Trip Wire

by Charlotte Carter

  “Definitely not,” I said. Nor was anybody I knew.

  “Oscar was furious. Wilton promised him he wouldn’t do it again. But when Oscar made a trip out there to check up on him, he found evidence Wilton lied to us. It was obvious the place was still being used. Oscar went off the deep end. He told Wilton if he ever went there again without our permission he’d have him arrested.”

  “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”

  “I said he found ‘evidence,’ because that is the word Oscar used. But he didn’t just mean dirty dishes and the leavings of a few marijuana cigarettes.”

  “What else did he find?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t discuss it with me. But he and Wilton fought like wild animals about it. I thought it would blow over like the other trouble between them in the past.”

  “What trouble was that? Selling grass to his high school buddy?”

  “Yes. Oscar had to extricate him. But this thing with my father’s place was altogether different. I just know that my husband had been talking wild the last two weeks, saying things I didn’t understand.”

  “Like what?”

  “That he’d pulled our son back from the edge for the last time. That Wilton’s behavior was jeopardizing his law practice and his reputation. He even said if Wilton didn’t change his ways, he’d—”

  I supplied the words. “He’d kill him.”

  “That’s right. Kill him. He said it the way every parent on earth has ever said those words. Except now . . . well, now he’s left with all that on his heart. You saw for yourself what it’s done to him. And me.”

  “You have no idea what they were arguing about? What Mr. Mobley found in the house?”

  “No. He won’t tell me.”

  I knew how much chance there was of his telling me.

  “Anything else you can think of? Old fights with people? Anyone ever threaten him? Any chance his death was connected to your husband’s affairs, or even yours?”

  “No, none of those things.”

  “Is your husband pushing the police to find out who killed Wilt?”

  “Yes, Oscar is trying to throw his weight around. Another way to assuage his conscience. I doubt that he’s frightening anyone, though. He’s defeated. It took this to defeat him.”

  “Your husband’s not used to being defeated, I imagine.”

  Her mouth pulled suddenly to one side. “No,” she said, “he isn’t.”

  Oh, man. All the things Wilt had told me about the unhappiness in this house—they couldn’t have been even half the story.

  Hope saw me to the door a moment later.

  “One more thing,” I said. “Well, actually two. Did Wilton have a friend named Alvin? Or has your husband mentioned that name?”

  “No. Who is he?”

  “I’m not sure. The last thing is, it looks like we’ll all be moving out soon. I’ll have Wilt’s things sent to you if you want.”

  “That’s very nice of you. I’d like to give you something, too, to remember him by. I have some very sweet old photos. But I don’t think Oscar would like that.”

  “It’s not important.”

  It didn’t feel right to have that phrase hanging in the air between us. I didn’t want that to be the last thing I said to her. I wanted to tell her I needed no snapshots of him, my life would be over before I forgot Wilton. But while I was trying to figure out some beautiful way to say it, the door closed behind me.

  Looking closely at the dense, ice-laden moss on the facade of the house, I could see there were tiny Christmas tree lights intertwined with the greenery. But of course, they were dimmed now.

  I walked back to the car. When I didn’t get in immediately, Sim looked out at me, waiting, but said nothing.

  I was thinking about the quiet little town of Kent. One of those posh villages, like Martha’s Vineyard, where moneyed blacks had established an enclave in the early part of the century, the houses passed down from one generation to the next.

  Evidence. Whatever it was that Oscar Mobley found at the house, it had sent him into a real tailspin. And as for the so-called friends Wilton had been partying with up there—who were they? He’d surely never invited anyone from the commune, not even Mia. I wasn’t just feeling left out, though; I was feeling betrayed. Here was another secret he hadn’t let me in on.

  Tough. I had to get past that. I said I was willing to face the truth no matter what came out. If I hadn’t meant it before, I did now.

  Jack Klaus had intimated that Wilton may have burned a drug connection. I didn’t buy it. But I knew who might have done something like that: Barry Mayhew.

  Oscar Mobley found out there were some funky dishes and funky doings at the house in Kent. But maybe the people up there weren’t partying. Maybe they were cooking up something else. Better living through chemistry. That was a slogan my little generation had taken to heart. Find an isolated spot and put a couple of talented chemistry students to work. There was a fortune to be had. That sounded like a possibility, too. Once again, I smelled Barry. Maybe he had been the one member of the commune to be asked up to Kent.

  I opened the car door. Not the rear door, the passenger side in front. Sim asked no questions except, “Where to?”

  3

  The winter sun caromed off the deluxe apartment buildings along Lake Shore Drive. Not to get too sappy about it, Lake Michigan can be pretty damn thrilling sometimes. But the majestic expanse of it is no watery womb. Stretching on forever, frozen blue, it looks ungiving, fatal.

  “The lake’s amazing, isn’t it?” I said. “Do you ever just sit and stare at it?”

  “Naw.”

  I was looking at the water. Sim was looking at the road.

  “You know Skip’s Tavern, on Indiana?” I asked as we cruised past the 25th Street exit.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How about having a drink with me at Skip’s?”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Because of Woody, you mean. He lets you take a break sometimes, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah, I take a break. But not to drink.”

