If I Should Die (22 page)

I followed his gaze. Johnnie was lifting his glass to the crowd and they hung onto his every gesture.

“What thing?”

“You know. Tie the knot. Jump that broom.”

So that explained the grand gown-and-fur entrance.

“They’re getting married? When?”

“Don’t know exactly. Rumor has it that the whole happenin’s gonna take place right here. Maybe sometime in December. Soon as he gets some details straight.”

I leaned forward and folded my arms on the table. “What details?”

He did not answer but slid me a look that said I should know better than to ask. I glanced away and finished my drink in silence. Then I yawned, covering my mouth with my unadorned fingers and pulled my zebra-print faux-silk shawl around my shoulders.

“You tired?”

“A little.”

He leaned over and touched my hand. “You had a tough day, sweetie. I won’t be mad if you want to head on out. I’ll see you around four. The next set’s about to start.”

He made his way down the aisle, passing Johnnie’s table, and Johnnie reached out to shake his hand. I could not see Dad’s expression and a minute later I walked to the door.

The phone rang somewhere and I stood straight up in the dark wondering where I was. I stumbled toward the sound, remembering that I’d fallen asleep on the sofa.

“Yes? Hello?”

“Hey.”

Tad’s voice sounded as if it was being squeezed through a long hollow tube. “I called earlier but didn’t leave a message. We’re here. All in one piece. He’s getting settled in. Talk to you later.”

“But—”

Aside from the bad connection, it was like receiving one of those quick-short-and-to-the-point telegrams. Before I could ask to speak to Alvin, he had disconnected, leaving me to listen to the drone of a dead phone. I settled back on the sofa, fully awake now, with my feelings shifting somewhere between relief and anger. We had had to send Alvin away. I wondered about people in the witness protection program. I knew how it worked but never understood how it affected the person who had to move or how that person was able to shed his old life. Just like a snake.

I
spent the next several days in my room with my head buried in
The Theory of Modern Social Work
and nearly succeeded in putting my other thoughts where they belonged—in the back of my mind. At least temporarily.

I was making some progress until the phone rang and Miss Bert came on the line.

“Mali. You got to drop by.”

“But today is Monday. You’re usually closed on Mondays.”

“I’m open.”

She sounded too subdued. Fifteen minutes later, when I walked into the shop, Bert was there but it was Miss Vivian who invited me to have a seat at her manicure table.

“I know who you are. That’s why I’m gonna tell you all this,” Viv said as she examined my nails.

“I’m not in law enforcement any longer, Viv. I was,
but now I’m an ex. As in ex-cop. My only interest now is social work.”

We sat face-to-face and knee-to-knee at the table in the rear of the shop. Up front, the drama of other people’s lives poured out at high decibel from the 25-inch screen, and, after waving to me when I walked in, Bert had turned back to the television, completely absorbed. Viv and I were the only other people in the shop and Bert was oblivious to us, even during the commercials.

“Yeah, Bert told me you was a cop,” she said. “So what happened? You quit to go into social work. Everybody know that kinda job don’t pay diddly.”

“I didn’t quit,” I said, knowing that Bertha had told her the whole story, word for word, just as I had cried it to her two years earlier.

“Mmh-hmph. So you was fired for hittin’ that other cop. Well, I guess you the right one to tell.”

“But why
me
?”

She did not answer immediately and I wondered if I had asked the right question. Finally, she said, “ ’Cause Bert thinks you might be able to help me.”

“Help you how?”

“Well,” Viv said, “maybe you carry this to a real cop and get somethin’ done. Clean up this mess once and for all.”

I looked at her, trying to read her face and figure out why she had Bertha call me. I was surprised when Bert had said Viv wanted to talk, but why to me?

This mess—as she called it—was Johnnie Harding’s drug dealership and I wondered how willing she would have been to talk had she and Johnnie still been together.

“Did you try contacting anyone else?” I asked.

“Contact who? Lemme tell you, everybody and they mama know the real deal. That precinct is tied up like a Christmas present, bow and all.”

“By whom?”

“By Johnnie Harding, that’s who.”

