No Time to Die (22 page)

When I stepped in, she lowered the volume, but not
by much. Her face, wreathed in a short feathered auburn cut, lit up when she saw me.

“Girl, you on the move again, thank God. Seein’ you laid up in the hospital scared the hell outta me. Thought I was about to lose my friend.”

“I guess it wasn’t my time,” I said, settling into one of the two chairs. A tall gangly girl of about eleven or twelve with a crown of tight curly ringlets had just vacated the other chair and stared at my two-inch ’fro, clearly wondering what miracle Bertha was going to perform for me, but I had no wish to explain. She would not have understood what Bert’s twenty-year friendship meant, nor the therapeutic benefits of the scalp massages that I indulged in from time to time.

Bertha counted out the change, the girl murmured a polite thank-you and glanced at me again before stepping out into the afternoon heat.

Bertha moved to place a handful of combs into the sterilizer. “So, girl, how you doin’?”

I did not answer but continued to gaze out of the window at the deserted avenue thinking of Yo-Yo and of the overlapping circles in my notebook. Finally I picked up the newspaper lying near the dryer and scanned the ads. The food section contained the usual diet advice, cooking advice, menus, and grocery coupons. I also scanned the flyer distributed by the supermarket.

“You mighty quiet, Mali. Prices can’t be that bad. Thin as you are, you probably don’t eat that much anyway.”

When I didn’t respond, she said, “You all right?”

“I’m all right. I was just wondering—when do you shop for groceries?”

She gave me a look that said, “Car accident did
something to my girl’s brain. She jumpin’ from one thing to another.”

“Usually on Wednesdays,” she said, still looking at me, probably searching for additional signs of dementia. “I go when the sales are advertised, or the day after. That store got pretty good prices.

“One time I had my stuff delivered but I decided that’s for folks too busy to be pullin’ a shoppin’ cart back and forth. Me, I don’t mind doin’ it. I figure if I sweat a few pounds luggin’ that pint of butter pecan, it kinda balance things out when I dip into it ’round midnight.

“Beside, the one time I had my stuff delivered, boy was so ugly—”

“Did he look ugly or did he act ugly?” I said, glancing from the flyer and sitting up in the chair.

“Both.”

“What did he do?”

Bertha had reached into a large plastic bag, pulled out an armload of white towels, and begun to fold and stack them on the narrow counter. She stopped now and gazed toward the window in concentration.

“Well, that’s a funny question ’cause you know, he really didn’t do anything but I kinda felt something. He stepped in, put the bags down—rather, he slammed ’em down—and had this look—like a dog has when the world is kickin’ ’im in the behind. Boy didn’t crack a smile when I said it was a good thing he wasn’t deliverin’ eggs.

“He was mad at somethin’ or somebody so I didn’t let ’im take one step further into this place. Don’t need no bad vibes floatin’ ’round when I’m tryin’ to hit a number. And you know how the Five-O or the FBI can tag somebody by their DNA thing? Well, I work my
own test. I looked at him and I said to myself, ‘Mmhmm. DNA
Dat Negro Anxious.’
So I give ’im a tip and had him tip right on out. Then I locked my door.”

“You locked your door?” I said. “You never do that.”

Bert stopped folding again and held up her hand. “Well, there’s a first time for everything. I know he ain’t darkened my doorway again. I walk to that store, do my own shoppin’ and deliver my own stuff, and I’m satisfied. Besides, who knows what these delivery guys be pilferin’, then turn around and sell the stuff on the street, sometimes right back to the person they stole it from. Hell with that. I ain’t got time to be checkin’ every bottle, bag, and box. If I bring it home, I know it’s there.”

I stared out of the window, listening as she spoke.
… Don’t have time to check every item I buy. Probably sell it back to the person they stole it from
.

Or perhaps bring it back. Bring it back. Is this what he did?

“What did he look like?”

