by Pearl Cleage
“I was afraid of that.” Ezola’s voice had sharp edges around its always strangely girlish tones. “What else?”
“They think he might be involved in prostitution.”
“Are they sure it’s Sam?”
She didn’t want me to have it right. She wanted to believe her spies had been off again. They had been known to make mistakes.
“Someone recognized his voice.”
She gave a dry little chuckle that didn’t find a damn thing funny, but had to acknowledge the irony. “I always told him it would get him in trouble.”
I didn’t say anything. Like most spies, even though I had done the job I had been asked to do in service of a righteous cause, I didn’t like myself a whole lot for doing it.
“Was there anything else?”
“No,” I said, suddenly wishing all this were over. “Except that I’m going to take a few days off until you make some decisions about how Sam fits into the future of the company and whether or not I do. It would be awkward for me to try to pretend nothing has changed.”
“Sam has no future at this company,” Ezola said firmly. “My search for a new vice president starts now. I’d like to announce the appointment before the story breaks.”
“The story will be out in a few days,” I said, surprised at how fast she intended to move. “Do you already have someone in mind?”
“Of course, dear,” she said. “You.”
60
In my dream, B.J. is like he used to be, but better. His arms are as strong, but his lips are sweeter. His eyes are as sad, but his heart is truer.
In the dream all I want to do is open up every part of me that’s been closed for so long and pull him so far up into where all the real mysteries meet all the real magic that he’ll never want to leave and I’ll never want to let him.
In my dream, he is lover, father, friend, family, forgiveness. In my dream, the past is prologue, the present is a precious jewel, and the future stretches out before us like a ribbon of promise.
In my dream, we are like we used to be, but better.
61
At one a.m. my dreams woke me up from a sleep that wasn’t as sound as I wanted it to be. I lay there for a minute trying to figure things out, but all that kept coming back to me was that B.J. and I still hadn’t had an exchange where all the cards were on the table. I was holding back about Phoebe. He was holding back about Sam. We were both holding back about each other. Half the truth is no easier than an all-the-way secret, and if we were going to have any chance at all of being friends, or something more, we had to come clean once and for all. Just because he hadn’t told me about Sam didn’t mean I got to lie about spying for Ezola. What’s that great Gandhi quote? An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
I knew he was probably still down at the paper. He told me he still liked to write really early in the morning, or really late at night, depending on how you looked at it, and Louis’s office had become his favorite spot. He said he did his best thinking stretched out on Louis Sr.’s big old leather couch, and that was exactly what I needed now—his best thinking, and mine. Not to mention the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He’d be disappointed that I had already spoken to Ezola, but I trusted her, and in a few days it wouldn’t matter anyway. Everybody would know all about Sam.
I filled a thermos full of hot coffee and headed over to the Sentinel to make peace before my fantasies drove me crazy trying to make love. I eased into a spot near the front door. It was so late that the other businesses around were closed for the night, and since we were out of West End, I had to be careful, but I could see a light in Louis’s office. He had blown up a picture of Etienne to poster size and prominently displayed it in the front window. Underneath the photo, it said: Where am I? Her face was so alive and happy that you had to smile when you saw it. You had to stop and see what the words meant. During the day, there were always a couple of people standing there, staring at it, or reading B.J.’s story that was posted nearby.
“Hang on,” I thought, trying not to think about where she was or where she’d been. “Just hang on a little longer.”
I rang the bell. The light went out immediately, leaving me bathed in the security spots, and everything inside the office a dark mystery. I stepped back involuntarily, and the light came back on as suddenly as it had been extinguished. B.J., in his shirtsleeves, opened the door to greet me.
“There is a god!” he said, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Tell me there’s coffee in there.”
“I figured whatever you were drinking by this time of night would probably not be suitable for an innocent bystander.”
“You got that right,” he said as we walked past Miss Iona’s desk and into Louis’s office. Louis had left the mock-up of the front page on his desk, since he was still fiddling with it. All of this could now be done on computers, of course, but Louis is old-fashioned. He likes to actually touch his newspaper before he puts it to bed. “Sit down. What are you doing here so late?”
“Looking for you,” I said, sitting on one end of the couch while he took the other. “We can’t seem to stop keeping secrets from each other. Why is that?”
“Bad history?”
“Maybe.”
“Look, Cat, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Sam.”
“Me, too,” I said, “but that’s just part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
I took a deep breath. It was important to get it right. “I love you, B.J.,” I said, figuring context was everything and truth was the light. “Always have, probably always will.”
His face lit up so beautifully that I almost got distracted and threw myself into his arms, but I’m not a kid anymore. I’ve got a kid, and this has to be done right, for her and for me, or I’m not doing it at all.
“But that doesn’t mean I’ve just been waiting around for you all this time.” That sounded more defiant than I wanted it to. “What I mean is, you can’t come back into my life after eighteen years and start offering to take care of me. I’m taking care of myself and I’m taking care of Phoebe, and I’m doing a good job, too. Even when it’s not perfect, we do all right.”
