The Adored (7 page)

“You’re making no sense, Billy. If someone else did it I want to know, I need to know. It’ll be my ticket out of this place. Just say it for Christ’s sake.” CJ demanded.

“You remember those boys who always hang out at the place your Mama works at, the Barnes’ house?”

“What about them?”

“You remember the time we played football with them?”

“Yes, I do,” Strong said in anticipation.

“Well, it’s one of them.”

“What are you talking about? Make sense.”

“I don’t know their names. It was one of them.”

“If you don’t start making sense, this little visit is over,” CJ concluded, confused.

“What I’m telling you it was one of them who did the knife on the dealer.”

Worn out from this mental game CJ declared, “It took you four fucking years to dream that up—you, one of the rich white boys, and the Guatemalan hanging out in an alley on the West side of Stamford? Right, that’s it?” and he stood up and said derisively, “See you, Cuz.”

Curtis Strong started to walk away when Billy Stevens stood up and said, “He needed drugs, I was his dealer, the Guatemalan was my source. That’s the God’s truth CJ. I am not lying!” he concluded.

Strong stood still for a long minute; he looked at Stevens.

The guard joined in again, “Fellas, if you are going to continue talking, you need to sit down, OK?”

“Got it,” Billy said, and he sat back down. Strong paused a moment and then sat down. There was an uncomfortable silence as Strong tried sorting this out.

“What were you doing dealing drugs? You didn’t do that,” Strong said.

“Well I don’t any more. I was just getting started. The white boy was one of four regular customers I had,” Stevens told his cousin.

“One of them a druggie? No way,” Strong said emphatically.

“I don’t know about now, but then he was one screwed-up kid,” Billy said, adding, “He had no idea what the fuck he was doing with the drugs. He’d take the crack, and I’d have to babysit him all night. The stuff really screwed him up.”

“What happened in that alley,” CJ demanded.

“That was the regular place I’d meet the Guatemalan. The kid was so hot for the drugs that night he came with me. I couldn’t shake him. The Guatemalan got pissed. Started hassling him. Wanted to see the color of his money. For twenty-dollar hits, he gives the kid a lot of shit. Kid has this knife on him, pulls it out with one hand and says, “Give me the fucking crack.” With his other hand, he pulls out a couple of twenties. The Guatemalan lunged for the money. I think the kid thought he was coming for him, and he plugged the thing in his chest. As soon as he did it, he took off,” Stevens said.

“What did he tell you when you saw him again,” CJ asked.

“I never saw him again. He never came around again.”

“I mean you contacted him, right? Told him what happened to me, right?” CJ questioned hard, looking at Billy for an answer that wasn’t there.

“No, I never did,” he said, dropping his head. “I was so damn afraid; I did nothing for months, for maybe a year after that. I didn’t know his name—he’d only come to the corner where I hang. He never came back. Hell, he never even recognized me from the football game at Barnes.”

“Why didn’t you find out; there had to be some way to find out which one it was. What were you doing after I went away?”

“Not a thing. School, home, the hoops. School, home, the hoops. Moms thought I was just feeling down about what was happening to you,” and he looked up and faced Strong, “And I was, CJ; I was hurting for what you were going through. I knew you were doing it for me, and it wasn’t me who killed the dealer.”

“Shit,” CJ said, “Now what am I supposed to do. I’m no better off.”

“I know, the Barnes’ family looking out for your mother all these years. I know, but I couldn’t go there and ask Mrs. Barnes for a list of the boys who visited that day, could I?” Stevens said. And now more resigned he added, “But I can’t handle it any longer. I’ll do whatever you want. I figured I’d come here and tell you, and we could think it out. Whatever you want. You want me to go to cops and tell them what went down, I will. I’ll take my raps. I’m sorry, CJ; I was just so afraid then,” as tears welled up in his eyes.

“OK, Billy,” Strong said. “I don’t know what I’ll do, but you don’t need to do anything. Don’t say a word of this to anyone. Does anyone else know?” he pressed.

“No one.”

“Then I want your word of honor, on your mother’s soul, that you will never say a word of this to anyone unless I tell you to,” Strong demanded.

“Yes,” Stevens replied.

“Say it for me to hear,” Strong pushed.

“On my mother’s soul, CJ, I will never tell anyone what I told you unless you tell me to,” Stevens said.

Strong looked at his cousin and smiled, “Now I forgive you for letting me rot in this hole for 4 years, 196 days,” and looking at his watch, “and 17 hours.”

“That bad?” Stevens asked.

“Every goddamn minute,” Strong concluded.

When Stevens was gone, when Strong was back in his cell, the memory of the day they joined in a football game at the home of Parker Barnes, now almost eight years ago, returned. He and Billy Stevens had dropped by to get some money for a movie they were taking girls to see that evening. Louise Strong kept a tight leash on CJ since his father was killed. Not that he needed it. He was a good kid, did well in school, loved sports and his friends. So in the morning when CJ asked her for money for a movie that night, she asked him to come by her employers, the Barnes, after school, and it being payday she would have cashed her check and had money for him. He was surprised when she told him it was the Barnes’ home she worked at part-time but accepted it as how things were.

When CJ and Billy showed up, they came around the back of the house to the service area, rang the bell, and Louise Strong answered. She greeted the two, gave CJ ten dollars. It was then they heard the eight boys playing football on the rear lawn. The rear lawn at the Barnes’ estate was a strip of manicured grass that ran west, down to a private beach, between the tennis courts on the south side to the swimming pool on the north side.

Louise Strong encouraged the boys to join in the game, but they demurred. As they were walking away, Parker Barnes called out.

“CJ, come on. We need two more.”

