Danny didn’t like him, but he respected his position. Since the Locke was out of violent crime, he was no longer a concern of the police. The Locke flirted with both sides of the law, and a man like that could occasionally be an asset.
“Well, well,” said the Locke. “The white man who ain’t white, and the black man who ain’t black. I heard the shot. I guess that would be your calling card.”
“Your man tripped,” said Danny. “I reacted.”
“Roe,” said the Locke knowingly. “He’s a hothead. He’ll be dead or in jail in the next year.” He made the last statement in a matter-of-fact tone. “Sad, but that’s the way the shit goes, you know.”
The Locke walked over to a table with a chess set on it. The board was in midgame as if someone was playing. He studied it then made a move. Suddenly, he laughed.
“I’ll have these fools beat in another three moves,” he said. “I play against five of my guys. It takes all of them to even come close to being qualified,” he said proudly. “You play, Detective?”
“I need some information,” said Danny, not wanting to get engaged in small talk.
“Where was you when them muthafuckas ripped off my store?” asked the Locke. “I pay a lot of taxes and I got cops askin’ me for shit.” He took a deep breath then, “What is it?”
“I’m looking for a hooker who’s using the name Xena.”
The Locke popped some candy into his mouth and let his head roll upward. Danny saw his eyes flash for a second, the way they do when you recall a long-lost memory.
“Lotta hos use made-up names,” he said finally.
“But you know who I’m talkin’ about, right?”
The Locke walked back over to the fish tank, turning his back on Danny. He sprinkled in some more food, then tapped the side of the tank, making more baby talk. He turned back, grabbed a Squirrel Nut Chew, and ate it noisily.
“I know her, but I need something from you.”
Danny had feared it would come to this. The Locke was an operator, and would not give up information without getting something in return. “What do you want?”
“I need you to smoke somebody,” he said casually.
“Fuck you,” said Danny.
“Just seeing where the limits are,” said the Locke, laughing. “Let’s say you owe me one, a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
“And fuck you again,” said Danny.
“Hard man. Then I guess I got nothing to say.”
Danny moved closer to the Locke. “I’m not leaving without the information.” Danny pulled his gun and pointed it at the fish tank. “You decide how I’m gonna get it.”
The Locke’s face expressed fear. He moved over to the fish tank. “Ain’t no need for that shit.”
“I mean it,” said Danny. “I’ll pop their fishy asses.”
The Locke searched Danny’s eyes the same way the kid outside had. He saw the same thing.
“Hard-ass white boy, huh?” He laughed. “I heard you almost got kicked off the police force for some shit you did.”
“Ancient history,” said Danny, putting his weapon away. “But old habits can be hard to break, if you know what I mean.”
“The bitch stays over by Gratiot and Seven Mile,” the Locke said. He blurted it out, like it was pent up inside. “She’s a shooter, heroin, so she’s got a lot of hard work to do to support that kinda habit. She probably been fucking her way all over the east side.”
“Her real name?” asked Danny.
“Bellva, or at least that’s what she said.”
“She work for you?”
“For a minute, then she went indy a year ago. I don’t hold on to them when they make that choice. They either come back, or they end up dead. You’d better move on her fast, because she’s in the last category.”
Danny left, not wanting to stay any longer than he had to. He walked off the porch past King and his men, who hustled back to their posts.
Danny went to his car, thinking of the Locke’s comment about the hooker. When he said a person would probably end up dead, not only did he mean it, he was probably right. Danny moved a little faster and hoped that he wasn’t already too late.
Danny drove over to the area that the Locke had told him about, a nasty little stretch near Seven Mile and Van Dyke. He nosed around, but he didn’t ask about Xena or Bellva. He asked where a person might go if he wanted to get high. This led him to an abandoned house on the near east side. It was one of those old pre–World War II houses with an attic and a deep basement.
Danny went inside. The walls were covered with graffiti and stains, which could have been composed of anything. The floor was littered with trash and semiconscious addicts. Danny could smell the pungent odor of human waste with each breath.
