Hangman's Game (19 page)

Before I can say anything she turns and retreats to the folding chairs, grabbing the nearest seat. They are empty now, except for a young man in a crisp white suit sitting toward the back. He has a shaved head and is bent in what appears to be intense prayer. He is broad-shouldered and lean, and I would not be surprised if he was a teammate of Samuel's from high school or college.

“Do you know who that is?” I ask Kaylee quietly as I sit down beside her and tilt my head in the direction of the praying figure.

“Never seen him before,” Kaylee says. “But that's a Southern funeral for you, it brings everyone out of their tree stumps. You ever been to one before?”

“No.”

“These things go all day, all night,” she says, and then she squeezes her hands and knocks her knees together. “I just want to go home. My mom's all by herself. She had a stroke two years ago, she can't hardly get around anywhere.”

“I'm sorry,” I say.

“It happens,” she says with a faint smile. “If it wasn't for my mama's stroke, I wouldn't have been with Sam. When she came home from the hospital, she couldn't get up the stairs by herself. I'm friends with Sam's sister, Selia—at least I was—and Selia asked Sam to come by each morning and carry my mom down the stairs. At night he'd return and carry my mom back up.”

Kaylee fiddles with a ring on her finger. It is a simple and inexpensive ring without any stone, just a metal heart at its center.

“What did you think of the e-mail DaFrank Burns read at the service?” I ask her. “I had no idea Samuel has such mixed feelings about coming to Philadelphia.”

She turns her eyes to me with pity, for my ignorance. “Wasn't anything mixed about it,” she says. “Two weeks ago he flat-out told his agent he wasn't going to Philadelphia. I was in the room when he made the call. But that, Cecil Wilson talked him out of it.” She was turning bitter now. “Cecil said to him, ‘Just give it a chance. If you don't like it, home will always be there for you.'”

Her face remains expressionless, but tears flow down her cheeks.

“Did you think about following Samuel to Philadelphia?” I ask.

“I would have loved to go,” she says. “I'm so sick of all the dimwits in this town. But I couldn't abandon my mama. I'm not that kind of daughter.

“If Sam had been drafted by Atlanta, everything would have been fine. We could have come up and back all the time. Atlanta was trying to trade up for him, too. But I guess you all up in Philadelphia just had to have him.” She raised her handkerchief and daubed at her eyes. “I just don't get why a burger flipper can choose between Burger King and McDonald's, but a player worth $64 million has no say at all in where he goes.”

Kaylee obviously did not appreciate the rigidity of the league's drafting system, or its goal of equitable distribution of talent. She just cared about her ailing mother, her unborn child, and the man she loved.

“I really wish I could get out of town,” she says. “My last year or so all my cousins have been treating me like I'm a bucket of pig slop because I was dating a black man. Like they're anything special. Then last night they come by the house like everything is all fine and dandy between us, all because they think I'm going to be rich. Where were they when I needed them?

“And Sam's family, they used to like me, but now they're mad at me, all because I went along with that lawyer, this jerk from Birmingham with a silk necktie who told me I was entitled to a bunch of money and he could get it for me and I wouldn't have to do anything except sign a piece of paper. That's what the devil does, right—just asks you to sign a piece of paper.”

She slumps in her chair, which makes her dress ride up on her thighs. I look over to the food line, which has doubled in length since we sat down.

“Let me get you something to eat,” I ask.

“Sure,” she says, folding her hands on her belly. “I won't move a muscle.”

I do not believe my instincts are infallible, and I have only spoken to Kaylee Wise for five minutes. But if it turns out that she had anything to do with Samuel's shooting, then I should give up ever trying to figure out anything about anything.

I walk gingerly to the buffet area, coddling my hamstring. My leg is better than it was, but it isn't feeling right, either. Tomorrow I will go to the Sentinels' facility and get a massage from a trainer.

The food line is a long one. The guests who have already filled their plates are reassembling the chairs from the service and sitting down to eat and talk and laugh. It is as if the buffet is a magic tunnel, removing the funereal mood from all who pass.

