For all her budding brainpower, Raquel had serious trouble working all the gears and speeds on her mountain bike. Sidarra herself almost fell over trying to change hers on a hill. Raquel said it was probably the fat tires that created resistance. That’s why they struggled up the hills. Whatever it was, by the time they reached 106th Street on the East Side, they were walking again beside their bikes. Under a broad canopy of leaves, they stopped to have a hot dog and pretzel picnic.
“So you haven’t told me much about camp, Raquel. How’s it going?”
Raquel chewed her ketchup-covered frank and looked out at a field of families playing in the old Central Park. The shrieks and laughter sounded mostly Spanish, but they could also hear the distinct sound of dance hall music somewhere close behind them. Another mom and her daughter were sitting on the edge of a tall rock off to their right. Raquel’s expression remained disinterested as she watched the pair swing their legs back and forth while they talked together. “It’s okay. I’m the best girl in kickball.”
“That’s great, honey. Do you all play anything else?”
“Nah. They don’t have anything up there. You know that. The boys play stickball, but I’m not playing that. I asked the counselor if we could get a lacrosse game together, but he just laughed at me. I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
Sidarra explained a little bit about the kind of camp it was and how it was important that Raquel remember that sometimes you try to make do with what’s around you. They had fun anyway. Not all fun had to be St. Augustine’s fun.
She was interrupted by a loud, sudden burst of laughter from the mother and her daughter on the rock above. She didn’t know what they were laughing about. But Sidarra was reminded in that moment of all the times she had come with her own mother to this park before it divided, sat near rocks or under trees, and laughed over the lunch they packed in tinfoil from home.
“Oh, I play poor sometimes, Mom. Don’t worry. But when this girl T’Quana heard me ask the counselor about playing lacrosse, she decided to jump bad with me.”
“What’d you do?” Sidarra asked, bracing herself for the answer.
“Well, you know I’m not trying to hear that from her. I said, ‘T, I’m not trying to hear that from you.’ Mommy, T’s mother is a crackhead. Either a crackhead or a ho. Anyway, T likes to fight. She fights like every day almost. So she comes at me with her fists up, rolling her neck and her eyes, tellin’ me she’s gonna bust me upside my face.”
“Oh no, Raquel, how’d you handle it?”
“I’m not getting my nice stuff jacked up by a crack ho, nuh-uh. I called over the counselor. I told him, ‘See this?’ He stepped in and started to pull T’Quana away from me.”
Sidarra’s worried look subsided a little. “Well, that was pretty sensible, Raquel. Better than to fight.”
Raquel seemed proud to add, “As he was dragging her away from me, I told her, ‘You know I can have you! You know that. I can have you, T!’”
“What was that supposed to mean?”
“It means I own her. She ain’t got nothin’,” Raquel answered matter-of-factly.
Sidarra hauled up terrified and very nearly smacked Raquel across the ear. Instead, she smacked her own hip loudly. “Have you lost your goddamned mind, child?”
“Mom,” she uttered softly, “that’s using the Lord’s name in vain. What’s so wrong with what I said?”
“Get up! Get up! You don’t talk to people like that. Just who the hell do you think you are, Raquel? I’m amazed at you and very disappointed.” She helped Raquel to her feet by yanking her by the back of her shirt. They grabbed their bikes by the handlebars, and Sidarra led them on a march back uptown. She didn’t know what she was doing exactly, or where they were going. She had to figure out what to say, and it felt instinctively like they needed to be closer to home if not actually there. What have I done? What have I done? Sidarra muttered inside her head.
Then it came to her. She stopped and turned to Raquel. “Look at me, Raquel. We’re about to do something, and I don’t want you to say a single solitary word, okay? Some people have so much money they have to buy themselves a lesson, and you’re about to buy one.” They marched ahead to the grass beneath the high rocks, stopped there, and Sidarra looked up. “Excuse me!” Sidarra called to the mother-daughter team swinging their legs above them. “Excuse me!”
