The Lost Brother (5 page)

“They only asked about what connection we might have with Richard Ells. Their wording was poor on other, more general questions. If they ask directly if James and I met, I’ll have to say yes, of course, if I say anything at all. But I’m not going to volunteer anything. You can understand how bad this would make me look. The press would get an awfully easy headline out of it. ‘Henry James Murdered One Week After Meeting with LTC Head.’ But I’m afraid word of the meeting might still come to light. I imagine the police, maybe the media, will investigate the victim’s last days. Whether anyone will go back a week, I don’t know.”

“Other than the videotape, what evidence is there that this meeting took place?”

“I don’t think there’s any.”

“How did it get scheduled? Your secretary calling his?”

“No. I was in town, lobbying on the Hill. I was upset about things. I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to call him. He invited me over. We talked late into the night.”

“Where did you call from?”

“A pay phone. No check of his phone records will reveal anything.”

“Do you take precautions against being tailed?”

“No.”

“Maybe Ells tailed you.”

Close thinks a moment. Says, “No. I called from the Rayburn Building. I don’t think he could have gotten in there, or stayed near me without being conspicuous if he had. And I didn’t leave by the same door I went in. I don’t think he tailed me.”

“But you can’t be sure.”

“No. And I can’t be sure Martians didn’t beam the information into his head.”

“Exactly. Maybe this, maybe that. What are we left with?”

“The videotape.”

“Why’d you make it?”

“We both thought it would be a good idea. We were in his living room, making small talk, and I saw the camera set up, and he told me they were going to tape his daughter’s birthday the next day, and then his wife, Jessie, said, hey, this meeting might be kind of historic.”

“Why historic?”

“I went over there because I’d been hearing so much about how the FBI might have penetrated us. One of our top speakers is retired FBI. And she’s set up a faction within the organization that is much more extremist than I or my original followers are. I suspect maybe it’s a deliberate FBI attempt to marginalize the movement. I went to Henry James because it’s my sense of him that he’s fair and intelligent, not at all anti-white, and I told him what I feared was happening. I was scared, and still am, with the whole movement now. I feel like it’s getting away from me. This ex-FBI agent, Joan Price, she’s more popular in my organization than I am. Anyway, I went to Henry James, and we talked. For hours. I don’t know how else to put it: we just clicked. Right away. The most natural, immediate friendship I’ve ever had in my life.”

“What did he have to say?”

“He said—and this is the unbelievable part—that I should disband the organization.”

“What did you say?”

“At first I laughed. But we talked some more. And then I began to see his point.”

“You agreed with him?”

“I was starting to.”

“That’s
the unbelievable part.”

“But he was right! In everything he said, he was right. That racial loyalty, no matter how well intentioned, is always, inherently, racist. That racial pride is always, inherently, foolish. He
talked
me into seeing the futility of it all. He talked me out of my own organization! But only because he didn’t say anything I hadn’t started to see myself already.”

“What do you need the tape for?”

“I want the proof that it was a positive meeting. I’m scared that if word of the meeting somehow gets out, people might say we met and argued and I had him killed, or something equally simplistic. Unprovable, but media accusations don’t need proof to be damaging. But I also want the tape for the reason we made it, which was to make a political statement that I was willing to be the first to lay down my gun, so to speak. Lay it down racially, I mean. Politically. Henry thought, and I agreed, that with my credibility among poor whites I could make a real statement, provide some real leadership away from the growing anger out there.”

“You can still do that.”

“And will. But the tape would help. This disbanding of LTC I have in mind, it has to be done right. I can’t let it be seen as an act of cowardice. I certainly can’t have people saying I’m afraid of an investigation into the James murders. We’re being labeled racist fanatics by the press. We’re being lumped in with the KKK. With militia groups. If I quit now, it’ll look like I’m selling out my own people when they need me most. I need to prove that I was planning to break up LTC before Henry and Jessie got killed, not because of it. And I want it for Henry too. For his legacy. As proof to blacks that he was no Uncle Tom, he was the man who single-handedly talked me into disbanding what the NAACP call their number one enemy. If people, white and black both, can just hear him speak like he did that night, they’ll be moved. They’ll understand. They’ll have to. I want that tape, Mr. Kellogg. I need it.”

