The Lost Brother (20 page)

Arcides Chavez has a rifle. He wishes he lived in a world where there were no rifles, but he doesn’t. Never did. Not as a child in El Salvador. Not here. But Arcides Chavez doesn’t just have the rifle, he has a talent for it. He took his first target shots at six, could hit the targets by eight, was the best marksman in the village at ten, the best in the mountains at twelve, the best, period, at fourteen. But he wasn’t there, rifle in hand, when the soldiers killed his father, or the town spy turned in his mother to the government. He wasn’t there, rifle in hand, when his wife was raped and killed in the streets of this American city.

He stops. Drops to his knee. With no tears in his eyes or tremble in his hands, he focuses. Aims. Fires.

Twice.

The two men who came out of the house to pull Kel-logg’s body off the boy shake. Look at each other. See the wounds in each other’s chests and figure out what they mean. Drop.

Chavez runs to the boy. Keeps his eyes on the house’s windows, gun ready. Grabs the boy and pulls him to the other side of the cab. Hears sirens. Decides to just wait. It’s all he can think to do.

From the house he hears yells and gunshots.

THE SHOTS FROM THE HOUSE WERE MALLORY’S. He’d realized, as the two agents dropped from Chavez’s bullets, that the crime scene, the involvements, had expanded beyond control. He’d grabbed the tapes and taken off, the other two agents right behind. But once in the back alley, he heard the sirens and, knowing how deep in the shit he was, knew also the story could not fly. So he switched gears. He did something he would have bet would be harder but wasn’t—he shot the two agents, close range, killing them.

Story: The Mayor and the Chief and the Director had asked him to infiltrate a squad of bigoted FBI agents by acting as their local liaison. The Mayor and the Chief, with the Director’s blessing, enlisted Mallory to perform a sort of double-agent investigation. Because Mallory had been portrayed (unfairly, the Mayor himself pointed out) as a racist several times in city homicide cases, the bigoted agents accepted him. When the James boy turned up, Mallory went to his rescue. But he’d had to be careful, because he’d been outnumbered four to one at the house. However, when Long Ray made his move, Mallory saw the opportunity to break out of his double-agent status and help save the boy’s life. This, the Mayor said, made him a true hero. The Director, the Mayor said, also deserved praise for his willingness to combat racism within the FBI.

Khalid’s name never came up, the James boy never having seen him, Mallory keeping quiet about it.

Grandmother James, with the boy back, kept the media from him. She wanted to keep law enforcement from him, but the boy was insistent—-he would talk. He would remember, and he would talk. Everything he knew, to anyone who would listen. And so what was on the tapes became public knowledge. Because the tapes were missing, the boy’s statements could not be corroborated. But nonetheless, he told what he knew. He was afraid still. Showed it. Spoke anyway. His parents’ child.

Long Ray was buried in the city’s potter’s field. He’d said years before that when he died he expected to be broke, but even if he wasn’t, he wanted to be buried with all the city’s other “poor-assed niggers.”

Mrs. James brought the grandchildren to his funeral. Passer was there. Chavez. No one else.

Preacher was buried the same day as Long, in the same place. Mrs. James, the children, Passer, and Chavez were present for that too.

*

Kellogg wasn’t at the funeral because his condition was still too critical He was now considered to be more likely to live than to die, but not much more likely

“My fat saved my life,” he tells Passer.

She says that’s bullshit. He’s just lucky—first, that the three bullets he took missed anything vital, and second, that Chavez’s bullets didn’t miss anything at all.

“So I’m a lucky man. Lucky to have so much unvital fat. But just in case my luck runs out, do me a favor. Contact my sisters and tell them what happened.”

“What sisters?”

Kellogg sinks back into his hospital bed. Closes his eyes. Says, “Pass, why don’t you pretend you’ve learned something these last two years and find them on your own. Let me sleep.”

Mallory had snuck the videotapes away from the crime scene at Preacher’s house. He made copies and delivered them to their respective cowards. To the Mayor and the FBI director, he said he wanted only backup on his story about the massacre. To Khalid, he said he wanted fifty thousand dollars, a number chosen because it would pay off the mortgage on his house in West Virginia.

