Only the Wicked

by Gary Phillips

  He stepped through a curtain. A heavy, not-so-young black-haired woman with a pot belly sat on a stool inside the doorway. She wore black briefs, an open, fringed western vest and purple high heels. She also had a surprisingly fit pair of breasts. The woman worked the side of her mouth with a matchbook cover. “Table,” she managed, slacking her tongue against her big front teeth.

  “I ain’t entertaining today.”“Too bad.”

  At the bar were three other men, the only other patrons in the happening joint. Two of the men were in workman’s attire. The other could have been anybody in pressed Dockers and a cotton shirt buttoned at the wrists. Monk avoided his reflection and ordered a shot of rum.

  “We fresh out of that, brah.” The bartender was a tall Latina in a top hat and white bikini pants. A long, dyed-orange peacock feather sprouted festively from the hat band. “How ’bout scotch, honey boy?”

  “Whatever.” The booze arrived and he drank it without enjoyment. She didn’t ask, but refilled the glass. He took it to his mouth, momentarily stopping. He then took a taste as if liquor were new to him. He set the glass down, sliding it back and forth between his open palms like a puck.

  Here he was having discussions about being a father with the woman he loved, and he was acting like some OG straight out of Pitchess Honor Rancho Jail. He sniffed his glass, the stuff in it little better than bat urine. It suited his mood. He downed it and asked for another jolt.

  “Hope you become a regular, doll,” the dark-haired one said to him as he ambled toward the exit. The noontime crowd was beginning to wander into the Tamal Haus. And the decibel-level of men wanting to get in some mid-day oohs and ahhs of breast-bearing bored women was too much for the lulling funk Monk wanted to maintain.

  “Could be, if I keep doing what I’m doing.” He ogled the area between the opening of her vest.

  She noticed. “Well, don’t you stop, you big-neck thing you. One of my boyfriends played semi-pro down in Yuma.” She shifted to give him a better look. “I always did like a fella who could put me in a clinch.” Two men in wrinkled Men’s Wearhouse suits waltzed in, laughing and hew-hawing. One of them stopped to talk with the greeter, and Monk gave her a half wave as he walked out into the sunlight.

  With the steady hands of a fighter pilot, he inserted his key in the Galaxie’s lock, not scratching its cobalt blue finish. He flopped inside on the driver’s side, resting his sweating forehead against the steering wheel. He wrenched the door shut, catching the engine on first crank. Monk considered driving over to the courthouse to tell Kodama what a stupid morning he’d had.

  Oh yeah, smelling of bad scotch and old flinty broads would gamer a lot of sympathy. He wanted to be doing something normal, like work the goddamn murder of his cousin. The Ford drifted left and the driver in a Suburban honked, shaking a finger at him. Monk righted himself, aiming the car forward, sweat running down the sides of his face. He didn’t dare the freeway, but did manage to carefully guide his vehicle to his office.

  He tried to ease past Delilah, hoping she didn’t hear him from her temporary room.

  “Ivan,” she called. She stepped into the rotunda area as two workers were erecting some glass bricks into a semi-circular room divide.

  He just knew his drunk was on his face. “Yes.” Oh God, he sounded like Lurch.

  “I forgot to put these on your desk.” She came over to him. “A woman calling herself Sikkuh called a couple of times for you.” She handed him two telephone message slips. “Dex called, too.”

  “Thanks, D.” He kept his head down, but he knew the liquor was seeping from every pore. He felt as if he were a member of some untouchable caste.

  “Uh-huh.” She retreated.

  “I don’t want to be disturbed for a while, okay?” Did he say that clearly?

  “Uh-huh,” she repeated, glancing back at him.

  Monk slunk into his office, closing but not locking the door behind him. Yawning, he unplugged the phone, and stretched out on the couch. The black-and-white photo of the Achilles, the last freighter he served on, hung off-center above him. Idly, he wondered what had become of Captain Yavros, the ship’s master. He seemed to remember he heard something or another about the man not too long ago. But his recall wasn’t exactly functioning at the moment. He fell asleep, a lascivious scenario involving himself, Kodama and the woman in the fringe vest occupying his fuzzy nap.

