Till You Hear From Me: A Novel (23 page)

“Hey,” she said. “Welcome back!”

“How about now?” Aretha said.

The girls cocked their heads in an identical motion and squinted their eyes.

“Perfect,” Lu said, nodding her approval.

“I just love them,” her friend said, gazing adoringly at the first couple. “They are so cool.”

“You got that right,” Aretha said, stepping down. “Too cool for school. How you doing?”

“I’m good,” I said.

“Can you hang out for a second?” Flora said. “I won’t be long.”

“No problem.” I took a chair near the seed catalogues.

Lu’s friend winked. “I told you it wouldn’t take him no time. Cornell is a genius.”

“He’s a nerd,” Lu said, loud enough for Cornell to hear. “ShaRhonda Smith, this is Miss Dunbar.”

“Nice to meet you,” ShaRhonda said. “She’s just jealous because I’m dating a college man.”

“A college nerd,” Lu said, rolling her eyes.

“I hope you know I can hear you,” the boy behind the computer said without taking his eyes off the screen. “And that I know you are just jealous because you couldn’t figure this out without my expert advice.”

“For which we are always grateful,” Flora said, laughing and intently watching what he was doing.

“That’s such a great shot,” Aretha said, adjusting the portrait slightly. “I wish I’d taken it.”

“I wish you had, too,” Lu teased her. “Then you’d be famous.”

“I’m a legend in my own mind,” Aretha said. “And don’t you forget it. All right! I’m outta here!”

“We gotta go, too,” Lu said. “Mom! Are you going to release the nerd anytime soon or should we go next door and get a cappuccino?”

The boy turned to Flora. “You got it, right?”

She nodded. “I got it.”

“Then my work here is done.”

The boy stood up then, or should I say unfolded. He was taller than I had guessed and lean without being skinny. He spread his long arms wide and smiled at ShaRhonda. “I’m all yours.”

“Not quite so fast, nerd boy,” Lu said. “You’ve got to help me finish my project
first
. Then you and Miss Girl are on your own.”

“Well, let’s go,” ShaRhonda said, taking Cornell’s hand. “It takes you forever to do anything.”

“That’s because I want to do it right,” Lu said, reaching for her backpack and blowing her mother a kiss. “We’re going over to Tech. Be back in time for dinner.”

“Of that I have no doubt. Be careful.”

“Call me if you have any problems with that program,” Cornell said, grinning and holding the door for the girls. “And don’t worry, Mrs. Lumumba. I won’t let the other nerds anywhere near them!”

Flora’s laugh followed them out the door. “It’s a madhouse around here today!”

“They seem like nice kids.”

“They’re great kids. She’s from right outside West End, lots of family drama, so she came to live with us when she was eleven. Cornell is a second-generation computer whiz. His dad works in the registrar’s office down at the county and he’s a freshman at Tech. He’s the one who keeps us up and running. We’ve been streaming
video from the King Peace Gardens Tour and he just figured out how we can do it faster and with a lot better quality.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Which is a good thing, but which is probably also adding to the general confusion around here. We’ve already got more email than we can handle!”

“Then the problem is to find somebody to answer it, not to cut back on the programs that are generating such a big response,” I said, laying the book on her desk.

Her eyes widened. “You finished it already?”

“Last night,” I said. “I started to call you, but it was after midnight.”

“I’m a night owl,” she said. “Especially when Hank’s in D.C. You can call me anytime.”

“Next time I will,” I said. “I just wanted to tell you that the King Peace Gardens are a great idea.”

Flora beamed. “I think so, too! I told Miss Abbie when she first said it. I’ve always thought it was terrible that we just let those streets go.”

“The whole time I was reading it, I kept picturing all the M. L. King streets I was on during the campaign and almost all of them were horrible.”

Flora smiled. “Nothing a few sunflowers won’t cure.”

“Exactly,” I said. “But since I’m not very good at growing things, here’s what I can do for you.”

“I’m all ears,” she said.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“H
E’S HOT FOR IT,
” W
ES SAID, SITTING ON THE PLANE HE’D FLOWN IN
on less than a week ago, having a quick drink with Oscar, who was passing through on his way to a mission in New York he was being obnoxiously mysterious about. They could have easily met at one of the airport bars, but Oscar didn’t want to be seen in the terminal. Something about not being in two places at one time. Arrangements had been made in advance and when Wes arrived, he was driven out to the plane on a golf cart.

