Do or Die

by Grace F. Edwards

  “Well, wouldn’t you know his mama called me a few minutes ago, like to given me heart failure when I hear her cryin’. Woman said she heard the key in her door and then who’s standing there at the foot of her bed but Franklin. Nearly scared the shit out of her and she an old lady too.”

  “Maybe they completed the tests and released him early,” I said. “Maybe he wanted to surprise her.”

  “Surprise, hell. He nearly stopped her heart. So when I got on the phone, he’s all apologetic, sayin’ he was worried about her and had to see how she was doin’. I mean I already told him I’d look after her ’til he get out. And to top it all off, the tests weren’t even done yet. They was still preppin’ ’im, he said.”

  “Well, how did he leave the hospital?”

  “On his two feet,” Bert said. “He just walked out.”

  “He signed out?”

  “Read my fat lips. Walked out. Put on his street clothes over his hospital duds and skipped right on past the nurses’ station. His mama’s all right so now he wants me to come with him and walk him back in.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Elizabeth said.

  “I do,” Bert said, settling back in the cab. She was still angry but not too angry to talk. “I remember when I was comin’ up, there was this lady named Frances, real pretty, lived in the apartment on the top floor, got sick and the ambulance came for her. Took her to Harlem Hospital and they operated on her burst appendix. Her boyfriend and her had just had an argument and broken up. He went back to her apartment to apologize and found out she had gone to the hospital.

  “He rushed over to Harlem, where they tell him he couldn’t see her. Come back tomorrow. Hell, he couldn’t wait. Had to see his sweetie. Walked around to the 137th Street side of the building—I’m talkin’ about the old hospital now, not the new one. The old one had those iron fire escapes. Well, he sure climbed them at eleven o’clock that night and snuck in there on the fourth floor and talk about managed care? Didn’t he get to see his love before the nurse came in and screamed so loud she woke up the whole damn floor?

  “Girl come home a week later, smilin’ her head off. Said love, true love, make you do stuff nobody else understand.”

  “I suppose so,” I said, thinking of Tad and how I’d like to climb up his building the way George Willig in 1977 had scaled one of the Twin Towers. He’d tied up traffic for blocks around the World Trade Center and made headlines.

  Then I thought of Chrissie and imagined climbing up the side of her building like King Kong at the Empire State except she wasn’t Fay Wray and I damn sure wouldn’t be doing it for love.

  The cabbie pulled up in front of a five-story building on 148th Street and Franklin was waiting on the stoop. He strode down the steps and climbed in the cab as if we were on our way to a party and had stopped by to pick him up to join the fun. He got in the front next to the cabbie and turned to smile at Bert, who by now was not speaking.

  “Where to?” the cabbie asked.

  Franklin gave the address of the hospital and the cab turned north on Powell Boulevard, sped along the 155th Street viaduct, and turned onto Broadway.

  “How’s your mother doing?” I asked to break the silence.

  “Oh, she’s fine,” he said, glancing at Bertha. But she neither answered or acknowledged his presence.

  Elizabeth stayed in the lobby while the three of us walked to the visitors’ station. Franklin asked for a pass to see Franklin Gibson. Bertha signed in and we said nothing as the clerk pulled the large plastic placard from the hook with the room number on it.

  We strolled down the corridor to the bank of elevators, stepped off on the eighth floor, and walked past the nurses’ station with its multiple banks of monitors, past the patients’ lounge with its elaborate display of plants and the wide-screen television, past the chatter of the hospital attendants trundling carts of trays and linens, and finally into his room, where he stepped out of his street clothes.

  He reminded me of Superman, who always seemed to have his uniform on underneath. The pajamas had pale stripes and even had a handkerchief pocket.

  “I’ll see you later, Franklin,” I said, and left the room to join Elizabeth. Whatever words Bertha had for Franklin, I’m sure she wanted to deliver in private. I only hoped they wouldn’t be too hard or too loud.

  Elizabeth was sitting in the lounge when I stepped off the elevator.

  “So how did it go?”

  “He’s in the room. No problem.”

