Irish Eyes (14 page)

The girls nodded understandingly as I outlined their mission. Old they might be, but the two of them had an uncanny ability to worm information out of people. They loved intrigue,
loved to play-act. The black Gish sisters, Edna and I called them.

“What you think, Baby?” Sister had asked, soliciting her sister’s opinion on the right approach to a fact-finding mission.

Baby gave it some thought. “Church visitation committee? I got me a new hat and pocketbook, and we got some tracts we could hand out.”

Sister pursed her lips, thought about it, shook her head no.

“You right,” Baby said. “How ‘bout Publishers’ Sweepstakes Prize Patrol? We got Callahan’s van. Prize Patrol come in a van. I seen it on the TV.”

“Where we gonna get a big check from?” Sister asked. “Prize Patrol got flowers and champagne and a big ol’ check. Everybody knows that.”

“I got it,” Baby said, snapping her fingers. “Callahan said this girl got a sick baby. Nursing sisters, they take care of sick babies, ain’t that right?”

I parked the van across the street from the Memorial Oaks Apartments, under a bare-branched tree that provided the only shade on the block. The late-winter sun spilled a molten golden aura over everything, but even the buttery sunlight did little to brighten the squat red-brick apartment houses.

“You sure this is the right address?” Baby asked, staring out the window. “I been living in Atlanta all my life, and I never been on a street like this here.”

It was close to three o’clock, but groups of men loitered in front of every building, passing paper–sack—covered bottles. Overturned trash cans rolled in the grassless yards in front of the brick buildings, which had been spray-painted with signs and symbols I took to be gang markings. The street was lined with junked cars. A group of teenage boys were playing a pickup game of basketball in the middle of the street, using a hoop somebody had bungee-corded to a telephone pole. Three girls sat on the hood of a car in front of my van, passing a reefer and yelling obscenities at the players.

“This was a mistake,” I said, pushing the power lock button.
“Maybe I should take you girls home. Linda said this was a rough neighborhood, but I had no idea it was this rough.”

“Don’t look too bad to me,” Sister objected. “Look at them little children playing ball. That’s nice, isn’t it? A playground right here for the children to be playing in?”

“Them ain’t children, you blind old fool,” Baby said. “Them’s mens. Able-bodied mens hanging around on a street in the middle of the day when they oughta be working a job. And look over there at them womenfolk.”

Five or six women sat on folding metal lawn chairs outside the steps to Building 6. They had a portable television hooked up to a long orange extension cord that snaked inside the building.

“Ain’t nobody over here got a job?” Baby fussed. “Why they sittin’ there watching that television with trash and all kinda nasty stuff layin’ in their front yard? What kinda place is this, Callahan?”

“No place for you girls,” I had to admit. I turned the key in the ignition.

“Now wait just a minute,” Sister objected. “You tellin’ me we got all dressed up in our nursing sister disguises and you ain’t gonna let us do our job? That ain’t right. That ain’t right at all.”

The two of them did look splendid in their blue uniforms with white aprons and old-fashioned white nurses’ caps, with white stockings and thick-soled white shoes. I’d forgotten that the Easterbrookses were longtime nursing sisters at their A.M.E. church, charged with the serious responsibility of reviving church members who fell ill or “fell out” during services.

“This place isn’t safe,” I said reluctantly. “I can’t let you wander around here asking questions. No telling what might happen. I’m sorry, Miss Baby, Miss Sister. But I’ll pay you anyway.”

Baby put her hand over mine on the steering wheel. Her skin was cool and dry to the touch, like onionskin paper.

“Them women there don’t look so bad,” she said, nodding
toward the group watching television. “Lazy as they are, they probably wouldn’t let nothin’ bad happen to a couple of old ladies like us.”

“You sure?” I asked, torn between wanting to find Deecie and needing to keep the girls safe.

Baby patted the pocketbook she held in her lap. “Don’t you be worryin’ about us, Callahan. I got me something keep anybody from messin’ wit’ Baby Easterbrooks.”

“What you got?” Sister asked, leaning over the seat back. “You got that can of spray mace? Lemme hold on to that.”

“Lookee here,” Baby said, sliding her hand into the oversized tote bag she held in her lap. She drew out a heavy eighth inch-long iron cylinder, and before I could object, thwapped it in the palm of my outstretched hand.

A bolt of pain shot up my arm. “What the hell is that?” I yelped, yanking my hand away.

She clacked her dentures menacingly.

