All I Did Was Shoot My Man

by Mosley, Walter

  “Bingo was good. We thought we knew who his adviser was but we were never sure. The person we suspected is still alive but . . .”

  “You don’t know for sure if he ever worked on the job.”

  Lethford nodded.

  “Let me talk to the man. I might be able to make headway where a legal inquiry would not.”

  “ Why should I trust you?”

  “Because the best cop in New York told you to.”

  Clarence blinked twice and then squinted. He stayed that way for quite a few seconds; much longer than it took me to kill two men.

  “Miss Nova Algren,” he said at last.

  “A woman?”

  “The best in the business. She retired two months after the Rutgers thing. Living in a retirement home near Saratoga Springs.”

  38

  BEFORE I LEFT the Ugly Man’s diner Lethford gave me an envelope with photographs and details of the deaths of the Haman crew. I shuffled through the file in the taxi on the way up to a parking garage near my apartment.

  When I was at the entrance I decided to hoof my way back home.

  The door was still broken on its hinges. But when I tried to push it open I found that it held fast.

  “Anybody home?” I called through the crack.

  “Here, Daddy,” Shelly piped.

  I heard something on the other side and then the heavy door was dragged open.

  Seeing my daughter made me swallow hard. She was wearing an off-white dress that was broad at the hem and close fitting above the waist. I grabbed her up in my arms and squeezed tight.

  “Daddy, you’re hurting me.”

  “I’m sorry, baby girl. I’m so sorry.” I put her down.

  “It’s not your fault and I wasn’t there.”

  “No,” I said, “you weren’t.”

  Her smile was a little crooked, probably because my gaze was so hard.

  “ What’s that I smell?”

  “Mama’s cooking.”

  IN THE KITCHEN Katrina was standing over her great-grandmother’s stewpot mixing with a big wooden spoon that was older than any of her children. Tatyana was sitting at the kitchen table, mincing onions.

  There was nothing right about that scene.

  “Hey, babe.”

  It took Katrina a moment to stop what she was doing and turn to me but when she did her smile was resplendent. She was wearing the pink dress that buttoned up the front and a floral apron that I hadn’t seen in years.

  “Leonid, I didn’t expect you so early.”

  “You guys gettin’ along?” I had to ask.

  “Tatyana is a wonderful cook,” my wife of too many years said. “She has the touch.”

  The Belarusian Mata Hari looked up at me and smiled. She was in T-shirt and jeans. I could see that she had already cut up mushrooms, green and red peppers, garlic, and leeks.

  The head and claws of a kosher hen lay on a plate to her left.

  “Are you all right, Katrina?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “That was pretty bad this morning.”

  “I cleaned up all the blood. My mother once showed me how to do it with baking soda.”

  I could see what Twill meant. Her eyes were clear but vacant. Her tone was so matter-of-fact as to inspire fear.

  “Do you need me to do anything?” I asked.

  “No. Will you want lunch?”

  “No, honey. I’m going up to Saratoga Springs. I have to talk to somebody.”

  “ Will you be home for dinner?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Yes,” Katrina said. “It would be so nice. All my children will be here.”

  I FOUND TWILL and Dimitri playing chess in Twill’s room. Whenever I watched them play I got the feeling that Twill let his older brother win most of the time.

  “Hey, boys.”

  Dimitri looked up but Twill kept his eye on the board—it was hard to lose and make a good showing of it at the same time.

  “Pops,” Twill said.

  “Did you find out why they did it, Dad?” Dimitri asked. His tone was one of deference. It had been a long time since Dimitri had shown me such respect.

  “Not yet. But I sure will, and soon.”

  “Check,” Twill said. “Hey, Pop, can I talk to you a minute?”

  IN THE HALL Twill closed the door to his room and stood close.

  “I know a guy who knows a guy who knows somebody in Kent’s crew.”

  “You talk to him?”

  “Is the president of the United States a black man?”

  “And what did he say?”

  “No question that Kent’s the boss. On top of rip-offs and dealing they’re running protection now too. They killed this one dude in the West Village to make an example.”

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty much. He called me.”

  “ Who?”

  “Kent.”

  “ What did he say?”

  “That if I wanted to do business south of Fourteenth Street, I had to work with him.”

  “Okay, T. Let it lay for a bit. I need to talk to Breland about this.”

