‘Next train don’t come for twenty-five minutes,’ said the man on the ties.
I didn’t reply.
‘You going to kill yourself?’
I said nothing.
‘I wouldn’t come here no more if you did.’
I walked over to him. ‘I used to come to this spot.’
‘Yeah, you and everyone else.’
I looked at him close. He was drunk or crazy or both. ‘You come here a lot?’
He nodded the slow, lazy nod of a man who had nowhere else to be.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Why the hell not?’ He laughed.
‘But why here?’
He drank from the can, squinted and said, ‘Fuck off.’
‘All right,’ I said and turned away.
But as I walked back the way I’d come he yelled after me, ‘You have choices!’
You have choices. My mother’s words when I cut her lover’s face in the apartment above the dry-cleaners.
Then, my mother held me down as the sweaty man put his hands on me. Blood on his face, blood on his chest, blood on the bath towel that lay discarded on the floor like bleached roadkill.
Did she have choices? Did he?
Something happened. Something amid the broken pieces of clay bowls in the apartment above the dry-cleaners, in the chemical and sweat stink of a summer afternoon. Something. I preferred not to talk about it or to think about it even. Would not, most of the time.
Did I have choices? Maybe some of the time.
What if I put my hands on Lee Anne while Susan slept alone in our sunroom? Did choice make a difference? The result was the same. Susan didn’t have to like it. I didn’t have to like it.
What if I chased Belinda’s killer like a blind man? Did choice make a difference then?
Later on the day that I visited my mother, my father had dragged me from our house to the car, a gleaming new burgundy Monte Carlo that he’d bought only weeks earlier. He’d put me in the front passenger seat and slammed the door. He’d disappeared into the house again. The sky over the dashboard was an endless blue. My skin felt as if it would burst in the heat of the car. My father came outside again with his Ruger .22. I didn’t ask where we were going. I knew, and I took a secret, childish pleasure in the violence that must come.
We drove the half mile to my mother’s apartment and parked at the curb. My father didn’t look at me. He checked the magazine of the Ruger, said, ‘Wait here,’ and climbed out of the car.
He wasn’t gone long. I looked up through the passenger window to the sill where my mother had displayed my bowls. With the bowls gone, the apartment looked empty from outside, as if no one had ever lived there. I watched a woman in a green dress, carrying shirts on hangers, come out of the dry-cleaners. She smiled at me and I didn’t smile back. I watched a single black bird cross the sky over the building and wondered whether its nest was near.
A gunshot, sharp and without echo, discharged inside the building and suddenly I felt a damp heat soaking through my underwear on to my legs.
Then my father came out of the street door and climbed into the car. He tossed his gun on to the backseat. He was sweating and panting. A sprinkle of blood covered the bottom of his work shirt. He looked at me with fierce eyes. ‘You don’t ever have to let anyone hurt you,’ he said. ‘You’ve got choices.’
‘Did you shoot her?’ I asked, uncertain whether I wanted my mother dead or alive.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t shoot her.’ He pulled the car from the curb and drove us home.
I didn’t know what my mother did with her lover’s dead body. I didn’t even know that he really was dead. But I’d assumed it for all these years. I never saw the man again. The police never came to our house to question my father. My mother left, alone, for Arizona less than a month later.
Thomas was eating breakfast at the counter when I came in through the back door. He wore khaki shorts and the same black T-shirt he’d had on the previous night. His hair was matted from sleep. The newspaper was spread out next to his plate and he was reading about Brianna Sumner.
‘That’s a sad story,’ I said, poured myself a cup of coffee and watched him read.
He looked up. ‘It doesn’t mention you.’
‘It shouldn’t. This isn’t about me,’ I said. He looked unconvinced, so I added, ‘I knew one of the women twenty-five years ago. I shouldn’t even be involved.’
‘That’s what everyone keeps telling you.’
‘Yes.’
He looked at the pictures of Belinda, Tonya Richmond, Ashley Littleton and Brianna Sumner and read the biographies. He said, ‘I want to help.’
