Pipe Dream

by Solomon Jones

“What’d you give her?” the cameraman asked her.

  Deveraux didn’t answer.

  “Hi,” she said to Eldridge Scott, turning on the charm as the man answered the telephone. “I’m calling from Homicide, Mr. Scott. We need to ask you a few more questions concerning last night’s incident at Miss Williams’s house.”

  Deveraux listened intently as the neighbor asked her if the police had found Clarisse.

  “No, we haven’t, Mr. Scott. That’s why we want to ask you a few more questions. Perhaps you can help us determine where she might be.”

  Eldridge hesitated slightly, then asked her why he couldn’t just talk to the officers who were posted outside Clarisse’s house.

  Deveraux thought frantically. She should have known that there were police posted outside because they would want to protect whatever evidence was in the house. But that presented another problem: how to get past them to talk to Eldridge Scott.

  “Well,” she said, stalling and hoping that what she was about to say would sound authentic. “They’re not handling the case, Mr. Scott. They’re just there to keep the property secure until we can get back there with a search warrant.”

  As Deveraux bit her bottom lip, hoping that Scott wouldn’t detect that she was a phony, the old man said something that caused her mouth to drop completely open. He asked why they needed a search warrant when they’d already searched Clarisse’s house the night before.

  “Are you sure about that, Mr. Scott?” she asked, trying not to sound excited.

  He said that he and his wife had watched the officers break into the house almost immediately after they got there.

  “Okay,” she said, pausing in a way that she thought would let him know how serious her next question was. “I want you to think about this, Mr. Scott, because we need to double-check this. Was Miss Williams, or anybody else, there when the officers searched her home?”

  Scott, sounding suspicious, told her that she should already know the answer to that.

  “We’re just double-checking the information that was given to us by the officers on the scene,” Deveraux said quickly.

  Scott ignored her explanation and asked why she was calling instead of Lieutenant Ramirez.

  “Well, Mr. Scott,” she said, trying to come up with a commonsense answer. “Almost the entire Homicide Unit is working on this case, including myself. My job, to put it simply, is to check behind the other officers.”

  Scott didn’t say anything.

  “Are you there, Mr. Scott?”

  When he said yes, she went into her pitch.

  “I want you to listen very carefully, Mr. Scott, because this is extremely important. We’re going to need you to answer a few questions about what you saw last night. So what I want you to do is to come down to the Roundhouse as soon as possible. Do you know where it is?”

  Eldridge said there wasn’t a black man in Philadelphia who didn’t know the location of the Roundhouse.

  Deveraux smiled. She was beginning to appreciate the old man’s wit.

  “I’ll meet you in the parking lot,” she said. “And we’ll go up to my office from there.”

  Eldridge said he didn’t own a car.

  “Catch a cab, Mr. Scott. We’ll pay for it. And do me a favor. Don’t discuss this with anyone until you talk to me. My name is Officer Deveraux, and I’ll be here in the parking lot in one of our undercover vehicles. It’s a black GMC Jimmy truck.”

  Eldridge said he’d have to wait for his wife to get dressed, but that he’d be there as soon as possible. He made sure to add that he was only cooperating because he thought it might help Clarisse.

  “Oh, any additional information you can give to us will definitely help Clarisse, Mr. Scott,” Deveraux said. “It’ll be of invaluable assistance to her.”

  Deveraux disconnected the call, smiling ear to ear.

  “What’re you cheesing about?” her cameraman said.

  “The police broke into Clarisse Williams’s house and searched it without a warrant.”

  “That’s an illegal search.”

  “I know,” Deveraux said. “Now all we have to do is get this guy and his wife to say they saw them do it.”

  “What are you gonna do when they get down here and see that you’re not a cop?” the cameraman said.

  “You’re going to point the camera at them, I’m going to identify myself as a reporter, and then I’m going to ask them to name the officers they saw go into Clarisse Williams’s house to conduct the search,” she said.

