Counterfeit

by Scott L. Miller

“How reliable is your feathered friend?”

  Baker lowered his eyes briefly. “He’s a chippy; smokes crack when he can get it, some weed. He on the payroll, but he’s always been solid with me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I quit,” I said and got up to go inside.

  Baker relented. “The little brother told his court-appointed that Quinn was the only cop on the scene. You said it yourself—if this were a coordinated police sting, how could an old man, on oxygen, with one foot in the grave, escape through one of the two exits in the building against five experienced, fully-armed cops? Dan Quinn is a fat, old Irish beat cop with nineteen years’ service; he drinks and eats while marking off the days to his twenty and out. He couldn’t catch a one-legged pickpocket in a closet.”

  “So what does Quinn have to say about it?”

  Baker tensed. “He’s into the wind. Never clocked out that shift and there’s been no answer on his home phone. Missed his next shift and didn’t call in. Chief Moreno ordered the building super to let them into Quinn’s apartment. No evidence of foul play, but it looked like he’d packed in a hurry. Wife left him years ago; no kids, no siblings.”

  I thought back to the report. “What do officers Carter, Malvern, and Downey say about Quinn?”

  Baker deftly peeled off the beer label in one whole piece. “That he was never there.”

  “And Tony fits into this how?”

  A toothpick slid into the side of Baker’s mouth. “I never knew Quinn, but a birdie told me when his wife left him it affected his work and the brass forced him into counseling—”

  “Enter Tony.”

  He touched the tip of his nose. “Back when he was a hotshot headshrinker like you in private practice. My sources dried up. I can’t ask The Voice about him ’cause I’m a homicide dick and he wouldn’t tell me shit anyway because of confidentiality. You his best friend so maybe you can connive something from him to help us find Quinn or at least what happened to him. You got the gift, man. I seen you in action.”

  “Who’s playing whom now?”

  Baker rose and patted his breast pocket. “Don’t mention the report, not even to The Voice. Word got out, I’d lose my shield, or worse. You got me over a barrel. I need your help.”

  I told Baker the conversation I’d overheard in the bathroom stall before the press conference, what the man who sounded like Maynard had said and the other man’s responses. By the time I’d finished, his muscles were coiled like springs. “I know we’re onto something,” I said.

  “It all fits. But we got no proof, even if you were sure it was Maynard.”

  I didn’t quit. I still thought about it, but Lonnie remained an intriguing enigma. What is his work and why isn’t it complete? My comfortable—and safe—sofa beckoned, but unknown forces drew me to see whether Lonnie could salvage his life's work from the rubble of his foiled master plan.

  He and Baker had blazed a twisting path for me. I decided to see where it led.

  chapter seven

  fair is foul

  On Thursday LaKeesha Washington silently invited me in, and I followed as she trudged up fourteen rickety steps to her one-bedroom loft. The living room looked like it hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint since the Carter administration and, even though it was five in the afternoon and sunny, inside was dark as a cave. She directed me to one of two threadbare paisley print chairs with armrests. I removed old National Enquirers from the cushion and sat down. A shot chair spring stabbed me in the back.

  LaKeesha stared at me with her good eye while the lazy one drifted off somewhere over my left shoulder. She smacked her lips and her tongue periodically shot from her mouth. Her head bobbed up and down as before. A siren whooped below as an ambulance sped down the street.

  “Thanks for inviting me in, Mrs. Washington.”

  “It’s LaKeesha. I ain’t never been married. Sorry about the chair,” she said. “The one here just as bad. So, how’s my baby Boo?”

  For the next fifteen minutes I put a positive spin on how he looked and said that he was keeping his spirits up. I kept his remarks about being a dead man to myself and said that he didn’t want her to visit him in jail, at least for now. “Lonnie wants me to tell you not to worry about him and that he’s more concerned about you. He wants me to check in on you from time to time to make sure you’re okay.”

  “When can I see him?”

  “Lonnie said he’d like to wait until the case isn’t so high profile on television and you can visit him without being bothered by reporters.”

