Without Prejudice

by Unknown

  He made coffee and toast, and wondered what Duval would like for breakfast. Pancakes would probably go down well, so he made enough batter for Sophie and Duval, with some extra in case Anna wanted some. Leaving the mix to air, he opened the back door and went out into the yard. The sun was already rising above the birches and warming the air – by late morning it would be thickly hot, and Sophie would want a swim before they left.

  When he turned to go back into the house, he saw a police car coming from the Poindexters’, cruising gently along the drive. It stopped by the fence and a lone policeman got out. He had an air of small town about him – as if he once had worked for his father’s hardware store, or managed a fruit middle-man’s depot. His parka was blue and he didn’t wear a state cop’s wide-brimmed hat. A local cop, Robert decided.

  ‘Morning. Are you Mr Danziger?’

  ‘That’s me.’ He tried to sound cordial, but all he could think about was Duval. Maybe Robert got the paperwork wrong for his permission to leave the state. Was there a call out now from Duval’s officer in Chicago?

  ‘Mr Poindexter reported some damage to his property. I thought I’d better come out and have a look. He said you’d had some too.’

  ‘Just two windows broken in the garage.’ With relief, he pointed to the outbuilding. ‘I fixed them yesterday.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘No. I checked the house. There’s an apartment upstairs.’ He pointed towards Duval’s window above the garage. ‘But it’s fine.’

  The policeman nodded. ‘You haven’t seen anybody hanging around?’

  ‘No, but we’re only here at weekends.’

  ‘Mrs Poindexter said there’d been a man on the beach early this morning.’ He turned and pointed towards the dunes. ‘Just over there.’

  ‘Lots of people walk on the beach. It’s public land. By the water anyway.’

  ‘I know, but she saw a man come from this way across the dunes. This was early: Mrs Poindexter says she walks her dog at the crack of dawn. The guy was six feet and a bit, middle-aged.’ He paused. ‘Gentleman of colour, she says.’

  Gentleman of colour? His father had been the last person Robert had known to use the phrase. ‘Give me just a second,’ he said. He ran up the outside staircase to the apartment. As he neared the top he called out for Duval, then knocking on the door waited. There was no answer, so he went in, crossed the living room and peered through the open door of the bedroom. It was empty, the bed neatly made.

  When he came back down Anna was standing in the back door of the coach house, in blue jeans and a plum-coloured T-shirt. Robert said to the cop, ‘I think it must be the man who’s staying with us.’

  The policeman’s eyes widened. Robert explained, ‘He’s helping me with some work here. On the fence and in the yard.’

  The cop nodded. ‘Okay. Just wanted to make sure. I’ll let you know if we find who the vandals were.’

  ‘What was that about?’ asked Anna as the patrol car left.

  He explained the purpose of the policeman’s visit, and Tina Poindexter’s sighting of a mysterious black man on ‘her’ beach. ‘It must have been Duval. I don’t know where he is – he’s not upstairs.’

  ‘Racist bastards.’

  ‘Come on, you can’t blame the cop. Not many black people live in this neck of the woods.’

  ‘Bollocks. You’re as bad as they are.’

  ‘No, I’m just being realistic. Blacks don’t live here, blacks don’t come out here – unless it’s to—’

  ‘What? Fulfil your stereotype?’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘Why don’t you try thinking about it from a black person’s point of view? Say you get invited to a place like this, only to find everybody’s suspicious – can you imagine what that feels like? If anything’s stolen the first thought is that it has to be you.’ She was heading inside, opening the kitchen door, but stopped to deliver a parting shot. ‘Come on, Robert, you must be able to see how unfair that is.’

  Sure, he thought, it was completely unfair. But also perfectly reasonable. The Poindexters had said there had been a rash of burglaries of the properties along the beach, committed by people who drove out from Gary or Hammond, looking for places to rob during the week when they were empty. ‘People’, it was clear, given where they were coming from, were black people.