She leaned back in the chair and glared at me for not knowing just how important Johnnie was supposed to be. She removed my hand from the bowl of soapy water and selected an orange stick. I braced myself, expecting her in her anger to push my cuticles back to my knuckles. But she knew her job well enough to not allow her emotions to interfere.

“I was on the force less than two years,” I said.

“Two years? A smart cop woulda learned what was goin’ down in two days. Everybody know they don’t call Harlem the Gold Coast for nuthin’. Least that’s what cops used to call it in the old days when they fought to work up here. This beat practically guaranteed they’d retire rich. Scene ain’t changed that much. Just went from bootleg booze to numbers to drugs. Still plenty money here. Plenty. And Johnnie’s right in the middle of it. I hope he gets his ass smoked.”

She swiveled around and picked up a container of yogurt, took a spoonful, then threw it down. “I need me some real food. I’m strung too damn tight for this yogurt diet shit.” I said nothing as she wiped her hands and threw the napkin and what remained of the yogurt into the wastebasket.

She rubbed more oil around the edge of my nails and then leaned forward. “Listen. When the wire came that Johnnie was gettin’ hooked up and gettin’ out the life, just walkin’ off with that money—some of which shoulda been mine—I got my pistol and waited in my car all night outside his place. Just waitin’ for him. Or her. Whichever one showed their ass up was gonna get six pieces of Mr. Smith in it. Six bullets. Close as I was, I didn’t even have to aim straight. I’d a got ’em. But they never came home. Neither one. Probably out partyin’ at one a their other pads. And I sat there till the sun come
up. Only reason I left was ’cause the sun did come up and the street got busy.”

She applied a thin coat of strengthener to my nails and sat back to allow it to dry. No need to hold it under the tiny blower since I wasn’t going anywhere.

“And I know what you sayin’ to yourself. Here’s this fat-ass fool makin’ a bigger fool of herself over a no-good nigger. Ready to do time ’cause a him. Well, maybe a couple a days ago, I was. I mean, what go through your head on Monday ain’t necessarily there, come next Sunday. Know what I’m sayin’? I walk in here last week and if it wasn’t for Bert talkin’ to me, I probably woulda put that pistol down my own throat, but Bert said shit, that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Me gone and Johnnie still ridin’ high. Hell no.”

My nails were dry but the operation wasn’t over. She opened another bottle of colorless polish and began to apply it in neat, even strokes.

“Who was Johnnie paying off at the precinct?” I asked.

She continued to apply the polish and didn’t look up. Her hands were remarkably steady.

“He wasn’t payin’ off nobody. They was all equal partners. They paid themselves.”

“Who?”

“Ahhh, now wait a minute, Miss Blue Eyes—”

“They’re gray. And they’re mine,” I said, pointedly staring at her blond weave. She didn’t miss a beat, just shook the mass of hair and continued as if I hadn’t spoken.

“Whatever. Here’s where the shit gits sticky. Before I give somethin’ up, I gotta know what I’m gonna get.”

“What is it you want?”

“My shop back.” She tightened the cap on the small bottle so hard I thought it would break in her hand. “I want my business back. It may’ve been his cash but it was
my sweat, the sweat from my fuckin’ ass that built the place up. It was goin’ so good, Johnnie got his money back less than a year and a half later. Bragged how it was better than the stock market.

“You know it’s one thing to open a business, it’s another to keep it goin’. Not only did I keep it goin’, I made it pay. I got those customers in there. I was the first one uptown to start paintin’ gold fingernails and pink nails with rainbow tips. And I can put a head of hair together in no time flat.

“Many nights I slept on that couch in the back to be there for a six
A.M.
customer who had to be to work by nine and lookin’ good. I
worked
, honey. Then for that bastard to tell me to git my fat funky ass out. Those was his very words. I didn’t mind so much gittin’ out his face, but not out my place. Now he got that skinny no-behind piece a sparerib warmin’ my stool, sweet-talkin’ the trade I brought in? Well, every dog has its day, and when mine come up, I’m gonna step.

“Now, I’m tellin’ you all this so you could see where I’m comin’ from. I’m willin’ to name it if I can claim it. I need a guarantee I can claim that place when the deal go down.”

