“She was here when I called,” I said. “That’s who I
heard in the background.”
“I wouldn’t let her stay at my pad. Too many
people have my business card. Bernita here doesn’t
even have e-mail.”
“I found the earring,” I said to Helen.
“Earring,” she said, stumbling over her words. “Oh
my, from the cabin!”
“That’s right.”
“I didn’t even know I had the other one with me. It
must have fallen.”
“Onto Clarence’s carpet,” I replied. “So he shuttled
you downstairs to hide while I talked to him.”
“Didn’t have time for anything else,” Clarence
replied.
“You went to all this trouble,” I said.
“I’d do anything to protect this woman,” Clarence
said. “Anything.” Then he stared at me, his eyes gone
from tender to fiery in an instant. “Anything.”
I knew he was talking to me. That if I even thought
about exposing Helen, about putting her in harm’s way,
Clarence Willingham would have no problem making
sure nobody heard what I had to say.
“So you hid her here,” I said.
Bernita chimed in, saying, “Man did pay me.”
“I trust Bernita,” Clarence said. “Helen wasn’t so
sure at first.”
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“I didn’t—still don’t—know who to trust,” Helen said.
“I couldn’t keep her with me,” Clarence said. “I have
clients coming over to my office, and there’s no way she
could have stayed upstairs. Besides, who would think
to look here?”
“I would. I did,” I said.
“Yeah, well, most people ain’t you, Parker.” I wasn’t
sure whether he meant that as an insult or a compliment.
“We need to talk about Stephen,” I said. “Helen, I
need to know what happened. The police have arrested
my father for Stephen’s murder. They know he came
into the city to see you. They know you tried to black
mail him. I need to know why. It wasn’t for rehab for
Stephen. I need to know what that money was for, and
what happened that night.”
Helen Gaines’s hand went to Clarence’s and held it
tight. He put his arm around her, comforted her as she
began to cry, this time harder. She wailed, her hand
covering her mouth to stifle the sobs.
“Oh…my baby,” she said. “My baby is gone…”
“Helen,” I said. But all I could do was wait it out. It
hadn’t even been a week since Stephen was murdered,
and though Helen Gaines seemed far from mentally
stable, there were some things that pierced the heart no
matter how calloused it had grown.
She cried for several minutes. Clarence held her
head, stroked her hair. His eyes were closed, too, and
on his face I could see the pain of a man whose surro
gate mother was going through hell in every way, shape
and form. Clarence had admitted abusing drugs in his
younger years, but recently had begun to wean himself
off of them. No doubt having a dealer as a father exac
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erbated any curiosity he had. And even though Butch
was a supposedly “clean” dealer, being exposed to that
kind of trade could stir a desire that wouldn’t have
existed otherwise. The temptation was there. His father
put it there, and Helen Gaines had become a victim of
it as well.
Maybe Helen and Clarence had actually bonded over
this. Perhaps it was even Helen who, after Butch was
gone, tempted Clarence. But looking at them now,
young man and older woman, they needed each other
more than anything in the world.
“Helen,” I said, “I need to know why you got in
touch with my father. After all those years, why did you
suddenly need the money?”
Helen removed her head from Clarence’s shoulder.
She wiped her eyes, only succeeding in smearing the
mascara she had on. Clarence took a tissue from his
pocket, handed it to her. She thanked him, cleaned
herself up.
“The money wasn’t for me,” she said. “It was never
for me. It was for Stephen.”
“Rehab?” I asked.
“No. That ship sailed a long time ago. We tried—
both of us, actually. But it’s easy to say you want to stop,
it’s another thing to do it. It’d be like rewiring your
brain. When you have two people so close, both
addicted, you can either band together and use each
other for strength…or you can slip into the comfort of
nothingness. We chose the latter.”
“So you know your son was using, and that he
probably started because of you.”
Helen nodded. “I was young and stupid when I came
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here. Do you know what it’s like to be nineteen years
old with a baby? To have to leave the only place you’ve
ever known and go somewhere where you don’t know
anybody? To raise a child in a different world? I
couldn’t handle it. So I escaped. But Stephen could
have made so much more of himself.”
“Stephen wasn’t just some street dealer,” I said. “He
was much higher.”
Helen blinked. “I knew he wasn’t standing out on
corners. He had nice suits. Lots of them. He would
wear them during the day, even though I knew where
he was going. I always found it strange that someone
in that…line of work would get dressed up so nicely.