“Go on, you’ll have a good time,” Mrs. Strong encouraged.

“Let’s go kick some ass,” Billy said.

They joined the game and played for an hour, two black sons of west side laborers and eight rich kids from Stamford, Darien, and Greenwich.

In his mind he had the image of the perfect day it was. The sun was shining; his mother watched for a while on the side. He could still see her smiling. He remembered Mrs. Barnes coming out to watch, standing beside his mother. He remembered another of the household help bringing out lemonade and water for them afterward. He could see the picture of the ten boys that Mrs. Barnes took.

“That Mrs. Barnes took and gave to Mom,” Strong said out loud.

His cellmate, a redneck lifer from Vermont with a constant chip on his shoulder, said, “You talking to me, Bro?”

Barnes learned to ignore him. He snapped back to the picture in his mind. Mom must still have it.

On Sunday when phone calls were allowed, CJ Strong called his mother collect as he always did.

“I talked with my sister, and she said Billy went to see you this week,” Louise

Strong said to her son.

“Yes, it was good to see him,” CJ replied.

And as they always did, Louise Strong had her son tell her what he was doing each day of the week. She tried to envision the lost moments of her son’s life as he recounted his daily experiences, rather his daily drab existence. But this day he seemed more upbeat to her.

“Mom, do you remember the day Billy and I came by your work and ended up playing football with Parker and his friends.”

“Like it was yesterday.”

“Remember the picture that Mrs. Barnes took and gave you a copy of?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you think you could find it and bring it next week when you come?”

“I think I know where it is. Feeling a little homesick, Son?”

“Something like that, Mom.”

And the next week when Mrs. Strong visited she brought the picture. There they were. The ten of them. And there was his freedom, once Billy could identify which one had stabbed Augusto Santos.

At the end of their visit, CJ said, “I need a big favor. I need you to ask Aunt Jackie to have Billy come back up to see me. I need to talk with him again. It’s important.”

“Sure I will, what’s so important?”

And not wanting to alarm his mother, he downplayed it. “No, it was just so good to see him after so long. I liked the company.”

“That’s good. I’ll be sure to tell her.”

That night as he lay back on his bunk, CJ Strong looked at the picture of the ten boys. He looked closely at the eight white faces. Kish Moira was Indian, so it wasn’t him. Of the other seven, he wondered who killed Augusto Santos.

Chapter 13

The meadow at Tod’s Point rolled down to Long Island Sound, a great green strip of grass pouring into the sea. Their work as summer lifeguards done, they had one more week before returning to college—he to Harvard, she to Columbia.

“Narragansett, Jersey Shore. Narragansett, Jersey Shore,” Valerie intoned as she plucked singular white petals from the wild daisy that grew along the side of the emerald swarth.

“Narragansett,” Eddie stated firmly, “We’ll get crushed in the traffic over the GW Bridge.”

“Narragansett, Jersey Shore,” Val continued. “Not so fast, Wheelwright. The law of the petals, rules.”

“I’ll give you the law of the petals,” he said and leaped across the blanket they were picnicking on and landed lengthwise on her. “Let’s wrestle.”

“I know what wrestling means to you: let’s fuck!”

“You are so crude. And so correct,” said the Harvard junior as he rolled off her, placing a hand on her hip.

They kissed, touched each other, but when Eddie stared to pull Valerie’s bikini bottom down, she punched him in the left side. “Not here!”

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re out in the open. People passing. Middle of the day.”

“It’s six. No one comes by here now.”

In a case of perfect timing, another young couple appeared at the top of the meadow and began walking toward the would-be lovers.

“Look, it’s Kish,” Val said.

Wheelwright sat up and smiled as Kishenlal Moira approached with a young woman he did not recognize.

“Great timing, Kish,” Wheelwright smiled.

Valerie laughed, “Yeah, Kish, great timing. You saved me.”

Moira laughed as he and his friend came to the blanket. Val and Eddie made room as the newcomers sat down.

“Val, Eddie, this is my friend Sophie.”

“Hi, Sophie,” Val greeted.

The four exchanged pleasantries. Kish then added, by way of saying Sophie is OK, “Sophie goes to MIT.”

Impressed, Wheelwright asked, “What year?”

“Junior,” the pretty girl said.

“Do you know Winston?” then without giving her a chance to answer, Valerie looked at Moira, “Does Sophie know Winston?” inquiring about their mutual friend Winston Trout who was a third-year student at the Cambridge school.

“Yes, I do,” Sophie Sorinku added. “It was Winston who introduced me to Kish a couple of weeks ago.”

“Small world,” Wheelwright added. “What do you study?”

“Same as Winston, materials science.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to save the planet too?” Wheelwright laughed, referring to Trout’s well-known commitment, among his friends, to alternative forms of energy.

“I’m going to try,” Sophie laughed.

“Actually,” Kish began, “Sophie is on an internship at Trout Solar.”

“Yes,” Sophie jumped in, “I didn’t know Winston until I started my internship. Then we realized we actually had been in several classes together over the past two years.”

“So what brings us by here?” Kish asked with a sly smile.

“You knew we’d be here?”

“I knew you were heading out of town, and I wanted to catch you before you left. You two live here.”

“What’s up?”

“Ladies, we just need to talk business for a moment,” Kish said, rising and beckoning Wheelwright to join him.

Wheelwright rose to about a foot higher than his friend. At six feet two inches to Moira’s five foot four inches, Wheelwright was still high school slim, not yet filled out to the man he would become.

“It’s the fund,” Moira said as the friends walked across the grass, “the last group of stock we bought.”

Before Kish could say anything further, Wheelwright interrupted, a deep furrow in his brow, “Damn, I knew there was risk. You tried to talk me out of it.”