Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time

by M. P. Wright

  I’d decided to walk the short distance from my place to the Speed Bird club on Grosvenor Street. The night air was cold and a sharp frost had begun to set in; the pavements were starting to freeze over again, making walking on them difficult, other than at a snail’s pace. As I cautiously stepped out onto the harsh hoar surface I thought to myself that no matter how long I’d be living in this godforsaken country I would never get used to the bone-chilling winters or get the hang of keeping upright on an iced-up sidewalk.

  By the time I reached the Speed Bird it was after nine and I wasn’t surprised to see that the place was quiet. The club did its major business at weekends, when the regular punters happily spent their meagre wages Friday through to Sunday evening. Good times were to be had by those wanting to imbibe in the heavy alcohol of over-proofed rums. This was when the place would be packed to the rafters and throbbed with the sound of soul music while the basement club would be filled with the heady, herbal fragrance of ganja. Over the years the penetrative hemp aroma had seeped into every nook and cranny of the cellar room and its intoxicating effects would’ve comforted many from the painful homesickness they would feel after leaving the sunny Caribbean islands on the promise of an even better life to go to in the land of a falsely welcoming empire. No more than a handful of drinkers, all black dudes, were in tonight; most were sitting quietly hunched over their half-filled glasses as Don Covay and the Goodtimers’ “Mercy, Mercy” played at low volume.

  All but one of the booths were empty: a heavyset Jamaican I didn’t recognise sat in one of the far-end cubicles on the back wall with a slight, mousy-looking white girl who looked scared to death at the thought of being in the joint and I guessed was only there in the first place because she knew there was nowhere else they could to outside of St Pauls without causing trouble for themselves. Openly dating a black guy meant a woman risked being subjected to the kind of vicious scorn my people had put up with for centuries. I was of the opinion that if any woman was prepared to take that kind of crap on a day-to-day basis then she was to be respected; it was a damn shame that the girl looked so ill at ease in a place that welcomed both the courage of her convictions and the money in her purse. I casually smiled at her as I walked to the bar and as I did I got the disgruntled attention of her big suitor. I offered him a friendly “How you doin’?” to placate his irritated demeanour and he returned my greeting with a fiercely dark look of pent-up aggression that I ignored.

  I stood patiently at the bar and waited for the barmaid to look up, as she was lost in a world of her own, filing her crimson-painted nails with steady, rhythmical strokes. She was well into her sixties, white peroxide-haired and wearing a cheap purple satin low-cut dress. I stared at her and finally had to tap the bar real hard with my knuckles to get her attention. Not at all pleased at being interrupted from beautifying her talons, she looked up from her chair with a powdered face like thunder, but when I flashed a grateful smile her sour appearance quickly altered. When she spoke it came as a surprise to find her tone less aggressive than I’d expected it to be. The warmth of her Bristolian accent instantly put me at ease as I took a seat across from her, folding my arms on the bar, maintaining a cheerful beam on my face when I flashed her a grateful smile that I traditionally broke out for mean-tempered women who were about to reluctantly serve me a drink.

  “Sorry, lovely . . . Now, what’ll you be havin’?”

  She put down the nail file next to a half-finished mug of tea and returned my smile, showing off a double row of badly kept teeth. A single gold tooth caught the beam of one of the club’s dimly flickering lights; it glinted back at me from the left-hand side of her lower gum and she reminded me of an aging, bleached pirate. I kept a fixed grin and tried not to let my dislike for the gilded crown show on my face.

  “Pint o’ stout and a couple of fingers of Mount Gay rum in one of those pretty crystal glasses Hurps keeps hidden way under this old bar of his. Where’s your boss tonight?”

  “He’s outta my way, thankfully, and a bleedin’ good job too. The times he is down here he’s making a nuisance of himself. If he ain’t got his hand up my skirt he’s in the till raking the takings out to put on the next bloody horse race that takes his fancy. He’d be a rich man if he spent the same amount of time grafting behind this bar rather than trying to get his mucky paws inside my knickers or betting on the next losing nag out of the stalls . . . Know what I mean?”

