The Lost Brother (15 page)

Mrs. James, holding a box of detergent, looked at the handwriting and dropped the box. Hands shaking, tears welling, hope growing, she fumbled to open the letter. When she did and saw she was right, she gasped, and the tears fell—it was from her grandson. It said only: “I am okay. A nice man is taking care of me. Tell Grandmommy I am okay and will come home soon, if I think it is safe, but right now there are people watching her house and they might want to kill me, I don’t know. I am trying to feel better. I am sorry about Mommy and Daddy.”

Mrs. James called Long. Told him. Asked him what she should do. He said do nothing till he got there.

He came over. Read the letter. Again and again. Postmarked D.C.

Long Ray is very even-tempered, emotionless when it’s called for. You can put a gun to his head and he won’t blink; a knife to his throat and he won’t gulp. It’s what made him the leader he was in prison. Cool in the face of heat, calm in a storm of fear. But the reason he’s always been so cool is that he often had trouble caring about even his own life, much less someone else’s. A lifetime of brutality, and a sense of his superiority to his superiors, have laced him in cold anger and cheap pride. But this boy’s handwriting made him feel something: the girl’s need for hope. His mother’s.

He went to Khalid to make a proposal. Long: I’ve been thinking about that boy. The missing one.

Khalid: The James boy? Long: Yeah. Khalid: Why?

Long: I think it would be a great publicity move for us to look for him.

Khalid: What if we can’t find him? What if he’s dead, like he probably is?

Long: We still look good making the search. Remember the television coverage from Oklahoma City, and how good the reporters made the rescue workers look? We can do that here. We can say to the people that
we
are the ones who care. You admit we have a fine line to draw between our militancy and our compassion.

Khalid: And looking for the boy is both.

Long: Exactly.

Khalid: I don’t know.

Long: It’s a public case, but the press is off it. So we play that angle. “One of our own is missing, but the press and the law enforcement don’t care because it’s a black child.”

Khalid: Yeah, that’s good.

Long: We can make this big public demonstration. Sweep through the streets, going door to door, asking people if they’ve seen the boy or what they might know but been afraid to tell the police.

Khalid: And at the same time, we can be passing out New Africa leaflets, showing the people how good we look, how disciplined we are. Yeah, okay, I like it. Of course, there’s no chance we’ll find the boy, but that’s not important. Tell you what. We’ll draw up a street-canvassing plan today and announce it at the rally tonight.

KELLOGG IS AT A TABLE IN DEJAZBA, whiskey in one hand, cigarette in the other, trumpet solo in his ears, when Mallory enters. Kellogg, always more alert than others might guess from his drooping head and sloppy dress, sees Mallory right away and waves him over.

Mallory sits. The waitress comes up. Mallory orders a beer, Kellogg another whiskey. The men sit silently until she returns with the drinks and leaves.

Mallory: Why do you like this place?

Kellogg: ‘Cause I can get shit-faced in peace. Because I’ve been coming here so long I can find the pisser even when I’m blind drunk. Because the bartenders know to get me a cab home when it’s time, and where home is for me. And because I like the music.

Mallory laughs. Shakes his head. Drinks his beer.

Kellogg: You took your time getting back to me.

Mallory: I don’t work for you.

Kellogg: No, John, you don’t. Mallory: Relax, Kevin.

Kellogg: Let’s get down to it. Mallory: Why not.

Kellogg: Is there anything more to your shooting of Richard Ells than what’s been made public? Mallory: Nope.

Kellogg: You just happened to be there?

Mallory: No, I was called there. As was just about every other dick on the force.

Kellogg: You just happened to be in the alley where Ells was hanging around?

Mallory: I was auxiliary on this case. Never went in the house. Just got sent out for street canvassing. Went to look in the Dumpster because, as you know, perps often use them to get rid of stuff. In that alley, I saw Ells. That’s all.

Kellogg: No it isn’t.

Mallory: Fuck you it isn’t.

Kellogg: He didn’t say anything to you before you shot him?

Mallory: Nope.

Kellogg: Didn’t have anything on him? Mallory (sarcastically): Just a gun. Kellogg: No videotapes?

Mallory: You got contacts on the force besides me. Kellogg: Of course.

Mallory: Probably heard about the boy. Kellogg: Of course. Mallory: What?

Kellogg: That he took a bunch of tapes with him. Mallory: What else?