Finally the daughter’s face peeked out and looked down at Sidarra. She looked to her side and her mother’s face soon peeked down and smiled. “Yes? Is something wrong?”
“We would come up, but it’s a little steep with the bikes. Listen, I was just wondering if you all would be interested in these bicycles?”
The mother needed only a second to start shaking her head politely, but her daughter quickly encouraged her to hold up. Sidarra could see them consulting, but couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“Look, maybe your daughter could just come take a quick look. It’s not a scam. The bikes are ours and everything.”
That was enough to warrant further investigation at least. Sidarra and a very sullen but silent Raquel waited while the mother and daughter gradually collected themselves and walked down a curling slope to them. The mom looked a little older than Sidarra, with a slight accent that could have been Caribbean. Her long-legged daughter had to be at least twelve.
“Why are you giving two nice mountain bikes away?” the girl asked with the beginnings of a Christmas smile on her cheeks.
“We sort of won them from a Wal-Mart in New Jersey where we live. We didn’t really want them. It was a raffle. We don’t really ride. You can tell they’re still pretty new. They sat all winter. Today we thought we’d try them out in the park, but, honestly, we can’t handle all the gears. So we’ve been looking for somebody who might make good use of them.”
The mother and daughter checked each other’s eyes to see if Sidarra’s story checked out. The daughter didn’t need much convincing. Her big eyes were busy running over the bikes’ details. She looked back at her mom in what was supposed to be a private look of near-desperate acceptance. All she could say to her mom was, “Please?”
The mother had been looking at Sidarra’s and Raquel’s warm-up suits. Her only remaining look now was to check Sidarra’s eyes for charity. She didn’t want that. When she couldn’t find it, she said okay. “Yes. We’d love to ride them.”
“No, no, you may have them,” Sidarra said.
“Okay, okay. Sure. What a nice surprise. Thank you, ma’am. Thank you both.”
Sidarra nodded and beamed at them. She handed them each the bike, checking only to make sure Raquel stayed quiet. Then she took her daughter by the arm and they walked off again toward the park entrance at 110th Street.
“All I’m gonna add, Raquel, is that the nice thing about giving somebody something with wheels is that, all the days and years of your life when you’re wondering about whatever happened to that great bike you talked your way out of, some other girl and her mother are covering ground, traveling to the places they like to go, seeing things, and just maybe feeling a lot more grateful than you do that their world got a little bit bigger.”
“I just wish I knew their names,” Raquel said. “It’s easier to remember people when you know their names.”
“Well, that’s not a bad point,” Sidarra replied, taking her hand as they crossed out of the park. “Maybe you can make some up.” They walked in silence for a block or two until Sidarra could feel Raquel’s grip on her arm return some affection again. She squeezed back and added, “I know how much you loved that bike, Rock. I hope you’re not too mad, but that you got the message. You’re my star, kid, and stars have to shine.”
It wasn’t exactly true. Raquel had steadily lost interest in bikes since her accident. She just liked to be out with her mom.
“You’re mine too,” she said.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, on behalf of the mayor, who unfortunately could not attend today’s historic meeting, I wish to introduce to
you the new chancellor of the New York City public schools, Dr. Grace Blackwell.”
Sidarra stood at the huge table in the City Hall conference hall and clapped furiously along with about thirty other people, some of them regulars at the monthly Thursday education meeting, many of them attending only for the ceremony. A two-term Republican mayor who had campaigned and served as stern father and vengeful master to the darker peoples of the metropolis had simply run out of takers for the job. Dr. Blackwell was a staunch Democrat with an unapologetic résumé. She had been the president of Spelman College, her alma mater, after receiving her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Then, after heading President Clinton’s task force on educational reform in the former Bantustans of South Africa, she had accepted the post of schools supervisor over the troubled Gary, Indiana, school system. Beloved by most parents and many of the top administrators she had recruited, she made progress there until ongoing court battles over the use of school vouchers got in the way. When she refused to implement the voucher system on the ground that it discriminated against poor black children, she let her name be floated for job openings across the country. Now, at fifty-six, she, her husband, and their two teenage children would be moving into the chancellor’s townhouse in Brooklyn Heights.
