The nurse let him into his mother’s room. There she was, alive, apparently, on her back, a tube into her wrist. Though she was not going to die, she seemed, if not dead, then suspended between her past and the several remaining decades of her life. He pulled a chair to the side of the bed and listened to the even whisper of her breath. Above her closed eyes rose arched wrinkles. They suggested not surprise but attention and decision. Her nose, once smooth and sharp, was rounder and heavier, the pores larger and not at all clear. The lines that started above the nostrils curved heavily down to the corners of the mouth, where there was no indication of mirth. Her upper lip and chin revealed a growth of hair not there when she was younger. The lips, which had always been thin, retained a patch of lipstick, and he knew that before the operation his mother had faced herself in the mirror and, with habitual perfection, puckered, applied the stick, sucked her lips in, then dabbed away the extraneous gloss with a tissue. Applying lipstick would not deliver her safely across the void she was to travel, and yet she was unable to do otherwise, for it was one of the small badges that ordered her life. The stern, sleeping mask of her face seemed to challenge the forces of dissolution. Life had been maintained, a family kept whole. “And in these times,” the lines of her face seemed to say, “a family kept whole is a mighty act.” A legacy few accomplish. His father, wise yet not strong, amiable yet not passionate, had needed Peter’s mother for the architecture of daily life as his career ebbed and secretaries and subordinates and business associates had fallen away from him. How they had all depended on her.
Janice, he realized, had sensed this strength and moved toward it tentatively, still needing a mother. She had been just young enough, at nineteen, to reseed the trust of a child in his mother, who, naturally protective and forever in a houseful of men, found in Janice something she had missed in never having a daughter. He checked his watch, bent down, and placed a silent kiss on his mother’s forehead. On the table he left a spray of irises, her favorite.
COFFEE AND SUGAR IN HIS BLOODSTREAM, papers piled on his desk, he dumped out his legal briefcase, which had remained unopened since Friday afternoon. The phones rang everywhere, and for half an hour he caught up, talked to everyone, got back up to speed. But the office tedium, the small intimacies at the watercooler, the arrhythmically submerged tones of phones ringing close and far away, the men’s room strategizing by attorneys on adjacent toilets—all this which once was the familiar offstage structure, supporting his onstage efforts in court, now tortured him with its oblivious tedium. Did no one realize the pain he was in? His mother was in the hospital, his wife gone. Why did they all mock him by not consoling him? And yet the tedium offered, by dint of its disconnectedness to his own heart, a refuge. At work he could lose himself for several hours at a time.
And still, the tide of paper and people did not reduce his worry about what had happened with Janice; the passing of every hour filled him with the apprehension. His father had counseled that he wait awhile—why hadn’t he listened? Why hadn’t he gotten the key back from Cassandra after she’d first used it? Maybe he had dawdled in that respect, stringing her along for convenience’s sake. He should have suspected she might show up unannounced, based on her previous behavior—he could spot bums begging quarters, he mused, so why couldn’t he spot a woman begging for love? Had he allowed events to slip toward this sort of outcome because he wanted to punish Janice? That was plausible. He was angry with her, angry at the rejection, but he had to believe he had not meant to hurt her. He believed himself able to temper his anger with reason and charity and perception. He had argued in court hundreds of times—clutching his fists before the jurors’ faces, reminding them to search courageously for justice—that men and women have the right to be angry but have the responsibility for how that anger is expressed.
Unless Janice and John Apple were sleeping late these days, she had arrived at work about ten minutes ago, had skimmed the overnight log, checked to see that no crises had come up, and made sure all the women in the house were accounted for. Then would begin the day of writing grant applications and solicitations and outreach coordination. At a miserable twenty-six thousand! She could be making twice that easily in private practice! He called her. Janice answered on the first ring.
“We need to talk—I’d like to talk,” he said.
Alarmingly calm: “About what?”
“What happened the other night was an accident. I, uh—”
“Involuntary behavior, Peter? Is that your defense?”
