Between Brothers

by C. Kelly Robinson

  “Larry, don’t go and forget that I’m a grown man, just like you. I will be at the meeting, okay? Chill out.”

  “Sorry if I was a bit overbearing, T. We’re all doing well to keep our heads on straight right now. You comin’ home to change clothes and shower?”

  “Yeah, I gotta call Lisa and cancel our breakfast date first. See ya later.”

  “All right.” Turning to his closet, Larry yanked out a navy blue suit and white oxford before heading to the bathroom for a quick shower. Something about Terence’s attitude didn’t sit right with him. He hoped he could run his mission with Sheila and still make the board meeting. Time was going to be of the essence.

  Five minutes later, Nico Lane received a collect call from the halls of Highland Hospital. “Terence, my good man. How nice of you to grace me with the pleasant sound of your voice.” Nico’s voice dripped with ridicule.

  Grimacing, Terence tried to keep his cool. “Nico, you’ve had your fun. I got a way to aid your scheme regarding Ellis Center, but it’s all I can do to save Biggie.

  You gonna have to take it or leave it.”

  “Big talk from a man whose granny will skin his hide if anything happens to her precious grandbaby. What’s your offering, brother man?”

  Checking his surroundings on the hall, Terence lowered his voice a notch. “I can see to it that all of the contributions raised by the Highland contingent are placed under Rolly Orange’s control. He’ll have to handle it from there. But that’s it, Nico. No planting shit in Sheryl Gibson’s office, no fabricating evidence, nothing more. So what’s up?”

  Nico paused in thought on the other end. “Hmm.”

  Terence gripped the phone tightly, sweat gathering on his brow in the uncomfortable silence.

  “Hmm.” More silence. “Hmm. Terence, Terence. Hmm . . . Okay, sir, you have a deal. If I hear through my sources that Orange has control of the funds following the meeting today, I consider Biggie’s debts paid and spare his life.”

  Terence exhaled like he never had before.

  “But, because you chose to select your own method of payoff, disregarding my preferences, I can’t give you any money, Terence. You’ll have to handle your school bills yourself.”

  “Wouldn’t want your blood money anyway. I gotta go. A friend of mine damn near lost his life last night.”

  “Let me guess, the good Rev. Peters? I tell you, that is a damn shame. I can’t imagine who would want to harm such a pure, upstanding servant of God. What is this world coming to?”

  The line filled with Nico’s mocking laughter. Terence slammed the receiver into place and stormed back down the hall. One thought silenced the guilt.

  Can’t nobody hold me down.

  CHAPTER 27

  . . . . . . . . . . . .

  ROCK OR A HARD PLACE

  Sheryl Gibson checked her watch. It was 10:00 A.M. sharp, but none of the young Highland board members had arrived yet. Seated at the head of the round oak table in the middle of the conference room, she rubbed her eyes patiently. She had been up late last night, schmoozing some local bankers at a charity ball. Rolly Orange had been pestering her to get out with him and press the flesh for months now, and the latest round of nasty calls and terse legal letters had finally pushed her to lay aside Ellis business long enough to comply. Things were nearing the breaking point. Ellis was barely able to purchase operating supplies, and they were dipping into loan repayment funds for that. No local business would sell them anything unless it was C.O.D. Work on uniforms for the children in the manhood courses and the sports programs had been canceled when the manufacturer insisted on a down payment before filling the order. And now Pepco and the phone company were promising to shut off all utilities if their balances were not paid up by the end of June. She had brought this evidence along today, to convince the Highland men to release a portion of their segregated contributions.

  Sheryl had to admit, she was feeling desperate. She believed too strongly in Ellis’s mission to let it go down without a fight. She knew that was the only reason she had invited the ridiculous-looking Tracy Spears to this meeting. She believed, out of sheer thirst and hunger, that Spears was going to help save Ellis. He would have to take control of all the contributions and bring a significant, no, a miraculous, return before September rolled around. That’s when the banks were promising to foreclose. Spurred by clutching hope, Sheryl was anxious to push ahead and get the Highland students to sign over access to their contributions. She appreciated all their efforts, and she knew she could never thank them enough for all they had done. But right now she was ready for them to get out of the way of what she saw as Ellis’s only hope.