  She seemed to understand as she repeatedly tried and failed to smooth the creases in her polyester slacks with crooked fingers. I read it as an anxiety tell. She finally raised her head and said, “That sounds like my Boo.” Then, in a rueful voice, she added, “After all I put him through, too.” She squinted and audibly smacked her lips.

  The darkened room was stuffy, but two gray plastic box fans circulated the closed air. “What do you mean?”

  “Boo didn’t tell you? I was no fit momma for that child. I was fifteen—drinkin’ and smokin’, runnin’ the streets. Didn’t have a lick of common sense, still don’t have much. One night I got drunk and high … with someone I looked up to. I don’t remember havin’ sex … but seven months later my little Boo came into the world.” A cloud passed over her round face as she continued, “The DFS peoples took him right after he was born. I had no clue how to take care of myself, much less a premie with a twisted-up club foot. Boo been in and out of foster homes, some of them treated him shameful. You know what helped him survive, Mister? His drawings. That boy took to art like a duck to water, I swear. Crayons, pencils, markers, charcoal, oils, watercolors. He can draw anything he put his mind to. Paint a portrait or shade a sketch of anything or anybody. And do it from memory. He sure didn’t get that from me; I can’t even draw a straight line.”

  LaKeesha’s rickety front door banged open and the muffled sounds of voices and laughter on the landing preceded the steady clog of wooden heels on hardwood slowly making their way upstairs. Three women appeared, lugging armfuls of groceries into the tiny kitchen. They wore brightly colored, traditional dashiki dresses with layers and layers of jangling gold and silver costume jewelry. One was stocky, one hippy, while the one in the center was much older, tiny, rail thin, and wore a bright purple turban.

  The lady in the picture next to Earl.

  “You better not be the press,” the little woman said, with a hint of steel in her deep voice. She glared at me, a hand on her hip. She reminded me of the late Lena Horne.

  “Excuse me, Mister,” LaKeesha said meekly, rising, looking as if she were in trouble. She motioned for the women to join her in the kitchen.

  A few minutes later, the three women returned and the petite one sat in LaKeesha’s chair eyeing me warily. The other two stood, flanking their leader like devoted acolytes. LaKeesha remained in the kitchen, and I heard cabinet doors open and close, the rustling of grocery bags, and the slow clunk of cans being stacked on the counter.

  “We're going to talk while LaKeesha puts away her groceries,” said the diminutive lady in the middle. “My name is Yolanda. Everyone calls me Skinny Yolanda or just plain Skinny. I got the biggest mouth in the city and take shit from no one.” Inclining her head to the right, she said, “This is Tyra—” She pointed a bony finger over her left shoulder, saying, “—and Shirley. That poor woman in the kitchen has been through hell her entire life. We need to be sure you’re on her side. How do we know The Man ain’t using you to get to Lonnie?”

  She glared at me, crossed her arms, and swayed a few times from side to side as her friends seconded the sentiment with a chorus of “Mm-hmms.”

  “Ladies, I'm Dr. Mitchell Adams, a social worker in private practice. LaKeesha may have chosen to tell you I have a connection with Lonnie, but I cannot disclose anything to you without his permission. He has asked me to check on his mother from time to time and give her updates. That’s why I’m here. Do you have a problem with that?�
��

  Yolanda didn’t uncross her folded arms. “If you’re appointed by the court, then you workin’ for The Man. That makes you no friend to Lonnie or us.”

  I explained my lack of fee.

  “Huh.” Yolanda was speechless, but only momentarily. “You have some sort of identification?”

  I gave her one of my business cards.

  She handed it back to me. “Anyone can have these made.”

  I produced my driver's license, holding my thumb over my address. She compared my face to the photo.

  “The card says you have a Ph.D. in Social Work and your own private practice in Clayton. Why are you seeing Lonnie for free?”

  “Detective Baker, St. Louis City Homicide, asked me,” I said.

