Carom Shot

by JJ Partridge

  I greeted them and they stood. Sylvia, at five-three or so, is no taller but has twice the girth of her pastor. Her full, multiple-chinned face, beneath pulled-back, steel colored hair, registered strength and kindness and her eyes gave me a take care of this look as she took my Burberry and retreated to the kitchen. Reverend Thomas offered me both his hands and I felt bones as fragile as a bird’s as he grasped mine. He followed me across the hall to the study, a stooped figure in a tight black suit, black cloth bib and clerical collar, his posture hiding a deeply lined face the color of worn Navy shoes, protuberant eyes, wispy white eyebrows, and flat nose with flaring nostrils.

  The study reeks seriousness. With its enormous granite fireplace and blackened hearth, closed beige draperies, walnut floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and numerous portraits illuminated by overhead lighting that went on as the door opened, the room’s formality limits its use to important matters, such as when Nick, our family’s public man, the Brown Brothers partner, and face in the Forbes 400 listing, discusses our complicated family finances. I turned on both a table lamp and a floor lamp as I led the old man across a plum-colored Shiraz carpet to a leather chair in front of my father’s marble, Italianate desk. As he lowered himself slowly, arthritically, into the chair, I pulled out the desk chair, and finding the room remained too dark for intimate conversation, tugged at the beaded chain on the desk’s green-shaded banker’s lamp.

  Reverend Thomas’s acorn colored eyes measured the room, feeling its familiarity and security, while we made small talk about the weather and his church. I had to concentrate to avoid the dry-throated, too well-bred, Bertie Woosterish voice that can sneak up on me when I’m uncomfortable in situations like this. In contrast, he spoke in the style of the pulpit, disarmingly simple and a little repetitive. It took all of several minutes for him to get to his purpose.

  “It’s about the murder, the one on Veasey Street.” His eyes, which had been fixed on me, searched the desktop. “This boy, his name is Williams. Lavelle Williams. His mama is in the church. His pa, a house painter, died years back. She worked houses until she got sick some time ago. A strong, god-fearin’, church goin’ woman. The boy used to come to church with his mama until he got into high school and started to get into things, ya know, and dropped out. Left here a year or so ago, then came back this summer.”

  The old man hunched closer to the desk and his words surged out of him. “He started going ‘round with this girl, this white girl, the one that was found killed, y’see? He stayed with her, I guess, some of the time.” He pulled a large white handkerchief out of his back pocket, wiped his forehead, and left it open on his lap. “Anyways, he went to his mama’s this morning. Said the po-lice was lookin’ for him, that they wanted to know about the girl ’cause she’d been killed. Now, I said Missus Williams is strong! She didn’t want him shot or somethin’ runnin’ away from the po-lice, what with all the troubles we’ve been havin’. She brought him to me.” His long bony fingers played within the circle of light under the lamp. “Nowadays, I suppose most of our people would go runnin’ to a lawyer or to the councilman or to somebody like Jesse Kingdom ...”—his voice betrayed disapproval—“... but Missus Williams came to her pastor. I need to help her if I can.” He looked straight into my eyes. “She got it out of him. This girl. He didn’t do it but he was with her last Friday night before she got killed!”

  Tuttle’s report at the Provost’s meeting flashed in my memory. Was the boyfriend being black the cause of Tuttle’s seeming hesitation? Why? Puppy Dog? McAllister?

  “They met and went to her apartment. He ... slept ... with her, he says, then they had an argument. A bad fight. He said she had a bad temper, called him names ...”—he paused, unclear as to whether to repeat the names—“... bad stuff, and he left her. He swore to his mama that is all that happened. He didn’t kill her! She’s a strong believer. She made him put his hand on his father’s Bible and swear it was true, and he repeated it to me.”

