Opening the door rang the stupid bell that was attached to it. Frieda looked up at the sound of the bell, and immediately got up from behind her wooden desk. “Lord have mercy, am I glad to see you. I need to go to the mailbox and get me some lunch ‘fore I starve.”
Wanda smiled. Her afternoon shift at Charlie’s always started with filling in at the reception desk while Frieda got lunch.
Frieda got up and looked at herself in her compact, making sure her afro looked good and touching up her lipstick.
As she sat at the desk, Wanda grinned. “I’m guessin’ that Jimmy’s workin’ over at Sylvia’s today?”
“How should I know if that turkey’s workin’ today?” Frieda was trying to play it cool, but Wanda saw right through her. Frieda had been trying to get with the waiter over at Sylvia’s since he started working at the famous Harlem eatery last fall.
“Bring me back a couple legs?”
“Right on,” Frieda said, and she headed out with a stack of mail that had to be sent out. As she opened the door, which rang the bell again, she turned back to the desk. “Oh, yeah, Charlie’s in a meetin’ with a client. He says it’s big, so if anybody calls for ‘im, take a message, and if anyone comes in, tell ‘em they gotta wait until at least three.”
That, at least, explained why there were so few people in the waiting room. Charlie talked to walk-in clients between one and four on days he wasn’t in court, and that usually meant the benches between the reception desk and Charlie’s office in the back were packed. But today, there were only about five people.
Usually a day with this much slush on the sidewalk, you had lots of folks coming in with slip-and-falls.
The phone rang six times in the first twenty minutes after Frieda left.
Two were people just asking about maybe becoming clients. Wanda gave them the usual jazz about making an appointment, or just walking in between one and four. One made an appointment for next Tuesday at eleven, the other said she’d walk in.
Two were calls for Stoney’s Pizza down on 90th Street. They always got calls for there, because their number was almost the same, except for there being a 0 instead of a 9, and people always misdialed it.
One was from someone in the District Attorney’s office. Wanda said Charlie was with a client, and she wrote down the man’s name and number on a pink message slip.
The sixth was some turkey screaming at the top of his lungs about some craziness. Wanda hung up on him.
Things slowed up a little after that last call, so she started sorting the folders in the wire basket that had a white scrap of paper with the word FILE written in magic marker taped to it. Once Frieda got back, Wanda was going to have to file all those folders, so she figured it’d be better to put them in order first.
Just as she started to sort them, the bell rang and a big man walked in the door. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and even though he had on a big overcoat, he was all sweaty.
“Who the fuck are you, chickie?”
“Watch your language,” she said automatically. “I’m the receptionist. Can I help you?”
“Bullshit! You ain’t no Frieda.”
“Frieda’s at lunch. I’m fillin’ in. Can I help you?”
“I gots to see Charlie!”
“He’s in a meetin’. Now just be cool, take a seat, and—”
He put his hands palms-down on the desk. “I don’t give a fuck, I gots to see him now!”
Wanda stared up at his face. He had crazy brown eyes and his breath smelled like cheap malt liquor. It smelled like the same brand Pops used to drink before the car crash.
“I said watch your language. He’s in a meetin’, and he’ll be out by three. Now you just take a seat, and—”
“Kiss my ass, bitch, I gots to see him now!” And then he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a revolver.
For a second, Wanda froze. He was waving the gun around, and all she could see was Rondell last July, right before he got himself shot.
The man screamed and started toward the back. “Charlie! Get yo’ ass out here, motherfucker!”
As he stormed past the benches, people started screaming.
Shaking her head to clear it, Wanda grabbed the phone and dialed 9, waited seemingly forever for the dial to cycle back, then 1 twice.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“There some fool with a gun at Charlie Charles’s law office on Lenox and a hun’ sixteenth!” Wanda dropped the phone on the desk, still off the hook, and ran to the back.
Just as she got halfway through the benches, she stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of a gunshot.
Several people screamed, and three of the five people on the benches ran out the front door.
