Fools Rush In

by Gwynne Forster

The voice that reached him was not one to which he was accustomed. Its softness stunned him. “We love each other, Duncan, and he’s…he treats me like…Well, I’m his princess. He’s…he’s wonderful. I’d even quit smoking if he asked me to.”

  “Leah, don’t do it for him; quit for yourself.” Now, what had she found to giggle about?

  “I just wanted you to know how serious it is. Who knows what I might agree to if he got on his knees in Town Square at high noon on the Fourth of July and—”

  “All right. I get the message. You haven’t changed, and you never will. Be certain you’re doing the right thing, sis. A few things can only happen once with one person. If he’s the one, and you’re sure of it, I say no more. But if he louses up, he’ll hear from me.”

  “How do you know so much?” she asked, her voice low with a touch of testiness.

  “I helped raise you, and we’ve always been close. Also, I’m a man, and I understand women. End of topic.”

  “Right. I’ll be at your place tonight.”

  He hung up and went back into the courtroom, but both lawyers were speaking with the judge, so he stepped out again and telephoned Justine.

  “Any news?”

  She told him about Mitch’s call and what she’d done. “Is that okay? I didn’t know what else to do. He was frantic.”

  If he could have gotten to her right then, he’d have kissed her silly. “More than okay, sweetheart. Be sure you put those bills on my desk. When he calls back, tell him to ring me at exactly eight o’clock. Leah will be over there tonight. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see.”

  He stared down at the phone in his hand. “Run that past me again. You had rather see—”

  Her laughter interrupted what was about to be a foolish question, but what the heck, he was feeling fragile where the woman was concerned. “You are getting clever.”

  “How so?” he asked her.

  That laughter, once so rare, thrilled him again. It was like bells tinkling in a warm breeze. “You didn’t finish that sentence and lay an egg.”

  “Men don’t lay eggs.”

  “I’m glad to know it. You coming back tonight?”

  How he longed to do just that. “I’m not sure, but if I can, bet on it.”

  He hung up and went to find some lunch. He settled on a small Chinese restaurant off Charles Street, pulled out a copy of The Maryland Journal, and prepared to eat alone.

  “Mind a little company?”

  Duncan looked up at the man, judged him, and slapped the breast pocket of his jacket. “And if I do, you are joining me anyway.”

  The coarse, craggy voice did not reassure him. “I’ll get down to business. Whatever they are paying you to rat on these landlords, I got more.”

  Duncan figured he must have given himself away before he spoke, because the man’s lips began a slow curve upward.

  “I work for The Maryland Journal. Period.”

  The man leaned forward, a menacing scowl taking over his face. “You wanna be sure you’re not making a mistake.”

  Duncan narrowed his eyes and tapped his fingers on the linen tablecloth. “I’m sure I’m not making one, but I don’t know about you.”

  “You ain’t smart, mister,” the man replied, and left the restaurant.

  “Take your order?”

  Duncan’s gaze fell on the first African American who’d waited on him in a Chinese restaurant. “This is a day for surprises,” he said.

  “My mother is Chinese. What can I get for you, brother?”

  Duncan gave his order. “Any idea who that man is who stopped at my table?”

  “No, sir.”

  Duncan finished his shrimp in garlic sauce, rice, and Chef Lu’s vegetable delight more quickly than he had planned and got out of there.

  Justine opened the door for Banks, and they enjoyed a warm exchange of embraces.

  “How’s Tonya?”

  So that was why she’d come in midweek when she had to work the following day. “Much better. Come on in. I’m glad you’re here.”

  Banks hung her coat in the foyer closet, dropped her overnight bag on the floor, and strolled into the living room. “How’s it going with you and my brother?”

  Justine had to laugh. “You believe in cutting to the chase, don’t you?”

  Banks’s right shoulder flexed lazily. “You could say that. Well?”

  “I don’t know, Banks. I really don’t.”

  “Then let me rephrase it. Has he found out that he’s in love with you?”

  “Not to my knowledge. He hasn’t said so.”