  “Little JoJo called you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She mulled this over and raised an eyebrow. She seemed to soften at the mention of Baker’s name and said, “Lonnie didn’t tell me you’d be paying a visit to his mother, so he must have some trust in you.” She cast a furtive look at the young, hourglass-shaped woman on her right. “But trust put him where he is and turned the others into fugitives. He has more faith in people than I ever will. I will go along with this, even though it’s against my better judgment. If I find out The Man is using you against Lonnie and the others, I will personally whup your ass up and down this block in front of God and everyone.” A pause, then: “And listen up, you think JoJo Baker is some kind of badass? I can put him across my knee on a whim, so don’t even think about crossing me, honey.” Skinny shook her head from side to side as her light frame swayed in the chair.

  Her friends seconded the sentiment with a chorus of amens and hallelujahs.

  “Does LaKeesha understand the charges her son faces?”

  “Not completely. She knows it’s bad but thinks he's been accused of stealing money at work. She knows he's innocent of that because he’s never stolen a dime in his life and has always been an honest, hard-working man.”

  She reclined in her seat and her intensity level dialed down a notch. “Now that we’ve dispensed with the pleasantries, let me tell you how Lonnie Washington entered this world. If you’re going to help him, you need to know how the world has treated him. Before that, I must tell you about LaKeesha.”

  I sat forward in my chair. Finally, just maybe, I was getting somewhere.

  “LaKeesha was born dirt poor and mentally challenged. Her mother was a prostitute and her father unknown. Mother sure did like her heroin, though.” Skinny pronounced it the old-fashioned St. Louis city street way, “herr-rhine.”

  “LaKeesha’s attendance in Special School was spotty, given the lack of structure at home. At twelve, she had to fend off the parade of men who passed in and out of her mother’s wayward life. She ran away from home countless times; when things got bad, she stayed with us. At fifteen we got her a job bussing tables in a pool hall on the north side. One night she started feeling sick and screamed, ‘My cooter hurts!’ The place went quiet as LaKeesha dropped to her knees and shouted, ‘Sweet Jesus, I been shot! I’m dyin’!’ All the badass men stood there, mouths open like they’d seen a ghost. They thought she was havin’ a seizure or the St. Vitus Dance. When her water broke, I ordered Earl and a big strapping buck to lift her onto their table. I delivered little Lonnie right on the green felt. No one, not even LaKeesha, knew she was pregnant; she’s always been a plus-size girl.” Yolanda smiled and added, “Earl took one look at the table and said to his friend, ‘Let’s call it a draw,’ and passed out. I dragged his bony ass onto another table and attended to mother and child until the EMTs arrived.”

  “So over the years you and Earl became her de facto aunt and uncle?”

  A dark cloud seemed to settle over her weathered face. “The one and the same scrawny, now infamous, little Negro. That was before Earl bought the printing shop. He was a butcher in his thirties when Lonnie made his surprise entrance into the world. We've had our knock-down drag-outs, but I can’t stay mad at that crazy old man for long. We’ve been together forty years.”

  “Was there a father figure in Lonnie’s life?”

  Tyra and Shirley looked at Yolanda who appraised me again.

  “Family Services took baby Lonnie into custody straight from the hospital. I was full of piss and vinegar about it at the time, but LaKeesha was mentally retarded, fifteen, and living in a converted closet behind the pool hall. We didn’t have room for LaKeesha and a newborn in our little house, according to DFS.” Her jaw muscles tensed. “She didn’t know who the baby daddy was.”

  I started to say something, reconsidered, and let her continue.

  “That boy’s club foot twisted in and down at almost a ninety-degree angle. He had manipulations, castings, and his first surgery at age three months. A post-operative infection and pneumonia nearly killed him twice. His caseworker called him a failure-to-thrive baby. He underwent an Achilles tenotomy surgery and had to wear some contraption called a Denis Browne Bar splint twenty-three hours a day for three months and then twelve hours a day until he was four. The structure in those early foster homes was inconsistent, so if he resisted wearing the brace long enough, he eventually got his way. The more time he spent out of it, the more he reverted to walking on his ankle or side of his foot, and the more permanent his disability became.”

  The two other women tsk tsked and shook their heads as if bemoaning the sad story for the first time.

