The Right Mistake (3 page)

“Look at this shit here,” Freddy complained. “She done lef’ the do’ unlocked and open too.”
They walked into the sitting room, which wasn’t as messy as it had been the day before.
“She took damn near everything,” Freddy said. He was moving faster than his friend, taking inventory with his eyes. “The TV’s gone and the stereo and all my records an’ tapes an’ CDs.”
There was a doorway to the left of the room that led to dark stained stairs. Socrates was listening for something.
“My mother’s silverware is gone,” Freddy called from another room. “She even took the pots and pans.”
The house reminded Socrates of Bellandra though it in no way resembled her small Midwestern bungalow. Socrates inhaled through dilated nostrils hoping for a whiff of those corncakes he loved.
Freddy went through the door and up the dark stairs.
Socrates put his hands to his own cheeks, feeling the happy grin that eluded him even in childhood.
“She took the sheets,” Fred Bumpus called from upstairs. “She even took my goddamned sheets.”
He was standing at the head of the stairs looking down on the grinning felon.
Socrates looked up at the pained face of Fred Bumpus and laughed.
“What you laughin’ at, man?” Freddy whined. “She done robbed me blind.”
“I’m laughin’ at us, Mr. Bumpus,” Socrates said.
“What’s funny?” Freddy asked. He was so upset that he shimmied his shoulders to punctuate his words.
“Here we are,” Socrates replied, “two black men lookin’ at the same thing but seein’ somethin’ altogether different.”
“All I see is that that woman and that mothahfuckah done took ev’rything I got,” Fred said.
“An’ here they give me ev’rything I evah wanted an’ didn’t even know it.”
Freddy didn’t understand what Socrates was saying but the look on the ex-convict’s face arrested him. Freddy knew that Socco had somehow scared Vanessa and Too-Tight away. He’d given the unemployed criminal a five-year lease on his second home for the favor. But the joy in Socrates’ visage was something more than Freddy could comprehend. It scared him. Scared him more than Floyd Grimm had when he told him that he’d have him killed and inherit his property if he didn’t give Vanessa a divorce and the house.
“You wanna see yo’ new place, Socco?” Freddy asked, no longer thinking about his silverware and sheets.
“School,” Socrates said.
“Say what?”
“It’s not a house. From now on that big nickel next do’ is a school.”

Billy Psalms was in the kitchen making gumbo from a recipe his grandmother, Rita Psalms, had passed down to him. He fried the slime out of his okra and made a dark brown roux from white flour sprinkled into blistering hot Crisco oil. It was a real gumbo made with blue crabs, Andouille sausages, dried shrimp, and even a few oysters thrown in. The base was a chicken stock, made from a whole fryer, and it was finished off with powdered thyme and sassafras leaves for extra thickness and spice.