I notice Tanner and Udall speaking with an older man and woman, both over six feet tall, who have a girl alongside them, nearly six feet herself. Cameras are trained on the group as O'Dwyer and Cordero hover nearby. This must be Samuel's family—which means the girl is Samuel's sister, Selia. She is a slim girl with high, regal cheekbones and long, thin braids. As her parents talk to Tanner and Udall she leans on her father's meaty shoulders, her slender arm threaded through his, and her head is turned away. I remember how Samuel wasn't one for making nice with strangers, and his sister seems to share his aversion.

I look back to the seating area and Kaylee is still alone, head now propped on one hand, looking overwhelmed. The young man in the white suit is still sitting several rows behind her, head bent. He, at least, is not here for the food.

I scan the crowd and the line ahead for Freddie, but I don't see him anywhere.

I finally arrive at the food tables, my stomach yawning, and see that the buffet is a cardiologist's nightmare: fried chicken, fried fish, fried pork chops, fried okra, sliced ham, macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs, French fries, sweet potato pie, banana pudding, yellow cake, and chocolate cake. There are mustard greens and collard greens, but they have thick chunks of ham in them.

The entire menu is outside my diet, but I am hungry. I take pieces of fish and chicken. Plus the mustard greens, and the mac and cheese. This is for Kaylee and me to share, I tell myself. So I take a couple of more pieces of chicken and fish, and some more greens, too, trying to avoid the bigger hunks of ham.

My plate full, I walk back to the chairs. Kaylee is now gone. So, for that matter, is the young man in the white suit. I peer around but I do not see Kaylee anywhere. I wonder if she had enough and went home to her mother.

I sit alone with my full plate of food and start in on the fried chicken. Which is crunchy and juicy, and even though I suspect that the “juice” is lard, the chicken is about the best thing I have eaten since I don't know when. I take another bite and then another.

I am on my second piece when I am joined by Freddie.

“Have you tried this chicken, buddy?” I ask. “Forget that barbecue stand. This is the meal you'll be telling stories about.”

“We have to get out of here,” he says, standing over me and tugging anxiously on my sleeve.

“Why?” I ask.

“I have a very urgent need,” he whispers. Then, in case his meaning is not clear, he adds, “I have to take a shit
. Really bad
.”

“Just go inside,” I say. “The church must have a bathroom.”

“It does,” he says. “It's the locked door with the sign that says
OUT OF ORDER
.”

“No Porta Pottys?”

“No!” he says. “I looked everywhere.”

Freddie pogoes gingerly from one foot to another. Denying him is not an option.

Or is it? He wanted a great anecdote to tell.

“Fine,” I say, and I stand up. “Let me just figure out where to put my plate…”

Freddie snatches the plate from my hand and marches it to a nearby garbage barrel and dumps it, along with my food, and then continues urgently toward the car.

I catch up to Freddie, whose strides are narrowing as he squeezes himself tight.

Soon we are in the car and on our way.

“Where are we going?” Freddie says. The sweat is beading on his forehead.

“The gas station.” Which is a good seven minutes away, and Freddie does not seem confident he will last that long. “Unless you have any better ideas.”

“How about one of these houses,” Freddie says, looking out the window. “Southerners are famous for their hospitality, right?”

“Everyone's at the funeral,” I say. “I don't think we want to go door to door, hoping to find someone who's home.”

Freddie frowns.

“I wonder if this is one of those small towns where everyone trusts everyone else, and so no one locks their doors?”

I keep on driving. I have no interest in being part of a break-in, especially one with the most embarrassing motivation ever.

We arrive at the gas station with Freddie about to squirm himself in half.

“Can I have the men's room key?” I ask our pal Elvis.

He is watching a baseball game. Without taking his eyes off the television, he opens a desk drawer and begins feeling around inside. After about ten seconds of clatter—he would have found it in one second if he stopped watching the game—he fishes out a key, attached to a wooden ruler, and hands it to me.

Freddie is stationed by the entrance to the bathroom, his feet crossed. I quickly walk over and hand him the key. He uncrosses his feet and takes a half step toward the restroom, then freezes.