Wanda took a deep breath and kept going into Charlie’s office.
The crazy man was standing with his gun pointed right at Charlie. Charlie was on the other side of his big wooden desk, cowering against the back wall of his office, which had a gated window that looked out over the filthy alley behind the building where they put all the garbage. Charlie’s maroon shirt was stained with sweat, his pink tie loose, his checked pants losing the crease. His horn-rims were sliding down his nose. The glasses weren’t prescription, Charlie just wore them because they were the same type Malcolm X wore.
There were two white guys on the floor, wearing fancy threads. One was on his back with a big red stain on his chest, which was spreading all over the white shirt and vest of his suit, so Wanda figured he was the one the crazy man shot. The other was kneeling down next to him, looking almost as scared as Charlie.
Briefly, Wanda wondered what the hell two white guys were doing here. Charlie prided himself on being a friend to the brothers and sisters of Harlem, and these two didn’t belong.
Though that didn’t mean either of them deserved to get shot, either.
Charlie was saying, “Now Leroy, just be cool, brother, you don’t—”
“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up! I ain’t your brother, motherfucker!”
Cowering further, like he was trying to absorb himself into the back wall, Charlie said, “Easy now, baby, easy, just be cool!”
“I said shut the fuck up!”
Wanda said, “And I said watch your language.”
Leroy whirled around. “What the fuck, bitch?”
“Look, Leroy, I don’t know what you’re all riled up about, but—”
He pointed the gun at Charlie. “This lyin’ motherfucker done lied to me! I saw that ad on the tee vee! He said he’d get me a got-damn settlement! Well, I hired his lyin’ ass, and I ain’t got no got-damn settlement! I gots to pay and I ain’t got no got-damn money to pay!”
“Bad enough you’re cursin’, Leroy, but now takin’ the Lord’s name in vain? What’s wrong with you?”
“I done told you, this motherfucker lied to me!”
“‘Course he lied! Ain’t you been payin’ attention, Leroy? He a lawyer. That’s what lawyers do.”
“Bullshit! There’s, like, truth in advertising and all that jive. He done said he’d get me a settlement and I didn’t get no settlement!”
Wanda shook her head. “Brother man, please. You think there’s truth in advertising? That’s just another white man’s lie. Look, you ever been to Burger King? You ever seen a Whopper that look like what they show on the tee vee?”
Leroy frowned and actually had to think about it. “No, they all look like shit.”
“Exactly. None’a that stuff on the tee vee is real. You ever seen a pad in the projects that look as good as where they live on Good Times?”
That just made Leroy’s frown get bigger and his voice quieter. “No.”
“Right on. Now, you need to start usin’ your head. You just done shot a honky, and you know it’s bad news when a brother kills a honky. Now, this is Harlem, so the fuzz won’t be by for a while yet—”
Leroy’s voice got loud again. “You called the cops?”
Wanda put her hands on her hips. “Course I
called the cops, fool! There’s people in here, and you was scarin’ ‘em with that gun! What was I supposed to do? And then you went and shot that honky!”
“I—” Leroy put his hands to his head. “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t expect nobody but Charlie, he surprised me, and the gun—the gun just went off!”
“That’s good,” Charlie said. “Look, Leroy, when the cops get here, I’ll tell them—”
Leroy pointed the gun back at Charlie. “You ain’t tellin’ nothin’ to nobody, motherfucker!”
“Easy, Leroy, be cool!” Wanda cried. “Now listen, you don’t want no fuzz gettin’ hold’a you. You killed a honky, and they ain’t gonna stand for that. So you got to be goin’ now ‘fore they get here.”
“But what about this lyin’ motherfucker?”
“He’ll still be here. He been in this office for fifteen years, he ain’t gonna be leavin’ any time soon. Now beat it, ‘fore you get your fool behind arrested!”
Letting out a long breath, Leroy shook his head and looked at Wanda. “Yeah, okay. You pretty smart for a dumb bitch.” He looked back at Charlie. “This shit ain’t done, motherfucker. I’ll be back real soon, you dig?”