  And that was the problem: both sides to the argument thought they were right. No wonder the divide was so great, magnified by white fear and black resentment. Though sometimes the feelings switched sides: he thought of his father and how his early liberalism had receded. Johnny had given large sums when he didn’t really have it to give, in the 1950s and ’60s, to the United Negro College Fund and the NAACP (how quaint that seemed now), but had grown disillusioned as Black Power and separatism abandoned the integrationism of the early Civil Rights Movement. Blacks moved from being victims to being angry victims; his father was puzzled, then infuriated, to discover that he was being blamed too.

  Robert had once thought his father’s resentment ridiculous, until he went to boarding school. There he had been friends with a black boy, Larry Williamson, also from Chicago. Then all the black students had walked out of morning assembly one day. Robert’s fellow white students were mostly the privileged sons of East Coast Wasp wealth, with six-hundred-dollar stereo systems in their rooms, yet they all smoked dope, wore Bass Weejun shoes, and had long hair. For all their hipness, however, they reacted to the black walkout worse than any redneck Robert had known in Michigan. ‘I be oppressed by the white motherfuckers so I don’t wanna go to school today,’ one had mimicked sarcastically, and the others had all laughed. And Robert had thought, These people aren’t hip. These people disgust me.

  But his own liberalism faltered when Larry Williamson suddenly made it clear he couldn’t be pals with a white boy, not even in the rarefied confines of a Yankee prep school. Just as later at college he resented it when black undergraduates almost universally shunned white company. His attitudes were no longer informed by communication across the racial divide other people had struggled for years to bridge.

  He realised now that in his adult life, with the exception of Latanya Darling, he had never had a close friend or a lover who was black. Living in England, race had disappeared from his life – it didn’t seem to have a role. And somehow he had thought that in his absence it had become a smaller part of American life as well. Had he been kidding himself? It seemed Anna thought so.

  Then he saw Duval, heading towards them from the dunes. He waved, and his old friend waved back. When he got back to the coach house, Duval was breathless. ‘I had me quite a walk,’ he said. ‘Must have gone four or five miles down the beach. I still ain’t used to so much exercise.’

  ‘See anybody?’ asked Robert mildly.

  ‘There was some lady when I started walking, with a big dog that kept barking. She waved at me, but I didn’t know her so I didn’t wave back. I never did like dogs much.’

  3

  It was called Little Slovakia, a roomy white pine house converted into a restaurant with a car park where the back yard would have been. It had a small bar with old-fashioned padded leather stools, and one large dining space full of round tables and dark wooden chairs. Locals ate there, and they looked with unfeigned interest as Robert came in with his wife and child and a tall black man.

  ‘This is my shout,’ he told Duval when the waitress came with menus, then realised Duval didn’t know what he meant. ‘It’s on me, okay? My treat, to say thanks for coming out all this way.’

  When they ordered, Duval looked flustered. So Robert went first, choosing roast duck with cherries, and Duval rapidly said he’d like that, too. While they waited for their food, Sophie coloured in her paper menu.

  Watching her, Duval said, ‘You’re a good artist.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sophie. She seemed completely at ease with him. ‘Hey, Duval,’ she said, her eyes on the paper, ‘when you were little, did you know Vanetta too?’

  ‘I did.�
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  ‘Vanetta was Duval’s grandmother,’ Robert explained.

  ‘Really?’ she asked. She seemed to find it hard to believe that Duval had once been somebody’s grandson.

  The waitress stopped at their table with a vast aluminium tray. She put it down on a stand and gave Sophie her plate of fried perch, then distributed three duck platters. Duval looked at his with alarm.

  Robert said, ‘If you don’t like it, I’ll get you something else.’

  Duval gave a friendly shake to his head. ‘Your daddy always did look after me,’ he said to Sophie.

  ‘Bossed you around more likely,’ said Anna.

  Duval grinned. ‘Yeah, that too.’

  But he tucked in promptly and seemed to like the duck – a big half-bird in a cherry-laden sauce, served with mixed white and wild rice, walnut stuffing and green beans. Robert noticed again how ravenously Duval ate. Didn’t Jermaine and his family feed the man?