Bert touched her hand to her chin again. “Ah, lessee. Damn, that was a while ago and you know my brain ain’t functionin’ too tough in this heat. But I kinda remember him bein’ about maybe twenty-two or twenty-three years old, medium height, dark brown complexion, hair cut close, and had real big arms—like he was into weights or somethin’.”

“You eat cereal? Cornflakes?”

She looked at me again and I could practically hear the wheels turning, wondering what was coming, but she only shook her head. “Girl, you ask the damnedest things. But no. I’m a grits and greens girl from way back. No cereal for me.” Then she leaned over and
scanned the flyer. “Why? You got a coupon or somethin’? I’m big on coupons.”

“No,” I answered. “No coupon. Just an idea.”

When I left the shop, a mass of thunderclouds had moved in, blotting out the sun and easing the temperature down a few degrees. More folks were in the street now, and moving fast, intent on completing as many errands as possible before the storm broke. I didn’t hurry because my next stop was only three blocks away.

On 136th Street between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Edgecombe Avenue, I stopped in front of Felicia Temple’s brownstone where a For Sale sign had been tacked above the door.

I rang the bell and waited a few seconds, not sure if anyone was in the house. I was heading back down the steps when I heard the lock turn behind me.

“May I help you?”

A short, round, middle-aged woman stared down the steps at me. She seemed determined to smile through some profound anguish. “Are you here to see the house?”

“Well, yes,” I said, making my way back to the door. We stepped inside and the woman said, “I’m Irene, the housekeeper. I’ll be here until the place is sold. If you have any questions …”

She whispered but her echo carried through the room and she walked softly as if we were treading on sacred ground. I glanced at her sad expression and decided to tell the truth.

“I’m Mali Anderson,” I said.

“Mali Anderson? Were you here before?”

“No. I’m Jeffrey Anderson’s daughter. My dad was a friend of Ms. Temple.”

She put her hand to her mouth and smiled. “Oh. Oh, yes. Your father and Ms. Temple were very good friends. I—oh, this is so …” She paused, searching for the words in the silence. “You have an idea how I’m feeling about this situation. I’ve worked for Ms. Temple for so long, I can’t believe she’s …” The small smile faded as she retrieved a tissue from her pocket.

“I’m supposed to keep an eye on things until everything is settled, but sometimes, at night, I listen, and I feel like she’s moving around right near me. I’m not afraid or anything but I can’t tell you how much I miss her. Maybe so much so that I’m imagining things. Sometimes I think I can still hear her laughter.”

I nodded. “My dad said the same thing. How she laughed, smiled, seemed to light up every place she entered. He enjoyed being in her company.”

We walked through the double parlor and stood for a minute in the back room. The rooms were large but seemed vast in their emptiness. I glanced at the pink-marbled fireplaces, the pier mirrors, the intricate moldings adorning the ceiling. Sunlight splashed through the Tiffany glass windows in the rear and imprinted a pattern of red, yellow, and blue on the parquet floor. Irene, still holding the tissue, gazed out into the garden.

“This is where she did most of her work. Right down there.” Then she turned to appraise me with her sad eyes.

“I suppose your dad … How did he take it? I know it’s been a while, but is he all right?”

“My father,” I said without exaggeration, “was deeply affected. He misses her very much.”

She turned from the window and we made our way slowly back toward the front of the house. “I simply
don’t know how it happened,” she whispered. “I turn my back for one minute and she’s gone. Somehow I can’t help feeling that if I’d only been here. If I’d only—but no, I decided to go to Florida to help my sister organize my niece’s wedding. Something they could’ve done themselves. They didn’t need me. I see now that I was probably intruding on something they could’ve handled very well without me. I could’ve simply gone as a guest and returned the next day. But no. I had to go and leave Ms. Temple here to fend for herself.”

She looked at me quickly and smiled a weak smile. Her dark, round face was lined around the mouth and her eyelids were crinkled from days and nights of crying.