  My reaction was expressed too curtly and portentously. “It sounds to me that he needs a lawyer—”

  “His mama wants him to tell the truth to the po-lice but he’s scared ‘bout what’ll happen. Seems some po-lice warned him about bein’ with this girl before, ya’ know. No tellin’ what is goin’ to happen, so many stories ’bout that these days. If he runs for it, that’s like sayin’ he did it. And, he’ll get caught and …..” He ran his hands over his balding scalp and blinked his baleful eyes. “I don’t think the po-lice are goin’ to waste a lot of time on a black boy who’s been livin’ with the daughter of a white po-lice-man—”

  “She was a student of ours—”

  “Now,” he said, expectation in his eyes, “I thought if you could make arrangements for him to talk to Commissioner Tramonti, he’s a good man, I hear, and Miss Odum says he’s your friend. Maybe Lavelle gets a chance to tell his story without some lawyer gettin’ in the way, makin’ it appear he’s guilty by not lettin’ the truth talk! This way, they gotta treat him right! If he comes in through you and your friend, he’d be protected!” Bitterness crept into his voice. “Maybe they’ll keep lookin’ for who did it, not just close it up ’cause they caught a black boy who’s been sleepin’ with a white girl who gets herself killed!” He slumped back into his chair, the energy that had propelled him here exhausted.

  I couldn’t let the lawyer advice go. Reverend Thomas was naive to expect anything but hostility despite any arrangement as to how Williams was delivered to the Public Safety Building. “If he’s wanted for questioning, he should go in with a lawyer. The lawyer will advise him as to whether he tells anybody, anything. There are technical evidence rules at play here. The lawyer will protect his rights.” Almost as an afterthought, I added, “I can’t be that lawyer.”

  He pushed his chair away from the desk and stood up, trembling with emotion. “I know what I should do, Alger,” he insisted, his eyes burning. “I haven’t been preachin’ the gospel all these years not to know to get the truth!” His voice filled the room, perhaps reaching out into the hall. “Aren’t we protectin’ his rights by makin’ sure he gets there safely, makin’ sure that he isn’t hurt? Those the rights I got to worry about! We gotta protect that boy and that woman’s faith in her church, and do the right thing!”

  In the silence that followed, I realized that it was my predicament that made me hesitant. Chief McCarthy would throw up at any involvement by Alger Temple, the hated University’s lawyer, on behalf of a suspect in the murder of a cop’s daughter, complicating the University’s already fragile relationship with the police. Puppy Dog would be on it in a minute! But, then, the old man had every reason to expect Temple family help. We had always been there. Even the room gave off a sense of familial duty. Maybe, I concluded, I could arrange something with Tramonti, without getting identified as the go-between. Why would he have to let anyone know?

  “I’ll try to reach Commissioner Tramonti,” I said warily. “But,” I repeated sternly, “Williams has to have a lawyer!”

  His face relaxed immediately. “Praise the Lord,” he said slowly and sat down, his eyes evidencing triumph in the use of the powerful in the name of the church. He had moved the moment, not some cheap politician, no lying lawyer, no Johnny-come-lately reverend strutting with a bullhorn! “Maybe you could call him right now, Alger,” he urged, “before the boy stops listenin’ to his mama.”

  Tramonti took my call and didn’t interrupt or ask questions when I explained Reverend Thomas’s request. When he responded, he was unusually direct. The preliminary examination of Ms. Sullivan’s body found dope in her system, with more in her apartment. Williams, her boyfriend, ran a “page boy” operation, selling drugs on the East Side and its campuses with cell phones and pagers, for Nestor Flores, the biggest, meanest drug lord in the West End, the heart of the city’s drug turf. Most of the city’s street dealers, he said, are Latino or a member of one of the Asian gangs but on the East Side, a lot of the dealers were black and Lavelle Williams was in Flo
res’s “crew.”

  Ugh! Reverend Thomas depicted Lavelle Williams as a scared kid and it turns out he’s a dealer!

  The murderer could be The Stalker, Tramonti went on, and just as likely not. If Williams came in, he’d be tested, fingerprinted and samples taken, there’d be lots of questions, and he’d better have an alibi. All of this was delivered in an uncharacteristically laconic monotone and it seemed that Tramonti would refuse to meet at all; then, in a roundabout way, he seemed to talk himself into it. “Okay,” he said firmly. “Eight o’clock. In my office. I’ll have detectives here who will be straight. Let’s see what Williams has to say. And you and your reverend friend had better accompany him.”