  “Sheryl, I believe we should call this meeting to order, don’t you?” Seated at her right side, Rolly Orange met her eyes sympathetically and lightly placed a hand on her right shoulder. Sweeping his large pupils around the table, he said, “We have very important business to cover today.”

  Smiling faintly, Sheryl arched her back and reached for her eyeglasses. “You’re correct, Rolly. If it be so approved, I would like to call this meeting to order, the official time being—”

  She was interrupted by the sudden whoosh of the large oak door of the conference room as it swung open. She raised her eyes to see Terence Davidson’s tall, rugged physique bolt across the threshold.

  “Sorry to be late, ladies and gentlemen.” Removing his windbreaker in a heartbeat, Terence studiously avoided eye contact as he yanked out a chair and plopped himself down across from Spears. As soon as he opened the door, he felt as if he were chipping his way into a frozen tundra, the tension was so thick. But after the past few days, he knew why. Terence refused to believe Sheryl was mixed up in it, but the attacks on Larry and O. J. had clearly been no freak occurrences. Combined with the coincidental events that had sidelined Brandon, circumstances had been orchestrated exactly to Nico Lane’s advantage. And now he had no choice but to play along.

  “Quite all right, Terence. We appreciate your presence. We were worried that we weren’t going to be able to cover our most important issue. But we’ll come to that in a few minutes.” Sheryl looked at Terence with a mix of calm and confusion. She was relieved that he was here; now they could bring the matter of the Highland contributions to a vote. She was wondering, though, why he was alone. Where were the others?

  Sensing her curiosity, Terence coughed before offering an explanation. “Um, so you all know, I’ll be the only Highland student in attendance today. O. J. was mugged last night, and Larry and Brandon are with him at the hospital. He’d probably appreciate your prayers.”

  Sheryl’s eyes grew wide with concern. “Oh, my Lord! Terence, is there anything we can do? Will he be all right?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he’ll be fine, just out of commission for a few days. Look, I don’t wanna tie up this crucial meeting with distractions we can’t do anything about.” Terence was ready to move on to the business at hand for two reasons. First, he wanted to sell his boys out and save Biggie’s life before his conscience got the better of him. Second, he was afraid letting on too much about the guys’ absence might stir suspicions and foul up Larry’s little mission. Already he was sickened by the grin tugging at the edges of Orange’s greasy mouth. Terence knew the fat man had to be in this with Nico somehow. Damn!

  Orange patted Terence on the shoulder and shook his head. “Well, we will be praying for him, Lord, Lord! What kind of community do we live in, where our finest young men can be attacked for no good reason.”

  The meeting began with a reading of the minutes, and then Tracy Spears gave his presentation to the board.

  Thirty minutes later Spears returned to his seat, Terence’s head swimming from the little man’s baffling jargon and arcane mathematical examples. None of the concepts he spoke of were any more challenging than his course work in the school of engineering, of course, but you didn’t pick up an understanding of financial derivatives overnight. Terence was glad his vote regarding the funds had been predete
rmined. If not, he’d have felt clueless as to how to make a decision. Looking around the table, he could sense that the rest of the board members were even deeper in the woods than he was.

  “Any questions?” Sheryl’s voice rang with an urgency that was both insistent and wary. After a few moments of silence and a couple of clarifying questions from Rev. Banks, who was clearly asking questions only in order to hear his own voice, she stood before the table.

  “My brothers and sisters on the board, we will now undertake two votes in response to Mr. Spears’s presentation. The first concern will be the disposition of the eighty-seven thousand dollars of Highland contributions that have thus far been segregated in a freestanding investment account. The second will concern whether or not we the board will authorize Mr. Orange to work with Mr. Spears and invest all the contributions we have received to date.

  “For the first vote, there is only one person here other than myself who can decide the course of action.” Terence felt the hairs on his body bristle as Sheryl turned to him, her glowing eyes projecting hardened desperation.