“Look, I had no idea—”
“Peter, I’m having a very hectic day,” Janice said with infinite control, “and my responsibilities lie elsewhere, not with crazy-gluing your ego back together, so let me say this as best I can: I don’t care if you didn’t know that woman was going to be in what used to be my bed—it happened and it hurt.” Her voice was neither bitter nor apologetic. “It’s finished. I’m tired of talking and negotiating. Let me go without a fight, okay? We’ll just get all the papers signed and then we can get on with our own lives. That’s not so much to ask. I don’t hate you, Peter. I still do love you very much. But we’re finished.”
These were the kind of words a man in his position could not afford to hear, so he didn’t. “How about the way you felt and what we talked about?”
“I’m trying to pretend it was just the wine. Bye.”
She hung up.
Hoskins was down the hall, in a good mood, which meant he was waiting to rip Peter’s head off—but still Peter couldn’t get started. He sat frozen, hearing and seeing nothing, though his eyes had been fixed on the window and his ears had heard the whoodling of pigeons on the cornice outside his office.
“I don’t care if he won’t cooperate!” Hoskins’s voice boomed happily, savoring any shred of conflict as an opportunity to crush another soul. Peter flipped open a police report, gave it the five-second memorization. Officers had found a middle-aged man on the third floor of one of the city’s skel hotels near the Reading Terminal train sheds. The victim, one P.J. Delmonico, had been found on his hands and knees with over twenty stab wounds in his back. The man was known to police as a regular he/she prostitute who worked the east side of Market Street.
“Mr. Scattergood!”
Hoskins’s fat head poked through the door, his skin so shiny he must have scrubbed it with sandpaper.
“Good morning, Mr. Scattergood, good morning! This is a big day, everybody is having a good, productive day, you included! What’s that you’ve got there?”
“It’s your basic transient homicide—”
“Good, good. Iron-fist control. You’ve caught up on Carothers, right? I expect you have. Get those blood tests pushed through. Let’s get this wrapped up so we can put the Mayor at rest and get the reporters out of our hair. We’ll talk later!”
Boom, and gone. Peter was safe for another half hour, perhaps. He returned to the file. Delmonico had been servicing a customer who, apparently, in the moment of climax, had whipped out a knife and started stabbing. This kind of thing happened all the time. Posing as either a gay trick or gay pickup, a robber would gain access to a man’s apartment or hotel room, do him in. The police had plenty of evidence: semen with blood type, bloody fingerprints on Delmonico’s back, hair samples, a witness down the hall of the hotel who saw an unidentified somebody running out and buckling his pants. The police—some of whom were no doubt masking their own homophobia—liked to tell stories about Jersey kids, tough mother-fucker football players in their varsity letter jackets, coming into the city for a blowjob and suddenly realizing that the lovely brunette they’d just paid fifty bucks was a man. The really good he/shes would lure a man into a car and get screwed in the ass without the customer ever knowing. Most just had the breast implants, leaving the external plumbing intact. Many drifted up to midtown New York City, Forty-second and Broadway. They made better money up there, had other friends, a subculture, specialized bars, etc., to combat the massive loneliness of being a transves
tite.
He phoned his wife again.
“Hello, this is the women’s shelter. My name’s Janice. How can I help you?
“Janice, let me just take a minute—”
There was only the sound of the phone being put gently on the receiver. He called a third time. Another woman answered in an upbeat voice.
“May I speak with Janice Scattergood, please?”
“She’s in a meeting,” the efficient voice said. “May I take a message?”
“Thank you, no,” he whispered.
There was no time to think about this further. The phone trilled almost immediately.
“This is Lieutenant Snyder down at the desk, sir. There’s somebody who wants to talk with you.”
“These people want to see somebody or me in particular?”
“You, Mr. Scattergood.”
“Just send them up, seventh floor.”
“She won’t come up, sir.”
