Last Call

by James Grippando

  "This used to be a joint called the Harlem Square Club," said Cy.

  Theo saw not a trace of the original building. All that remained was the nostalgia in the old man's eyes. "I've heard of it," said Theo.

  "Hearing of it ain't nothin' like hearin' it. I was sittin' at the bar in 1963 when Sam Cooke did a live recording. I seen 'em all – Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, B. B. King."

  "Pretty cool they could book acts like that."

  "Yeah, thanks to Glass Killens. A real charmer, famous for carrying around a mystery mug – contents unknown. And one smart promoter. Black entertainers played all the swanky hotels on Miami Beach, but they couldn't stay there. Whites only. So they popped across the causeway to find a room, and Glass would get 'em to play a late-night gig at places like the Harlem Square."

  Theo let him have all the time he wanted, but there was no escaping the fact that a community once filled with pride and music was now Miami's poorest neighborhood. More than half the residents lived in poverty, two-thirds of households were headed by unmarried women, and only one in ten dwellings was owner-occupied. Those cold statistics were borne out by the panhandlers on the streets, the abandoned stores and decrepit buildings marred by gang graffiti, and the virtual nonexistence of trees and green space. Cy's gaze drifted toward busy I-95 and I-395, which intersected in the heart of Overtown. Even at night, the pall of the elevated expressway was palpable. Ironically, the federal government had started construction of the interstate just as Congress was passing the Civil Rights Act – a fatal blow in a time of great hope.

  After a minute or two, Cy shook his head in silence, like a man turning away from the grave of an old friend. "Let's go," he said.

  They walked on. Theo's car was parked on the other side of the street, two blocks north.

  Theo said, "We're pretty close to where you used to live, ain't we?

  "Not too far. Just a tiny wooden shack on Northwest Twelfth Street." His eyes brightened with another twinkle of nostalgia. "Used to call them shotgun houses, because a bullet fired through the front door would shoot out the back without hittin' anything on the inside."

  "You seen many bullets fly?"

  "Mostly dope dealers shootin' each other. You got used to that kind of thing. But it was the riots in the early eighties that finally made me move out for good."

  A homeless man leveraged himself up from his bed of corrugated cardboard on the sidewalk. His lips were moving, but he was either too weak or too strung out to speak. As Theo and his uncle passed, Theo dug out a ten-dollar bill and deposited it into the dirty paper cup that held a few loose coins.

  "Now don't blow it all on food," said Theo. "Be sure to get yourself some liquor."

  The homeless man actually smiled.

  Theo and his uncle crossed the street. A low-ride sedan rolled past them, rap music blaring from a boom box so big that it filled the entire rear seat. The red metallic paint glistened beneath the street lamps, and a cryptic black-and-gold gang symbol stretched across the hood. The twenty-two-inch rims were chrome-plated with a triple cross-lacing spoke pattern. Three black youths were in the front seat. It reminded Theo of the old days – him, Tatum, and Isaac.

  "I lied to my best friend today," said Theo. Inna?

  "No. Jack. I told him I got no idea who would tap my phone line after Isaac busted outta prison."

  Cy did a double take. "You know who did it?"

  "No. But I do got an idea."

  The old man was about to ask who, and then he stopped.

  Theo didn't say it. He didn't have to.

  Cy said, "You ain't serious, are you?"

  "You tell me."

  His uncle stepped up onto the curb. "You think I bugged your phone line?"

  "I ain't makin' no accusations. Just throwin' it out there."

  "Well, throw it right in the trash."

  "Relax, okay? I never thought you was trying to hurt me. You found Isaac's prison clothes in the stockroom, and I thought maybe you wanted to make sure I wasn't stupid enough to help him."

  Cy winced, as if this were the dumbest conversation since the development of human language. "What makes you think I even know anything about phone taps?"

  "Jack's tech guy said it was basic equipment."

  "So you think an old man who is still recovering from a stroke climbed up on a ladder and spliced a phone line?"

  "It's as easy as stealing cable TV. For fifty bucks, you could hire half the people who walk into my bar to do it in ten minutes."