Mallory goes to the hospital. Badges his way past the duty nurse telling him it’s after visiting hours. Kellogg, hooked up to various monitors and fluids, is sleeping. Mallory sits by him, dozing off himself after a while. When he wakes, he finds Kellogg looking at him. The room is dark; the building quiet.

“What time is it?” Kellogg asks.

Mallory looks at his Rolex. “Two.”

“A.M.?”

Mallory nods.

“Good time.”

“You always liked it.”

“Four
A.M
.’s better.”

“A cop’s time.”

“Yeah.”

Mallory holds up a package. Kellogg, from its shape, guesses. “A videotape?” Mallory nods.

Kellogg guesses again, “Jimmy Close and Henry James in their ‘historic’ meeting?”

Mallory nods again. Says, “Wouldn’t want you to die with a case hanging incomplete.”

“You got the others too, then.”

Mallory says nothing.

“Yeah, don’t answer that,” Kellogg says.

“Know what a house nigger is?” Mallory asks.

“Sure.”

“A slave who lived in the big house with the white master, serving him, kissing his ass, sometimes making all the other slaves, the field niggers, jealous, but also sometimes being the one to get all the news to warn his people about what might be happening, sometimes able to stroke the master in just the right way to help his people.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s me. According to the Mayor. I’m his house honky.”

They laugh, Kellogg grimacing painfully as he does.

“You guys sure get along/
⁵
Kellogg says.

“We think alike. I’ll tell you something that most people wouldn’t believe, but it’s true—me and the Mayor might be the two least racist people you’ll ever meet. Neither one of us cares about color.”

“Neither one of you cares about anything except being in action,”

“Exactly.”

Mallory sets the wrapped tape on the bedstand. Asks, “How’s your health?”

“Okay”

“Going to make it?”

“Probably”

“I was worried.”

“Three bullets, I guess so.”

“No, not that. Because with these borderline cases, it’s usually the patient’s will to live that makes the difference, and I wasn’t sure you had any.”

Kellogg smiles. “I’m surprised too.”

“And speaking of will to live, shut that James boy up.”

“I got nothing to do with that.”

“I’m just saying he’s asking for trouble.”

“He’s just telling the truth as he knows it. Fuck the world if it don’t want to deal with the whole truth.”

“All right. Don’t matter, really. Nothing’s coming of anything.”

“No, you guys got it all worked out.”

“So like I said, shut the kid up. What’s the point in causing trouble? Especially racially?”

“It’s kind of ironic that it’s such an interracially harmonious cover-up.”

“We
can
all just get along!” They laugh.

“He’s going to England anyway,” Kellogg says. “The Jameses are.”

“Good. It’s probably a better country.”

“Don’t kid yourself.”

“I mean racially.”

“Me, too.”

“Okay”

“We’re just where the world’s going.”

“Okay,”

“And speaking of where we’re all going, if I do die, do me a favor.”

Mallory touches the tape. “This ain’t enough?”

“I’m going to tell you the same thing I told the Black Detective.”

“What?”

“If Passer stays on, you guys treat her with all due respect.”

“He told me you told him that.”

“You guys talked?”

“Today. Talked good. Long time. He wanted to know the truth about everything. Promised to keep it to himself. Just wanted to know, you know. Killing curiosity.”

“You told him?”

“Yeah. Like I said, we had a good long talk. Hell, we used to be friends.”

“If I promise to keep my mouth shut, will you tell me everything?”

“As if you haven’t figured it all out.”

“I meant what I said about Passer.”

“Black dick said you said she’d have made a great cop, except she’s too afraid of violence.”

“Not too afraid of it. Too saddened by it.”

Mallory nods. Rises. Takes Kellogg’s hand. Squeezes it. Says, “Yo, brother.”

Kellogg nods.

Mallory leaves.

“Asshole!” Passer screams, slamming the door behind her as she enters the office.

Sue Cline, at her desk, jumps.

“I’m sorry, Sue. I didn’t know you were here.”