“What’s her name?” Maybe it was Miss Donnell.
“It’s Mrs. Banks.”
He remembered somebody by that name had phoned recently. The world was full of nuts, and many of them liked to call up or visit the D.A.’s office, claiming to have important information. The police usually followed these leads up, but this was an opportunity for him to duck out of the office for a few minutes. He took the elevator down and turned left and out toward the desk detective. The lobby of the building was little more than a gray space that led from the outside door to the elevator, but visitors had to get past a detective.
“Counselor—” The detective motioned.
Outside the door, facing the street, stood an elderly black woman wearing a fox fur hat. She stooped over a cane.
“She wants to talk.”
“She say about what?”
“No. You want me to get rid of her?”
“Yes, but I better go see what she wants.”
He pushed outside into the noise and air of the street. “Ma’am, may I help you?” he hollered.
She turned her wrinkled face toward him.
“My name’s—” he began.
“I know who you are, Mr. Scattergood. I appreciate you seein’ me.”
“How can I be of help?”
“Nobody thinks an old woman knows nothin’, Mr. Scattergood. That I lost my hearin’, or my mind. Well, I got both.”
If she had anything to tell him, he realized, it wouldn’t be directly in front of the D.A.’s office, with detectives and prosecutors and cops passing in and out. So he suggested they step into the restaurant a block down. She shuffled along, testing each groove of the sidewalk with her cane.
“I can make it. I made it all the way down here,” she complained, working her tongue in her mouth.
In the restaurant she moved slowly to a table by the window, and with a series of small movements succeeded in sitting down.
“I saw you on the television news,” she began. “Looks like you scared they gone see somethin’ inside of your head,” she crabbed, removing her gloves.
“Maybe you’re right.”
“I have dealt from time to time with the police. I can’t feel I can trust them, and so I saw you up there squirmin’ and sweatin’ and I thought, that young man is very nervous that he do the right thing.”
“Well, you’re right.” He took out a pad of paper and a pencil. There could be a hundred reasons she was there. “Why do you want to talk to me?”
“No, none of that.” She waved a bony, arthritic hand at the paper. He noticed a wedding ring trapped between the immensely enlarged knuckles of her finger. “No, you just listen to me.”
He put the paper away.
“I have known that child since she was a baby,” the woman announced. “And I have lived in my neighborhood for forty-two years.”
“Who, ma’am, who do you mean?”
“Johnetta.”
Instinctively he moved closer, spoke in a quieter voice. He wished they’d gone somewhere less public.
“Go on, uh, Mrs.—”
“Mrs. Banks.”
“You called earlier—”
“Yes, and that girl just about asked me every question she could, includin’ where the pearls are hid,” she cackled. “My husband and I married in 1922 in the church in Tupelo, down south. I still got my sister there and a whole mess of family. Bet you don’t even know where that is.”
“Oh, I might.”
She smiled at him. They had business to do but they also liked each other.
“Then tell me, Mr. Scattergood.”
“Small town in Mississippi, Mrs. Banks.”
She grunted. Yet she also appeared to sense his impatience.
“I’m gettin’ to it, directly.”
The waitress came and he ordered two coffees. She rubbed her hands absentmindedly.
“Now then, Mrs. Banks, you’ve got something to tell me.”
She nodded gravely, with her eyes down.
“I know who killed Johnetta.”
“Was it the same person who killed Darryl Whitlock, the Mayor’s nephew?”
“Nuh-uh,” she hissed.
“What makes you know?”
“Because the ones who want her dead didn’t want him dead.”
“Why’re you telling me this, Mrs. Banks? Usually people in your position are sure to get assurances before they talk.”
“I don’t need no assurance. I’m eighty-eight years old. Nobody gone do nothin’ to this old bag of bones that ain’t been done before.”
“All right. Who killed Darryl Whitlock?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a dismissive pursing of her lips, as if the question were unimportant.
“How about Johnetta Henry?”
