The Dying Ground (5 page)

I told my coach I wanted to concentrate on school, give baseball a rest for a year, and spend more time with my family. My heart told me the truth. I simply didn’t have the balls to go up against Tagami.

Holly clutched the door handle as I hit the corner on two wheels. “Damn, man, you even know where the fuck you going?”

“I gotta find Flea.”

“Nig, you know how many people looking for that girl? Billy’s boys think she set him up.”

I realized then he knew more than he’d revealed in the barbershop. Even in dire straits Holly thought with an ice-cold mind.

“How’d you know?”

“Word’s already out. They’re gonna kill her.”

“Flea wouldn’t set Billy up.”

“Right now people are too mad to remember that. And the police found her purse in the passenger seat with one of her tennis shoes. She was in the car when Billy got shot. The passenger door was wide open. She must’ve run.”

“Are the police looking for her too?”

“Them fools don’t know what they looking for. OPD and the Berkeley police stood on the corner fighting over his body. ’Parently he got shot right on the border and both cities was trying to claim him. Rookie shit.”

“Who got it?”

“Oakland, but Berkeley was mad as hell ’cause it’s a front-page murder. If you ask me I think they both gonna work it.”

“How you know all that?”

Holly shrugged to indicate he’d plucked the information out of thin air. “Just heard it.”

“But you haven’t heard where Flea could’ve went.”

“Nope.”

I banged on the steering wheel. “Aw, man, Flea. Where you at, baby?”

“Why you trippin’ that hard off that girl? She ain’t been wit’ you in months, and you still …” He shook his head. A frown punctuated his words.

I knew that whatever answer I gave him, I could never make him understand. I had ventured out and allowed myself to love Felicia, a girl I’d never expected to keep. Holly, on the other hand, found women as easily replaceable as clothes. “Replaceable” wasn’t a word I could apply to Felicia. I didn’t expect, even with the benefit of two lifetimes, to find anyone who could even come close to her.

“You think you gonna get her back if you find her?”

“I just wanna find her, man.”

“Who you talking to? You ain’t workin’ this hard just to get a little handshake.”

“Leave it alone.” Holly’s habitual cynicism was not the remedy for my problems. He never permitted himself the bright side of things, while I continually hoped the bright side would make sense of all the darkness.

I wheeled the car through a slightly yellow light and turned onto Chabot. An unmarked police car blocked the end of the street. Holly put his hand on the door when he spotted it. “Let me out at the corner. I’ll catch you later.”

I rolled to a stop and turned to him. “You know, Billy came to see me a couple months ago.” For some reason I didn’t tell him there had been another visit after that.

Holly looked surprised.

“It was right after he made Flea quit her job at the Nickel and Dime.” My grandfather had given Felicia a part-time job as a cocktail waitress in his bar. Billy hadn’t liked so many players, potential enemies, having such easy access to her, so he’d pulled the plug on her job immediately.

He never came right out and included me in the equation, but the unsaid spoke loud and clear. Despite Felicia’s commitment and love for Billy, there was no getting around the connection she and I had between us. Only once after we’d broken up had it strayed into something more, a lonely night between us both, me missing her, her missing Billy. We didn’t speak of it after it happened, and I never mentioned it to Holly, but Felicia saw it in my eyes whenever she looked at me.

Holly jumped out of the car. “I’ll catch up with you later.” He pointed at me. “Don’t forget the package under the seat.” I’d forgotten that Smokey’s gun was stashed in the car.

“You think she coulda killed Billy?” I asked.

“Do you?”

“Flea ain’t like that.”

“But you don’t know what she was into.”

“I know her.”

“All you know, nigga, is that she left you.”

There was no response to that so I moved to safer ground: the confrontation with Smokey. Since childhood Holly was used to playing my savior. Once my athletic ability made me a local star, Holly and Billy took to protecting me from fights. “Gotta save the pitching arm” became the code phrase for getting me out of trouble, and without a second thought, or Billy for backup, Holly fell into his old routine.

“Man, I’m sorry about that shit back there,” I offered.

“Don’t trip, it’s all part of being a hustler. It was gonna go down anyway.”

Holly rarely apologized for the life he led, and he did not live in regret. He nodded, chin up to let me know we were cool, then continued, “And it ain’t like I didn’t know the rules.”

W
ith Holly’s words ringing in my ear I waited until he disappeared into the shopper traffic on College Avenue before continuing down the street. Flea’s Victorian apartment house was at the end of the block, slightly detached from the others. I pulled up in front and looked to the attic window that served as her bedroom. She’d lived there since I’d known her, bypassing the dorms and their inherent lack of privacy. I killed the engine and waited, hopefully, for the flutter of curtains that would mean she was home. None came.

I pushed open the outside door and climbed the three flights of stairs to her top-floor apartment. The door was slightly ajar, so instinct made me avoid the squeaky board to the left. Through the sliver of space I could see a slick blue sport coat, shiny enough to indicate it belonged to law enforcement. I recognized the voice of Phillip Noone.

Noone had spent a good portion of his twenties in relentless pursuit of my Aunt Desiree. Desiree, the second oldest, was
the least forgiving of her suitors’ mistakes, and Noone had been the butt of many family jokes. He became a fixture in the front room of my grandparents’ house, rising eagerly whenever one of them entered the room. Desiree would keep him cooling his heels for hours but he’d sit ramrod straight, feet pointed forward, until she made an entrance. His slow torture finally came to an end when Desiree abruptly relocated to New Orleans. I hadn’t missed Noone’s patronizing presence for a second.

“So, you’re saying, Miss Fowler, that you haven’t heard from your roommate since yesterday?”

Regina shook her head and wiped away tears. “Not since she left for class. She has classes all day on Fridays, and next week is midterms. But we usually talk a couple of times during the day.”