  She winked at me, and I shuddered at the thought of the kind of antics that she’d just described between the over-amorous club owner and the scary-looking sexagenarian pint-puller. I paid for the rum and stout chaser and retreated over to one of the booths, took off the heavy duffle coat and sat down with my back against the wall so that I could keep an eye out for Vic.

  An hour and another pint and double measure of rum later, my cousin finally sauntered through the door and greeted me from across the room with an embarrassingly mighty holler, which nearly knocked the blonde-tinted pirate from behind the bar off her perch and made the few remaining customers jump with fright. Vic was dressed all in black: a polo-neck sweater, kid leather flared pants and his matching knee-length leather coat. He made his way to the bar, engaging the lady with the gilded gums with his flirtatious banter while he waited for his drinks. I watched as he paid up, then caressed his fingers with his lips and blew a kiss, which he guided towards the old barmaid with his massive hand. He casually strolled over towards me chuckling to himself as he held the two pints steadily between his huge stubby fingers. Hauling his big frame into the seat opposite me, he placed the two jug-handled glasses of darkened ale on the table, then reached into the side pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out his silver hip flask. Unscrewing the tiny cap in a couple of twists, he then poured a large measure of rum into my empty crystal tumbler before taking a hefty swig of his favourite tipple. I watched as he carefully screwed the top back and then returned it to the deep pocket of his coat. When he finally spoke, his voice was filled with the sense of mischievous fun and joy that I remembered with such fondness from our childhood.

  “Shit, JT, did you see that? Where the hell did Hurps git that ugly old fucker behind the bar from? She’s got a face on her like a pig pissing, damn near turned that beer sour as she pulled it up the pipes.”

  He made a squirming face of disgust before taking a long draught of his pint, then laughed again to himself no sooner than he’d gulped it down.

  “Hey . . . Now I gotta say, you is looking real sharp tonight, real sharp. I was starting to think you was considering a life as a hobo from the shit you been wearing on your back lately.”

  He put both hands flat out onto the table and pushed himself up, peering down in the low light of the club to get a better look at me, nodding to himself in approval at my new clothes. His cheery outlook was brutally halted when he caught sight of the tired old military-style overcoat nestled beside me on the seat.

  “What the fuck you doin’, man, bringing that tatty rag windcheater out with you? Didn’t I tell you to lose that piece a shit? Makes you look like an outta-work Paul Robeson . . . There ain’t no way I’m being seen anywhere with you if you thinking of putting that shagged-out pelt on your back again, no way!”

  “It keeps the cold out and I don’t see no point in t’rowing away a good jacket like that when it’s still got some life in it.”

  I watched as my vexed cousin struggled to comprehend what I was saying, trying not to laugh as he seethed silently to himself at my apparent lack of fashion sense.

  “Oh, it’s got some life in it all right . . . enough to let the damn ting crawl off o’ that seat on its own with all the nasty shit that’s probably nesting in it.”

  Vic grimaced at the thought of what he’d just said and sat back in disgust, staring at me. I cheekily winked across to him as I took a sip of my pint and watched as his eyes widened with the realisation that I’d been pulling his leg. He looked down at the table, slowly shaking his head from side to side, laughing quietly to h
imself, relieved that I’d been having him on. When he finally looked up and spoke, his face had hardened and his voice had a matter-of-fact, determined edge to it.

  “C’mon . . . I wanna know, let’s hear what’s been going down since I last seen you.”

  I took a mouthful of beer and began to recount to Vic how I had been sent the sliced-off ears belonging to Clarence Mayfield and the chicken’s foot, and how I’d disposed of them earlier.

  “It looks like you’re making some real nasty friends in real low places, brother. Whoever it is that cut Clarence up wants you off their case and they’ve sent you a pretty straightforward message to back off. I suppose I’d be wasting my breath if I told you that you should back down on this shit.”

  “Would you?” I asked, hoping to get the further benefit of my relation’s streetwise wisdom. I then regretted asking such a dumb question to somebody like Vic, who didn’t know the meaning of the term “back down”.

