A Toast Before Dying (7 page)

“128th and Lenox.”

“Want me to pick you up?”

His apartment was at 140th Street and Fifth Avenue, really not that far away. I could get there blindfolded.

“No,” I said. “I need to walk. I can think better when I’m walking.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing much. I love you, Baby. See you in a few minutes.”

I hung up, slightly unnerved by the nagging feeling that he still had not gotten over his experience with Ellen, his ex-wife. Finding her in a compromising circumstance with another woman was bad enough, but when the shock had worn off, a wariness had set in that had remained to cast a shadow over our own relationship. In addition, his partner on the job, in whom he’d entrusted his life, had fallen for the big coke buck last summer and had betrayed Tad and the job.

The thing with Ellen had happened over two years earlier, yet when I was with Tad I trod softly,
gauging his moods, listening to my words and his responses, and thankful for the moments of free-flowing feeling. Not only when we loved, but after, like when he would bury his head in the curve of my neck, and I would hear the slow, satisfied rhythm of his breathing.

I also tried not to mention Erskin Harding, the director of the Uptown Children’s Chorus, who was murdered last summer. Tad thought I’d been involved with Erskin. Now if he knew I was still nosing around trying to find out about Thea, still trying to help Kendrick …

I continued to walk, wondering how to handle this. I’d have to tell him eventually, but right now all I wanted to do was stretch out on his terrace and feel his hands smoothing away all the little aches and pains.

At the next corner I dialed Bertha, and on the fourth ring I heard her voice thick with sleep.

“Mali? Girl, I was tired. So much stuff runnin’ ’round in my brain, feel like it’s herbed out. I can hardly think straight. I had to lay down … get myself together.”

“How do you feel now?”

“A little better.”

I was not convinced. “Listen, Bert: Monday, I’m coming with you. Bring a change of clothing for Kendrick. Elizabeth’ll probably want to take the shirt and vest that he’s wearing …”

“Now they strippin’ ’im? What for?”

“To have the clothing tested, analyzed for traces of powder.”

“They can do that?” Her voice lifted hopefully.

“They can do a lot of things, Bert.”

She said nothing more but I heard the sigh of relief and decided to end on an upbeat note. I wondered if they had tested for powder burns before his fingerprinting. And he’d probably washed his hands a million times since then. I remembered a few cases—not many—when the arresting officer neglected to Mirandize and the perp eventually walked on a tech.

“Elizabeth’s a good lawyer. Everything will work out,” I said again, trying to reassure myself as well.

I hung up and continued uptown. The heat of the day had dissipated and now Lenox Avenue was crowded. At 135th Street the cluster of vendors hawking their wares in the reflected light of Pan-Pan’s restaurant was so busy it took me a minute to maneuver around the tables of scarves and socks and sunglasses.

City Hall had cleared them from 125th Street only to have some of the hardier souls regroup and resurface in the most unlikely places. Right now they were operating less than two blocks from the precinct.

Beyond the cluster of tables, I spotted Flyin’ Home and his dogs moving down 135th Street toward the Kennedy Center basketball court. I called out and rushed after him, hoping he was in a better mood and more willing to talk about Friday night. But the dogs moved fast and by the time I reached the court no one was there.

By nine o’clock traffic was slow on the Harlem River. I stood on the terrace looking down into the water, wondering
about Thea. How she had almost won the pageant … almost succeeded in becoming a great singer … almost found a good man.
Almost
had been the recurring theme in her life. What had happened along the way? How had she ended up working as a barmaid in the Half-Moon? Who had invited her into that alley?

“What’re you thinking, Mali?”

Tad had stepped out onto the terrace and I turned at the sound of his voice. “Nothing much. Listening for the next boat. River’s so quiet.”

He moved close behind me and his hands found the place in the small of my back and slowly began to work their way down. He wore only a pair of shorts and his skin was wet and soft and had a just-bathed, warm, jasmine scent. I closed my eyes, forgetting about Thea.

“Muscles are a little tense, Baby …”

“So is yours,” I whispered, leaning into him.

