Trip Wire

by Charlotte Carter

  Not much of a mix of people that day. Everybody looked old. Old and lonely. I took a stool at the bar and ordered the bitter brown ale. The Louis Armstrong concert from the juke flowed into a Jo Stafford extravaganza. I wasn’t unhappy to hear that old-fashioned music; there was an odd comfort in it.

  Not a soul interfered with me as I downed one tankard after another. I was getting drunk and that was just fine. It was almost enough to obliterate all the memories. Please, God, no more memories just now. Not the good ones, like holding on tight to Wilt as we roared up Lincoln Avenue on a borrowed motorcycle. And surely not the newer ones, like the sight of him in that chair, or the sucking noises my boots made as I waded through Mia’s blood.

  “Cass.”

  I turned at the sound of my name, already knowing who had spoken it.

  Ivy. I wanted to speak her name in return, but I was tongue-tied.

  But then she took hold of my hand and looked at me, the familiar kindness in her eyes.

  It slipped out then. “I’m sorry.”

  “Never mind that now.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here for you, Cass. Your friends told me I was pretty sure to find you here. Woody’s got himself under control now, baby. We all acted ugly. But we’re going to get past it. All right?”

  I was swaying on the barstool. I straightened myself, tried to sound authoritative. “Just because I’m calmed down doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind. You can’t just boss me around anymore.”

  “Fine. Now, you lay that drink aside and let’s get down to business.”

  I frowned at her. What business?

  “Did you mean what you said about finding out who killed your friend?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “And the rest of it?”

  “What rest?”

  “You said you would be willing to come back home after the killings were solved.”

  “I did?”

  “Not in so many words. But you said you’d consider it.”

  “I did?”

  “By implication, Cassandra.”

  I couldn’t help it; I actually laughed.

  “Well?” she said. “Are you willing to make a bargain with us? Can we come to an understanding? After justice is done, you’ll give up living with—”

  “With these people, right?”

  “Cassandra, what are you laughing about?”

  “Justice,” I said. And then I burped.

  “Are you listening to me, girl?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Woody wants your word that you’ll think about coming home after you find out what happened to your friend.”

  “Sure. Okay. And what’s Woody’s part of the bargain?”

  “He’s going to help you do it.”

  “Ain’t no justice. Ain’t no truth and beauty, neither,” Wilton said. May have been right here in this bar that he said it. “Sandy, if we could learn to accept that, we’d probably be much happier Negroes.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THURSDAY

  1

  My room was gray and musty from cigarette smoke. It was long past sunrise, but light was hard to come by. The news issuing from my clock radio was just as sunless and heavy—

  Death toll for the week so far: 80. That was just “our” side. No figures on how many of the enemy incinerated. A Christmas truce was in the offing, and Bob Hope was on the way to Saigon.

  Other headlines: Two children and their welfare mother asphyxiated. Mix poor people with no heat and a faulty gas oven. Result, death. A drunk driver killed four teens on the highway. And, near the insular working-class area where Mayor Daley was born and resided to this day, a twenty-eight-year-old black man identified as Larry Dean was found shot to death. Police said they had no leads as yet in the case.

  Well, that set the right funereal tone for the day.

  I moved around quietly, trying not to wake anyone. But before I left the apartment, I went in carefully to look in on them all as they slept—Taylor and Barry, Beth, Cliff. I even tipped into Dan’s room, hoping against hope I’d see his lovely hair splayed across the pillow on his mat. Pretend time. I let myself fantasize for a moment. If only I could be the Good Witch, a chubby little fairy in gossamer, I’d just wave my magic wand and make all the awful shit that had marked the last two days go away. I’d even let skanky Bev keep her baby.

  2

  I was lucky to get a seat. Most people on the number 11 bus were going to work, and didn’t look particularly happy about it. I didn’t blame them. Who wanted to stoke the fires of capitalism taking shorthand or delivering interoffice mail in some airless coop in the Loop?

