by Adams, Nancy
“Hi, Jack,” I said, grinning back, and he lit up. He was tall and lanky, stood a good foot over me, but he seemed to think I was cute. I wasn’t too sure how to deal with that, but I didn’t want to risk hurting his feelings, so I had decided to treat him the way I treated younger boys back home who got crushes on me, sort of the way I imagined treating a little brother if I’d had one.
Nathan looked at both of us, and I saw a hint of a smile. He said, “Miss Amber, Faith says you’ll be going with us today?”
“Um, yeah, if that’s alright? I don’t really know my way around, so going with you guys will help me get the feel of the area, maybe.”
Then he smiled widely. “Miss Amber, of course it’s alright. You need to remember, my dear, that since you are Mr. St. John’s agent, we basically work for you; if you choose to accompany us, you are always welcome.” I started to protest that I didn’t want them to think of me that way, but he winked. “And besides, my grandchildren all seem to think you’re one of them.” I relaxed. He gathered us up, then, and we all went out to the garage. He was going to take the limousine, but I suggested my van, since we were going to be buying some things. With the rear seat folded down, it offered plenty of cargo space and still left room for all of us to sit.
He agreed, and sat up front with me as I got behind the wheel. Faith and Jack got into the middle seats, and we were off. Following Nathan’s directions, I made a left turn out of the main entrance, and automatically reached over to turn on the stereo as I did so.
“—Workin’ nine to five, what a way to make a livin’ ...”
“What in the world is that?” Faith asked with big, wide eyes, and I laughed.
“That’s Dolly Parton,” I said. “That’s the song from her new movie. Haven’t you ever heard of Dolly Parton?”
She hadn’t, and at her request I changed to a rock station. “Fire and Ice” came on, and both she and Jack seemed to relax.
We cruised all the way to Inglewood, to a special Interior Design Showcase Store, and I nearly choked when I saw how high the prices were. I didn’t say anything, though; this was Nathan’s area of expertise, I supposed, because it certainly wasn’t mine! And I can’t say the items didn’t have some fabulous appeal—it was just that I wasn’t sure how to justify the expense to Horace!
The salesperson, a beautiful woman named Greta, was happy to show us around, and I learned quickly that the wealthy tended to buy things not so much for the value as for the prestige. She pointed out lamps with comments like, “Goldie Hawn bought a matched pair of these just a week ago,” and showed us a set of sheets and comforters by mentioning that she’d sold an identical set to Bo Derek just that morning.
Oh, well—if that’s how it worked, then far be it from me to complain. I let Nathan choose the things he was looking for while I browsed, trying to convince myself that it was okay to want the set of bedding that cost over five hundred dollars, or the armoire that would set me back more than I’d spent for my van. In the end, I let temptation get to me and bought them, and a few other things as well, but I was chewing my nails when we left the store. If Horace was displeased, I wondered, what would he do? It hadn’t entirely escaped me that I was sort of living at his pleasure; I didn’t want to do anything to end up on his bad side!
We went from Inglewood to Hollywood, where we looked at some other items at a place called “Space Scapes.” Nathan bought some furniture there, including a sort of chaise longue thing that he said Horace had asked for specifically. It wouldn’t fit in the van, but that was no problem; it would be delivered the next day.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Amber
By then it was getting close to two in the afternoon, and we were off to a restaurant called “The Two Oaks.” We parked and locked up the van, then I followed Nathan and his grandkids inside.
I’ve mentioned that I had not had a lot of experience with colored folks; well, I was in the place only a few seconds when it dawned on me that I was the only white person present, and I confess to feeling a touch of panic. All my life, growing up in Corlin, I’d heard my schoolmates tell horror stories about what “coloreds” would do to you if they caught you, and while I liked Nathan and his family, and felt even closer to Faith, I hadn’t known them long, either. I swallowed and tried not to let my prejudices show, but the way some of the patrons looked at me, I’m sure they could tell I was at least uncomfortable.
