Quarry in the Black (18 page)

“I found my window,” I said.

Of course, I hadn’t. But I was heading over to the Reverend’s place tonight, wasn’t I? And I bet the house had windows.

The Broker perked up. “Good, good. I was afraid, with this difficulty that cropped up…”

He meant the late André.

“…that you might not be able to deliver. Certainly Boyd, when he called this morning, indicated the possibility.”

“No. I’ll make it happen.”

Maybe I would. Not sure yet. Still bobbing and weaving, when I should be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.

“So,” he said, “this is the payoff call.”

No pompous phraseology when we were this down-to-business.

“Yeah,” I said. “I still have to go in the office and deal with the cops. You’re sure my cover story will hold?”

“For now, yes. Long-term, of course, doubtful.”

That meant no.

“Tell the client,” I said, “to arrange the drop for me to pick it up tonight at four
A.M.
”

“Why four
A.M.
?”

“I have things to do until then.”

“Sounds like another busy night.”

“I do try to make good use of my time.”

We hung up.

Back at Coalition HQ, I found Ruth finally at her desk. But one of the detectives was interviewing her. I was on my way to my usual post when a hand wrapped around my arm. Not firm, not gentle.

I turned and looked into the beautiful if troubled, heart-shaped face of Mrs. Raymond Wesley Lloyd. Big brown eyes, apple cheeks, gentle slope of a nose, bright red-lipsticked full lips, lovely mahogany complexion, shoulder-length processed curls. She wore a fur-collared gray topcoat beneath which a black dress with pearls peeked.

“Excuse me, young man,” she said. I had a hunch she might be twenty years older than me, but it might have only been ten. “Are you Mr. Blake?”

“John Blake, yes, ma’am.”

She beamed, beautifully, but it didn’t make the pain in her eyes go away. “Could I speak with you? Could we perhaps step outside?”

Nobody ever asked me to step outside so sweetly before.

“Absolutely,” I said, and instinctively took her arm and stepped outside into a chilly but not windy afternoon. Did I sense Ruth’s eyes following us, or was that my imagination?

“Young man,” she began, but I interrupted.

“Mrs. Lloyd,” I said, “please make it ‘Jack.’ When a woman as lovely as you calls me ‘young man,’ I feel like the world has passed me by.”

She gave me a wide white smile, and maybe her eyes weren’t quite so sad now. Not quite.

“I’m going to impose on you,” she said. “I don’t know you at all, but I want to ask you something personal, if I may.”

“Impose away.”

She smiled again, but she’d put her dazzling white teeth away. “You were on the weekend campus trip.”

“I was.”

“I’ve heard from…my spies…that you and, uh, the young lady…Ruth…are something of an item.”

“We’ve been spending some time together.”

“Did you spend time together on the bus trip?”

“We did.”

“Did she…did she spend any time with my husband?”

“She did not.”

“You’re quite sure?”

“Can you keep a secret, Mrs. Lloyd?”

“You have my word.”

“I hate to kiss and tell, but Ruth and I spent the night.”

Relief flooded her face. “Well…thank you. Though I hope I don’t seem catty if I make
another
comment, which is that it doesn’t surprise me she found someone to sleep with in such short order.”

I grinned. “You have a right to that opinion, and I’m not offended. But if you knew me better, you’d realize with someone as irresistible as me, Ruth took a lot longer to fall into bed than is usual with the ladies.”

That stunned her momentarily, then she smiled so wide it made her apple cheeks even fuller than before, and she tapped me on the chest lightly with a small fist.

“I believe you’re telling me the truth,” she said.

“Oh, I am. The females fall all over themselves trying to get next to me.”

That made her laugh. No sadness in her eyes now.

I said, “By the way, you’ll be seeing me tonight.”

She frowned in confusion. “I will?”

“Yes, I’m going to be a house guest of yours, at least this evening. Because of these violent events, I’ve been added to your husband’s security staff.”

“That’s an excellent idea, Jack, but I won’t be there tonight. Because of this violence.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “Raymond is concerned for me. I’m staying with my sister tonight, away from the house. And…” She added this with a twinkle. “…apparently away from
temptation
, since you’ll be there.”

She pinched my cheek and went off down the sidewalk, smiling.