“I was just getting ready to go visit Kevin. Want to come?”

“I was just there.”

“That explains the ‘asshole.’ He makes people talk like that.”

“Did you know he has family?”

“I thought he might, but he wouldn’t ever talk about it. I know his parents are dead.”

“Well, he says he has sisters, but of course the
asshole
wouldn’t tell me their names or where to find them.”

She sits. Sighs deeply. Sue sees she’s been crying.

“We’re so scared for him, and he’s so callous about our fears,” Passer says.

“He’s just being him.”

“I know”

“Besides, maybe it’s a compliment that he didn’t give you his sisters’ names. I mean, it’s probably an easier find than a standard skip trace. Maybe he didn’t want to insult you by suggesting you needed more information. It’s a male thing. Male mentor thing. I mean, he’s still an asshole, but … you know.”

Passer does the work. It isn’t hard, doesn’t take long. Finds the sisters, two of them, living together in Utah. She gets one on the phone. Finds out they’re both widowed.

The sister Passer talks to says they haven’t heard from Kevin for a long, long time. There was more than a ten-year age gap, so they hadn’t grown up close. But also there was a specific falling-out. After their mother died In 1967, their father having died earlier, the sisters wanted to sell the modest family home there in D.C, which had been left to the three of them. Kevin had talked them out of It. Then the riots came in ‘68, and the last whites In the already changing neighborhood left—were “driven out,” the sister said. Now the sisters got their way and the house was sold, but its value had dropped even more. The split between them wasn’t about the money they had lost because Kevin made them wait that extra year, though. It was about attitude, or stubbornness, or something. Anyway, the sisters kept sending Kevin a card every Christmas, just to keep the door open between them. But he never answered. The sister Passer speaks to Isn’t surprised to hear he was shot. Living In Washington with “those people,”

“Kevin’s like a ghost to us now,” she says. “So long lost. It’s like hearing from a ghost.”

Khalid, without his entourage and dressed as middle class as he can be, in slacks and sweater and nice shoes, not in his New Africa uniform-suit, knocks on Mrs James’s door. After a moment, she opens It. Stands there, not moving to invite him in.

“Mrs. James?”

“Yes/’

Tm Khalid.”

“I know who you are.”

“I was a friend of your son’s.”

“I had two sons.”

“Long.”

“I know which one.”

He nods. “I just wanted to tell you that Long …” Tears form in his eyes. He bows his head. “Long was the strongest man I’ve ever known. He was a great man. The absolute bravest man.” He looks up at her. “I don’t know how many times people have told you good things about him. Maybe no one ever has. But I wanted to. I wanted you to know that a lot of people looked up to him. I wanted you to know what a leader he was. It was in prison, but still, it’s where he was, and he was the best. He kept the peace, there, better than anyone before or since. And that’s something.”

She nods, touched by Khalid’s sincerity.

“I was just afraid that the only opinions on Long you ever heard came from cops or judges or probation officers or teachers. I wanted you to know what
we
thought of him. What I thought.”

She nods again.

He takes a deep breath. Releases it. Wipes his eyes. Looks around. Feels better. “Is there anything you need? Anything I can do for you?”

“No.”

“Security, maybe?”

“No.”

“I hear you’re moving to England.”

She shakes her head. No. He nods. Says, “Good.”

“Yes.”

“Peace.”

“Yes. Peace.”

He nods again. Turns. Goes down the steps to the street, to the city.

He goes for a long walk on this pretty evening. Through the great mix of people that is America. Wonders if it will be as costly for him as it was for Malcolm, to settle his anger, to grow his patience, to find his fairness, to understand his humanity, to rise above his hate of the hate, his fear of his fear. Wonders if he can do it. If anyone can. Flawed Malcolm, flawed Martin, flawed Lincoln, flawed Jefferson. He thinks of something Long said to him once, about how, when you’re figuring out the cost of doing something, don’t forget to consider the cost of not doing it, too. And when Khalid thinks of that, of Long, a wild rush of tears breaks from his eyes, as he stands there in the street, people staring.