“The cop? What was he like?”
“A bottle rocket. He almost threw me out the window. He thinks I’m writing a book.”
“How was he with her?”
“Not too good, I thought he was gonna punch her out.”
“He thinks she did it?”
“I don’t know, maybe, but tread lightly with that, OK? I’d say, he was ’distraught yet determined to help.’”
“To help,” Jose repeated.
“I tell you, Jose, this lady’s got nobody in her corner.”
“OK.”
“The mother’s got no use for her, the brother.”
“OK.”
“That phone never rang.”
“OK.”
“Neighbors, girlfriends, boyfriends, family, nobody”
“OK.”
“She couldn’t stay in the kid’s room, just couldn’t do it.”
“OK.”
“She slept on the couch, maybe like an hour, two hours.”
“OK.”
“Woke up, had a nightmare.”
“About.”
“Something with the kid splitting up into nine people. Just say she woke up from a nightmare about the boy. How she couldn’t help him, save him.”
“OK.”
“Her hands are…swaddled. They look like the cloth wrappings at the end of a torch. You know, like the villagers use when they finally go after the Frankenstein monster?”
“OK.”
“She’s in pain, physical pain—the hands.”
“OK.”
“So sleepless except for a nightmare, in pain, and isolated, utterly fucking alone. Said the kid was her whole life.”
“OK. Good. The apartment?”
“Shabby. Say, ‘Poor but house-proud.’”
“OK.”
“Kid has the only bedroom. Mom sleeps on the couch.”
“Great. OK.”
“Pictures of the kid all over the place.”
“OK.”
“She cut her hair.”
“What?”
“She cut her hair off. You know, like she flipped and just… Hold on.” Jesse riffled through her notepad, looking for her dawn-time writings.“Yeah, here we go: ‘The bathroom sink in this shabby but proud apartment is a nest of shorn hair, the mother taking scissors to her own locks in an impulsive gesture of otherwise inexpressible anguish.’” Jesse felt jarred by her own dictation, by how florid it now seemed, how committed in its sympathy, how dangerous.
“Jesus, she really did that?”
“You want me to repeat it?”
“I got the essence. What else.”
Jesse hesitated, feeling both relieved and slightly wounded. “She listens to soul music nonstop.”
“OK.”
“She burrows in with it. Headphones. Sings along. The whole nine yards, but it’s not, flippant. It’s, it’s understandable. Say, it’s like, it’s a lifeline. It keeps her from going totally around the bend.”
“OK, good. Any favorite songs?”
“‘96 Tears’?”
“OK, great. What else.”
“She likes…” Jesse checked her notes. “Judy Clay? Ann Peebles?”
“Who?”
“It’s an education up here, I tell you. How about Jackie Wilson?”
“Why can’t she listen to Whitney Houston like everybody else?”
“You listen to Whitney Houston?”
“Don’t you?”
“OK, now, the mom, Grandma, she told me that Brenda’s got a history of black boyfriends, Puerto Ricans. I mean, I wouldn’t say as much, but, you know, between the music, the boyfriends, working in Strongarm, she’s just about an honorary sister. So I would say that she’s kind of culturally, spiritually dedicated. I mean, there’s a certain irony here.”
“I’ll work with it. Got any quotes?”
“Yeah, hang on…‘I want him back so bad. I just want to be with him.’”
“Give me a break.”
“Hang on… ‘He’s my whole life.’”
“You’re killing me, Jesse.”
“She called her mom a dog biscuit. You like that one?”
“Stop.”
“You want a quote? How’s this…‘You know, I’m still pretty young.’”
“What?” Jose came to a full stop. “Meaning what.”
“Guess.”
“Jesus.”
“Look, Jose, I am sitting on some shit here, but… Look, if she turns out to be the actor, I’ll unload, but for now I don’t want to burn her unduly, you know?”
“You’re in love.”
“But I also don’t want to get burned here myself, so I would like it if we could keep it on the somewhat sober side, all right?”
“You know the definition of a sociopath?”
“Yeah, someone who fools a reporter.”