  “He was bullied and beaten in most of the group and foster homes because he was a small, shy child with a deformity that made him different. He learned to keep his feelings to himself and his mouth shut. He turned inward and lost himself in books, falling in love with art because of his special gift. He loved the Renaissance and knows the works of all the artists of the period. He’d sit for hours in the art museum sketching paintings. He avoided the delinquents in the group homes as best he could, but when the abuse became unbearable he’d run away, sometimes to the museum. The police always brought him back and the bullying resumed. Lonnie made himself into the smart young man he is today.”

  A felony counterfeiter.

  I heard a glass jar shatter on the kitchen floor, followed by idle muttering.

  “Does LaKeesha need help?” I asked.

  Skinny Yolanda grinned. “I’m sure she does, but that’s one of her jobs. She does everything slow; that’s the way she is. We looked after her all the years he was in foster care. This is part of the routine Lonnie devised for her, and it works. She had to quit drinking and smoking and develop a healthier lifestyle to earn this house. This is a palace compared to what she grew up in.”

  “Does Lonnie have any history of legal problems before this arrest?”

  “No.”

  “What happened to him after the foster homes?”

  “When he turned seventeen, the State didn’t know what to do with him, so they found LaKeesha HUD housing, a caseworker to help manage her affairs, and reunited them. For the next four years he lived with her and worked two jobs. At twenty-one he moved into his own place because he believes every able adult should be self-sufficient. He saw her daily, made certain there was healthy food in her pantry and that her bills were paid on time.”

  LaKeesha appeared at the arched doorway and announced, “Yolanda, my chores are done, and I cleaned up the mess on the floor. I’m finna to take my nap now.” She turned to me, her lips smacking and tongue protruding. “It was nice meetin’ you, Dr. Mitchell, and thanks for telling me about my baby Boo.”

  “Nice meeting you. Lonnie wants me to see you once a week. May I visit you this time next week?”

  “Okay,” she answered, turning and padding slowly down the hallway in worn yellow hospital-issue footies.

  Skinny Yolanda smiled in LaKeesha’s direction and turned back to me. “Right on schedule. She has the mind of a child, but with guidance she does what she can. With Lonnie gone again, we’ll look after our little sister.”

  “How long has she had Tardive dyskinesia?”


  “Years. The clinic doctors misdiagnosed her as being mentally ill. Her condition is irreversible.”

  Long-term use of antipsychotic neuroleptic medications causes the neurological disorder known as Tardive dyskinesia, characterized by repetitive, involuntary, and purposeless movements. She will likely die before her time due to TD. LaKeesha was a classic example of incompetent health care. Sadly, she was not alone.

  “She’s lucky to have friends like you.”

  “We more than friends,” blurted Tyra, the hippy hourglass figure in orange standing to the right of Yolanda.

  Skinny Yolanda shot her a surreptitious dirty look. “Lonnie may trust you, but I’m a mangy old dog that’s been kicked too many times.”

  More than friends.

  Yolanda is with Earl, Tyra is Benny’s lady friend, and Shirley may be Mrs. Sparks. I smiled at the ladies and said, “I commend you for looking after LaKeesha.”

  The larger ladies, eager to respond, deferred to Yolanda like they were muzzled and tethered to a leash. The stern look on Skinny Yolanda’s face said I’d learn no more today.

  “Is that your red sports car parked on the street?” asked the plump Shirley to Skinny’s left.

  I nodded.

  Skinny Yolanda grinned. “If you don’t want to see it on blocks missing tires, a stereo, and what not, I wouldn’t leave it unattended much longer.”

  “I hired DeAndre and Ty to watch my car.”

  The ladies exchanged glances and giggled, which soon escalated into full-out laughter and knee slapping. Shirley’s belly shook like a bowl of green Jell-O under her bright dashiki. Skinny pointed at me while struggling to compose herself. “Little Ty can jimmy a car in under a minute, and I do believe DeAndre’s even faster.”

  In the advancing twilight, I heard glass breaking and the throbbing, reverberating bass of Blaupunkt speakers from a passing car in the street below. Some of the wind went out of my sails thinking about my car.

  Skinny stared at me, unblinking. The old woman, hard as bone, said, “Why are you doing this?”