Details at Ten

by Ardella Garland

  Doug explained, “That’s a sign for his gang. Just like some gangs have a handshake to represent, they can represent verbally. Their code is: Night never ends.”

  “The Rockies,” I assumed, the gang that had Butter and was led by Little Cap.

  T-Bob jerked his head and looked at me. “Naw, Bandits rule!”

  “Bandits? How could that be?” I asked Doug. “Butter described a Rockie—a dark-skinned gangbanger with a scar, wearing the Rockies’ color yellow. The shooter, you said, was Little Cap.”

  “Right, Georgia. But this sounds like the Bandits took it upon themselves to hide Butter to keep the Rockies from getting their hands on her. But why? Why not turn her over to us to make some points? Or cut a deal? Are you guys so low-down that you held on to that kid just to keep the Rockies in hot water with us? You wanted us to keep riding them, coming down hard on them? What’s the deal, T-Bob?”

  T-Bob still didn’t say anything. Now this nut gets shy, please.

  “Doug, you’ve been holding out on me.”

  He stared at me and smiled. “Not long. I had a hint that some-thing wasn’t quite on the up-and-up when my source couldn’t get a lead for me. Then when I saw the picture of T-Bob and Karen and Romeo here was flashing his gang sign in that photo—it’s the Bandits’ sign.”

  I sat back against the car seat and an exasperated sigh left my lips.

  “T-Bob, we need answers now,” Doug said, then he reached back over the car seat and grabbed T-Bob by the neck and yanked his face toward him.

  “I don’t know where she at!” T-Bob shouted, spittle flying off his lips.

  “Son, there is no joy in Stateville,” Doug said, releasing him to let him ease down in the seat, “and you may not get much romance now, but behind bars you a fine young thang.”

  “I don’t know where she at, broke-nose motherfucker!”

  Doug slammed his face into the back of my seat. “Punk!”

  “Damn! Awww!” T-Bob moaned.

  “Take it easy, Doug! Don’t be an animal like him!”

  A hurt look filled Doug’s eyes.

  “I didn’t mean that . . .”

  “Georgia, this is my territory. Let me handle my business. This punk pimped you out of your money. The gang he runs with tried to kill Little Cap’s mother by firebombing her house. You were there. You could have been a Cocoa Krispy if that fire had gotten out of hand. And he knows where Butter is—”

  “I don’t!”

  “Shut up!” Doug said to T-Bob. Then to me, “And you want me to go easy? Explain to me why the hell I should?”

  I was speechless.

  T-Bob shouted, “I don’t know nothin’!”

  “Then where’d you get that piece of Butter’s dress from?” I asked. “

  I got it from the brother who hid her. He know. He ain’t tell nobody else in case there was a snitch somewhere. He ain’t tell nobody, not even me!”

  “Who the hell is ‘he’?” Doug said, dropping his fist.

  “You gonna cut me a deal, huh, cut me some slack?” T-Bob said, showing the first sign of weakness.

  “Yeah, my word, man.”

  “Fuck that, I want it wrote down somewhere,” T-Bob said, shaking his head hard and fast.

  “My word is my word, we don’t have time for all that. Maybe I’ll just take my chances and keep digging and turn this case by myself without your punk ass!”

  “Naw, man. You’ll try to play me,” T-Bob said.

  “He won’t T-Bob,” I said, trying to coax him. “Make it easy on yourself and let’s just end this thing.”

  “She’s right,” Doug said with a nod. “And she’ll keep me honest.”

  T-Bob looked from Doug to me, then back to Doug. He whispered, “Trip, Butter’s cousin. He know where Butter at.”

  My head fell into my hands. “Trip?”

  “Y’all are grabbing them out of the cradle now, huh?” Doug said.

  “Little man come to us right after that drive-by. We had been

  talking to him before but he didn’t want to join. We finally convinced Trip that it was the best way to protect his family. He got a family of females and he the only man—”

  “Man?” I shouted. “Trip is a kid, just a baby!”

  “Trip needs family like us to look out for him. I’m his sponsor—I vouched for him, advise and protect him.”

  I became mesmerized by the urgency and the calmness of T-Bob’s voice; the matter-of-fact manner in which he spoke of handicapped codes and manufactured rules that kept both order and violence in his world.

  “When word spread that Butter had told it on TV, then turned up missing, everybody thought the Rockies had her. But only me and Trip knew different.”

  “Why tell you?” Doug asked. “Why not keep the secret to himself?”

  “’Cause he was scared, wasn’t sure he had done the right thing. I’m his sponsor, he’s supposed to confide in me, bringing everything to me first. That’s the rules of the Bandits. I didn’t believe him at first, I thought he was lying and wasting my time. Told him to prove it. Next time I saw him, he had part of her dress. I took it, then kicked his ass.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because he shouldn’t made no move like that without coming to me first, then letting me take it to the council. I vouched for him. Trip broke rules and that could get us both in a lot of trouble. Trip wouldn’t tell me where she was, so I told him just sit tight until things cooled down some. Hell, it was sweet now that you think about it. Trip could protect his cousin and fuck over the Rockies at the same time.”