We never had money for anything else.”
I thought about the building in midtown. All those
suited young men entering to get their daily packages.
A horde of young, urban professionals. Only the defi
nition had turned a one-eighty.
“How long had he been selling?” I asked.
Helen looked at the ceiling. Wiped her eyes again.
Clarence was staring at her as well, his eyes soft. I
wondered if he’d ever heard these stories.
“Screw this,” Bernita suddenly announced. “I’m
getting a beer and watching Judge Judy. ” Her pink
bathrobe turned with a flutter, and she left the room.
“She’s a great cook,” Helen said. “Made chicken à
l’orange last night.”
“I have about ten pounds of leftovers in my fridge
at home,” Clarence said with a laugh. “I know what
you’re saying.”
“How long?” I repeated.
“Almost ten years. He dropped out of CCNY after
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his sophomore year. I worked about a hundred differ
ent jobs over the years, but even with that and the money
Stephen made, with his student loans, there was no way
we could ever really make ends meet. Not in this city.
That’s actually where I met Beth. We were both secre
taries at a public-relations firm. They fired us both
within the month when we came to work high. So
Stephen dropped out. Partly because of the money,
partly to take care of me. He said the only experience
he needed was in the real world. And I was too stupid
to stop him. And besides, he was making more money
doing that than I ever did working real jobs. And none
of it was taxed.”
“So he was working for ten years, making good
money, obviously moving up the ladder,” I said. “Again,
why did he need the money?”
“We went through it fast,” Helen said. “Stephen
started using more, and I was a mess. We never saved
much. One day, about a month ago, Stephen came home
from work. I remember him coming in the door with this
look on his face, and I just froze. He was so scared…oh
God, his eyes were wide and his face was pale and I
thought he might have overdosed. He collapsed on our
sofa and asked for a glass of water. When I brought it to
him, he just sat there with the glass in his hand. Not
drinking, just staring at the wall. Then my boy started to
cry.”
“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”
“He didn’t tell me,” Helen said. “All he said was, ‘We
need to leave. We need to get far, far away from this city.
When I asked him what the matter was, he just said,
‘You’re safer if you don’t know. We’d both be safer if I
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didn’t know either.’ I looked into his eyes. They were
bloodshot. Not from drugs, but from crying. He’d never
spoken like that before in his life. I’d never seen him so
scared, so terrified. So I told him we’d find a way.”
I said, “My father told me he found a notepad in your
apartment. It read ‘Europe’ and ‘Mexico.’ That’s where
you were thinking of going. Right?”
Helen nodded. “We didn’t know where to go. What
city or country. We wondered if Europe was too far, or
if Mexico was far enough. Stephen just wanted to go far,
far away. We barely had enough money to cover the
rent.”
“And that’s why you called my father,” I said. “For
money to leave the country.”
“It was a one-time thing,” Helen said. “I figured after
all those years, after what he’d done to me and our
baby—that’s right, our baby—the least he could do
was help us start a new life.”
I couldn’t really argue with that. My father owed
them far more than he could ever make up for.
“So you threatened to sue him,” I said.
“I didn’t know any other way. The old James Parker
I knew would rather burn his money than give it away.”
“You couldn’t say something a little more noble, like
you needed it for a kidney transplant or something?
Maybe that would have tugged at his heartstrings a little
more than the rehab story.”
“I don’t know how well you know your father,”
Helen said sardonically, “but he’s not exactly the senti
mental type.”
I couldn’t argue with that either.
“So he came into the city to see you, then what?”
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“How much did he tell you?” she asked.
“He told me you pulled a gun on him,” I said. “Is
that true?”
Helen nodded. “Yes. But it was Stephen’s gun. He
kept it for protection. He taught me how to use it, just
in case. I was scared, of your father and for Stephen. I
got carried away.”
“Where was Stephen during all of this?” I said.
“I’m not sure,” Helen said. “He told me he was going
to try and talk to someone. He said there was one
person who might be able to do something if he knew
the whole story.”
“Oh God,” I said. “He was with me. He was at the
Gazette waiting for me.” I felt sick. I put that from my
mind, tried to focus.
“My father said he took the gun from you. Is that
true?”
“It is,” Helen said.