And then Leroy turned and ran through the office and out the door.
Wanda immediately ran after him, stopping at the desk to pick up the phone. All the potential customers in the waiting area were long gone.
The 911 operator was screaming into the receiver. “Hello?! Are you still—”
“Still here, sorry, had to deal with somethin’. The cat with the gun beat it, but there’s a man here who been shot.”
“We heard the shot and sent an ambulance as well as a patrol car. Ma’am, please do not leave the premises. You’re saying the man with the gun has left?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Wanda said. “His name’s Leroy—”
“The officers will take your report at the scene, ma’am. Would you like me to hold the line until they get here?”
“No, we’re cool. Thank you. Bye.” She hung up.
Charlie was stumbling out of his office through the door, nearly collapsing against the doorframe. “Wanda, baby, that was—”
She turned to face him. “The fuzz and an ambulance are on the way. The medics’ll take care’a that honky Leroy shot. Who are they, anyhow?”
“They’re two men from Gage Whitney. I had me a damn fine class-action suit that they was gonna settle for some serious bread, and that jive mother ruined it!”
A whiny voice came from the office. “Mr. Charles, Harold is bleeding quite profusely!”
Wanda shouted back, “There’s an ambulance on the way, honky, be cool!”
The man came out. Somehow, his suit hadn’t lost a single crease. “I will not ‘be cool,’ young woman, my colleague has been shot! And you let the perpetrator go!”
“Take it easy, Melvin,” Charlie said, “Wanda did the right thing. If the cops showed up while he was still wavin’ that piece around, it woulda got real ugly. Cops pullin’ their guns, maybe Leroy goes nuts and shoots more people—like you.”
Wanda wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Melvin actually got whiter when Charlie said that.
Jerking a thumb to the rolodex on Frieda’s desk, Wanda said, “‘Sides, he a client, which means we got his home address. We just tell the fuzz, and they pick him up at home, and don’t nobody get hurt. Or at least we don’t.”
Melvin shook his head. “I suppose that makes sense.”
Finally, Wanda started to hear sirens. “‘Bout damn time.”
The ambulance actually arrived first, and took Harold to Harlem Hospital. Melvin tried to argue with the paramedics to take him to St. Luke’s, but they would only go to Harlem. Wanda figured he’d be the only white patient in the place.
Once the police arrived, they talked to Charlie and to Wanda and to Melvin—and to Frieda, who came back from lunch to see red and blue flashing lights and yellow tape all over the office. Wanda gave Leroy’s address to one of the cops, who copied the info on the rolodex card to his notebook.
By the time the cops were done, it was almost five, and Charlie just went ahead and closed the office.
Wanda headed to the subway stop at the corner of 116th and Lenox. Normally she’d walk home to her apartment on 127th, but she was too beat to hike the eleven blocks. She dug around her purse until she felt a coin that had a “Y” cut out of the middle of it and pulled it out as she went slowly down the slush-covered metal stairs. She dropped the token into the slot and pushed the big orange wooden turnstile that rumbled as it let her in.
A 2 train showed up pretty soon, and she squeezed onto the graffiti-covered car once all the people coming up from downtown got off. She only had to go one stop, and she didn’t get a seat—it was rush hour, after all—but that was okay. It got her there faster.
She got out along with tons of other people one stop later at 125th and she went upstairs and two blocks up Lenox to 127th. The sun had set, and it was about twenty degrees colder, and Wanda could feel it in her bones.
New York in winter sucked. It was fine when it first started snowing, because nobody went out in it, and the snow was like this big white blanket over everything. It was the only time the city was ever pretty. But as soon as people went out in it, which was usually about an hour after the snow stopped, that was it. The snow got covered in gunk, and the city looked even nastier than usual.
