No Time to Die (19 page)

“I had a bad night,” I said, waving her to a chair.

She pushed a copy of the
Daily Challenge
toward me but I pushed it away. “I know what it says,” I whispered. “I was there.”

Her expression changed and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Mali, for God’s sake. What’s going on?”

She leaned forward and her face resembled a wreath of frowns. But I looked at her crisp linen suit not yet affected by the heat of the day and I saw the beautiful black patent-leather shoes on her feet. I looked at them and wondered if I’d ever be able to walk again in similar shoes; or run with Ruffin in the park, or dance barefoot at midnight on the beach again with Tad. I thought of Alvin and how Dad and I had spent most of last night trying to figure out how best to deal with what the boy had seen. I thought of James and how I’d arrived at this point.

“How about some coffee?” I said. “Just switch on the machine in the kitchen. I’ll take mine black.”

She took off her jacket and a few minutes later returned and set a tray with two steaming cups of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee on the low table in front of the sofa. Then she settled into the chair opposite, waiting. I glanced at the paper near the tray and said, “You ever wondered why I disliked James? I mean from day one?”

“Disliked? Despised would be more accurate,” she said, reaching for her cup and cradling it in her hands. “I always thought your feelings were too … intense, too discordant relative to what was happening to Claudine. Don’t get me wrong. I hated what he’d done. And I hated the idea that what was happening was happening between two married people and it was hardly any of our business to interfere, but you … you seemed ready to cancel his contract every time you ran into him.”

“Well, as it turned out, he ran into me.”

“What?”

“That’s right. That’s how I ended up in the hospital.
The incident last night was the culmination of a long, long mutual antagonism.”

“What happened?”

I leaned back on the sofa and pressed my hand to my knee, trying to ignore the pain and trying not to look at the swelling. And I tried to keep my voice steady as I spoke: “James stepped out of line from day one. The day he and Claudine got married. At the reception.”

Elizabeth put her cup down and shook her head. The auburn highlights in her locks caught the rays of the early sun and looked almost golden against her brown skin. She shook her hair again, scattering the light. Then she stared at me but remained silent, allowing me to go on.

“You remember the reception, high-octane crowd, everyone partying, the bubbly flowing, threatening to drown us all; Claudine looked so radiant, smiling for everyone. And the band even had the seniors on the floor strutting the electric slide.

“Well, too much bubbly had me ready to pee. I left the ballroom and walked down the hall to the bathroom. When I opened the door, James pushed in behind me …”

“Damn!”

“He came in with some damn slick talk, stepped up with a proposition, and I popped him in the mouth. He got crazy and tried to lock us both in there, saying no bitch was gonna get away with hitting him.

“Remember you’d asked me how the sleeve of my gown had gotten torn and I said I’d caught it on a nail in the ladies’ room. Well, the nail was James. I didn’t back up or shut up. I was ready to go one-on-one and let him know. When he saw that I meant business, he opened the door but not before he warned that if I ever mentioned it, he’d tell Claudine that I had tried to
come on to him. Imagine. The damn band hadn’t even cooled off from playing the wedding march and the son of a bitch is in the ladies’ room coming on to his wife’s maid of honor.

“He challenged me, dared me to go running to Claudine. Said she’d believe him before she’d believe me. Claudine had been Benin’s friend. And almost like a sister to me. Whether she took my word or his, I wasn’t ready to break up her marriage or our friendship. But I was so damn mad I sat out the rest of the party. Said I had a headache, said my feet hurt. Actually, everything inside me was hurting.

“That’s why I avoided their company as much as I did. When it was unavoidable and he’d catch my eye, he’d stare in a way that implied we had a thing going; a look that said ’we’re in something together.” ’

Elizabeth put her hand to her head and sighed. “I remember now. Your face, your sour expression. More like you were coping with a toothache. I even asked what was wrong and you never answered. You never answered.” She leaned back in the chair and drew a deep breath. “He was worse than I thought.”