“This here is my insurance policy,” Sister said.

Baby leaned over the backseat of the van and brandished a similarly sinister-looking sap. “Got mine right here!” she chimed in.

“But what are they and where’d you get them?” I asked. Sister held her weapon up close for inspection, and for the first time I noticed a hole through a pointed end of the thing.

“Hey,” I said. “It’s a sash weight.”

“Good old-fashioned window sash weight,” Baby agreed.

“I haven’t seen one of those since I was a little kid,” I said. “Where did you get these?”

“Miss Bettye Bond,” Sister said. “We found ‘em in a box out in the storage shed.”

“Did she give you permission to take them?” I asked.

Sister, who is usually scrupulously honest in most matters, does have an unfortunate tendency toward acquisitiveness, like a magpie given to picking up bits of shiny foil and string. Mostly the things she appropriates for herself are harmless and worthless, things like a box of false eyelashes, or an old raincoat, or the occasional piece of cheap tableware.

“Miss Bettye, she don’t care nothin’ about an old box of
sash weights,” Sister said. “I ast her about a shotgun I found down in the cellar, but she said Mr. Ralph still uses that every now and again. So I took the sash weights instead.”

“And if any of these no-count young’ uns around here tries to mess with me, I’ll show ‘em what a sash weight feels like upside the head,” Baby announced, shaking the weapon in my face. “Come on, Callahan, unlock this car door, sugar. We got work to do.”

It was pointless to argue with them once their minds were made up. Anyway, we were so close. Surely somebody would know something about Deecie Styles.

“All right,” I said. “But be careful. I’ll stay right here in the van, watching. If anybody says or does anything threatening, promise me you’ll leave. Okay?”

“Ain’t nobody gonna mess with women of God,” Sister said blithely, unlocking her door.

I watched while they approached the group of television watching women.

A huge woman in a red sweatsuit got up and towered over Baby and Sister. I had my hand on the door to go in for the rescue, but something made me wait.

A moment later, the fat woman was gesturing for Sister to take her chair. Another woman with a waterfall of lacquered lemon-colored hair stood up and offered her kitchen chair to Baby, who also sat down.

I rolled the window down, but could hear nothing over the blare of the basketball players’ boom box.

The women scooted their chairs up closer to Baby and Sister, who were talking a mile a minute, gesturing and smiling. No telling what outrageous story they were concocting, but from my point of view, it looked like the women were buying it.

After five minutes, Baby approached the van, her self-satisfied smile proof that they’d struck paydirt.

“Come on out of there and meet our new friend,” Baby said. “We told them you work at the Grady, and that you want to help that little baby, Faheem. Don’t pay no mind to that fat woman talking trash.”

The women looked up at me as I approached, their faces a mask of wariness.

Baby pointed me to an older woman who wore an apron and held a dishpan full of string beans on her lap.

“This here’s Miss Garrity,” Baby said. “Miss Garrity, I’d like you to meet Austine Rudolph. She know all about that little boy.”

I held out my hand. Mrs. Rudolph wiped hers on her apron and shook it. So far, so good.

“Mrs. Rudolph,” I said. “I guess my colleagues told you why I’m here. I’m an outreach worker with the pediatric sickle cell clinic at Grady Hospital. We’re concerned because Deecie Styles didn’t bring her little boy in for his appointment today.”

“Oh, now Grady got concerned.” The fat woman laughed. “And they done sent you around to see what’s the deal? Child, please.”

“Faheem sick again?” Mrs. Rudolph wrinkled her brow in concern. The apron was one of the old-fashioned bib kinds, cotton with red rick-rack trim. My grandmother must have had dozens just like it.

“Have you seen Deecie in the past few days?” I asked, ignoring the fat woman as Baby had instructed me. “It’s kind of important. Faheem needs his medicine, or he’ll be in a lot of pain.”

I winced inwardly at the lie. Austine Rudolph’s wide calm face was not the kind of face you like to deceive. But I had a job to do, and anyway, it was true. Faheem was sick, and he did need his medicine.

Mrs. Rudolph shook her head from side to side. “The police come around here this morning asking about Deecie. Seem like she in some kind of trouble. Any y’all seen Deecie?”

The skinny woman looked at the ground. “Monique say Deecie moved out. That’s what she told the police.”

“When?” Austine Rudolph asked. “I ain’t hear nothing about that. Deecie, she sometime have me baby-sit Faheem when she works. She didn’t say nothin’ to me about moving.”