  His uncle stepped closer and looked Theo straight in the eye. He didn't look angry. He looked hurt. "I didn't tap my nephew's phone." He shook his head and walked away.

  Theo wanted to call out and stop him, but he was momentarily frozen. It was as if the weight of his own stupidity suddenly came down upon him, crushing his heart as completely as the interstate had crushed Overtown.

  "Cy, wait," he said, but he wasn't sure his voice could be heard.

  THAT SAME METALLIC red low-rider was cruising down the street again, the boom box blaring.

  Cy kept walking. He went right past Theo's car.

  Theo called louder. "Where you going?"

  He turned around. Now he did look angry. "I'm gettin' myself a cab."

  Theo drew a deep breath and let it out. He knew it wouldn't do any good to chase after him, but he wasn't about to let his uncle take a cab home. He watched, hoping the old man would decide on his own to turn around and come back. But he was a block away and showing no sign of slowing down.

  "Uncle Cy!" Theo shouted, but the boom box from the passing car was too loud. No way the old man could have heard him. Theo started after him, half walking, half jogging. He was about to call out his name again, but that damn box was blasting even louder.

  It was as if the low-rider was keeping pace with him.

  Theo stopped and wheeled toward the street. The passenger-side window was half-open, but from Theo's angle it was too dark to see inside the vehicle. "Hey, what the hell-"

  The crack of gunfire ended his sentence, and his dive for cover came way too late. He was suddenly down on the sidewalk, his head throbbing like he'd been hit with a sledgehammer. Theo tried to get up but couldn't. Something hot was running down his face and neck, but, strangely, the sidewalk beneath him was turning cold.

  "Nailed him!" the gunman shouted, and then Theo heard the low-rider burn rubber and speed away into the night.

  Uncle Cyrus, he tried to shout, but he couldn't find his voice.

  He wanted to wipe the blood from his eyes, but his hands wouldn't move. His vision was a blur, and he suddenly noticed the glow of a street lamp. The lighting, however, was no longer diffused. It was intensely bright in the middle, like a blazing star in the dead of night. Lasers of equally brilliant light shot out from the center at twelve and six o'clock, also at three and nine. Or was it north and south, east and west? There seemed to be a strange confluence of light, time, and direction.

  He heard his uncle shout his name, but it didn't sound real.

  Then came darkness.

  Chapter 18

  Jack took the call from Uncle Cy and picked up Trina on the way. Just after 9:00 p.m., they rushed to the emergency room at Jackson Memorial, a public hospital that was a mere hop over the interstate from Overtown and no stranger to gunshot victims. Cy was slumped in a chair in the crowded waiting room. Trina went directly to him and hugged him tightly for support. He was too emotionally drained to stand.

  "How's Theo?" said Jack, breathless.

  Trina wiped away a tear as she and Uncle Cy broke their embrace.

  "Don't know," the old man said. "They threw me outta the ER so they could work on him."

  "Did he regain consciousness?"

  "Uh-uh. Not that I saw"

  "How did he look when they brought him in?"

  Cy's expression was less than hopeful. "Like he been shot in the head. Just so much damn blood."

  Jack
's gaze swept the waiting room. It was a cross-section of lower-income Miami. An old Haitian woman hung her head into a big plastic bucket that reeked of vomit. A homeless man with no legs slept in the wheelchair beside her. A single mother comforted a crying baby as her four other children played leapfrog on the floor, shouting at one another in Spanish. A drug addict in withdrawal paced back and forth across the waiting room, talking to himself. This was the world of Medicaid and no health insurance. Anything less than a bullet to the head meant a nine-hour wait. Free treatment from some of the best doctors in the world was their consolation.

  The whiteboard behind the receptionist showed that Theo Knight was in treatment room number three. Jack approached the counter and snagged the attention of one of the busy nurses. "Any information on my friend in room three?"

  She didn't look up from her clipboard. It might have seemed rude, had she not been doing ten things at once. "What's his name?"

  Jack told her. She checked the board, grabbed an eraser, and removed his name – which gave Jack a moment of panic.