  “And you could exhort some cash too, huh,” Doug said with a smirk.

  “After I saw all the TV coverage, I got the idea to squeeze some money out of old girl here—”

  “You little son-of-a-bitch,” I huffed.

  “Keep talking, T-Bob!” Doug warned.

  “Trip gave me a piece of Butter’s dress but I had nothing to do with her ever.”

  “This is insane.”

  Doug whispered, “Now all we have to do is find Trip.”

  “Trip on a mission,” T-Bob said. “See how much I’m helping you? You gotta give back, man, that’s the rules of the street.”

  “I hear you.”

  “What kind of a mission?” I asked.

  “A monster mission, hip-hyped style.”

  “Look, boy,” I said to T-Bob. “Explain to me in the ways of Webster—just talk in simple English please.”

  “Trip too little to get jumped in like everybody else. That’s too much of a beating for a little dude to take. So he got a mission to do to prove he’s worthy of the Bandits.”

  Doug grunted. “A death mission.”

  I sighed. “Ohhhh no!”

  “Trip know he can’t hide Butter forever. The only way Butter can come out of hiding is if Little Cap—the one who did the firing at the drive-by—gets smoked. He gone. Then what Butter know ain’t important no more. Everything is cool, plus Trip has proved himself and he in. So he gotta smoke somebody stogie.”

  “Stogie.” Doug turned and explained to me. “Like the cigar. Big and high profile. Like Little Cap.”

  “The Bandits asked Trip to kill Little Cap!” I got very sick to my stomach.

  “That’s his mission,” T-Bob said as easily as if he were saying that Trip was going to the store or making a snowman or some-thing.

  “When’s it going down?” Doug asked.

  “We got an ear inside the Rockies and we found out that they’re moving Little Cap out of hiding during Reverend Walker’s rally in the park. Everybody will be there and they figure the heat will be off in the hood.”

  “Where’s Little Cap been hiding?” Doug asked T-Bob. “Where?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t my thing, see? We just found out they moving him and only the people who gotta smoke him know info. They’ll do it, too, no problem.”

  “Are you nuts!” I shouted. “Trip is all set on killing somebody and a little girl is stuck some
where, hidden away from her mother and grandmother who love her and you’re sitting here bragging! I do believe you have lost your cotton-picking mind!”

  “You wanna slap the mess outta him, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “Now you see how I feel every day,” Doug said, and gave me an “I told you so” look. Then he turned to T-Bob. “Tell the lady thank you, T-Bob. She asked me to be cool so I’m going to tell everybody to treat you like china, even though you practically broke my nose.”

  T-Bob just dropped his eyes to the floor. “Could you loosen these cuffs? They hurt.”

  “Sorry, Bandit, it comes with the territory.”

  I opened the car door and got out. Doug followed and we both walked away from the squad car, out of sight of T-Bob.

  “I see a light at the end of the tunnel, Georgia.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t like what I’m seeing. Trip?! I can’t believe it! All this time he was putting on! He didn’t open that smart little mouth of his—that, that . . .”

  “Little shit?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to break his neck when I see him.”

  “That’s the least of his worries. If he’s going to try to take out Little Cap he’s going to be toting some heavy firepower. And so will Little Cap and his posse. Trip is in big trouble.”

  “He could get killed.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What now, Doug?”

  “Well, we have to find Trip. I’m sure he’s somewhere getting ready for this evening. We’ve still got a couple of hours before the rally starts. If we can find out where Little Cap is then we can get him first, before Trip and his boys. We can’t take a chance on them pulling out with Little Cap and the Bandits making a move on them. That puts too many people at risk.”

  “Can you get in touch with your informant in the Rockies?” He was a long shot but maybe he had some clue by now.

  “It’s tricky and I’m hesitant about stepping to him because he might not even know anything. He said he’d call. I’ve got an emergency pager number for him, but I’ve never used it before. I don’t want to do anything that will blow his cover.”

  “Well, if there ever was an emergency, this is it.”

  Doug nodded. “You played the good cop to my bad cop very well.”

  “Doug, would you have beaten him?”

  “Would you have let me?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Good. It’s nice to know that we’re both human.”

  Then Doug turned to go and I reached out and hugged him. “Be careful.”

  “Georgia,” he said, stroking my back with his hands. “You’ve got to trust that I can separate work from life. Just like I trust that you can, too.”

  I looked at Doug and saw a burning passion there—his own and mine as it reflected back to me in the steamy warmth of his eyes. I spoke from the heart. “Trust is what we’ve got to have in each other, to have a chance at any kind of a relationship, Doug.”

  Our hands touched and that spoke of the promise we both sensed was in the making. Then Doug walked away.

