Our Man in the Dark (36 page)

There's a knock at the door. Police?

“Who is it?” I call from the sofa.

“Mr. Estem? I'm a friend of your neighbor's. The Porters. I'm interested in buying your Cadillac.”

I didn't know I had neighbors called Porter—but then I remember the ad I placed in the classifieds. “It's not for sale!” I'm not ready to get rid of Black Beauty yet. I'll need her to make my escape when it's time.

“She's a fine automobile,” says the man outside. “I'll give you ten grand for her. Cash.”

I walk to the window and peer through the curtain. He's a large white man with a pot belly, a short-sleeved striped shirt, and sunglasses. I open the door, “Ten grand, huh? I guess you'll be wanting a test drive?”

“No, that won't be necessary,” he says. “You seem like a guy I can trust.” His right hand goes behind him and comes back with a pistol. “Open up.”

I back up and he kicks the door closed. He keeps the gun on me. With his free hand, he reaches under his shirt and tosses a pillow— that used to be his belly—on the floor. The hat and sunglasses follow too. Pete just stares at me with his mouth open and jaw jutting forward. “I want to know if you've seen my daughter,” his lips barely move.

“I have no idea where she is. We can talk, but you don't need that,” I say motioning to the gun.

“You're right,” he says and places the gun on the table, still closer to him than to me. He then walks over and punches me hard in the chest. I let out a blast of air and stumble backward. My throat feels drinking-straw-narrow. It hurts like hell, but I'm still standing.

Pete frees a deep breath as I search for my own. “See, that's the
problem with niggers,” he says. “When they try to get smart they just get dumb.” He clenches his fists. “It took me a while but I figured it out. I didn't recognize you when you came to my doorstep that day, but when you showed up with Mathis the other night, it all came back to me. I thought something was strange about you, and when all those coloreds started moving into the neighborhood, you were all I could think about. And then I get this picture,” he pulls the photo from his pocket, unfolds it, then tosses it at me. It's Mathis with Lucinda. “So I did some digging in the public records to find out who was buying up all the houses and selling them to niggers. That's right, I found out about that fancy nigger and that coon's nest you hang out at. And it didn't take much effort. I went there and asked some spook with a cut-up face if he'd ever seen you before, and he gladly told me where you live. So here I am. Now, where's my daughter?”

Finally, I catch my breath. “How the hell should I know?”

“Did you send me that picture?”

I take a moment, searching for the answer that won't get me killed. I thought the better part of me prevailed that day, and I saved a young girl from harm. But I was only deluding myself; no such part exits.

“Goddamnit! Did you send me the picture?”

“No . . . I don't know.”

“Start talkin'. Where is she?”

“I'm tired of playing this game. I don't know where she is, but we both know who she's with.”

“He kidnapped her? Goddamnit, she's just a child! That crazy son of a bitch. Where is he?”

“I don't know. He's taken her away, and I honestly don't know where to. Back to New York, maybe. He says that they are in love.”

“In love? Oh, really? He confessed all this to you? Everything? Even him lusting after my daughter? He confided in
you
?
I bet his dirty little stories got your top spinning, listening to him talk about her like she's some sailor's whore. He told you all his secrets? Did he, nigger?”

“Listen, you stupid bastard. You've been done a favor. Someone let you know a man was screwing your daughter, and you did nothing. You sat on your hands, and now she's gone. You've been helped enough already.”

He goes over to the table and picks up his pistol. “Well, I guess you'll have to give it another shot. You find out where Mathis has taken my daughter. I give you till tomorrow.”

“How the hell can I do that? I've already told you everything I know. If you want to find your daughter, she's with Mathis. Where's Mathis? I don't know. The man is an FBI agent. I'll leave it up to you to track him down.”

“You tell me where she is. The man who took those photos knows how to find what he's looking for. Twenty-four hours. One minute later and I start telling folks that you're the reason my daughter's gone missing.”

I pack my things, which doesn't take much time. Just the essentials, like clothes and money—the rest can stay. A dead girl, a crazy Klansman, and the amazing unraveling agent—I should have been long gone by now. I get in my car and drive. Within moments, I realize I have nowhere to go. I've dreamt of escaping to many places, but now, as I try to leave this city behind, they seem like fading dreams, distant and fanciful. I turn back around once I reach the city limits.

Once I'm deep into the city, her voice returns. It's already lost that ghostly quality, but it reminds me of the business I've left unfinished. I stop by my parents' house, but I don't go in. I just watch their silhouettes flicker behind the curtained window.

When the polio first struck and I was still hospitalized, I would pretend to be asleep when my parents came to visit. The nurse would keep the curtain that surrounded my bed drawn. I could see their outlines through the gauzy fabric, and I would watch them, undetected, waiting to see what secrets they might reveal.