Kellogg sighs. “It’s police property now, if it was at Henry’s house or office. And if it wasn’t there, then I can’t guess where it would be.”

“I at least need to know if they have it. And I can’t just ask, because if they don’t know about it, I don’t want to tell them. I’ve heard that you still have good contacts in the department.”

“That’s it? You just want to know if they have this tape that for all I know might incriminate your sorry-assed self?”

Close breathes in and out a few times. Stays calm. “No. There’s more.”

“Tell me.”

“I want to know why Ells used our initials as his blood signature.”

“He was a psycho.”

“I’m trusting my instincts here, but I just think it’s too strange. We really didn’t have anything to do with him, and we really aren’t a white supremacist group.”

“You’re saying you’ve been framed?”

“Yes, I guess I am.”

“And you want me to find out by who?”

“Yes.”

“Let me tell you something. You didn’t get framed. I’m going to take your case because if no one else will take it, I can get away with charging you double my usual rate. But I’m telling you up front, no one had two people killed to make you look bad. Making you look bad might be a fringe benefit, or a decoy, but it wasn’t the reason. People just don’t go that far.”

“Which brings us to the other thing I want from you.”

“Shoot.”

“Maybe we weren’t framed. Maybe Ells did work with people in LTC. I told you, there’s a faction there now that is getting away from me. This ex-FBI agent, she’s got a charisma I’ve never seen before. And she’s building a following within the organization that scares me. I’m afraid that just maybe Ells
is
connected to LTC.”

Kellogg takes that in. Says, “You want a lot.”

“I do.”

“Define it for me.”

“I guess we’ll say your job for this case is to find out what happened to the videotape of my meeting with Henry James; and to find out what, if anything, might connect LTC to Ells that I don’t know about.”

“All right. I want a ten-thousand-dollar retainer in my office tomorrow morning.”

“Isn’t ten thousand a lot?”

“What if it Is?”

Close hesitates, then says, “Fine. Can I get daily reports?”

Kellogg nods.

Close stands. Puts out his hand for a shake. This time Kellogg takes it.

Close nods good-bye to Passer. Leaves.

Kellogg looks at Passer, who’s looking down into her coffee cup.

“Oh, cut the shit,” Kellogg says.

She looks up. At him. Sadly. “Me cut the shit?”

“Yeah.”

“What shit is that?”

“The sensitive-liberal shit.”

“I don’t like the way you talk about black people.”

“I don’t like the way they talk about me. Last week, just standing on a corner at Seventh and F, a carload of black girls drove by and yelled out ‘Ofay motherfucker’ at me. No reason. Just filled with hate and happy to show it.”

With difficulty, because he’s so fat and still a bit drunk, he slides out of the booth. Standing over her, he says, “We’re going to make some easy money with this. Clear our debts. Buy ourselves some new equipment. Pad the hell out of our time sheets. You know, the usual fuck job on a sap client so we can take vacations this summer. And all I really have to do is make a few phone calls and then later, in my ‘daily report,’ talk a good game. Okay? Maybe we’ll go to a few LTC meetings and look into this extremist faction he’s talking about. But I’ll find out if the police have the tape in one call. This is easy money. We need it.”

She nods but doesn’t look at him.

Kellogg listens to the music. Says of it, to Passer, “Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb.”

“I don’t care.”

“You care about everything but not about anything. How you going to ever write that great book of yours if you don’t care?”

“You’re drunk.”

Kellogg leans down close to her. She can smell the whiskey and coffee and cigarette and eggs on his breath. The stink of his underarms.

Kellogg whispers, “You’re the luckiest person in the world. In baggy pants and shoulder pads and ball cap, you’re a man. In anything else, you are definitely female. You can be black, Latino, or white. Whatever color’s fashionable. Me? I’m a white man in a black city. I’m fat. I’m old. I’m ugly. I’m broke. I’m alone. My heart’s got to go soon—there’s a law of health that says so. You might be the person who cares about me most in this world, and you don’t care about me much.”

She faces him, eyes inches from his, water building in them. But the water’s tension holds and the tears don’t fall and she says only, “I want thirty bucks for every hour I bill on this case.”