We went to a table, and a large black man dressed in a tuxedo came to seat us. He wasn’t much older than Faith, I thought, but he knew Nathan and welcomed him by name.
“Mr. Granger,” he said, “So good to see you again! And if I recall correctly, these are your lovely grandchildren?” His eyes were focused on Faith and Jack, but I had seen them wash over me once before they settled.
“Thank you, Charleston,” Nathan said. “Yes, this is my granddaughter Faith, and my grandson Jack, and this lovely young lady with us is Miss Amber, an associate of our employer. She is also a dear friend, and we regard her as part of our family. She lives in the manor house, too.”
Charleston beamed at me, then, and personally held out my chair for me to sit. “If she is a part of your family, Mr. Granger, then she is family here as well! Welcome to you, Miss Amber, welcome!"
“Th—thank you,” I stammered, and he only smiled wider. He leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Honey, don’t let this fancy coat-and-tails fool you none; inside, I’m still the same nigga brat old Nathan had to whip ass on many a time when I worked for him in that big house y’all live in!"
I’m glad I wasn’t taking a drink right then, because I’m sure I would have choked! I’d never heard anyone use that word the way he had, and my eyes were huge! Nathan laughed and whispered into my other ear, “Yes, and if he was being completely honest, he’d tell you that his real name is Lyman, not Charleston! Our boy here’s a phony, but he does know how to cook!"
Charleston/Lyman smiled and nodded. “Anybody had Miz Angel for a teacher better damn well know how to cook!” He laughed, and passed out menus to us all, then retreated to a place near the door. I looked at Faith. “So, um—what’s good here?”
“Everything,” she answered, and smiled at me.
Jack, who was sitting across from me, waggled a finger to get my attention, and I looked at him.
“Try the lobster, Amber,” he said, then looked down at his hands, shyly; it was the first time he’d called me anything but “Miss Amber“.
I’d had lobster a couple of times, on high school trips. My dad didn’t care for it, and in our house that meant it wouldn’t end up on the table, but I’d found it quite good. I nodded, and said that sounded fine, and got a big smile from my young admirer.
A waiter came to the table a few seconds later. He brought glasses of water and took our orders, then vanished again.
“Jack,” I said, and he jumped in surprise. “I meant to ask you—that beautiful song you sang last night? When did you write that?”
Did you know that black people can blush? I didn’t, but I saw it happen then. Poor Jack turned a deep purple, and Nathan almost lost his composure enough to laugh out loud, but he bit it off.
“Um, I—I just made it up the other night,” Jack said, and suddenly found his water glass to be fascinating.
“Yeah,” said Faith, “he did, about a half hour after he met you!” She gave him a look that suggested that he should have said that himself, and he blushed again.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to encourage him, but I didn’t want to hurt him, either. I smiled as I frantically thought about what I could say.
“Oh, Jack,” I managed, “that’s so sweet! But surely there’s a girl in your class you like, one who’d love to think that song was written for her, isn’t there?”
I must have hit on the right thing to say, because he smiled a bit more. “I dunno ‘bout that,” he said. “But there’s this one girl was in my English class this last year, LaVonne? She’s beautiful! I’d sing
it for her, if I got the chance.” He looked down at the table, and I got the feeling he’d accepted my attempt to redirect his attentions.
“Mmm, I know her,” Faith said. “Me and her sister Katrina was friends when I was in school, she’s a little fox! You oughta go after that, Jack!"
The banter went on in the same vein as we waited for our meals, and when they arrived, we all set to eating with relish. I took one bite of my lobster, and almost had to run out the door, but fortunately, I managed to stifle the scream of pure delight that wanted to erupt from me. Oh, my goodness! It was delicious. It was fantastic—okay, it wasn’t Nathan’s barbecue, but it was probably the next best thing.
We ate slowly; food like that should never be rushed. We enjoyed every morsel, and so it was nearly three-thirty when we finally got ready to leave.
