“Then you tell me what you got and maybe I’ll tell you what I got.”
I contemplated this one-sided proposal. There was no way he was going to give up anything without me providing a motivation for him to do so.
“All right,” I said. “I have a copy of the film footage you showed on World Entertainment Television.”
There was a moment of silence. Then: “You do?”
“Yep. The whole thing. The entire roll.”
“All of it?”
“That’s right. Now let me ask you something, Mr. Munroe. Does your copy of the film have an additional scene at the end, one that wasn’t shown on the TV show?”
Again he was quiet. Then: “Yeah. It does.”
“There you go. Now do you believe me?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he asked, “Who are you?”
“That’s not important. I’m calling because we need to come to an understanding. That extra film footage must never be seen. It should be destroyed.”
This time he laughed. Softly at first, but then it grew into a belly laugh, as if I’d just told him the funniest joke in the world. When he caught his breath, he said, “You gotta be kidding. What for?”
“Because I represent the Black Stiletto’s interests.” I couldn’t think of anything better to say.
“Oh, do you now? And how can that be? Is she alive? Are you related? You gotta tell me more, Talbot.”
“Maybe I can. Perhaps we need to meet in person. Can you come to Chicago?”
Again the belly laugh. “Me? Come to Chicago? Or should I say Buffalo Grove, wherever the fuck that is. Yeah, that’s right. I checked you out before I called. There are so many wonderful tools on the Internet these days. Hell, I’m looking at your house right now on Google Maps street view. Now listen to me, Talbot. I don’t go anywhere for you. You gotta come to me. Why don’t you come to New York? I’d be happy to meet with you here.”
I knew that wasn’t possible. I’d be starting my new job on Monday and, frankly, I couldn’t afford such a trip right now. I told him I couldn’t do it.
“Well, then, I guess I’ll have to take World Entertainment’s offer of half a million bucks for any additional Black Stiletto material I might have, especially anything that might reveal her identity. The fact that you’ve got another copy of the footage validates it, wouldn’t you say? I can’t believe my father would make only one print from the negative.”
Holy shit. This guy was serious. “Does the negative exist?” I asked, trying my best to keep the nervousness out of my voice.
“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. I tell you what, though. Since you represent the Black Stiletto’s interests, as you say, I’ll make you a deal. Sounds to me like you really want to keep the rest of my film from going public, am I right?”
I didn’t expect any deal from him to be fair, but I said, “Yeah. That’s the idea.”
“All right, I’ll sell you the film for a million bucks. Then World Entertainment won’t get it.”
“Isn’t that extortion?”
“Nah. It’s a friendly business offer between two individuals. I’m givin’ you first refusal. One million bucks.”
“You’re crazy.”
He laughed again. I didn’t like the guy at all.
“Why don’t you take the weekend to think about it? I’ll give you a call on Monday and we can talk again. How’d that be?”
I hung up. I was so angry I couldn’t think straight. What began as an innocent, fact-finding phone call on my part had led to a million-dollar extortion threat.
Damn. What was I going to do?
I jumped in the car and drove to Woodlands to see Mom. This was serious. I was faced with making a choice between the lesser of two evils. On the one hand, if I let Munroe do what he wanted, my mother’s youthful face would be exposed to the world. On the other hand, if I legally attempted to stop the guy, I’d be forced to reveal my mother’s identity and present evidence that she’s the real deal. The latter was definitely the worst that could happen. If the unmasking scene was shown on television, the odds were against the possibility that someone would recognize my mom when she was twenty-something. We could still probably remain anonymous.
Still, it was my duty to do everything in my power to prevent that bastard from displaying Mom’s face to the world. How was I going to stop him without compromising my mother, not as the Stiletto, but as she is today? Trying to come up with an answer to that just made me angrier. It all had to do with that damned film and its invasion of her privacy.
Mom was in her room, sitting in her rocker and listening to a CD of Elvis’s greatest hits. I gave it to her a while back. One of the staff must have put it in for her. It’s true that she responds well to Elvis music. It definitely changes her mood for the better. As she listens, a smile of pleasure breaks through the wall of hurt, confusion, and depression that is Alzheimer’s. She even sways in her chair a little. Gina is sometimes successful at getting her grandmother up to dance.