  Deveraux looked over at Sergeant Harris, who stood by the door of the Roundhouse reading yet another meaningless statement to an unenthusiastic media corps.

  “Then we’ll get the little spokesperson to comment,” she said. “At least that’ll give her something to think about other than those bullshit statements she’s been reading all morning.”

  With a self-satisfied smirk, Deveraux walked over to their news truck to wait for the Scotts to arrive.

  As she did so, Lieutenant Darren Morgan left his office window, where he had watched Deveraux hand the envelope to the woman from Reports Control. He sat down at his desk and beeped Sheldon. When he called back, Morgan told him about the reporter.

  “I just saw one of the girls from Reports Control talking to Jeanette Deveraux,” Morgan said, talking quickly. “Deveraux handed the girl an envelope and the girl handed her something back. I’m not sure what it was. But Deveraux made a call and now she’s down in the parking lot waiting for somebody.”

  “Is she alone?”

  “No, she’s got a cameraman with her.”

  A bead of sweat made its way from Sheldon’s hairline to the corner of his mouth, and the questions that floated on the edge of his consciousness began to filter into his mind: What if the envelope contained a document that could bring their entire operation crashing to the ground? What if Deveraux was cooperating with a politician who was going to turn state’s evidence against them?

  Sheldon closed his eyes and tried to force the ugly images from his mind. When his thoughts slowed to a normal pace, he managed to ask a question. “Has she done anything unusual?”

  Morgan got up from his desk, walked over to the window, and watched as Deveraux sat in her truck with the cameraman. She hadn’t moved from that spot since she’d talked to the woman from Reports Control.

  “She’s the only reporter who isn’t talking to the sergeant from Community Relations,” Morgan said, walking back to his desk. “I’m guessing she knows something the rest of them don’t.”

  Sheldon ran his hands through his hair. “Look. I don’t know what Deveraux knows, but whatever it is, we can’t afford to have it become public knowledge. We want a nice, smooth little investigation and quick arrests in this thing, and I think we both know that isn’t going to happen if Deveraux gets any inside information. So I want you to handle it.”

  “Okay,” Morgan said, trying to rush off the phone before Sheldon asked any more questions. “I’ll handle it.”

  “Before you go, what happened with the guy at the hospital?”

  Morgan hesitated. He didn’t know if it was the right time to talk to Sheldon about Moore. And truthfully, he didn’t know if it would ever be the right time. Because what he’d heard on the tape was gnawing at him. And the more he talked with Sheldon, the more he became convinced that his feeling about the tape was right.

  “Morgan, you there?”

  “Yeah, I was just . . . Look, I ran into something at the hospital. There was a reporter named Henry Moore. He had a tape of a detective interrogating the Thomas guy.”

  “So what did you do?” Sheldon said, hoping that Morgan hadn’t gone too far.

  “I killed him.”

  “You did what?” Sheldon said, looking around the Command Center self-consciously when he realized how loudly he was speaking.

  “Look,” Morgan said. “It had to be done. He was going to publish a story with Darnell Thomas saying the shooter was a white man.”

 
; “Yeah, but . . .” Sheldon stopped in his tracks and hoped that he was hearing Morgan wrong. “What did you say?”

  “Darnell Thomas told Detective Hillman that the shooter was a tall white man with blond hair and blue eyes, wearing a white shirt, black pants, and a gold link bracelet. Somehow, Moore got a tape of the interrogation. And to make a long story short, he was going to write a story saying that we’re pursuing the wrong suspects for the Podres shooting.”

  Sheldon tried to speak, but his voice would no longer come out of his mouth. Instead, it streamed from his pores in a cold sweat, screaming out like it was awakening from Sheldon’s worst nightmare. It shook in his hands, trembling against the cold truth. Sheldon was afraid. So he did what he hoped was the right thing. He tried to make light of Butter’s accusation.

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, his uncertain voice trembling along with his hands. “A white man in a crack house killing Podres is a real stretch. Even if Moore did write the story, nobody would’ve believed it. That’s why I don’t understand why you had to kill him.”

