Another Life (18 page)

* * *

B
ack in my room, I added it up. Norbert’s brother hadn’t been “theorizing” he’d been giving me an expert’s analysis. His credibility was his own past. This was a man who would stand in front of a firing squad and refuse the blindfold; he’d want the executioners to see a warrior’s final contempt for murderers who called themselves “soldiers.” His funeral shroud would be his own loyalty. Not loyalty to some “Fatherland.” Not loyalty to an army, or a team of mercenaries. Loyalty to his blood-oath. I don’t know who whispered “Protect your little brother” to him so many years ago. But I knew he had never wavered, no matter the cost.
So when he’d told me snatching the Sheikh’s baby hadn’t been the work of any mercenary unit, I believed him. When he told me where the team who had done the job must have been trained, I believed him.
I believed—because I knew what telling me had cost him.

* * *

“I
am very grateful,” I told Norbert that same night, looking at the river. It seemed to have grown blacker, less settled.
“Non pas rien.”
“No,” I said. “I know the value of things. What you did was…everything.”
“How do you know Alain was…accurate?” He chose the last word delicately.
“I can’t tell you. Not because I don’t want to, because I don’t know a way to say it that won’t make me sound insane. I have…a gift.”
“You trust this…gift, then?”
“Yes, my friend, I do.” I handed him a slip of paper with the number that redirects to one of the pay phones right behind my booth at Mama’s. “Please tell your brother that, should he ever require whatever assistance I might be able to provide, this will find me.”
His unlined face flexed just enough to tell me he believed me. Believed
in
me. And in my gift.

* * *

“I
f they already moved him, he’s out of reach,” I told my family, Rosie curled at my side on the couch. “But if they’re still here—in the city, I mean—we can find them. Maybe.”
“Why not just tell this man Pryce?” Clarence asked. “Surely, he would have better resources…if what you were told is true.”
“It was all true,” I answered, thinking,
Even the things Alain never said in words.
“But the people who hired Pryce don’t want theories, they want a baby.”
“And the people who took him, what would
they
want?”
“I did have an idea, but I’ve let go of it, honey,” I said to Michelle. “If the goal was to humiliate the Sheikh, there were better ways, especially with the kind of money they spent on this. What we know for sure is that they weren’t out to cancel his ticket. He was there for the taking, and they passed.”
Max rubbed his thumb against the first two fingers of his hand, the universal sign for money, shaking his head at the same time.
“This
can’t
be about money,” I agreed with my brother. “That would make it all some kind of stupid gamble, like Pryce first thought…and there’s not a trace of stupid in any of this.”
“That is the only theory which fits the known facts,” the Mole said, firmly.
“Not a word on the Web,” Terry added. “Nobody taking credit. There wasn’t even much screening to do, because—”
“The newspapers don’t have the story, so there is no way for the usual frauds to claim credit,” Clarence finished for him.
Terry tapped some keys, said: “NYPD has it coded as a gun-point robbery. Victim was a homeless man named Milton Johnson. Black. Age fifty-seven. Long sheet. In fact, he was arrested a couple of days later, whole list of petty misdemeanors. Died in custody before they could even transport him. Autopsy is mandatory in all such cases. Cause of death was multiple organ failure—he was a long-term drug-and-alcohol abuser.”
How Pryce got
that
done, I don’t know, but every paper door had already been sealed shut. Even one of the docket-divers looking for something to sell the tabloids wouldn’t stumble over the Prince’s name.
“It is time to visit my father,” Clarence said, looking at his watch.
Max gestured drinking from an imaginary mug held in both hands, making it clear who
he
was going to consult.
The Mole, Michelle, and Terry took off to have dinner together. Ever since Pryce had delivered Terry’s birth certificate, Michelle couldn’t stop introducing him to everyone who crossed their path. She hadn’t worked out the mechanics yet, so she alternated between pride and suspicion anytime someone told her she looked too young to be his mother.
“You think he got those looks from his
father
?” She’d vipersmile, inviting a look at the Mole’s remarkable resemblance to a formless mass wearing Coke-bottle glasses and a stunned-ox expression. Michelle could do magic with clothes, but the Mole was immune—give him five minutes, and he could transform a four-grand suit into something you’d pass up in a Goodwill bin.
Terry suffered in silence. His father had taught him a lot more than science.
On our way out, Gateman was already ordering a pizza. Apparently, Rosie loved hers with extra cheese. The minute I’d explained how chocolate was toxic to dogs, Gateman had tossed out his entire stash, Godiva and all.