  “It is now time to decide how to invest the contributions, so that we can earn a maximum return on them in the few months we have remaining to relieve our indebtedness. Terence, you are the only one here who can give me authorization to unlock the segregated funds and place them under our business manager’s control. I am making the motion now that a vote be held to authorize the desegregation of the Highland contributions. That is to say that Terence and I would sign the bank forms that I have in hand today, which will effectively close out the account, and have the funds transferred into the unrestricted fund account that Ellis maintains at U.S. Bank. Is there a second?”

  “Second the motion.” Rev. Banks stirred from a catnap to move the process forward.

  Without breaking eye contact with Terence, Sheryl continued. “I call for a vote that these transfer-authorization forms be signed today, so that the contributions may be placed under the Ellis board’s direct control, effective this Monday. I vote yea.”

  Terence leaned forward in his chair as he felt the eyes around the table rest on him like a glaring spotlight. Wishing he could spot-weld his eyes to the table, he willed himself to avoid looking at Orange. He knew one glimpse of the big man’s obnoxious mug would keep him from accomplishing the life-saving task before him. Feeling ponds of sweat condense across his forehead, he parted his lips, full of both shame and resolution.

  “I vote . . .” He did not want to do this. Suddenly, an image of Granny, her spirit broken and her face twisted into a howl as she leaned over Biggie’s casket, ripped through him. He had no damn choice.

  “I vote, um . . . I vote yea, in f-favor of the motion.”

  The words fell from his lips in slow motion, echoing in his ears as he saw the jubilant reactions on the faces of Orange, Spears, and the other board members. With the possible exception of Orange, they had no idea he had just sealed Sheryl’s fate, as well as that of the hundreds of children who stood to benefit from Ellis’s continued existence. As he blindly grabbed a pen and began to fill out his section of the bank transfer authorization, Terence blotted out the action around him. Trying to push the images of the local children from his mind, he forced himself to think of Biggie and insisted on his affirmation.

  Can’t nobody hold me down.

  Larry tooled his Lexus down Sixteenth Street, heading toward Pennsylvania Avenue. As was always the case at ten on a spring Saturday morning, the streets were teeming with tourists headed for the house of the Man Himself, which sat just a few blocks from where he and Sheila were ensnarled in traffic. He never enjoyed these jams, but today it actually served their purpose. They were a few blocks from Buzz Eldridge’s office, but Sheila needed more time to wrap up her conversation with William Beam, Esq.

  Beam’s voice boomed over the speaker attached to Larry’s cell phone. “Sheila, you know I can’t legally disclose any of my clients’ business.”

  “William, trust me, I understand. But I’ve explained to you what’s at stake here. There’s no way that the ex—Mrs. Orange could be held liable for the sources from which her husband is obtaining his alimony payments, right?”

  “Legally, no, as long as she has reason to believe he’s earning the money legally. But if word ever got out that I divulged any information regarding their divorce settlement—”

  Working to put her friend at ease, Sheila thumped her chest playfully. “Come on, William, man, this is Sheila. The sister who published that glowing profile on you in our alumni issue last year. You know I wouldn’t do anything to endanger your gilded rep, brother.”

  The speaker crackled as Beam mulled over the request. “All right, I won’t mention no figures, though. All I can give up is yeses and nos.”

  Hearing the conciliatory tone, Larry pounced eagerly. “Attorney Beam, this is Larry Whitaker speaking. Why don’t we treat this like a bad game of cards? I’ll read you my hand, you just nod to indicate the gist of what you’ve got.”

  “I read you.”

  “The Ellis Center’s annual report lists the salaries of its officers. The records show an annual salary of fiftyone thousand dollars for the business manager, Mr. Rolly V. Orange. Is that consistent with the amount of alimony he’s currently paying his lovely ex-wife?”

  Beam chuckled. “Let’s just say if that’s his only source of income, he must be living out of a cardboard box after he remits his alimony each month.”

  Unable to hide her excitement at the revelation, Sheila flashed a pleased grin at Larry. “Well, William, that must mean that Mr. Orange has filed notice with you of additional income he earns, right?”

  “Please!” Beam caught himself. “Uh, I mean, I cannot positively agree with that statement.”