  “Hell no! I’d find whatever gutter-crawling bastard had sent those ears to me an’ I’d be stuffing them down their t’roats and the chicken’s foot up their ass.”

  I chose to ignore Vic’s advice and concentrated on telling him what I’d found out over the last few days: how I’d followed up the leads Hoo Shoo Dupree had given to me, my meeting with Virginia Landry, the visit I’d received earlier that afternoon from Earl Linney, and my unsubstantiated belief that he and the barrister Terrence Blanchard were linked in some way. Vic listened patiently, not making eye contact with me while I spoke, weighing up in his head what I was saying and considering the implications of my words.

  When I’d finished, he waited for a short while, mulling over the facts of my report to him before asking me a question.

  “So tell me, this Landry chick . . . she a stunner?”

  He pumped his eyebrows up and down a couple of times in quick succession while drumming the edge of the table with the flats of his hands.

  “C’mon, cough it up, I needs to know if she’s hot, brother!”

  “Jesus, Vic! Can’t you think of anyting else? All that stuff I just laid on you and all you can think of is whether the damn woman’s hot or not. She was a decent lady, fine-looking, that’s all I gotta say.”

  I picked up my glass and sank the rest of my stout, and dropped the empty pot back onto the table, unable to hide my frustration at my cousin’s glibness.

  “Fine-looking lady, is that so?”

  I felt Vic staring across at me while an invisible flush of warmth hit my cheeks as I reluctantly recollected Virginia Landry’s waiflike beauty, and he mischievously ribbed me some more.

  “Man, I git the feelin’ this fine-looking lady floats your boat; tell me I ain’t wrong? And befo’ you git on your high horse, brother, that’s cool, cos it’s ’bout time you got your hands on a piece o’ tasty skirt, put some life back into . . .”

  Vic stopped himself mid sentence and I looked out across the empty dance floor and shuffled uncomfortably in my seat as the heated embarrassment leaked out of me. He realised he’d touched a raw nerve as soon as he’d made his flippant remarks and leant over towards me, placing his hand on my arm gently as I continued to gaze out into the uneasy emptiness of the night club. When he spoke and broke into my silent state it was with a surprising tenderness that I did not expect or honestly believe him to be capable of.

  “JT, I wish I could take the hurt away, brother, I surely do. You know I gotta real big mouth sometimes and I don’t know when to keep it zipped. I never meant to mess with your grief.”

  His head dropped and we both sat silently for a moment. I turned back to Vic and watched as he slowly rose from his seat and carefully collected the empty glasses from the table. There was an unmasked sadness in his eyes as he nodded an unspoken apology towards me. He walked over to the bar, shaking his head from side to side, and I knew that he was privately punishing himself for his ill-chosen quips. He strode across the floor unable to hide his anger at himself, his huge shoulders hung down low like a dejected prizefighter who was reluctantly leaving the ring after losing on points in the twelfth. When he returned a few minutes later with our glasses refilled, his mood had lightened and it was as if the brief, awkward conversation that had just taken place between us had never happened and that the ghosts from my past that he had accidently awoken within me had been exorcised from his memory so as not to cause me further injury. He put the pint of stout in front of me with one hand, then jovially slapped my shoulder hard, his huge hand knocking me forward in my seat. If there had been any bad blood between us, then the simple gesture of offering me another drink and a swift manly clout across my upper body was how he expected what had passed between us to be forgotten. It was a simple and effective act of contrition that I could not deny him.

  When Vic finally spoke again, he chose to return to the subject of Earl Linney.

  “Why’d you think that two-faced Jamaican Linney got you involved in this mess in the first place? He came outta nowhere and he’s been slinging greenbacks at you like he’s got a fuckin’ printing press in his back yard ever since. Just think on about the kinda weird shit he’s been laying on you these past few weeks; it reeks o’ trouble, man. I’m telling you, I wouldn’t trust the bastard as far as I could t’row him. Hell, every word that spills outta that old nigger’s mouth sounds like one big pack o’ lies. If you ask me, he’s gonna let you take the fall fo’ someting he’s most probably up to his thick neck in.”