“Were there any messages on the machine?”

“No.”

“Has she been acting strange lately?”

“What do you mean?”

“Has she exhibited any unusual behavior?”

“She’s just herself. She’s just Flea.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath to emphasize his impatience. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes. She was fine.”

“Had she been fighting with Billy?”

“They didn’t really fight.”

“How long were they together?”

“About a year and a half.”

“And they didn’t fight? Come on now, all couples fight.”

“Not them. Flea likes to laugh and Billy”—her voice caught—“Billy was too low-key for that. That wasn’t his style. They liked being together too much.”

“Let’s get this straight. This couple, one of whom was a known drug dealer—”

I knocked on the door and let myself inside. Noone looked truly surprised to see me. He was standing over Regina, who sat stiffly on the edge of the couch. He stood to his full height once I entered the apartment and locked his rictus smile in place. His left eye crinkled in the displeasure I recognized from the past.

Whenever I saw Noone I was always struck by the oddity of his features. He had the thin lips usually assigned to blond stockbrokers. They had no give, little mirth, and lacked the volume usually paired with the wide nose and the kink at his temples. The mismatched mouth gave him the appearance of an incomplete plaster of Paris, the work of a thoughtless child who’d stopped mid-project to complete a more interesting task. Noone tried unsuccessfully to hide the mishap with a salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee but it didn’t work. The pink-rimmed lips announced their inadequacies whenever he chose to speak.

“Maceo.”

“Noone.”

He looked at Regina. “You two know each other?”

“Maceo’s a friend of Flea. She …” She paused and looked my way.

I finished the sentence for Regina. “Flea was my girlfriend for a minute.”

“Is that right?” He turned from Regina and motioned me forward. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

“I’m cool standing here.” I kept my place near the open door.

“How’s your aunt?”

“Which one?”

His eyes crinkled further. “Desiree.”

“Fine from the way she tells it. She’s still in N’Awlins.” I pronounced it in the manner of my grandparents.

“That right? I never understood why she’d move to such a backward-ass state. Excuse my language, Miss Fowler.”

Regina turned to me. “Mace, you seen Flea?”

I shook my head. Noone resumed the questions. “So, you haven’t heard from Miss Bennett either?”

“Not in a couple of days.”

“I see. You said you were dating for a while?”

“Yes.”

“And you still keep in touch?”

“We’re friends.”

“And her new boyfriend, Billy Crane, didn’t have a problem with that?”

“No reason to. Flea and I were just friends.”

“Did you have a problem with that? With being just friends?”

The phone rang and Regina ran for it, startling us both. She snatched up the receiver on the second ring. “Hello, Flea? … Oh. No, she ain’t here… Yeah, I heard. No one’s seen her. Look, let me call you back.” She hung up the phone as a new batch of tears streamed down her face.

Noone closed his notebook and started for the door. He placed a card on the coffee table. “If either of you hear anything, give me a call.” Noone nodded toward me. “Tell your aunt I said hello.”

“A’ight.” I mangled the word, recalling Noone’s dislike of slang. The devil on my shoulder also made me remember his hatred of nicknames. “I’ll tell her Half Past said hello.”

He stopped in his tracks, the old nickname—bestowed by Desiree—causing his shoulders to clinch. Both of us shared the memory of Desiree’s sneer of a greeting: “If it ain’t old Half Past Noone.”

“You remember that, huh?”

I nodded. He held my eye.

“Well, give her my best anyway.” He disappeared out the door. Regina and I listened to the heavy tread of his boots on
the stairs. She dropped into a chair by the window and watched him get into his car. She was crying softly, her head turned away in true grief. Both of us knew that the longer Flea stayed gone, slim was the chance of us ever seeing her again.

I watched Regina from across the room, trying to allow her a little privacy but staying close by. While her shoulders shook I noted for the hundredth time that Regina was actually prettier than Flea. She just didn’t have the same oomph, as my gra’mère called it, that something special that made a woman more than just a pretty face.

The biting Brooklyn sassiness that Regina parceled out to everyone else was absent when she dealt with Flea. They were soul mates, closer than sisters and fast friends from the moment they met. Flea always joked that Regina’s Puerto Rican father and Bajan mother made her Black twice. The joke never failed to get a laugh out of Regina.

Regina initially disapproved of Flea’s involvement with Billy, having lost her older brother to the cruelties of the New York City crack trade. Though she never stopped fearing for her friend she knew, like everyone who came in contact with them, that they were meant for each other. I knew it better than anyone.

When Flea first met Billy, she and I had been making our way through a damn near chaste relationship until my greediness caused their paths to cross.

About a week after making love to her for the first time, I took her with me to Cutty’s to get a haircut and show her off. Crowning Glory wasn’t the place for a woman, but I knew I’d get a year’s worth of bragging rights off one visit.

I chose Saturday, a busy Saturday. When we arrived a silence fell over the shop, and I heard a few guttural heartfelt “damn”s. Flea, her long legs kissing the sky, wore a navy plaid
tennis skirt, a crisp white shirt tied loosely at the waist, and a silver anklet with a butterfly charm I’d given her.

We took a seat in the last pew and the conversation returned to a low hum. I couldn’t count all the sly glances thrown her way.

Billy walked in five minutes later. I nodded to him while Flea fiddled with the clasp on her anklet. She didn’t see him at first, and when I replay it in my mind I wish that I’d never brought her there that day.

When she did look up at Billy, she shot straight up out of her seat. I reached out to grab the hem of her skirt but she dodged me with a flick of her hips. She stepped to the outside of the pew and looked right at Billy, daring him to believe he could do anything but look back. He stared her down. The rest of us watched, mesmerized by the electricity.