  “Look,” Morgan said. “I took his wallet and his watch and everything. I even dropped a couple of empty caps in the car. They’ll call it a robbery, blame it on a piper, and go on to the next case.”

  “You’re right. Maybe they will blame a piper. Or maybe they’ll start wondering why the only reporter to get close to the only suspect we have in custody is suddenly dead. That was sloppy, Morgan. And it was stupid.”

  Morgan had taken all that he could from Sheldon. And he was growing tired of the charade. So he just came out and said it. “It wasn’t as stupid as killing Podres.”

  Before the words had even left Morgan’s mouth, the tremors in Sheldon’s hands became violent shudders. The cold sweat ran hot over his skin. Then the heat and the trembling converged in a blanket of fear that smothered him and took his breath away.

  “Are you there?” Morgan said. “Hello?”

  “I’m here,” Sheldon said, squeezing his words between short, panting breaths. “I just dropped the phone.”

  “I see,” Morgan said, picturing Sheldon sweating on the other end. “You know, it’s funny how descriptions make us think of the people we know. I mean, a tall white man with blond hair and blue eyes could be anybody. But when you throw in the white shirt, that could be a captain’s uniform shirt. Black pants could be part of the uniform, too. And even though I’ve never seen you in a gold link bracelet, who knows what you’ve got in your little jewelry box.”

  Sheldon was starting to hyperventilate. With each word Morgan spoke, his head felt as if it were growing heavier. He just knew that if Morgan said one more word, his head was going to explode.

  “Look, Irv, I just wish you would’ve told me what you were going to do before you went out and killed Podres.”

  “No, you look. I don’t care what some crack head on his deathbed told Hillman. Leroy and Black killed Podres. Not a white man. And especially not a white man who looks like me. Now, if you meant that they were stupid to kill him, you’re right. They were. And Darnell Thomas was stupid to be a part of it. So now he’s making up some phony description that could be anybody. But it’s not going to work, is it, Morgan? Because Darnell Thomas, and Leroy, and Black are going to have to pay the consequences for their actions, right? They’re going to have to pay.”

  In that moment, everything that they’d done in the last few years seemed to flash in front of Morgan. All the shakedowns, all the schemes, all the bribes. All of it ran across the screen that was his mind and he knew that it was over. And now it was just a matter of cleaning up the loose ends.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he finally said. “They do have to pay the consequences for their actions. We all do.”

  Sheldon didn’t respond. But he knew what Morgan meant. It was over. They would both have to try to get out while they could. It was every man for himself now. But neither of them could say it. And so they continued their conversation as if things could remain the same after that, knowing deep inside that things would never be the same again.

  As he put the phone back in its cradle, Irv Sheldon did the only thing he could do. He took off the heavy gold link bracelet and slipped it into his pocket, along with the rest of his memories of the late Johnny Podres.

  He didn’t think he’d have to worry about Hillman doing anything with the description. He would do what he was told, just like he’d always done. But Jeanette Deveraux was a different story. Sheldon wondered how much she really knew. And he wondered if she had shared that knowledge with whomever she had called from the parking lot of police headquarters.

  Mildred Scott woke to the sound of her husband holding a stilted telephone conversation with someone he obviously didn’t feel very comfortable talking to. After he hung up, she turned to him, hoping that he had received some good news about Clarisse.

  “Who was that on the phone, Eldridge?” she said, her voice laced with worry.

  “Some woman talkin’ ’bout she from Homicide.”

  “They ain’t ask you enough questions last night?”

  “That’s the same thing I was thinkin’,” Eldridge said. “All them questions they asked me last night and then somebody gon’ call with some more? Make it so bad, the woman ain’t even sound right.”

  “What you mean she ain’t sound right?” Mildred said. “How she supposed to sound?”

  “She supposed to at least know what she talkin’ about,” Eldridge said. “And she didn’t. Now, I don’t know if she think I’m stupid ’cause I’m old or ’cause I’m black or whatever. But seem to me like the woman was just tryin’ to get me to tell her about what happened over there last night.”