“Well, it gets even worse. A few weeks ago, we had a light confrontation outside the Lido. He was convinced I’d told Claudine about him. He also accused me of telling Marie something. Said I’d be hearing from him. And I did.”

I pointed to my knee and my arm. “He’s the cause of this. He’s the reason a plainclothes policeman was posted outside my hospital room.”

“But why didn’t you say something, Mali?”

“To whom?”

Elizabeth leaned forward again and I saw the disappointment in her expression. “To me. To me. I’m your attorney and your friend, remember?”

“I know you are, but Tad wanted to keep quiet about the hit-and-run at least until James was caught. As for the feud, I didn’t want to pull you into it. I mean the whole thing was so damn bizarre. Imagine being propositioned, not by an old battle-scarred veteran of a twenty-year marriage, but I was hit on by an hour’s-old bridegroom who had no idea what ‘I do’ meant.

“My head was spinning, I was so angry. And as he said, it would’ve been his word against mine. So it was better to keep quiet. I never even told Dad.”

“And of course you never mentioned this to Tad?”

I looked at her. “Are you serious? You know how that man is. Remember how tight he’d gotten when I’d tried to help Kendrick, Bertha’s brother? Remember Erskin Harding, Alvin’s chorus director? I couldn’t go through that stuff again.”

Elizabeth drained her cup and rose to get a refill. When she returned, I continued.

“So James went undercover and Alvin found out where he was. He went looking for him but I got to someone first who was looking for him also.”

“Well, whoever it was must’ve been pretty damn mad. The papers said James was torn to pieces.”

I nodded, hoping she would not go into details. “James is gone,” I said, “but Alvin saw what happened. I think he saw most of it. He’s a good kid and Dad and I have to figure out how to keep this from affecting him. And,” I said, pressing my knee, “I have to learn to use this leg again. I’m back to square one.”

“What you mean you was mugged? By who?”

Ache did not answer. Hazel clicked the remote and Jerry Springer shrank to a white dot and the screen went blank. The boxing match could wait. This was serious, this possibility of not having her money when she needed it. She turned on the lamp near the sofa, illuminating the sagging cushions, the paint-flaked walls, and floors that had not seen a mop since the linoleum was laid, years ago.

Hazel had once complained to her caseworker that she needed a homemaker and one had come last year but didn’t bother to take off her coat. She took one look and backed out the door, declaring that she had stopped doing hog pens when she left Tennessee.

When Hazel complained again, the caseworker had sighed, “You have an able-bodied relative, Ms. Milton, a son living with you who should be willing to help you with your household responsibilities.”

She had stressed “responsibilities” as she looked around the living room and remained standing near the
door, tapping one foot then the other to prevent something from crawling up her leg.

Once outside in the hallway, she’d shaken her coat and scarf and briefcase in an effort to deroach the articles before heading back to the office.

That was a year ago and Hazel only called sporadically to curse her out now. She was too involved in the drama of make-believe to think about responsibilities.

Now here was something else to distract her. She looked at her son standing stiffly in the doorway, as if he wasn’t sure he still lived there.

“So what you gonna do about it? You was mugged but I still need my money. Life goes on, you know. What you gonna do?”

“I … can maybe ask for a loan. Yeah, a loan from the boss. See what he say …”

“You one dumb stupid—that boss ain’t gonna give you the time of day. Might even fire your ass ’cause you was probably out there playin’ Big Willie, flashin’ your cash for everybody to see. No wonder somebody ripped you off, you dumb sommabitch. You out a week’s pay and I don’t get nuthin’. Well, you still sleepin’ here and still usin’ my toilet paper so you owe me, you understand? You double up next week and I don’t wanna hear no shit about how you got tapped again, you hear me?

“Put your money in your shoe next time. We ain’t talkin’ no big-time dollars where it gon’ have you walkin’ with a limp. That’s what you shoulda done in the first damn place but you didn’t think of it ’cause you ain’t got the brains you was born with!”

