A Toast Before Dying (20 page)

“Dad, I’ve got to go … outside. Outside in the street for a minute.”

If he had been annoyed, his irritation quickly gave way to concern. “Well, I … yes, okay.”

I held my head down and allowed him to guide me to the door. In the foyer, a woman who had just arrived looked up from signing the guest book. She touched my arm. “You all right?”

I glanced at her, looked away, and then stared at her again—the woman with the feather cut who’d disappeared from Bert’s the day after Thea died. Now she looked at me, concerned, and did not recognize me.

“I’m okay,” I whispered.

On the way out, I managed to glance at the book.
Her name was Marian Prince and she lived somewhere on Hamilton Terrace.

Dr. Thomas had pulled more albums from his archives and Dad and I could hear Muddy Waters, Lionel Hampton, and Ella Fitzgerald from where we sat on our stoop two doors away. It was 1
A.M.
and folks, well into CPT, were still arriving.

There was a breeze now, a faint one, that caused the shadows from the streetlight to shift as it filtered through the canopy of trees. I watched the shadows play against the gray pavement and remembered summer nights when I used to jump from shadow to shadow, trying to catch the light that I pretended were moonbeams. If I caught the beam, I believed I could float away to heaven.

I closed my eyes and opened them when Dad coughed.

“This is some deep, deep stuff, Mali. What you’re tellin’ me is damn deep.”

I shrugged. Ordinarily, I would not have told him anything, I would not have involved him. But I remembered last summer when I’d gotten jammed and didn’t tell him, he had been the one who had ended up in the hospital.

I watched him now as he shook his head.

“Who do you think was peeping through the blinds?”

“I don’t know, Dad. Could’ve been anyone. I’ll
just have to watch my back, wait until they play their hand.”

I felt tired suddenly, and my anger boiled over at a dead woman who was still capable of destroying people from her grave.

Rita, I knew, would not be able to hold up much longer. There was too much pressure. Even if I hadn’t eavesdropped, the way she handled those two martinis had said enough. And Edwin was not going to let her run around like a loose cannon.

“It’s a matter of time, Dad. Something’s going to happen to that girl.”

He held up his hands. “Not necessarily. Whatever happens to her will have to happen to you also, and it will have to happen to me as well.”

I turned to look at him and felt fear close in on me. Something was going to happen to my father?

“I figure it this way,” he said. “Whoever peeped you back there had us in their sights when we walked out together. They probably think we’re discussing it right now. So unless they’re planning to wipe out—erase—a whole circle of folks, there’s not much they can do except sit tight.”

I leaned back gazing at him as he rested his head against the railing.
Sit tight
. A major elective office was at stake. What on earth did Thea have that would make a senator jeopardize his career? He had written to her, bared his soul on paper. Could a man really get that crazy?

Then again, what made a presidential adviser allow a two-hundred-dollar-an-hour prostitute to listen in
on confidential White House phone calls and read documents even before the president had seen them?

Michaels wasn’t crazy, but just another victim of Lettie’s syndrome who was about to be exposed when the shit hit the fan.

I looked at Dad, wanting to believe that everything was going to be all right. But the thin scar was still faintly visible down the left side of his face, and I heard the slight rasp in his voice that made him cough every now and then, especially when he was nervous or upset.

These were the battle wounds from last summer, when a bunch of drug-dealing rogue cops had tried to get to me. They’d been brought down, but not before Dad had been badly hurt. After that, I had resolved to mind my own business.

I looked around me now and wondered what had happened, how I’d gotten drawn into this new thing. I’d been worried about how Alvin would react to Kendrick’s being in jail. Alvin looked up to Kendrick. And I loved Kendrick like a brother. Flyin’ Home may or may not have been killed because of my nosiness. And there was that white woman offering me money to poke around in black folks’ business, then suddenly backing away.

And worst of all, when Tad comes home, I’d have to tell him how I’d gotten involved, even though he’d warned me not to. How did all this happen? Well, to hell with it. From now on, let Bert work this show herself. Get her own brother out. And to hell with Teddi and her stupid obsession. My father means too
much. I would tell Bert tomorrow that friend or not, I’m out.