* * *

W
hen Clarence and I walked into the Prof’s room, the bed was empty. Clarence gasped some wordless sound. I felt it in a place I thought had frozen over years ago.
“He’s around somewhere,” I told my younger brother as I walked him to the door. “Come on.”
We found the Prof near the end of a long corridor. His right hand rested on some kind of thick metal pole that hit the floor on a triangle of rubber-capped legs, his left was around the tiny waist of a woman in a nurse’s uniform. They were slowly covering ground.
“Taralyn,” Clarence whispered, his voice a blend of different sighs.
“Recognized her from this angle, huh?” I said.
I didn’t look at his face, but I felt like I was standing next to a sunlamp.
We caught up with them just as the Prof lowered himself, with a little help, onto a free-form couch positioned to provide a magnificent view of the city at night. They can do amazing things with one-way glass these days.
“You ever been in New Orleans?” he said, by way of greeting.
I knew he wasn’t asking me.
“No, Father,” Clarence answered.
“You know those dumbass hansom cabs they got in Central Park? The ones for tourists?”
“I have seen them,” Clarence said, caution seeping into his voice.
“Burke here, he hates the whole idea. Hell of a way for a race-horse to spend his last days, right?”
“Any days at all,” I agreed.
“Well, now, see, in New Orleans, they got the same thing. Only they don’t use horses; they use mules. You know why?”
“I do not,” Clarence said, being
very
careful now.
Taralyn sat next to the Prof, as composed as if she was in church. But her eyes never left Clarence’s face as the Prof continued.
“Gets too hot, sometimes those Central Park horses just keel over in the street. Supposed to have all kinds of rules about it, but you know how this city is about keeping the rich folks happy. Now a
mule,
it gets too hot, he pulls a work stoppage. That’s all there is. You can’t beat ’em and you can’t bribe ’em. Can’t trick ’em, either. Now, what am I telling you, boy?”
“They should use mules here?” Clarence guessed.
“They shouldn’t do that crap at all,” the Prof told him, nodding at me. “But that ain’t the point. What I’m telling you is, sometimes, people don’t understand the difference between stubborn and smart.”
“Ah.”
“You take this little girl here,” the Prof said, reaching for Taralyn’s hand. The gesture looked so natural that it couldn’t have been the first time. “Look like she couldn’t lift a bag of groceries, but she strong as a damn mule, son. Twice as stubborn, too.”
“Mr. Henry!” the café-au-lait beauty protested. “You know very well that physical rehabilitation is not magic. If I hear one more story about roots and mojos and—”
“Nothing but the truth, girl,” the Prof shot back. “You think those boys running around here in their white coats, they know everything?”
“I do not. But I
do
know that you are to have exercise
every
day. Before the prosthesis can be fitted properly, you must be in—”
“
Now
you see?” the Prof said to Clarence. “Son, please, I beg you. Distract this woman long enough for your brother to get me back to my room.”
“Come on, old man,” I said to the Prof, extending my hand to help him up.

* * *

“I
t’s like your long shot pays off, but when you show up to collect, you find out the bookie grabbed the first thing smoking, Schoolboy. What that old guy told you, it
has
to be right. Never fails: you strain out the trash, whatever’s left is pure cash. So, yeah, we got the winning ticket. Only we can’t turn it in for the payoff.”
“By me, we already did.”
“You mean this joint? Go bring me my sounds.”
I carried the black Bose machine that could handle six CDs over to his bed. Following his gestures, I popped the lid. The CD inside was unlabeled. Watching the Prof for hand-signaled instructions, I closed it again. Immediately the LED glowed, as if the CD inside was spinning. But no sound came out of the speakers.
“That’s the Mole-man’s,” the Prof said. “He started to tell me how it works, but Little Miss Michelle started in on him about shoes or something. All I know is, it throws off some kind of noise-canceling signal. When that CD’s in, whatever ears they got on us ain’t picking up nothing but a conversation between you and me. One we
had,
not the one we
having,
see?”
“They’re bugging a recording?” I said, shaking my head in wonderment.
“Hope so,” the Prof replied. “But, just in case, keep it all light salad, get me? Nice round olives, no pits.”
I nodded. Said: “I’ve got no contacts I can trust overseas.”
The Prof motioned me to lean in close, whispered so softly it was barely a breath.
I stepped back.
“That’s the truth,” I agreed. “But the only way I’m going to get to even
ask
is—”
“One call could do it all, son. But you down to your last dime, and even less time,” he cautioned, just as Clarence walked in.

* * *

“W
hy’d you leave that little girl?” the Prof demanded.
“Father, she
works
here. She cannot just…go for a walk whenever she desires. This is her
job.
”
“Sit down, boy,” the old man said, hard-core serious.
I took a seat, too, in case the Prof needed me. That
might happen,
I heard Michelle snicker, somewhere inside my head.
“The little girl ain’t no crime-man’s wife, Clarence. You understand what I’m telling you?”
“Father, I—”
“No way I’m leaving this junkyard of a planet without some grandchildren,” the old man cut him off. “That ain’t up for negotiation.
This
one,” he said, nodding in my direction, “he disqualified himself from that job before you was even born.”
I didn’t know if the Prof was talking about my commitment to crime or my vasectomy, but I did know it didn’t matter.
“Listen up, now,” the old man said to Clarence. “You a natural stud—you my son, what else
could
you be?—but all you ever had so far was girlfriends. Burke, he had
women.
That Belle girl, Jesus rest her sweet soul, now,
she
was a crime-man’s woman. Never a doubt, right down to the minute she cashed out.”
My chest hurt from the memory. Belle. A rock-candy girl, born without choices or chances. The day her older sister told her she was also her mother, she told Belle to run for her life. Her mother-sister knew “Daddy” had decided Belle was grown enough to be next on his list. Belle was still scrambling through the swamp when she heard the gunshots that ended the life of the woman she had always called Sissy.
After that, she did whatever it took. Drove getaway cars for heist artists, took off her clothes on grungy stages for money. Always running from what was inside her.
We found each other in the dark. It was Belle who told me that most baby alligators never live past a few days. As soon as they’re hatched, they charge for the water, but there’s too many things blocking their path. Even the ones who make it, there’s things waiting for them in the water, too. Very bad odds. The way Belle told it, the few gators who manage to grow big enough to be safe spend the rest of their lives getting even for their brothers and sisters who didn’t.
It all ended the night I killed a man who was blocking our family’s path to the water. The same night Belle went out in a blaze of police gunfire, drawing the cops away from me, the way her mother had drawn her father away from her. The father who had infected her with that “bad blood” she always believed she carried. Believed it so strong she would never carry a child of her own.
The Prof’s voice took me right back to when we’d settled that account, years before Clarence became part of us: