If I Should Die (26 page)

“Look, man. How many times do I have to tell you? The answer is no! Get it? No!
”

“Erskin, this is the chance of a lifetime. Your brother’s in charge of the whole setup. You say the word and I’ll go to him and things’ll start rolling. Believe me, it can’t go wrong.
”

“Wait a minute. Let’s get one thing clear. He’s my half brother. Johnnie is my half brother. My father had two wives. And precisely because Johnnie’s involved is the reason I want nothing to do with it. He’s poison. I’m not that hard up. And
if you know what’s good for you, you’ll dump this scheme also.
”

There was the soft sound of laughter, placating but with an edge of tension
.

“You know we’re not talking hardship, Erskin. We’re talking nine hundred grand. Nearly a million dollars. Three trips. Three hundred grand a trip off the top that we split two ways. You and me. The kids won’t even know what they’re carrying. The stuff is already in Marseille from Lyon and the payoffs in place. They’ll blow through customs. I mean, who’s going to search through two hundred pieces of luggage belonging to a bunch of young choir kids. No one. I’m asking you, where’s the risk?
”

A muted, shuffling sound, probably a chair being moved abruptly over carpeted floor
.

“Get the hell out of my office, you son of a bitch! Where’s the risk? You want to know where’s the risk? The risk is when an old grandmother tries to go to the damn corner store, and before she makes it home, some demented crackhead takes her off and leaves her lying in the gutter in a pool of her own blood. The risk is having some young girl give up on life and go with any man who will lead her to her next hit on the pipe. At the hospital just blocks away, nurses are quitting left and right because they can’t listen any longer to the screaming of those addicted babies. That’s the risk! But you wouldn’t know about that. You don’t live in this neighborhood so you wouldn’t think twice about flooding it with as much shit as you can. They don’t do these things downtown where you live, do they?
”

And the same voice went on, lower and more deliberate. “And you want to know what the next risk is? If I hear of you approaching anyone else in this organization with your idea, I will personally kick your ass back downtown where it belongs!
”

“Now wait a minute, Erskin. You know Johnnie and I go back a long way. A long way. So you watch your words
.
And speaking of Johnnie, he lives in the community. Lives large, as they say. How come you’re not concerned about the fact that he’s flooding his own people with the stuff? You don’t have an answer for that, do you? Now let me tell you something else. I have some heavy contacts, Erskin. Some good. Some not so good. It pays to know people on both sides. A lot of people owe me, including some who are very well placed. They owe me!
”

“So what? You probably owe somebody also. That’s why you’re in up to your ass and can’t get out. But one thing you can do is get the hell out of my office. Right now!
”

The sound of a door opening, a creaky sound, then voices again
.

“All right. But just remember one thing. I may be in—as you say—up to my ass, but I’ve got plenty of company. This is no small thing. Johnnie thought you might be interested, that’s all. If you’re not, then you better forget I ever mentioned the idea. It’s just three hundred grand extra income for a onetime deal, that’s all.
”

“A onetime deal? Gary, you’re planning to bring kilos of dope into this neighborhood where it’ll be killing people for years and you’re calling it a onetime deal?
”

“Call it what you want, Erskin. At any rate, I wouldn’t take this any further, if I were you.
”

“But you’re not me. You’re Gary Mark, ex—Wall Street ex-wonder boy who still thinks he can outslick the suckers. Well, this one’s not buying. Now if you don’t mind, just close the door on the way out!
”

The sound of footsteps. Silence. Then Erskin’s voice again, breaking
.

“Well, I’ll be damned. I’ll be damned. They want to use the Chorus. The kids …
”

There was another click. The fading notes of “Profoundly Blue” came back, and the tape ended several minutes later.

I played the tape again. And again. To confirm what
I didn’t want to believe; to hear Erskin’s voice again so strong and steady, and to figure out Gary Mark’s connections on “both sides” of the line.