  “Lunch then. We could go to Champ’s and you could get something to eat there. My treat. You like their ribs?”

  “They okay.”

  He found a place to park on Forest Street. Just my luck.

  When he stepped out of the car, he seemed to emerge in sections. His chest was massive, his thighs like pillars, canoe-size feet in dark-brown boots.

  “See that next block?” I said to him. “I was born on that block. Or somewhere near. Anyway, that’s where I used to live, with my grandmother.”

  He nodded.

  At the red Formica table we hooked, Sim papered his starched yellow shirtfront with napkins and tucked into the ribs. I marveled at what a fastidious eater he was, not a drop, not a splash of barbecue sauce on him. I ordered a dish of banana pudding, only two or three million calories’ worth.

  He never asked why I was so eager to buy him a meal. I guess he knew that I was after something. While he ate, I got up and went over to talk to the waitress and the fry cook. Sim didn’t ask why I was doing that, either.

  “How long have you been with my uncle?” I said when I came back to the table.

  “Since July.”

  “You like working for him?”

  He grunted.

  “Sim. What is that short for? Simmons?”

  “My mama named me Simpson.”

  “Sim, you mind if I ask you a few personal questions?”

  I got a few blinks out of him, but no answer. Still, I pressed on. “You do any drugs?”

  “I look like a junkie to you?”

  “I don’t mean that. I’m talking about grass, hash, coke.”

  “Why you wanna know that?”

  “I have my reasons. And don’t worry, I would never say anything to Woody.”

  “I like to get high. Who don’t?”

  “When you buy it, do you get it from somebody around here?”

>   “You wanna cop? You didn’t have to buy me no ribs for that.”

  “I don’t need to—” I stopped myself. “Actually, yes. That’s what I want to do. Cop. Can you put me in touch?”

  He had methodically eaten all the ribs before going after the french fries. Now he was taking care of those as he thought it over. “What if your uncle find out? Good-bye to my job.”

  “He won’t. It’ll all be on me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can I ask you something else? You’ve been in prison, haven’t you?”

  He was using a Wet-Nap to clean his face. The little square of moistened tissue was lost in his big hand. “You say you was raised around here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Y’all are some nosey motherfuckers in this neighborhood.”

  4

  We picked our way around the mounds of filthy snow. “Your connection,” I said. “Is he just some kid who deals on the street?”

  “I don’t buy from no kids.”

  “All right, don’t get mad. So your connection is a little higher up on the chain. Does he work for a man named Henry Waddell?”

  Now Sim looked at me with something other than that impassive stare.

  I repeated it. “Does he?”

  “Not much get sold on the South Side Waddell don’t have something to do with.”

  “So that means yes. Your guy works for Waddell. Even if it’s indirectly.”

  “Even if it’s what?”

  “I’m saying your guy may not take orders directly from Henry Waddell. But Waddell will end up getting his cut.”

  “Damn right he will. How you know about that anyway?”

  “I’m not as dumb as I look, Sim.”

  “Didn’t nobody say you was dumb.”

  “Lame, then. I’m not as lame as I look. You think I’m some boogie college girl living up north and I don’t know shit about the haps around here. But I’ve actually met the famous Mr. Waddell.”

  “Yeah, I believe that.”

  “It’s true, I have.”

  I wasn’t going to go into the story now, but I had made the acquaintance of the South Side drug lord earlier in the year. When my Aunt Ivy lay near death in the hospital, Waddell had shown up out of the blue. In a heartbeat, he and Woody were at each other’s throats. They clearly hated each other, and it was soon apparent that the enmity went back to a time long before I was born. I pestered the hell out of Woody until he leaked a few details about Waddell—his low morals and his high standing in the crime community. But he wouldn’t give up any of what I sensed was the juicy saga of their personal relationship. I just knew that Ivy figured into it somewhere. Love triangle? Secrets carried up to Chicago from someplace down south? I had no idea.

  “I’ll tell you about Waddell some other time,” I said. “But for now, what’s your guy’s name?”

  “Jones.”

  “Now, that’s an unusual name. Really distinctive.”

  Sim halted and put out his arm to stop me walking as well.

  “Don’t you be talking like that to this dude,” he said.

  “Like what?” I said.

  “Like screamin’ on his name and shit. He ain’t gonna think that’s funny.”

  I was suitably chastened. “Okay.”

  Jones ran his operation out of the back of a barbershop. All four chairs were occupied. Three afros and a shaved head under way.

  I waited up front, leafed through an ancient Life magazine, and let the four barbers check me out while Sim went on back to score. I didn’t just want him to buy grass for me; in fact, I didn’t want the grass at all. What I needed was Henry Waddell’s address.

  As I waited for Sim, I couldn’t help pondering my sexual fate—again. When I wanted a man, he didn’t want me. But a guy I never gave a second thought to—he couldn’t get me off his mind. There were eight men in the shop. The younger ones had each given me a quick once-over and instantly dismissed me. The older, broken-down ones were eating me up. I thought one old coot in his barber’s smock was going to shave a path right through the middle of his client’s natural.

  Sim appeared in the doorway then, motioned me back there.