Three-thirty in early June wasn’t dark, it wasn’t even considered late in the day, but as we left the restaurant it seemed to me that there was something that was draining the light from the sky. I don’t know if it was some sort of premonition, or if I just think I remember it that way, but it’s what I think of when I let that next few minutes cross my mind. It was like something evil was flying overhead, and its wings were big enough to block some of the sun’s rays from the earth. I could almost feel it, like it was looking down at me and gloating because of what was about to happen.
We made it to the parking lot, and I went to open the driver’s door of the van. That’s the only reason I didn’t catch on sooner, and I’ve wondered a thousand times if things would have been different if I had realized what was happening just a few seconds earlier. I’ll never know—and nothing could have prevented some of the disasters that followed—but I still wish.
“Hey, Bitch!” I heard, and I looked around to see if someone was talking to me. No one was close to me, though, so I glanced through the windows of the van, and saw Nathan tensed. He looked like he was ready to fight, and I couldn’t imagine what would make him look that way, until I heard Faith’s voice.
“Jordan, what you want?” she asked, and then I saw the guy she was talking to: Martin’s father!
He wasn’t alone, either; there were four others with him, just like before, and they were standing in a half-circle around my friends.
I started to go around the van, and all hell broke loose.
Jordan said, “I just wanted another look at my favorite ho, Bitch,” and Jack stepped forward.
“Get away from my sister, you asshole,” he said, and I remember thinking how courageous he was, to stand up to such punks again. I was just stepping away from my door, about to start around the front of the van, and I couldn’t see clearly through the windshield and side glass, but I saw enough to know that Jack went even further. He raised his fist, and as I took another step, he swung at Jordan.
Nathan yelled, “NO!” and Faith screamed, and Jack made a sound like whuff, and then he fell.
Jordan said, “Shit! Stupid muthafucka!” and I saw Nathan drop to his knees as Jordan and his friends ran away.
Three more steps took me around the van, and I looked down on a scene more horrible to me than any of my own victims could ever be. Nathan was holding Jack’s head in his lap. Faith was pressing on Jack’s chest, just under his breastbone, and blood was spraying all over the place through her fingers. Jack’s eyes were open, and his mouth was moving, but all that was coming out of it was spatters of blood, and I knew that he was dying.
There was a knife lying on the ground beside Jack, and it was covered in his blood. As I saw it, I knew what had happened; Jack had leapt to his sister’s defense, and Jordan had reacted like one of the street punks I’d only seen in movies, and hadn’t ever really believed in before that moment. He’d pulled a knife, and stabbed Jack, stabbed that sweet young man, no, that sweet boy who’d had a short-lived crush on a girl he barely knew, who’d written her a song that would never be sung again; stabbed him just because he had the courage to be more of a man than Jordan would ever even understand.
I stopped thinking, then. I reacted, instead. My eyes went narrow, and I’m sure my face was devoid of anything but hate. The keys to the van dropped from my hand, and my purse fell beside them, as I looked in the direction I’d seen Jordan and the others run. They were across the street, and climbing into a car, a big old Cadillac with a weird paint job and big white sidewalls on the tires, and suddenly I was moving, I was running, and I saw Jordan start the car and throw it into gear. He roared forward, and screeched tires around the comer of a building. One of his friends, screaming for Jordan and the others to wait for him, was running after them on foot, and I followed him around the building.
I caught him and slammed him against a wall, then snatched him up by his face without a thought and held it to mine, not even caring about what anyone might see. The strength of my grip shocked him, and he tried to break free, hitting me, kicking me, but I drew him close.
“Where is he going?” I asked, and I was surprised at the calmness in my voice. “Jordan—where will I find him?”
The guy kicked me again but didn’t answer, and I sneered at him. I reached out and caught his right hand in my own, brought it up to my mouth, and smiled at him. “Last chance,” I said. “Where is he going?”