Kellogg: That somebody in the department or the Mayor’s office didn’t want the fact of those tapes being taken, or maybe even existing, made public.

Mallory: Now, see, that I didn’t know for sure. Heard rumors that the last half minute of the tape Ells made of the murder was erased, but I didn’t know for sure.

Kellogg: What difference does it make to you?

Mallory: Not much. Curiosity.

Kellogg: When are you out?

Mallory: Now, effectively. Routine suspension, but after that I’m retiring.

Kellogg: Going where? Mallory: West Virginia. Kellogg: Conspicuous choice.

Mallory: I got nothing to do with LTC, if that’s what you mean.

Kellogg: That’s what I mean.

Mallory: I got nothing to do with them.

Kellogg: Why West Virginia?

Mallory: Maybe I like the fishing.

Kellogg: Maybe you’d just as soon never see another black face the rest of your life.

Mallory, after a deep sigh: You remember how we were? When we first came on the force?

Kellogg: We’ve had this conversation before.

Mallory: Remember how we used to think we’d be a new breed of cop? How we’d help people, black or white, equally? How we wouldn’t be like the older cops, beating every nigger they came across?

Kellogg nods. Drinks his whiskey.

Mallory: Remember Wilson taking a bullet because he didn’t shoot fast enough himself, because he was so afraid of accidentally shooting a black man? Remember Smith going back into that burning building to try and save one more kid, only to never come out alive? Burned to death saving black kids who would grow up to hate his guts and kill him if they ever got the chance? Remember that ER nurse who dedicated her life to an inner-city hospital, only to be killed by two black girls in a carjacking? How often has that happened? How often have we risked our lives to save black people who wouldn’t spit on us if we were on fire? Kellogg: Drop it.

Mallory: I can remember the Mayor when he was first running for office saying white police were racist because we never believed anything black suspects told us. But I can also remember reading in Malcolm X’s biography how stupid white cops were for believing his lies. You gave me that book.

Kellogg: You didn’t finish it.

Mallory: I read enough. And by then I’d had a year of this city’s streets and I knew enough. Like your hero Malcolm said, the Negro is a natural-born dissembler. And Negroes lie so much they can’t even keep their lies straight themselves. You remember that?

Kellogg: I remember.

Mallory: We were suckers, Kevin. This whole nation is a sucker. White people are suckers. I tell you, brother, our ancestors knew blacks better than we did.

Kellogg: Ever talk to Ells about this?

Mallory: I never talked to Ells.

Kellogg: Think he agreed with you?

Mallory: I wouldn’t know.

Kellogg: They found white supremacist pamphlets in that motel room he was living in. In West Virginia.

Mallory: They found all kinds of shit in his room. New Africa shit. NAACP shit. Democratic party shit. Republican party shit.

Kellogg: Did he have friends into anything?

Mallory: His only friends were other racetrack grooms, mostly older, drunken ones. Bunch of losers, just like him. They were interviewed. Said little about him, because they didn’t know much about him, or want to know much, because he was weird. Not just a loser, like they all are, but weird. They were asked about his political beliefs. They all said when he was drunk he’d spout off, but no one could make sense of what he said. They couldn’t even tell if he was a liberal or a conservative. He just seemed to hate at random. One black groom said he’d got trapped at a bar for an hour listening to Ells rant on about how he, the black guy, had to agree that no matter what else they disagreed about,
everyone
agreed race mixing was evil.

Kellogg: And no one ever drew a connection between LTC and Ells?

Mallory: I wasn’t in the investigation, but of course I kept a close ear to it for my exoneration. But no, the investigating team never drew a connection between Ells and anyone. Not even the sniff of a connection. He was acting alone. That might not be fun to believe, but I think it’s the truth. It’s certainly the truth as I can figure it.

Kellogg: I believe you.

Mallory: I don’t care. I don’t care if you believe me, or if the department believes me, or if the public believes me. I’m done living a life where I have to be believed at all.

Kellogg: Yeah yeah yeah. What about the boy? Mallory: Well, that is a mystery. Kellogg: Swing away.

Mallory: Ells grabs the kid. Takes him somewhere. Kills him. Buries him.

Kellogg: Swing again.

Mallory: Ells grabs the kid, stashes him, I kill Ells, and the kid, God spare him, without food or water, dies.

Kellogg: Where would Ells hide the kid?

Mallory: Man, Ells had enough time to drive to West Virginia and back. Or Baltimore and back. Or Richmond and back. Right? Kid could be anywhere.

