From Cape Town with Love

by Blair Underwood

  My back was still on fire; maybe the pain had awakened me. When I shifted position on the sofa, my spine’s dull shout became a scream. Knives hurt in a much more personal way than clubs or even fists. Knives are a violation.

  The living room was dark. Except for the pain, I might have been dreaming.

  “What are you doing up?” I said.

  “Waiting for you. Nobody told me you were down here.”

  “You’re supposed to be asleep. It’s late.”

  “You mean early,” Chela said.

  I might have dozed again. When I opened my eyes, Chela hadn’t moved from her post, guarding me. She was rocking slowly back and forth in the chair, with a squeaking that sounded like a ticking clock.

  “Tomorrow morning,” I said, bleary, as if she’d asked me a question.

  “What’s tomorrow?”

  “I’ll start calling, like I said . . . try to find your mother.”

  “I don’t have a mother,” Chela said.

  You and me both. The grief I’d always felt for the woman I’d never known shook me again. “You know what I mean,” I said. “I’ll work on . . . getting her consent.”

  “What about Nandi?” Chela said.

  A fist stuffed my throat, blocking my breath. I had to confess the worst to Chela.

  “I can’t do anything for Nandi,” I said. “I’m in the way. I probably got her killed.”

  “Oh, so you’re just gonna buy that bullshit from the FBI?”

  Only the chair’s persistent squeaking kept me awake, Chela swinging slowly back and forth. The moonlight from a window caught her hair, like a halo. Was she a dream after all?

  “I’m not what you think I am, Chela.”

  “You’re not the guy who figured out who killed Afrodite when the cops were too busy to look for the real suspect? Made them look like assholes when T. D. Jackson died?”

  “That guy got lucky.” If luck was the right word for what I’d been through.

  “Bullshit,” Chela said. “You’re still that guy, Ten.”

  I hadn’t realized my eyes were closed until I opened them again. This time, I saw a shimmer on Chela’s cheeks; she was crying. Chela’s tears made me sit up. My back screamed at me again, and the haze of unreality lifted. Suddenly, I was wide awake.

  Chela’s face was bright red. She looked as if she was holding her breath.

  “Chela . . . ?” I said.

  “I keep thinking about her,” Chela said, her whisper weighted with tears. “Scared. All alone with these assholes. Missing her mother.” She couldn’t clamp back her sob.

  “Hon, these are bad guys, but they made a deal with Maitlin. Besides, the FBI has a real suspect. By ten o’clock tonight, this will all be over. Nandi will come home.”

  I didn’t believe it, but I wanted to. Maybe if I convince Chela, I’ll convince myself.

  But Chela shook her head. She leaned forward, suddenly older than her years. “Things don’t just work out, Ten,” she said. “That’s a load of crap. The only time anything works out is when you make it work out. Like when I decided to stay with you instead of going back to Mother’s.” For the first time, Chela had said she was glad she’d never gone back to her madam.

  I couldn’t face the expectations in her eyes. “Chela . . .”

  “I was a little kid, and I was alone. I was stuck in the house with my dead grandmother, hoping she wouldn’t start to stink, or come back to life in the middle of the night like a zombie, thinking, ‘Oh, it’ll all work out somehow.’ Well, guess what—it didn’t. Not until I met you.”

  Chela was shaking, her sobs filling the room. The eleven-year-old inside her had never died. Our eleven-year-olds never do.

  “Shhhh. . . sweetheart, come here . . . ,” I said, reaching for her.

  Chela rushed to me, folding inside my arms. We rocked on the sofa, both of us flooding in her tears. I’d always avoided holding her before, an invisible boundary. But we had crossed a threshold together, and it was finally all right.

  Chela sniffed, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her T-shirt. “I know you can do it. You can find her, Ten—but not if you quit now. You’re the one who’s supposed to bring her home.”

  I would have chuckled if I could have. Chela had spent too much time with Dad.

  “Like fate?” I said. “Since when do you believe in that?”

  “Since you.”

  Dad cracked his door open when he heard our voices. He peered out at us, looking worried, so I raised my hand to gesture: We’re all right. Dad silently closed his door again.

