Crescent City Connection (31 page)

“Sure, Dashan.” She loved that serious look he got, as if what she thought was the most important thing in the world.

“Do you think you’re through having children, or would you consider having more?”

She couldn’t believe what he’d just said. A man didn’t ask a question like that unless he had a reason. She wanted to say, “I’d do anything for you. Just tell me and I’ll do it.” But she had her wits about her enough to say she hadn’t really thought about it. She loved Shavonne a lot, she told him, but she didn’t think she’d rule out the possibility of having more kids.

He nodded, as if the answer satisfied him; he was so serious.

So nice.

When he took her home he didn’t even try to kiss her, just pecked her on the cheek and said he didn’t know when he’d had more fun, she sure was good for him.

Her sister said, “Somethin’ funny about that man. He just a little bit too good to be true.”

But that’s just the way she was.

THE MONK HAD been amazed when his niece didn’t keep her appointment with the cop. He had left without even his crook, or his emergency money. At first he hadn’t had the least idea what to do.

He could have stayed with Revelas, but he didn’t know where his own best friend lived, which made him wonder about his life and the way he was living it. Yet how else could he live it, considering the way things were?

He had enough money for a few meals, but a hotel was out of the question. Of course, he had no credit cards—he didn’t believe in leaving footprints within the system. He didn’t even have a driver’s license. One of Dahveed’s gay friends had traded him the scooter for an angel mural on his ceiling.

No friends, no money, no plastic—and for the moment, no home. He wondered what it would be like to spend the night in Washington Square. On the whole, he decided, he’d rather be in Philadelphia. There was a nice vacant lot on Frenchmen, though, quite near the square. That might be okay.

He started walking. It would be fine to sleep outside, he thought, because the outside was already dirty—therefore, no need to try to clean it. And no need to take a shower either. It might even be fun.

As it turned out, it was such a relief he started wondering if he was going to end up a street person. He settled in, but found he couldn’t go to sleep until he was sure Lovelace had. So he went back to his own house, where he watched till the lights went out.

I’m my angel’s guardian angel,
he thought, and the thought filled him with such pride, such love that he could have stood watch all night. He liked this a lot—this love from a distance.

Perhaps
, he thought,
I can stop being The White Monk and be The White Knight.

This was a good plan, an excellent plan. As long as he stayed on the street, the police couldn’t find him. And as long as he had no house, he didn’t have to wash.

He’d still have the thoughts, of course, and some of them might be worse than usual, since he couldn’t make them stop by painting. But this was his job for right now—watching over his angel. He was oddly pleased at that.

He was up with the sun the next morning, watching his house—her house now. But she didn’t come out. Her meeting was at seven, he couldn’t be wrong about that. The Camellia Grill was at the opposite end of town, about as far uptown as you could get and not fall in the river. It could take an hour or more to get there on public transportation. His plan was to follow her until she got on a bus, then get on his motor scooter and be there before her—just to see that everything went okay.

But six came and six-thirty, and then seven, and still she didn’t come out. He peeked in the window, and there she was lying on her new futon, peaceful as a real angel. He was touched—she could have slept in the bedroom, but she had kept it clear for him.

All of a sudden she sat straight up, as if she’d sensed him there, and he had to duck. He couldn’t really hide in his own neighborhood—what to do?

Finally, he went to Pamela’s, and wrote her a note asking if he could come inside. She said, “Sure, Monkie, whatever your white little heart desires.” Pamela was such a nice woman; she never asked questions. She’d never even mentioned his shaved head.

He simply walked in, sat on the sofa, and turned toward his own house so he could see out the window. Pamela said, “You want anything?” but he pretended he hadn’t heard. There were two great things about not talking—people thought maybe you were deaf and maybe you were crazy, and if you acted as if you were one or both, they left you alone.

Lovelace finally left at about nine. He got up and followed, without even a word to Pamela, knowing she wouldn’t care.

When I start talking
, he thought,
I’m going to have to do something nice for that woman
. He was aware that that was the first time he’d actually thought about talking again.