That rocked me on my heels. ‘What?’
‘I want to help you … do what you’re doing.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I just want to.’
A laugh erupted from my gut, a short, hard laugh that made my ribs hurt, a laugh of surprise, not derision. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Definitely not.’
Thomas looked hurt.
‘But I’ve never been prouder of you,’ I said. ‘Never.’
‘Fuck you, Dad.’
I looked at him long and perplexed. ‘Don’t ever say that. It’s an ugly thing to say.’
He said, ‘You treat Mom and me like we’re children.’
‘You are a child.’
‘I’m almost sixteen.’
‘Which makes you a child. Technically.’
‘I’m almost as big as you.’
‘Physically.’
He squared his eyes on mine in a way that nearly made me shrink from him. ‘Not just physically.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, Thomas.’ I sipped from my coffee and went into the living room.
He called after me, ‘I want to help.’
I went to the window and looked out. The police car hadn’t moved. It idled in the sunshine, heat rising from its hood, like a slow beast that might rise and move when it finished warming its cold blood. The leaves on the trees were still. The sky was hot and cloudless.
Thomas came into the room and stood beside me. He was almost as tall as I was.
‘Your mother would kill me if I let you.’
‘She’ll probably kill you anyway.’
I laughed. ‘When did you grow up?’
‘In May.’
‘Yeah? What happened in May?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I made that up.’
I put my hand on his shoulder. He tensed but didn’t pull away. I nodded out the window and said, ‘If you go out the back and walk to the driveway through the gate, you can get to my car without the man in the cruiser seeing you. Then you can back out of the driveway and pull away in the other direction. Let him follow but try not to let him see you clearly. Take him on a slow tour of the city.’
Thomas cocked his head to the side. ‘I only have a driver’s permit. You or Mom should be in the car when I’m driving.’
‘I know.’
‘You want me to drive around by myself with a police car behind me?’
‘Yes.’
He thought about it and said, ‘Cool.’
‘Don’t get carried away.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, you can have dinner with your mother and me at Sorrento’s.’
That excited him less but he agreed to eat with us.
‘Take your phone,’ I said and gave him my car key.
He headed to the back door with a grin, the first I’d seen on his face in weeks. He said, ‘This is totally irresponsible.’
I watched from the front as Thomas backed my Lexus out of the driveway, shifted and hit the gas. Faster than I would’ve liked but it did the trick. The police cruiser pulled from the curb and followed.
Then I went to the kitchen and called Charles. ‘Can you pick me up?’ I asked.
‘Twenty minutes,’ he said and hung up.
THIRTEEN
Bobby Mabry answered the door to Belinda’s hou
se with bandages on his hands and stony fear in his eyes, the fear of a man who has lived most of his life afraid and still hasn’t fully adapted to the condition. He glanced at the cut on my forehead, looked warily at Charles and said, ‘What?’
His scalp was freshly shaved, his beard neatly trimmed, his shorts and shirt white and pressed. I asked, ‘Who shaves you with your hands wrapped like that?’
‘I told you not to come here again,’ he said, and tried to close the door, but Charles stepped between it and the frame.
Bobby backed away from Charles into the foyer and we walked inside. ‘What do you want?’
‘What happened to your hands?’ I asked.
He looked at Charles, frightened, but said to me, ‘What happened to your forehead?’
I smiled. ‘Should we start again?’
‘If you want.’
‘We need to talk to Terrence,’ I said.
‘About what? He’s got nothing to tell you.’
Terrence appeared at the top of a broad stairway that swept down to the foyer. ‘I can talk for myself, Bobby,’ he said. He came down the stairs in tight black jeans and an untucked rust-colored silk shirt. There was no fear in his eyes.
‘Why have you been hanging out at Little Vegas?’ I asked.
‘Who says I have?’
‘You’ve been there four or five nights a week, sponging drinks.’
He considered me. ‘I like the girls there and I like the feel of the place.’