Sidarra held back her tears as she listened to the chancellor speak. Dr. Blackwell was a medium-sized woman of medium height, with shocks of gray hair and caramel skin. She wore a lightweight outfit of black and red robes that draped over her full bosom except when she occasionally tossed the front panel across her chest for emphasis. She spoke with unmistakable authority, a kind of no-nonsense lyricism punctuated by frequent smiles below her bright brown eyes. There would be reforms again, she told the group. Without going into detail at this event, she assured everyone in the room that she had her own methodology, an executive staff of experts she had worked with for years, and little of it resembled the “corporatized” approach of her capable predecessor, God rest his soul. The transition would necessarily take more time than usual, she explained, because of the ongoing investigation. Which, she added, would not penalize the children.
“Come with me, dear,” she said to Sidarra through a warm smile when the meeting was over. “Please ride back with me.”
How she knew who Sidarra was was a small mystery. No one had even informed Sidarra that the event would take place, and she only found out through watercooler rumor. Sidarra fairly bubbled with excitement at the introduction and the chance to sit in the town car with one of her heroes.
When they were crossing the Brooklyn Bridge and the first pleasantries had already passed, Sidarra spoke up honestly. “Look, Dr. Blackwell, I’m not saying this to jockey for anything. That I want you to know. I’ve read so much about you. I’m truly honored for the city that we have you. You’ve done wonderful work, a real model for me personally. I know you’ll be making changes, and I may not fit into your plans. I just want you to know that I accept your judgment. I understand how these things work.”
“Thank you, Sidarra. Thanks for your kindness. I could use that now. This won’t be easy, you know.” They sat with their legs crossed, smiled in each other’s faces, and looked awkwardly out the window for a moment. “Of course, I could also use the names of a few decent restaurants nearby. Maybe you can help me out.”
“That’s the least I can do.”
“Terrific.”
SIDARRA MUST HAVE DONE QUITE A JOB on the restaurant list. Somehow it got her early entrée into the chancellor’s office, a huge rectangular room with windows on three sides that Sidarra had never actually been inside before. During the first week of Dr. Blackwell’s tenure, she was called there for at least two hours out of each day. Once she was surprised to see some of her own reports on Dr. Blackwell’s gigantic oak desk. She said nothing about it, and nothing was said to her. She took notes at meetings alongside Dr. Blackwell’s out-of-town staff and was often called upon to brief them on various aspects of Chancellor Eagleton’s standardized curricula. When Sidarra was finally asked to deliver her own assessment of Eagleton’s reforms, she let go without hesitation.
“You know that term they used to use about civilians killed by Central American governments?” she said to nods. “He simply ‘disappeared’ underachievers from the rolls.”
There was a brief silence. Dr. Blackwell sighed into her desk and looked up. “That’s what I thought,” she said calmly.
Sidarra was even present the day Dr. Blackwell interviewed some of the former chancellor’s top advisers. In walked Desiree Kronitz in a short, tight-fitting yellow suit that almost matched her hair. Desiree was all smiles. She spoke in rapid-fire breaths about what a huge fan she was of Dr. Blackwell’s work, as she said Sidarra could attest, especially her principled stand on vouchers. Dr. Blackwell could not finish her questions without Desiree interrupting to give the long answer she thought the new chancellor wanted to hear. Sidarra could see Dr. Blackwell growing impatient, and finally gave over the questioning to her deputy, a short Asian man named Stanley. Stanley asked Desiree a few more questions, and Desiree immediately turned her full attention on him. Sidarra saw her pull some of the subtle flirtatious charms she used on Clayborne Reed when she first arrived. But they didn’t last long. Stanley wrapped it up in a hurry.
