“So you want me to ...”
“Help us find out where the girl is,” the cop finished his words. “They say you know your way around these people. You can get closer than we can.”
“You want me to find her and bring her to you?”
“Just find her. Don’t be a hero. Leave that to us professionals,” he grinned.
“I can do that,” Memphis agreed. He got out of the car giving them a reassuring smile. He would have agreed to anything to get out of that car. He walked down past 48th Street and entered an alley leading into the back of Sam Harris’s pawnshop. Sam loaned him a .38 Police Special. He was a long way from home, and he didn’t plan on taking any more crap before getting there.
Memphis found his door unlocked and shoved it open with his gun drawn. He was not prepared for what he saw. She stood at the sound of his entry, and no description of her from others could do justice to her presence up close. What he wanted to say and what he needed to say collided, leaving him dumbstruck. She wore a clingy red dress that offered as much promise as her scarlet lips. She was a chocolate fantasy that made the rest of the world look pastel.
“How’d you get in here?” he finally asked.
“Mr. Morgan let me in. I told him I came to see you.”
Her explanation made him smile. A beautiful woman could get anything she wanted. Fats would have thrown anyone else out on his ear, but a vulnerable smile and a seductive demeanor made all the difference.
“How did you know where I lived?”
“Are you going to shoot me?” Her lips teased him.
“Uh ... no, no.” He slipped the gun into his coat pocket. “You’re Margo Flowers?”
She nodded her affirmation, and her eyes entrapped him and made it difficult for him to think of anything but her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” She finally lowered her eyes.
“Do you know who killed Bobby Bazemore?”
She shook her head without looking up.
“What was he doing with you? With all due respect, I don’t think he’s your type.”
“I just met him last night. He brought me a message to meet a friend after the show.”
“A friend? Who?”
She seemed to hesitate, as if reluctant to respond.
“Benjamin Wallace,” she said. She turned away but looked back coquettishly to see his response. “We’ve been seeing each other,” she added.
“Ben Wallace ... the commercial real estate Ben Wallace? Wallace Construction?”
“Yeah.”
“And you can’t tell me what happened to Bobby Bazemore?”
“No, but I don’t think they intended to hurt Mr. Bazemore,” she replied, folding her arms tightly as if warding off a sudden chill. “I think they meant to kill me.”
“Why would anybody want to kill you?”
“It’s complicated,” she said. “Ben is an important man. We’ve been trying to keep our relationship secret because—”
“Because he might make a run for mayor next term,” Memphis added.
“How did you know that?”
“I read the papers,” Memphis replied. “So Bobby came backstage to tell you to meet Ben Wallace down the street and away from the club so nobody would see his colored girlfriend.”
She didn’t answer, so he continued.
“Then Bobby started to hit on you for himself.”
“He offered to walk me part of the way because it’s a rough neighborhood.”
“Sounds like him. Then what happened?”
“We had gone about a block and a half, and somebody started shooting. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. We ran into an alley, and he started staggering. That’s when I realized he had been hit. He was scared. He didn’t know why anybody would shoot at him, but I knew it was me and not him. I told him so. There are people who can’t stomach the idea of the next mayor having a colored wife. He told me to come here, and you would help me.”
“Wife? What the hell are you talking about, girl? First of all, he’s already married.”
“They’re separated,” she retorted. “It’s 1940. Things are changing. He wants to marry me.”
Memphis was speechless for the second time that night. Beauty damn sure didn’t have anything to do with brains. She was crazy as hell if she believed the next mayor of New York was going to marry a colored woman. Love had its own reality however, and it didn’t have anything to do with the rest of the world.
“Miss Flowers,” he began in a slow deliberate voice whose very tone questioned her sanity. “Did it ever occur to you that Wallace might not want a colored wife, that he might be the one who wanted to be rid of you?”
“That’s not true!” She blurted the words out angrily. “If that’s what he wanted, all he had to do was say so. That’s the kind of relationship we had. I wasn’t trying to trap him. He knew I was there for him as long as it made him happy and not a second longer. We both understood that.”
“Did you see him last night?”
“No. I ducked out of the back of the alley and ran over to The Boogie Room. They let me stay in the back until this morning.”
The Boogie Room was one of a dozen or more unauthorized private clubs that flourished in basements throughout the neighborhood. They featured jukeboxes and cheap whiskey and were patronized by those who couldn’t afford the good times offered by the big clubs.
Memphis persuaded Margo to hide out at his place for a while, not that it took all that much. She was too frightened to go anywhere else. Fats Morgan was grinning broadly as Memphis exited the side door. That was enough to give him a sense of relief. He sure wouldn’t have been grinning if he suspected anything between him and Winnie.
“Damn,” Fats laughed. “If I had your hand, I’d throw mine in. Every man in the city would give his right arm to get that gal, and she ends up with you. How you do it, man?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” Memphis replied. “How about keeping an eye on things for me, Fats? I’m gonna leave her up there while I take care of some business.”
“All right,” Fats said looking suddenly concerned. “You hurry up and get back, though. Winnie might think I’m up to something. You know how jealous she can be.”
