“You’ll get rid of Clyde?”
It startled me to her speak Voss’s first name. “I already have,” I said. That was the best I could do, the only admission I would ever make. “He’s not going after anyone ever again.”
“Guaranteed?” she said.
“Guaranteed,” I said.
“How do I know?”
I almost asked, Have I ever lied to you? But I had. I lied to her every day. She called me Uncle Bill, for God’s sake, when we weren’t related at all.
“You know because I can’t tell you any more than what I just said. If I do, then people can ask you questions and you might have knowledge that could get you in trouble.”
She frowned, winced, and swallowed hard. “What does that mean?”
“Think about it, Lace. I don’t want you to get into trouble because you know something for an absolute fact.”
She frowned and didn’t wince this time. “You’re still talking about Clyde?”
“I am,” I said. “He won’t bother you again. That’s all you know. That’s all you can know. Okay?”
Her gaze tracked around the room, stopping first on the dog, then on the window, then back at me.
“Jimmy says you do secret stuff to keep people safe,” she said. “Is this what he means?”
Damn that kid. Even that was too much to tell people.
“That’s what he means,” I said.
She relaxed suddenly. Then she pulled the dog close. “I’m gonna sleep now, I think,” she said.
“I’ll send your mom back,” I said.
“No hurry,” she said, and closed her eyes.
I wanted to tuck the blanket around her. I wanted to kiss the bruised forehead. I wanted to hug her so tight that I would never let her go.
Instead, I stood, and quietly made my way to the door.
“Uncle Bill?” she said.
I glanced over my shoulder. Her good eye was open.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” I said, and let myself out.
TWENTY-THREE
I FOUND ALTHEA in the cafeteria. At this time of day, the cafeteria was mostly empty, although the odors of gelatinous gravy and burned coffee hung over everything. A fat middle-aged man sat in the corner, his face in his hands. From his posture, he might have been crying. A white woman sat on the other side of the room, absently stirring a cup of coffee, a piece of chocolate cake untouched before her.
Althea clutched her own cup of coffee. A pile of newspapers spread across the table. She had pushed aside an orange tray. It was covered with empty plates. Apparently she hadn’t had lunch until now.
I slipped into the chair across from her. “Okay,” I said. “How is Lacey really?”
Althea’s eyes lined with tears. She wiped at them angrily. “When I was sixteen, a white boy grabbed me on the beach, hit me against some rocks, and then I couldn’t fight back. I didn’t smile for a year, maybe more, and all I did was read. When Franklin met me, he thought I was so quiet, but before that, I was never quiet. I laughed all the time and was loud, and—dammit, Smokey. Damn.”
I folded my hands. I wasn’t surprised, although I wanted to be. It seemed like so many women I knew had a story like this one. The stories made me feel helpless.
She wiped at her eyes again. She wasn’t looking at me.
I couldn’t quite imagine a different Althea. The person she described sounded like Norene. Her youngest daughter wasn’t an anomaly. She was a miniature version of her mother.
That thought made my heart literally ache.
“How is Lacey?” Althea grabbed a napkin and bent it over her forefinger. “How is Lacey? How do you think she is? Does she look the same to you?”
“No,” I said.
Althea used the napkin to dab her eyes. “She’s not. She never will be.”
“At least you understand.” The words hadn’t sounded patronizing when I thought them. When I spoke them, they did. I wanted to take them back.
But Althea didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, Franklin doesn’t understand,” she said, “and I’m trying to keep him from doing too much damage.”
The damage had been done by Voss. But I didn’t say that. I knew what Althea meant.
“Does Franklin know about you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “And you’re not going to tell him either.”
Other people’s secrets. I was always keeping them. Sometimes it was hard to keep track of who knew what.
“Let me ask my question differently,” I said softly. “Has the doctor said anything new since yesterday?”
“She’s going to be able to have children,” she said. “That much he’s sure of. But, God, Smokey, what if she’s pregnant now?”