Lovelace set out walking through familiar territory, straight to his gallery, Rough Trade.

What the hell, he thought, and pretty soon a big woman went in, six feet or more, with wild, crazy hair.

I’d like to paint her
, he thought.
She’s terrific-looking.

When the woman came out, she just kind of stood in the street for a long time, and it came to him that she was doing what he was doing—watching the gallery.

She must be the cop
, he thought.
Lovelace must have decided to meet her here. Maybe she tried to turn me in. Maybe she thinks I’m going to kill somebody
.

But eventually she left, and Lovelace came out and walked to the streetcar. The Monk took a taxi home and got his scooter. She must have gone to work, he reasoned. Where else would she go? He parked near Juicy’s Juice, and found a place to hide. Sure enough, there was his angel behind the counter. He stayed with her.

The whole thing was familiar and not familiar.
I wonder if I’m doing this because I have to
, he thought.
It sort of feels like it and sort of doesn’t. But I think it’s like wearing white or keeping silence. I think I have free will on this one.

He found it gave him an odd sense of peace and purpose, almost fulfillment, like painting.
That must mean I want to
, he thought.
Other people live like this all the time. Other people do things just because they want to.

He caught his reflection in a window and saw that he still had twigs on his clothes from sleeping outside. He didn’t bother to remove them.

* * *

Skip went straight to City Hall and looked up the business license issued to Juicy’s Juice. It had been given to an Anthony Earls in 1992. It had probably gone out of business. Going backward, she looked up Earls. Six months ago, he’d gotten another license—for Judy’s Juice on Maple Street.

Now that sounded more promising. She headed straight over.

She realized what had happened—Judy’s opened after the phone book came out; therefore it wasn’t listed.

She had parked and was more or less ambling, not really thinking about anything much except that this was probably another dead end, when she heard a man’s voice, loud and alarmed. “You get on out of here. You leave her alone now!”

She stepped up her pace, and when she could see in the window of Judy’s, she ducked out of sight, grabbed her radio, and called for backup.

It looked like a holdup in progress. One man, evidently a lookout, faced the door. Another faced the counter, pointing a gun at two people behind it. One of them was a black man with dreads, the other a nearly bald woman.

The man facing the door was white, wearing a blue shirt, khakis, a Saints cap pulled low, and a pair of shades. The other one, also wearing a cap—a blue one of some sort—was speaking in a voice too low for Skip to hear. She heard part of the woman’s answer: “You’re crazy,” and her heart sank. Resisting a holdup was as likely as not to be fatal.

She crossed the street, planning to pose as a passerby and get a better look in the window. By the time she had a view, the man in the blue cap was behind the counter, fighting with the black man, who was evidently Anthony Earls. The other joined him, laying Earls out with one blow. Blue-cap grabbed the woman, but she pulled back.

She heard one of the men say, “Lovelace, for Christ’s sake,” and she made a hard, dangerous decision not to wait for backup. This had to be Daniel: Surely the man wouldn’t shoot his own daughter; and there was no time.

Dodging cars, she ran across the street, hearing as she ran the blessed sound of a siren. She pulled her gun. “Police! Drop it.”

The man shot at her and she returned fire. He fell. The other one slipped into what looked like a kitchen. The bald woman shouted, “Daddy!”

Behind the counter, there was blood everywhere. Blue-cap was lying slumped against the wall. Skip’s head whirled, a side effect, she knew, of that other shooting, the one the year before. She heard the woman say, “Don’t shoot him. Don’t shoot my daddy!” and she turned toward the woman, her mind’s eye full of a little girl in pink shorts, crawling toward her mother.

She couldn’t have looked away more than a split second, but by the time she turned back, officers with drawn guns were pouring through the door. She said, “He’s in there,” and gave her attention to the girl, mouthing the obligatory lies. “Lovelace. It’s okay. It’s okay now.” She bent over the fallen man, and saw that the wound was in his head. She felt bile in her throat, so strong she thought there was a good chance of disgracing herself. She swallowed, but more saliva flowed. She turned away. “Give me a cloth, quick.”