The buxom blond flight attendant welcomed him aboard with a twinkle that was probably part of her job description, but Wes didn’t have time to flirt.

“Good work,” Oscar said, taking a sip of his Coke, the only thing Wes had ever seen him drink. “Sounds like you’ve got us within a cunt hair of our goal.”

Wes smiled.
White boys say cunt
, he thought.
Niggas say pussy
.

“The good thing is that the model can be replicated,” Wes said. “He’s already thinking about Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland.”

“You think we can activate a purge in all those places?”

Wes shrugged. “Even where there is no possibility of purging, we’ll have a way of communicating all manner of misinformation.”

Oscar smiled. “You’re still the best.”

Wes accepted the compliment, knowing it was his due. He had worked up several mailers for urban populations (read: African American and Latino) aimed at making people afraid to show up at the polls. It wasn’t hard. Tell them they’d get picked up for back child support or unpaid traffic tickets and you can clear out a whole precinct.

“How long you figure it will take to actually get your hands on a copy of that disk? Our guy in the registrar’s office is getting a little antsy, so time is of the essence.”

“We’ll have no problem getting it done by your target date,” Wes said. “Piece of cake.”

“We need to move that up a little if we can.”

There’s always one more thing
. “How far up?”

“March first.”

“That’s less than three weeks from now!”

“Is that going to be a problem?” Oscar said, sounding surprised. “I thought you said we were within a cunt hair.”

Wes was beginning to really hate that expression. He wanted to say:
How many times do I have to tell you? Pussy, muthafucker. Niggas say pussy
.

“There is a logistical challenge that may make that difficult.”

“Nothing we can’t fix, I’m sure.”

“There is no disk to copy,” Wes said. “There is no master list of any kind. The names—all one hundred thousand of them—are on index cards in shoe boxes, stacked in the Rev’s closet.”

Oscar looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“What word hung you up?” Wes snapped. He didn’t want to rush the Rev. In gaining trust, timing was everything. “These guys don’t trust technology so they don’t use it.”

“Ever?”

“Not if they can help it.”

What had the Rev said:
You been in the big city too long
.

“This is insane,” Oscar said, looking like he wanted to get up and pace, his best thinking move, but the space was too compact for that. “How can these people do business like this?”

“They’re not trying to do business. They’re trying to get free, remember?”

Oscar looked at Wes and gave him a tight smile. “Certainly an admirable goal, but what the hell, Wes? Our guy in the registrar’s office is really getting antsy. He’s so paranoid he sees feds in the trees. We can’t afford to let him slip through our fingers because of a bunch of backward preachers.”

This was not the time to remind Oscar that these backward preachers had just elected a president. Wes made his voice sound soothing.

“Nothing is slipping through our fingers, okay? This is a logistical problem. He already trusts me to have his best interests at heart. All he’s got to do is agree to let me pick up the boxes and we’ll get it done.”

“How long?”

“Hard to tell until we actually see what we’re working with,” Wes said. “Do you want me to talk to this guy?”

“That might be a good idea. Just cool him out a little.” Another tight smile. “You know,
brother to brother.”

Wes put his glass down and stood up without smiling back. “What’s his name?”

“Estes. Major Estes.”

“I’m on it.”

TWENTY-NINE

M
ISS
I
ONA CALLED TO TELL ME THAT
M
R
. C
HARLES HAD LEFT THAT
morning to spend two weeks with his daughter by his first wife, who had just delivered his third grandchild, but that wasn’t the first thing on Miss Iona’s mind when she opened her front door just as I was reaching for the bell.

“Have you heard anything?”

“I left a message for my guy,” I said, knowing I’d get my greeting later. “I’m just waiting on him to call me back.”

“That’s my girl!” She sounded relieved. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” I said, pointing at her coat. “Are you coming in or going out?”

“I’m on my way to the market. I’m restocking my refrigerator for two weeks of being a solo act,” she said.

“Want some company?”

“I’d love some,” she said, stepping outside and turning up her collar like she always did. She was pulling one of those little wire
carts that old ladies use to carry their groceries home and she still looked stylish in her red coat and black boots.

“How’d the Rev survive without Ed for one whole day?”

“He did just fine,” I said. “I think Wes spent the day making him feel like a rock star.”

“The boy is such a little ass kisser. Always was.”

“You really don’t like him, do you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t trust him. Do you?”

I wasn’t expecting her to turn the question back to me, so I stumbled a little over my answer. “I don’t trust him or not trust him. He just doesn’t seem as bad to me as you think he is.”