  He awoke some time later, his shirt sticking to his front from sweat. The windows in his office were shut, the afternoon heat making the room stuffy and uncomfortable. The headache throbbing along one side of his head was intensified by the whine of the power saw beyond his door.

  More or less sober, Monk traipsed into his private bathroom, washed his face, and popped three Tylenol capsules. He got a gray T-shirt with a FATBURGER logo on it from a closet in the conference room. The thing felt tight around his middle. Making time to get a workout in the Tiger’s Den was one more addition to his list of short-term goals. Avoiding the place advertised on his shirt might be a sound notion, too.

  Back at his desk, after stretching and scratching before wide open windows, he returned calls. Neither Spears’ great-niece nor his mentor were in. Grant’s answering machine was now playing parts of Elmer Bernstein’s score from the old John Cassavetes detective show, Johnny Staccato. The number Sikkuh left was to a modeling agency in Torrance.

  He mucked around with some mail, but was restless. It was only three, and there was still time left in the day to go around and shake down some school girls for their lunch money. Jesus, what the hell was his sister going to say? Maybe Harris would be so embarrassed for him he wouldn’t say anything. Oh sure.

  Monk looked for Delilah but she wasn’t around. Ross was in her back office, piling material into a plastic crate.

  “Hey, what’s up?” she asked.

  “Nothing really. Delilah out?”

  “Yeah, she went to pick out some new furniture with Hendricks.”

  In all the time he’d shared the office with the two business women, he’d never heard either one refer to the other by their first name. “Well, I may not be back, I guess I’ll catch her tomorrow.” What he wanted was to explain himself to Delilah.

  Hendricks was dressed in ’60s-style bell-bottoms with silver-dollar-sized dome caps three in a row along the outward seam. A plain white T was tied at her trim waist. The woman’s customary look was trendy but sedate outfits. When Versace had been boldly gunned down by Andrew Cunanan, she wore a different outfit of his each day for two weeks thereafter. She’d been a basketball star in college, and was two inches taller than Monk. She floated near him, reaching for a model of a building on a shelf behind his back. “Don’t forget you’re going to have to pack up your stuff next week; your office is getting painted.”

  He had forgotten. “I know. I’ll catch you later.”

  “And you still haven’t told us which design you like for the conference room.”

  His right eye was starting to get an ache behind the cornea. “The Bauhaus version as opposed to the retro late ‘fifties.”

  “Yes,” she said drolly. “After winnowing down from five styles, we’d greatly value your point of view on these last two, Ivan.” She moved the model with ease.

  “I shall have your answer in the morn, madam.” He bowed and backed out. Then he went downstairs to his car, and drove off with no particular destination in mind. Eventually Monk took the 10 East toward South Central.

  “Is Mr. Antony around?” The cargo-carrier-sized brother in the extra-large Homburg he addressed was mackin’ on a young woman of undetermined race. She was golden-toned and had short hair virtually the same coloring as her skin. She wore shorts and a shirt open over her midriff to the breast bone in an inverted V. The garment was designed so there were no buttons along the front of the satiny red material.

  The annoyed man lifted an eyebrow, acknowledging Monk’s presence. He pointed at a room to the left with an arched entrance, and continued on his goal of impres
sing the pretty woman.

  Monk stepped through the opening. Antony, in shirt sleeves and suspenders, was circling his desk, talking on a cordless phone. Behind his green-lacquered desk was a poster announcing an upcoming R&B review at the Olympic Auditorium. Several artists, including the Bone Shakers, Etta James and Big Jay McNeely, were on the bill. He realized this was the show he’d seen the ad for the day Spears died. Antony sat a half empty liter bottle of orange Cactus Cooler on a coaster. He settled his bulk in a well-worn wing chair.

  “No, no, it has to be there by ten a.m. at the very latest.” Antony looked at Monk, showing no recognition. “The sound check will be going on, and I don’t want that display to get in the artist’s way.” Antony listened some more and said goodbye. “What can I help you with, my man?” He got up, knuckling a hand on top of some invoices.

  “We met briefly at the barber shop on Broadway the other week. You were friends with my cousin.”