He kissed the nape of my neck, then lifted me and moved through the living room and into the bedroom. In the dim circle of light, he lay back on the bed watching me, smiling as I undressed.

“Ah, girl … the longer I know you, the better you look …” His voice was barely audible as I turned around, dropped my bra to the floor and stepped out of the silk bikini.

“And the longer I know you, the better you feel,” I said.

“Come here,” he whispered. “Baby, come here … walk slow … like that … that’s it.”

I stood near the edge of the bed, looking down, always surprised at the sight of him, surprised and glad at how fast he could get ready for action. He was ready and I hadn’t even touched him. I stood there with my hands on my hips thinking of an old blues riff, wondering how Lettie would have worked it:

I was no singer, and to open my mouth to these words would have destroyed the mood, so I let the other parts of me do the talking. He reached for me with one hand and turned off the lamp with the other. “Tell me, Baby, what I want to hear.”

I leaned over with my legs spread wide on either side of him. He moved down, and in the dark I felt his breath light and easy on my stomach.

Dawn was making its way over the edge of the river when I opened my eyes. Tugboat and barge horns sounded their hoarse notes, then faded off.

I listened for a minute to the smaller clatter of silverware and rose from the bed and wandered into the dining area near the terrace. The curtains blew with the soft scent of the river behind them. I looked at the table.

“Champagne and orange juice. Are we celebrating something?”

“Not a celebration,” he said, stepping from the kitchen to place a platter of bacon and waffles on the table.

He was naked. How could a man stand at a stove with no clothes on? I watched him and my appetite stirred, but not for the waffles. He turned toward the stove again and I prayed that no hot oil would pop from the pan.

“I wanted to do something special,” he said. “Something for you to remember while I’m away …”

“I have a lot to remember,” I said, gazing at him. His skin was like Golden Blossom honey, only sweeter. At age forty, he had an edge of silver at his temples but prided himself for not having one slack muscle. I gazed at him another minute, then turned toward the bathroom to brush my teeth and dip my head in a rush of cold water. When I returned to the table, he was seated. I watched the other muscles move as he lifted his fork.

“How long will you be gone?”

“Two weeks or so.”

It was the “or so” that got to me. I lifted my glass and did not offer a toast. In the middle of the night, when he had spoken of the training assignment in Los Angeles, I had rested my head on his chest, and for some unfathomable reason had begun to cry.

Maybe I hadn’t wanted to hear bad news in the middle of something so good. Maybe there was such a thing as loving a person so much you ached to reach across even small distances to touch him.

And when I had finally slept, the dreams came: of the plane going down; of a South Central shoot-out and he hadn’t worn his vest.

I had awakened shivering in sweat and had spent the next hour wrapped in his robe and kneeling on the terrace.

Somewhere out of the darkness I had felt a familiar presence, then heard something too slight and too soft to be a whisper. I knew who it was so I didn’t turn around.

Don’t worry about things before they happen, girl. Didn’t I teach you anything? And get up off your knees if you’re not praying …

No need to answer. I had remained quiet and gazed into the dark water until my mother’s voice drifted off on the night breeze. My head cleared and I was able to creep back to bed.

Tad saw my expression now and reached across the table for my hand. “Come with me, Baby. Come on …”

I thought about it for a minute, pleased with the possibilities. I had entertained myself with vivid dreams of going away alone with him. Even if it was just across the street. I wanted to go. West Coast. West Nepal, west hell. Last summer in St. Croix, as nice as it had been after all the hell I’d been put through, didn’t really count because the whole family had been there. Now here was the chance for just the two of us, and I had to shake my head.

As tolerant as Dad was of my lifestyle, he had grown old worrying about me. Now, as old as I was, I had to draw the line. This may have been the nineties but my wild ways had been a thorn in his side since I was sixteen. Now here I was, plucking out my own gray strands, and he still worried, still waited up. Mainly because Mom was gone and my sister, Benin, was also gone.

An occasional night out was one thing. Two weeks on the other side of the continent was quite another. If I went, I’d have to come back with a paper signed by a justice of the peace.