I hated to spoil the party.
“Mom, I have to talk to you.”
She looked up and grinned at me. “Oh, hi.”
I remember my mother as a lively and talkative lady; now she was a woman of very few words.
“Hi. Listen to me a second, Mom, okay? I have to ask you something.” I sat on her bed across from her, reached over to the dresser, and turned the volume down a bit.
Mom turned her head toward the player and asked, “Oh, is it over?”
“I just turned it down, Mom, so we could hear each other. Look at me, Mom.” I took her hands and held them. She seemed to like that. “Mom, I know this might be hard for you to remember. You probably won’t know what the hell I’m talking about. But I have to ask. Do you remember the film you made in New York? With Jerry Munroe? A film, Mom, you left it for me. It’s footage of you in costume.” I knew from experience the words “Black Stiletto” triggered an unpleasant emotional response from my mother, so I avoided them at all costs.
Something—I swear—something lit up behind those sad greenish-brown eyes. Then she gasped slightly and her expression became one of mental struggle. There was a memory lodged in there and she knew it. She just couldn’t reach it.
And then, out of the blue, she said, “Not a costume.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Disguise. It was my disguise.”
Christ Almighty, it was the first time my mother had ever acknowledged anything to do with the Black Stiletto. In the past, she’d just become agitated and upset if I mentioned her.
“Do you remember the film, Mom?” I held up and cupped my hands to form a small circle. “This was how big it was. A reel of film. Black-and-white film. Of you. Jerry Munroe shot it in New York. Do you remember?”
For a moment I thought I’d mined some dormant remembrance. Her face hardened and she squinted. It was a great effort for her, but she found a way to reach back into the past. For a second.
“Jerry Munroe,” she said, as if the name was something that tasted bad.
“Yeah, that’s him, Mom. Do you remember? Well, you know the ending, right? The part he secretly filmed and you didn’t know about it? You were in a dressing room and—” I mimed the action. “—you pulled off your mask.”
She gasped again and then it was gone. Her face changed. It was as if the dark vision in her brain had suddenly departed. After a few seconds of stillness, she resumed her role as the unhappily complacent Alzheimer’s patient.
“Mom? Is there anything you can remember about it?”
And then her eyes rolled upward and she fainted.
“Mom?” I got up and went to her. Mom’s head lolled to the side and her body drooped beneath it. “Mom!”
First I made sure she wouldn’t slide out of the rocking chair. Her limp body appeared to be safe from falling, so I leaped for the call button that hung by her bed. I pushed it frantically, then jumped up and ran to the door. One of the nurses was already on her way, so I darted out to greet her.<
br />
“My mother’s fainted, I think,” I huffed. The woman hurried with me back to the room. Mom was beginning to stir. She moaned lightly.
“Let’s put her on the bed,” the nurse said. “Can you get under her arms? I’ll grab her legs.”
I nodded and reached behind my mom. “Hey, Mom,” I said to her, “we’re going for a ride.” She was as light as a pancake.
Once she was stretched out on her bed, the nurse began checking vital signs. Dr. McDaniel walked in a moment later.
“What is it?”
“Judy fainted,” the nurse said to the patient. “But we’re better now, aren’t we?”
“I’m glad I was still here,” the doctor said. “Let me take a look.”
I stood near the door as Dr. McDaniel and the nurse poked and prodded my mom. I was struck again during one of those male moments of how good the doc looked, even after working all day. She murmured some instructions to the nurse, who moved swiftly out of the room, and then turned to me and said, “Mr. Talbot, I’m sending your mother to the hospital for some tests. This may have been a mild stroke.”
“Stroke?” You could have stabbed me with an ice pick and it wouldn’t have stung more.
She held up a hand. “Wait until after the tests before coming to any conclusions. It’s possible it’s not serious at all. Her blood pressure is lower than normal and her heart rate is increased. Was she upset about something?”