My good deed for the day. Perhaps I shouldn’t admit it, but this encounter was making me question the Reverend’s sanity. That was a woman any man could love, in all the word’s meanings.

I stepped back inside HQ and Ruth was right there, looking worried, even alarmed. “What was
that
about?”

“Oh, Mrs. Lloyd wondered if I was available for dating. I hated to disappoint, but I told her no. That you and I were going steady.”

She smiled big at that, but didn’t pinch my cheek. She did slap me on the chest, not gently, and say, “Oh
you
.”

Still, I was charming them left and right, wasn’t I?

I told Ruth about my addition to the Reverend’s bodyguard contingent and she was glad to hear it, but advised me to be careful.

She frowned. “You heard about that neo-Nazi in Ferguson? And poor André, right in our backyard?”

Back alley, actually, but I nodded.

She shook her head glumly. “When did America get so violent?”

“Right around the time,” I said, “my ancestors were throwing your ancestors into chains in the bottom of ships.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Good point. But do be careful. It’s getting crazy out there.”

“I noticed.”

Then one of the cops wanted to talk to me. The interview took three minutes. He was really impressed by my Bronze Star.

The Reverend lived in the Ville, a residential and business district just northwest of downtown. According to Ruth, it was for many decades an African-American cultural center, dating back to when the neighborhood was one of a handful where blacks could own houses and business properties, or even rent them.

“In that small area, of less than a square mile,” she told me at Coalition HQ, “there were black businesses, schools, community groups, a hospital…stayed that way till maybe ten years ago.”

“No kidding,” I said.

I must not have seemed suitably impressed, because she added, “Chuck Berry and Tina Turner grew up there.”

“Together?” I asked, and got another “Oh, you!” look out of her. Truth was, that was impressive.

But driving my Impala through this black neighborhood in the early evening, I wasn’t impressed. At least not favorably. The Ville was pretty rough now. Buildings were tumbledown with windows boarded over, and junkies prowled the streets like rats looking for garbage cans.

The two-story white-trimmed red-brick house, however, was on a block where the homes were generally well-maintained. Sitting on a modest lot, the Lloyd residence had an open porch with a swing and a row of three windows above the overhang. A matching freestanding garage waited at the end of a cement drive. Out front the familiar black Grand Prix was parked.

Ruth said that the Reverend could afford to move out of the neighborhood, but he wanted to show solidarity with other residents of the Ville.

I pulled the Impala in behind the Grand Prix and got out and was soon up the brick steps and at the front door. The nine millimeter, which I’d been requested to bring, was in my waistband, under a new navy windbreaker; my light-blue sportshirt, jeans and sneakers were new as well. Nothing like getting drenched in blood to prompt freshening up your wardrobe.

The big black guy who answered the door was familiar to me from Coalition HQ. This imposing figure was Terrell, who with his associate, Deon, did more than just help chauffeur and bodyguard the Reverend—they also played cards and listened to soul music in the back room. Good gig.

Terrell had a head the size of a gallon paint can, only more rounded, with hair cut close to the scalp; he sported a Rosie Greer goatee. He wore the standard black undertaker suit with a dark blue tie, his expression narrow-eyed and glowering, but that was misleading. Really he was a pussycat. A pussycat with a .45 automatic under his arm.

“Jackie boy,” he said in a friendly growl, the corners of the wide mouth turning up slightly. “I hear you gonna run interference for brother Deon and me, that it?”

“More like quarterback,” I said.

He smirked and let me in. “Careful you don’t get rushed.”

The vestibule opened onto an area with a hardwood floor shared by a staircase and a hallway back to the kitchen. Open doors were on my either side, study and dining room, plaster walls a pale green, woodwork handsome and dark. This house had been built a long time ago, early in this century, by fine craftsmen for somebody with dough.

Terrell abandoned me to go into the dining room, where his “brother” Deon was waiting. I didn’t know whether Deon was really his brother or just a brother in the other sense.