“We’ll deal with it,” I said. “Whatever she chooses.”
“God.” She slapped her hand on the table. The dishes rattled and the white woman looked at her. The fat man didn’t seem to notice. “God.”
I wasn’t sure if I should respond.
“I’m sending my kids back there,” she said. “Every day, I’m sending them back there.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m not happy about it either.”
She picked up a section of the newspaper in front of her and shook it at me. “This morning’s Chicago Tribune says that eighteen thousand kids are taking an exam to get into the Catholic schools on Saturday. Eighteen thousand. I’ll bet those are all white kids. And those kids, their parents can pay tuition. Or maybe they can’t pay, and they’ll get a scholarship that no one’ll give to black kids.”
“You don’t want Lacey to go to a Catholic school right now,” I said.
“That’s not my point.” Her voice had gone up even farther. The white woman leaned back in her chair. The fat man bowed his head, resting it on his arms.
“Where’s Lacey going to go, Smokey? She’s thirteen. She needs school, and I can’t send her back there. I can’t. I can barely send the other kids there, and even that…”
She let her voice trail off. She shook her head, then wiped her forehead with her right hand. Then she tossed the newspaper on top of the others.
“I’ve talked with Laura. She’ll help,” I said.
“Charity.” Althea hissed out the word. “I have to take someone’s charity because I can’t provide for my kids. Who are going to live the same damn life I did. It won’t get any better.”
I had no idea what to tell her. My thoughts had gone along the same lines all day.
“I’m going to shut that hotel down,” I said.
She crumpled the napkin into a ball. “And then what? Another will crop up in its place. And another. Plus we have the gangs now and the drug dealers and all that stuff on television telling the kids to tune out or drop in or whatever they say.”
She set the napkin delicately on one of the plates. Her hand was shaking. “I’m so scared for her, Smokey.”
“She’s not going to go through this alone,” I said. “She has you. She has Marvella, if you’ll let her help. And I’ll do what I can. I’m not good with the comforting part. But I can take care of the people who hurt her.”
“People,” Althea said. “You mean there was more than one?”
“He worked for someone else, Althea. It was an operation. I’m finding out who ran it. I told you this morning. I’ve already dealt with him.”
She clutched at my hands. Her fingers dug into mine. “If you need me to do something, you just tell me. I can fire a gun.”
I put one hand over hers. The last thing I wanted was an angry, bitter Althea beside me with a gun.
“You take care of your daughter,” I said. “You don’t think of anything else.”
“I mean it,” she said. “If those people need to be removed—”
“You’ll take care of your daughter,” I said. Althea wasn’t exactly rational about this. She was seeing the crime through the prism of her own attack, which she clearly kept secret. “You’ll trust me to do
what I need to do.”
“You’ll tell me what happened, right? So I know?”
I ran my hand over hers, trying to calm her as best as I could. She wouldn’t like what I was about to say.
“I’ll tell you when I’m finished,” I said. “That’s all. You have a family. You have people who need you. We can’t risk you.”
“Jimmy needs you,” she said.
He did. And I would be careful. “You’ll be there if I’m not, right?”
I was gambling on a non-relative to take care of him. Either the Grimshaws or Laura. I didn’t like that feeling anymore.
This crisis had gotten to all of us.
“Of course I will,” Althea said. “Jimmy’s like our own now.”
“Good,” I said.
“You’re not going to let anything happen to you, are you, Smokey?”
What could I promise? That I would try? That I wouldn’t do what she had just asked me to do? That I would ignore the hotel and the people who ran it?
“I’ll be careful,” I promised.
I just wasn’t certain careful would be enough.
TWENTY-FOUR
I PICKED UP THE KIDS from the after-school program and took them to the Grimshaw house. Franklin wasn’t home yet. I wasn’t sure if I was upset or relieved about that. I knew I had to talk with him, too; I just wasn’t sure what to say.