  I must have been half delirious when I first woke, seeing Chela, because it was close to dawn and I hadn’t realized it. The rising sun, not the moon, had shown me Chela’s face.

  I hugged my daughter, wondering how I’d missed the room’s light.

  * * *

  Chela boosts Tennyson by pool

  http://www.simonandschuster.com/multimedia?video=87316083001

  * * *

  7:30 A.M.

  “I don’t understand,” I said to the speakerphone that was now the centerpiece of my dining-room table. “How the fuck did that happen?”

  Maybe there’s a limit to the bad news we can absorb. I felt nothing except confusion. A heavy sigh flooded the speaker. My father leaned over the table, bracing himself with locked arms, his snowy eyebrows furrowed with outrage.

  “No idea,” Lieutenant Nelson answered on the phone. “My guy’s just saying they lost him. He was released at about five thirty, and now he’s in the wind.”

  He could have been speaking Mandarin. My mind didn’t register the words.

  “Nobody was following him?” I said.

  “Tried to,” Nelson said. “He evaded. Had help waiting, my guess. Ditched his cell phone so the FBI couldn’t keep him on GPS. He fooled ’em into complacency. The tail was just a precaution—nobody thought he was their guy. His polygraph didn’t look right, but his record in South Africa was clean.”

  My rage erupted, sudden and deep. “MotherFUCKERS!”

  I picked up the first thing I saw—an empty coffee mug from the Monterey Jazz Festival I’d attended with Alice years before—and threw it against the nearest wall. The mug disintegrated, but I’d hoped for an explosion that would shake the house.

  Dad put a firm hand on my shoulder to hold me still.

  “His apartment?” Dad said, raising his voice for the phone.

  “That’s the last place he’d go, but they’re keeping an eye on it. Sorry, Preach.” A pause. “Sorry, Ten. That’s all I’ve got, and don’t expect any more bulletins. The feds just went into strict cover-your-ass mode.”

  I walked away from the phone. The storm inside me needed somewhere to go, so I paced the living room. Chela and Marcela watched from the outer ring, somber.

  The FBI had lost Paki. Nandi’s last chance—gone. The best-case scenario was that her father was taking her back to South Africa. Worstcase scenario, Paki’s crew had panicked and killed Nandi after the FBI brought him in for questioning. Or after my encounter with Spider. Hell, they might have killed Paki, too. He might have escaped right into a landfill.

  Either way, Sofia Maitlin would never see Nandi again.

  “What about Spider?” I called to the phone.

  “Nothing stateside yet, and I’m hearing there’s a shitload of Mhambis in the system in South Africa,” Nelson said. “I’ll try to narrow it down, but we need a surname.”

  Maybe Marsha has something by now, I thought without wanting to. I didn’t know if I was desperate enough to try to call her, but how much more desperate could I be?

  “Least they can’t pin this on LAPD,” Nelson said, a company man to the core.

  The room was silent until the phone spat out a grating busy signal. Dad was closest, so he rested the receiver on the cradle to bring back the quiet.

  “Well, that bites,” Chela said.

  My cell phone’s battery was nearly dead, so I found the charger and plugged it in before I dialed R
achel Wentz’s number. Someone had to tell Maitlin that the FBI had lost their suspect.

  The call went directly to voice mail. Before I left a message, I thought better of my plan and hung up. No need to drag Rachel Wentz into a legal nightmare over FBI leaks. They would find out sooner or later.

  “Vamos, Captain,” Marcela said. “Let’s you and me cook up some breakfast.”

  Dad followed her into the kitchen, squeezing my shoulder as he passed me. I tensed, involuntarily shrugging away his touch.

  My fingers played with my phone’s keypad, ready to dial the number I didn’t want to.

  My anger was still on the surface, potent as ever. I couldn’t make myself call Marsha.

  I didn’t have to.

  The doorbell had rung by the time I got out of the shower.

  TWENTY-TWO

  8:05 A.M.

  Marsha was a spectacle when she showed up on my doorstep with a dozen huge long-stemmed sunflowers, in a strapless summer dress that matched the petals. She looked freshly bathed, without makeup. Her raw beauty was almost enough to make me glad to see her.

