by Tim O'Mara
‘Not until the blood test comes back, at least.’ From the noise in the background, I figured Allison was at a restaurant of some kind. I heard dishes and silverware clanging and lots of voices. ‘Your guy show up yet?’
‘No. I got here early to make sure I didn’t miss him.’
‘Thanks for calling,’ I said and almost forgot why I wanted to call her. ‘Can you check with your sources and see if the name David Henderson rings a bell. I think he’s some kind of cop.’
‘That the guy you met with Edgar?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why don’t you have Edgar … Oh, because he’ll use his search engines and go down the rabbit hole?’
‘Something like that.’
‘And asking your uncle is out of the question,’ she said. ‘OK, I’ll see what I can dig up, if anything.’
‘You’re still going to be home late?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. Sorry. I’ll see ya at home.’
‘You still not going to tell me who you’re meeting with?’
‘Not now, Ray. But I promise you’ll find out soon enough.’
With that, she ended the call. I went back inside, where Edgar was still watching the game. He had his laptop open, looking at stats. ‘How’s Allison?’
‘Busy.’ He didn’t need to know what we had spoken about. All that could wait. Right now was time for baseball and beer.
SIX
MoJo and his wife lived on the second floor of a two-story house not too far from school. This was one of those rare blocks in Williamsburg facing little to no risk of ever becoming hip. This street was filled with old-world Italian families who’d lived here for years. The women had parties where they made their own pasta sauce in their garages; a few of the homes had grape vines growing over their fences for winemaking; no house was more than three storys tall, and that’s the way the folks on the block had liked it for the past hundred or so years.
Edgar, who was wearing his ever-present brown leather laptop bag over his shoulder, explained to me that the house MoJo had lived in had an apartment in the basement, a floor-through apartment on the first floor with backyard access – the ‘Garden Apartment’ in Brooklyn real estate circles – and two double bedrooms on the second. One of those was now a single-occupant residence, as MoJo’s wife was now MoJo’s widow.
And Lisa Joseph was a very pregnant widow. She was a beautiful African-American woman whose face reminded me of that TV actress who played a Washington, D.C., lawyer or journalist who apparently slept with the President of the United States when not practicing law or journalism. I’d seen the subway and bus ads, not the show.
‘Come in,’ she said, and Edgar and I squeezed past her belly into the apartment. ‘It’s not very clean, but …’ Her voice trailed off as she shut the door.
I followed Edgar through the small kitchen into the living room. He took his bag off and sat down on the couch without being asked. I guessed he had been here before. I remained standing until Lisa said, ‘Please, Raymond. Sit.’ I did. ‘Thank you both for coming. It was nice of you to send flowers, Edgar.’
She gestured to the bouquet that sat on the coffee table. For the second time in two days, I felt outclassed by Edgar. First the suit yesterday, now flowers.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Lisa asked. ‘Iced tea, water?’
‘No, thank you,’ Edgar and I said at the same time. Edgar added, ‘You’re welcome for the flowers.’ He ran his hands gently over the bag on his lap.
‘How are you doing, Lisa?’ I asked, because that’s what people ask after other people lose a loved one.
She gave that some thought as she slid down into a big chair in the corner of the room. ‘I don’t know, Ray.’ She placed her right hand on her stomach and gently tapped it. ‘This little guy’s been kicking up a storm and I hadn’t been sleeping much anyway, so …’ She took a deep breath. ‘I got my sister and my mama coming up tonight. It took them a while to get coverage for the kids down there. Good to have cousins.’
‘South Carolina,’ Edgar told me. ‘Are they still driving up?’ he asked Lisa.
‘They started out before sunrise. My sis just called me from Virginia. They won’t get here much before midnight.’
‘You shoulda let me fly them up, Lisa. MoJo would have insisted.’
‘Edgar, you don’t know my mama. She won’t accept anything that comes close to smelling like a handout. Now my sister … she’da come first class if she could have. Bad enough she’s gonna have to sleep on the fold-out in the baby’s room.’