  Indeed, Jones did not seem to have much of a sense of humor. But he did laugh at me when I asked if he could direct us out to Waddell’s place. He stopped laughing when I dropped my uncle Woody’s name on him. He finally agreed to call Waddell and handed the phone over to me. I told the froggy-throated kingpin how grateful I would be for a few minutes of his time.

  No, he said. I had it wrong. He’d be grateful for a few minutes of mine.

  5

  The house was just off St. Lawrence at 107th. A big place with two well-groomed, deadly German shepherds in the gated front yard. I left Sim smoking a Newport in the Lincoln.

  Waddell took my arm and walked me past a huge front room with clear plastic covering every turquoise sofa, chair, and lamp. It looked frozen in time, and it was appropriately chilly in there. Cold air clawed out at us as we passed it.

  “This here is a treat for sure,” Waddell said. “I don’t get many visits from beautiful young ladies now I’m ah old man.”

  I laughed girlishly, as if I believed his flattery.

  I caught sight of a young man in the kitchen. He had a solitaire game laid out on the table and a black gun a couple of inches to the left of the ace of diamonds. Waddell didn’t introduce us.

  We took seats in another big room, near the back of the house. This one looked more lived in, and it was heated. I was offered a drink from a cut-crystal decanter with a little silver tag—scotch—on a chain around its neck. Identical containers held bourbon, gin, and so on. I said I’d take whatever Mr. Waddell was drinking.

  Waddell was taken aback to hear that I was one of the hippies living in that apartment on the North Side where the two kids were killed.

  “What you doing in a place like that? Woody let you stay up in there?”

  “He’s never been too happy about where I was living.”

  “I’m surprised he ain’t grabbed you outta there.”

  “He’s about an inch away from doing just that,” I said. “I made a deal with him. I promised him I’d get out as soon as I find—as soon as the police find whoever did it. But they’re looking in all the wrong directions. They’re even trying to blame one of our roommates for the murder. I’m trying to figure it out some other way. Just so I know. I have to prove I’m right or prove I’m wrong.”

  “Why? Why you doing they work for them?”

  “Because the guy who got killed meant something special to me.”

  “That was your man?”

  “No. But I thought he was great.”

  I thought he was. Past tense. Suddenly I realized how far away from Wilton I had traveled in just a few days. Maybe it was just a matter of knowing, accepting in a way I hadn’t before, that he was dead and forever lost to me. But I don’t think that was the whole answer. Accepting the death meant acknowledging how far away he had gone from me. What I was remarking on now was how far away I had gone from him. Curious that of all the friends and strangers I’d spoken to, it should be Henry Waddell who triggered this insight.

  “Anyway, there’s another reason I’m doing their work, as you say. The police are jerking us around. They’re playing some kind of game.”

  “What you mean? They not really trying to find out who killed the boy?”

  “I don’t know what I mean, exactly. I just know they’re doing it. Which brings me around to you.”

  He popped his eyes. “What the hell I got to do with any of this?”

  “Well, as you know, a bunch of us lived together. We had a commune.”

  “Yeah. Black and white both, ain’t it?”

  “That’s right. One of the guys is the suspect the cops are after—Dan. Another one is an older man. His name is Barry Mayhew. A white guy. I have reason to believe he spends a lot of time on the South Side, back in our old neighborhood. For one thing, he likes the food at
Champ’s. He’s a regular. But I also think he gets the merchandise he sells from somebody in the neighborhood. There’s a big market for that kind of merchandise these days. Everybody’s doing it.”

  “Merchandise,” he said. “Um-hum.” Waddell lit a cigar, and took a much longer time to do it than was necessary.

  I didn’t wait for him to speak. I went on. “Don’t misunderstand, please. I’m not here to pry into your business or involve you in any way. It’s just that I’m convinced now that Barry Mayhew’s got something to do with those murders. Wait, let me put that another way. In a million years, I couldn’t see Barry torturing and killing anybody. Not with his own hands, at least. And he’s got an alibi for the time of the murders, anyway. But I think he knows stuff none of the rest of us do—about the killings and about Dan and maybe even about what the police are really up to.”

  He sat back in his La-Z-Boy, puffed expansively on the cigar.

  “Sound like you onto something. Yes sir, I can see Woody didn’t raise no dumb children. But what do all this have to do with me?”

  “Can you tell me—would you tell me—if you know Barry Mayhew? Was he getting his merchandise from somebody attached to you? And was Wilton Mobley in the business, too? That’s all I want to know.”

  “I’d like to help you out. Out of respect for your aunt and uncle. But all I can do is tell you the way I understand how these things work.”

  “That’s good enough.”

  “In the business you talking about, there’s a big boss and then there’s a lot of little men below him. The man at the top got a lot on his mind—deals to make, people in high places to see, wheels to grease all over town. The boss control a lot of money, and everybody want some of it. Man at the top can’t be too selfish. He gotta give in order to get.

  “But he’ll leave the drudgery to the lower men in the company. Kinda like middlemen. They got they own customer bases. White boy doing business up north, he probably selling that mind-changing shit they cook up in labs. But it’s entirely possible he’s got a source on the South Side for other goods.