“Dad and Alvin would have a problem with that,” I said, trying to explain in the shortest possible way. Even as I said it, I hurt. I felt worse when he whispered, “Ah. Well …” As if he understood something I didn’t.

We finished breakfast in silence and I thought about crawling back into bed to divide the sections of the Sunday
Times
, but there was no time for reading. In the evening, he’d be gone.

We finished the champagne and I sat on the edge of the bed, fingering the tangled sheets and trying not to feel weepy, trying not to feel anything, and failing when he came close and I felt his mouth again, moving soft against my shoulder.

T
he main corridor in the Criminal Court Building was like Times Square at five o’clock and just as confusing if you didn’t know where you were going. The pace was normal only at the check-in line, where bags were emptied of keys, guns, knives, tokens—anything metal. On the other side of the metal detector, chaos closed in, sweeping you into a parade of cops, clerks, attorneys, murderers, arsonists, and larcenists—grand and petty—and other visitors.

I walked fast, pulling Bertha by the hand. She pulled back to stare as several doors off the corridor swung open and closed on brief snapshots of other crises. Along the way we passed a young girl leaning against the wall with a crying baby. She was crying also, her round teenage face aged by incomprehensible circumstance. I imagined her man had probably been sentenced or denied bail or skipped bail and a warrant had been issued.

A few feet away, a middle-aged man was advising his probation officer: “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have a job.” He sported a dirty Tommy Hilfinger sweatshirt and a scraggly red beard and was probably homeless, but what he said, he said grandly—as if he alone were propping up the entire criminal-justice apparatus.

I led Bertha onto a wide wing off the main corridor and we passed through a set of double doors into a small courtroom where Elizabeth was sitting in the first row, waiting for Kendrick to be brought in. I felt Bertha begin to shake. We managed to sit directly behind Elizabeth, and I tapped her shoulder. Bertha was silent and I did the talking. “When is Kendrick coming up?”

“Any minute.”

“Ask him if he knows a woman, a white woman named Teddi Lovette, and how can I reach her. She came to Bertha’s shop the day after Kendrick was arrested. I need to find her.”

The door to the left of the judge’s bench slid open and two officers accompanied Kendrick into the room. His face was hardrock handsome but he managed to smile and nod to us. Bertha’s face was wet with tears and she passed a hand over her chest.

The judge cleared his throat and glanced at the court reporter. The prosecutor, a fat young man with thick lenses, rose from the table to the left and began to read from the indictment. Elizabeth and Kendrick and I already knew what it said, but in the prosecutor’s mouth it sounded hard and cold and bloody. Words like
malice aforethought
, which would leave the ordinary defendant
blinking and wondering who the hell Malice was.

Ain’t had nuthin’ to do with no Malice. He wasn’t even on the scene
.

“…  fatally wounded and thereby caused the death of one Thea Morris on the night of …”

I stopped listening and concentrated on Kendrick, on his well-shaped head and dark athlete’s neck. He knew what malice was and did not bow his head but stared straight ahead, as if his vertebrae had been fused.

Finally: “How do you plead?”

The courtroom was small but appeared large in its emptiness. Except for five or six other people scattered along the sixteen rows of straight-backed wooden benches, there was nothing to absorb the echo. The court reporter glanced up to see if she had missed a nod or a frown, then resumed pressing the narrow keys on her machine. Sunshine filtered in thin and white through the high windows, discoloring the wooden rows.

“How do you plead?”

The question resonated from the old brass chandelier and the
IN GOD WE TRUST
sign on the wall above the bench.

“Not guilty!”

There was no echo in Kendrick’s voice, only the hot dry anger of innocence. I looked down to see Bertha’s fingers, like claws, etching the wood of the bench in front of us. A court officer stifled a yawn as Elizabeth rose from the table and began to speak: “Your Honor,
my client’s innocence will be proven. I request that he be released on bail until his trial date.”

The judge did not glance up. I focused on his hair, on the thin silver strands spread strategically and ineffectually across his scalp. Patches of pink gleamed through and the sun caught them, sparkling with sweat, as he nodded. And I knew from the deliberate moves what was coming.