“What else.”
“Not much.”
“Boyfriends?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You believe her?”
“Well, if he’s out there he’s laying low. I didn’t see any pictures, any letters, birth control, nothing.”
“I don’t know, Jess—young girl, single and free. What do you think?”
“Well, first of all she’s not single and free, she’s strapped with the kid.”
“My point exactly.”
“Well, fuck it, Jose. All I can tell you is she didn’t confess, she’s utterly strung out, I can’t really see her running off to Atlantic City with the milkman anytime soon, and, like, hey, tune in tomorrow.”
“You sound hot, Jess.”
“Fuck off.”
“I think you’re in love.”
“Fuck off.”
“Where she at now?”
“Out and about. With the detective, I guess.”
“Any chance you hooking up with her again?”
“Actually, there is.”
Jesse dropped to the mattress, her legs giving out.
“Yeah? How so?”
“People,” she said, keeping Ben’s name out of it. “But Jose? If I do?” Her words were coming a little faster than her thoughts. “I’m not dumping this anymore.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want to write it up.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Jose hesitated. “What do you mean, like a diary?”
“A diary?” Jesse began blinking, her stomach going to hell. “What do you mean?”
“A diary, like, ‘My day with Mom. The vigil continues.’ I could live with that. Shit, you get back in with her? I could definitely live with that.”
“Cool,” Jesse said faintly, needing another shower, thinking, HAVE YOU SEEN THEM? There was no word yet from Ben. Suddenly the world seemed supported by the bird legs of “If,” of “Maybe,” of “I may,” “I might.”
“Jose, I got to go.” She felt sick.
“Keep me posted.”
“Sure.”
“When will you know?”
“Soon.”
“And, Jess, if you do?”
“Do what,” she said, blank with anxiety.
“Hook up with her.”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
“Of?”
“Everything.” Then, in a lighter tone, “Think boyfriend.”
13
Brenda had hung tough in the empty apartment, but as they silently exited into the swelter of the hallway Lorenzo sensed an air of great disappointment about her, which intensified his own mood of failure. She had wanted him to make her open up, had needed him to make her open up, he’d swear to it, and this uncomfortable realization made him feel that he had failed both of them in a way that transcended the job, justice, or any other legalistic aspect of the situation.
A few minutes later, coming out of the shadows of Three Building, Lorenzo went instantly blind, the midday light a searing white sizzle scourged of all color, the disparate voices of Armstrong coming to him in this halluci
natory heat as if he were half asleep on a beach. Brenda had something of the same physical reaction, stepping into the daylight, abruptly stopping, then staggering backwards into the shade of the breezeway holding on to a concrete pillar for balance.
Across Hurley Street, from the elevation of the retaining wall, the video and camera shooters suddenly became aware of Brenda’s presence, their instantaneous response making the chain links of the train fence clash and sing, a mad chorus baying out her name, imploring her to step free of the breezeway.
Someone had moved the van; Lorenzo spotted it parked in front of Five Building now. Turning back to Brenda, Lorenzo saw that she stood flanked by posted printouts of the jacker sketch, one taped to the column she was leaning against, the other mounted on a square of graffiti-covered plywood nailed over a shattered ground-floor window. They had to have been put up in the last hour, yet one was already defaced, the image crossed out with a fat spray-painted X.
A quiet crowd of tenants started to gather in a loose semicircle around Brenda, teenagers and children mostly, the younger ones gawking with open-mouthed curiosity but the adolescents and mothers straight-up glaring. People ahead of schedule, Lorenzo thought, everybody around here sick of this shit not even twenty-four hours into the drama.
Attracted by the splashy squawks and squeals of giddy children, Lorenzo turned to the Armstrong Beach Club, a shallow oval bowl between Three and Four Buildings designed for water play. Mercifully, the sprinklers were working, four arches of drizzle converging atop a bony crew of kids, some in bathing suits, some in underpants. Lorenzo took imaginary relief in the sight, remembering stutter stepping across that very same wet cement, feeling that benign scraping sensation on the soles of his feet.