“I’ve read her stuff,” Dr. Blackwell said a little indifferently after Desiree had left. “What do you think, Stanley?”
“I think she’s full of shit, Chancellor.” He didn’t even blink. “In Korean we would say that she lacks ‘home-training.’”
“No doubt,” the chancellor agreed. “We got that word too.”
27
IN NEW YORK CITY, the newspapers had been silent about the ongoing investigation into Jack Eagleton’s murder because it was stalled. That had given Griff time to retrace all the steps he personally knew about. What he found mostly encouraged him. The first dummy shell corporation they had formed offshore had long been dissolved, and foreign governments were slow to release the names of shareholders to any authority for fear of losing future business or getting indicted for money laundering. There were some smaller pots of money Yakoob had put together early on, especially on personal banking hits, and those accounts, now closed, could still have their names on them somehow. If the first shell stayed hidden, Griff was less worried about the second and third. He and Sidarra had created those together, and once they had learned the game a bit, two heads were better than one. The second shell had no name and no shareholders of record; in fact, it was completely illegal under securities laws. But Griff had seen Belinda move money into provisional holding companies that carried only an acronym for the first six months or until a dividend was distributed. Sidarra had suggested a way for the second to keep inventing itself so that the six months never ran out. As for the third and final shell, that one sat open waiting for Yakoob to deposit any newly liquidated gains, especially from the investments made with the Fidelity money. Beyond all that was the metaphysical problem that what lies in bytes of information never disappears entirely. The ultimate trick was to sever any link to Raul.
Whether by luck or skill, when schools chancellors are murdered, law enforcement has a funny way of getting its collective act together. Two things brought heat. Police forensic teams had pulled the chancellor’s mansion apart. When that failed to yield anything that seemed like evidence, they pulled the grounds outside apart. It had been a long time since Raul had enjoyed the Manhattan skyline from the Brooklyn promenade. There’d been a lot of wind, rain, and snow, not to mention the irregular workings of city cleanup crews. But somebody was eating substantial numbers of chocolate bars in and around the gated door behind the building. Nestlé Crunch in particular. It was far from a trail, but there was one wrapper wedged in a flower bed and another that appeared to match a one-inch-square piece of foil found on the wall of the old servants’ entrance where recyclables usually sat. The Brooklyn district attorney who had local jurisdiction of the case didn’t find any o
f this particularly interesting. Then somebody decided to go back and pull the initial dustings of the parlor area where Eagleton died. There, inside a long green velvet drape, remained the smallest trace of a Nestlé Crunch bar, probably left by a fingernail. Which meant there was also a partial fingerprint. And since few people had walked over the scene in a house whose servants were no longer needed and whose bereaved host was moving out, there was still one good unidentified footprint on the rug. And another just inside a basement doorway. Dr. Blackwell and her family would have to wait to move in.
The second piece meant all the stops were pulled. The Manhattan Tombs is no place to wait for trial unless you’re a water bug. Tyrell spent months awaiting his at Rikers Island, where nobody should go unless they’re prepared to be stone cold and fearless. Somebody was. The police, with the cooperation of the DEA, placed informants in several cell blocks. Some were cops who had to hope for a quick lead and get out; some were men going nowhere fast. Tyrell happened to get a cop. He was a white guy, burly, with those upturned sideburns cut real short above the ear that only cops and men from a certain part of the city wore regularly. Tyrell paid him and the other half-mad men in the unit little mind until his leg swelled back up. Not moving around as much as usual, having no place to prop it up or ice to bring it down, just made it worse. No amount of nice could get him the infirmary attention he needed. The guards figured it was a healthy shock of detox. So Tyrell winced and occasionally wailed and got beat up for his noise more than once.
“Whaddya need?” Sideburns asked him one especially bad night.
Tyrell looked hard at him, shaken out of his stupor by the strange sympathetic presence standing over him. He was not about to get stomped. The guy seemed to be serious.
The Importance of Being Dangerous Page 26