The Saint Louisans (39 page)

Of course the man is the Mississippi They always get it wrong.

Jama stood behind us, following news on her cellphone. Twenty feet behind us was Rasheed. The second cab drove off. We crossed the street.

Clarence Tuthill's golf cap covered a shock of white hair, his face an erosion of wrinkles. The cab smelled of disinfectant like a restroom at a truck stop. Tuthill looked back as we crammed in.

“Where you folks goin?”

Saul smiled. “The information superhighway. Keep driving.”

Tuthill nodded warily. Since we were white and middle-aged, we didn't look like we'd stick him up. Beside Tuthill, I saw a copy of
The Evening Whirl
, a rip-roaring expose of crime in our fair city, mostly of blacks whacking other blacks with Frankie and Johnnie headlines like
He Played Her Fair, She Sliced His Hair
, and,
I Wanted Fun at the End of a Gun
, or
Fool Finds That the Easy Life Lies.

Saul leaned forward. “Let's talk about Marc Anthony Hollis.”

In the mirror, Tuthill kept his face blank. “Don't know what you're talking about, mister.”

“I think you do.”

A barbed-wire stare filled Tuthill's eyes. “I don't know Jack, and I don't got to tell you nothin'. Now, if you and these ladies going somewhere, let's get a destination, 'cause if not—”

Saul dropped a hundred dollar bill in the front seat. “We need answers.”

“I talked to you all I want to talk to, 'less you a cop.”

“I'm a nurse,” I said, seeing it was time to be good cop, or, my case, angel.

“I'm Jama,” my daughter cheered. “I'm from Hollywood.”

Tuthill's eyes chilled at that. I elbowed Jama back and continued. “Mr. Tuthill, may I call you Clarence?”

He stared back.

“You gave, shall we say, misleading information. We need it straightened out.”

“Nothing to me.”

“It has to do with my mother. She's dying. We need your help.”

Saul floated two more hundreds to the front seat, landing on top of
Lashanda Weems and Her Story. Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore Art Thou? In a .45 Caliber Love Nest
. A white pharmacy bag was next to the newspaper. A woman's name was on the prescription. “Please, Clarence.”

“How many more of them hundreds you got?”

Saul held up three more, the last of his twigs from the nest egg. “Marc.”

“Naw, I got nothing to do with no Marc. I got nothing to do with nobody.”

Saul looked at me, then continued. “How about Marc and Vess Moot? I understand they were pals.”

This was a surprise to me. Tuthill signaled for a turn.

“I mind my own business. Got nothing to do with Vess. I don't tick the wrong people off. This here's a dirty town.”

I watched the uneasiness in Tuthill's eyes, the same uneasiness I saw in the wards. That sadness of little people who are born, grow up, and are stuck.

“That medicine. Is it for you or your wife?”

An uncertain shrug came from Tuthill's sloped shoulders. “Yeah. Wife. In dialysis. Over at SLU.”

“I worked there. She only has one kidney?” He nodded.

“Then you and I know about time. Please, Clarence. Help me.”

His cough was raspy and nervous as we passed the usual midtown streets. He pulled over. “I need coffee. When I get coffee it helps, you know? Like, when I'm at dialysis. Waiting.”

We were in front of a hamburger cum pizza joint. Through its smudged front window, a sprinkle of coffee hounds hogged the counter. We joined them.

Inside, over mugs of coffee that steamed with a thick smell of caffeinated incense, Saul, Jama, and I listened to Tuthill, who looked over his shoulder after every other sentence.

“You know, when I was young, I was angry. At the whole thing. So, I wanted to burn the world. Change it.” Tuthill sighed. “But what happens is, the world changes you.”

I nodded. “Marc Anthony Hollis?”

“He was crazy. Like we all said, if Vess had a .38 caliber temper, Marc Anthony was .50 caliber.”

“What did you know about Lucas Desouche? The shooting?”

Tuthill looked around again. The breakfast crowd had emptied out. Behind the counter, a Mexican in whites chopped up lettuce for salads and BLTs.

“Marc Anthony, he was on the streets, and Vess was trying to link up with the dealers. Part of his coalition or something. It was so long ago.” Tuthill sipped. “So very long. It was said Lucas, he and some woman, was near Delmar to score. Marc Anthony went there.”

I leaned closer. “This was a drug deal?”