And once again, after an initial attraction on my part, I thought the woman’s bedside manner was cold and abrupt. “I beg your pardon?”
“Was she upset about anything?”
Uh-oh. She’d caught me. “Not that I know of. She was listening to music.” I pointed to the CD player—Elvis was still lightly rocking in the background. “I turned it down when I came in.” I went over, stopped the music, and approached Mom. Her eyes were closed and she looked rather peaceful, all things considered.
“I suggest you follow the ambulance to the hospital,” Dr. McDaniel said. “You’ll want to take care of the bureaucracy.”
“I hope we don’t have to keep her in very long,” I said. “Hospitals are hell for Alzheimer’s patients. They don’t understand why they’re there and why they’re being poked and pricked and confined to bed.”
Dr. McDaniel shook her head. “We try to keep the nursing staff aware and properly trained in handling Alzheimer’s patients. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.”
With those comforting words, she left the room, so I sat with my mom until the paramedics arrived with the gurney. Then I drove my own car behind the blaring ambulance to Highland Park Hospital.
The day had definitely gone from bad to worse.
20
Judy’s Diary
1959
EARLY MORNING, MARCH 9, 1959
I’m in my room wrapping my left knee ’cause I got hurt tonight. I’m gonna be walking with a limp for a while. Nothing’s broken, thank goodness, it’s probably just sprained. How it happened is quite a story, so here goes.
I took a cab up to Harlem around 9:30 p.m. Had my trench coat on over my disguise, my mask in the backpack. The driver almost refused to take me to Harlem—he was a white guy—but I said I’d report him to the taxi company if he didn’t. I even gave him a little speech about prejudice, which I’m sure he didn’t appreciate. Nevertheless, I tipped him good and that satisfied him. He let me off on 131st Street, where the Harlem Delight brothel is located.
It was a rundown brownstone. Even though the exterior looked as if it was abandoned, there were lights on in some windows. Still, it wasn’t a very inviting place. By now it was around 10:00 p.m., so dressed as the Stiletto, I waited across the street in the shadows of a quiet building entryway, hoping no one would come in or out. I watched the bordello for twenty minutes and saw two colored men enter the place; a little bit later I watched a different guy leave. Customers.
I wasn’t getting any younger, so it was time to act. I crossed the street and moved along the row of buildings until I found an egress to the narrow alley between 131st and 132nd. It was a tight squeeze and just as filthy and disgusting as the one between 127th and 128th. I didn’t see any rats this time, but I bet if I looked hard enough, I’d find them!
The rear fire escape on the building was in disrepair. Some of the metal stairs were broken in parts, but the landings appeared to be intact. Getting up to the first landing was a challenge, though, because the lower ladder was missing. After two throws, I managed to catch the edge of the grated platform with the homemade grappling hook on my rope. I tested it to see if it would hold my weight without tearing down the fire escape, and then I shimmied up the rope just like I used to do in gym class back in school. I was on the landing in seconds; I coiled the rope and attached it to my belt. I figured the higher I went, the less likely I’d run into bad guys, so I climbed the rickety stairs to the fifth-floor landing. Half of the bolts securing the fire escape to the building were loose. The whole thing wobbled. It was a disaster waiting to happen—the assembly held my weight fine, but I was certain it would collapse if more than two people climbed on it.
There was no light in the window at this level. I carefully peered through the dirty pane and determined it was an empty bedroom, or so I thought. Luckily, the window wasn’t locked. It was stuck, though, and I had to use old-fashioned elbow grease to raise the thing. It squeaked and creaked a little too loudly for my comfort level, but there was nothing I could do about it. Once I’d lifted it far enough, I slipped inside.
Imagine my surprise when I saw two colored women lying together on top of the sheets of an unmade twin bed. They wore nightgowns. One was snoring and the other breathed heavily. At first I thought they were just asleep, but then I saw the drug paraphernalia on a nightstand by the bed. A hypodermic needle. A rubber hose. A cigarette lighter and a crusty spoon. I may be naïve about a lot of stuff, but I knew those things were tools for heroin use. Upon closer examination, I saw that the two women were really young girls—teenagers, I think. Maybe sixteen or seventeen. Drugged up and oblivious to the world.