It wasn’t a drug house. Most of the dealers had long stopped people from using in their places. They’d sell you the shit, then send your ass packing. Too many of them had been popped by the police when heads gave their places up.
Suddenly he stopped. On the floor propped up against a wall was something that made his heart leap. A hand cut off at the wrist and covered in grime lay there.
“Jesus,” said Danny.
He knelt down to take a closer look. He took out a pen and poked the hand a few times. It fell over, making a hollow sound.
“Shit,” Danny said, picking it up. “Fuckin’ plastic.” He threw it back down in the floor and moved on.
Danny heard a noise and walked toward a room in the back of the first floor. He was stopped by a skinny man who was obviously a crackhead. He wobbled a little in front of Danny, doing that crackhead dance, which was really just their equilibrium being all fucked up.
“Yo, my man, whassup?” said the crackhead. “You don’t wanna go in there, brutha,” he said in a voice suddenly different from his crackhead one. It had a familiar tone to it. He was scared.
Danny waited. He’d learned never to ignore that tone when he heard it. “What going on back there?”
“You know, some brothers caught this bitch who was dealin’ some bad shit, and you know, they takin’ care of her.”
Danny heard the distinct sound of someone being hit, the cold smack of flesh against flesh and he ran into the room which was a kitchen. There he saw three men, two black, one white. One of the black guys held a young black woman by both arms. The salt-and-pepper pair stood in front of her. Mr. Pepper had his fists clenched, and Danny assumed this was the one who had administered the blow. They heard Danny and all four people looked toward the doorway.
A quick glance told Danny they were all drug users of some type. They were thin and sick-looking, and had that gaze of not quite being in this world.
“Get the fuck out of here, white boy,” said the hitter.
“Who’s the girl?” Danny asked calmly.
“None of yo’ muthafuckin’ bid’ness,” said the hitter.
“It is if it’s the woman I’m lookin’ for,” said Danny, coming all the way into the kitchen.
The hitter and the white guy next to him turned toward Danny. The white guy was already shaking a little, like he was sick, and Danny could tell he wanted no part of a fight. Not knowing what any of them was packing, Danny decided to put a quick end to this.
Danny grabbed the hitter and slammed him into the wall. He crumpled, letting out an ill-sounding grunt, then passed out.
The man holding the girl released her without asking, then he and the white guy ran out of the kitchen.
Danny went to the girl and took her by the arm. He could see that she’d been pretty before she got into drugs. Her body was thin, ravaged by drug use. Her face was covered with fresh bruises, and one of her fingers was bent inward, having been broken but not attended to medically. Worse than all this was that she looked to be no more than seventeen or so.
“Bellva?” asked Danny.
“Huh?” she said in a thin, needy voice. She was still getting her bearings and she held on to his arm, which looked massive in her grasp.
“No, I’m Lilly…” She took a moment, for what reason he didn’t know. “Them muthafuckas…They said I gave them some bad shit. I got it from this guy I fucked. I didn’t know what that shit was, man.”
“They’re gone now. Do you know Bellva?” Danny had to get her back on the subject.
“Oh…Bellie? She’s in the basement. You her man?”
“Yeah, I’m lookin’ for her. She ran out on me, and I need to get her back home. Get her well.”
“Oh, she’ll be glad for that,” said the girl. “She been real scared lately. I had to help that girl find a vein.”
“Well, all that’s over now. Show me where she is.”
The girl took him into the basement. They descended the stairs. Danny always had an ominous feeling walking into the cellars of these drug houses. You never know what you’d find. A bunch of junk or a bunch of bodies.
The basement was dim and dank. It took his eyes a moment to focus, but soon Danny could see the people crowded on the floor and leaning against the walls. It was like a sick room, filled with foul human odors undercut with a sad medicinal smell.
“Bellva!” Danny yelled out.
The crowd murmured and a man said, “Whatchoo wont, honey?” followed by hoarse laughter and a stagnant cough. Danny moved farther into the room and felt Lilly fall off his arm. She moved over to a man whom he guessed she knew because she rammed her tongue into his mouth.
Danny called out for Bellva again and a man lumbered over to him.