“I can’t say, exactly.” She stirred creamer into her coffee.
“What do you know?”
“Maybe some people didn’t like that girl, you understand what I’m sayin’? He was a mighty fine young boy and he had himself a future. That young man had been accepted by the Harvard University to become a doctor. Maybe they said some bad things about her, some mighty bad things that would make Jesus himself shudder.” She shook her head, apparently remembering those awful things. “I get so tired of hearin’ the way people talk, Mr. Scattergood, it goes against God. Some people—maybe you should ask some people up around Fifty-second Street. Why, she was just a little mixed up, never eat enough. I used to ask that child why she was so skinny, and why she never eat nothin’. But she went to church. Her little child, Tyler, he sing so sweet. My little Tyler, I’m his great-grandma. I been takin’ care of him for two years now, ever since he had a little heart operation. They said he might be weakly but he strong and healthy. The people at the church donated blood, that’s why. Johnetta my granddaughter, Mr. Scattergood. I know that gal, I raised her after her mother died and her father went to prison. Maybe she run around some, but she real steady with this boy.”
“Who was the child’s father?”
“Johnetta, she never tell me that.”
“Did she know?” Peter asked.
“Of course she did.” The old woman glared, tossing his insinuation back into his face. “She just never got around to tellin’ me.”
Here were a couple of facts the police hadn’t turned up. It didn’t surprise him.
“Who was saying these bad things about your granddaughter, Mrs. Banks?”
“I can’t say exactly as I remember.”
“Was it somebody in the neighborhood, somebody in the boy’s family?”
“I just can’t say that.”
“You told me you weren’t too old to remember things, Mrs. Banks.”
She lifted her birdlike shoulders and stared at him angrily. “Johnetta tell me Darryl ain’t supposed to be seeing her. His father say Darryl made to be a doctor, and had no place for that kind of gal. They thought she was too black,” the old woman said bitterly, considering the irony of this prejudice. “They decided she was just the worst kind. They kept tellin’
that poor boy that over and over until he was just about crazy.”
“What kind of girl was she, Mrs. Banks?”
“Oh, she run around some when she was younger.” He extrapolated: She fucked whomever, took drugs, followed her desires, like most of humanity. “She liked the men for a time, but then she had the baby and started to settle down.”
He remembered the autopsy report observation that she had undergone childbirth. “What do you know about this man Wayman Carothers?”
“He just some fool, far as I know from the papers.”
“Go on, please.”
“There was some talk about how when Johnetta worked in the campaign she heard some things—”
“What campaign, the Mayor’s campaign?”
Mrs. Banks stared with a dead calm right into his eyes. The woman had a palpable force of will.
“Uh-huh.”
The promises and noise and slurs and money of the campaign still hung in the collective consciousness of the citizenry who watched the dangerous edge of political change. A campaign was a short-term civil war, and the new Mayor had won by capturing the white liberal vote and by having a bigger army of grass-roots organizers who delivered the black vote. Cars with loudspeakers slowly touring the crazy-quilt pattern of black wards of North and West Philadelphia, exhorting everyone to vote the black Democratic candidate into office. Polling places in little corner groceries, public schools, church basements, even private homes. The white candidates—Democrat and Republican—didn’t even try to gather votes there; they just slapped up a few campaign stickers on the telephone poles and concentrated on the Italian and Irish neighborhoods. In Philly, the black voters made the difference when they turned out in high enough numbers.
“She answered the telephone. Everybody know how that new Mayor had to get his money from somewheres. Johnetta, she say a man would come in every day with a whole mess of money, cash money, and the man would come and go that quick, and she could hear them counting in the back office.”
“How much?”
“She said she thought it was maybe ten thousand each day. And they used it sometimes, to go buy food for everybody or to put gasoline in the Mayor’s car or somebody’s else’s or something. Or if they needed something done. She just kept her mouth shut,” said Mrs. Banks. “You know what I’m talkin’ about, where that money came from.”
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