  AFTER CLEARING the Whitestone Bridge and wending through various highways you come into the vast forest that makes up most of New York State. Leaving the city always makes me wonder about the wilderness and the hatred it must have for the edifices of humanity.

  The day was clear and bright blue over the senseless green of the surrounding woods. I was listening to Joni Mitchell playing on my MP3 on the speaker system of the car. Her high-pitched complaints found a resonance in my heart and I sang along in an off-tune, gravelly way.

  WINDSONG ESTATES was a rambling property on the north side of Saratoga Springs. It abutted a dense pine forest and was comprised of a huge old mansion, various bungalows, and modern-looking residence buildings.

  The parking lot was red clay. I walked from my classic ’57 white-and-green Pontiac across a broad lawn to the terrace-like veranda that went all the way around the front of the whitewashed house.

  No one was on the green, well-trimmed lawn.

  No one was on the porch until I put a foot on the first stair.

  Then a short Japanese woman in full-length baby blue nurse’s garb came out the screened door. Behind her ambled a huge white orderly with a bald head and porcine eyes. He was pale and heavy, but the fat was held in place by a goodly amount of muscle.

  “May I help you?” the woman said with a perfect American accent.

  “Nova Algren.”

  “And you are?”

  “Tell her that Leonid McGill brings her greetings from Bingo Haman.”

  “And your business?”

  “Is with Ms. Algren.”

  The orderly’s shoulders raised a quarter inch.

  The Japanese nurse was in her fifties, on the short side and the color of dark honey. She was fit and serious.

  “Salesman?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Insurance?”

  I shook my head this time.

  “I have to tell her your business.”

  “Leonid McGill with greetings from Bingo Haman and his crew. That’s all you need.”

  “This Haman is a sailor?”

  “No.”

  “ What kind of crew, then?”

  I was tired of negativity and so did not answer at all.

  The orderly’s squinty eyes were getting restless.

  The nurse turned, made an impatient gesture at the big man, and they both disappeared into the dark maw beyond the screen door.

  No one invited me in so I leaned against a white column, which had once been a tree, on the left side of the staircase.

  I thought about lighting a cigarette and decided against it. There were four left in the pack. I had to finish them off before the next morning but the need would most likely be greater later on.

  I had discovered after many years of trial and error that if I smoked for only twenty-four hours the withdrawal symptoms were negligible. It w
as like a GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card, if I was disciplined about the slip.

  “Mr. McGill,” a wispy gentlewoman’s voice said.

  She was standing behind the gray haze of the screen door, tall in a dark green pantsuit, her gray hair coiffed, with glasses hanging from a string of natural freshwater pearls around her neck.

  “That’s me,” I said, pushing myself to an erect posture.

  The elderly woman smiled and pushed open the door. Her steps had an extra oomph to them, a little more energy to make sure her feet didn’t stumble. The older you are, the harder you have to work.

  “You’re here for Bingo?” she asked.

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I thought he had died.”

  “The dead often leave messages behind.”

  “Mysterious.” She must have been a beautiful woman in her youth. She was handsome at seventy-something.

  “Shall we go over to the side of the building?” she suggested.

  I followed her well-metered gait around the porch to the side of the house. There we came upon an iron table attended by four iron chairs, all painted pale pink.

  “The staff doesn’t like us to be in view of the public,” she said as we both sat. “They feel an onus, to go out there to make sure we aren’t kidnapped or mugged.”

  I liked this lady very much.

  “You were saying something about Bingo?” she asked.

  “You knew him?”

  “I knew a man named Aaron Sadler,” she said.

  AARON SADLER. The police were after him for a string of extortions where the threats were always shams; kind of a soft-porn crook. He found rich kids that didn’t mind fooling their parents for a twenty-five percent cut of the take. Aaron used his own name but had a stand-in, Poland Jarvis, as the contact for his youthful confederates. It all went along swimmingly until Jarvis got arrested for DWI and Sadler had to make contact with one of the kids in person.

  Aaron’s luck worsened when the cops tumbled on the conspiracy and put pressure on the young heir to a Midwestern dairy empire, Robert Fleiner.

  It fell to me to gather evidence that young Mr. Fleiner was involved in the death of a prostitute some years before. Faced with a life sentence versus the possibility of getting cut out of a healthy will, Bob decided to forget what the real Aaron Sadler looked like.

  “Bingo is dead,” I said, “as you’ve heard.”

  Nova’s eyes were blue-gray and had the mien of matronly kindness. There was no change in them.