He turned back to check on Brenda in the breezeway, then turned again to the sprinklers. Through the rainbow-dappled crossfire he saw another major beef shaping up at the Hurley Street exit, where the Reverend Henry Longway, on-site manager of the Armstrong Houses, was chewing out the two Dempsy cops, both black, who were blocking his path.
Longway was about sixty, a bespectacled, chesty bantamweight sporting a snowy goatee, a Kangol cap, and orthopedic shoes. About a dozen people stood behind him. Lorenzo recognized them as relatives and friends of old Miss Bankhead. The youngish men, despit the heat, all wore long-sleeved white shirts and ties; the women, mostly older, were decked out in churchgoing dresses and hats.
Lorenzo thought the reverend was supposed to be in the medical center recovering from some kind of heart trouble and imagined the old guy flinging off his blanket and marching out of the hospital barefoot, not wanting to miss this scene even if it killed him.
Without hearing the words, Lorenzo knew exactly what was going down. The reverend was attempting to take these people to a memorial service for Miss Bankhead outside of Armstrong, willfully ignoring the blockade, using the woman’s death as a battering ram against the indignities of the last sixteen hours. He also knew both the uniforms, kids with less than a year on the job, too unseasoned to be assigned to such a sensitive post but deployed, he was sure, as a matter of racial cosmetics. The downside of the gamble was evident in their faces as the rev, an old political street fighter, went about whittling them back down to little boys. Signaling to one of the young cops to come back and hang in with Brenda, Lorenzo made his way to the checkpoint.
“Rev, I know it’s a memorial service and I respect that,” pleaded the other young cop, Anthony Cooley whose own father, Lorenzo knew, was a pastor too. “I just got to run through some ID.” Cooley sounded hollow, scared, his mouth hanging open well after the words were out.
“You ain’t running these people through nothin’,” the rev said dismissively The group behind Lorenzo was silently grim, their loss, Lorenzo sensed, outweighing their indignation.
“Look,” Cooley tried again.
“Naw, you look.” Longway thrust a finger in the cop’s face, his eyeglasses magnifying his anger. “There was twenty-seven homicides in the last twelve months in this precinct, six alone in these houses and there ain’t never been a police presence, a police action, like you got over this one missing white child.”
Cooley looked helplessly to Lorenzo.
“How come nobody did all this when Darryl Talley got shot over in Three Building last month, huh? Or, or when Hakim Watrous got killed right here on Hurley huh?”
“C’mon, Rev,” Lorenzo said, laughing his respectful, humoring laugh. “There’s a child involved.”
“A child? There was a fourteen-year-old black child shot dead two blocks from here six weeks ago. Tyrell Walker. I didn’t see no police strip-searching people for Tyrell Walker.”
“Hey,” Lorenzo said, “nobody’s strip—”
“I didn’t see no police checking IDs on people for Tyrell Walker.” Longway plowed on, running over Lorenzo, getting louder.
“You’re not wrong,” Lorenzo said quietly. “But that’s the way it is.”
“I didn’t see no cops do nothing for Tyrell Walker, and I know,” the reverend said, almost shouting. “I didn’t see any of them”—he pointed flamboyantly at the reporters and photographers, a real “Land ho!” gesture—“coming round, for Tyrell Walker.” Longway was trying to catch their eyes, their ears; he wasn’t really talking to Lorenzo anymore, just trying to attract media flies with the honey of visual outrage. It was an attempt to set up a swap, the only way to get concessions in this part of town, leveraging every newsworthy incident for a trade-off. Get the cameras in on it, back the city into a corner, then swap moral exoneration for whatever crumbs were to be had—more black jobs, black cops, social services, playground equipment, anything, anything. Lorenzo let him vent. Most of the shooters were still fixated on Brenda in the breezeway but a few were heeding the call, jogging the length of the fence to catch the drama at the checkpoint.
Lorenzo looked over to Brenda, who was resting her forehead against the concrete pillar, the other young cop standing by her side. Lorenzo attempted to signal him to get Brenda back into the building but was unable to get his attention.