Alvin had taken this tape the day Erskin died, and all this time it had lain in the closet. Here were the voices of two men from the grave to point their fingers at Johnnie Harding. Suppose Alvin had played it? Suppose Dad had found it …

I took a blank tape, copied it, and took the original downstairs. My hand was unsteady even as I pressed the wall panel near the bar and placed the cassette inside behind an old dusty bottle of cognac that someone had given Dad twenty years ago. Then I got dressed quickly and left the house.

D
o you have an appointment?” the secretary said, reaching for her calendar. “The director sees people only by appointment.”

I shifted from one foot to the other and bit my tongue in a losing effort to remain calm. “I don’t have an appointment. My nephew’s in the Chorus and this is an emergency.”

She swiveled her chair around to look up at me. She was new on the job and obviously trying to do the right thing but seemed to have too much attitude for the easygoing atmosphere of an arts organization.

“Is it anything I can help you with?”

“No, ma’am. Please ask Lloyd if he’ll see me for five minutes.”

I think it was the first-name reference that finally got her to pick up the phone.

Lloyd Benton’s office was the same size as Erskin’s but it was better furnished. There was the usual leather executive chair behind the walnut desk and the carpet
with the muted design on the floor, but where the walls in Erskin’s office had been covered with posters and flyers of the various tours, Lloyd’s space held several original artworks by African American masters: Henry Tanner, Elizabeth Catlett, and Jacob Lawrence. And there was a small Bearden collage on the wall near the coffeemaker.

I looked around me. This was a cash-strapped organization. Where had this art come from? Had Gary Mark loaned or given it to him? Or had Lloyd been paying himself a salary far in excess of what he was worth?

Lloyd, tall and slim, moved with the grace of a man much younger than his forty-five years. His features were dominated by the shaggy eyebrows, which everyone said were a perfect indicator of his mood.

He came from behind the desk to shake my hand.

“Mali. It’s good to see you. I haven’t had a chance to let you know personally how much the organization appreciates your support.”

“Well, thank you, Lloyd, I—”

“You know, Erskin spoke of you a great deal. Talked about how pretty you were. And he was right, of course.” He pulled up a chair and waved me toward it, then he perched on the edge of his desk. “Erskin’s sorely missed around here. He was a good man. Dedicated. A shameful, needless death …”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about, Lloyd. Erskin knew something and it probably got him killed.”

When bad news comes calling, some folks sweat, others tremble, and some have eyebrows that speak for them. I watched Lloyd move from the desk to the window, and when he turned to face me, his brows shot up like the back of a porcupine.

“Erskin? He knew something? I thought he was killed trying to prevent a kidnapping. I thought he … I mean, you were there. Didn’t you say they tried to take Morris and drag him into that car?”

“Yes. But I think the kidnapping was only to get Erskin to cooperate.”

“With whom?”

I reached into my bag and pulled the cassette out. “I want you to listen to this.”

“What is it?” He checked his watch as if I had taken up too much of his time already.

“Listen to this, Lloyd. It’s an eye-opener.”

Thirty minutes later he sat with his hands covering his face. When he removed them, his brows had come together in that telltale line and his normally brown skin was flushed a frightening dark red, as if his blood pressure had blown off the chart. His first question surprised me.

“Have you gone to the police?”

Since Tad was still out of town, I had not, so my answer was honest enough.

“No, I haven’t. They’re not moving on Erskin’s murder, and because Gary was so well known, they may not want to move on this. I mean, a prominent Wall Street broker tied to a black drug dealer? Gary’s dead. They won’t want to tarnish his image. They would probably take the tape and destroy it.”

“Where did you get this … this tape?”

“I’ve had it for quite some time. I had it and didn’t know what was on it. I heard it for the first time just an hour ago.”

“An hour ago?”

“Yes.”

I watched him now as he leaned back in his chair, shaking his head, trying to absorb the thing he had just heard.

“I can’t believe it! Gary! Mixed up with the biggest thug outside of Attica. And poor Erskin. Caught in the middle. Erskin and Johnnie were like night and day.”

“That’s true, Lloyd. That’s why I came here right
away, to find out what you intend to do about the tour … There’s too much at stake.”

He looked at me, surprised. “What do you mean, too much at stake?”