Before I took Jimmy home, I made sure Jonathan would take care of his siblings and not go off on some teenage adventure. He was offended that I asked if he would watch them, but he promised me he would.
That was good enough for me. They were home, they were safe, and their parents would be back shortly.
I needed to take Jimmy home, and I needed to spend the evening with him. I couldn’t do much more on the hotel right now. I wanted to wait until I heard from Laura. If she could buy the hotel and bulldoze it, that would solve one problem.
It wouldn’t solve all of them.
Jimmy had moved to the front seat after I dropped off the Grimshaw children. He knew that I hated driving when he sat in the back, as if I were his chauffer. Usually we played a half-hearted game in which I had to coax him up front, but not on this day.
On this day, he sat quietly, hands folded in his lap, watching as we drove down the dark streets.
“You seen Lace?” he asked when we were nearly home.
“I did,” I said. “She’s better.”
“Good,” he said. “She coming home?”
“Soon,” I said.
“Kids is already saying stupid stuff, like they knowed she was gonna get in trouble.” Jimmy wasn’t looking at me.
“They knew what happened?” I asked.
He shrugged. “They know some. They know me and Keith got her outta there. I think someone seen something, but I don’t know who.”
I turned the van onto our street. “Was this because Franklin talked to the principal?”
If so, Decker and I would have another conversation, one that wasn’t so civil.
“Naw. They knowed right from the start. Uncle Franklin was in the office when kids were saying stuff. Keith wanted to punch people, but I told him that wasn’t the way to do nothing. We use violence only when we gotta, right, Smoke?”
“Right,” I said, not liking the “we” or the desire to fight or any of this.
I had to park half a block away. It took a little while to find a parking spot that didn’t have a pile of snow from the last plow running down the side.
We got out. Jimmy was carrying a pile of books, and I put my hand on his shoulder as we walked on the unshoveled sidewalk toward the apartment complex.
Once we stepped inside, my eyes started to water. The smell of vinegar and spices and something that smelled vaguely like dirty socks filled the hallway.
“Oh, phew,” Jimmy said, stuffing one mitten against his nose. “What’s that?”
“Someone’s cooking something,” I said, although it wasn’t something that we usually smelled in this building. If we smelled anything unusual, it was the African meals that Marvella tried when she thought she could impress a boyfriend or a visitor. Those usually smelled of boiled meat, which was also not one of my favorites.
“That don’t smell like food,” Jimmy said. “Yew.”
He ran up the stairs. I walked behind him.
“It’s worse up here,” he said as he waited for me to unlock the door.
I had my keys out when the door opened. The waft of stink grew. It came from my apartment.
Marvella peered out. “Sorry,” she said. “I figured it was easier to let him in.”
Jimmy gave me a baleful look. I reached the top of the stairs.
Marvella was barefoot. She wore a thick caftan that might have been a robe. I couldn’t quite tell. A multicolored scarf kept her hair off her face.
“That them?” A voice boomed from inside. Jack Sinkovich.
Jimmy gave me a look that quite clearly said, I can’t believe you invited him!
I spread my hands and shrugged, conveying as clearly as I could that I hadn’t invited him at all.
“Ask Grimshaw what’s his poison,” Sinkovich said. “And close the door. We don’t want to gas out the neighbors.”
“Too late,” Jimmy said as he stepped inside. “What’s that smell?”
I walked in as well. My eyes watered, but my stomach growled. Apparently something in that stench appealed to my taste buds.
Sinkovich stood near my stove, holding a wooden spoon. He was no longer wearing his dress uniform. He had on a pair of Levi’s and a thick green and gold sweater that someone had crocheted for him long enough ago that it had rips in the elbows. He wore a white shirt underneath it.
“That smell,” he said, “is kluskyzeekeyvasnakapoosta à la Sinkovich.”
At least, that was what I thought he said. I pushed the door closed.
“What?” Jimmy asked.