  "They took him into surgery," she said. "We'll let his uncle know as soon as we know anything."

  Jack went to the vending machine and bought three bottled waters. Trina remained at Uncle Cy's side, and she was holding his hand when Jack returned. Jack shared the waters and the latest news from the nurse. Through the glass entrance doors, he noticed a City of Miami squad car in the parking lot.

  "Did you talk to the police yet?" he asked Cy

  He nodded.

  "What did you tell them?" said Jack.

  "Not much. Didn't really see the shooter. Black guy is all I can say. Red ghetto car. Drive-by shooting, you know."

  Trina rose, clearly edgy. "I need to walk off some nerves," she said, then headed aimlessly toward the whiteboard, as if to confirm everything Jack had just learned from the nurse.

  Jack stayed with Uncle Cy. "So you see the shooting as random?"

  He shook his head. "Did at first. More I think about it, more it seems like somebody from the 'hood. Maybe even an old Grove Lord. Must've gotten wind that Isaac turned to Theo for help and Theo went to the cops. This is payback."

  "I could see how you might think that way," said Jack. He drank from his water bottle.

  "You say that like I'm missin' somethin'."

  Jack took a seat directly across from Cy, then slid forward to the edge of his chair. He lowered his voice to further convey how serious he was. "I agree that it wasn't random. But your payback theory doesn't make any sense."

  "Why not?"

  "If someone from the old 'hood was ticked off enough to punish Theo for not helping Isaac and for calling the cops, why didn't Isaac go to that person for help in the first place?"

  Cy nodded, as if he hadn't thought of that. "So it ain't payback?"

  Jack said, "I think it's bigger than that. Much bigger."

  A glimmer of life returned to the old man's eyes. "Talk to me."

  ANDIE HENNING WAS IN Suite 212 at Jackson Memorial Hospital, a private room for Sylvia Peters, the young waitress abducted by Isaac Reems.

  Andie had been waiting since Sunday morning to speak with her. Kidnapping was Andie's primary area of responsibility at the FBI's Miami field office. Also, it was possible that Reems had told his hostage something about the prison break, so talking to Sylvia was a key part of Andie's task force review of the escape. Sylvia's parents, however, had refused all requests for interviews until their daughter regained her strength and spoke to a counselor. With Reems dead and the criminal investigation in a postmortem posture, Andie hadn't pushed it. But upon hearing that Theo had been shot, Andie renewed her request with urgency. Sylvia agreed to talk.

  Andie stood at the bedrail facing Sylvia. IV fluids dripped into the patient's arm. Sylvia's parents sat in the chairs by the window, monitoring their daughter's words as closely as the bedside equipment monitored her heart rate. Andie took notes and listened to Sylvia's recount of the abduction, asking questions to fill in details. When Sylvia got to the shooting behind the restaurant, Andie slowed the discussion to the interrogator's equivalent of frame-by-frame analysis.

  "I blacked out somewhere during the car ride," said Sylvia. "It was ungodly hot in that trunk."

  "And you regained consciousness when?"

  "I have no idea how much time passed. All I know is that the car wasn't moving anymore. I remember hearing a loud thud. I think it was the sound of the trunk slamming shut."

  "So he had actually opened the trunk?"

  "I think so. I'm guessing that it was the fresh air that revived me."

  "What did you do?"

  "Nothing. I was afraid to make a noise. I knew the guy had a gun.

  "So you lay there in the dark?"

  "Yeah. I was still sort of out of it. It was hard to breathe in there. I just tried to listen."

  "Did you hear anything?"

  "Not at first."

  "Did you eventually hear something?"

  "Well, the gunshot, for sure. It was so loud."

  Andie said, "The car wasn't far from the scene of the shooting. And I'm sure the alley amplified the sound."

  "I knew it had to be nearby. That's when I lost it. This probably wasn't very smart, but I started screaming and kicking against the quarter panel."

  "Did you hear anything before the gunshot?"

  She nodded and drank from her cup of ice water. "I heard a man's voice."

  Do you know who it was?"

  It sounded like the man who abducted me."

  What did he say?"