‘Last night there were no girls at all and from what I can tell the girls who do work there aren’t worth driving across the city for.’
‘Who can explain desire?’ He smiled. ‘Some white boys can only get it up for black girls, right? Uncle Bobby gets it up for other boys. I get it up for the girls at Little Vegas. We all need something. Why do you care where I hang out?’
Charles spoke. ‘One of the women who worked there died the same way as your mother.’
‘Yeah,’ Terrence said. ‘Ashley Littleton.’
‘You knew her?’ I asked.
‘She wasn’t hard to get to know. Fifty bucks would do it. Sometimes twenty.’
Charles circled the foyer, observing and listening, then stopped at the three-tiered white marble fountain. He put a finger at the edge of the second tier so the water forked around it as it cascaded to the first tier.
I said to Terrence, ‘Tonya Richmond hung out there too. The manager and her sister had a baby together.’
He nodded. ‘Darrin and Deni.’
‘Sounds as if there was a close family at Little Vegas,’ Charles said.
‘I didn’t know Tonya well,’ Terrence said. ‘I like them trashy but not that trashy.’
I asked, ‘Did you tell the police all this?’
‘Of course. I had no reason not to.’
Charles said, ‘Did you tell them your mother went to a party in Jamaica with Tonya Richmond?’
Terrence looked at him like he was crazy. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Three or four months ago,’ Charles said. ‘Probably a weekend deal, maybe longer.’
Terrence shook his head. ‘My mom never hung out with Tonya.’
I said, ‘When we were here last time you said she’d started dating again about six months ago. Did she see anyone at Little Vegas?’
‘That wasn’t who she was,’ he said. ‘She liked established guys, guys who owned businesses, guys with money.’
‘Don Melchiori?’ I asked.
The councilman’s name stung him but he recovered. ‘She didn’t date him. But she knew him and dated one of his friends.’
Charles said, ‘You know that Melchiori’s a part owner of Little Vegas.’
Terrence nodded, looking defeated. ‘That doesn’t mean she was like Tonya.’
Charles removed his finger from the fountain. He flicked it and a drop of water arced through the air and landed on the black tile at Terrence’s feet. ‘You see what happened to Melchiori last night?’ Charles asked.
Terrence gave a half nod. ‘I watched the morning news.’
I asked, ‘Which of Melchiori’s friends did she date?’
Bobby said, ‘It’s none of his damn business, Terrence.’
Terrence looked at me evenly. ‘A man named David Fowler,’ he said. ‘He works in the mayor’s office.’
I asked, ‘Have you heard from him since your mom died?’
He shook his head.
We’d learned most of what we’d hoped for from the visit so I glanced at Charles. ‘D’you have anything else?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m ready.’
I said to Terrence, ‘I’m sorry for doing this.’
We shook hands and he looked like he might forgive my intrusion until Charles turned and climbed the broad stairway and I followed him.
‘Where are you going?’ Bobby shouted at us.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
In the hallway that extended from the second-story landing, doors opened to four rooms. With Bobby and Terrence behind us, we went into the master bedroom. Belinda’s. It was a large room, painted pale mocha, with a queen-sized bed centered against one wall and a twin bed positioned under a window that faced the backyard and the Intracoastal Waterway. A line drawing of a nude woman hung on the wall above the head of the larger bed. Along the third wall a wide passage led to a dressing room and bathroom. Inside the dressing room, visible from the bedroom, two large dark-wood dressers, his and hers, stood side by side. A ceiling fan spun slowly.
Charles and I went to the dressers. A framed photograph of Jerry Stilman stood on Belinda’s. He was a large-faced dark-skinned black man with a tightly trimmed goatee. He was handsome, though there was something mean in his eyes.
I opened the top drawer.
‘I’m calling the police,’ Bobby said but didn’t go to the phone.
‘What’s with the extra bed?’ I asked.
‘Jerry was a rough sleeper,’ Terrence said. ‘Sometimes Mom needed to get out of the way.’