“I don't know the details, lady. Believe me, I don't. But I know something went down. Marc disappeared. Like, sunk away and was gone.” He shrugged. “So I told some guy.”

Saul nodded. “Barrett.”

“I mean, who's gonna care? I felt young telling it all over. You know, those days are gone. Real gone.”

Tuthill coughed, an old man's cough, of not getting enough of life's oxygen. I wondered if he had emphysema.

“Okay. Is Marc Anthony alive?”

“Some say he is, some say he ain't, but where and what, you got me.”

I sensed the trail was going cold. It depended what fork in the road I took. “Tell me about him. What was he like?”

Tuthill's choke twisted into a smile. “Oh, he was a banty rooster. Always had that hard face that never cracked. ‘Got to be cool 'bout this,' he'd always say, nice and slick before he went up the side of someone's head. Yes, ma'am … he was into cool.”

I tingled. Jama looked at me. “Did he have a gun?”

“He always carried. I saw it. A nickel-plated .38. Funniest thing, it had a little star above the left grip.”

Saul, Jama, and I were out the door.

Thirty minutes later, I knocked as the sax riffed into a valley of low notes. Ken opened it, his eyes ready to claw.

“What the hell do you want?”

I walked in, Saul, and Jama behind me. “Cleopatra wants to talk to Marc Anthony.”

“You're talking junk,” glared Ken, whose eyes switched to Jama. “What's she doing here?”

Jama shrugged. “I'm here for the history lesson.”

“Get out of my pad.”

I leaned against the wall, a poster of Fanon by my shoulder. “Or what? You'll shoot me? Like you did the woman with Lucas Desouche?”

Ken froze. Saul stared. “You killed a woman.”

“Fuck you. I know you're no cop.”

“Yeah,” Saul said, “I'm just a middle-aged Jew. But I can drop a dime, and the police might like to clean up old paperwork.” He softened. “Be nice.”

Ken gave a loaded stare back, then sighed, and sunk into the chair by his computer, both looking like something from the return bin at an office supply store. Jama studied Fanon.

“Let's go back to '72. You and Lucas Desouche on a dark and stormy night on Delmar.” Ken glared, but I held up my hand. “I need this, Ken. Everyone needs peace, but there's no peace until I have a winning hand. Give me that hand.”

He scratched his beard, eyes cagey and loaded. Finally, he shrugged as if shaking thirty years off his shoulders. “Okay.”

A couple of minutes and two shots of whiskey later, Kenyatta Holmes held forth.

“I started doing odd jobs back at the Circus Bar, what we called ground floor of the Atlas Hotel. That was over on Pendleton and Delmar. It was like the Hermitage over on 4600 Washington. Hotels for colored, 'cause we weren't allowed in the real ones downtown. Once, Count Basie walked past me in the lobby. Anyway, the Circus Bar was where all the pimps and their ladies met to start the skull games.”

He smiled at our blank expressions. “What they called pimping. You know, on the stroll. So, anyways, by '72, things getting seedy, I mean, going from sugar to shit. Vess come in, and he was going to get all the street on
his side, 'cause with the Dick in power, a lot of federal bread was drying up. Drugs was loose, and Vess needed some of that gravy. To jack up his power base. I connected with him.”

I nodded. “Lucas Desouche?”

A cold stare from Ken lowered the temperature. “Yeah, that cat did everything. I didn't supply him. So, Vess had his shit going on about the VP ball … all those fancy white dudes and their games, you know?” He blinked. “Then China Doll came on the stroll.”

“China Doll?”

A slow nod from Ken. “She breezed off the bus one night. An oriental ho'. She just moved in. I don't where she come from. No one did. Maybe one of them GI brides from 'Nam or wherever … you know, the usual … tell GI ‘you numbah one,' marry him, get over here, and then dump him.” Ken's smile was foxy. “White dudes, they go for that Suzy Wong stuff. China Doll hooks with Lucas. That was a problem, because she was getting high-trade goods, but she wasn't playing the game.”

I frowned. “The game?”

