray shirt, khaki work pants, red plaid padded work shirt worn as a jacket. When the elevator doors opened, he motioned for her to precede him and followed her to the Homicide entrance, watching as she punched the code for admittance.
“Hey, Salt.” Rosie raised a lacquered nail. “May I help you, sir?”
“I didn’t expect to encounter so many beautiful women today.” He held out his hand to Rosie. “Lincoln Sugarman to see Detective Wills.”
“I’ll let Wills know, Rosie.” Salt went through the inner door, leaving Sugarman still holding Rosie’s hand. She found Wills and Huff at Wills’ desk. “He’s here. I rode the elevator with him not realizing who he was.”
Wills rolled his chair back. “Impression?” he asked, gathering a notepad and pen.
“I’ll get the others,” Huff said but looking at her to hear her response.
“Kind of an everyman.” She shrugged. “Making an effort to be pleasant.”
Huff made the sign of the cross at Wills. “I don’t need to tell you how much is riding on this interview,” he said, turning to go get the rest of the task force.
“Thanks, Sarge,” Wills said to his back.
Huff gave him a backward wave.
Wills winked at Salt. “Wish me luck.”
She pulled the St. Michael’s pendant from her shirt and kissed it.
• • •
She’d waited until Wills had escorted Sugarman to the interview room and until Huff, the feds, and a few other detectives from the task force had settled before going down the hall and standing in the doorway of the observation room. There was a slightly disturbing odor of heated dust coming from the monitoring equipment. The setup was a combination of low- and hi-tech: an old-school two-way mirror on the wall between the rooms that gave people a bit of an underwater tint; a monitor for the cameras in the corners of the interview room; and speakers for the slightly fuzzy audio that gave voices a bit of a lisp.
One of the agents gave her a look when she appeared in the doorway, then turned to Huff, his mouth and brows in a question mark.
“She’s good,” Huff said, turning his back to the agent.
Wills was wearing almost the same clothing as Sugarman, khaki pants and a blue short-sleeve shirt, but also one of his Homicide ties on which were little deerstalker caps and magnifying glasses.
“. . . just like in the movies,” Sugarman was saying, nodding at the two-way.
Wills, just as affable, said, “We’re trying to move toward the twenty-first century.” He smiled across the table and leaned back in his chair. “But I guess we should get to it, Mr. Sugarman.” He sat up. “Maybe to start you could give me a brief summary about your organization. I’d like to hear it from you firsthand; you know how the media can distort things these days.”
Sugarman smiled politely but his eyes lacked warmth. “I appreciate that. Yes, there’s a lot about us out there.” He leaned forward trying to match Wills’ hail-fellow-well-met tone. “Our organization from the start has been primarily concerned about individual rights.” He continued with what seemed a well-rehearsed spiel, building a case for the basis of thei
r fears of oppression and trampled rights, never once identifying particular sources of that oppression.
Finally, Wills interrupted. “You make some valid points. But what’s this I hear about guns being sold at some of your meetings?”
Sugarman smiled coyly and held up his hands, as if showing them to be clean. He wore no wedding band, only a pinky ring on his left hand and on the ring finger of his right what looked to be a ruby. He tipped his head. “You can’t expect me to know what all goes on between my members, Detective?”
Wills lost his smile and leaned across the table, hands clasped, staring Sugarman in the eye. “My dad used to tell me, ‘Son, if you’re in charge of something, you’re responsible.’ Now, I get the individual rights you want to uphold, but along with rights come responsibilities. We received information that you were present the night guns were sold to an individual whose vehicle matches the description of the truck used in the shooting of the Spelman college students.”
Sugarman’s mouth turned downward, lips pursed. His brow furrowed and he narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know . . .” he began.
“Your organization, your responsibility. If you don’t know now, I’m sure you can find out. Our information is reliable.” Wills leaned back, done engaging.