Was I making any sense at all?
“Go on.”
“Listen, B.J., I don’t need you to take care of me. I don’t need you to do it for me, whatever it is. I need you to do it with me. I don’t need you to think you know better about what’s best for me, whether it’s about Sam or sex or where to go for dinner.”
What was I talking about now? Time to wrap it up.
“Okay,” I said, stalling for time. “I think that’s all I have to say right now, except I think we should take a moment and make sure we’re current on everything. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
B.J. looked startled. The question caught him by surprise. “About Sam?”
“About anything.”
“There are a million things I want to tell you,” he said, smiling, “but if you mean do I have any more secrets, no. No more secrets.”
I smiled back at him. “Good.”
“How about you?”
“Just one more,” I said, “and I’m ready to let it go.”
“Well, fire when ready.” He reached for the thermos with no idea what I was getting ready to tell him.
I tucked my feet up under me and got ready to confess that I had called Ezola, when all of a sudden B.J. grabbed my wrist and put his finger to his lips for silence. I nodded to let him know I understood, and he got up and turned out the lights just as he had done when I arrived unannounced, but nobody had rung the bell, and as hard as I was listening, all I heard was silence. B.J. reached under Louis’s desk and quietly withdrew a double-barreled shotgun. My heart was pounding so hard I thought B.J. could hear it, but he was standing perfectly still, listening intently for whatever he had heard.
The whole scene reminded me of that photograph of Malcolm X standing at the window with a shotgun after somebody f
irebombed his house, where his family lay sleeping. Then I heard the sound of male voices outside. B.J. heard it, too. He gave me the keep silent gesture again and stepped out of the office, leaving me alone and terrified in the semidarkness. I crept to the door and peeked out after him. Who would be coming here this late, and why did Louis have a weapon under his desk? I heard B.J. open the door, and the faint smell of gasoline drifted in from the street.
“You brothers looking for something?” B.J.’s voice was cold.
They saw the shotgun and raised their hands involuntarily. A shotgun will make you do that. “Aw, man, you ain’t gotta come to the door with your shit in your hand,” said a young voice that was trying to sound aggrieved. “We come in peace, brother.”
“You always carry a can of gasoline on your peace missions?” B.J. said. “Step away from the building.”
“We got car trouble,” said a second voice. “Can’t you—”
“Step away from this building,” B.J. interrupted him. “Or I’ll blow your brains out, if you’ve got any.”
B.J. was standing in the half-open door with the shotgun aimed at two young black men who were backing up toward a black Cadillac Escalade idling at the curb. This couldn’t possibly be the car they claimed had trouble. Right in front of the window was one of those red-and-yellow gas cans, and the smell of the fumes was strong.
“See, that’s the problem niggas got,” said one young man who was dressed all in black and looked about eighteen.
“Yeah, they don’t trust nobody,” said the other kid, also about eighteen and all in black, like they were a pair of amateur commandos.
“Get in your car,” B.J. said. “And get going before I call the police.”
At the mention of the police, the driver’s-side door of the Escalade opened and a thickly built man in a dark suit got out and walked around the car. He was wearing sunglasses in spite of the hour, but even though they couldn’t see his eyes, the two younger men froze as he approached them. Something about him looked familiar, but I couldn’t make him out clearly from where I was standing.
“Get the fuck in the car,” he hissed, and the two guys scrambled over each other to obey. He waited for the door to slam behind them and then turned toward B.J., who hadn’t moved a muscle or lowered that shotgun.
The man spread his arms wide. “I’m not packin’ nothin’. I just want to deliver a message.”
“I’m listening.”
“You better figure out what time it is and stop askin’ so many questions all over Vine City.”
The voice wasn’t familiar, but something about the profile was.
“Are you finished?” B.J. said coldly.
“Yeah, I’m finished, and you better be finished, too.”
B.J. didn’t respond to that, so the guy got back in the car and squealed his tires as he pulled away. Through the window, I could make out what looked like a ponytail. B.J. brought the gas can inside before coming to check on me, still shaking in the office. He leaned the gun against the wall.
“You okay?”
I nodded. He went to the supply room, grabbed a big jug meant for the water cooler, ripped off the top, and headed back outside to slosh it over the gasoline they had started pouring around the base of the building before B.J. interrupted them. I wanted to help, but I figured the best thing I could do was stay out of the way. I went to the tiny unisex bathroom that Miss Iona always kept spotlessly clean, splashed cold water on my face, and tried to calm down.
I had never seen B.J. in a situation like that before. I had never seen anybody in a situation like that before, but I knew he had handled it like a grown-ass man, and for that I was grateful. I’m an independent woman, but when you’re in a war zone, you want to be standing with a soldier, and it looked like I was.
“Amateur arsonists,” B.J. said, after he had finished outside and locked the front door. “They’d have probably set themselves on fire before they figured out how to toss the match.”