“Gangs on the street. The suppliers. Candy men. They want a cut of the action. China Doll was relying on her charm to sail past the rules of the Monopoly board, but it ain't that kind of rule book. It might cut it in GI land or Gookville, but in St. Louis, there is the game, and you gotta play it right.” He shook his head. “That's how it was for me, then. I was asked to rap with China Doll. It was on VP night, and I got a tip they were on Cote Brilliante. I mean, a white boy and gook on the Cote. No way you're going to hide that, so I told my man to keep the homeys away until I got there. She was supplying Lucas with certain pharmaceuticals, and I caught what she was trying to do.” Ken smiled. “To use him and that white boy shit to build their own trade. He spoke up for her. I reminded white boy he was a guest of the streets, and me and her was having a discussion of gamesmanship. That she could play, but there was a cut.”

Jama nodded. “You were the enforcer.”

Ken laughed. “No, man. I was Jiminy Cricket. I was the conscience of the street and reminded China Doll she had to play the game.”

I could see what was coming. “It went down bad, didn't it?”

“Bitch got the wrong idea. Maybe it was the language barrier. Maybe
the bullshit barrier, and rich kid tries to get tough. He didn't pass the grade at bad ass, and when I cocked him, she pulled a piece on me. I mean, she was acting like a cigarette pimp. She popped off one. It was a .22. Punk shit, but when that barrel stared at me, I wasn't into the finer points. I popped off three. She dropped.”

Ken stopped to kick back a shot of gin from the table.

“So,” Saul said, “you had a problem.”

“Yeah, and I didn't want any Dudley-Do-Rights from City crashing in on the game, so I got her into white chocolate's car, and told him to hit the pedal. I told his ass to head for an alley, but he sped back to the goddamned mansion. So China Doll snuffs it when we get there, and Lucas, he's stammering and shaking, and just starts digging. I went with it.”

“Okay,” Saul said, “but you dropped out. Why? She had connections, right?”

“Indeed she did. Turns out she was front for a gang in 'Frisco wanting to move east, and when she got buried, people started looking for her. Word got out I was involved. Lucas, he needed to have his hand held. I told him we had to be cool about this. He played cool real good, and passed me some jack, then sang that I got aced, and China Doll took off. I left town.”

“You came back when?”

Ken's eyes warned. “I kicked around, okay? The game eats people, and I became Kenyatta. Got lonesome for this scumbag on the river. A few years later, I slid back in. I like the crab life.”

He thumbed to boxes of forms near his computer. “Cats mail me shit. I do stuff for 'em, then mail it back. It pays the bills, so I can play. Playing's my thing. I play better than I game.” Ken's moment of spiritual repose was brief. “So what makes you think I'm gonna talk?”

I took a deep breath. “While you were talking, I did the math. The night Vess Moot got shot and wound up in my ER. You had something to do with that.”

Ken stared back. “Can't hang shit on me, Nurse.”

“It seems an odd coincidence that shortly after the VP Ball of that year, Vess got shot. No one knows why, but I wonder if Vess ratted you. To stay in good graces with the China Doll faction, and the shooting was payback.”

Ken looked away, frowned at Jama, who picked up an old Miles Davis LP and studied it. He rose, and angrily snatched it out of her hand and put
it back with a worn row of vinyl records, their covers frayed like old soldiers after along retreat.

“Don't touch,” he warned. Jama shrugged and stared. Saul waited.

“Ken,” I said, “I don't want an answer. You've said plenty. I just want a family to go through a difficult death together. They need it, and I need Vess defused. Will you help me?”

Ken leaned back, not blinking. “What's in it for me?”

“No one's going to reopen anything,” Saul said. “Statute of limitations has long run out, but it could dirty Vess. If he tries to get at you, we break open the piggy bank.”

“I don't cut deals, “Ken said. “Not with Jew boys or Nancy Nurse here.”

I lowered my voice. “Please help.”

“Got a quiet life here, Nurse. I like to keep it that way. But … maybe Vess needs some fizz taken out of his bottle.” Ken took a shot of gin. “Maybe I'll do it.”

“Now. We need to do it now.”

A long nod from Ken. “Couldn't talk you into icing that cat?”

“Very funny. We need to go.”

Ken raised a thin, loaded forefinger.” That kid apologizes for ripping me off.”

Jama frowned. “I did no such thing.”

“Jama,” I began slowly, “say you're sorry.” I frowned. “Say you're sorry so Ken can help us. So I can help you. From the bad men outside.” I concluded this with pursed lips and raised eyebrow. I felt a stab of pain in my head and I didn't like it. It had been creeping around earlier, but I shrugged it off.