Sugarman looked over to the two-way mirror. “You work for the City of Atlanta. I guess you got diversity,” he said, twisting the last word and nodding his chin toward the glass.
Wills kept his silence.
“What if I’m not able to find out?” He addressed the mirror rather than Wills, then looked up at the cameras in the corners of the room.
“We have faith, Mr. Sugarman—faith that you understand the meaning of the word ‘conspiracy,’ what it means legally, not to mention morally. One way to demonstrate that you personally didn’t conspire to kill those students is to help us find who did.”
“You mean give up the names of my members.”
“Someone in your organization sold a gun that is likely a murder weapon, and you know or can find out to whom that weapon was sold.”
“Oh, I see now how this works. But you don’t have a warrant, do you? Can I go now?”
“You’ve always been free to go. You are not under arrest, yet.” Wills waited as Sugarman stood, then opened the door to lead him out.
CONFLAGRATION
Man didn’t bring the boys in for the lineup. He called and said they’d ducked and he was looking for them. So once again queuing up for roll call in the academy gym, Salt widened her eyes, trying to get rid of the heavy-lidded feeling. Pepper, rubbing lotion into his hands and along his arms from a bottle held under his arm, asked, “You and Wills up late?”
Slow getting rid of the fuzzy feeling, she swiped her hands over her eyes. “Not really. He’s helping me with the attic. I’m purging.”
Noon, four hours earlier than her regular shift, but not so much earlier that she shouldn’t be able to shake it off. They were all coming in at times other than their normal hours.
In an effort to minimize the appearance of militarization, the brass had declared that the cops on the inner perimeter would not deploy with shields and helmets, a mixed blessing. Their batons were to remain holstered unless there was an immediate threat. Salt was just as happy to shed the cumbersome equipment.
“Want some?” Pep asked, holding up the lotion.
She brightened a bit. “I’m good,” she said, giving the response that had been her daily answer when they’d worked their beats and stood roll call together every day. Now that they’d both gone to separate units, he missed their day-to-day camaraderie. “We haven’t rolled in a while, you know,” she said, referring to their weekly aikido practice with his boys.
“Atten-hut!” the Special Ops major shouted.
She and Pepper stood with their squad of twelve while Sergeant Fellows reviewed them, walking down the line and giving them the head-to-toe inspection. Fellows didn’t seem to notice dusty shoes, facial stubble, a faded uniform shirt or a frayed pants knee. It became clear that she cared little for appearances; the only part of the ritual not pro forma being the light tap on each of their backs as she passed behind their line, making sure a protective vest was under each uniform.
The commander announced squad assignments. This time they were being deployed to a location closer to the center of the expected demonstration, the site of the assault on the students. “Fall out,” yelled the commander.
“Stand by,” Fellows said to her twelve. They gathered around. “It’s going to be a long day. The forecast is for cold. Once we’re on our posts we’ll be pretty much stuck there for the duration. So why don’t we stop somewhere first and get a good meal? Somewhere warm, a sit-down.”
“Busy Bee,” several of them said.
“Can I get gluten-free fried chicken?”
“You ain’t eat no gluten-free shit.”
Pushing, shoving, and grumbling, they went out to the van, all the while arguing the argument of cops everywhere—where to eat. Not having considered its proximity to the AU Center, as the campuses of the historically black colleges—Spelman, Morehouse, and Clark College—were collectively called, they found the Busy Bee packed, almost every table in the small café taken. But all of them had begun to salivate in response to the aroma of the best fried chicken, they agreed, any of them had ever eaten—even “they mamas’ Sunday chicken.” Eyes and heads turned as they were shown to two tables in the back where they split six to a table. Along with iced tea, the waitress brought them heaping baskets of hot biscuits and corn muffins. Jackets were shed as they dug in, buttering the warm breads while inhaling the smell of chicken that had been marinated overnight, hand-breaded, and fried in peanut oil.