“K-l-u-s-k-i-z-k-w-a—”
“I think he heard you,” I said as I took off my parka. “I just don’t think he understood you.”
“As if you did,” Marvella said under her breath.
“It’s an old family recipe,” Sinkovich said. “A favorite of mine. My mom taught me to make it when I was Jim’s age. We don’t do it as a side dish. We add some Polish, and then we serve it like a casserole. Comfort food. You’ll like it.”
I doubted it.
“Some Polish?” Jimmy asked.
Sinkovich rolled his eyes at me. “How long’s this kid been in Chicago and he don’t know from Polish?”
“Polish sausage,” Marvella said, this time loud enough for everyone to hear.
Jimmy turned toward me, tugged off his coat, and said, “We got leftover pizza. I want that.”
I wanted that too. “Don’t be rude. Jack cooked for us. You should say thank you.”
“Yeah, but it smells like feet,” Jimmy whispered.
It took all of my self-control to suppress a smile.
Marvella didn’t even try. Her eyes twinkled as she looked at me. “I found Jack sitting on the steps just outside our apartments, with two grocery bags. I let him in. He promised dinner, and I figured with the past two days, that was a good idea.”
“I know you guys ain’t never ate home-cooked Polish food,” Sinkovich said. “Give it a shot. You don’t like, you can have your pizza.”
“Don’t promise him that,” I said as I walked into the kitchen. I grabbed a Coke out of the fridge. “He won’t even try it if you say that.”
“Oh, you gotta try,” Sinkovich said to Jimmy. “I got a kid. I know the tricks. You gotta have at least six mouthfuls that you swallow before you say you don’t like.”
“Great,” Jimmy said without enthusiasm. “Can I have a Coke too?”
“No,” I said. “Milk with dinner.”
“Goes better anyway,” Sinkovich said. The stove’s timer buzzed behind him. He opened the oven door, and a waft of scent reached me. Cardamom, cabbage, onions, and scents I didn’t recog
nize. Yes, the smell was strong, but it was better up close.
I popped the ringtop and dumped the ring inside the can. “I thought you had to be in court today.”
“Ah, hell, don’t remind me,” Sinkovich said. “It was so fun. And then I made phone calls for you. Even more fun. We can talk after food, okay?”
Had he come over here because he was lonely and needed friends or had he come because he didn’t want to talk about what he discovered on the phone?
I couldn’t tell. He had bent over the open oven door, and was struggling with something inside. After a moment, he pulled out a bubbling casserole, filled with flat noodles, sauerkraut, sliced Polish sausage, and mushrooms. I didn’t recognize the sauce.
Steam rose from the entire thing. I had to admit, it all looked better than it smelled.
I got out plates and silverware. “You’re staying, right, Marvella?”
“Oh,” she said with a small smile at Jimmy. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Jimmy sighed and flopped down at his spot. “Six bites,” he said to Sinkovich.
“Big ones,” Sinkovich said. He didn’t even seem bothered by Jimmy’s reluctance to eat the food. Sinkovich put hot pads in the middle of the table and set the casserole dish on top of them. I had napkins, courtesy of last night’s pizza delivery, so I set them beside every plate.
We sat down.
“I’ll serve,” Sinkovich said, and proceeded to put a mound of food on all four plates.
Jimmy shook his head “I don’t want—”
“I’ll bet Grimshaw here don’t believe in the Clean Plate Club,” Sinkovich said. “I know I don’t. You do me a kindness and try, and I won’t say nothing if you decide cold pizza’s more to your taste.”
Jimmy looked at me, eyebrows raised. Then he shrugged and took a bite.
I did too. The casserole was surprisingly good. Sinkovich had cooked everything in butter so thick that it dripped off each bite. The sausage gave the meal a sharp spice, but that spice got reinforced by the sauerkraut, which crunched despite spending time soaking in butter and being baked.
“Wow,” Marvella said after taking a bite. “I’m going to have to ask for the recipe.”
Street Justice: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 14