Kellogg: How about Ells having a partner?

Mallory: Nah. His last months were traced back fairly well. He had a pickup truck. Florida tags, registered in a cousin’s name. Finally found it parked by a Maryland Metro stop, so we figure he took the Metro in when he came down for the kills, or for the return. Nothing interesting in the truck.

Kellogg: Why Henry James? Mallory: I got a theory about that. Kellogg: Tell me.

Mallory: The other guys think there’s no pattern to Ells’s political interests, but I think there is. I think the pattern is that he was fascinated by political extremism. Like, he’s desperate to find something to focus his life on. And who was making announcements about the need for interracial harmony in the aftermath of the Simpson verdict? Henry James. Who was getting blasted by liberals and conservatives, blacks and whites, New Africa and LTC, Democrats and Republicans? Henry James.
Everybody
hated Henry James. And the conversation the black guy told us about, with Ells, got started when they were watching some talk show about interracial couples. And the Jameses were the city’s most prominent interracial couple. Like I said, people on all sides hated the Jameses.

Kellogg: That’s a strong word.

Mallory: Hate? You should have read the Jameses’ mail. I saw some of it. Henry James had a file full of hate mail. Everything from “Die, nigger, die” to “I hope your white masters lynch your sorry Uncle Tom ass, you devil-worshiping new slave-bitch.” Wild stuff, from blacks and whites both. Anyway, I think Ells fixated on James during the Simpson trial because he was doing so much television commentary. He saw James as the ultimate target, kind of a make-both-sides-proud target, and went for it. Beyond that I don’t want to speculate, because there’s nothing more wasteful than trying to attribute rational motives to the mind of a loser piece of shit like Ells. And as far as the boy goes, you got to forget him. Believe me, Kevin, I still care. About the children, I care. But the kid has to be dead. There’s no explanation. Even if there was a partner or a group behind Ells, why
wouldn’t
they kill the boy, and right away? And there isn’t any partner or group. Ells was a sick motherfucker, and sick motherfuckers get rejected even by radical organizations. Sick motherfuckers do sick shit, but they do it alone.

Kellogg nods. Downs his last sip of whiskey as Mallory finishes his beer.

Mallory: You got my address in West Virginia? Kellogg: Somewhere.

Mallory: Come on out, man. Surrender. Let’s face it— they won. Let’s just go hide in those beautiful hills, fish and drink and forget about what this country could have been.

Kellogg: I’m too fat to run.

Mallory: What’s here for you?

Kellogg: Ain’t nothing for me anywhere, John.

At an auditorium a few blocks away, Khalid is onstage. He is an actor. He loves the spotlight, the attention, the followers.

As he is introduced, the crowd roars with approval. He raises his hands—they roar louder.

Hear us, Lord, for we are your divine race.

(The audience quiets, listening.)

The white man, he hates us. He hates us and he fears us, because he knows in his heart that we are his superior. He can see what we can all see, that when the playing field is level, we dominate. If we were free to compete on a equal basis in medicine and engineering and law, we would dominate those fields as we dominate the playing fields. And the whites know this to be true, so they deny us that level playing field.

My people, you know what I am going to say, because you have been here before, as we have always been here, and what I say is the truth, but I am going to say it again and again and again until we
art free
.

(Applause, shouts, amens.)

The
only
way we will ever be free is to have our own country, our own land, our own courts, our own schools, our own, our own, our own.

New Africa is my dream.

(Amen.)

New
Africa is my dream. (Amen.)

But the day is coming when it will be our reality. And I tell you that the way to freedom is to use white people’s hate and fear against them. We chased them out of the cities by using their fear—now we must do the same thing in Georgia and South Carolina. If we have to, we riot. If we have to, we disrupt the schools. If we have to, we attack the white on the street. We turn our angry young men in their organized street gangs into an army of freedom fighters.
Rise
, my young brothers. (The audience’s front rows, young black men in hooded sweatshirts, stand. The crowd behind them screams its delight. The young men pump their fists in joy.) The whites fear our crime? Let us use the criminality which they have forced upon us against them. The white has made us into muggers, murderers, robbers, and rapists? Let us mug, murder, rob, and rape
them
. Let us do unto them as they have done unto us. Let us
stop
hurting our own and
start
hurting those who cause our anger. And when their storm trooper police catch our young soldiers, let us sit in the jury box and
set ourselves freel