“I didn’t see no, no television crews for Tyrell Walker. I didn’t see no newspaper reporters.” Lorenzo was just about ready to let the rev have his way, walk on out of here with his mourners, when the man stepped over the line.
“And hell, Lorenzo.” Longway lowered his voice. “While we’re on the subject, I don’t even remember seeing you here for Tyrell Walker.”
Lorenzo took him by the elbow, the pressure of the grip showing in the rev’s eyes. “Hey.” Lorenzo’s voice was small, for one set of ears only. “Don’t you dare lump me in with nobody else. You know what I’m about, and ain’t nothing changed about that.”
Lorenzo’s main memory of the night that Tyrell Walker was killed was of being in bed with his wife for only the third time in the last six months—not the rev’s, or anyone else’s, goddamn business. And as far as the murder itself, he had helped broker the surrender of the actor to the prosecutor’s office the night after the shooting, all that could be done short of bringing Tyrell back to life.
“Yeah, well, to tell you truth, I don’t know shit no more,” the rev said, calmer now, one on one.
“Then I suggest you look around you,” Lorenzo murmured, eyeing the perimeter with its Gannon cops, their Dempsy brothers, the combat-ready press. “Look around you before you get in my face, ’cause right now I’m about all you got.”
The rev took five, his voice both intimate and wounded. “I heard the mayor went and visited that woman. She don’t even live in Dempsy.”
“Yeah, well, that’s incorrect information.”
“He didn’t come see Hakim Watrous’s mother.” The rev started pumping it up again. “He didn’t come see Tyrell Walker’s mother. He didn’t come—”
“Let me ask you something, Rev,” Lorenzo said, cutting him off. “Where you having this service…”
“Mumford.”
“Mumford.” Lorenzo nodded. “She lived right here in Armstro
ng. Why you havin’ it there?”
“She had family there too.”
“Nah.” Lorenzo scanned the land, grinning angrily. “You just want to test this thing here.”
“This whole thing is racist, double-standard bullshit, and you know it.”
Lorenzo shrugged. It was. No doubt. But you got to function. Daily.
“How’s your heart?” he asked under his breath. “You come out OK on that?”
“Hey, when it’s your time, it’s your time.”
“I hear you,” Lorenzo said mildly.
“Meanwhile I got to play the cards I got left.”
“I hear that too.”
Lorenzo regarded the quiet, slightly dazed-looking mourners. “Awright.” He gestured to the young cop. “Just let ’em through.”
Cooley exhaled in relief. The rev hesitated, not really wanting to go—the battle right here, not in Mumford.
“You know, Rev.” Lorenzo gave him one last little, not unfriendly elbow grab. “Sometimes people just want to grieve, you know what I’m saying?”
“Shit, Lorenzo, we grieve every day.”
“Yeah, OK.” Lorenzo turned away: Enough.
Looking to Brenda, he saw that the cop assigned to watch her was nowhere to be seen and that Brenda was standing alone, slashed by shadow as she faced that ragged semicircle of the curious and the hostile. Before Lorenzo could move to her, one of the Armstrong teenagers, a squat, powerfully built kid wearing a Knicks jersey that highlighted his almost cartoon-huge deltoids, broke off from the crowd and, locking eyes with Brenda, strode forward, brisk, lumbering, centered, his hands down low, knotted into fists. Brenda held his eye with an almost voracious openness—with that same innocent and eager expression that she had offered the shooters as she came out of her house earlier that morning. Before Lorenzo could even call out the kid’s name, he was up in her face, Brenda waiting, not even blinking. He slid left at the last possible moment before collision, then reached out and tore down the police sketch taped to the plywood, crumpling it and flinging it away before disappearing inside the shadowed stairway.
Brenda looked out at the others still facing her, as if she were staring into the sun, then slipped on her headphones and closed her eyes. When Lorenzo reached her, he could hear the Impressions like a whispered wreath around her stark and chopped hair, Curtis Mayfield singing in a soothing croon, sayin’ “It’s all right.”
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