War at Home: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  The woman I was seeing, Laura Hathaway, ran Sturdy. It had been her father’s company, and she had taken it over in January, trying to cure the mismanagement and corruption her father and his cronies had built into the company. One of her first acts had been to rent the Grimshaws this house at below-market rates.

  Her investment was paying off. The Grimshaws were making improvements to the home as if it were their own.

  A large front porch encircled the place. The lawn was mowed, and someone had trimmed the plants beside the sidewalk. Peonies budded near the front porch, and someone had planted bleeding hearts beside it. Pansies peeked out of pots that Althea had placed along the stairs.

  As I got out of the car, I heard yells and screams and children’s laughter. I couldn’t see the kids, so I assumed they were in the backyard. So did Jimmy. He immediately ran around the house to see what games the kids were playing.

  Franklin’s wife, Althea, sat on the porch, shucking peas into a bowl. I hadn’t seen anyone do that in years. She looked like the matriarchs of my youth, sitting in her rocking chair, surveying the neighborhood as she worked.

  “You growing your own peas now?” I asked.

  “Franklin got them in trade from a downstater,” she said. “Apparently he’s giving everyone advice these days.”

  Franklin consulted with various black businesses and politicians. He loved the work, and was quite successful at it, but he was also taking night classes for a law degree.

  “Is Malcolm home?” I asked.

  “Just got off shift,” she said. “I’d say he’d be out of the shower by now.”

  She didn’t ask me what I wanted Malcolm for, and I didn’t tell her. Malcolm had assisted me in previous cases, and Althea had never approved. But unlike Grace Kirkland, Althea didn’t repeatedly talk to me about her disapproval. Nor did she try to change me.

  I appreciated that.

  I went inside the house. It was warm, and smelled faintly of baking bread. Unlike most of the women I knew, Althea didn’t work — not even when the Grimshaw family had been crammed in that tiny apartment.

  She saw her job as raising children and saving the family money, from baking the bread to finding creative ways to use leftovers. Last summer, I learned a lot from Althea about bargain shopping and raising a child on a budget. I was good with money, but I couldn’t make a dollar stretch in six different directions the way Althea could.

  Malcolm was coming out of the bathroom. He wore only a pair of blue jeans. His feet were bare and he was toweling off his hair.

  “Malcolm?” I said.

  He jumped half a foot. “Jeez, Bill, I didn’t see you. Don’t sneak up on a guy like that.”

  He looked tired and he had burns along both forearms. I recognized those burns. They came from grease spatter. I’d had a few myself during my first years in Memphis when I had to have a second job to support myself while my own business took off.

  “I didn’t mean to surprise you,” I said. “Can I talk to you?”

  He kept toweling his hair, his gaze not meeting mine. “Is it important?”

  Malcolm usually wasn’t reluctant to talk to me.

  “Yeah, actually,” I said. “I have a job for you, but it’s unusual and it might require some thought on your part.”

  “A job.” He draped the towel around his neck. Some of the shower water beaded on his forehead. “I guess we can talk about that.”

  I wondered what he had thought I was going to discuss with him, and then decided not to ask. If he came with me to New Haven, we would have plenty of time to talk in the car.

  He led me into the kitchen and slid a chair back with his bare foot. “Have some ice tea. I’ve gotta get a shirt. Althea’s rules.”

  I knew about Althea’s rules. They kept the household civilized, and you broke them on pain of death.

  I poured myself a glass, while Malcolm pulled open the door that led upstairs. The house was old enough to have existed before central heating. Doors blocked all sections of the house so that heat could remain in each area. The Grimshaws didn’t use most of those doors, but they did keep the one leading upstairs closed, probably to keep the downstairs noise from bothering those children who had to go to bed early.

  As I waited, I peered out the window into the backyard. In the middle of the yard, an old coffee can sat on top of a mound of dirt. The children were playing kick-the-can. Jimmy was the only kid I could see, which meant he was it.

  When Norene, at six the youngest and most pampered Grimshaw, appeared at the edge of the garage, Jimmy ignored her. I knew that he had seen her, because his head moved ever so slightly. But he kept his back to the can, and continued his search of the trees at the back of the property.

  Norene ran across the yard at top speed, her pigtails flying, her sneakers kicking up dust. When she was only a foot or two from the can, Jimmy pretended he had just noticed her and started toward her.

  She squealed in terror and kicked the can so hard that it flew onto the back patio, landing with a thunk. Then she grinned and waved her arms at Jimmy.

  “I beated you, Jim!” she shouted.

  He frowned, but the frown was as fake as his attempt to stop her had been. “Guess you did.”

  Malcolm thumped down the stairs. I turned, still smiling from my brief view of the game. Malcolm hurried into the kitchen, his mood visibly improved.

  “I wouldn’t mind a job,” he said, buttoning the short-sleeve white shirt he had put on. “Be nice if it paid enough so that I could quit the restaurant.”

  He’d been talking like that more and more. Malcolm didn’t like the cook’s job. After he got his GED a month ago, he had thought he would get better work. Even though he applied for other jobs, no one wanted to hire a young black man for anything other than menial labor.