  However, I was going somewhere every bit as odious. Woody had arranged for me to talk to his cop buddy, Jack Klaus, who might be able to give me the inside track on the homicide investigation. Klaus might prove to be a good source, but I didn’t much like him. As the bus jerked along, I stared out the window.

  Where the fuck is Dan? as Annabeth had so trenchantly put it.

  Good question.

  Funny about memory. I kept harking back to that stoned-out weekend we’d spent at Annabeth’s family’s farm in Wisconsin, how beautiful it was, how close I felt to the others, what fun we had.

  So why was I constantly flashing on some out-of-place feelings from that weekend? Now I had to wonder if Dan Zuni had given off some hint of trouble then. I couldn’t think of anything particularly weird about the way Dan was acting that weekend. Nothing bad had happened, or had it? Maybe the delightful mind-expanding trips I’d been enjoying were killing off brain cells quicker than you could say “Light my fire.”

  I made a big bowl of popcorn and took it into the musty sitting room in the farmhouse. I was planning to leaf through some old magazines, maybe read the copy of The Marble Faun I’d spotted on the bookshelf in there. But I was startled when Dan popped up from the sofa.

  “Oh! I didn’t know you were in here. Would you rather be alone?”

  He grinned at me. “No way. Come on in. Let’s rap.”

  It cracked me up when Dan used words like rap.

  “Is that popcorn?”

  “Yeah. I just made it.”

  “Far out. I’m dying for popcorn. And look—we got beer.”

  “Are you stoned, Dan?”

  “Uh-huh. You?”

  “Yeah.”

  We polished off the bowl of popcorn in quick order. A few minutes later I thought I heard him humming under his breath, and he was keeping a kind of tom-tom beat on the arm of the couch.

  “What’s that you’re singing? Creedence again?”

  “No. Remember that hokey song—’Running Bear’?”

  That was a blast from childhood. “Yeah. Running Bear and Little White Dove.” AM radio Top Ten stuff. “They were like the Indian Romeo and Juliet. And they committed suicide at the end of the song.”

  He chuckled. “My pop had this big job at the BIA. Big fucking bureaucrat job. Sent me and my brother to this tight-assed private school in Tucson. The white kids used to call me Running Bear. Jesus, they were so ignorant. I thought it was funny. But Bobby, my brother, couldn’t take that kind of shit. Wasn’t just those kids, though. He couldn’t deal with much of anything. He was always begging Pop to let us come home.”

  “And did he?”

  Dan shook his head. “Well, he did finally. But it was too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bobby killed himself. After that, he let us come home.”

  “God, Dan. I never knew that about you.”

  “Yep. Old Bobby. We used to talk about running away to New York. That woulda been funny.”

  Dan joined me on the floor then. He rolled a joint, slowly and meticulously, and let me take the first hit.

  “Wilt said you and your father don’t speak anymore.”

  He nodded. “Right. Wilt and me kind of have a lot in common. I guess we’ve all got bad family stuff to deal with. Like Cliff’s brother getti
ng killed. You’ve got a fucked-up relationship with your parents, too, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know about fucked-up. It’s not even fucked-up. I don’t know where they are. I was raised by my grandmother’s sister and her husband. They’re older, but they’re really cool.”

  “Me too. I mean, my grandfather took me because of all the trouble between me and my father. He’s great. It’s kind of great being around some old people. Except he’s always after me to do my kiva ceremony.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You gotta go into a cave, pray and dance and do all kinds of shit. He says I won’t really be a man until I do it.”

  “Are you going to do it someday?”

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  We smoked quietly for a few minutes until I got a little giggly. “This grass is pretty great. Where’d it come from—Barry?”

  “Yeah, the Great White Father of Weed.”

  “Barry Running Dog,” I said.

  “Yeah, Barry Howling Wolf.”

  “Barry Screaming Mimi.”