  ‘This is good,’ said Duval as he ate. ‘It’s nice eating with you all. Shoot, it’s nice to be with such a close family.’

  ‘Are you coming to see us soon in Evanston?’ asked Sophie.

  Duval look wistful. ‘That depends if there’s more work I can do for you all.’

  Sophie said, ‘Maybe you can babysit for me when Mom and Dad go out.’

  Christ, thought Robert – what will she think of next? Even Anna looked uncomfortable. But Duval batted it back, saying, ‘I’m sure you got yourself some nice babysitters already.’

  ‘Mrs Peterson,’ said Sophie, and made a face.

  ‘There’s plenty of other things to do, Duval.’ Anna spoke before Robert could intervene. ‘It’s a big place – something’s always not working right. And there’s plenty of gardening jobs. I want to have flower beds dug, and maybe plant some more trees. Once I have a plan, I could use some help.’

  She continued talking in this unprecedented horticultural vein until they’d had dessert and Robert paid the bill. Outside the restaurant, when Anna and Sophie said goodbye, the little girl spontaneously hugged Duval. He stooped down awkwardly and put his arms around her in return. Anna shook his hand. ‘You make sure you see that Donna lady again at the centre this week,’ she said.

  That Donna lady? thought Robert. Even Anna’s English was turning American.

  He stood with Duval as Anna and Sophie drove off, then Robert took three twenty-dollar bills he had folded in his shirt pocket and handed them to Duval.

  ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘You did some work, so I owe you some money. Simple as that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it work. You put me up, you fed me. I had a nice bed.’

  ‘Go on, take it.’

  He was glad when Duval did. They got in the car, staying silent, listening to the radio until they reached the outskirts of Chicago, when Duval suddenly declared, ‘You’re a lucky man, you know. You got yourself a wonderful family. That little girl – she’s a pistol. And Anna, she’s as nice as she can be.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Robert said, hoping the laudatory gush could now stop. ‘Would you like to have a family, Duval?’

  ‘Sure.’ His voice was short. ‘Not likely though, is it?’

  ‘You’re not that old, Duval. Lots of people just get started at our age.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about my age. I’d have to meet somebody who believed me, Bobby. People think if you did the time, you did the crime.’

  ‘Not necessarily. There are all these cases where DNA shows the wrong people have been put in prison. I read about one in the paper just last week.’

  ‘I did too. He done six years.’ A mere bagatelle, his voice suggested.

  ‘People aren’t so quick to judge now they see that the system can get it wrong. It may take a while but there’s no reason you won’t meet somebody, settle down, even have kids.’

  ‘It’s not just whether I did it that worries them.’

  ‘Oh?’ They had come off the Skyway now, and he turned to head for Cornell Avenue, slowing at the corner as an ambulance flashed by with no siren on.

  ‘They have to ignore the missing twenty-four years.’ There was a relentless quality to his voice. ‘They have to think it didn’t twist me up, my being put away so long. They have to trust me.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to me you’re twisted up.’

  They’d reached Jermaine’s house, and Robert pulled over but left the engine running. He reached out a hand and they shook.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Duval.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Robert. ‘At least I know the garage window won’t fall out tomorrow, which it would if I’d done it.’

  Duval gave a weak laugh and opened the door. He got out, then leaned down, his expression suddenly set, and spoke through the open window. ‘You should trust me, too, Bobby.’

  ‘I do, Duval.’

  ‘Then why did you lock the door last night?’

  4

  A front of heavy stratocumulus moved down from Wisconsin and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. Staff were starting to go on summer holiday, but Vicky had deferred hers to coincide with his trip to Frankfurt in October. She seemed determined now to conduct herself at some imagined professional standard – there was no more reading of novels during slow moments. When Balthazar called that afternoon, she put him through right away, and Robert picked up the phone happily, noting that like many friendless people, he was starting to mistake acquaintance for amity.

  Balthazar said, ‘I told him not to talk to you.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Coach Carlson. I don’t know what you said to him, but it worked.’ Balthazar sounded both impressed and irritated. ‘Though who the hell is Candy Williams?’