The top drawer held Belinda’s panties, bras and an open box with necklaces, earrings, and a wide bracelet. My heart dropped a little and I breathed in, expecting to catch the scent of a girl long gone from my life but I smelled only the cedar grain of the dresser.
Charles held up a pair of extra large men’s underwear and unfurled it. ‘Jerry Stilman was a big man, wasn’t he?’ He looked over his shoulder at Terrence. ‘When’d you say he died?’
‘I didn’t. About a year and a half ago. A heart attack.’
‘And your mother kept his underwear drawer stocked and ready,’ I said.
Terrence looked at me and repeated something Bobby had said the last time Charles and I had come. ‘Losing men was hard on her.’
I opened the second drawer, removed a green blouse, held it to my face and breathed in. Nothing.
Charles asked, ‘Did the police look through your mother’s room?’
‘We didn’t let them,’ Terrence said.
‘Yeah?’ Charles said. ‘Why?’
‘I didn’t want them fingering her things.’
Charles removed a black pistol from the second drawer of the other dresser. He sniffed the barrel, then tucked the gun into his waistband.
‘You can’t take that,’ said Bobby.
Charles rooted through the drawer until he found a box of .38 caliber shells and he put it in his pocket. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I believe I can.’
Belinda’s bottom dresser drawer contained nightgowns and pajamas, and as I stirred them, searching for anything she might have hidden, a scent finally arose that I knew as well as my own body. My chest tugged and I recoiled from the sweetness of it.
When we finished with the bedroom we tried the next door, a home office with a big desk, two computers, a worktable, a small photocopier, a large wooden filing cabinet and a safe.
‘What did they use this office for?’ I asked.
‘Their real estate firm,’ Terrence said.
‘I thought th
ey sold everything before moving from Chicago.’
‘They kept a couple of buildings. Jerry would’ve sold them but Mom wanted them.’
I went to the window and looked out. The Fairline motor cruiser rested against the dock, its lines hanging lazily in the water. Dark storm clouds were crossing the Intracoastal.
‘What’s in the safe?’ Charles asked.
‘Don’t know,’ Terrence said.
‘Bobby?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
Charles asked, ‘D’you have the combination?’
Again Bobby shook his head.
Terrence said, ‘We’ve scheduled someone to cut it open next week. My mom and Jerry kept the business private from me, and then when Jerry died Mom ran it on her own.’
Charles removed the gun from his belt, put in a single shell, went to the safe and aimed at the combination touch pad.
‘No,’ Bobby said.
‘Do you know the combination?’ Charles asked.
Bobby shook his head.
Charles grinned and tucked the gun in his waistband again. ‘Shooting it would only make noise and a mess.’
Bobby and Terrence smiled uneasily. Terrence asked, ‘What’re you looking for?’
I went to the filing cabinet and opened the top drawer. ‘We’ll know when we find it.’ The drawer held expired contracts reaching back fourteen years with nothing before then. The second drawer contained folders of bank records sorted by year, again going back fourteen years and stopping.
I pulled the handle on the third drawer. It was locked.
‘The key?’ I asked Terrence.
He shook his head.
‘Bobby?’
‘I don’t know where it is,’ he said.
Charles pulled the pistol from his waistband again and pointed it at the drawer.
Bobby and Terrence smiled, tight-lipped, as though the joke was getting old.
Charles fired the gun. The wood front split apart and splinters showered the room. The blast made my ears ring.
‘Jesus,’ Bobby yelled.
Terrence laughed, shocked.
Charles admired the gun. ‘Probably more power than the job needed.’
‘You could’ve kicked the drawer in,’ I said.
‘Yeah, I could’ve.’ He picked up the shell, put it in his pocket and tucked the gun away.
The shot had knocked the drawer off its track, so I shoved it in and pulled it out until it slid open. The drawer contained only a faded nine-by-twelve manila envelope and a small leatherette portfolio. I looked inside the portfolio and found papers and letters, some with business letterheads, some with government seals. I crammed the manila envelope in with the other papers and tossed the portfolio to Charles.
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