  “I thought so.”

  “So are Mick Brawn and Simon Willoughby.”

  “Really?” The slightest bit of concern gathered around her light-colored orbs.

  I handed her the rather graphic photographs of the dead men.

  She flipped through them like a grandmother pretending to be interested in another old woman’s family album.

  Handing the pictures back to me, she said, “Horrible.”

  “A police captain named Lethford told me that these deaths were connected to the Rutgers heist.”

  “How is Clarence?”

  “Mad at the world and proud of it.”

  She laughed pleasantly.

  “He came up here a few times, thinking that an old woman like me would have anything to do with thugs and thieves. But he always brought me chocolates.

  “ Why are you here, Mr. McGill?”

  “Two men broke into my home and tried to murder me.”

  “Tried?”

  “I killed them.”

  Without missing a beat she said, “I killed my stepfather, Charles Clement, when I was only eleven years old. No doubt the men after you made the same underestimation that Mr. Clement did.”

  We were on equal footing. I wondered if she had a derringer somewhere on her person; the best assumption would be that she did.

  “The people that sent those men after me, if they become aware of you, might send a visitor to Windsong.”

  Nova’s smile was wan and unconcerned.

  “I want to know who it is,” I said, “for obvious reasons.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “Can you help me?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “As I said—your life could be in danger too.”

  “My death is already a foregone conclusion, Mr. McGill. Thank you for your concern but I have never relied upon the good graces of another to protect me.”

  “So you have to think about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “ When will you know?”

  “ When I know.” She stood up and began walking toward the front of the building.

  I followed her to the screen door and even opened it for her.

  “Thank you, Mr. McGill. I don’t need the help but I do appreciate good manners.”

  39

  THE TRAFFIC WAS pretty good and I made Lower Manhattan somewhere between two-thirty and three.

  That afternoon I told the first-line security desk at Rutgers Assurance that I was there to speak to Johann Brighton. That request altered the mode of access. I was guided to an elevator at the front of the building that took me to the twenty-seventh floor, leaving me at what can only be called a large glass cage where a young receptionist sat behind a bright blue desk.

  The carpet surrounding the desk was black, and across from it, against a glass wall, was a row of seven padded yellow chairs.

  Beyond the transparent walls were many doorways. For a moment I imagined that I was in a theater where the audience sat center stage and the actors performed on the periphery.

  In this flight of fancy I had arrived, no doubt, at intermission.

  The nameplate for the lovely café au lait receptionist read KINESHA MOTUTO. She looked up at me and smiled.

  “Have a seat and someone will be with you,” she said.

  “Do you know how long it will be?”

  “I’m sure it will be soon,” she said, returning her gaze to the papers on her blue desk.

  “ What section is this?”

  Kinesha looked up at me pleasantly and said, “Just have a seat, sir. Someone will be with you soon.”

  I took the center chair and laced my fingers, prepared for a long wait. But less than a minute later a door behind and to the left of Kinesha swung inward and Alton Plimpton appeared. That day the slight manager wore a dark green suit and a bruised-banana tie. He stared at me a moment from behind the doubtful protection of the glass barrier. Then he rapped on the glass.

  Kinesha turned, saw who it was, and touched something on her desk. An invisible panel began rising from the floor, forming a gap large enough for a man to pass through.

  Alton walked up as I stood to meet him.

  Before he could speak I said, “I’m here to see Johann Brighton.”

  “I had your name associated with mine in the visitors’ database,” he replied.

  “Funny, there’s a captain in the NYPD that’s done the same kind of thing with me.”

  “ What is your business here, Mr. McGill?”

  “Mr. Brighton,” I answered.

  “Mr. Harlow does not want you on the premises.”

  “ Who’s that?”

  “It’s enough for you to know that he doesn’t appreciate your presence.”

  “Then why did you let me up?”

  “ We have a security team standing by.”

  “And do you think that they could grab me before I broke your neck?” I hadn’t had much sleep in more than thirty-six hours. The spark on my fuse was entering the body of the bomb.

  Kinesha stood up. I wondered if she was part of the security team.

  A tall man in a dark suit passed through the space in the glass wall.

  “Mr. Plimpton?” the man said.

  Alton turned, giving me the opportunity to scrutinize the new corporate player. This man was tall, black-haired, and fit. Either he was wearing a blue suit or I was; we couldn’t both be because our clothes were different species in the ca
pitalist jungle.