  Elizabeth shook her head and sighed. “Amazing what some folks will do.”

  Bert joined us five minutes later. “I was too mad to stay,” she said. “I’m goin’ back to his mama’s place and spend the night.”

  The trip home was slower. Traffic was backed up on the viaduct and our cab crept along 155th Street past the Masonic Lodge and came to a halt at the corner of St. Nicholas Avenue, where the Fat Man bar once stood.

  It had started to rain, a summer rain that always began small with light drops that lulled you into thinking it would last for only a minute, perhaps, and move on, but it got serious, and the drum of water on the cab’s roof sounded like a herd of horses.

  I thought of the Saturday woman and wondered if the deluge had washed away the roof of the now empty shed that was once her refuge. I was glad I did what I did, no matter what Tad thought. I peered out the window as we inched along the viaduct and through the rain; the traffic down on Eighth Avenue resembled a wavering ribbon of light.

  To my left, small square specks of light from the upper floors of the Polo Ground houses loomed like beacons through the mist. The Polo Grounds, the old home of the New York Giants and the New York Mets.

  On a good day, Dad swears he can still hear the echo of the crack of Willie Mays’s bat.

  At the corner of Seventh Avenue where the bridge connected Harlem to the Bronx, a cop arced his flashlight to divert traffic around a minor accident. At 148th Street, we dropped Bertha off at Franklin’s mother’s house and at 139th Street, I stepped out of the cab and waved good night to Elizabeth. The squeal of the tires died in the rain, and sound and movement were suspended, but somehow, in this quiet I felt I was not alone.

  I palmed the mace and glanced over my shoulder as I put my key in the door. Ruffin’s bark and his quick movements reassured me and I was glad to be home. I shed my wet clothes, showered, and finally fell into bed and went through a series of meditations. I did not want to dream about Tad or those damn photos.

  20

  I didn’t sleep long. The clock read 3 A.M. Tuesday morning and I’d only gotten about three hours’ sleep. For a minute or so, I sat on the edge of the bed listening in the dark to the rain beating against the window. Then I retrieved my notebook from the floor and turned on the small lamp on the night table.

  I flipped to page one, the night of Starr’s murder, or rather the night we discovered she had been murdered. She had, according to the autopsy, been killed on Saturday, two days before she was found. And her killer, according to the report, had been left-handed or at least ambidextrous and had a hefty build. I guess the medical examiner figured that out from the depth and direction of the wound. Someone hefty and left-handed.

  And damned angry, I penciled in the margin.

  A large blowup of her picture in the living room had been slashed but the marks were clean. No blood. Had the picture been defaced before Starr was killed or were two different knives used? If it happened before she was killed, had she known the person well enough to allow him into her apartment? Had there been an argument? Had the situation turned ugly?

  I read again the notes I’d made of the conversations at Starr’s wake, and closed the notebook and went to stand near the window. The rain came down and hit the sidewalk like stones. It bent the leaf-heavy branches of the trees, arrayed like sentries, and the glow of the streetlights shimmered like halos.

  I wanted to call someone to talk, to speculate about how a knife wound so deep could have been inflicted without a fight.
But Elizabeth would have killed me if I dialed her at this hour. And Tad? Well, he and I couldn’t discuss this at all. I could possibly call and apologize and suggest that whatever had made him angry wouldn’t happen again, but that would be like easing a Band-Aid over a sore that hadn’t been properly cleansed.

  I pressed my forehead against the window and felt the chill dampness of the glass, and since I couldn’t see anything through the downpour, I closed my eyes and imagined, wished myself back in bed, lying spoon fashion against him. I saw his perfect body—strong arms, long legs, skin smooth and brown against the pale sheet.

  And him moving from sleep, not quite awake but like a baby instinctively searching for its mother’s milk, searching and finding the curve of my hip and murmuring softly when he touched it.

  And me, coming alive at feeling him come alive, and rolling over to submerge myself in a hot, sugared rainfall of middle-of-the-night kisses.

  Wake up, girl!

  “Ah, Mama, you show up at the damnedest times.”