In the medium-sized study, the Reverend—in rolled-up shirtsleeves and black-framed glasses—sat at an ancient walnut desk with a dark leather top, writing in longhand on bond paper. Wadded-up balls of the stuff surrounded a wastebasket nearby. Built-in floor-to-ceiling shelves bore books, not fancy leather-bound stuff for show, but hardcovers and paperbacks of assorted vintage with a worn look, somewhat haphazardly stacked. A working office. He did not acknowledge my presence. That was nothing new—the best I’d ever got from him at HQ was a nod.

The somewhat formal dining room, with china cabinet and sideboard, was set up for Terrell and Deon, who were not sleep-in help—like me, they were here for security concerns born out of André’s passing. Him, and the dead Nazi who turned up in a church parking lot.

That I got rid of both those pricks would have come as quite a shock to Terrell and Deon, and the Reverend, too. But not as big a one as the noise suppressor tucked down in my left windbreaker pocket.

Is that a silencer or are you just glad to see me?

The two massive men were playing gin rummy at one end of the long dining-room table; Deon, a little bigger than Terrell, modest Afro, no beard, was keeping score. Mid-table like a centerpiece, sat a small portable TV with rabbit ears with an extension cord trailing off; right now
Laugh-In
was on, Arte Johnson in a German army helmet saying, “Very interesting…but stupid.”

Without looking at me, Deon asked, “You eat?”

“Now and then.”

“Smart-ass white boy,” Deon said, but he was smiling. Also a pussycat. Also packing a .45, which was obvious because his black suitcoat was hung over the back of his chair, the shoulder-holstered weapon out in the open.

Terrell said, “Colonel Sanders in the kitchen.”

“No shit?” I said. “This I got to see.”

As I went back to the kitchen, I heard Deon say, “Smart-ass white boy” again.

About a third of the Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket was gone, but I found a breast. Original recipe, which is my preference. I held it with a napkin, having been raised well, and checked the refrigerator for something to drink—fucking Budweiser again and, damn it, Pepsi. Some days you can’t win. I took a can of the pop anyway.

I went back to the dining room, standing just inside the open double-doorway, nibbling my chicken, occasionally sipping the Pepsi.

I said, “Don’t you fellas know eating chicken is a racist stereotype?”

“What
you
eating?” Deon asked, writing down the latest scores.

“Well, you have a point. But I prefer Popeye’s.”

“Naw, you fool, that’s spinach.”

“No, really. Few months ago, I ate at one in New Orleans. You wait. You’ll be lining up.” I had another bite of chicken, the batter better than the banter. “I’m gonna take a stroll around the house, get the layout down. Mrs. Lloyd gone for the night?”

Both men nodded, looking at their cards.

“No children at home?”

“Children, boy and girl, growed and gone,” Terrell said. He looked up and smiled, showing off his one gold tooth. Funny how a face that has a natural glower can brighten like that. “Take your tour and come back, Jackie boy. Three of us, we can play some poker.”

“Poker? Well, all right, but could one of you nice men teach me the rules? And I’m afraid I don’t have any change. Can we play for dollars?”

Deon said, “Oh, I gonna watch
his
ass when he deal the cards.”

I went upstairs. Master bedroom, good-size bathroom, guest room, bedroom with school sports trophies, another with blue ribbons for instrumental music (flute). College graduation photos framed on a dresser in each.

Downstairs, in addition to the dining room and study and another bath, a TV room was off the kitchen, a mud room off that. The basement wasn’t finished, though the washer and dryer were down there, and furnace of course, tool bench, storage boxes, windows too small to crawl in. A fairly typical middle-class, maybe upper-middle-class home. Nothing to indicate a nationally prominent figure lived here.

From a strategic standpoint, the only ways in were the front and back doors. With the exception of the windows off the front porch, the others were too high up on the house to be a threat.

I returned to the dining room and said, “I’m gonna pass on the poker, fellas. One of us ought to be watching that back door.”

They looked at each other like my proposed tactic was Einstein revealing E=mc
²
. Well, they were bodyguards, not Special Forces.

“Good idea, Jackie boy,” Terrell said. “You do that little thing.”

I said sure and was heading out when Deon advised, “Make sure that back door locked up tight!”

“Good place to start,” I said.

If you’re wondering, the back door was already locked, or anyway the one onto the mud room was—the kitchen door had no lock. Not that I was expecting anybody to come in any door. After all, the fox was already in the henhouse. And I was the fox.