“Goddammit,” he says.

“What?”

“I'm stuck.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can't move,” Freddie mutters through clenched teeth. Sweat is beading on his forehead. “If I take a step, I'm going to lose it.”

Oh, hell. I grab the key from his hand and open the bathroom door for him. And what a bathroom it is. It looks more like a storage closet that happens to have a toilet and sink in it. The cement floor is foul and stained. Elvis should have been in here cleaning instead of watching the game.

“You can do this, buddy,” I say to Freddie. I pace out the walk for him. “Three steps. Three steps and I'll close the door behind you. You can do this.”

“I can't,” he says. He scrunches his face. “I won't make it.”

For lack of any better ideas, I place my hands on Freddie's hips and lift him up—“Gentle, gentle!” he shouts—and deposit him in the bathroom. Then I close the door behind him.

That should do it. Now all Freddie has to do is turn and drop his pants.…

Then I heard a big
whoosh
and a splat. Like oatmeal shot out of a spray gun onto cement.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

Oh, Freddie. So close. So close.

Elvis approaches, having been drawn outside by the shouting. He and I exchange uncomfortable glances.

“If I was in the market for a clean pair of pants,” I say, “which way would I be headed?”

Elvis's face goes grim. “There's a Walmart a few miles up the highway,” he mumbles.

I go to the bathroom door.

“Freddie, I'm going to head up the road, get you a change of clothes,” I call. “You just hang out.”

“Oh, great,” Freddie says bitterly, as if I am the person responsible for this mess, rather than the one helping him out of it.

A quick trip up the road and there I am, in a Walmart. It occurs to me this is the same Walmart where Samuel's mother's car broke down, and the thought of him pushing her Malibu that same distance I just drove, in the middle of summer, is now positively astounding.

I grab the first pair of khakis I see, then a blue button-down shirt, and boxers. And some socks, and sandals, because I don't want to guess on shoe size, and I return to the gas station. Freddie is still in the bathroom. I knock on the door and he opens it wide enough for me to hand him the bag of clothes.

Elvis emerges from his office, hands on hips, glaring at me. I pull out my wallet and hand him $200.

“For your trouble,” I say.

He grabs quickly at the bills. “Thanks,” he says, surprised, folding my cash into his chest pocket. “If you're going to pay like this, you can crap on the floor any time you like.”

Now that is true hospitality.

*   *   *

I text Cordero to see where the rest of our crew is. They are still at the funeral, she says, and they are wondering where we are. I write that Freddie has “stomach troubles.”

She texts back:
Nice euphemism.

Freddie emerges from the bathroom, looking about as bad as I have ever seen him—both spiritually and sartorially. My guesses on his clothes sizes were off, especially with the pants, which are so billowy he has to cinch them by hand at the waist. Instead of hiding his shame, my purchases are accentuating it.

“If I ever hire a personal shopper,” he says, “don't bother applying.”

“You're welcome.”

My phone rings. It is Cordero.

“Tanner's clock has hit zero,” she says. “We're headed to the airport.”

“Okay,” I say. “We'll meet you at the charter terminal.”

I take the wheel for the drive back. Freddie slumps in the passenger seat and distracts himself with his iPhone.

As we retrace our route back to the airport, I am frustrated. I talked to Kaylee Wise, but that has only served to close one avenue of suspicion. I never had a chance to speak to anyone else, to learn anything more about Samuel, all because Freddie had to stop for barbecue. This trip was a waste. I should never have let Freddie go into that restaurant.

To make this car ride even more uncomfortable, the fecal odor has not been entirely left behind in the gas station bathroom. Freddie has thrown away his soiled clothes and washed himself as best he could. Still, the smell lingers.

The thing about Freddie is, he wasn't always like this. He would drink, of course, and get high, and every now and then he would dabble in the party drugs, and he always had women coming and going. But it never felt out of control. He didn't used to have “incidents” like this one at the gas station. He wouldn't have reacted so immaturely to a simple request from his father to attend a funeral in his place. It strikes me that Freddie, hopping continuously from one diversion to another, is as lost a soul as I've known.