“Well, I was thinking … hoping that you’d consider canceling the tour.”

“Cancel the tour?” He leaned forward, wide-eyed, as if I’d just asked him to leap from the top of the World Trade Center. “The Christmas tour? That’s out of the question. Out of the question.”

He rose now and moved again from behind the desk and paced the floor in a wide circle, his arms held tightly to his midsection as if he needed to hold something vital inside.

“Impossible. I can’t do that.”

“Why not? Who’s going to know why you canceled?”

“It can’t be done because … for one thing, we’ve just completed a very successful campaign to underwrite this tour.”

I gazed at the artwork again as he spoke and wondered what his walls at home looked like.

“We need this tour,” he said, “to counteract all the negative publicity we’ve had the last few months. We need this so we can get back on track.”

I interrupted him. “What about the children, Lloyd? Aren’t you exposing them to a dangerous situation?”

“How can you say that? I mean, there was no actual kidnapping. There was no threat.” He waved his hand as if dismissing a bothersome fly. “They don’t have a hostage tied up in a hideout somewhere threatening him to make us do what they want.”

“But you heard Gary right there on the tape. You heard him say the drugs are there. Waiting.”

“Whatever Gary said, I don’t believe anything’ll
come of it. He’s dead. The plans have probably been changed.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I can’t be. But I’m certain of one thing.” He returned again to the desk to lean on it. “Mali, I want you to understand this. I’m not canceling! I’m not calling the police in on this. I’m not doing anything. We’ve suffered too much adverse publicity already. Any more and we’re dead as an organization. Our sources will dry up and our credibility will be zero.”

I waited for him to continue. So far he had convinced me of nothing.

“You don’t know how it is. You just don’t know,” he said. “I worked twenty years to get this organization to this point. Twenty years. I’m not about to let it go down the drain over some far-fetched deal which may or may not take place.”

It was not so far-fetched. We both knew that drugs had been shipped in the cadavers of Vietnam casualties and more recently in the condom-packed stomachs of couriers. Why not the backpacks of choristers? Especially since someone was being paid to smooth the way.

“Why won’t the deal work?”

“I’m not saying it won’t work. I’m saying they won’t try it. Their main man, their connection, is dead. Gary took two bullets to the head right outside this very building. No one knows who did it. And personally, now that I know what he was all about, I don’t give a damn who killed him.”

“But don’t you care about Erskin?”

“Of course I do.”

He moved away from the desk again and began to prowl around the office. Like someone or something suddenly caged and unable to find a bar weak enough to smash through. Then he seemed to remember that I was watching him and he turned to face me.

“Of course I care about Erskin. Of course I do, but Mali, you’ve got to understand that this organization is larger than that. And it got large because of
me. My
sweat.
My
efforts. And I’m not going to let anyone destroy it.”

He moved to the window now and stood with his back to me. “You have no idea what went into this. What it took out of me. I have no family. Never had time for one. And I don’t miss it because … because this is my family.”

He turned to face me now and the dark flush had faded somewhat.

“You know that in ordinary relationships, people get married, children are born; there are grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and in-laws all going through the life problems we all must face. Me, I married an idea and it became real because I went through hell to raise the money this idea needed. I smiled, begged, kissed up to people who, under other circumstances, I wouldn’t dream of saying hello to. Smiled and kissed corporate asses and sucked up until my jaws ached.

“And even here in Harlem, I went through hell, all the while having to listen to that ‘brothers gotta stick together’ bullshit; all that empty hype. Smiling at those institutions who initially wouldn’t support us, going out and convincing children that it was all right to want to be a choir kid instead of a gangster. All this just to get the damn thing off the ground.

“You know, my father used to be a backyard singer in the old days where four or five of them would travel through the backyards and alleys from tenement to tenement on Sundays, singing hymns. He brought the sound of gospel to folks who didn’t or couldn’t go to church. I was six years old then and I was the one who ran with my cap held out to collect the few nickels and dimes, but mostly pennies, that were tossed out of the open windows. I picked through the garbage and fought past the rats for
those pennies. My father, my mother, and I very nearly starved but we kept at it.