  “What?”

  “If I go out on this limb for you, your presence is my guarantee that this was a serious request and worth the risk.”

  “Wait a minute, I just—”

  “Algy, don’t push it. I’m doing this only to get him in here before something else happens. The girl is the daughter of a cop, remember? Lots of my heroes are out looking for Williams as we speak. I’ll put a hold on picking up Williams on your personal assurance that he’ll be here tonight. If you can’t live with that, forget this call, no meeting, and he’ll get picked up eventually.” I remained silent. “You get into the parking lot behind the Public Safety Building a few minutes before eight. I’ll be there, and we’ll go upstairs. You don’t have to stay.”

  With resignation, I agreed. His “good-bye” could have been a groan.

  I put down the telephone and repeated the plan to Reverend Thomas. He would deliver Williams to my home at seven forty-five and we would drive downtown. My everyday car, a Mini Cooper, wouldn’t fit us all and my new Ranger Rover HSE might seem over the top for this short trip but I let the thought go by and gave him two names of criminal defense attorneys who our students sometimes used and who accepted modest retainers.

  We shook hands and left the study. Sylvia was back on the bench in the hall; her face wore a concerned expression until Reverend Thomas’s smile perked her up. “It’s going to be all right,” I heard her whisper in his ear as we entered the kitchen, with the same tone she used, when as a child, I scraped my knee or confessed some venial sin. She took him by the arm and directed him through the pantry to the rear hall where I heard her say, with more conviction, “It’s going to be all right!”

  She held his nondescript black overcoat as he slipped it on and when he turned to face us, his eyes were hopeful. “The Lord will be with us. I know it.” He laughed, winked at Sylvia, we said goodbye, and he walked out into the courtyard. I returned to the kitchen and its always full cookie jar on the baking counter.

  I took out a handful of Sylvia’s homemade oatmeal and raisins, and was about to caution her as to too much optimism when she surprised me with a wide-armed, pressing hug.

  That’s why I get into things.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I had a choice. It was six blocks either to my house or to Jimmy’s in Fox Point where I could get a drink, play a little pool, have a quiet dinner, and take a cab home in plenty of time for the arrival of Reverend Thomas and Lavelle Williams. I chose Jimmy’s.

  On the walk over, I checked my voice messages and e-mails on the Blackberry and responded to a message from the Provost with a call. Sometime after four, he said, the police had released a surprisingly bland and inconclusive statement which didn’t stress The Stalker’s possible involvement, although Chief McCarthy had made a crack to a Journal reporter—who called the Information Office for comment—that The Stalker may now be going after “white girls” too. What? McAllister reported grisly rumors were rolling through the campus; Danby’s press release—which had been altered to fit with the police account—was out to the media and e-mailed to students. Danby had been interviewed by the Crier and would visit the Refectory and two of the women-only dorms on the Meeting Street campus. The Provost hazarded a guess that the victim’s race, the murder not on a Saturday night, and her no longer being a student might dull the immediate impact although the relative calm wouldn’t likely survive tonight’s television news, Refectory gossip, and the Journal and Crier tomorrow. I told him about Puppy Dog’s follow-up call on Jesse Kingdom; he grunted in disinterest and mused aloud as to how long Danby could avoid a shutdown.

  “Ugh.”

  * * *

  Jimmy’s in Fox Point, at the corner of Wickenden and Otis Streets, is named for James Aloysius Hannigan, the Jimmy of Jimmy’s Billiard Room, a pool room-cum-bookie parlor which right into the seventies had successfully ignored city ordinances prohibiting “the transport of alcoholic beverages from a licensed premises” and service of the same where games of “... pool, billiards or snooker are played not otherwise licensed ...” through the judicious use of a dumbwaiter on call from Jimmy’s Tap downstairs, also operated by the wily Mr. Hannigan. Like most of the buildings on the block during that era, it was a two-story and gambrel roofed rundown, with uneven clapboards and peeling paint; a Narragansett Beer sign hung askew over the door to the Tap while the Billiard Room was entered by climbing a tremulous outside staircase at the rear.

