A Toast Before Dying (16 page)

“Damn! How he do that in a chair.”

“Wasn’t in no chair then. Went in the wrong crib and came out carryin’ a bullet.”

“Maybe tonight somebody tried to finish the job.”

“That, or they tryin’ to git to what’s
under
that chair. Flyin’ Home carry some UPS—ultrapure, under-priced shit. Wish I coulda caught them damn dogs. That chair’s worth coupla grand.”

“Yeah, and is probably somewhere past Yonkers by now.”

T
he bullet that hit Flyin’ Home in the armpit had pierced his lung, and while he was being prepped in the emergency room, he choked to death on his blood.

I sat at the table the next morning reading the
Daily Challenge
, which said it had been a drug hit. A drive-by. Even TooHot had warned me, in so many words, to stay away.

Flyin’ Home had been dealing from his wheelchair—traded one poor career choice for another.

I wondered if his girlfriend or wife or family had known. Had they ever tried to talk to him, warn him. Or would they now simply use some of his drug profits to bury him. And keep on stepping. I closed the paper, my feelings shifting from sympathy to anger and frustration and back again.

The only possible witness was now gone, and I
had a vision of Kendrick lying in his cell holding his ears against the sound of his nightmares.

Plus there was a new complication: “
If they seen me, they seen you too, you know what I’m sayin’?
” Flyin’ Home had said.

I thought back to the night he had rolled up to me at Bert’s place. There had been no cars on the avenue but who had been on the side streets? And he did get in the wind pretty fast, probably zigzagging through the blocks against the traffic pattern until he made it home.

Then last night, while talking to me, someone had caught up to him.

“
If it was anybody but you, I wouldn’t be here.
”

I shook my head. He’d be alive if he’d been home—or somewhere other than in that park.

The next day, when Teddi called, I had not been out of the house except to walk Ruffin. The image of Flyin’ Home being lifted into the ambulance and the news of his death still haunted me.

I picked up the phone and Teddi’s voice was barely above a whisper. I had to strain to hear her.

“Mali? Can you meet me at the theater? I’ve got to talk to you.”

“What about?” I asked, not feeling in the mood to go anywhere but back to bed.

“Something’s happened.”

I didn’t respond, not sure I was ready to absorb any more bad news.

“Mali, are you there?”

“I’m here. What … happened?”

“I can’t say … can’t talk about this over the phone. Can you meet me?”

I heard something more than the urgency in her voice, and I agreed to meet her. I dressed quickly and left the house.

Someone had placed a brighter bulb in the lobby of the Star Manhattan Theater and the cracks in the walls were visible. I climbed the stairs and expected to find a rehearsal in progress like the last time, but the only sound in the place came from the echo of my footfalls as I moved down the aisle.

The klieg lights were out but a small overhead bulb in center stage spread a weak glow. I stepped up on the stage and tried to peer into the darkness beyond the bulb.

“Teddi?”

I called again, wondering if she had changed her mind after she had phoned me. Maybe she was backstage and didn’t hear me. I took a step, and a voice close to my ear made me jump.

“Mali …”

I spun around and Teddi was standing in the shadow of one of the sliding prop walls.

“I’m sorry, Mali. I didn’t mean to frighten you, but I heard footsteps and I wasn’t sure who it was …”

“Who else are you expecting?”

“No one. No one.”

She stepped quickly off the stage and motioned for me to follow. We sat in the first row, where she positioned herself so that she could watch the door. I also glanced back but no one was there. “What’s going on, Teddi?”

“Mali, I’m going to make this quick. I want you to forget about what I asked you to do. Right now, I’ll give you half of what I offered and we’ll call it even, okay?”

“No. No, it’s not okay. I’m not talking about the money. I want to know why you wanted me to look into Thea’s life in the first place, and now all of a sudden you’re ready to fold.”

“Please Mali … it’s gotten too complicated. I don’t want any more … I mean I think we should let sleeping dogs lie.”

Sleeping dogs. Dogs. I thought of Flyin’ Home. “You know,” I said, “the only possible witness to Thea’s murder was killed last night.”

In what little light there was, I thought I saw the color drain from her face. She took a breath and pushed her hair back. The silence stretched before she spoke again.