“She upstairs, in da front. Now, stop all that yellin’, man.”
Danny ran back upstairs and scanned the bodies on the living room floor. There were ten people in the room and four of them were women. He called out the name suddenly and saw one of the women, a thin girl with a cascade of unkempt braids, jerk her head slightly, then just as quicky turn back. Danny moved over to her and knelt down to where she was sitting.
“I need to talk to you,” said Danny.
“I don’t know what you talkin’ ’bout, man,” she said in a voice that was decidedly unhealthy.
“John Baker is dead, and whoever did it might be looking for you.” This was a lie, but Danny was hoping that she wouldn’t recognize that. To make his point, he showed her his badge.
She reacted, scared, then stared into Danny’s eyes, a gaze that was unusual for a drug addict. In her eyes, he saw the familiar look of devastation behind her fear.
“Johnny’s dead?” she asked in an innocent voice. “I didn’t have nothing to do with all that. Johnny was just a job, you know.”
“Come on, I can’t talk here.”
Danny lifted her off the floor and walked her out of the building. He stuffed her into his car and drove away from the godforsaken place.
“You wouldn’t be doing all this just to get me to do you a little favor, woulda?” She leaned toward him, trying to look pretty.
In the light, Danny could see that she was as young as Lilly but not as bad off. Bellva was still on the pretty side of her addiction. The drugs had not yet robbed her of all her beauty.
“No,” he said. “I want to know what you know about John Baker.”
“Hey, where we goin’?” she asked as Danny gunned the car toward the freeway.
“To meet a friend.”
Bellva put another sugar into the black coffee at a McDonald’s which faced the I-75 service drive at Warren Avenue.
On the way over, Danny had grilled the girl about her associates, and as far as he could tell, she wasn’t hooked up with a pimp or some jealous boyfriend who could have killed the Bakers.
Danny and Erik watched the girl fill her Styrofoam cup with sweetness. Not like a hit of heroin, but it would have to do.
Erik had been happy when Danny called him with the news that he had the girl. Erik was over on the west side in the middle of some nasty shit with a snitch when Danny phoned. Erik was glad to get away from the snitch, who apparently had recently lost one of his hands in a dispute.
“Y’all gon’ take me down the thirteen hunnet?” asked Bellva.
“No,” said Erik. “Not unless you make us.”
“Cool, cool,” said Bellva, smiling. “I don’t need that shit in my life. Thirteen hunnet Beaubien. Hey, did y’all know Beaubien was a French word? Beaubien, B-e-a-u-b-i-e-n,” she spelled in a proper voice. “I’m good at spellin’. I won my junior high spelling bee when I was eleven,” she said proudly. And for a moment she wasn’t a drug addict, she was an innocent, a noble young girl with a special talent.
“That’s cool,” said Danny, trying to make her feel more comfortable.
“Yeah, it was in the newspaper and every-thang,” said Bellva. “I can still do it, too. Like you,” she said, pointing to Danny. “Yo’ name sounds easy, but it ain’t. Cavanaugh, C-a-v-a-n-au-g-h. See, a dumbass would say C-a-v-a-n-a. But you got what you call silent letters in that shit.”
She smiled again, proud of this singular knowledge in her ravaged mind. Her smile brightened her face, and for an instant she was cute. One of the saddest things about a drug addict is that you always see flashes of them as kids, Danny thought, and you know life must be some sick-ass shit to have turned anyone’s baby into that.
There was a loud commotion on the other side of the restaurant. Danny and Erik immediately turned to check it out. The noise had come from the table with two loud young brothers of about twenty or so. They were layered in gold and wore expensive leather jackets. They had a mountain of food on the table. Dealers, thought Danny.
Erik cut them a nasty look. The dealers only laughed even though they had made out Danny and Erik as cops. Gone were the days when a lowlife was scared of the police. Now they were defiant, arrogant even. Not until you had the goods on them did they recognize that you had any special power.
Bellva saw the dealers and smiled at them, flirting. They nodded, then laughed, pounding their fists together at some comment.