I smiled, thinking back to the time I’d flown with my mother out to California for a cousin’s wedding and we got bumped up to first class. There were more buttons on the TV in front of her seat than she knew what to do with. But, as always, when it came to my mother, the food made up for it.
‘I never thought to ask,’ I said. ‘What are the funeral arrangements?’
‘There are none,’ Lisa said. ‘Not really. MoJo and I spoke about stuff like this. Neither one of us is … was religious. The whole church service and viewing and funeral mass, we just didn’t want that.’
‘But your mother and sister are coming up?’
‘There will be a small memorial Monday night, down by the river and then at a bar afterwards. Maurice and I liked it down there. My mother and sister are not happy I’m not doing the whole “He’s-With-God-Now” thing. But they’re still coming, so …’
‘Is there anything we can help you with before they get here?’ I asked. ‘You need anything moved or cleaned or anything? Any food shopping?’
Lisa shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I’ll clean a bit later. I can’t be sitting around all day. I have some groceries being delivered in a few hours. And look around, Ray. We don’t have too much in terms of furniture that needs to be moved. Except for the baby’s room.’ She drifted off for a few seconds. ‘Everything else around here is done in MoJo’s style; he always said he wanted to be able to move out in less than six hours, if needed.’
I knew that was her polite way of saying that ex-drug users like MoJo aren’t used to having too much stuff as they were often forced to move because they didn’t have enough money to make the rent. MoJo once told me that the six months he’d been in this apartment with Lisa was the longest he’d lived in one place since he turned twenty, almost ten years ago.
Edgar leaned forward. ‘You said you had some stuff for me?’
‘Oh, yeah. I meant to bring that in here.’ She patted her belly again. ‘Would you mind, Edgar? I put it all in an envelope with your name on it. I wasn’t sure if any of it was important. It’s in our bedroom on Maurice’s desk by his laptop.’
Edgar stood. ‘I got it.’ Then he paused. ‘OK to go in there?’
‘Yes, Edgar,’ Lisa said. ‘It’s OK.’
He looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s just that … you know … it’s your bedroom …’
‘Thank you, Edgar. But it’s fine.’
He went to the door to our right and opened it. After waiting five seconds, he entered and Lisa and I exchanged slightly amused looks. ‘He can be very respectful at times,’ I explained. ‘Sometimes overly so.’
She nodded. ‘So I’ve noticed. We’ve had him over a few times. He’s been really … I don’t know … cute about the baby coming. He’s acting like he’s going to be an uncle, you know. It’s kinda sweet. Now with …’ She started to tear up. I was surprised it had taken this long. ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Raymond.’ Her hand made circles around her stomach. ‘This was all we wanted, Maurice and me.’ She took a couple of breaths and then the tearing up turned into full-blown weeping.
I had spotted a box of tissues in the kitchen on the way in and went there now. When I came back into the living room, Edgar was standing by the bedroom door holding a large manila envelope with his name on it. I gave some tissues to Lisa as Edgar said, ‘What happened?’
‘I’ll explain later, Edgar,’ I said.
‘Did I do something? Should I have n
ot gone into the bedroom?’
‘Nobody did anything, Edgar. We’ll talk about it later.’
‘I’m just tired is all, Edgar,’ Lisa said. ‘What I really need to do is try and take a nap before I tidy this place up and the food comes.’ She adjusted the pillow behind her; she was going to take a nap right where she was. ‘You mind seeing yourselves out? I’m finally comfortable in the longest damn time and I don’t wanna move.’
‘You sure you don’t need us to do anything?’
‘Thanks, Ray, but I’m good.’ She shut her eyes. ‘I just gotta sleep.’
‘OK,’ Edgar said. ‘Bye. And thanks for the envelope.’
‘You have Edgar’s number, right?’ I asked.
She mumbled something that sounded positive.
‘Then call if you need anything.’
Another mumble and I motioned with my head for Edgar to start heading toward the door. He put the envelope in his bag. I followed him and made sure the door was locked. Neither one of us said a word until we were half a block from the apartment.