“Is Monique Bell at home?” I asked, trying to stay small and quiet and nonthreatening.

The fat woman pointed toward the door to the apartment house. “That’s her crib, right in there. Go ahead on and see. I ain’t seen her today. Could be she sleeping. Could be she drunk.”

“Might be she sleepin’ and drunk,” cackled the skinny one.

“Y’all hush,” Mrs. Rudolph proclaimed. She set her dishpan down on the ground, grunted, and stood up.

“Let’s go see,” she said, not unkindly.

The hallway smelled like bacon and ripe diapers. Mrs. Rudolph banged at the third door to the right of the entry.

“Monique?” She rang the buzzer and called again. “Monique? It’s Austine, honey. You awake in there?”

She waited a moment, then pounded again. “Monique. Come on, girl. Wake up. Somebody here to see about Deecie.”

A door opened across the hall and a little girl popped her head out. “Y’all looking for Deecie? Deecie ain’t here. She tol’ my mama—”

A hand reached out and jerked the child inside. “Shut up your mouth right this minute,” a man’s voice boomed. The door slammed shut. We heard a slap and then a sharp, high cry. “Did I tell you to shut up with that stuff?” the man said.

“Lord help us all,” Mrs. Rudolph whispered. She looked sad. “Monique must have gone to the store or something. I don’t know about Deecie. Guess she could have moved. She got a boyfriend. William. I don’t know where he stays.”

“William,” I repeated. “Do you know his last name?”

“Just William. He drives a big white car. He’s not Faheem’s daddy. Faheem’s daddy is in the jail.”

I reached in my purse and got a business card. It was very plain. Just my name, Callahan Garrity, and my phone number. No title, no address.

“Mrs. Rudolph, it is very important that I contact Deecie Styles. I really need to find out where she’s staying, and talk to her.”

Austine Rudolph stared at the card and shook her head up
and down that she understood. “Tanya, the little girl across the hall? I’ll ask her later on, when her daddy’s not around. Tanya, she loves Deecie. Bet she knows where Deecie went to.”

“It would be very helpful if I knew where Deecie is staying,” I repeated. “A phone number, address, anything like that would be helpful.”

I hesitated, wondering if I should offer a small cash incentive. I decided against it, worrying that it might offend Austine Rudolph.

“Deecie, she’s a good mama,” Mrs. Rudolph assured me, walking back down the hallway with me. “If she missed the baby’s appointment, must be something wrong.”

I turned around. “Has she said anything was wrong?” I asked gently. “Did she seem upset or nervous the past two days?”

Mrs. Rudolph wrapped her hands in her apron. “I don’t care what anybody says. She’s a good girl. Works hard at that job. Minds her own business. You don’t find Deecie out runnin’ in the streets like some of ‘em around here. She come home late night before last. Faheem was crying, and she couldn’t get him to stop. Monique, she screamed at Deecie to make him shut up, so Deecie brought the baby over to my place. I rocked him until he was wore out.”

“Did Deecie say where she’d been? Did she mention any trouble at work?”

Mrs. Rudolph bit her lip. “She was upset. I know that. That girl likes to talk. But that night, she wouldn’t say a word. Next morning, I got up, she and the baby were gone. And there was two twenty-dollar bills on the table.”

She cut me a sideways look. “Why the police looking for her? You think Deecie in some kind of trouble?”

I nodded.

“You think you could help her?”

“I’d like to,” I said. “If I could find her and talk to her.”

She touched my shoulder. “Go on outside and wait by your car. I’ll be out in a minute.”

I rounded up the girls and we sat in the van and watched the basketball game. It had gotten warm, and the kids had
stripped to their waists, hanging shirts on a shaggy holly bush at the edge of the lot.

There was a slight tap on the glass. Austine Rudolph stood at the curb with her hand on the shoulder of the little girl from the apartment house.

“Tanya,” she said. “Tell this lady what you told me about Deecie.”

Tanya wiped her nose on the back of the sleeve of a pink-and-white-striped shirt. “William come and got Deecie in a cab yesterday morning. Me and Mama was going to the store, and Deecie was getting in the cab. And she had a suitcase and Faheem’s bag. Deecie look scared. I ask her was she goin’ away, and Deecie just shook her head. She look sad. Then she give me some money. Ten dollars. And she told me not to tell nobody where I got it from. Mama made me go inside and she talked to Deecie. And then William and Deecie and Faheem went away in the cab, and Mama said Deecie was going on a trip.”