He made a mistake, then; he said, “Yo, fuck you, Bitch!” I looked into his eyes for a moment, and then I put his index finger into my mouth, sucked it in all the way to the knuckle and bit it off.
He screamed, and stared at me in shock as I chewed it up, the bones crunching between my teeth. When I’d swallowed it, I smiled at him again.
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll just go ahead and finish what I started with your finger. If you lie to me, I’ll come back and find you and finish it. You want that?” He shook his head frantically from side to side, not trusting his mouth to speak. “Then tell me—where is he going?”
This guy screwed up his face, and then he blurted out, “I don’t know—maybe he go home, he live on South Ventura at Thirty-three Street, but he got a new bitch live on Sacramento, in Gardena, by Sacramento and Morgan, he prob’ly goin’ there...”
I was almost amazed that he’d answered, but I didn’t let it slow me down. My memory called up the regional map I’d seen days before, and I zeroed in on Sacramento Boulevard in Gardena; it wouldn’t be hard to find.
I smiled at the man in my grasp. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“I—I be Pogo,” he said, and I could see he was terrified.
“Well, Pogo—here’s some good advice—don’t ever make me mad again. Do you understand? Now, go get someone to wrap up that hand, and if anyone asks, you got your finger torn off by sticking it into a car engine! Okay?”
He was nodding his head so hard I was afraid it was going to come off. I dropped him, and he was up and running, holding his right hand in his left, before I glanced over my shoulder at Nathan and Faith, who were still stunned and focused on Jack. I decided I had been right a few days before, when I wondered if Martin’s daddy deserved me.
Because he certainly did.
Chapter Thirty
Amber
I walked back to where Nathan and Faith were weeping over Jack’s body, and knelt down with them just as the sirens began to wail toward us. Someone inside the restaurant had called for help, and the police arrived a moment later, but before they got there I realized that no one had seen anything of my talk with Pogo, and I was relieved. I didn’t want to have to explain.
They knew he was gone, of course, and Faith suddenly turned and looked up at me, her eyes brimming over with tears that ran down her face and steady streams. She shook her head and tried to speak, but no words would come out. I didn’t know what to say, what to do, but then she turned and reached for me and I simply put my arms around her and we went together.
Of course, there was no question of what had happened, or who had done it. Faith explained to the police that Jordan was the father of her baby.
They seemed to know who he was, and his cronies, too. They talked to all of us, and the streak of Pogo’s blood on my dress was mingled with Jack’s blood all over me from holding Faith, and that saved me trying to come up with answers I didn’t have.
We were all questioned for more than three hours, and so it was nearing seven o’clock by the time we were free to go. I had been getting steadily grouchier, which the cops put down to a grief reaction, but I knew the real problem: I was still hungry after coming up short on dinner the night before, and I needed to get away so I could go and feed. The only question was how I could accomplish it, after this.
Nathan had called Albert from the restaurant’s phone, and most of the Granger family was there by the time we were released. Nathan rode with his son, but Faith climbed into the van with me and we rode home in silence. When I parked it in the garage, we just sat there for a few minutes, and stared through the windshield together. Faith wiped a tear from her eye.
“He was a pain in the ass, sometimes, you know?” Faith said. “But out of all my brothers and sisters, I loved that little shit the most.” Tears were slowly making tracks on her face, and I only nodded.
“I barely knew him,” I said, “but he was so sweet—I wish I’d known him better.”
Faith didn’t say anything, but a moment later she reached over and touched my arm. “I see you tomorrow,” she whispered, and then she got out and walked out of the garage toward her building and her baby.
I went into the house, just in case anyone was watching, and rushed into the bathroom. I’d been holding in the need to get rid of lunch for the past hour, and it didn’t take long to finish. I jumped into the shower, then, and when I got out I dressed in dark pants and a long-sleeved black tee. I added a pair of black sneakers and then listened closely, but no one was inside the house. The sun was barely above the horizon, so the vampires would be rising within a few minutes, and I wanted to tell them what had happened before I went to hunt.