  Larry tried to keep his tone serious. “So you’re saying he has told you that Ellis is his only source of income?”

  Beam was starting to enjoy himself. “I cannot answer the question on the grounds that it might incriminate my client’s ex-husband. Sheila, it’s been fun, but I really have to sign off now before I cross a line.”

  Leaning into the speaker, Sheila smiled and thanked her friend. “William, you are so precious. Thank you very much. We’ll be using this four-one-one to bluff some information out of the councilman, if we can’t find proof of it ourselves.”

  “Don’t mention it. No, I mean really don’t mention it. Look, drop me a line when you decide about that offer from the Post, hear? I’m out.”

  As the dial tone reverberated through the Lexus, Larry reached over to click the phone off, a wry smile spreading across his face. “So you got that offer from the Post, huh? You weren’t gonna share that with ol’ Larry?”

  As he revved up the concrete driveway of the parking garage adjacent to Eldridge’s building, Sheila waved him off. “Larry, we don’t have time to deal with that now, do we? Don’t worry, I will tell all of my friends what the deal is once I make up my mind. Who knows, it may just take one little thing to tip me one way or the other.” She stifled a laugh as Larry fought to keep from blushing.

  Develcorp occupied the fifth and sixth floors of the Waterston Towers building. As Larry and Sheila rode the elevator to the fifth floor, they noted a sign forbidding visitors from entering the sixth floor, due to extensive renovations in process. A minute later they stepped off the elevator into Develcorp’s spacious lobby. As they crossed the plush carpet toward the reception desk, Larry caught a glimpse of himself and Sheila in the mirror that covered the wall behind the receptionist. Dressed conservatively in business attire, they each looked to be a couple years out of college, an effect he was counting on to get them where they needed to go.

  The receptionist, a thin, elderly white woman with glasses that rested in the crook of her long nose, was obviously startled to see persons of color in this office. “May I help you?” Larry imagined she was less interested in helping them than she was in redirecting them to wherever she figured they really should be.

 
“Yes, ma’am, my name is Calvin Barnes, and this is Marilyn Richards. We are representatives of Health-Notes. Our office courier was sick yesterday and couldn’t pick up our check. Wally Ricker said we could get it today before noon.” They had read about HealthNotes, a health claims processor that Develcorp used to track its health insurance, in a recent issue of Real Estate Advisor. That was also where they’d read that Eldridge insisted on keeping his office open a half day on Saturdays. Larry had cribbed the names of the HealthNotes employees from an annual report. He’d gotten the name of Wally Ricker, Eldridge’s chief accountant, from the magazine article. He’d learned through research that HealthNotes had an office in the same tower and figured they routinely sent someone to pick up their checks.

  The secretary adjusted her glasses and glared at Larry. “Oh, well, Mr. Ricker isn’t in today. Why don’t I have him call you on Monday—”

  “Well, ma’am, HealthNotes is frankly a little crunched for cash. We’d really like to pick up that check today, if at all possible. Can you help us out?”

  Fixing her eyes on her computer screen, the receptionist barked into her headpiece, “Susan, who is in the accounting office today? I’ve got two individuals here with HealthNotes, looking to pick up their check.” After nodding for what seemed like hours, she looked up at Larry and Sheila.

  “Betty Brock, our accounting manager, is doing time in there today. If you walk back to your right and take the first left, you’ll see the accounting office. Betty should be there to let you in.”

  They were one step closer. Larry nodded respectfully toward the woman as Sheila eagerly leaped past him. “Thank you. By the way, is Mr. Eldridge in today? I was supposed to drop a note to him.”

  “Yes, he is in. You’ll pass him as you head to the accounting office. I’ll let him know you’ll be stopping by.” Larry wasn’t sure he liked that. They’d have to work quickly. “Uh, thanks again.” He followed Sheila down the hall.

  Betty Brock clearly had a lot on her mind. The woman looked to be several months pregnant, a fact that her tight sky blue pantsuit was trying hard to deny. Her frumpy head of curls and lopsided wire-rimmed glasses added to the image of a woman who had no time to be concerned with appearances.