Dad rose from the stoop and stretched. With his arms out, he resembled an eagle ready to soar against the night sky. He lowered his arms slowly and beckoned.

“Come on.”

“Where?”

“Back to the party. I want to tell Blaine I’m taking a rain check. The folks’ll have to make do with his albums.”

I stared at him, unable to move. I could not face Edwin Michaels and I could not let my father go back there without me.

“Couldn’t you phone?”

“No. He’d never understand that. My name’s on that invitation. I need to see him.”

Which meant that Dad was going to tell him about Edwin, Thea, Rita, Henderson Laws, and the letter. He was going to tell everything. Blaine Thomas and my father went back a long way. You couldn’t tell half a story to a forty-year friend. He’d guess the other half before the telling was over.

I rose to my feet, prepared to follow him even though my legs were shaking.

We had not taken two steps when the door opened and Blaine rushed out and sprinted to the door of a waiting Cadillac. Behind him, two men hurried out carrying a woman. Her feet did not touch the steps. They placed her in the backseat and Edwin Michaels followed,
quickly closing himself behind the darkened windows.

People crowded the foyer, whispering as the car pulled away. At the corner its dome light and siren came on as it cut into the traffic of Eighth Avenue.

“What the hell happened?”

Blaine turned to face us, his expression one of blank surprise. “It’s Anne. She’s unconscious. They’re taking her to the hospital. She opened the cabinet in the library and drank almost an entire bottle of Scotch. This woman never touched a drop of alcohol in her life. Can you imagine?”

I knew then that Anne had been the one in the window, and even if she hadn’t heard every word clearly, she surely heard enough to confirm her worst suspicions. She had watched her husband smooth Rita’s hair, touch her face, and kiss her.

Through her tears—there had to have been tears—Anne had watched him stroke a woman who had murdered for him.

W
hen Gladys called, I should have refused. I was not up to returning to Thea’s apartment, but I had been so willing to help earlier that I couldn’t back away now. And I was still struggling with what to do about Rita. For the last twenty-four hours, the three of us—Dr. Thomas, Dad, and I—had a running argument about what I’d overheard.

Dr. Thomas felt I should go to the police. I felt confused and wished I’d never heard of Rita Bayne, wished I’d never stepped into that garden.

I couldn’t go to the police, not yet anyway. Suppose she hadn’t really done it—just told Edwin that tale to keep him close. Suppose it had only been those martinis setting fire to her imagination. And suppose it had been someone other than Anne at that window. That person had seen me leave with Dad. I’d made up my mind to keep quiet, even if it meant having a sleazy politician win the election. Worse folks have been in
office. Michaels was no different. I repeated this argument until I was dizzy, but still couldn’t convince myself that I was doing the right thing. I also had not called Bert, and now here I was going back to the apartment of the woman who had started all of this.

When I arrived, Gladys was already upstairs in the living room, where two packing boxes lay open near the fireplace.

“A lot of this stuff will have to be stored until her estate is settled,” she said.

“Did Thea leave a will?”

“Yes. And some interesting surprises as the dead are wont to do.”

I took a seat on the ottoman and waited as she brought an armload of clothing from the larger bedroom.

“Surprises like what?” I asked.

“Like her income, for one thing. One thousand a month from her husband, one thousand a month from her boyfriend.”

“Not bad,” I said. “I suppose most of it went to furnish this place.”

“Oh no. I went with her to set up an IRA, and another time to purchase certificates of deposit. I thought it was a one-time thing. I had no idea that her income was so … steady.”

I didn’t answer. Roger and Edwin gave her two thousand. Who was shelling out the rest? Laws? Or maybe it was Roger and Laws for certain and Edwin was the wild card. I shuffled the names around in my head. Edwin told Rita he was expecting some money
soon. And one hundred thousand wasn’t about to fall in his lap from a tree. I nearly smiled at the thought of him stealing his own money back—and someone else’s as a bonus.

“Did Roger ever mention how much he was sending her?”

“No. I haven’t spoken to him since the service. She mentioned it in her notebook.”

“How come the police didn’t find that book?”

“Thea had hidden it in a box of sanitary napkins.”

“Did Roger or her boyfriend have a key to this place?”