“Mali, you’re Kendrick’s friend. I don’t want anything to happen to anyone else. There’s already too much—”

We both heard the sound of the door scraping open but I didn’t move.

“Get down! Quick!” she whispered as she stood up and moved toward the sliver of light. “If she sees me talking to you …”

I slid down off my seat and crouched on the floor as she hurried up the aisle and stopped at the door.

“Mother? What are you doing here? There’s no rehearsal today.”

“I know. I phoned you, and when I didn’t get an answer I thought—”

“Well, I was going over a script, but I’ll get my bag. I was about to leave. Wait here.”

Teddi moved back down the aisle and shot a quick look at me. I remained where I was as she rushed past me again. The sliver of light vanished as the door closed, leaving me in relative darkness and more confusion.

One day and several phone calls that Teddi did not return later, I looked at the other cards in the file.

I called Miss Adele, who was glad to hear from me. An hour later, I headed uptown to Esplanade Gardens, a co-op development that stretched in an L shape from Lenox Avenue and 146th Street to Seventh Avenue and 148th Street.

Across from Esplanade are the Dunbar Apartments, a block-long complex with interior gardens where Matthew Henson, Paul Robeson, W. E. B. Du Bois, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and A. Philip Randolph once lived. Miss Adele had also lived there for many years, but had moved across Seventh Avenue when Esplanade was completed.

One Christmastime when I was growing up, I went to Rockefeller Center for the tree-lighting ceremony,
but every year after that I walked up Seventh Avenue to Esplanade to watch the terraces come alive with light so stunningly bright that Soviet cosmonauts on a flyby recorded it as a pulse from a supernova. And in a way, it was.

Each evening a week before Christmas, I would rush uptown in freezing, sleeting, snowy weather to stand in the entrance of Thelma’s Lounge on the corner of 148th Street and Seventh Avenue. I was too young to enter the bar, so I would stand in the doorway blowing rings of arctic air as lights from the terraces and windows across the avenue randomly pushed back the frigid darkness. When I could no longer feel my mouth move or my teeth chatter, I would board the bus and head home. Those lights, the wonder and beauty of them, were more exciting than any Christmas present I had ever received.

I still walked uptown with Alvin and Ruffin occasionally, and the lights at holiday time, now more subdued, still fascinated me.

Miss Adele’s apartment looked out on Seventh Avenue and faced her old apartment in the Dunbar. I took the elevator to the eleventh floor, and when she opened the door I could tell the AC wasn’t on, but the apartment seemed cool anyway. She wore a billowing yellow caftan and her chestnut-colored braids were piled like a crown on her head. She was barefoot, so I took off my shoes and left them in the foyer. Pale beige carpeting
stretched wall-to-wall in every room except the kitchen, which had terra-cotta tile.

Just like Dad, she had a grand piano in the living room and artwork covering her walls. Her terrace was enclosed, converted into a small greenhouse with two wicker chairs squeezed in among dozens of plants.

I settled myself onto the deep sofa as she called from the kitchen. “How’s your father? You should’ve brought him along. He works too hard, you know. Could use a break.”

She came back into the living room and placed a tray of sandwiches and coffee on the low table, then sank comfortably onto the chair facing me. “Now what’s this about Thea? Something else going on besides what the papers are saying?”

“I think so, but I’m not sure what to make of it,” I said. “She was once involved with Kendrick Owen, the man who’s in jail for her murder.”

“But you don’t think he did it?”

“No, I don’t. I think the cops rushed to judgment, as usual, and tagged the most convenient person. But someone, a young man, told me that he saw a person leave the alley that night.”

“Why doesn’t he come forward?”

I showed her the article in the
Daily Challenge
. “He was killed three nights ago in a drive-by. I was two feet away from him.”

Miss Adele read the paper, then put it down. “My God! This is terrible. What’s going to happen to Kendrick?”

“I don’t know. I’m back to square one. The only
thing left now is to look at Thea’s life and figure out who would’ve wanted her dead.”

I reached into my bag and knew I was taking a chance pulling out the bankbook and the photograph of the old woman. But Miss Adele had known my father since before I was born; she knew my mother. And she had been Thea’s coach, the only one who’d cared enough to sponsor her dream of becoming somebody. I had to take the chance or forget everything.