  Banks looked toward the ceiling as though to ask why she had to suffer the stupidity of foolish people.

  “I take it you, at least, have sense enough to let him know how you feel about him.”

  She would have laughed if she hadn’t begun to hurt. And she’d gotten tired of pretending, of living a charade every day of her life. “I love him, Banks, and he knows it.”

  Banks kicked up her heels, slapped her hands, and did a jig. “Hallelujah, one of ’em’s got sense.” She sobered and put both arms around Justine. “Mama wishes he’d met you years ago, but she’s glad he has you now. Me, too.”

  “He doesn’t have me, Banks.”

  She shrugged. “Mama says he does, and I hope she’s right. Straighten out whatever is between you, Justine, and do it soon. He’s crazy about you, but he’s tough enough to walk away from you.”

  “Your mother said that, too.”

  Her voice lost its buoyancy. “We know him, girlfriend.”

  “What’s with you and Wayne?” Justine said, deliberately changing the subject.

  She’d never seen eyes get so dreamy so fast. “We’re in love.”

  “Hmm. You’ve told him you love him?”

  Banks’s expression was that of a child caught robbing the piggy bank. “No. But Wayne’s a clever man. I’m sure he’s figured it out.”

  Justine decided to lean on her. “And Duncan isn’t that clever. Right?”

  Banks pulled air through her teeth as though disgusted. “Please! I’m wide open, but you, girlfriend, are tight as a clam.”

  Ignoring that jab, Justine asked her, “And you are certain Wayne loves you?”

  Her expression darkened. “I hope so, Justine. I’m going away with him this weekend. It’s a good thing for us. I know it is. And I told Duncan that it’s right for Wayne and me.”

  Justine didn’t try to control her gasp. “You told Duncan?”

  “Yeah. Why not? I told Wayne I intended to, and he didn’t object. Duncan asked me a lot of questions, talked things he was not supposed to know, and left it to me.”

  Justine thought about their conversation for a long time and wished she’d had a brother. When she answered the phone around seven o’clock, Mitch’s voice greeted her. He’d called to tell her that Rags was resting comfortably with a fractured left wrist and a concussion. She told him to call Duncan at eight o’clock that evening and to keep her posted.

  It was Thursday, and Hugh Pickford’s trial was to go to the jury Friday afternoon. Duncan had sat through every hour of it, heard all of the testimony, the truths and the lies. He paced the halls of the courthouse, wrestling with his conscience. Hugh Pickford had set his family and all their belongings out on the street in the coldest month of the year because of a meager four hundred dollars, and had indirectly caused his father’s death. He’d waited twenty-eight years for this moment, for the chance to get even, to laugh in the man’s face. But he knew that Buddy Kilgore and Lim Haskins had lied on the witness stand, because he’d been through the Housing Division’s records, had seen the two managers’ replies to their tenants’ complaints, and had interviewed people who lived in the building.

  The evidence before the jury would send Pickford to jail for a dozen years.

  Could he live with himself if he didn’t disclose what he knew? And what about Justine? She loved Hugh Pickford.

/>   He headed home Thursday night after having been in Baltimore since Tuesday morning. His blood rushed through his veins, almost making him dizzy, when he thought of Justine there. Justine, who’d said she loved him.

  When he neared Primrose Street, his heartbeat accelerated, and he slowed down, letting himself take control. He turned into Primrose and stopped. A stretched-out Lincoln stood across the street from his house. Remembering the threat he received, he backed up, went around the block, and entered Primrose from the opposite end. Another limousine stood between him and his house, blocking his way. He backed up, skirted the block and headed for Georgia Avenue, where he called the police from his cell phone. Three squad cars met him and escorted him home. The police blocked both ends of his street and, minutes later, he had the pleasure of seeing the police handcuff the man who had followed him into the Chinese restaurant in Baltimore and who had threatened and attempted to bribe him.

  Justine met him at the door. “Something weighing on you?” she asked, after his brief kiss.

  He forced a smile. “Am I so transparent? I have a tough decision about my work to make tonight,” he told her, “so I probably won’t be good company. But I’ll make it up to you.”