“So, how long were you with Mr. Baker?” asked Danny, wanting to get back to business with Bellva.
“Me and Johnny was kickin’ it about three months or so.” She took a long swig of the coffee.
“And what did y’all do?” asked Danny.
“Sex,” she said. “Damn, whassup with you?”
She didn’t use the word Danny expected to hear, the F word. When a hooker didn’t say that word, it meant she was up to something other than copulation. This made Danny suspicious.
“What kind of sex?” asked Danny, and he said sex with emphasis.
Bellva leaned back in her seat, and took on a frightened, then embarrassed look. “Well, we never did it the normal way, you know,” she whispered, leaning in toward Danny and Erik. “He was scared. I don’t know why. I never share needles, and I don’t fuck them switch hitters. He let me get him off with my hand. He was gonna pay me a grip to do it with a girl, but I couldn’t find one in time.” Bellva leaned back, then a smile spread across her face. “Hey, I got one for you—that street, Gratiot.” She pronounced it gra-shit. “G-r-a-t-i-o-t, that’s French, too, you know, hard as hell to spell that one.”
“Ever do it in his house?” asked Erik, trying to keep her focused.
“No,” she said forcefully. “He’d never let me get close to his place. He was scared as hell of his wife.”
“Was he ever afraid of anything or anybody else?” asked Danny.
“No, Johnny wasn’t scared of nothing, not like we think about being scared.”
“Then how?” asked Erik. There was some impatience in his voice.
“He was always worried about something called Castle,” said Bellva.
“Castle what?” asked Danny.
“I don’t know,” said Bellva. “He wouldn’t ever say a lot. One time he’d had a few drinks in him and he started talkin’ all proper and shit, he say ‘Fear stalks the Castle,’” she intoned in a deeper voice. “It was like something out of one of them old scary movies.”
“The Castle
Society?” asked Erik.
“Ring a bell?” asked Danny.
“Yeah. It’s a group, I mean was a group, but it don’t exist anymore,” said Erik.
Then it clicked for Danny. Castle was the name printed beneath the picture at Virginia Stallworth’s home.
“When Mr. Baker talked about the Castle, was it about history, what it used to be?” asked Erik.
“Hell no,” said Bellva. “He was talkin’ ’bout right now.”
“Did Mr. Baker say anything at all that would make you think he was in danger from anyone in particular?” asked Danny.
“Naw, not really,” said Bellva, “but this one time, I was doing Johnny, had him in my hand nice and stiff, you know, and, he started talking about that Castle thing, and he just went limp, lost it, like he didn’t care anymore. Only scary shit makes a man lose his hard-on, baby.”
“Did Mr. Baker ever mention a company that he started, New Nubia?” asked Erik.
“Naw,” said Bellva. “Johnny never liked to talk about bid’ness with me. Probably thought I wouldn’t understand it.”
“Did he ever talk about having a lot of money, or leaving town?” asked Danny. It was a long shot, but he had to ask.
“No,” said Bellva. “If he was gonna skip town, he woulda asked me to go with him. Damn, I need another coffee. Do they do refills here?”
Danny and Erik questioned Bellva a little while longer, then sent her on her way in a cab. Danny felt sorry for her. She was just a periodic good time for the deceased Mr. Baker, though she’d deluded herself into thinking that she meant more. One thing for sure, she was no killer.
“How long you give her?” Erik asked Danny.
“Another few months or so,” said Danny casually. “If she don’t OD, she’ll get caught up in some bad shit and get killed. Sad thing. She’s a damned good speller.”
They walked to their cars and saw the dealers come out of the restaurant talking into cell phones. They climbed into a black Cadillac Escalade and roared off.
“I give them until next week,” said Danny. “So, tell me about the Castle group.”
“Not much to tell,” said Erik. “Back in the forties and fifties in Detroit, there was a group of black people called the Castle Society. They were elite blacks—doctors, lawyers, morticians. My grandmother used to tell stories about it all the time. It kinda of phased out because they used to exclude people on the basis of skin color…holy shit.”
Color of Justice Page 15