Miss Adele looked at the picture and smiled, but when she opened the bankbook, I watched her brows come together.

“Poor Thea. Poor girl, poor thing …”

I waited, trying to drum up sympathy for a woman who had impacted so many lives I needed a scorecard to keep track. I thought of Laws, Kendrick, Roger, and Michaels: one dead, one in jail, one who’d been held hostage by a divorce settlement, and one whose political career might yet be compromised. Each, at one time or another, had been drawn to her.

It occurred to me that Thea’s problem went a little beyond Lettie’s syndrome. It was not what Thea had, but what she had wanted, wanted so badly that any one of these men—as much as they loved her—might’ve been better off with her dead.

Miss Adele spoke, cutting into my thoughts.

“That girl never got to enjoy anything. Never really got to live.”

“But why not? I don’t understand,” I said.

She didn’t answer, but closed the book and tapped
it thoughtfully against her open palm. “What’re you going to do with this?”

“I don’t know. Actually, I’m not even supposed to have it.”

“How’d you get it?”

“Well, I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re asking. I was helping Gladys Winston sort through Thea’s stuff. I found it in the apartment in a place where no one but Thea would’ve known where it was.”

That seemed to satisfy her, and I calmed down, allowing my defensiveness to fade.

She glanced at the book again, leafing through the pages. “Do you have any idea, Mali, where the money came from? Who made these deposits?”

I shrugged. “Maybe one of her boyfriends. I don’t know which one.”

She put the bankbook on the table and reached for her cup. Her fingers were fine and long and seamless, as if age had skipped over them and went directly to her wrists, with their prominent veins. She took a sip but still did not look at me.

“Michaels, perhaps?”

“You know about Michaels?” I asked.

“Who doesn’t? Anyone in Harlem with half an eye could see what was happening. Even his wife.”

“Do you think Anne might’ve …?”

“No. She’s too … refined for that.”

“Sometimes refinement can take a backseat when your last nerve is plucked,” I said, remembering how Anne had treated Rita Bayne that day at the beauty salon.

Miss Adele looked at me, frowning at my lack of sympathy. “This is rather complicated, Mali.” I was about to apologize, but she continued. “But then, Thea had a complicated history, poor thing.”

I had to bite my tongue. If I heard that “poor thing” tag one more time I would throw up.

“How so?” I managed to ask.

“Well, this woman,” Miss Adele took the small photograph from the table and cupped it in the palm of her hand, like a jewel. “This is Dessie Hamilton. Thea’s grandmother.”

I nodded. “Dad said that Dessie had worked in the Half-Moon years ago.”

Miss Adele placed the picture on the table again and gazed at it as if she expected the face in the photo to speak.

“Dessie,” she murmured, more to the picture than to me, “was so beautiful it made you smile just to look at her. I don’t know if your father told you that she had been a dancer at the Cotton Club. She was some beauty, even though she danced in the back row.

“The gangsters decided her legs weren’t that shapely, so they put her in back of the big-leg dancers. But that didn’t matter. She had some hips and knew what to do with them—like Josephine Baker. And those men caught a glimpse of her and stayed till closing.

“A few of the girls—not all of them—had ‘friends,’ as we liked to call them in those days. But Dessie held out for the richest one. She figured if it was gonna happen, let it be worth her while. The man was
in oil and kept her in furs for twenty years. Except that he was jealous. She couldn’t go anywhere, not that she wanted to, ’cause she loved him. He didn’t want her dancing anymore, so she quit. And they were quite a pair. Went to the Broadway shows, the opera, the nightclubs. She had a beautiful apartment and a maid to clean it. She never had to cook.”

I nodded, wondering if this was in the genes: Thea’s lifestyle passed down to her the way my mother had given me my gray eyes. “So Dessie’s life was something out of a fairy
tale
?”

“Almost. Except who knows how those things end sometimes? The man died suddenly and didn’t leave her much, just some bearer bonds. And she found out she was pregnant. So she got rid of her Cadillac and her furs one by one, and then the bonds.”

She glanced at me, then stared until my unsympathetic gaze wavered and fell away.