  “That’s funny . . . ,” I heard Chela mutter behind me, “. . . she doesn’t look like a vampire.”

  Looks can be deceiving, I thought. I finally noticed that Chela had neglected to make it to school by her 7:20 starting time again, but a bigger problem was on my doorstep.

  Marsha held the flowers out toward me, but I let her keep them.

  “Can we talk like adults?” she said.

  I decided not to invite Marsha inside. “Come on in, since you’re here,” I said instead.

  Until the doorbell rang, the family had been waiting for me at the table, my father ready to say grace. A large bowl of scrambled eggs, a plate of turkey bacon, and a pancake stack waited, cooling. I halfheartedly introduced Marsha as an old friend from high school, and she glowed as if we’d thrown a party in her honor. The smile Marcela usually wore for company was absent.

  “Sorry to drop in so early,” Marsha said. “I see you’re having breakfast.”

  “That’ll happen at breakfast time,” Marcela said dryly. She was a stickler for propriety—and maybe females can smell trouble from matching chromosomes.

  Dad turned on a grin at full wattage, pulling out an empty chair at the head of the table. His eyes lapped up Marsha as if she were a bottle of Ensure. “Join us, miss. Pancakes?”

  I’d never seen my father in Mack Daddy mode, but Marcela must have seen Billy Dee in him since he’d been paralyzed in his nursing-home bed. She’d paid him extra attention, so he’d charmed himself out of dying. I wanted to slap Dad for the open yearning in his eyes.

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” Marsha said in a schoolgirl’s voice. “I’m just checking on Ten.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  Her eyes gave me a private glint. “Are you? You seemed a little out of your mind.”

  My teeth tightened. “Maybe it was an allergic reaction to getting stabbed in the back.”

  “We’re taking good care of Ten,” Marcela said. “I just patched him up.”

  After my shower, Marcela had disinfected and wrapped my injury again, declaring that I’d avoided infection even without stitches or antibiotics—so far. My migraine medicine dulled my back’s stinging. Marcela had offered me a painkiller with codeine, but I didn’t want to get knocked out. A few hours’ sleep had only made me feel like rolling into a grave.

  I made no move to relieve Marsha of her flowers, so Dad took them instead. He handed them over to Marcela, who took them to the kitchen after giving him a chilly look.

  “Come on, sit,” Dad said to Marsha. “A friend of Ten’s is like family.”

  “Well, if you’re sure there’s enough food . . . ,” Marsha said, taking her seat.

  Chela glanced back and forth between me and Marsha, deeply amused.

  “Let’s all bow our heads,” Dad said, and inclined his head for grace.

  All heads went down except for Marsha’s—and mine. She mouthed We need to talk.

  “Dear Lord . . . ,” Dad began. “Our hearts are heavy as we share your bounty this morning. A child is away from home and needs your guiding hand . . .”

  Let me explain, Marsha mouthed at me. I raised a silent finger to my lips: Shhhhh.

  Marcela’s evil eye shamed Marsha into finally lowering her head. Chela had to curl her lips tightly to keep from laughing.

  “. . . Please watch over little Nandi, and guide Tennyson, Lord,” Dad went on. “We don’t always understand your plan, but we know you have one for us all . . .”

  Marcela broke in: “Yes, Dios, and please protect us from the forces of Satan, in whatever form they may take.” I remembered my Sunday school lessons about how much God hates lies.

  I surprised myself by joining the prayer. “And help us learn the whole truth,” I said. “Help us see past falsehoods.”

  Dad glanced up at me, surprised and moved. “Well, amen!”

  The food blessed, we ate.

  8:31 A.M.

  “You have a beautiful family, Ten. Chela’s a triumph. I mean that. Congratulations.”

  Marsha walked to my corner desk after touring my screening room—or, I should say, Alice’s screening room. Now it was my office, with a screen more than a hundred inches tall and nearly two hundred across when I needed entertaining. Alice used to host elaborate Oscar parties, as commemorated by rows of signed head shots decorating the walls. The only people I shared the big screen with were Dad, Chela, and Marcela. And April. I wondered if I’d gone home with the wrong woman on Monday.