  Her smile warmed him the way the July sun always soothed his body when he lay supine on a sandy ocean beach.

  “No apology is needed. Mattie has the kitchen reeking with wonderful odors. Let us know when you’re ready to eat.”

  “Give me fifteen minutes.” If only she knew how refreshing she was; she gave him all the space he wanted.

  Throughout the night, he wrestled with his demon, hatred. Why should he go to Pickford’s defense? After three hours of sleep, he got up, dressed, pushed a note under Justine’s door, peeped in on Tonya, and headed for Baltimore.

  At a quarter to nine, he knocked on the judge’s chamber, and the bailiff let him in. He’d done it. Now if he could only forget how he’d felt that long-ago January day sufficiently to say what had to be said.

  The judge announced that he would appear as a friend of the court, and he took the stand. He began by telling of his family’s eviction from Hugh Pickford’s apartment building, and of his hatred for the man and his desire for vengeance that had endured almost three decades. “I hated him so passionately that, although I witnessed an accident for which many people still believe he was responsible, I refused to exonerate him, knowing he had nothing to do with it. I was seventeen.

  “But, Your Honor, I have in my hand proof that, at various times, Hugh Pickford instructed these two managers in writing to repair these buildings, and that they defrauded him of funds he supplied for the maintenance. My job for my paper was to get the goods on Baltimore’s slumlords, and I went after Hugh Pickford to get even. But in my view, if he’s guilty, your Honor, it is of failing to inspect his property.”

  He related Buddy Kilgore’s scheme to defraud the city schools, and the arrest of Lim Haskins’s associate for attempting to bribe him, threatening, and intimidating him.

  “Your Honor, this is the story that will appear in the weekend edition of The Maryland Journal under my byline.”

  He’d done it. He didn’t know whether his mother would be angry or proud, and he didn’t intend to worry about it. How Justine would take it was another question, but he wasn’t planning to sweat over that, either. The judge excused him after the prosecuting attorney declined to cross-examine him. Everyone in court knew that Duncan had destroyed the city’s case against Hugh Pickford.

  Chapter 13

  Justine opened the front door to pick up the morning paper and saw the red Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme parked across the street. She grabbed the paper, quickly stepped back inside, slammed the door shut, and leaned against it, her heart pounding. That discolored sedan belonged to the man who had confronted her in the post office several weeks earlier, and that same man sat in the driver’s seat.

  “Mattie, would you please come here and look at this car?”

  Mattie turned off the vacuum cleaner and peeped out. “You mean that red one? It’s been out there a lot the last few days. Why?”

  Justine explained where she’d seen it. “I think I’d better phone Duncan. If he comes to this door, don’t open it.”

  Mattie’s hands went to her hips. “Do I look like I lost my mind? That’s the same little old man come here axin for you. What he want with you anyway? He shore ain’t your type.”

  Justine explained about her column and her belief that the man was somehow connected to one of the women she’d counseled.

  Mattie’s eyes rounded and her upper lip skimmed over her front teeth to reveal a grin.

  “You go ’way from here. You mean I been spending my good money buying that Post just to read Aunt Mariah, when I coulda got it from you for nothin’? Well starch my apron.”

  Bells of alarm rang in Justine’s head. She wasn’t supposed to reveal that. “Mattie, you can’t tell anyone, not even Moe. It’s in my contract that I am not supposed to reveal it, and I wouldn’t have told you, if I hadn’t been upset about that fellow loitering out front. Please don’t mention it.”

  Mattie’s expression could only be described as a long, slow boil. “If you say don’t mention it, I don’t breathe it in my prayers. Telling me two times is exaggeratin’ it. I know how to keep secrets; I’m keeping one every single day.”

  Justine stared at Mattie, and goose bumps popped up on her arms when Mattie stared back at her without an expression on her face. Did she know?

  The butterflies in her belly settled down when Mattie suddenly smiled and said, “Well, I do declare. Aunt Mariah. I knowed you wasn’t any ordinary nanny. You too refined and classy.”