“Would you be willing to testify to that? The police
say my father’s fingerprints were found on the gun. If
you testify that they got there another way—other than
him actually firing it—it will help his case.”
“I don’t know if I want to help his case,” Helen said.
“As long as he’s locked up, the cops aren’t hunting the
person who really killed my son.”
“So you know it wasn’t my father,” I said. Helen said
nothing. She turned away. Didn’t even look at me. I was
taken aback by this indifference. Stunned, I said, “Don’t
you care about your son’s killer getting what he
deserves?” I said.
Helen’s face turned to stone. She said, “It must be
nice to live in a world where everyone who deserves
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justice gets it. My son was taken from me. I tried to save
him…help him save himself. And now he’s gone. And
let me tell you what I want now, Henry… I want to live.
And if living means letting this end, letting the people
out there think that someone is taking the fall, I can’t
say that’s an ending I dislike.”
“You must know, though,” I said. “You have to know
who killed your son.”
“I don’t know for certain,” Helen said. “After James
and I had our…talk…he left for the airport. He put the
gun back down. We both knew I wasn’t going to use it.
And I knew that was the last time I would ever see your
father.”
“Then what did you do?” I asked.
“Then I went out. I needed a drink. Needed to smoke.
James didn’t have that much money, only a few
thousand dollars. I didn’t know what was going to
happen with Stephen. He was so scared, so afraid.”
“So your choice then was to go out rather than see
him.”
“That’s right. I did. I had to calm my nerves. I just
needed something to get me by. And I thought if I could
relax, I could figure out just how we were going to get
out of the city. I must have been gone for, I don’t know,
two hours or so. When I came back to the apartment, I
walked in and saw him…Stephen…facedown on the
floor. Blood everywhere. And I just started screaming.”
“And you felt you were in danger.”
“I knew I was,” Helen said. “Whoever killed him did
it because they thought he knew something he wasn’t
supposed to. And if he knew, then chances were I would
too. I left that night, before the cops ever came. And I
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remember the street, the quiet, the neighbors who didn’t
even know what had just gone on. I went right to BethAnn’s apartment, and we went up to the lake. I had no
idea they would find us there.”
“So you didn’t see who killed Stephen,” I said.
“No. Just the people on the street. Neighbors,
people I’d seen around before…” Helen trailed off,
looked at Clarence.
“What is it, Mom?” he said.
“One man,” Helen said. �
��There was one man
standing on the street, staring at me as I left the apart
ment. He was just there, standing by a lamppost, and I
could have sworn he was crying. And honest to God, I
think that boy looked at me and said…”
“Said what?” I asked.
“Said he was sorry. And all I could think to do was
run.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why didn’t you call
anyone? The cops? Someone?”
“Stephen told me a long time ago not to trust anyone
in this city. He said the people he knew, the people he
worked for, if they thought you might hurt them they
would hurt you first, and hurt you worse than you could
ever do to them. When he came home that night, scared
out of his mind, he told me our only option was to run.
That if we told anybody, we would be in trouble. That’s
all he said. Trouble. But the thing is—” Helen stopped,
looked at the floor.
“What is it?”
“The night he died,” she said, “Stephen told me there
might be one way out. He said he knew one person who
might be able to help us. He knew about your father,
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295
about his family, and I told him there was a good chance
James Parker wouldn’t give us a dime and we wouldn’t
be able to leave the country. So finally he told me there
was one last option. There was someone he knew wasn’t
on the take, wouldn’t hurt us. Someone who could give
them more trouble than they ever imagined. He went out
that night. Never told me who he was going to see. And
then, a few hours later, he was dead.”
It felt like a piece of coal was burning in the pit of
my stomach. I knew Stephen had been talking about me.
For some reason, he considered me his last hope. And
then he died. Because I didn’t trust him.
“You said the night Stephen died, you saw someone
outside the apartment. A young man crying. Who was
he?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It was dark out,” Helen said, her voice
sorrowful, apologetic. “And my mind, I was so
confused, so scared. I didn’t see his face. All I remember
is noticing something on his neck…a birthmark. Such
a young man, younger than Stephen even…”
I nearly fell to the floor. The room went blurry on me.
Clarence got up, came to my side, helped me stand.
“You okay?” he said.
I nodded, but felt anything but okay. I knew who that
man was. And now I knew who killed Stephen.
And I knew where he lived.
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