He steps back from her. Says, “Fine.”

KELLOGG, IN HIS OFFICE BELCHES. Moans. Drinks from his pot of coffee. Moves his head about, trying to work out the crick in his neck. Takes four aspirin, trying to soothe his headache. Smokes. Calls out, “Sue, can you go downstairs and get me an egg sandwich?”

“No,” she calls back from her desk out front.

“Why not?”

“I’m doing my nails.”

“Sue!”

“I’m serious!” The phone rings.

“I suppose you want me to get that?” he asks. “You are the most thoughtful man.” He answers. “Kellogg Investigations.”

“Kevin? Hey.”

“Hey, man.” Kellogg recognizes the caller’s voice. It’s the Black Detective. “Thanks for calling.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m on the case.”

“Which case?”

“The monster.”

“The James murders?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“Jimmy Close.”

“I heard he was looking for help. Also heard some wire that the Mayor’s office was passing the word they’d be offended by anyone giving that help.”

“I’m not on the Mayor’s wire.”

“No shit.”

“So what’s up?”

“This is some tender info I’m going to give you.”

“I understand.”

“Your line secure?”

“Checked it just yesterday. You at a pay phone?”

“Yeah. Okay. Listen, man. The Chief’s holding a press conference this afternoon to announce the case is closed.”

“Wow.”

“Here’s the scoop. This guy, Richard Ells, he videotaped himself doing it.”

“That’s all the rage among psychos.”

“Yeah. And the tape showed he acted alone. Doesn’t prove he wasn’t put up to it by someone, but he was alone when he killed them, and it was definitely him that did the killing.”

“How’d it go down?”

“At the point when he turns the camera on, he’s got them handcuffed. Then he ties them to their chairs. Henry— Did you know him? Personally?”

“Alitile.”

“Henry’s staying calm. So is Jessica. Henry’s talking to Ells real calmly, saying he’s got some money in his car and can get some more at the bank with his ATM card. Ells is just laughing, smiling, saying, ‘Is that right? You got money? Got yourself this white woman here, like I ain’t got? Got yourself a nice car, like I ain’t got? Just high and mighty.’ Anyway, Ells, he’s just happy, tying them up and then gagging them. Good job of gagging too.”

“Yeah? Bondage-type thing?”

“Kind of, but he didn’t molest them, so I don’t think he’s that way. What he does next is, goes out of the picture, we presume into the kitchen, and comes back with a saw-toothed knife. Big old thing. And man, the only way to put it is, he just sets right in to sawing Jessica’s head off.”

The Black Detective goes quiet. Kellogg lets him have his silence.

“Anyway,” the detective says, “Henry James, he sees this and starts going wild trying to get free, but he can’t. Man. I mean, he had to watch his own wife get killed.”

“Jesus.”

After another moment’s pause, the Black Detective says, “Ells, he was gone to the world. Had that soul-gone look in his eyes. You know? Vacant back there, like an addict?”

“I know the type.”

“Henry James, that poor guy, he’s going crazy against the ropes, but he can’t get free, and after Ells gets done, he holds Jessica’s head to Henry’s face and says, ‘Want a kiss good-bye?’ And Henry, he’s just finished. The fight is gone.

He’s on the floor—-he knocked himself over trying to get free—but now he’s just staring into space. Ells grabs him by the hair and cuts his head off too.”

“And you had to watch this shit.”

“Aw, man, three fucking times I went over that tape. I tell you, brother, I surrender. I got twenty-seven years in. I’m done. I should have been gone long ago, but I am definitely out of here now. The Mayor’s back. That’s reason enough right there. You know how he feels about me.”

“He don’t forgive and forget.”

It was the Mayor who’d demanded Kellogg’s dismissal those many years before, when Kellogg and the Black Detective were both patrolmen, working together. When Kellogg had shot a black kid, who really
did
have a gun. The Black Detective, who’d been there, had testified that the gun was no plant; testimony that got Kellogg free of criminal charges; testimony given against the Mayor’s “request” that he, the Black Detective, “remember” that it was dark in that alley and maybe he couldn’t have really been sure the kid had a gun after all.