  Vic didn’t give me a chance to reply or interject an opinion. He was on a roll and intended to stay on it.

  “Another ting, there’s this honky lawyer you found living out in that big joint in the country. Linney tells you he barely knows him, yet you say he nearly messed his britches when you mentioned his name. You tell him there’s been a sighting of the damn mute he’s paying you to find and that this Blanchard dude is having scrubbed-up cock-rats run down to his place by what has to be bent law, just so that he and his loaded brethren can stick their dicks into a little piece of forbidden ebony cooch. The fact he still wants you to go it alone and not come clean with what you know to the local police is another crock o’ shit . . . Brother, that bird, he don’t fly straight, I’m telling you fo’ sure.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Vic, maybe Linney is involved in Stella’s disappearance, maybe he is setting me up as a patsy or perhaps what he’s been telling me all along has been the trute. All I know is that I have to do what I think is right and try to find out what the hell has happened to her.”

  Vic was about to interrupt me, but I lifted my hand to prevent him from butting in and continued speaking.

  “If I find that the alderman is dirty in all o’ this then I’m gonna make damn sure that he spends some time behind bars. I can’t explain it any better, but I’ve come this far and I need see it through to the end – you gotta see that?”

  “JT, I told you befo’, you ain’t a copper no more. Git real on this. You’ve been up against bent law and men with money and power once befo’: that ended real bad fo’ you. Don’t you be repeating the same shit twice, man, it ain’t worth it, only person that’s gonna git hurt in all this is you.”

  Vic blew out a heavy breath of air, knowing that his words were falling upon deaf ears. He rested back against the red vinyl-covered seat and stared back at me, his frustration evident upon his chiselled features. I finished the rest of my beer, stuck my hand into the inside pocket of my jacket, pulled out the money that Earl Linney had given me earlier and slid it across the table towards Vic, who whistled quietly to himself at the bundle of notes that sat in front of him.

  “Stash that with my other stuff.”

  “No problem . . .”

  He picked up the cash, folded it in half again and got up outta his seat, putting the wad of notes into his coat pocket as he took himself out of the booth.

  “Now, you sure you don’t wanna keep a bit of this back, git some style in the rain mac department? You can sling that other old rag out fo’ the bin man.�
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  He grinned at me as he turned up the collar of his own flash coat and walked out of the club without looking back, seemingly without a care in the world. But in truth I had unsettled him with my bravado talk of taking on another man’s problems and possibly going toe to toe with a faceless enemy that I knew so little about and who was clearly capable of doing me great harm.

  29

  After Vic had left I bought myself another pint and sat thinking about his advice and mulling over his words of caution and whether he was in fact right about how I should throw in the towel and get the hell out of Earl Linney’s spiral of chaos as quick as I could. What Vic had said made a lot of sense, but I’d rarely taken the counsel of others, well meaning or not, and my cousin’s advice to quit while I could had failed to make the impact he’d hoped it would. Something inside of me told me that I needed to see the job through to the end and find out the truth regarding Stella Hopkins’ disappearance.

  Sitting slumped in the booth, I felt my eyes struggle to stay open as the need for sleep overwhelmed my thoughts. I jerked my body into an upright position along with my sluggish consciousness and swirled the last dregs of my beer around the bottom of the glass before tipping it towards my lips and downing the remainder in a final draught, then sat the empty glass in front of me as a veil of fatigue washed over my weary body. My watch said that it was just after midnight. I grabbed my coat and pulled it on, then made my way upstairs out into the dark, bitter chill of the early hours.

  I stood and briefly looked up and down the still quietness of Grosvenor Road, taking note of the solitary but familiar car parked further up on the opposite side of the street. The blue neon sign of the Speed Bird club buzzed and flickered above me as I slowly did up the buttons of the dog-eared duffle and drew my trilby across my face before starting off back towards my digs, fully aware that from the silver Ford the unmistakable faces of Elrod “Hurps” Haddon and the crew-cut cop who had attacked me with the slapjack were watching me disappear into the night.