I interrupted her. “I don’t know if it’s that simple, Viv. Once a dealer’s assets are seized, they’re sold to the highest bidder, who—”

“Who’s damn sure gonna be me. Don’t think I been diddlin’ in the dark while he and Miss Stringbean been carryin’ on. I got somethin’ set aside and I mean to use it. The only guarantee I want is that there be no other bidders on the scene.”

“How can they do that?”

“Come on. You ain’t as innocent as you look. They do it the same way they do everything else. With money. Money talks and bullshit walks.”

“But suppose they determine that the money you
use to pay for this deal is drug money you used to set up the business in the first place?”

“Look, I got my ducks all in a row. They can’t prove none a that start-up cash was mine. I got a loan on the side and books Johnnie ain’t never seen. I paid my taxes and got a record of every nap and nail that ever needed doin’.”

She stood up abruptly, bumping against the small table. “Look at me. You think I piled these pounds on overnight? Unh-unh. It was slow but it was steady. And seem like nuthin’ I could do about it. But I saw him lookin’ at me, felt him easin’ on ’round the way, but the business was so good, I thought we’d remain, you know, partners. Then he started to talkin’ about his image ’n’ shit. The image of the business. So, for every dollar he collected, I made sure I took my fifty cents. Plus the tips wasn’t nuthin’ to play with. Those sisters outdid themselves tryin’ to see who could leave the largest bill.”

I took that last as a not-so-subtle hint and reached for my own purse. “What do I owe you?”

“Nuthin’,” she said, moving to pour the bowl of water into the sink and place the instruments into the sterilizer. She turned and smiled, and when she waved her hand toward me, it was like a command. “I know you gonna help me.”

I concentrated on my flawless nails as she riffled the pages of her small book, checking her appointments for the coming week.

Never cross a woman. Especially an ambitious one. Viv wanted Johnnie out of circulation. She wanted him signed, sealed, and delivered before he married Maizie. Before that shop got away from her once and for all. But why was she telling me and not the D.A.?

“You can help me ’cause you got that lawsuit goin’,” she said as if she’d read my mind. “So you musta got a lawyer who can stand up to the police.”

“But his area is civil rights, discrimination, he’s not—”

“He’s somebody who can stand up to the police,” she repeated, settling the issue.

She rolled the small table into a corner against the wall, then reached into her pocket to hand me a card. A line was drawn through the Pink Fingernail logo and a new phone number was penciled in.

“Don’t worry about those changes. They only temporary.”

Outside, I was glad to breathe fresh air, but the faster I walked, the more my head seemed to hurt. Equal partners on the take. They paid themselves. Shit! What about the other officers, the ones who played it straight, lived from paycheck to paycheck, and stuck their necks out every time they stepped off from roll call? What about those who tried to explain to some of the young brothers hanging out—the ones who would listen—that a low-wage shift at Mickey Dee’s was better than a no-wage stretch at Riker’s? What about them?

I dialed Tad from a pay phone and left a message: “More news. I’ll stop by later,” and hesitated before adding, “I missed you. Hope you had a good trip.”

I walked down Lenox, then, following my usual zigzag pattern, cut into a block and over to Seventh Avenue, then into another block, and finally onto Eighth Avenue.

Despite the new construction, there were still many old houses with doorways and stoops crowded with too many people who, on a Monday afternoon, seemed to have nowhere to go and nothing to do.

In the middle of one block, a dice game had drawn so many players and onlookers I had to step into the street in order to pass. On some fire escapes, laundry hung
limply in the humid air, and rap lyrics, distorted by the high volume, pounded from an open window.

On the corner, a half dozen teenagers, caps to the side and jeans hanging at thug level on the hips, lounged near a pay phone, waiting for that call to put them in their Bronco for a special delivery. No Mickey Dee fee for them. I thought of the parents at the rehearsal meeting, worried about the kidnapper who was still prowling the streets. But something worse than a kidnapper had gotten hold of these kids near the phone.

A squad car sped past, siren blazing, and I wondered if the run was legitimate or if they were rushing to get paid. Equal partners. What could they say to these kids?

I picked up my pace and headed down to 125th Street. The street was without life now that the vendors had gone but Mart 125 was still there. I needed to spend time with the folks and clear my head before going to meet Tad.

W
hat else did she say?”