  “Is that really Sidney Poitier’s autograph?” Marsha said, pointing to the photo above me.

  I ignored Marsha’s small talk. “How’d you get the gun into the club?”

  “Pieces,” Marsha said. Although there were two rows of movie-style seating to choose from, Marsha sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor, bunching her dress between her legs to be demure. “It’s ceramic, not metal. And ceramic rounds can make decent earrings.”

  No wonder her earrings had been so hideous. Function, not fashion.

  “And you didn’t see a need to tell your partner,” I said.

  “I said I wouldn’t tell you everything.”

  That was true, at least.

  Marsha reached into her cheerful straw handbag and pulled out a wad of paper she unfolded twice. She laid about four creased pages on my desk beside my hands. The bad photocopies were typewritten, splotched with black marks.

  “What’s this?” I said.

  “An apology.” Then it was Marsha’s turn to raise her finger to her lips: Shhhhh.

  “What’s wrong? You don’t want Grandma to hear?”

  Marsha showed me her right ear, then her left. No earpiece. “I’m not worried about Grandma.” She indicated the pages. “Just accept my apology, please.”

  I started reading past the bars of solid black ink obscuring the text. Nearly half of the text was marked out, including the title at the top of the first page, so I could make out only snippets. “. . . alternately called Kingdom of Heaven, according to [DELETED], who was introduced to members of the criminal organization by [DELETED]. [DELETED] . . . has confirmed that [DELETED] met with Pakistani operatives with ties to Al Qaeda to discuss the formation of a terror cell within the United States.. ”

  I sat up straight in my office chair. “You were already investigating—”

  Marsha shook her head, firmly. Her shake said Not here.

  “I did a bad thing yesterday,” Marsha said, although there were no apologies in her eyes; she was role-playing, but not for me. Had someone bugged my house? Marsha cooed, “I can’t stand it when we fight, Ten. Let’s take a drive together. Let’s talk.”

  “Only if you have something to say.”

  “Plenty, sweetness,” Marsha said.

  8:45 A.M.

  I took Dad’s laptop and my bag of supplies, including my phone charger, although I was in too much of a hurry to pull together a disguise beyond a
baseball cap and sunglasses. The paparazzi had moved on to fresher blood, so no one waited in my yard.

  Mrs. Katz was weeding her roses in her robe, but she came to attention when she saw me.

  “Hello, Mrs. Katz,” I said, waving to let her know I’d caught her staring.

  Instead of answering, she pulled a disposable camera out of her robe pocket and snapped my picture. And returned to her gardening.

  “Happy birthday!” I called to her. “Try the Enquirer first!” Only then did I notice that Marsha had turned her face slightly away the instant the camera emerged. Mrs. Katz could have caught nothing but a blur. Nice reflexes.

  I headed for my Corvette, but Marsha grabbed my hand to stop me. “My car,” she said, gently tugging me toward her sun-faded rose Toyota Camry. The car was practically invisible.

  In fewer than twenty-four hours, in the chill of a federal holding cell, I would be asked to explain why I climbed into Marsha’s car. The better question was Why not?

  I was about to learn if Nandi’s kidnappers had made further contact, or if we’d been played. The abductors might have split town with or without Nandi, using the delayed drop-off as a ruse to try to get a head start before the FBI started looking hard. After the incidents with Spider and Paki, it might be too late to bring Nandi home, but at least I might learn what had happened. Maybe I could give Sofia Maitlin that much, anyway.

  And it might not be too late for Nandi. That’s why I got into Marsha’s car.

  That’s why the day took me where it did.

  “They’re supposed to be terrorists . . . ?” I said. After years of Christmas-light terror alerts, I was skeptical.

  “This conversation is extremely illegal, Ten,” Marsha said.

  “And?”

  Yeah, that’s exactly what I said. That’s where my head was that day.

  “Fair warning, that’s all,” Marsha sighed. “Kingdom of Heaven’s only ideology is the worship of green, but they cast a wide net. They’re creative when it comes to making new friends. They’ve set up international shell companies like mushroom sprouts.”