  We laughed and hollered. Then we went quiet for a while. Lord, he’s gorgeous, I thought as I watched him stretch out on the rag rug before the disused fireplace. I relit the joint that had gone cold.

  “What are you thinking about, Sandy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your face looked fantastic just then. Sort of sad. Can I take some shots of you?”

  “Shots. What do you mean—take my picture?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No way.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t photograph well. I’m—I don’t look good.”

  “Bullshit. Come on, sit for me.”

  “Forget it. Why don’t you take Mia’s picture? She’s beautiful.”

  “I already did. I’ve got lots of Mia.”

  He began to pull at my sock then, tickling the underside of my foot, torturing me into agreeing to be photographed. I absolutely lost it, being the world’s most ticklish person, and soon gave in.

  I lay there, catching my breath, and Dan took my hand in his. For a split second I thought maybe he was going to kiss me, and I went rigid. I had never even dreamed of sleeping with anybody that good-looking. He didn’t kiss me, though. Instead, he helped me to my feet. “Let’s catch the light before it gets late,” he said.

  3

  I didn’t despise Jack Klaus, the way I did that Detective Norris. But I didn’t much like him, either. Klaus was another white cop, also a detective, and unlikely as it was, we had a few things in common—history of a sort.

  Technically the history was between him and Uncle Woody. I didn’t know what kind of favors one owed the other, or how the two came to know each other. I just knew Woody trusted him and they went back a ways. My uncle had called on Klaus to help untangle a couple of grisly South Side murders my family had been pulled into. Sure enough, Klaus had come through for us. He provided vital info from Chicago PD files and kept a great deal of heat off of me and Woody. When the smoke cleared he was being hailed as a supercop. He had earned a big rep for solving the crimes, and a big promotion to match.

  His new digs on Taylor Street reflected it. Klaus, who was half Woody’s age, had been appointed to a cushy spot in major crimes. He was sitting behind his blond wood desk when I came into the office. He cut his phone conversation short when he saw me, even stood to greet me. “It’s nice to see you again, Cass.”

  I had been well brought up. Normally I appreciate that kind of courtesy. But I didn’t return the greeting.

  He had been nothing but respectful to Ivy, Woody, and me. And now he was being nice, going out of his way to look into Wilton’s and Mia’s murders. I just couldn’t get up for being nice back to him.

  I had to give him one thing: He sure looked more prosperous than he did the last time we’d met. Gone were the Robert Hall vines and the square haircut. He wore a nicely tailored suit—prison stripes, Nat called straight clothes—and his hair hung fashionably close to the collar of his crisp white shirt. Real sharp. Kind of like one of the actors on The Name of the Game. A long brown cigarillo rested on the lip of a brass ashtray near his hand.

  I took out my pack of Multifilters, and he lit my cigarette.

  “I understand they were friends of yours,” he said. “You holding up okay?”

  “I guess.”

  “Tough thing to be going through.”

  “Right.”

  He waited for me to expand on it. But I just sat there.

  “You probably know I don’t have jurisdiction in the case. I can only poke around, ask to be kept up-to-date.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s early in the investigation. But I was able to find out a few things anyway. I thought maybe you and me could catch some breakfast and I’d tell you about it.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I mean no, thanks. I don’t want to keep you from your job. Can’t we just talk here?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  He used the intercom to ask for coffee. A few minutes later, it was delivered along with a tray of sweet rolls.

  “They don’t have a lot to go on so far. There were plenty of prints and junk left in the apartment from the previous tenants. You and your roommates had all been in the empty place, too—and the maintenance guy who had the heart attack. All that just puts more BS in the game. And as you know, they haven’t fixed time of death exactly. But before we get into what I know, let me ask you something, Cass.”

  “What?”

  “What do you think happened? Any idea who could have killed them? Maybe they were dealing? They ripped off a supplier, burned the wrong guy. Something like that.”