“No, I didn’t mean that ‘fend for herself’ thing. My God, she was a grown woman, perfectly able to care for herself, but she was too busy to do certain things, you know what I mean. Cleaning and ironing and cooking and shopping. I came here every day and that’s what I did. She had her job and I had mine.”

“This is a big place. Housekeeping must’ve kept you very busy.”

“Oh, I enjoyed it, especially the cooking. And the shopping was no problem. Supermarket right there on Lenox. Everything delivered fresh. Every Wednesday. Sometimes when she wanted something special, I’d take the bus down to the Union Square green market, but usually I shopped on Lenox, because it was so convenient.”

“I suppose you’ll be sorry when the house is sold …”

“Sorry, yes. But sort of glad too. I can’t tell you how upsetting this whole thing has been. Discovering her in that horrible, horrible condition. With all that—”

“With all that what?” I whispered when it seemed that she wasn’t going to go on.

When she was able to continue, she nodded quickly, as if to shake the image. “She didn’t even eat cereal,” she murmured, more to herself than to me. “The cereal was for me. And the police asking all those questions I couldn’t answer.”

“Like what?” I said, not wanting to follow up on the cereal question. I had enough information already.

“Well, like did anyone have a grudge against her? Did she owe anyone money? Did she have any enemies? Had she received any strange phone calls? Things I knew nothing about. Then they wanted a list of my relatives, especially the male relatives. Wanted to know if I had left my keys with any of them. On top of my loss, I had to listen to that. I was so upset I went to bed and couldn’t get up for days. My doctor had to give me medicine to calm my nerves.”

She looked at me and snapped her fingers. “Ah, here I am, going on and on. Painting such a bad picture. At this rate, the house will never get sold. You’re not interested in the place, are you?”

“No, but my dad spoke of her so often I wanted to see the house before it was sold. It’s magnificent.”

“You should’ve seen it when it was furnished,” she sighed.

The bell rang again and Irene looked at her watch. “Expecting a young couple, doctor and his wife. Wife’s a painter, just like Ms. Temple was. They’ve been here twice already and I think they’re leaning toward …”

She walked to the door, her footsteps sounding hollow across the empty room. I followed, knowing that my visit was over.

Ache leaned out of the bedroom window and took another draw from his dwindling stash. The blunt was so hot it burned his fingertips. The clock across the street above the drugstore read nearly 10:00
P
.
M.
, time for Hazel’s talk shows to wind down. He waited patiently, holding the acrid smoke in his lungs as long as he could without choking, feeling no anger, no fear, just extra good. Even the voice that he usually listened to was quiet except to let him know that whatever was gonna go down would just have to go down, that’s all. This was it.

He’d reached this point several times before, smoked half a bag once, only to have his courage drain away when he moved down the hall and approached the living room. Now he extinguished the smoke, dragging the reefer-filled cigar along the window ledge, and watched the tiny sparks waft like fireflies into the night. When they disappeared completely, he turned from the window to face his darkened room.

This is different
.

He heard his footsteps moving. They sounded loud
enough to drown out Hazel’s laughter as she clicked the remote, surfing the channels. The paper in his hand felt damp from his sweat but he didn’t care.

This is different
.

Hazel looked up from the sofa and her smile disappeared at the sight of him. “What’s eatin’ you? I don’t wanna hear no shit about you bein’ mugged again.”

“It ain’t that. It’s this,” he answered, surprised that his voice was so steady. “It’s this,” he repeated, liking the way he sounded.

Hazel peered at the piece of paper in front of her and jerked back as if a snake had slithered across her lap.

“Where the fuck you get that? You been riflin’ in my things?”

“I needed it to show the recruitment people. They wouldn’t let me take the test without it.” He heard his voice waver and he grew angry as he felt his resolve begin to disintegrate under her stare.

“So what good did it do you? No GED, you couldn’t even get in the door.”

He held the paper so tightly it was in danger of shredding. “Yeah. I know. It says here that Nathan Milton is—”