  I come when I need to, and don’t you forget that.

  “You’re right and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  I know you didn’t, baby. Now climb back in bed. Get some real sleep. You got a busy day ahead of you.

  I didn’t question her. I never did.

  I left the window and climbed into bed and, in the silence, allowed Mom’s voice to tuck me in.

  When I woke, the deluge had moved on and though the sidewalk was still glistening and the leaves still hung wet and heavy, the sun was out and working hard to dry up everything in the eighty-degree warmth. Strivers Row with its orderly line of three-story brownstones and graystones and curtained windows and iron balconies lay suspended in early morning calm.

  Walking at dawn always helped to put things in perspective and I needed to make sense of the stuff that had happened. I collared Ruffin and we left the house. On St. Nicholas Avenue, the spires of St. James church caught the early morning glimmer of light and the air was fresh and thick with the wet fragrance of the grass in St. Nicholas Park.

  We turned up the hill at 145th Street, passing the Bowery Apartments, where Dinah Washington once lived. At Convent Avenue Baptist Church, the entrance had been blocked off for a funeral and a small crowd had gathered. They held black-edged programs and their wrists moved fast and light as they fanned themselves.

  I thought of Starr—gone without a proper send-off. And all the unshed tears were still locked in, taking their toll on Ozzie and on my dad.

  I led Ruffin past the John Henrik Clarke House and Hamilton Grange and retraced our steps down the hill bordering the park. St. Nicholas Avenue had now stirred to life and folks stepped out in a steady stream, heading for the subway. By the time I reached home, I had decided what I was going to do but it was no consolation when I saw Dad.

  Despite the morning ritual of cool shower and hot coffee, he looked as if sleep had eluded him.

  “Alvin called,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said, glad for conversation. “How’s he doing?”

  “Enjoying himself. Enjoying life. That kid’s so lucky.”

  A simple statement that I tried not to read too much into; tried not to wonder if Dad was looking at Alvin from the perspective of age and all its attendant tragedies.

  Yes, I thought. Alvin’s lucky but as young as he is, look at what he’d had to live through. Both parents dying in that accident in Europe. People weren’t supposed to die while on vacation, Alvin had said. How could something like that happen?

  Each time he mentions it, I see my sister’s face, smiling as we kiss good-bye at JFK. Alvin and Dad and I waving as she and her husband board the plane for their first vacation in years. And that was the last we saw of them until the bodies were returned, mangled, broken in a hiking accident.

  I thought of Tad and despite my simmering resentment, I wanted to kiss him, thank him for having Captain Bo as a friend, a generous man who had welcomed Alvin aboard his four-masted St. Croix schooner at a moment’s notice.

  “I can swim, hoist a sail, cut bait, even fry the fish I catch,” Alvin had said. “Some are funny-looking and have funny names but they taste pretty good.”

  I wanted to hear his voice again, wavering these days between high squeak when he’s really excited then dropping back to the low bass of puberty. Better yet, I wish I could’ve joined him aboard the schooner. Had I done so, I wouldn’t be gritting my teeth over Miss Chrissie and her death-defying circus act around Tad.

  I felt my jaw clamping again and a stress headache waiting in the wings so I shut down that part of my brain. It was an effort but I tuned in again to Dad.

  “He’s gonna call again around eleven tonight. I told him you’d be home.”

  I juggled my mental calendar and postponed the night stuff. The Lenox Lounge could wait ’til tomorrow. But the other stuff was daytime stuff. That was all right.

  “I’ll be here. I can’t wait to talk to him.”

  Dad nodded and retreated to his studio and minutes later, the soft melody of an old Oscar Peterson tune drifted upstairs to where I sat nursing a second cup of coffee and envying his ability to fall back into his music for comfort. When I stressed out, I had nothing to fall back on, and that nothingness usually produced unintended consequences.

  21

  I took another shower, donned a wrap skirt and sleeveless blouse and at ten o’clock, I was out the door and walking down Powell Boulevard toward 125th Street, where I arrived at Elizabeth’s office unannounced. This time I only had to wait a half hour before her conference ended and she escorted an elderly woman to the elevator. Back in the office, she gathered a stack of folders together and placed them in the cabinet.