I shook the one that was breathing heavily. “Hey,” I said. “Wake up. Are you all right?”
She stirred and moaned. I persisted, shaking her and even giving her a little slap on the cheek. “Come on, I need to ask you something. Can you open your eyes?”
I expected her to scream or something when she saw me. I imagine waking up to the sight of me in my disguise could be pretty frightening, but this girl was so doped up she barely registered what she was looking at. Her eyes blinked a few times and they had a glaze over them.
“Who you?” she hoarsely asked.
“The Black Stiletto. Don’t be frightened, I’m here to help. You heard of me?”
She almost passed out into her heroin daze again, but I shook her to keep her cognizant.
“What’s your name?” I asked. She whispered something I couldn’t understand. “What? Try to speak louder, honey. I’m here to help you.”
“Ruby.”
“Ruby, can you hear me all right? Who’s your friend here?”
She looked very confused. Ruby turned her head and realized she was next to another person.
“Oh, that’s Angela.”
“Can you tell me if there’s a Japanese girl here?” I asked.
Again, she furrowed her brow. She put a weak hand to her forehead and rubbed it. Clearly, she was not on this planet.
“Ruby. Is there a Japanese girl here?”
A faint nod, followed by a whisper.
“What?”
“Lotus.”
“That’s her name?”
Again a nod. “Lotus Flower.”
“Where is she? What floor is she on? Do you know?”
I also wanted to ask her how many men were in the building, but it was hopeless. I couldn’t talk to that girl. I’m surprised she was alive. She and Angela looked terrible. They were skinny and had dark circles under their eyes. Their arms were black-and-blue
where they’d been shooting up. I don’t understand how anyone could do that. For someone who’s withstood being cut by knives before, I sure hate needles.
A cold breeze blew through the open window, so I shut it. No use giving the poor girls pneumonia while they lay there. Nothing else to do but stealthily explore the building until I found Isuzu. “Lotus Flower” had to be her.
I quietly opened the bedroom door and looked out into an empty, dark hallway. There was a bathroom and a door, presumably leading to another bedroom across the way. The floor was hardwood, but it was rotted and noisy. Pieces were missing here and there. Someone could get a serious splinter walking barefoot. Unless someone was behind that closed bedroom door, I was alone up there with Ruby and Angela. I heard male and female voices below, coming from different parts of the building. Laughing, talking, and sounds of sex. I also detected the faint strains of music, probably originating from a record player way down on the ground floor. It was Negro blues, something I don’t really listen to, but it’s related to the jazz that Freddie sometimes plays on our hi-fi.
To my ears, that blues music just sounds sad, as if all the hardships in the world are bundled inside the musicians’ souls. I thought it was very fitting for such an unhappy place. I could practically touch the emotions in the air. My instincts were going haywire. I felt nothing but despair, sorrow, and pain.
I crept into the hallway and went to the stairs. Leaning over the railing, I saw lights on the fourth floor and heard a door slam shut. Then a man’s heavy footsteps on the creaky wooden slats grew louder. I saw the top of his head as he moved to the stairs. He was coming up! I quickly slipped into the dark bathroom and stood as still as a statue. A large, burly Negro came into view; he obviously acted as muscle for the brothel. I don’t think I’d ever faced a guy as big as him.
He reached the fifth floor and headed toward Ruby and Angela’s room.
“Psst. Hey,” I said.
The man turned, not expecting anyone to be behind him. I let him have it with a swift front kick to his belly and followed through with an ippon ken, or single-point fist attack, in which my middle finger is bent to protrude beyond the rest of the fist to form a striking point. I got him right in the Adam’s apple. I didn’t want to kill the guy, so I had to pull my punch a bit; nevertheless, the one-two strike completely stunned him. He fell to his knees, at which point I gave him an old-fashioned right hook. He plummeted sideways and was out. Miraculously, I hadn’t made much noise. I waited and listened to see if anyone down below had heard the scuffle, but nothing happened.
The Black Stiletto: Black & White Page 12