Socrates had worked an entire month doing pickup work down on Exposition to raise the money for the meal.
“Smell damn good in here,” the ex-con said as he entered the room.
“Men’s yo’ best cooks, Socco,” the gambler said. “You know all the big chefs is men.”
“That’s only because they got so many helpers,” said the woman who was standing at Socrates’ side. “If a chef had to do his own prep work and clean-up half the time dinner would never make it to the table.”
“I’ont know, Cassie. Some men might surprise ya.”
“Forty-one years and I haven’t been surprised yet. Every man I ever met has made his way by standing on a woman’s back—a woman or a slave.”
Cassie Wheaton was tall and willowy. She possessed a slender figure and primal eyes. Her hair was matte orange in color, piled up on her head like a windswept mound of autumnal colored hay; her skin was the same hue and just a shade darker. She would have been beautiful if she wasn’t so striking. Many men, who had seen that face and figure in profile, had come up to her looking for a little play. But most of them, once they looked into her feral eyes, walked away softly, their pickup lines dying on their tongues.
“You spend too much time in court, Miss Wheaton,” Billy said. He was so much shorter than the lawyer that he had to look up to address her. “Bad element all up in there. I mean between yo’ gangbangers and police, crooked lawyers and crooks you get a cockeyed view of our gender. I mean look at Socco here. He more like a rock than a man. Shit. You could have a whole woman’s basketball team stand on them shoulders.”
Cassie glanced at her host. He did seem like the immoveable object she’d read about in college. There might have been a barb in her throat but she swallowed it; swallowed it and smiled.
“You want Darryl to come out here an’ make the rice, Billy?” Socrates asked. “He cain’t do much in the kitchen but I taught him how to make a pot’a rice.”
“Naw, baby. My mama told me that if I want to be proud’a what I cook then I got to do the whole thang. An’ you know I learnt almost everything from my mama.”
“Did she tell you to become a gambler?” Cassie asked.
“White man taught me that, Miss Wheaton,” Billy said as he wiped his hands on a damp towel hanging from a hook over the sink.
“So you blame the white man for your own failings,” the lady lawyer said.
“Who said anything about blame . . . or failin’s for that mattah? I’m proud to be called a gambler. My mama had a boyfriend took us to Vegas when I was fourteen or so. The minute I saw that roulette table it all come clear.”
“What’s that, Billy?” Socrates Fortlow, the convicted murderer and rapist, asked.
“Roulette,” Psalms stated, his eyes wide with a teenager’s amazement. “All them folks gathered ’round that wheel with so many slots you cain’t even count ’em before it come to rest. But there they were layin’ down their hard earned cash on the slender hope that their numbah comes up.” Billy shook his head and grunted. “I knew right then that that was my church. The gravity hurlin’ that wheel was my God. Oh yeah.”
“What’s that got to do with the white man?” Leanne Northford asked.
Billy hadn’t seen her because she was so small standing behind Socrates and Cassie.
“White men owned that casino, girl,” he told the seventy-oneyear-old social worker. “Maybe he didn’t invent the game but he distilled it just like he done with gunpowder and alcohol, white sugar and timepieces. White man take what’s good and makes it pure.”
“Which means it’s better?” Socrates asked.
“No, sir,” Billy replied, shaking his head. “Pure’ll kill ya. Ain’t no lie to that. Pure is yo neighbor’s eighteen-year-old wife all of a sudden see you one day and set her sights. You know bettah. You know that the wife at home the one love you and who’ll take care of you when you old and sick. But it’s that lust, that pure lust will break you down every time.”
“That’s a man for you,” Cassie said.
Leanne hummed a two-note agreement.
“You ladies can say that,” Billy said as he sprinkled the last pinch of gumbo filet into the twenty-quart pot. “You know there’s a man out there messin’ ’round for every second spot there is on the clock.”
“You got that right,” Leanne said.
“But you know for every man messin’ there got to be a woman whisperin’ in his ear.”
Socrates barked out a laugh.
“Women get fooled by you men,” Cassie countered, maybe not as certain as she had been before.
“But it’s men that’s the biggest fools,” Socrates told her. “You not gonna deny that are you, Miss Wheaton?”
“Women want to bring things together,” Cassie argued. “Men take that goodness and drag it in the dirt.”
“Baby, please,” Billy said, holding his hands as if in prayer. “You know women out there right now fluffin’ up their nest with their girlfriends’ feathers. You know it’s true.”
“I got to go with the gambler on that one,” Leanne said. Her voice was high and sharp. She wore a mid-calf checkered skirt and a navy sweater for a blouse. You could see the outline of her ribs in the dark fabric.
“You see that, Socco?” Billy said. “We ain’t even had our meetin’ and you done already solved the problem of men and women.”
Upon hearing this Cassie sucked on her tooth and walked off toward the big sitting room.
“Who else is comin’, Mr. Fortlow?” Leanne asked.
“Mustafa Ali from the soup kitchen. Marianne Lodz . . .”
“The singer?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How you get her to come here?”
“I met her once and she gimme her numbah.”
Leanne knew that there was probably more to the story. But she also knew that Socrates would never tell. She’d met the big ex-con in her office. He was always bringing dope addicts and winos to avail themselves of the private and government services she represented. He was in her place just about every week until she retired the year before. Socrates never divulged a secret, bragged, or gossiped in her presence.
“You already met Antonio and there’s a young man named Zeal . . .”
“Ronald Zeal?”
Socrates nodded.
“Why you wanna have somebody like that in your house? He’s a killer.”
“I’m a killer, Miss Northford,” Socrates said. “If I was to tell a man he couldn’t come in my presence because he was a criminal I’d have to put my own self out.”
“He shot two innocent boys right down the block from me,” Leanne said, dismissing Socrates’ claim with her intensity. “Shot ’em down in the street. You know I watched them boys grow inta young men.”
“I’ll understand if you don’t wanna stay, Lee,” Socrates said. “Billy?”
“Yeah?”
“How long?”
“It’s just sittin’ now. I’ll put the cornbread in the oven twenty minutes before we eat.”
Socrates nodded and walked past Leanne, leaving her standing in the middle of the kitchen while Billy chopped raw onion on the butcher’s block cutting board.

