Another Life (7 page)

* * *

“W
hy didn’t you just level with them?” Michelle asked, later that night. “Rejji and Cyn are—”
“Leveling with them means telling them the truth. And I don’t
know
the truth, girl.”
“You think that baby
wasn’t
snatched because a professional sub wanted to make some money?” my little sister said, her voice a blended sourmash of anger and disgust. “Please!”
I knew better than to say anything.
“This rich freak pays whores, and has his kid watch the action, right?” my sister said. “Who knows why
he
does it, but we know why
they
do. So maybe one of them has a pimp, or maybe her trick book’s full of big-bucks clients. Either way, somebody smelled a big payday, and called in the troops. What’s so…?”
“Girls with that level of client don’t go dropping names, sis. They may know things, but they know what it costs to
say
things, too.”
“And you think, just because they’re into pain, you couldn’t
make
them talk?”
I ignored her sarcasm, said: “Whoever put together that snatch team was top-drawer, with a lot of experience. Maybe armored cars, maybe banks…I don’t know. But it had to be the kind of man who would be very touchy about who he’d work with.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you can forget about torture—a pro won’t deal with anyone into that. Nothing to do with morals; you just never work with guys who’re bent, because they bend too easy themselves. Plus, we’re looking for a heister; no way blackmail’s his regular business.”
“Maybe surveillance is his business, mahn. That would mean he already
has
a team. And a team is what it would take to clamp a twenty-four/seven on an address, never mind a moving target.”
“Sure”—I nodded at Clarence—“unless that custom Rolls was GPS’ed. Pryce thinks he’s looking in the right places, but he can’t get in deep enough; that’s why he came to me. For
us,
the key isn’t the baby, it’s the ransom.”
“But there’s
been
no—”
“That’s just it, girl,” I told Michelle. “If anyone had contacted that scumbag, he would have forked over whatever they asked for. For him to go to the government, and for
them
to reach out for Pryce, this can’t be anything money could fix.
“Remember, no contact’s been made. None. This sheikh had to be way past desperate to go to the feds, because now his hobby’s not on the down-low anymore. That kind of info is unbelievable leverage; he has to want that baby
bad
to put his own head on the chopping block.”
“So the feds know there’s a missing baby, and Cyn and Rejji
don’t
?” Michelle said, glaring at me.
“Step back, okay? Sure, I told them that much. But in their minds I’m working for the parents. What’s the point of telling them anything else?”
“You don’t actually know. Not for sure. And that baby
was
—”
“No, honey,” I told her. “This was no damn kidnapping. Unless you can show me how this whole thing adds up to money—
major
money—I think this little prince of theirs is reading it right. There’s something else in play here.”

* * *

T
he
a cappella
voice was as pure as pain, called up from a place that only a child who lost his father to a soulless assassin can know.
Don’t need no silver spade
To dig my grave
Don’t need nobody cryin’
I’m ready to pay for the sins I made
And I don’t need no preacher’s lyin’
Just put me down
In that cold, hard ground
And tell Mamma I died tryin’
I knew the song; the Prof once told me he’d learned it as a boy coming up in Louisiana. One of those sly “spirituals” that mocked the opiate the slavemasters were feeding their captives. That was when “Prof” was short for “Prophet,” not “Professor.” Depending on where you stood, he could still be either one.
Clarence’s voice was low, but it carried like an ICBM. He stood on the outdoor terrace, one floor below where the hospital was cradling his father. He was on his feet, both hands gripping the railing. Standing like the Prof did when he was preaching to his congregation, back when we were Inside:
“The Lord don’t want you on your knees, brothers. The bars only keep us
in;
they can’t keep us
down.
We don’t gotta be in
their
house; we can be in
God’s
house…if we make it so.
“You know how it go: Twelve jurors, one judge, half a chance. We all here because we got convicted. So we all convicts by law. I say
convicts!
Convicts, not inmates! An inmate is an animal in a cage. A convict is a man of conviction! And a man stands up for his convictions, am I right? Now stand up with me, brothers. Stand up right now! Being a convict ain’t about color; it’s about
being a man. So stand up
together.
Show those punks in the gun towers what
men
look like! Now give
that
an amen!”
I’d gone looking for Clarence; I knew he had to be somewhere close by. But when I found him, he was looking, too.
I vaporized; it hadn’t been me Clarence had gone looking for.

* * *

“I
only do restraint.” The woman was past full bloom, but still ripe, even with the Shirley Temple curls and raccoon eyeliner. “And only here, in my own place.”
“But when you’re restrained…”
“It just
looks
like I am,” she told me, very matter-of-factly.
“I understand. But when you
look
like you are, the clients, they like to talk?”
“Some do,” she said, as if stating the obvious. “Some like to listen.”
“The talkers, some of them, they can get…”
“What are you, anyway?” she said, fitting a cigarette into an ivory holder. “Cyn told me you were a real heavy.”
“So I’m not supposed to have manners? Not supposed to show some respect?”
“I’m not used to it,” she said, warily.
“Meaning you don’t trust it? Or that you think Cyn made a mistake?”
“If a guy who I expect to pay me to put on a dog collar so he can walk me on a leash and make me say I’m a filthy bitch cunt shows up with roses one day, that would spook me.”
“I’m not that guy. You’ve never seen me before; you’ll never see me again. And, so far, I’m not paying you, either.”
“Cyn said you would.”
“Oh,
now
her word’s good, huh? She negotiate a price, too?”
“She…she said, if I had information, you’d pay for it.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out, if you have that information. That’s why I asked you about guys who like to talk.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You don’t need to. Here’s what I’m looking for, okay? A regular. Ties you up, whatever. But this one, when he’s finished, he always tells you you’re nothing but a hole.”
“A…?”
“‘Hole.’ Like in the ground. That’s the word I’m looking for. That specific word.”
She gave me a look I couldn’t decipher. “I
did
have a guy once who—”
“Was he alone?”
“Alone? Who else would be there? I don’t do sets.”
“He’d have a baby with him. A little baby. Maybe in a stroller.”
“And I’d let him do me in front of a
baby
? What the fuck kind of woman do you think I am?”