“I think I’ve seen that guy before,” I said. My voice was trembling, and I cleared my throat to steady it.
“Which one?”
“The older one.”
“Where?”
“With Sam,” I whispered. “I think he works for Sam.”
62
The police arrived five minutes after Louis came over with two of Blue Hamilton’s guys with him in a big black Lincoln, in case we had some more uninvited company. One officer looked around outside while the other one took a statement from B.J. and a shorter one from me. I couldn’t tell them what I was really worried about. Not until I talked to B.J. first. Did this happen because I told Ezola what I knew? Did she activate Sam, who sent Ponytail to take care of the problem? The thought of what might have happened made me feel sick at my foolishness. We were at war and I had called the enemy with our battle plan.
The police sergeant was talking to Louis in his office, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I sat at Miss Iona’s desk and listened to B.J. tell the police officer that the Escalade they were driving had no plates in the front and a vanity plate in the back that read simply SMOOTH.
The cop shook his head. “That shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“Is that it?” B.J. said, glancing over at me. I wondered if I looked as miserable as I felt.
“That’s it,” said the officer. “Are Hamilton’s men going to be out here the rest of the night?”
B.J. nodded. “Tomorrow, too.”
The Sentinel office wasn’t in West End, but Blue was a friend.
“Good. Then call us if you need us.”
“We will.”
Louis and the sergeant had closed the door, so B.J. sat on the edge of Miss Iona’s desk and looked at me. “You okay?”
“I think this is all my fault.”
He shook his head. “How can it be your fault? We’ve been getting threatening phone calls all week.”
“All week?”
“Ever since Miriam’s story came out. Somebody’s onto us, and they want us to know it.”
“I told Ezola.”
He looked at me, surprised. “You told her?”
I nodded. “I’m so sorry! Don’t ask me why. I couldn’t tell you now if you paid me. I was mad at you for not telling me about Sam. It was just stupid. I’m so sorry!”
“Listen, Cat,” he said, breaking in when I choked up in the middle of my apology. “It doesn’t matter. All this means is that Sam’s the one who’s onto us. It doesn’t mean Ezola told him anything.”
I wanted to believe him. “How do you think he found out?”
He shrugged. “How did they find us at the restaurant? It doesn’t matter. It’s Sam who’s got something to lose, and burning up this building is probably not all he’s prepared to do to shut us up.”
“What are we going to do?”
He pointed through the glass cubicle wall, where we could see Louis and the sergeant shaking hands. “I think we’re about to find out.”
Louis walked him to the door and they shook hands again.
“Twenty-four hours,” said the sergeant. “Then we’ll have to move on it. Arson is a serious crime.”
“I hear you,” said Louis. “Twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty-four hours for what?” B.J. said.
Louis glanced over at me. “You look like hell.”
“I feel like shit,” I said. “Are they going after Sam?”
“I got them to give us twenty-four hours. That’s it.”
“Twenty-four hours for what?”
“To see what he’ll do next,” Louis said. “If B.J.’s source is telling us the truth, Sam’s borrowed money from some people in Miami and he can’t pay it back.”
“He’s had to shut down some of their operations,” B.J. said. “Now his name is in the paper, and that makes them very nervous. It’s bad for business. They haven’t been able to move the girls through here as easily as he told them he’d be able to.”
Those pictures of Miriam an
d Etienne were doing their job. Miriam was still lying low at Miss Iona’s, but the problem was no longer abstract. It had a face and a smile and a big sister who would never stop searching.
“My contact says Sam offered them some girls he’s been holding back as collateral,” B.J. said softly. “I think Etienne is one of the girls he’s going to use to buy himself some time.”
I stood up and looked at him and then at Louis. This was Atlanta, Georgia, a place where B.J. said black women rule and people were coming here to trade in human beings like slavery was still legal as long as nobody saw it except the slaves. “Tell me that’s not going to happen.”
“We’ve got twenty-four hours to make sure it doesn’t,” Louis said. “If I’m guessing correctly, he’ll lead us right to the girls. Then we’ve got him.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” I said, suddenly exhausted.
“Yes,” Louis said. “Go home and get some sleep. Something tells me tomorrow is going to be a very long day.”
63
Louis wanted me to stay at his house, but I wasn’t ready to go into hiding yet, so B.J. had volunteered to spend the night, and I had agreed to let him. If Sam knew where I lived, that guy with the ponytail probably did, too, and I’d had enough excitement for one day.
“I’m going to bed,” I said, after I locked the front door behind us. “There’s plenty to eat if you’re hungry, and there are clean sheets on the bed in Phoebe’s room if you want to get some sleep.”
He smiled at the specificity of my invitation to sleep over, but seduction was the last thing on my mind, and I didn’t want to send any mixed messages. “I can just stretch out down here on the couch.”
“Suit yourself,” I said, heading for the stairs, “but it’s not nearly as comfortable as the one in Louis’s office, so don’t be shy if you change you mind.”
“I won’t. Good night.”