The girl handed her something, possibly an apron or a dishcloth, and she pressed it to the wound, though there was barely any blood. With action, her nausea was starting to pass.

She heard a quick movement behind, and fearing Lovelace meant to run, she whirled, but another officer had caught the girl, and was holding her tight, murmuring that it was all right: the all-purpose lie in emergencies.

* * *

The Monk cursed himself for failing at first to recognize his own brother. He saw the two men go into the juice bar, and saw the one with the blue cap pull a gun, the other one turn to face the outside. Daniel? he thought, and saw that it was. He ran for the phone on the corner. He never stopped to consider whether or not to talk. He was giving his location to the 911 operator when he saw the woman, the big cop, threading her way through traffic. He hung up and went back to watch, from the safe side of the street. As he ran, he heard a siren, getting louder.

He was nearly there, nearly directly across from the juice bar, when the street exploded. He took cover in the nearest shop. Pedestrians screamed and scattered. Three more ran into The Monk’s shop. By then, the shooting had stopped.

People were screaming, shouting, one woman was crying. But from across the street came a huge bubble of silence, a void of noise so oppressive it felt like a thunderstorm. A police car hurtled into view and stopped with a squeal of brakes. A uniformed officer leapt out, and another car hurtled, braked, and squealed. Another officer, gun drawn.

Silence.

Silence.

Oh, Christ, is she alive or dead? I have to get over there
.

People were clustered at the door of the shop. He tried to break through the cluster, not even stopping to consider whether or not to speak. “Excuse me,” he said, as if he did it every day.

No one moved. A woman said, “You can’t go out there.”

He could have explained. He could have said, “My niece is over there,” and the crowd would probably have parted, but he didn’t want to give out information. The last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself, have the police take him into custody, make him sit for hours, God knew what.

He simply said, “Excuse me” again, and continued to elbow. No one wanted to physically restrain him, and more police cars were pulling up, all squealing their brakes. There were no other cars: they must have sealed off the street. Police were all over the place now, swarming like hornets, and just as dangerous.

He kept elbowing, and gained the door in time to see two policemen handing Lovelace into a marked car.

Thank the gods.

He waved to the nearest policeman. “Officer, I need to talk to that woman. She’s my niece.”

The cop shouted, “What?” And the car drove off.

He started to cross the street, “Where are they taking her?”

“Let’s try to keep the street clear, sir.”

“She’s my niece. I need to be sure she’s all right.”

“Sir, I’m really going to have to ask you to get back on the sidewalk. We’re letting people walk on that side now.”

The Monk wasn’t at all sure the cop had heard him. He took off walking on the side he was permitted and retrieved his scooter. They’d probably take her to Headquarters, he thought, on Broad Street. He’d go there and try to find her.

He putt-putted along in severe traffic, and had gone only about a block in ten minutes when he finally saw a clear path, if he passed on the right. This was the good thing about a scooter—it could do that. He zipped out and just as he did, noticed a dude about half a block up the street stepping off the curb, and walking around a white pickup.

Uh-oh, it looked like he was going to open the door and get in. Cursing, The Monk slowed to accommodate the setback. The man got in and closed the door, just as The Monk came up on him. Perfect timing, he thought, and glanced to the right as he passed, to make sure the man was in and the door properly closed. The man looked like Daniel.

He tried to look again, but he was already past. He had forgotten about Daniel. This man wore shorts and no hat—it hadn’t occurred to him it was Daniel. He realized he’d assumed, in the back of his mind, that his brother had been arrested.

He worked his way back into the line of traffic, watched in his mirror as the truck pulled out, and did the same. Once again, The Monk pulled over to the right, between the traffic and the cars parked on the curb, and drove to the end of the block, where he turned around and came back. Traffic was still creeping, but the truck had passed his corner. He came up on it slowly, not even slightly worried that his brother would recognize him with his head shaved. When he was parallel, he glanced over again.