She turned from him in disgust and pressed the remote but a commercial was on, so she snapped the sound off, waving the control at arm’s length like a maestro conducting a difficult symphony.

Realizing she had probably missed a crucial point in Jerry’s show, her anger expanded, causing her to pull up a file of memory to spread before her son and confirm how stupid he really was.

“Can’t even get a GED. Wanted to play basketball. How was you gon’ find the basket, dumb as you are? You’d lose your way on the court. Two boys in your class, Pukie playin’ in the NFL and that other one, Tee, playin’ basketball down south somewhere. They big-time now. Seen Pukie on TV. You, I see every day and ain’t seen shit you done. ’Cept maybe get uglier. Har, har …”

Ache shifted from one foot to the other, offering no defense. He was okay for at least another week, so it was all right for her to laugh, to slap her knee so hard the funk rose in a wave thick enough to choke him. It was okay. All he needed was probably another week. He’d take care of that little business on Strivers’ Row and be gone. But he had no idea where he’d go. He couldn’t think much beyond that, but he knew he was leaving. He had to leave. Find someplace else and start a new life. This time for good.

He’d passed Gray-Eyes’ house enough times now to have their routine down to a science. But where was she?

Her father, or whoever he was—maybe her old man—he leave the house every Tuesday night with a bass. Limo show up at 7:30 on the dee-oh-tee. Must be big-time
.

Sometimes he walk that horse, but there’s somebody else in that house, kid who look like he don’t take no shit. Left there the other night with a baseball bat. Trottin’ off like he ready to do somebody in. And her callin’ after him. Then two others come by. House like a fuckin’ airport
.

Then that nappy redhead with the high heels show up couple a times. Who’s she? And that cop even step in
,
maybe askin’ more questions. What was goin’ on? Hell with him. Hell with ’em all. Make me lose my job, I’m a walk between all of ’em
.

In the bedroom he turned on the fifteen-watt lamp but could not close his eyes. He stared at the cracks in the ceiling that spread like bleached veins through the peeling paint and concentrated on all the stuff that was happening to him.

Two guys right in my class got them scholarships, basketball, football. I couldn’t get shit. Not even a piece of diploma. Two weeks ago, couldn’t even git to take the army test. And hadda come back and listen to her tell me about it. “Be all you can fuckin’ be,” she had laughed
.

But that wasn’t all
 …

He turned over, feeling the mattress cut into him like gravel on an unpaved road, and thought of Hazel, and why he had never been allowed to address her as “Mother” the way other kids were able to call their mother.

“My name is Hazel! It ain’t Ma, Mom, Mother. It ain’t none a that shit and don’t you forget it,” she had said when he was old enough to mouth the word, and he had nodded dumbly, the shock of the slap still ringing in his ears.

And the thing about his old man. What was going on? At the recruitment center he didn’t know his father’s name and they told him to come back with his birth certificate. He had found it stuffed away in a rusted can in the kitchen cabinet. He read it, examined it closely, and returned to the center, where the officer handled it and then looked at him.

He was hoping the officer would discover a comma, a hidden line, something in the murky bureaucratic phrasing, or in the fine print, and he’d smile and explain and maybe straighten out the puzzle. But the officer
put his hand to his mouth and coughed, then gazed at the paper again as if he’d seen a lifetime of unthinkable things pass before him and nothing made him blink anymore.

Hazel had been fifteen when he was born. Her father was Nathan Milton, age thirty-eight according to the paper. Ache’s real name was Charles Milton, and according to the paper, his father was also Nathan Milton, age thirty-eight.

That can’t be right
.

Ache shook his head, still waiting for an answer when the officer handed him back the paper. His uniform was creased so sharply Ache wondered how he moved without cutting himself. He riffled through a packet of papers a second time, then said, “Where’s your diploma? I don’t see it here.”