  “Pay is an issue,” I said.

  He sighed.

  “Listen to me first before you make up your mind.” I handed him a glass from the cupboard, and he poured himself the last of Althea’s ice tea. Then he grabbed some tea bags, filled the pitcher, and set it on the back patio in the sun.

  When he finished, he came back in, picked up his glass, and sat down like a man who had worked a full and tiring day.

  “So I’m listening,” he said.

  “Daniel Kirkland has disappeared.”

  “I know.”

  Malcolm’s response surprised me. “You know?”

  He nodded. “I heard Mrs. Kirkland talking about it. I figure he’s probably off fighting some other white man’s cause.”

  Malcolm had no respect for the antiwar movement. He felt that it was run by wealthy white kids who had nothing else to do with their time.

  “But I did look for him a little,” Malcolm said.

  That caught my attention. “You did?”

  He shrugged. “Mrs. Kirkland’s really helping everyone out here, and I had the time. I figured if I found him, I’d be doing her a favor.”

  He constantly surprised me. He was a good kid, who liked helping people. “That was kind of you. Did she know about it?”

  He shook his head.

  “I take it you looked for him here,” I said. “Does that mean you think he’s in Chicago?”

  “Most of his friends are. Haven’t you heard?”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t sure what he was referring to.

  “The SDS is holding their national meeting at the Chicago Coliseum.”

  I frowned. I had heard that, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it. The Students for a Democratic Society had been influential in organizing the protests at the Democratic National Convention the previous August. Daniel had come to that convention early. I never determined if he had been an SDS member; in fact, I had never thought to ask.

  “You think Daniel’s there?” I asked.

  “I did, but he’s not.”

  “How do you know?”

  Malcolm smiled at me. “I went there. The whole thing is nasty and pointless and stupid, but to my surprise,
Daniel isn’t part of it.”

  “Did you spend a lot of time there?” The Chicago Coliseum was a large place

  “Enough,” he said.

  “Enough to be sure Daniel’s not in Chicago.”

  “Yeah.” Malcolm grinned at me. “That’s one palefaced group of radicals, Bill. There are blacks, sure, but they stick out like raisins in a bowl of sugar. I talked to everyone who could’ve been Daniel or could’ve known him. He isn’t there.”

  I sipped my tea. Althea had sweetened it like the southerner she used to be. “Did you talk to anyone who was here from Yale?”

  Malcolm nodded. “They don’t like him.”

  Somehow that didn’t surprise me. “Why’s that?”

  “I guess he told them they were a bunch of idiots who wouldn’t know revolution if it bit them in the ass.”

  I let out an involuntary laugh. “That’s one way to make friends.”

  “That’s our Daniel,” Malcolm said. Malcolm and Daniel had gone to high school together. Malcolm had had to drop out to take care of his dying mother; Daniel went on to Yale. Malcolm never quite forgave him for that.

  “Did you get any idea where he might be?”

  Malcolm shook his head. “I talked to his friends here, too. They haven’t heard from him.”

  Then he set his ice tea down and grinned at me.

  “So I’ve already done the job, right? You don’t need me after all.”

  “Actually, I do,” I said. “I’m thinking of going to New Haven personally to see what I can find.”

  “Out east?” Malcolm frowned. “That’s pretty far. Can Mrs. Kirkland afford that?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s why money’s an issue.”

  “You got her the teaching job, Bill. You don’t owe her anything.”

  “I owe her a lot,” I said. “But I have other reasons for wanting to head east.”

  Malcolm studied me for a minute. Then he nodded. “The Blackstone Rangers.”

  He was the only one among my friends who knew the depths of my involvement with the gang. He knew that I had made not one but several bargains with them, and he’d been around gangs long enough to know that the bargains would come back to haunt me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You leaving for good?”

  I shrugged. “If I can find some place better. But don’t tell anyone please. That’s up to me.”

  He rolled the ice-tea glass between his hands. “So why’re you talking to me?”

  “I’m taking Jimmy,” I said. “I’ll need help caring for him when I’m working and I’ll need help finding Daniel Kirkland.”

  “You’re serious about this?” Malcolm asked.

  I nodded. “If I can provide Grace with a few answers, I’ll be able to pay her back for the kindnesses she’s shown Jimmy over the past few months.”

  “I don’t think she’s done for him more than she’s done for anyone else,” Malcolm said.

  “That’s my point,” I said. “She’s been amazing.”

  He sighed. I could almost hear his thought. She’d been amazing with her own children as well. Only it hadn’t stuck with Daniel.

  “Money’s an issue because she’s not going to pay you,” he said after a moment.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “So you can’t pay me.”

  “That’s right, too,” I said. “But I’ll pay all the expenses. You won’t have a dime out of pocket.”

  “How’re you gonna afford that, me and Jimmy and all that traveling? Your rich girlfriend?”

  I’d never heard Malcolm refer to Laura that way before. It startled me. “I have some of my own money put away. The last few months have been lucrative.”

  He took in that information. He seemed to understand that I was serious. “What if you stayed east and I didn’t want to?”

  “We’d get you a bus ticket home,” I said.