Antonio Peron was a carpenter. He had a limp and fifty-five years in Southern California. He was standing next to the dining table when Socrates came in.

The Mexican-American was short and well proportioned, for his age. He had dark amber skin and salt and pepper stubble on his jaw. He wore white carpenter’s pants and a dark blue, long sleeved work shirt. As Socrates approached he smiled.

“This is some table you got here,” Peron said. “One solid piece of wood. That tree must have been a mother. Thirteen and a half feet?”

“Fourteen seven,” Socrates said proudly. “I got it from the basement of House of God Church when they knocked it down. Had to trim some’a the rot and damage.”

“I like that it’s irregular. Like it was a man who had some living behind him.”
“Or a woman,” Cassie Wheaton put in.
“Or a woman,” Peron parroted. When he smiled the gold rims of his teeth glittered.
Cassie was sitting close to the head of the long and asymmetrical table. She smiled at the carpenter and he ducked his head.
There was a knock at the front door. Before Socrates could make it Darryl, the lanky teenager, ran from the den, where he’d been playing Grand Theft Auto on a portable screen.
He flung open the front door on Marianne Lodz and another woman. Even from the back Socrates could make out how excited the boy was to usher in the young soul singer. Lodz wore a form-fitting dark green dress. Her face was wide and beautiful, the color of café con leche. She had a generous figure that was matched by a friendly smile. The woman beside her caught Socrates’ attention.
This woman was slender and very dark. She wasn’t smiling and she wore black pants and a white blouse. Her hair was the only expression to her; it was wild, sticking out all over the place as if she had just run through the woods escaping the dogs.
“This is my, uh . . . Socrates, Miss Barnet,” Darryl was saying as Socrates came up to join them. “Miss Lodz say that you know her cousin Leroy.”
“He took Leroy to the hospital when no one else would,” Marianne said. “And when I tried to pay him he said that he didn’t need to be paid for doin’ what’s right.”
Marianne shook Socrates’ hand and then got up on her toes to kiss his cheek.
“Hi,” she said. “This is my friend Luna Barnet. I hope you don’t mind that I brought her with me.”
Socrates had to concentrate to avert his gaze from young Luna’s passive stare. There was something sensual in the woman’s flat eyes. She seemed to be appraising the big man; he felt that she had put him up on the block as if he were being judged for his strength and stamina, his ability to take orders and lurking willfulness.
“Hi,” she said in a slow urban patois that had once languished in the southern states.
Socrates winced, stung by her mild salutation.
“Why don’t you ladies come on in?” he said, turning quickly, headed for the Big Table (as it came to be known).
Darryl hurried up next to him excitedly.
“Ms. Lodz said she’d sing for us if you wanted, Socco,” he said.
“Did you say hello before you asked her to sing?”
“Yeah,” he said defensively.
“This ain’t no concert, D-boy. It’s a meetin’.”
“But after the meetin’…”
“It’s not that kind of meetin’,” Socrates said, pushing on ahead of his ward.
When he came toward the table, followed by the panting young man and the women, Socrates said, “Ev’rybody, this is Marianne Lodz and Luna Barnet. Say hello.”
When he moved to the side for the people to come together Socrates noticed Luna still looking at him with the dispassionate interest of someone who had just roused from a deep sleep.