  ‘A legend in her time.’

  ‘What time is that – 1875?’

  ‘I did my best,’ said Robert. ‘So what’s the story?’

  ‘We’ve had four bids in. Carlson says if you can match the best one, then the book is yours.’

  ‘What do I have to pay?’ he asked. If silly money was going for the book, he might as well cut and run now – all his showmanship with Carlson wouldn’t matter.

  ‘275K.’

  ‘I see,’ he said gnomically. There was no point rushing to accept, since it seemed Carlson was calling the shots, not the agent – Balthazar didn’t sound happy at all about letting Robert and the press enter the bidding. It was a lot, but the figure was less than he’d feared, and provided the hardback got some decent reviews, he could always sell off the paperback rights.

  ‘That’s for North American rights only. You’ll have to pay more for World English.’

  Robert laughed. Did Balthazar think his brain had turned to mush out in the boondocks? ‘I’m happy for you to keep those. Can’t see a big sale in Australia for the coach’s memoirs.’

  ‘Suit yourself. There’s one condition, though.’

  He should have known. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Carlson wants you to be his editor. Otherwise he’ll go with HarperCollins.’

  ‘Me? Why does he want that? I thought he got on with my publishing director. She’s a good editor.’ If a major pain in the ass who had almost lost the book.

  ‘That’s the condition.’

  Christ, thought Robert, I don’t even like football. Or the coach, for that matter. ‘I’m a little surprised by this.’

  Balthazar sighed. ‘Can we speak frankly?’ he said.

  ‘Of course.’ It seemed an unnecessary request – he had never known Balthazar to speak in any other way.

  ‘I think the coach got on well with this woman. Very well.’ He paused to let this sink in. ‘But relationships change – as you and I know to our cost.’

  A reference to his and Robert’s divorces? Probably, but Robert was still trying to digest what the agent had just said – Dorothy had been involved with Coach Carlson. It seemed positively incredible.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘I had it from the horse’s mouth, as they probably like
to say in Chicago.’ He added with slight malice, ‘It seems my client’s fabled interest in African-American athleticism has not been confined to football.’

  Cautiously, Robert asked, ‘But you say the relationship changed?’

  ‘Apparently. I believe his wife may have had something to do with it.’

  ‘She found out?’

  Balthazar grunted a verbal affirmation over the phone. Robert pressed on, intrigued, ‘Is that why you went elsewhere with the book?’

  ‘I don’t know the precise order of events. And I don’t want to,’ he said piously, in a rebuke to Robert’s probing. ‘All I know is, he won’t work with that woman. It has to be you.’

  Reining in his curiosity, Robert said, ‘Okay. Can you give me a day or two?’

  ‘If I must. What’s the issue?’

  The issue was Dorothy; he would need to talk with her first. But it would alarm Balthazar if he said so – as well as Coach Carlson if Balthazar reported the conversation. ‘The money’s the issue. It’s worth it, no question. I just need clearance at that level of spend.’

  ‘I thought you ran the press.’ Balthazar’s voice was suddenly less friendly, reminding Robert that if it had been up to the agent, he would not be making this call, but enjoying instead a celebratory lunch at the Four Seasons with the acquiring editor from HarperCollins.

  ‘I need an okay from the university president.’ This was pure invention but should sound plausible. ‘It’s a lot of money for us.’

  ‘That’s what’s worrying me.’

  ‘Don’t let it, or you’ll get to hear the spiel I gave Carlson on what a great job we’ll do on the book.’

  And for the first time Balthazar laughed, though Robert didn’t join in, since he was pondering with a mix of apprehension and fascination just how he should talk about this to Dorothy Taylor. At least now he understood why Mrs Carlson had been so angry with her husband.

  He gave it an hour, then rang and asked Dorothy to come and see him. ‘Give me a minute,’ she said in her terse way, and it was twenty before she sashayed in and sat down across from him.

  He cut to the chase. ‘David Balthazar called me.’