If I Should Die (31 page)

“Come on, pretty. We ain’t got time!”

Johnnie pushed aside the desk on the far wall and we went through a small door, had to crouch down and crawl through it like one of those old-fashioned dumb-waiters, only this one was made of reinforced steel. In less than a second we were out on the roof and the lookout was nowhere to be found.

“Come on. This way …”

He had the gun to my side as we stumbled toward the back of the building. He was heading for the fire escape and I felt the roof slanting imperceptibly under my feet. Even before we reached the edge, the knotted thing rose in my stomach. I saw Benin’s face again in that gray room and I froze.

 … I can’t do this …

Johnnie pushed me.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you? Move! Right now or I’ll put you away!”

The sweat was pouring from his face and he had raised the gun to a point beneath my chin. “I’ll put you away right now, bitch! One more ain’t gonna make no difference!”

“Then put me away, you motherfucker. Put me away.”

I screamed and swung hard, to knock the weapon aside, to wrestle him to the ground and hold onto him but he rolled over me and I felt his fingers dig into my neck.

“Bitch! I handled bitches like you. Break you in half …”

I tore at his eyes and managed to push myself from under him. The Mace was gone, used up, so I scrambled for the gun but he got to it quicker, dragged me to my feet, and caught me again by the throat.

I felt the steel pressed against my neck and knew he had me and wondered if it was better this way, better than having the roof slanting, falling away.

“Police! Don’t move!”

“Fuck you!”

It wasn’t better. When he turned the gun away and I slipped to my knees and out of Johnnie’s grasp, Tad aimed and fired.

T
ad stepped out from the doorway and several members of the Strike Force crowded behind him. He knelt beside me as the others rushed to the edge of the roof and looked down into the alley.

Johnnie had gone over the edge from the force of the bullet.

I lay where I had fallen, unable to move. I felt Tad’s hands on me, heard his voice, but could not answer. I looked beyond him, concentrating on the fast-moving clouds racing into the white rays of the sun; followed the flight of a lone circling pigeon and wondered why it was alone.

I watched it and my chest grew tight, nausea filled my throat, overwhelming me as the panic mounted. The birds usually flew in pairs. Concentrate. Breathe. Deep.

It didn’t help. The pain of panic crushed my chest, and when the other officers approached, I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know if it was to cry or scream.

I had refused an ambulance and now sat in Tad’s car, waiting. The area around the building had been blocked off and everyone in the neighborhood was pressing against the barricades. There were police vans, sector cars, three ambulances, two units from the fire department, and more gold-braid officers than I could count. Two service technicians went in with stretchers and I knew the body bags would soon be coming out.

I had left my remaining sneaker on the roof—the other one was probably still in Danny’s hand—because I didn’t want any of this nightmare to follow me home. I wished I could take off the sweat suit, which gave new definition to the word, but I had nothing to change into.

Tad finally got into the car, ignored the strong fragrance, and kissed me.

“Girl. Hard Head. You’re okay …”

I closed my eyes and held on. “How’d you know I was in there?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t know anything. Let’s backtrack. When I finally found out where Viv had gone, Johnnie’s boys had gotten there first. Johnnie had her whole history and knew just where to look. I wasted a lot of time down there because folks weren’t giving up anything. It was only by accident that I came across an old man willing to talk. Small places are like that. Had to sit on his porch three hours sipping that white lightning before he said anything worthwhile.

“Said Viv had taken it on the lam one step ahead of Johnnie’s posse. Slick sister’s probably right back here, layin’ low till this thing breezes over. When I called to tell you, your phone was out and I knew something had gone wrong, so I headed back. I knew something was wrong but I never expected this.”

I felt his arms around my shoulders and his hands in my hair and I knew I was safe.

“How did you know where I was?”

“I didn’t. And Bertha only knew that your dad was in the hospital. I went there but didn’t speak directly to him because I didn’t want him worrying. The doctor I spoke to said he could be out of there by next week and I didn’t want to risk a relapse.

“Morris’s mother hadn’t heard anything, but when I was coming out of her building, I ran into Clarence. He told me. He knew you were upset and he had followed you. Right to the door. Said you had stepped into the Inferno. I guess that’s what the place is called by the people who know it. Kid was practically in tears because he couldn’t believe it. I told him that it wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Poor Clarence. You mean this raid was pulled because of me?”

“It had been on board all along, but when I heard about you, we moved it up by two days and a couple of hours.”

He grew quiet now and I knew what he was thinking. He must have seen Danny’s body lying there with his shield in his hand. He must have seen Terry. And tonight he would see the mayor—the same man who had encouraged thousands of policemen to riot, to storm City Hall—this mayor would be on the six o’clock news trying to explain this latest betrayal of the public trust. And it would be tomorrow’s banner headlines.

“How do you feel? About Danny?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Better, I guess. Now that it’s over. No, that’s not true. I feel like shit. Once upon a time I really admired him. He was doing all the right things, but something happened along the way …” He looked out of the window just as the first bag was brought out. Danny weighed a lot but the two morgue workers were efficient and pushed the bag into the van quickly. Then they went back inside.