  I wanted to go with him to track down the informant but I knew that hell would be a snow scene in a Christmas toy before Doug would let me tag along with him this time. Actually that was best. I needed to take stock of all that had happened and regroup. I would need to be at the top of my game for what was coming next: the rally. Little did I know that it would be the turning point in this baffling case.

  T W E N T Y - T W O

  The get-together spot for the rally was the parking lot of Sweeter Water Baptist Church. Zeke was there waiting for me just as we’d planned. He had his gear ready to go. We walked amongst the crowd, gathering background information that I would need to include in my story.

  The building was originally the Cathedral of the Saints when the area was predominately white. After white flight, the parish fell on hard times. The Chicago Archdiocese decided to sell the church, which it did in 1978 to a group of neighborhood citizens armed with a King James version and a loan from a black bank.

  They weren’t just any group of neighborhood citizens, I was told. They all belonged to Sweet Water Baptist Church, a storefront, with a growing sanctified congregation. When they moved into the new building the members wanted to make a fresh start yet keep the original community feel of their church. They decided to call themselves Sweeter Water Baptist Church. The new name was suggested by Miss Mabel Stewart, who at the time was rocking Butter’s mother in her carriage and petting her aunt Angel, who was playing on the floor.

  Sweeter Water Baptist Church was a huge building, carved out of dolphin gray stone with narrow stained-glass windows. The two back doors were made of bleached wooden slats and had brass handles drilled in the center. The doors opened out like barn doors. A large crowd milled around.

  What I saw was layers and layers of people who longed for change. Their expectations were high; they were just waiting to pitch a revival tent so they could celebrate how they got over this latest troubled time. It was a sad thing to see, a mass of people waiting for a miracle in the daylight of a society that cast shadows over miracles and the people who believed in them.

  The response to this rally was bigger and better than many of us had anticipated—us being the media who collectively doubt just by the nature of the business. I once knew a reporter so cynical that if he had witnessed Jesus walking on water, he would have written a story about the prophet who couldn’t swim.

  Zeke was with the cameramen from all the other television stations. They shot b-roll of the signs that had been painted or drawn with markers on white boards and nailed to long Popsicle-thin sticks. My favorite two signs were: “Gangbanging done played out” and “If you can read this you’re too smart to be in a gang.”

  I asked a couple of people about the Stewart family and they said Kelly was somewhere passing out ribbons and that Miss Mabel and the Olive Leaf Club were in the church basement. No one, they said, had seen Trip or his mother, Angel.

  I eventually spotted Butter’s mother, Kelly, handing out black and white ribbons. Kelly had her braids pulled back and tied up high in a ball on top of her head. Her hands clutched the ribbons as she twisted them together and knotted the ends, making a black and white pinstripe. She was working those ribbons.

  Zeke was in close. He panned up from the box of ribbons, to Kelly’s hands twisting them, to her face, also twisted with grief. Kelly saw us and smiled for a second then continued passing out the ribbons.

  “Kelly,” I asked easily, trying not to alarm her, “have you seen Trip?”

  “No, I don’t know where that boy is or my sister. They’re both supposed to be here. Me and Mama just came on by ourselves.”

  I nodded. “Can I interview you about the rally?”

  Kelly said sure, and I took a handheld mike from Zeke and started my interview: “Kelly, explain to us what the ribbons are for?”

  “The black ribbon is in memory of Jackie.” When she said the girl’s name she had to choke back a sigh. “The white ribbon,” she went on to say, “is in hope for Butter’s safe return. We’re gonna wear ’em on our wrists.”

  “Do you think this march and rally will help convince the gang to return Butter?”

  “Yes, I do. I don’t know why, but I think everything is gonna be all right, I don’t know why . . . but I just know,” she said. I could see the faith in her eyes.

  I wanted so much to tell Kelly what I knew about Trip hiding Butter. But now Trip was in danger of being killed or in danger of killing somebody. Telling her that would only shift worry from one child to another.

  I wondered briefly if Doug had found his informant. What did he know? Where was Trip? I couldn’t say anything to anyone. I quickly ended my interview with Kelly and let her tie a set of ribbons around my wrist.

  Zeke and I headed inside the church looking for Miss Mabel. We walked down the marble stairs; we could hear voices humming and singing, no words, just a devotional hymn. The
rhythm made me think of rivers washing against rocks, rain tapping against windows, hands patting against knees, feet stomping against floorboards, mouths talking in tongues, hips rocking against pews, and hallelujahs flying against ceilings.

  “Sounds good,” Zeke whispered in my ear.

  That whisper moved me forward, down the stairs. All of the women were standing in a circle, including Miss Mabel and Auntie Vee. My grandmother could be one of their prayer posse. All of the women were dressed in white blouses and lengthy black skirts. They all had pressed, oiled, shimmering hair pulled away from their concentrating faces. They did not notice me or Zeke at first and we didn’t want to be noticed. I heard the soft click of his camera and he wisely left off the overhead light and started shooting video of this engagement raw, just like it was.