  Burned, eh? Well, ain’t you just the hippest narc in town.

  “Is that what the police think?”

  “It’s in the running,” he said.

  I shook my head. “No way. Wilt and Mia didn’t do that.”

  “Right.”

  He pressed a cherry danish on me, but I declined.

  “It’s pretty tense over your way since the riots. I mean, even now,” he said. “We’re looking at a lot of violence in that neighborhood. Shootings, holdups, muggings. You and your friends get along with—with everybody?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Did your guy Wilton know any of the brothers from the projects maybe? Any of them ever come by the apartment to see him?”

  “No.”

  “I’m wondering if any of the brothers ever give your friends grief?”

  “Grief for what?”

  “For living like you do—did. He had a girlfriend, after all, who wasn’t the same race.”

  I didn’t answer for a minute. His questions were rife with implications, all of them unimaginative and dumb. Probably the very dumbest was that young black males would actually be outraged that one of their own was screwing a white girl.

  “Wilton knew lots of people,” I said. “Far as I know, nobody resented him for being with Mia. Not because she was white, anyway.”

  “She was a pretty girl, they say. Some of the other guys in the house a little jealous of your friend Wilton?”

  He was being cagey. Obviously he’d heard something about Barry and Wilt’s rivalry. So it shocked me when he said, “Are you sure you never heard this Zuni threaten your friend Wilton?”

  “Dan? What are you talking about?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Look,” I said. “You people are wasting your time suspecting Dan. Not only did he think the world of Mia and Wilt, he wouldn’t kill a flea if it was biting him.”

  He nodded, relit his brown smoke, which had gone cold.

  “I mean it. Dan’ll turn up in a day or two with a perfectly good explanation.”

  “Um-hum.”

  “Besides, has it occurred to Norris that somebody might have hurt Dan, too? He could have been grabbed or something when he left the house that morning. If you all have any smarts, y
ou’ll start looking at him as another possible victim.”

  “Good thinking. Any other thoughts?”

  My chance to twit him a little. “There are these guys ‘around our way,’ as you say. These white guys who don’t like freaks. Or black people. I heard they’re the ones ripping off apartments. I heard a couple of girls have been raped.”

  He took that in. “Doesn’t sound likely. Thugs like that, if they’d been watching the apartment, they’d have waited till you were all at home, and they’d have waited to catch everybody where you all live, not in a vacant apartment. No, this thing sounds much more personal. Lot of anger in this killing. Somebody really didn’t like Wilton Mobley.”

  That sounded right. Unhappy as I was to have it said.

  “Anyway,” he said, “the chatter says it doesn’t look like Mia Boone was raped.”

  “I’m glad,” I said. For whatever it was worth.

  “You looked so surprised when I mentioned Dan Zuni might’ve been jealous of your friend.”

  “Like I told you, that isn’t true.”

  He opened a second container of coffee. “Cass, I told your uncle I’d do what I could for him. For you. And I meant what I said. Woody told me you’d cooperate in any way you can to help us nail whoever did this crime. Is that true?”

  “What do you think?”

  “So why don’t you come clean about this fella Zuni?”

  I tried to second-guess the man. Why in hell was he so convinced Dan had something to do with the murders? What kind of cop tactic was he pulling?

  “Did you hear me, Cass?”

  “I heard you. But you’re not making sense.”

  “So it’s news to you that Zuni and Mia Boone used to live together? You had no idea she was pregnant by him a couple of years ago? Had an abortion?”

  I fell into a wordless stupor.

  “Her parents even know about it. Mia Boone had a sister still living with her folks. Mia confided in her, made her swear not to tell anybody. But after the murder, the kid spilled the whole story to the parents. The way they told it to Norris, this Zuni was wrecked when Mia left him. Nobody can understand how he could have turned around and lived in the same house with her, watching her carry on with another guy. That’d be enough to make any man crazy jealous. Don’t you think?”