“No. I didn’t know that, Fats.”
Memphis hurried away in order to avoid extending a conversation from which nothing good could result. The less said about Winnie the better.
It was late in the afternoon by the time Memphis made his way to the other side of Manhattan. He had decided that since Benjamin Wallace seemed to be the source of everything, he would find out for himself if he had been the cause of his friend’s death. Memphis didn’t have a plan. He was just going to walk up to the son of a bitch and ask him to his face. He accepted the fact that he was probably going to pay a price for it, but he believed he could look at a man’s face and tell whether he was guilty.
It wasn’t difficult to find Ben Wallace’s home. He was a well-known politician, and with rumors about him posturing for the mayor’s race, he was becoming the most talked about man on the island.
He walked up to the well-appointed brownstone that had been described to him and rang the doorbell. A reasonably attractive woman in her early forties answered and gave him one of those condescending looks that rich people reserve for their inferiors. She would have been pretty, but she had the lines and crevices that too much alcohol and too many cigarettes can carve into a face.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but I was hoping to have a word with Mr. Benjamin Wallace,” he said in the most polite tone he could muster.
“Good luck,” she replied with an accompanying look that could kill a brick. “He doesn’t live here!”
“Mrs. Wallace?” he inquired.
“Who are you?” she asked.
He presented his business card quickly and introduced himself. He recognized her hostility at the mention of her husband’s name, and the story he needed
to tell began to materialize in his mind almost instantly.
“I’m a private investigator. I’m sorry to have to discuss this with you, but my client is concerned about Mr. Wallace’s interest in his daughter. Mr. Wallace’s prominence demands complete discretion, but my client is very uncomfortable with this situation.”
“That bastard!” Mrs. Wallace spat the words out with vehemence. “Every week brings out more and more. Please tell your client not to let her ruin her life with Ben Wallace. He had no respect for me, no respect for his marriage. He didn’t think I knew what he was doing, but I did. He was going down to Harlem to wallow with those colored women. He was a piece of crap. I hate him.”
“Do you think your husband is capable of violence?”
She hesitated and looked away as if gathering her thoughts before speaking.
“There isn’t anything my husband isn’t capable of, Mr. Redman, and I have lived through all of it. I’m still living through it.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s nothing for me to derive from discussing this, Mr. Redman. Go ask my husband what it means. He lives in relative luxury over at Riverside East. I’m sure he won’t like it, so tell him Violet sent you. Maybe it’ll interest him that we are on a first name basis.”
Benjamin Wallace lived like white people were supposed to live, or at least like most of Memphis’s neighbors expected they lived. Memphis knew better, since he wasn’t restricted to any particular world, and he walked into this one with complete aplomb.
Riverside East was built and owned by Wallace’s construction company. The lobby looked more like that of a hotel rather than of an apartment building. Memphis approached the security desk before one of the guards could ask him his business. He was about to deliver one of his standard lines when a familiar voice accosted him.
“You lookin’ for me, Redman?”
It was one of those oh hell moments. He recognized the owner of the voice as one of the cops who had waylaid him earlier.
“What are you doin’ here, Redman? This seems a little off your beaten path. Besides, that girl you’re supposed to be lookin’ for wouldn’t be on this side of town.”
“Is that right? Well, I heard she has a thing for rich white men.”
“I told you once before that you ask too many questions.” The man stepped closer to Memphis, invading his space. “You got a simple job to do, so do it before you get into more than you can handle.”
He was close enough to smell the man’s cheap cologne, close enough to shove his pistol into the man’s belly with the force of a professional boxer’s punch and watch his knees buckle.
“Stay on your feet, you son of a bitch. I’ll drop you soon enough when I’m ready.”
“You gonna shoot a cop?” the man gasped.
Memphis kept his back to the security desk so they couldn’t see what was happening. He grasped the man’s shoulder, urged him toward the door, and lifted his weapon after exiting the building. With his own gun hidden in his pocket and planted in the man’s spine, Memphis hailed a cab. He flashed the weapon again as he slid into the back seat. The man remained frozen on the curb as the cab pulled away. It made Memphis smile. There was a certain level of satisfaction derived from giving the cop some of his own medicine, although it was likely coming back to haunt him. He would have to find another way to get to Wallace since it appeared that he now had New York’s finest in his pocket.
Memphis was walking up from the subway at 125th when he spotted Geraldine Brooks. She was barefoot, with her clothes disheveled as if she had been in an altercation. The upper part of her dress was unbuttoned so that it hung off her right shoulder, exposing her breast. Even the night people gave her a wide berth as she meandered down the street talking to herself.
Memphis ran to her and blocked her way. Her eyes were wild and unfocused, and for a moment he didn’t think she recognized him. He covered her with his coat, and she didn’t resist.
“I couldn’t find my baby, Memphis,” she said in the most forlorn voice he had ever heard. “I went over to Marcia’s, and I couldn’t find her.”
He took a deep breath and sighed. He felt horribly guilty. He couldn’t remember when he had last seen Marcia. The apartments where they had all lived had been boarded up for over ten years. He had no idea she would have walked the twenty or thirty blocks to the old neighborhood looking for a nonexistent baby.