‘I don’t know if it gets tougher than that,’ I said. ‘Maybe losing a child, but …’
‘MoJo had it all coming together,’ Edgar said. ‘All he could talk about was the baby and finishing up his community service so he could work full time at the company. He was even gonna do weekends until …’ He stopped walking. ‘Ah, Jeez. It’s just me now, Ray. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do. I only started the company because I had MoJo. What am I going to do now?’
This was another characteristic of Edgar: when faced with anything along the lines of tragedy, he resorted to something that resembled selfishness. He often found the best way to deal with the world when it was raining shit was to withdraw into himself. Not that his concerns about the business were unfounded, more that he was basically not equipped to deal with mourning too long for his friend. I’ve learned at times like these, to keep him as much in the present as I could.
‘Right now?’ I said. ‘Let’s go do some lunch. You choose.’
Knowing what he’d choose, there was no surprise when he said, ‘The LineUp.’
‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘Feels like it’s been hours since we’ve been there.’
Another good idea was we decided to walk. Since the weather was starting to act more like April, it allowed us to clear our heads, and the exercise made me feel I had earned the beer that had just been placed in front of me. I raised my glass to Edgar. ‘Here’s to life.’ Edgar’s pint remained on the bar. Being half-Irish, he should have known that was bad luck. ‘I think MoJo would like the idea that we were toasting his new baby.’
Edgar gave me a brief smile, lifted his pint of Bass, and tapped it against mine. After the quickest of sips, he went back to perusing the items he had taken out of the envelope. From what I could tell, there was nothing too exciting in there: some paper clips, a cell phone, a couple of pens, some USB cords, and what I assumed were the receipts for these items. Most of the office supplies, Edgar explained, were being kept at his apartment until he and MoJo had procured a loan from the bank that would allow them to rent a real brick-and-mortar office where they could have clients come by. Nothing too big: just enough space to have meetings and maybe sell some of the less expensive security equipment.
Edgar picked up the cell phone and ran his fingers over it like it was the most fascinating thing he’d seen in months. He opened the case, observed it a little more and said, ‘Jeez, Louise.’
‘You didn’t know he bought another phone?’
‘First of all, any purchase over fifty dollars has to be approved by both of us. This goes for about four hundred online. Second of all,’ he said as he continued to study the phone, ‘it’s not about this being a “cell phone.”’
I looked again. Unless one of us was losing it, he was holding a cell phone and I told him as much.
He handed it to me. ‘Here. Check it out.’ His tone had taken on that teacher quality he had picked up from me over the years. ‘What do you observe, Raymond?’ He was laying it on thick now.
The first thing that came to mind was it was heavier than I had thought it would be. I said so and he nodded. I ran my fingers over it; there was nothing different there. I touched the screen and the number pad showed up. ‘What’s the code?’
He gave it to me and I entered it into the keypad. The normal stuff showed up and after about twenty seconds, I said, ‘It’s a phone.’
He took it back. ‘Of course that’s a phone, Ray. That’s how I knew the code. It’s one of ours. It’s not about the phone.’
I was confused. ‘Then what is it about, Edgar?’
He smiled – for real this time – and slipped the phone out if its case and handed me back the case. I took a closer look and then I saw what he was going on about.
‘This,’ I said, ‘looks like a camera case.’
He practically snapped it out of my hand before I realized I had just broken one of Edgar’s sacred rules: Never refer to any of his technological devices with anything but respect.
‘What you are referring to, Raymond,’ he was close to snapping at me, ‘is a cell phone case recorder that has the ability to record at a 1080p resolution, is motion-activated, and has a battery life of up to three hours. It also has a built-in memory of sixteen gigabytes.’
I stood corrected. It was not a camera case. ‘And you use it for …?’
I got the ‘Duh’ face. ‘We would be using it for recording people close-up without them knowing it, but we hadn’t bought one yet and none of our clients have asked us to do that kind of surveillance.’ A light bulb went off over his head and he grabbed the receipts off the bar and quickly found the one he was looking for. ‘But here it says MoJo did buy one.’ He gave the receipt a closer look. ‘Eight days ago.’
‘Without telling you, I assume?’