  “Oh right, sorry, got so much on my mind.” He touched his temples and came around the desk’s corner, hand extended. “Promotion is a young shark’s game, but some of my old friends been bugging me to do this thing, so what could I do?” He indicated the poster.

  “It should be jumping,” Monk predicted. “You heard what happened to Kennesaw since you saw him?”

  A quizzical look on Antony’s face indicated he didn’t. He dove a hand at his desk, snatching up a supply of phone messages. “That’s why this dude called for me earlier today.” He shuffled through the messages. “Sergeant Roberts.”

  “Yeah,” Antony chimed, finding the right slip. “What went down?”

  Monk told him.

  “Christ,” Antony exclaimed, sitting down again in a chair near a window overlooking Central Avenue. “What in the hell is that about?” He looked at Monk, the message slips bunched in one hand. The phone rang. “Get that, will you, Bonnie?” he hollered into the other room.

  Monk didn’t know if Bonnie was the man or woman until he heard the low grumble of the cement-mixer-sized chap.

  “I’m trying to find out,” Monk said, aware his response was inadequate.

  “Damn.” Antony squirmed in the chair, seemingly wanting to do something, but unclear on what action to take.

  “Did you hear from Kennesaw last week?” Monk sat down, not wishing for the other man to see him as confrontational.

  “Naw, I mean yeah, I did.” Antony’s voice went in and out of black southern dialect by way of Chicago in its intonations. “That is, I got a message from him on, shit, it must have been Tuesday or Wednesday last week.”

  “You call him back?”

  “Of course.” He halted, blinking and thinking. “Which side of the family are you from?”

  Monk explained.

  “All right,” he nodded, as if that settled some inner debate.

  Antony exhaled, putting his head back. The young woman stepped sideways into the arch. “That was Buddy Collette. He wanted to know about the interview for that radio show on KLON. Can he do it from his house? Call him back, etcetera, etcetera.” She swayed her lithe form to her words, smiling. Her speech patterns provided no clue as to her race or heritage.

  “Thanks, Dollink. I’ll get it straight with him.” She stepped back out. “I called Kennesaw back, but got no answer. I would have gone over, but I didn’t have an address for him.” He plucked at his beard. “Of course, I expected to hear from him again. The two of us would go out and hoist a few to the bad times and inbetween times.” A tangible melancholy descended on him, pulling his thoughts inward.

  “What kind of man was Kennesaw?”

  Antony said declaratively, “You didn’t really know him.”

  And again Monk felt inadequate.

  “I’ll tell you this way: Your cousin was the kind of man when a ballplayer had drunk up, gambled away or screwed away his dough, Kennesaw Riles would get him an advance. And sometimes, baby, that meant a dig in his own pocket, too, like seeing to the rent for some of these cats. And don’t forget, Kennesaw’s salary was dependent, in part, on the gate same as the backers.”

  “Could be that was incentive to make sure his players had nothing but the game on their mind. Maybe he saw it as long as black folks were entertaining that was cool. But raise some sand and get in the Man’s face …” Monk let it trail off, not sure why he was trying to goad the ex-club owner.

  Antony stared at Monk as if a third eye had sprouted in his forehead. Then he cracked up, slapping his substantial thigh. “Oh, baby. You roughnecks today think you’re all that. Don’t take no shit from nobody no how. Well, let me hip you to something, hombre. There was a not too distant time in too damn many parts of this country if a black man was ready to throw down with the ofays, well, he might not be around to sit down to his biscuits and grits on Sunday.”

  Antony was about to proceed when his wife walked in. “Honey, come meet Ivan the Terrible Monk,” he roared gaily. “The man who’s gonna show all them house niggahs how it’s done.” He laughed and sputtered.

  “Good to meet you again.” They shook hands as Monk rose. She moved a chair and sat down next to the shiny emerald desk. Clara Antony laid a Ralph Lauren handbag on its glass-like surface. “Having a good time planning the concert?”

  Antony coughed, and undid a top button on his shirt. “No, actually it’s kinda serious. Seems somebody did Kennesaw in.”

  After she’d closed her mouth, her husband brought her up to the point when she’d entered. “Are you supposing that one of them folks he double-crossed in Mississippi did him in?” She had a swig of her husband’s Cactus Cooler.