Her eyes were glazed, moving in an unfixed dance, and her expression remained detached.
“Where are you staying, Geraldine?” He asked.
“I don’ know,” she replied.
He draped an arm over her shoulder and led her past curious onlookers. He didn’t know what to do with her. There was only one place that had become the convenient refuge of people who had run out of options, and she had plenty of reasons to be there.
He had no intention of spending the next five hours in the Harlem Hospital emergency room, but a lingering guilt that he might have been responsible for her current deterioration kept him there. He was about to drift off into his third nap when one of the doctors approached him.
“You a friend of Miss Brooks?” he asked looking at Memphis curiously as if drawing some conclusions about their connection.
“Yeah, I brought her in. How is she, Dr. Scott?” Memphis asked, reading his name tag.
“Not good. We need to keep her overnight. What’s your connection to her?”
“She’s in the neighborhood. We all try to help out. Will she get any better, you know, mentally?”
“She would if she would take her medicine.”
“She takes medicine?”
“Yeah, I know. You wouldn’t think so. Geraldine’s a schizophrenic. There are drugs that will help. She’s been prescribed them, but she won’t take them.”
“Why?”
“Money, probably,” Dr. Scott replied. “She can buy drugs cheaper from a street doctor.”
“I don’t understand,” Memphis said. “She’s not a dope addict.”
“No. I didn’t mean that,” Dr. Scott explained. “She’s been taking a drug called meprobamate. It’s a tranquilizer, but it won’t touch schizophrenia. She gets it from a Doctor Avery Margolis. He’s not an M.D. He’s a psychologist who lost his license several years ago. He treats people for whatever—pneumonia, kidney infections, mental illness. You name it and he does it. He sells black market drugs—penicillin, sulfa, tranquilizers.”
“And the cops can’t arrest him?” Memphis asked, surprised at what he was hearing.
“They can’t find him. He moves every week or so. He preys off the poor, illegal immigrants, and the mentally ill. Those types aren’t a high priority for law enforcement.”
Memphis’s life kept getting more complicated. He had a looker in his apartment whom somebody was trying to kill. There was a woman downstairs married to a fat man who would kill him if he ever learned what Memphis feared he had done. His friend Bazemore had been murdered, and now this deranged woman he had known long enough to have developed a sense of responsibility for was being preyed on by a charlatan who could inadvertently end her life.
Human failings are difficult to tolerate. Memphis found them particularly intolerable when they involved a friend. The people who could have given his name to the cops were limited to his four friends.
Collis Powell’s face was painted with moral impoverishment after he opened his door and faced Memphis’s unexpected presence. Collis Powell had shared an apartment with Bobby Bazemore and thus was an obvious link for the police. Powell was weak and rolled over with the slightest threat. Memphis was angry, but he maintained enough restraint to make use of his friend: He needed information more than he needed revenge.
Powell waited tables at one of Nick Genovese’s restaurants where secrets floated in the air like wisps of cigarette smoke. He returned with the information that Memphis required before nightfall.
Memphis found Dr. Avery Margolis exactly where Collis said he would be but not in
the condition he had expected. He was found sitting in a chair in an abandoned building with his throat slit, while a line of his patients waited to enter a door that would never open.
In the alley adjacent to the abandoned building was a van that had no reason to be there. Memphis smashed the window and looked at the papers in the glove compartment. It belonged to Margolis, as he had suspected. He quickly confiscated a box in the back and left before the discovery of Margolis’s body made all hell break loose.
For those who knew the neighborhood, a lane between the Montrose Apartments and the Coronet Building intersected with a series of narrow passages that eventually crossed the alley adjacent to Fats Morgan’s store. Memphis traversed those passageways in the predawn hours and climbed the stairs to his apartment.
She was not there. He dropped the box on the coffee table and stretched out on the couch. It was four A.M., and he was too tired to worry about Margo Flowers. He had meant to look at the contents of the box he had retrieved, but he was asleep before the thought could traverse his mind.
“Memphis. Memphis.”
He recognized Fats Morgan’s deep raspy voice, and it scared the hell out of him. His eyelids snapped open with a sudden surge of adrenaline as Fats Morgan’s fist rattled his door.
“Wake up, Memphis!” he said insistently.
He opened his door with his gun in hand because he believed Fats was there to kill him.
“Two white men came by yesterday lookin’ for that gal you had in here.”
Memphis took a deep breath and blinked the sleep out of his eyes.
“Cops?”
“They didn’t say they were cops.”
“What did they say?”
“They said they wanted the key to your room, and they acted like they wouldn’t take no for an answer. I didn’t have no choice, Memphis. I had to bring ’em up here.”
“Damn!” Memphis said. The girl was the key to what happened to Bazemore. If the men Fats encountered were the same ones who had killed Bazemore, Margo might never be seen again.
“They didn’t get her,” Fats added.
“What?”
“While they were talkin’ to me, Winnie went upstairs and moved her to our place,” he explained with a punctuation of belly-shaking laughter.
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 01/01/11 Page 17