Billy Psalms brought in a bottle of Blue Angel and a stack of Dixie Cups. The gambler and the lawyer, social worker and carpenter came around Lodz. She had a song on the radio at that time called “Bring it on over.” It played around the city and she was getting a name for herself. Darryl hung on her every word. She was kind and gracious but a little distant,
like a friendly prison guard,
Socrates thought. Then he saw Luna watching him while pretending to be looking around the room.

Another knock at the door and Socrates was happy to turn away.
Mustafa Ali and Wan Tai had arrived together. Socrates thought that Mustafa had been at the Chinese man’s dojo before coming to the inauguration of the Big Nickel School.
“Socco,” the white bearded and brown skinned Ali hailed.
“Mr. Fortlow,” Wan Tai whispered, making the slightest nod as he spoke. The karate master always looked directly into Socrates’ eyes when addressing him.
The host put out a hand to each man.
“Welcome to the Big Nickel, brothers. They’re almost all here by now. Go on in and introduce yourselves.”
“Socco,” a man called before the front door closed.
It was Ronald Zeal. Even hearing the voice Socrates felt a thrill of excitement; not fear, not exactly—but the inner clenching he always felt just before a serious fight. It was a kill or be killed moment that he had to climb over before saying, “Hey, Zeal. What’s happenin’, man?”
“Nuttin’ to it,” the young man replied in his studiedly casual approach toward the big felon.
Socrates turned his head into the house and called out, “Billy, put on the cornbread.”
“Okay, Socco.”
Ronald Zeal was at the door by then. He was tall and meant to be naturally thin but his upper body was over-developed by exercise and weight lifting, maybe even some bulk enhancing drugs. His skin was dark, as dark as Fortlow’s. His face had been pretty, would still have been if it weren’t for the scars and a hardness in his eye. He didn’t smile, only took Socrates’ hand in welcome.
He was six three at least, no more than mid-twenties. He wore a clean white T-shirt despite the cool evening temperature and black pants with matching sneakers.
Behind Ron a car passed slowly. From the car’s passenger window a white man peered into the house.
Socrates grinned and gestured for his guest to enter.
“Come on in, brother,” the host said warmly. “We almost all here now.”
He led Ronald Zeal into the room dominated by the big irregular table.
Every chair at the table was of a different make. Straight-back maple, cane and wicker, a black stool and a dark stained piano bench. There were eleven seats in all with the capacity to hold a dozen people.
“This Ronald Zeal, everybody. We only got one more and he told me he was gonna be late because of his job.”
“Hey, Ron,” Cassie Wheaton said. She was looking at the stern-faced young man.
“Ms. Wheaton,” he said in an oddly subdued tone.
“Have you been down to the courthouse yet?” the lawyer asked.
“No, not yet.”
“They will put you away if you don’t show up with those papers.”
“Mustafa Ali,” Mustafa said introducing himself. “Mission of Heaven services.”
“Hey.”
Socrates noticed that Leanne Northford had moved to the black stool at the other side of the Big Table. She’d stay, he thought, but she wouldn’t welcome the killer or shake his hand.
From Leanne Socrates’ attention went around the room. Most were aware of the famous killer. Darryl was trying to put on a gangster-calm while Marianne Lodz seemed flustered. Antonio, though he might not have known Zeal’s story, could read the threat in the young man’s bearing. Billy Psalms was in the kitchen but Socrates knew that the gambler would watch Ron the way he’d concentrate on a roulette table—wondering at what number would come up, and then the one after that.
Only Luna seemed unaffected by the notorious gangbanger’s presence. She satisfied herself by observing Socrates watching his guests.