  To a teenager of my time, the Billiard Room was thrillingly disreputable, murky with stale smoke and redolent of last week’s beer, a hangout for gamblers, off-duty cops and firemen, pool junkies, and neighborhood characters with bellies hanging over belts and White Owls or Phillies in the corners of their mouths. These worthies tolerated the presence of me and Tony Tramonti only because James Aloysius Hannigan’s son, then and forever after known as “Young Jimmy,” was a buddy of Tony’s from the Boy’s Club downtown and, eventually, mine as well.

  Tramonti, Young Jimmy and I “racked ‘em” whenever there was a free table, shooting games like eight ball, nine ball, and straight pool in all of their variations, along with local favorites like Stop-Dog, Fox Trot, and Minus, games unknown in the billiard room of Temple House. Early on, I knew I had some talent for the game; my almost embarrassingly long arms and fingers were advantages, particularly in finesse and middle table shots where other players strained and stretched or resorted to what we derided as the “crutch,” the perfectly legal bridge stick. Since my father was a crack billiards player, as was my grandfather, maybe genetics played a role. In any event, pool gave a shy, gangly kid confidence and experiences in a slice of society that otherwise would have likely been denied to me.

  That was over thirty years ago, and now Fox Point’s East End, while still a Portuguese and Cape Verdean neighborhood, has also attracted the gay community and is in the process of gentrification, the first floor saloon is now a restaurant renowned for authentic Portuguese food, and the pool parlor has gone respectable as a private club. For fifty dollars a month, you can become a “friend of Jimmy”, an “FOJ,” provided Young Jimmy liked you and you can shoot pool. That got you a key to the door up the back steps and into the members-only, refurbished billiard room where the serious players among FOJs sharpen their skills during the week, the bangers play on weekends, and Young Jimmy sponsors the occasional big money game, with all the drama and cash of The Color of Money. The place exudes male-only, despite several women members, with its bare brick walls, subdued lighting, classic billiard posters of turn-of-the-century masters, and one advertising the “match of the century” between Willie Hoppe and Willie Mosconi, New Orleans, 1954. Until recently, there was a cigar case next to the twenty foot long, mahogany, BYO, self-serve bar, and smoking is still officially sanctioned in the private club although discouraged by Young Jimmy’s frowns after his wife’s bout with breast cancer. Comfortable leather couches on a raised platform face either a projection screen television or the four tables—nine foot Brunswicks and Gabriels, each illuminated under three shaded lamps and covered with green Simonis cloth—placed so play on one didn’t invade another’s space. Racks of Vikings, Predators, Intimidators, Schoens, and custom cue sticks line the outer wall.

  Five-thirty was too early for any FOJs, and when I entered, I had the place to myself.
I made a Gordon’s gin and tonic with makings from my labeled stock behind the bar, pulled a Viking cue from the wall rack, and loaded a nine ball layout. The feel of the cloth under my fingers and the smack of the break gave me a needed lift; I had no particular game in mind and took shots, including virtually impossible combinations and double banks for fun. After fifteen minutes or so, a few other FOJs arrived and then Young Jimmy came up, pulled a cup of Poland Spring water from a dispenser behind the bar, and checked the room. He came over to me and watched my play without comment.

  I’m thought of here as a pretty good shooter, eligible for master status in the club’s standings, tournaments, and the occasional stakes game, but not in the same league as Young Jimmy. He learned pool from people who beat you and took your money so he critiqued FOJs only when he gave a formal lesson or exhibition. He had been a club player, too early for ESPN and the big cash pay-offs now offered in Las Vegas, a “Fast Eddie” who was into the rat race of “tournaments” in every small city on the East Coast. In his prime, he had been a shark among the fish, the best in a city of pool players and probably in New England, a natural shooter who never quite understood why others don’t see the angles and the ball paths, or have the stick control, or remember shots that they’d seen or made or missed, like he does. But then, damn few players are like Young Jimmy.