  “How about breakfast? I’ve been working since sunup.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “I’m always ready to eat.”

  She locked the door, hung a smiley-face clock outside indicating her return, and we strolled to 132nd Street to Wells Restaurant, where the chicken and waffles revived my body although I still needed to work on my spirit.

  “So,” Elizabeth said, pouring half a bottle of syrup over her waffles, “you’re asking if the cops were looking for a left-handed assailant? Yes, Travis is left-handed, but for that matter, so is his wife. And so are you. So are probably one hundred men, women, and suspicious-looking teenagers within a ten-block radius of this restaurant. And despite the autopsy, the wound could’ve come from a back slash by a right-handed person.”

  Elizabeth was handling my lawsuit against NYPD for wrongful dismissal. She works hard for her clients and she has an impressive track record. Her practice is successful, and she lives quite well in a brownstone overlooking the grassy expanse of Marcus Garvey Park. I decided long ago that if I ever got into serious trouble, I’d step over Johnnie Cochran to have her on my side.

  “How’s Travis doing?” I said.

  “Okay. The court agreed that there’s no danger of him fleeing; he’s a solid businessman with ties to the community, and he’ll be out on bail sometime today.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I said, wondering how I could get to speak with him. It might be a breach of ethics to ask Elizabeth to set up a meeting. But Harlem is a small place. I’d surely see him one way or another. I needed to know how he felt about Starr. And if he might have had a confrontation with Ozzie. Ozzie was so protective of Starr, he and Travis might’ve had some words.

  We left Wells. Elizabeth returned to the stack of paperwork at her office and I went to see Charleston. When I approached the narrow store, Jo Jo had not yet come in so I felt free to talk, to ask questions about Short Change.

  “The man’s dead. Why you so interested?”

  “That’s why I’m interested,” I said, leaning on the narrow counter. Charleston turned from me to add more seasoning to two large pots of his secret sauce bubbling on the back burners. He stirred them, replaced the lids, and mopped his face in the heat.

  “I don’t know that much. Only what I heard. Yo
u know what I’m sayin’.”

  It was his usual disclaimer to ensure that he wouldn’t end up on the wrong side of a lawsuit or the business end of someone’s weapon.

  “Short Change was about forty-something. I don’t know if he was born here but he sure grew up here. I mean he was a New Yorker, a Harlemite. Shoulda learned a little somethin’ about style. But he musta been color blind or somethin’. Boy dressed in the flashiest, loudest, pimp-style outfits that ever came off the rack. Even when he was growin’ up, couldn’t stay away from them screamin’ jackets. And forget about the pants. You’d a’ thought he was one a’ them 1940s dudes just stepped off the ’hound from some backwoods tenant farm.

  “But that was the way he was. Not much school that I know of. When he was real young, he dropped out to hang out. Musta learned somethin’, though, ’cause he sure had the women comin’ and goin’. Could run a rap make a grandmama give up her food stamps and smile while she doin’ it.

  “Heard his mama was a stroller, that’s how he got here. Then he disappeared for a while. No jail time ’cause I woulda heard. But when he came back he was pullin’ plenty attitude. Said he was gonna be rich before he was thirty and retire before he was forty, and wasn’t gonna see a day’s work in between.

  “Said the money was gonna come to him, he wasn’t goin’ after it. I mean he talked loud but seem like he made it happen. Some of it, anyway, what with all those women and that big house near Garvey Park.”

  “If he had so many women, why couldn’t he leave Starr alone?” I asked.

  “Who knows? Cat had a real bad ego problem. Real bad. Say no to him and he make it seem like a challenge. He used to hang in the Casablanca and set up the bar. The other players was cool, but Short Change was always showin’, you know, drawin’ a crowd. Had his women paradin’ by in next to nuthin’ and that see-through stuff. Maybe he needed to make up for how short and lightweight he was. People needed to see him, know he was there and all that. Anyway, he’s gone and nobody knows who sent him on his way.”