Candy's dance record rests in the passenger's seat. I hold it, looking at her face as it once was—that's when I notice the note folded inside:

Hadn't I known it all along? How many times have I watched her strut across the stage? That swaying rhythm, just as much a part of me as my own pulse. I knew it in LA as I watched her leave Martin's room—no blond wig could hide it. No, she never had me fooled. I knew her too well. I should be angry with Martin, but I'm not. Didn't I bring them together? Didn't I want him to be envious of me for once? But I didn't do this alone. Count's jeweled hand guided me at every step. Now, with that hand withdrawn, I know exactly what I need to do.

I fold Candy's letter, force it back into the record sleeve, and drive downtown. I get a room at the Fauntleroy, one of the few hotels in Atlanta that is friendly to Negroes. After getting settled, I step out for a bite. I haven't eaten much in the last few days, so I get a well-done steak with lots of butter. After the steak, I head to the pawnshop and buy a gun.

At first, the image is murky. Many glossy black shapes moving around. Then these shapes sharpen and coalesce, and I realize that they are glass bottles with silver tops, arranged side by side and filled with a dark liquid. Now I see that they are labeled. Each bottle says the same thing:
MARTIN LUTHER KING: TYPE O
. For some reason, as I sit at the table across from these bottles they begin to inch toward me. Now they are not just many bottles, but hundreds, thousands of them, coming at me like shiny black beetles. They surround me, filling all the negative space in the room, until they are no longer bottles, but people, marching, and I am no longer in the room, but on a dirt road. These people, millions of them, walk right over me. I hold up my hands for them to stop, but they keep coming, trampling me as I cover my face until the weight of their footsteps fades, and there is no one there except Martin in a hospital bed, IV in his arm, tube from his nose, and a large bandage on his chest. I reach out to him, and then I see that it is not Martin, but me in that bed. Then I feel it—the rough itch of rope scratches and snakes around my neck, growing tighter and tighter . . .

I open my eyes.

There it is. The ringing. I used to think of it as some sort of internal alarm, but now I know that it's a siren. A rescue call, screaming to the aid of a helpless man.

I roll over and hear the rustle of the hotel's coarse bedsheets.

I've been at the Fauntleroy for two days.

Two days since I last saw Lester . . . and Count.

“Negro Nightclub Owner and Two Others Found Dead”

That's what the paper said. How can a few words capture such a fucked-up situation?

I came here as soon as I left Count's. Hiding seemed like the only
thing that made sense.

The burden of it all anchors me back to sleep.

It's strange how relieved I felt, when it became clear that I didn't have to take the reins. In some way, I think it absolves me for what was about to happen. Yes, I brought my gun, and I intended to use it, but Count's blood is not on my hands. I empathized with him, but that won't bring Candy back. Someone had to pay. I've been fooled by his moments of compassion before, but I feel he did not love her. His oppression of her had to be met with some sort of retribution. I just wasn't the right man to deliver it.

As soon as I walked in, Claudel approached me, only inches away, with a rigid jaw. “Don't even think about it,” I said to him. “I've got something for you.” I opened my jacket and showed him the heater I had bought at the pawnshop. “You look surprised to see me . . . learn to keep your mouth shut.” Count's office door was open. “I'm here to see Count,” I said loud enough for him to hear.

“Let him through, Claudel,” he called out.

I inched past Claudel and went inside. Count leaned forward as I took the seat across from his desk.

“I meant it when I said I didn't want to see you anymore, little man, but you got a nervous look on your face, so I guess it's important. But this is the last time. After this, it won't matter that I don't want to see you, 'cause you damn sure won't want to see me.”

“I won't take long, Count. I just came to tell you a story, and then I'll be on my way.”

He leans back and lets out a sigh. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Let me tell you a story about someone I know who gets into trouble with some government types. These government types force him into making secret tapes of a reverend of prominence. He does it, of course. He likes his life on the outside. But there is a girl involved. His girl. A girl he says he loves. He puts her up to it—to seduce the reverend. Now she's on the tapes. He tells her she has to do it to get him out of trouble. So she does it. But then she meets a man, and she falls in love—for real. Someone
wants to take care of her, but the gangster can't take it. He's too humiliated. So even though his debt is paid to these government types, he tells her she has to do another tape. Then when she does, that is still not enough, because now he just wants to humiliate her. And then she winds up dead. The end. What do you think of that story, Count?”

“Well, you've got a wild imagination, I'll give you that, but I think you should stick to accounting.” He looked me over, loosely interlaced his fingers, and let out an uneasy smile. “I don't know anything about no secret tapes, man. I was told to facilitate a fucking introduction, and that's all I did. They just wanted me to throw pussy at the preacher until he gave in. Who knew it'd be so easy?”

“So why the blackmail scheme?”

“The situation wasn't profitable for me—and you know that's a problem. If the feds get dirt on King, so what? How does that help me? But I wasn't about to step on the government's toes.”