  “What she ask you?”

  “A whole bunch o’ questions about whether the police went in Clarisse house, and was anybody home when they went in there, and what cops went in there, and all kind o’ foolishness.

  “Then she had the nerve to say, ‘Get in a cab and meet me in the parkin’ lot down the Roundhouse, and don’t discuss this with anybody till you talk to me.’ ”

  “What?” Mildred said in disbelief.

  “Yeah, like I’m supposed to believe that nonsense,” Eldridge said. “I must either sound like the biggest fool Jesus ever died for, or she is the biggest fool. ’Cause ain’t no way in the world I’m gon’ meet somebody in the parkin’ lot o’ the Roundhouse talkin’ about they a cop when I know they ain’t.”

  “What was the woman’s name?” Mildred asked.

  “She said her name was Deveraux.”

  Mildred paused for a moment.

  “It’s a woman on the news named Deveraux-somethin’-or-other,” she said thoughtfully.

  “You think that’s who it was?” Eldridge said.

  “I don’t know. But you need to call that detective that was here last night and ask him if somebody named Deveraux works with them. If he say it’s all right, I don’t see no harm in goin’ down there and talkin’ to her.”

  “That woman wasn’t bit more the police than the man in the moon,” Eldridge said.

  “Well, it won’t hurt to check, will it, Eldridge?”

  The way she said his name—in that singsong way that always tended to calm him—made Eldridge think of Clarisse. She was so sweet once; a little girl whose big, sparkling eyes could melt away the most sour disposition.

  But now she was gone. She had probably been gone for a long time. It was just hard to tell because she was there physically. There was no hiding it now, though. Whatever lifestyle Clarisse was trying to shield in darkness had come roaring into the light. And as Eldridge Scott dialed Ramirez, hoping that the detective could tell him something about the sweet little girl he once knew, he couldn’t help wondering how it all started, and how it was going to end.

  Chapter 14

  Clarisse sat on the bed and thought of how similar Pookie’s story was to her own. The way she had started off in control of everything in her life, and the way sh
e had watched it all unravel until her life was as thin as the clouds of white smoke that had ruined it all. The way she had put all her faith in men, and then in crack, and then in nothing, until all that remained of her spirit was a shadow of what had once been a tower of strength.

  She thought about how Pookie was exactly like her. And then she looked at what Pookie had become. She dared not ask herself how long it would take her to end up the same way. Just thinking about it was frightening.

  She was trying to avoid that thought when she felt the bed start to shake, as if something were trying to wriggle out from beneath the covers. The motion tore her from her private thoughts and when she looked around, she realized that what she felt was Pookie, still sitting next to her, wrapped in an eerie silence. She was trembling.

  Hesitantly, Clarisse wrapped her arm around Pookie and began to rock her back and forth. And with that small gesture, the two of them seemed to become friends. No, they seemed to become sisters.

  Black watched them, and the resemblance between them was striking. It was more than their outward appearance. The similarity burrowed down into their very souls—to that place inside where spirits are born.

  That’s when it came to him. He knew how they were going to get out of there. It was risky, but then so was staying there, waiting like sitting ducks for the police to burst into the room and kill them all. Of course, their capture probably wouldn’t be half as dramatic as all that. Black figured that the only one who could’ve gotten a good look at any of them was the desk clerk. And odds were, he had finished his shift, gone home to sleep, and wouldn’t wake up until well into the afternoon. By the time he realized that he had checked the most-wanted people in Philadelphia into the hotel, they’d be long gone.

  “Pookie,” Black said. “I need you to do somethin’ for me.”

  Pookie ignored him and snuggled closer to Clarisse.

  “Patricia,” he said. “Or whatever your name is.”

  “You ain’t been callin’ me Patricia, so don’t start now,” Pookie said without looking up.

  “Oh, but it’s all right for Clarisse to call you Patricia?” he said, his voice laced with irritation.