  “Wouldn’t there have been some kind of confrontation at the barber shop?” Antony piped in.

  “Unless they were at the funeral and didn’t come by,” Monk tried out. “Or didn’t show up until now.”

  “Is Creel out?” Clara Antony asked.

  “He’s still inside,” Monk said.

  “One of his running buddies then,” Antony pointed out forcefully. “Back when the black power movement was on, them brothers would get their point across to a pusher or snitch with serious emphasis, if you dig what I’m saying.”

  “Why wait until now? Why all this time?” Monk was ready to dismiss the idea, but tucked it away for further examination.

  “Yeah, especially when he’s an old man. Unless,” Antony snapped his fingers, “he was on to something about the trial and wanted to tell you. Maybe the somebody found out you were in the picture and that made him kill your cousin.”

  Clara looked dubiously at her husband. “I know you want to believe the best of Kennesaw, Ardmore. But history is history, and he was a turncoat.” She enjoyed some more Cactus Cooler.

  “Then why was he poisoned?” Antony asked testily.

  “What about this ‘Killin’ Blues’?” Monk interjected.

  Now it was the wife’s turn to get in a good laugh. “That story has been going around since I was at Jefferson High. And I ain’t saying when that was.” Her eyes twinkled and she smiled warmly at her husband.

  “I went to Jeff,” Monk said. “And it wasn’t too long ago an unknown recording by Clifford Jordan was discovered and released on CD.”

  “True, true,” Ardmore agreed. “That too had been rumored for years. But this ‘Killin’ Blues’ is like the so-called thirtieth song of Robert Johnson, or ‘Stormy Weather’ on seventy-eight by the Five Sharps, ya dig? It’s a legend, and over the years there’s been enough half-truths whispered that it keeps people looking. I mean, man, collectors in Japan and Germany are crazy for blues and R-and-B originals from the states.

  “Collecting used to be a quiet little hobby for geeky fans, cats prowling swap meets, garage sales and old records shows. Or going down south and chancing upon a Son House record in some backwater grocery store in the used bin. But like comic books and baseball cards, it just got bigger and bigger, all them baby boomers getting gray and wanting to spend their money on something to invest in for the future.”

  �
�Look, Monk, a forty-five by a one-hit wonder group like the Hornets recently sold for eighteen grand. So imagine what an undiscovered album by a blues giant like Patton would be worth by itself, plus all the ancillary junk.”

  “Like it’s magical or something,” Clara Antony waved her fingers in the air. “Patton was one of the originators, Johnson an interpreter. Though one hell of one. I heard that a seventy-eight of him singing ‘Stones in My Passway’ sold for six grand.”

  “So if the ‘Killin’ Blues’ did exist—” Monk began.

  “Then whoever found it would have a money-making machine, baby.” Antony stared into the distance. “The CD, some kind of book deal, probably a documentary about finding it, maybe be a consultant to a TV movie.” He clucked his tongue.

  “If my husband was an envious man, I’d be worried,” Clara Antony snickered sarcastically.

  “Worth a million?” Monk asked.

  “Probably double that if you played it right,” Antony allowed. He brought himself out of his daydream of plenty. “On the other matter, see my wife was a singer, Ivan. She and some girlfriends from school and the choir formed a group called the Torches in the ’fifties.”

  “‘Flame of Love’ and ‘Main Street Man.”’ Monk could hear the tunes in his head.

  “Our hit forty-fives. We went on tour with Johnny Otis and played the Five-Four Ballroom on a revue with Dinah Washington.” She pointed toward a poster in a corner. The thing was laminated in thick plastic, and was the ad for the musical bill at the L.A. landmark she’d just mentioned.

  “Had us a few more hits, a little glitter, but then”—she gestured with a hand like a baroness dismissing a serf—“I guess we really don’t do anything but repeat bullshit from decade to decade.”

  Monk encouraged her to continue with a look.

  “I was the lead singer,” she said, pausing as if that explained all the rest. “I guess I got caught up and all.”

  “You guess,” her husband kidded.

  She drank more of his Cactus Cooler. “I had a few mikes stuck in my face, an interview in the California Eagle, got on KGFJ, even had a beauty supply man put my face on one of his products.”