  He continued spinning his glass between his large hands. “How long would I be gone?”

  “I don’t know that. Maybe a week. Maybe a month. Maybe all summer. Finding someone who doesn’t want to be found is nearly impossible, particularly if they’re smart.”

  My breath caught as I said that last. It almost felt like a confession.

  Malcolm didn’t notice. “Daniel’s smart.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “What if you don’t find him by the end of summer and you want to come back?”

  “Then I’ll tell Grace I did all I could.”

  “You taking Elijah, too?”

  “No,” I said. “Grace needs her other son to stay home.”

  “He’s not going to like it that I’m going and he’s staying.”

  “He’s too young.”

  “Jimmy’s too young,” Malcolm said.

  “Jimmy stays with me.”

  Malcolm tilted his head slightly as he looked at me. “Someday you gonna tell me where all this comes from?”

  “What?”

  “Your — I don’t know — protectiveness, I guess. Most folks would just go on doing what they’re doing, you know? You don’t. You’re always surprising me.”

  I smiled. “Sometimes I surprise me, too.”

  Malcolm picked up his tea glass and drained it. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “The Grimshaws aren’t going to like it either.”

  “That you come with me?”

  “That you’re even going. They worry about you. And Jimmy. Jimmy a lot. They say he needs stability.”

  “What do you say?”

  Malcolm got out of his chair and took the glass to the sink. He stood with his back to me. “I’d trade stability for another summer with my mom any day.”

  His voice was quiet as he said that. But I knew what he meant. I spent the last half of my childhood thinking the same thing. My parents were lynched when I was ten, and I grew up with wonderful adoptive parents who never quite felt like my own. I would have traded anything to get my own parents back, even for an afternoon.

  “You want to come?” I asked.

  “Hell, yeah,” he said as he turned around. His eyes sparkled for the first time that day. “When do we leave?”

  SIX

  Given the chance, I would have left the next morning. But I had a few loose ends to tie up first.

  And I hadn’t even told Jimmy my plans. I did so at dinner that night. I didn’t mention that I was thinking of leaving Chicago permanently. I figured I could tell him that when — if — we found some place we liked better.

  “I dunno,” he said without meeting my gaze. “Me and Keith was planning on swimming this summer.”

  Keith was the Grimshaw boy closest to Jimmy’s age. They were best friends.

  “Swimming?” I asked.

  Jimmy nodded. “They got Jackson Park open. We thought maybe you or Franklin or Malcolm could take us there. Keith’s never been swimming in the lake.”

  “Never?” I asked.

  “His mom says it’s too cold.”

  Lake Michigan was cold, but that was precisely why most Chicagoans loved to swim in it during the city’s sweltering summers. If Althea didn’t want the children to swim in the lake, she probably had other reasons — pollution or dangers near the swimming area.

  “You’re going to swim all summer?” I asked.

  Jimmy nodded, his mouth full of macaroni and cheese. When it got hot, I didn’t like to cook. When we’d gotten home, I’d boiled the noodles, fried some sausage, and had a meal on the table within fifteen minutes.

  “You can probably swim in the lake before we leave,” I said.

  He swallowed, chased the food with some milk, and started to wipe his milk mustache off with the back of his hand. Then he noticed how closely I was watching him. He picked up his napkin and dabbed at his lips, missing the mustache altogether.

  “Can’t Mrs. Kirkland find somebody else?” he asked.

  “She can’t afford anybody else,” I said.

  “If she can’t afford anybody else, how can she pay you?
”

  Out of the mouths of babes. I sighed. “We’d probably trade services. My work for hers.”

  “More school,” he said, and slumped in his chair.

  I nodded. “If we stayed, you’d be going this summer anyway. Franklin and Mrs. Kirkland came to terms this afternoon.”

  “Nobody goes to school in the summer,” Jimmy said.

  “Lots of people do,” I said. “That’s why it’s called summer school.”

  He wrinkled his nose, slid back up in his chair, and dug into the meal, holding his fork in his fist. He had been hungry after the long game, and he was dirty. I made him wash his hands and face before we ate, but he would still have to take a shower before bed.

  “What’ll I do when you’re working?” he asked.

  “That’s something I’d have to figure out. For the most part, you’d come with me.”

  He wrinkled his nose again. “I’d rather swim.”

  I understood. I would rather give him the carefree childhood he’d never had, the kind he played at this afternoon. But Jackson Park wasn’t far from gang territory, and the Blackstone Rangers had a reputation for getting in deeper trouble in the summer. They’d started mugging people on the El last month, apparently to fill the Stones’ coffers with extra money.

  “What about Laura?” Jimmy was asking about Laura Hathaway. He had become quite attached to her in this past year. They were friends, independent of my relationship with her.

  “What about her?” I asked.

  “Would she come?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “She has her own work to do.”

  “You work for her. Don’t you got to stay?”

  “I contract with her,” I said. “I work for myself.”

  He probably didn’t understand the distinction, but he nodded anyway.

  “Won’t she miss us?” he asked.

  “I suspect she might.”

  “Then maybe we should stay.”

  “It’s not final yet, Jim,” I said. “I just wanted you to know what I was thinking.”