Pepper was seated across from Salt with his back to the room. Their table included Fellows, the rookie, one of the detectives, and the uniformed officer from the downtown precinct. “You the token field hand at the white poleese table, bro?” A young dreadlocked light-skinned man at the table of college-age students behind Pepper said, leaning over and clasping Pepper’s shoulder with a meaty hand. His friends, some of them, laughed nervously.
No one else would notice but Salt. The scar along the side of Pepper’s face whitened. But also none of them said anything, taking their cue from Pepper, who raised and turned his head to look at the hand on his shoulder. Then the kid moved his hand to Pepper’s neat-cut head. “You protectin’ these here white cops, bro?”
Pepper smiled over his shoulder while gracefully sliding his hand to the young man’s. Gently but firmly Pepper took two of the kid’s fingers and pressed them back to the kid’s wrist, simultaneously standing and leveraging the guy up and over so that the young man was now seated in the chair Pepper had just vacated, facing Salt at the cops’ table. “I’d like to take this opportunity to invite you to be my guest,” he told him as the kid tried in vain to break Pepper’s hold.
The waitress came by, head high, ignoring anything that might be amiss. Other diners looked at their food. The kid’s friends all looked on, silent. “He’ll rejoin you gentlemen after he done eat a big mess a crow.” Pepper smiled, dragged up a chair, and sat beside the young man. “Let me begin by introducing you to Officer Salt there across the table directly in front of you. She was my partner for ten years or so, and last year she saved my life and in doing so risked her own. May I order something for you?”
The young man shook his head no.
“Okay, next beside Salt is Sergeant Fellows. Yes, I know she’s white, but let’s give her a break, shall we? She normally spends her days trying to save neglected and abused children, mostly black I might add, demographics being what they are in Atlanta, at the expense of her emotional equilibrium. I couldn’t do that job. You sure I can’t buy you a piece of chicken?”
“Pepper,” Sergeant Fellows said.
“No, Sarge. This young gentleman”—he clasped his hand on the young ma
n’s shoulder—“has come to our fair city for an education.” He turned his face to make eye contact with the guy. “Where you from, young man?”
“Boston,” he said quietly.
“Anyway, I’d like to be a part of that education,” Pepper continued with what seemed like genuine goodwill.
Finally, even his victim smiled. “You got me, man.” He looked back at his friends. “They know. I can be an asshole sometimes.”
His companions nodded their assent. “I know that’s right,” one said.
The kid reached for a biscuit from the basket on the cops’ table. “May I?” he asked Pepper.
“Please.”
• • •
They delayed going out into the cold as long as possible, sitting around the tables at the Busy Bee, drinking after-lunch coffees, fortifying for the long night ahead. The food—Salt had eaten a bit of baked chicken and greens—had helped a little, but she felt an unease, like she’d forgotten something.
• • •
When Lil D’d left Latonya’s apartment and gone out to get in his old car it had sputtered, gray exhaust flooding the air in the parking lot, then died. No amount of tinkering, none of the tricks he usually tried to get it going, worked. He went in, told Latonya, called Man, grabbed his jacket, and went out to the nearest bus stop. Even in the air outside he could smell the old Homes apartment in the orange quilted jacket—Danny T, Latonya, his own funk, and maybe, maybe, it was the smell of those red bricks that had always been the smell of The Homes to him. He zipped the jacket against the cold and tucked the fresh white towel around his neck, covering the birthmark he rarely thought about anymore but habitually hid.
Man had said he’d pick him up at the Five Points station. He wanted to work with Man in the club and all, move up from street dealing, but he needed money now. I don’t know how to make money last, he thought. It just goes. And now the car. Being Man’s right hand was the only job he’d ever known. He couldn’t believe Man wouldn’t tell him if he knew anything about who’d killed Mary. The pleasurable fantasy of new shoes for Latonya drifted by. He checked his phone for the time and willed the bus to come, hoping the DNA place wouldn’t close before he got there.
Old Bones Page 17