“I’m not sure. Why?”

“Well, until you get everything cleared up, you might want to change these locks. When I was on the force, I saw whole apartments emptied out while the relatives were at the funeral. Truck backed up to the door and even took the food intended for the wake.

“I also saw a sister have her brother arrested for wiping out their mother’s checking account while the woman’s body was still at the undertaker’s. Not even in the ground yet. People can do wonders with a computer and an ATM these days. All they need is a Social Security number. So if Thea had any accounts …”

“You’re right. I’ve been so busy I didn’t think of it.”

I left her and wandered into the small bedroom. The chest and dresser drawers were open and empty, and I moved beyond them to stand near the bed.

“Who designed this?” I asked, running my hand
over the quilted headboard. Gladys had poured two drinks and followed me to the doorway, and extended a glass to me. I couldn’t decide if alcohol was part of her daily diet or a temporary crutch to get through this period.

“A boyfriend,” she said, “had that piece custom-made.”

“It’s unusual,” I said, still running my hands over the surface. My fingers slid down the side and came to rest on the zipper. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?” Gladys stepped into the room and leaned over the bed. “Well, damn. I’ll be damned.”

I pulled the zipper back and expressed surprise. “It’s empty.”

“So it appears,” Gladys said, more to herself than to me.

“I don’t want to sound paranoid,” I said, “but maybe that’s where she kept her jewelry and—”

“Thea had very little jewelry. Said she never wanted to sell or pawn anything. She believed in cash and money in the bank where she could see the figures.”

Gladys walked to the window, then moved slowly back to the living room, where she rummaged through her bag and pulled out her cell phone. She made two brief calls, then returned to the room and slipped her fingers into the empty space.

“Edwin had this bed made up for her. He knew what was in here.” She turned to me, frowning. “Edwin’s not smart; he’s slick, but not too bright. And he’s
a pussy hound. That’s what’s going to bring him down eventually. I don’t know how his wife puts up with it.”

“Maybe she loves him too much to leave,” I said.

“And look where it got her. In the hospital drifting in and out of a coma.”

In the living room, Gladys continued to pack the boxes.

“Who do you think killed Thea?” she asked.

The question took me by surprise, and when I didn’t answer she stopped packing, sat down on the sofa, and picked up her glass again. She studied the amber liquid and squinted as if the answer was floating somewhere under the ice cubes.

“You know what I think, Mali? I think she murdered herself.”

“Really?” It was my turn to sit down now. “She didn’t commit suicide.”

“No, no. By that I meant she had absolutely no interest in living.”

“Did Thea—did she talk often about how she felt about her life?”

“Well, that notebook you saw, and those letters … The notebook was filled with nothing but heartache. Page after page after page. She hated everybody, most of all herself.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. The writing was so disjointed I couldn’t get past the first few pages. It didn’t seem like the Thea I knew, so I stopped reading.”

“Where’s the book now?”

Gladys rose from the sofa and walked to the foyer, then retraced her steps. The silence was broken by the small clicks of the ice cubes in her glass.

“Where’s the book?” I asked again.

She stopped moving but did not look at me.

“Mali, I … wanted to preserve my memory of her. And my sanity. So I destroyed it, along with the letters.”

I stared at her. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Memory! Sanity! Gladys, there may’ve been something in that book to prove Kendrick didn’t kill her!”

“Well, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about that. What’s done is done. I wanted to preserve her memory as is, Mali. You’ll never understand. We were beautiful. We were queens, if only for a minute. And for her to die that way—in some filthy alley with half her face gone. That’s not the Thea I want to remember.”

“Even if an innocent man may have to spend perhaps the rest of his life in jail?”

She did not answer but placed her drink on the coffee table and resumed filling the boxes. I watched her work, and the urge to hit her was so strong I turned and walked to the bathroom to be out of her way. I looked in the cabinet at several jars of makeup and I opened each one. I thought of the dim lights in the club and the smoky scene at the Half-Moon. Makeup that was laid on heavy looked normal in those instances, but here was jar upon jar—some barely touched, others deeply gouged—of makeup shades radically different from her natural complexion. As if she had been searching for just the right mask.