Since Mama got back from the hospital after the car crash, they’d been living in the super’s place in the building. Mr. Olivares was nice enough to give up his ground-floor apartment for a smaller place on the first floor so Mama could bring the wheelchair in and out. It was still a pain in the ass, but they couldn’t get the thing up the stoop or up any stairs. At least the sidewalk entrance only had one small lip that even Mama’s lazy behind could get past.
Wanda shook her head. It wasn’t fair to call Mama lazy. She couldn’t walk, was stuck in that stupid wheelchair for the rest of her life. And that wasn’t her fault.
No, that blame was all Pops. He was up in Attica for murder, since he drove the car right into the crosswalk where that lady and her stroller were before hitting the truck. Three people died, including a two-year-old girl, Mama was crippled, and Pops was in jail for life.
Entering the apartment, she said, “I’m home!”
Mama wheeled in from the kitchen. “Not so loud, baby girl, Mom’s asleep.”
Wanda wasn’t surprised. Half the time when she got home from work, Grams was asleep, but she was early today, so she figured she might be up.
Which was too bad, because she really didn’t want to face Mama alone on this.
So she just stared at Mama for several seconds, until she finally looked up at Wanda from her wheelchair and said, “What you want, baby girl? Get yo’ behind in the kitchen and make us some dinner. I’m starvin’!”
“Mama, the diner closed.”
“What do you mean, closed?”
She tried to keep it simple, talking about how Mr. Smith didn’t pay his premiums, and then Mama interrupted. “You mean that turkey didn’t pay his insurance?”
“That’s right, Mama. And he closed. So I gotta try to find another job.”
“No, baby girl, you gotta succeed in finding another job. You ain’t tryin’ nothin’. Otherwise we ain’t eatin’ much.”
Grams’s social security barely paid the rent and utilities. Mama was supposed to be getting disability, but she’d been getting nonsense from the government about it, and she refused to follow up. Wanda had been real close to asking Charlie to help out, but he’d probably just dock his fee from her pay.
So she had to work both jobs.
Maybe she could talk Charlie into hiring her full-time.
The next morning, she went out to every restaurant and diner and bar in Harlem looking for HELP WANTED signs. She filled out a few applications, but mostly just got told to come back later when the manager was in or to come back tomorrow or some other nonsense.
&nb
sp; She used to get lunch at Smith’s—that was a perk of being a waitress there—but she couldn’t do that today and she didn’t want to spend the money to get food anywhere else. So she just skipped the meal and went straight to Charlie’s office.
Except when she got to Lenox and 116th, the office was closed, the gate down, the lights darkened.
For a few seconds, she just stood and stared at the closed office. According to Frieda, Charlie only ever closed the office during the daytime when he went on vacation back in ‘71. Otherwise, though, the office was always open. Even if Charlie was out somewhere—in court or talking to people for a case or something—Frieda was in the office, and when Frieda went on vacation or called in sick, he got a temp.
So why was the office closed now? It didn’t make sense.
She found a pay phone and put a dime in, then dialed Charlie’s home number. She had it for when he was working from home—or was sick—and had a question.
The line was busy.
The phone gave the dime back, and then she dialed Frieda’s home number.
“Hello?”
“Frieda, it’s Wanda. Why’s the office closed?”
“Oh, hey girl. Yeah, I don’t know what’s up. I been tryin’a call Charlie all day, but his line is busy. He ain’t answerin’ his phone, and I left messages with his service, but nothin’. Soon’s I hear, I’ll let you know, dig?”
“Thanks, Frieda.”
The next morning, after a bunch more attempts to find a waitressing job, she went home to eat some lunch.
When she got inside, Grams was in the kitchen, eating a sandwich. “Hello, dear. That nice girl from the law firm called earlier. She said to call her back.”
“Frieda?”
Grams nodded. “Yes, that’s the one. Sweet girl. Very polite on the phone. Not like most of you young people today.”
“Well, she the receptionist, so she talks on the phone to clients all’a time. I’ll call her back, thanks Grams.”
Limbus, Inc., Book III Page 16