* * *

A
s I stepped across the threshold to the Prof’s room, I saw the nurse leaning over the armchair where Clarence had fallen asleep during his vigil. She shook the exhausted young man gently, said, “He is here now.”
“My father…” Clarence was half dazed, half on fire.
“Go look,” she said, flashing teeth whiter than heat.

* * *

“S
on?”
“It’s—” both Clarence and I said as one, the “me” that would have ended the sentence never reaching our lips.
“How long?” the Prof whispered.
“Few weeks,” I said.
“I got called over to the other side,” the old man said, more strength in each successive syllable, “but I wouldn’t take the ride.”
“They never built the joint that could hold you, Prof.”
“I remember…some of it. Caught a round. Went down. Thought I had my…”
His voice trailed off.
Clarence was slumped on the floor, shaking like a man with ague. His face was wet, but he didn’t make a sound. Not out loud, anyway. It was up to me, then.
“They never came, Prof,” I said, talking out of the side of my mouth, like he’d first taught me on the yard. “Soon as they saw you holding your hammer, they ran like rabbits. By the time we got the rescue wagon over to you, the whole street was empty.”
“For true?”
“John Henry
barred
that door,” I said, bending close to kiss his cheek.

* * *

“H
e’s back to himself,” Michelle was telling Clarence, much later. “He lost a few pints of blood, honey. But not a single brain cell.”
“Thank you,” he said. We didn’t know who he was talking to. Didn’t ask.
“You know that gorgeous nurse, Taralyn?” Michelle asked him.
“The Island girl?”
“No, the space alien,” she snapped. “Couldn’t you even bother to learn her name, you pig?”
“I was not—”
“I’m so sure. Well, anyway,
Taralyn
was there when I showed up a few hours ago. Just in time, I might add. The Prof was asking her how’d she gotten to be a nurse, with that disease she got. Taralyn thought he was still brain-fogged—I could see it on her face—but she got over that idea quick enough when that old rogue told her she needed to gain some weight if she wanted to haul the freight.”
“My father only meant—”
“Oh, for Hera’s sake!” Michelle exploded on the young man. “You think
I
need a translator? Besides, he was talking about you.”
“Me? I do not—”
“That old devil was telling her what
you
like. Bragging on you like you were a combination of Billy Dee and Denzel, only with Einstein’s mind, Trump’s money, and…well, he just went
on.
“‘Time I had me some grandbabies to play with,’” she growled, imitating the Prof’s tone to perfection. “‘But my boy ain’t looking for no toy.’ He was just…impossible! Told her she had the hips for it—can you
imagine
?—but, no matter what she had in her hope chest, she needed some more in her trunk.
“I swear, Miss Taralyn couldn’t make up her mind between slapping him and kissing him. ‘That old man is
bold,
’ she says to me later. I told her, ‘Wait ’til you get to know his son.’”
If you think a black man can’t blush, one look at Clarence would fix that.
“He does not yet know?” he asked Michelle. Anything to get her off the scent.
“About the leg? No, baby. Taralyn said she would tell him if we wanted. But she thought we’d—”
“I’ll do—”
Clarence and I, again speaking as one. But we both knew that one was mine.

* * *

“I
’m a star,” the slim young woman with vaguely Oriental eyes and short, dark hair told me. “Spanking videos—well, DVDs, really—earn a ranking, just like in any entertainment industry.”
“I heard that,” I lied. Thinking she wore her hair short so she could put on whatever wig the role required, keeping Rejji’s words in mind:
“She goes by Barbi. How yesterday can you get? Barbi Lacoste. It’s a pun, get it? You know what makes her such a ‘star’? You can find a nice round butt anywhere. But she’s got real pale skin, so the buyers don’t just see her get spanked, they see the results—makes it more real. And some want
serious
bruising for their money.
“This one, I heard she can work all
day!
You know what that means? She’d have to take…God, I don’t know,
hours
of it. And she doesn’t need a whole lot of downtime, either, the way some do. I heard she gets a shot of novocaine in each cheek before—”
“You’re
so
jealous,” Cyn interrupted, laughing.
“Of that trash?” Rejji fired back. She turned away from Cyn,
said: “Look, Burke, I know her kind. Maybe she loves it, maybe not. But you pay her enough, she could learn to love something else.”
So I didn’t word-play with this Barbi. “You know who I am?”
“I
heard
of you, that’s all.”
“Then you know what I do. This isn’t personal. I want something. If you’ve got it, I’ll pay you for it. Either way, you’ll never see me again.”
She lit another cigarette, fumbling a little with an intricate gold lighter.
I sat there radiating no-threat, misting it like soft fog over her fear.
“I don’t smoke much—except when I’m a naughty girl sneaking a smoke. On camera, you know? But I…want to think about this.”
“I’m not coming back.”
“You already said that.”
“I did, but I don’t think you were listening. So let’s try it this way: if you want to get paid, it’s now or never.”
“You’re afraid I’ll make a phone call, huh?”
“No,” I said, just above a whisper. “You’re afraid
I
will.”