Tad shook his head. “You know, they were watching
him for a while. As a matter of fact, since I was his partner, they were even watching me. I didn’t know anything until a few days after he finagled the Choir Murders file, then Internal Affairs approached me. They had tapped his line and found that he was planning to destroy those files. Man, that was a tough thing. A tough thing …

“They clued me but I couldn’t say a word to you. And many times, I had to sit back and listen to him when he went into his act. That really got to me, all that slick, crime-in-the-city bullshit. But it wasn’t that so much as it was having to laugh and grin in the face of betrayal. When you have a partner and expect him to watch your back … man—it wasn’t easy to deal with that.

“Danny probably double-crossed everybody he ever said hello to. He figured out how stupid and greedy Keenan was and it was a snap to draw him in. Plus he found out that Keenan had been making those calls to you, so he held that over him. He had Nightlife steal Maizie’s car for the snatch so if the license was ever traced, it would eventually lead to Johnnie.” He shook his head and turned to watch the scene across the avenue. Kenny was brought out in cuffs, his eyes bandaged. Others followed until the van was filled and another van was backed up to the building.

I had nothing to say. I knew it would take some time for Tad to get over all of this because Danny had once been his friend. Long Island Danny. Who had wanted more money, more prestige, more of everything, and wasn’t getting it fast enough. I thought about his wife and her illness, and the daughters with the old-fashioned names, and wondered how they would deal with this. Would they be forced to move? Small towns don’t let scandals fade.

A siren started up and I looked out of the window at the flashing lights. An ambulance was pulling out, filled
with some of the young girls. Now they were caught up in the net and would probably be in the system for years to come: hospitals, foster care, and therapy if they were lucky. And their tearstained faces might even be paraded on the ten o’clock news by an anchorman greedy for ratings.

We heard another noise and turned to watch a wiry young man, waving a Bible, push his way through the crowd. He was dressed entirely in black and wore an ill-fitting clerical collar and dirty white sneakers.

“Where are the mothers, the fathers, of these innocents?” he shouted as the ambulance eased its way through the crowd. “Where are they?”

Some in the crowd looked at him, but then turned away as a second ambulance backed to the door. They were waiting to see how many more victims would be brought out.

I turned from the window but the sirens, the fire units, the flash of the squad cars still pushed in.

“Tad. I have to leave. Get away …”

“I know, figured as much. How does St. Croix sound?”

I gazed at him and saw the smile.

“When?” I said.

“Whenever you say.”

I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. “Two weeks,” I whispered. “After exams. After Dad comes out. And maybe we can take Clarence also. We can catch up with Alvin on Captain Bo’s …”

GRACE EDWARDS was born and raised in Harlem and now lives in Brooklyn. She is the author of
In the Shadow of the Peacock
and three previous Mali Anderson mysteries:
If I Should Die, A Toast Before Dying
, and
No Time to Die
.

I leaned hard on the bell next door to Bertha’s Beauty Shop as Ruffin paced nervously beside me. It was four a.m. and except for a solitary figure half a block away who slipped into the shadow of an abandoned building, Eighth Avenue was deserted.

Even the 24-hour bodega across the street that dispensed milk, soda, beer and cigarettes through the narrow slot in its iron shutter had turned off the multicolored strobe light.

One block north, a patrol car turned into 135th Street heading for the precinct. I could hear the thrum of the car’s motor in the quiet.

 … Where is Bertha? She phoned in the middle of the night crying. Where is she?

Through the window of the shop, I made out the circular stairway in the rear that led up to her apartment. The night-light was on but I could see no one.

Ruffin crouched low on the cool pavement, wagging his tail, watching as I reached into my pocket for a quarter, snaked my hand through the metal grill and rapped on the window. The echo sounded as if glass was breaking.

I withdrew my hand and thought again about what brought me here. Bertha had been crying, trying to tell me something about Kendrick. There was noise. We’d gotten disconnected and nothing happened when I’d pressed re-dial. Probably a street phone.

I leaned against the metal shutter and glanced up and down the deserted avenue, trying to keep my thoughts from racing. Maybe she’s at the precinct, at
Harlem Hospital’s emergency room. Or at the morgue.

Suddenly, Ruffin rose to his feet and let out a short growl, low and deep.

“Ruffin! What’s the matter?”

He pressed on the leash and I had to pull back hard in order to restrain him. He didn’t exactly relax, but there was less resistance and I eased up. If he wanted to, he could have taken off and dragged me for half a block. But he was a well trained Great Dane.

Still, I held the leash and reined him in tightly when “Flyin’ Home” rolled up in his wheelchair powered by his two German Shepherds. The dogs were large and reminded me of St. Nick’s reindeer except they were not in the business of delivering Christmas gifts. They spotted Ruffin and were ready for battle. The barking could be heard for blocks.

“Yo! Shut the fuck UP!” Flyin’ Home yelled. “Can’t take you asses nowhere ’thout y’all actin’ up.”

“Flyin’ Home” was twenty eight years old, with powerful brown arms and the deceptively round face of an angel. Up until three years ago, when he had the use of his legs, he’d been known as The Artist—as in escape artist (specifically fire escape). He was known to scale them up, down, and sideways; pop a window gate, and scoop an assortment of what he called “alphabet appliances”—PCs, TVs, and VCRs. And he usually made it back down to the street in the time it took the snoring victim to turn over.