  It was just one word. He shouted somebody's name, I think."

  "A name?" said Andie.

  "Not a common name. It was…heck, what was it, now? I remember thinking it was like one of the characters on the reruns of that old Bill Cosby show. The son."

  "Theo?" her mother volunteered.

  "Yeah," said Sylvia. "Theo."

  "Are you sure?" said Andie.

  "Positive. He yelled out the name Theo. And then I heard the gunshot. Is that helpful?"

  Andie closed her notepad. "It could be," she said. "Definitely could be."

  Chapter 19

  Jack, Uncle Cy, and Trina rose as Theo's surgeon entered the waiting room. For Jack, it was like trying to read the faces of jurors at the end of a trial, until the doctor removed his surgical mask.

  "Your nephew is one lucky man," he said, smiling.

  Cy nearly collapsed with relief, and Jack held him up by the arm. "Theo's going to be okay then?" said Jack.

  "Fine," said the doctor. "Head wounds always bleed like crazy. Fortunately, the bullet never actually penetrated the skull. Chipped off a small piece of it, but never penetrated."

  "So what's his prognosis?" asked Jack.

  "Excellent. Full recovery."

  "How quickly?" asked Trina.

  "We'll keep him here overnight for observation. He has a concussion and should take it easy for a couple of days. The wound needs to be covered for about a week to prevent infection."

  "That's it?" said Cy.

  "Some scarring. The bullet ripped a two-inch cornrow down his scalp. I used as many subcutaneous stitches as possible to minimize the railroad-track effect, but it won't be perfect. For most guys, that wouldn't be an issue. But your nephew wears his hair very short, so I can refer him to a plastic surgeon to help improve the looks of it."

  "Is he awake?" said Jack.

  "Should be coming around any minute. We used a mild anesthesia."

  "Can we see him?"

  "Sure. Normally it's one visitor at a time in recovery but at this hour you've practically got the place to yourself. Go for it."

  They thanked him and found Theo behind a beige privacy curtain in the recovery room. The bed was adjusted to put him in a seated position, and Theo was noisily sucking down the last few drops of a juice box. The right side of his head was covered with bandages, but otherwise he looked pretty good.

  Trina planted a kiss on his lips before he could say an
ything. She checked out the bandage as she pulled away. "Does it hurt?"

  "Not as much as a Prince Albert."

  She smiled. "How would you know, wimp?"

  Cy went around the bed and congratulated him on dodging another bullet – literally. Jack said, "How do you feel, big guy?"

  "Like I been drinking cheap tequila all night."

  Jack knew that feeling – thanks to Theo. "Police are downstairs," said Jack. "I'm sure they'll want to know if you got a good look at the shooter."

  "Not really. Maybe I'll remember more when my head stops throbbing." His gaze shifted to his uncle. "Did you see 'em?"

  "Uh-uh," said Cy" It's like I told the cops. Looked like a drive-by shooting to me. Random, you know? But Jack's got a different take. One that makes pretty good sense to me."

  "You know somethin' I don't?" said Theo.

  Jack went to the tray table and poured Theo some water. "It's just a matter of deduction. But you have to accept that Isaac was telling you the truth."

  "About what?"

  "That he knew who killed your mother."

  Theo drank his water. "Okay. Let's assume he had some source in prison and found out who killed her. So what?"

  "Then you have to assume that the killer didn't want Isaac telling anybody who killed her."

  "Logical," said Theo." So whoever killed my mother also killed Isaac."

  "I'm thinking yes."

  "And now he wants to kill me."

  "Right. Because he thinks Isaac told you who killed her."

  "Why would he think that?" said Theo.

  "Because he's the guy who tapped your telephone. He heard Isaac call and tell you that he'd give you that information if you helped him beat the manhunt."

  Theo grimaced, as if the chain of deduction were suddenly broken. "Some loser killed my momma over twenty years ago. How is that guy suddenly smart enough to tap my telephone right before Isaac calls and tells me he can name the killer?"

  Trina groaned, as if perturbed by the microanalysis. "Back up a second. You geniuses are missing the big picture here."