  Justine went to the living room window and looked across the street. The Oldsmobile was no longer there, but she’d phone Duncan anyway. His cell phone didn’t ring.

  “How did you think Tonya seemed this morning?” she asked Mattie.

  “A little bit pallid, but she ate good.”

  That comment didn’t placate Justine. It was unlike Tonya to be still. The child usually bounced, sang, and exploded with energy. She went to her computer to look up childhood ailments associated with lethargy, but the phone rang before she began.

  “Ms. Taylor, this is Assemblyman Taylor’s office calling. The assemblyman intends to transfer some rental property to you, and we need your signature on some papers that I’m faxing to you in a few minutes.”

  She nearly swallowed her tongue when she attempted to reply. Of all the shocks he could throw at her, she trusted this the least. Arnold Taylor was a tight-fisted man who gave nothing away unless he had to cover his tracks.

  “Why does he want to give me his rental property? Is he seriously ill?”

  “The Assemblyman is enjoying excellent health,” came the crisp reply. “May I please have your fax number?”

  She bristled at the woman’s audacity. “If you’ll give me the address and deed number of this property, I’ll take a look at it. Then, if I decide I want it, I’ll send you my fax number.”

  “Are you suggesting that you’re in a position to refuse two forty-unit buildings? Your father is being very generous with you, and he wants to sign the buildings over to you now.”

  If only she could tell him personally the words that roared through her head! “As his secretary, you are aware that he refuses to so much as give me the time of day. I’m not sure I want this kind of fatherly love. I’ll be in touch.” She hung up. What was he up to? She phoned the mayor’s office and asked for Leland, Kenneth’s fraternity brother.

  “What’s up, Justine?”

  She told him the story.

  “I can fax you the information sometime late this afternoon, pictures and all.”

  She gave him her fax number, thanked him, and hung up. Why would her father give her those two buildings? Conscience? Taxes? Enemies? Political liabilities? She’d think about it when she got the material from Leland. With the sack of mail Moe had collected at the post office, she had more th
an enough to keep her busy. Now, if the phone would stop ringing. She heard Al’s voice on her answering machine and lifted the receiver.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey. Big Al, here. I just got two extra passes to the Kennedy Center honors thing tomorrow night. I know it’s a little late, and I have to give one to Warren, so I wondered if you’d meet him and the two of you could maybe go together?”

  Justine had to laugh at the thinly veiled ruse. “Al, Warren should be able to handle his affairs without your help. Thank you, friend, but someone else has already invited me. Tell him I’ll see him at the reception.”

  Al’s whistle pained her ear. “You mean you’re going to the reception, too?”

  Her chest went out a few extra inches. “So I’m told.”

  “Way to go, babe. That’s what I call big time. Real big time. Your column’s doing great. Increasing the paper’s circulation, too.”

  “Really? Then what about a raise?”

  “Raise? All right. All right. See what I can do. Keep the faith.”

  “You, too.” She hung up, went to look in on Tonya, and found the child playing with her musical notes. She didn’t like it. Tonya was too quiet.

  She heard Duncan’s Buick turn into the garage. She’d seen little of him since Tuesday morning, and her heart raced as though he’d been gone for years.

  “I’m not going to pretend I’m not anxious to see him,” she told herself, and sped down the stairs to open the front door just as his finger hit the bell.

  “Now this is what I call a welcome,” he said, lifting her and twirling her around. “Where’s Tonya?”

  “Tonya’s upstairs playing in her playpen. Are you here for a while?”

  He took her hand and started toward the stairs. “I expect so. I have to get this story written by Thursday latest if it’s going in the next weekend edition.”

  He’d stopped midway up the stairs, and his voice carried a plea for understanding. “Then I thought maybe we’d take Tonya over to Frederick, leave her with my mother and Leah, and the two of us could go away somewhere and figure out what to do with our lives. Maybe we won’t do anything, but who knows? We may find the way. In the meantime, let’s just be good friends and not louse up what we already have. We could continue as we are, but without an understanding, we won’t get much further.”