‘Without telling me, which is a clear violation of our purchasing agreement. Now I have to ask – now I have to figure out why he did that.’
We gave that some thought. I sipped and came up with an idea after a few moments but waited to see what Edgar was thinking. After another half-minute, I finally picked up a USB cable. ‘Can we hook this up and see if there’s anything on there?’
Edgar nodded. ‘That’s good, Ray.’ He removed his laptop from his bag, turned it and the case recorder on, and connected the recorder to the computer using one of the USB cords. He pressed a bunch of buttons and in less than a minute a picture popped up on the screen. It was a still shot of a man who looked slightly familiar to me. In the same way a guy you saw on a commercial many times five years ago looks familiar. He was sitting behind a desk, wearing a white shirt with a blue tie. His hair was very gray, and my guess was he had many years – and quite a few pounds – on me. He reminded me of a mix between Santa Claus and Ernest Hemingway. Edgar pressed Play. The man was in the middle of speaking.
‘That’s the way we see it, too, Mr Joseph,’ the gray man said. ‘And if we can bring it within our budget, I can sell it to my guys as a necessity.’
‘I don’t see that being a problem, sir.’ The camera stayed focused on Gray Man but that was clearly MoJo speaking. Edgar’s face showed real confusion. ‘I’ll just run it by my people,’ MoJo continued, ‘and make sure they see things the way we do. I mean, if we don’t look out for each other … ’
‘No one else will,’ Gray Man said. ‘I had a feeling we were simpatico on this.’
Edgar clicked on Pause. ‘“My people”?’ he said. ‘I’m his people. At least I thought I was his people.’
I touched Edgar on the elbow. ‘MoJo’s probably just trying to make your company seem bigger than it is. He’s selling your services.’ I looked at the screen. ‘Do you recognize that guy he’s talking to?’
‘Nope,’ Edgar said, and then after thinking about it for a bit, added, ‘Kinda, almost. Like maybe if his hair wasn’t so gray and the beard, you know?’
‘Yeah, I do.’
Edgar clicked on Play.
‘Very much so,’ MoJo said. ‘So, just to review, we’re looking at security for the front drive, about a dozen motion-detection cameras, four motion-detection flood lights for outside the office, security for your phones and laptops, and a fully accessible GPS system for all your vehicles.’
Gray Man rubbed his beard. ‘That’s gonna be the tricky part, Mr Joseph. Mosta those vehicles are privately owned. I don’t want my guys knowing I’m keeping track of them, if you know what I mean. That’s why I’m going outside with this job. We usually take care of it ourselves, understand?’
‘Exactly, sir,’ MoJo said. ‘The GPS wouldn’t be doing its job if the folks you’re tracking knew about it. That’s why you hire us.’ MoJo was good at this.
Gray Man stood up. He was bigger than I had first imagined. His white shirt was fighting with his belly and was a few cheeseburgers away from losing. He offered his hand out to MoJo, who we still could not see.
‘Pleasure doing business with ya, Mr Joseph. I’ll hear from you in a few days?’
The camera now moved and all we could see was darkness. MoJo must have put the recorder in his pocket. The sound was a little muffled now, but MoJo clearly said, ‘As soon as I run the numbers by the guys at the office, sir. But from what we’ve discussed so far, this project is extremely doable.’
Gray Man laughed. ‘Good to hear, son. That’s good to hear.’ A brief pause, then, ‘You know we’re gonna have to take you out the same way we took you in?’
MoJo’s turn to laugh. ‘If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be much of a security consultant.’
Gray Man laughed one more time, MoJo joined in, and then the sound and picture disappeared. Edgar pressed another button bringing the video back to the beginning.
I watched as Edgar continued staring at Gray Man. This was now more info he had to process. I didn’t know how much he could handle at one time. Between seeing MoJo’s pregnant widow, getting an unexpected envelope filled with business stuff he didn’t know about, and then watching the video of MoJo doing security business with another guy Edgar had never seen before, I was expecting a mental shutdown. The best thing for me to do was to stay shut and be patient. Good thing there was a beer in front of me, and a pre-game show on the television.