“Why would they even look at you?” I asked, pretending to be baffled, but I knew already.
Shondi.
It was the only thing that made sense. When the cops picked through the remains of Lionel’s life, they turned up Shondi as his ex-girlfriend. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. She would have been quickly ruled out as the most implausible of suspects. What was missing from my brilliant leap of intuitive reasoning is why she would point the finger at Neil.
“The police know Lionel and I didn’t like each other,” he offered weakly.
“They drag you in for questions over more than just not liking someone,” I argued.
“Being black in this city is enough for them to question you.”
“Come on, Neil, that won’t cut it with me,” I replied. “There’s a difference between a bored cop pulling you over, and bored lazy cops wasting even their own time with an interrogation.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “How would you know about it?”
“Let’s just say I have a brother.” Well yes, I do have a brother, but he’s never been in trouble. I did once have a friend dragged in, only it wasn’t a guy, it was a girl. Okay, it wasn’t a girlfriend, it was me. But I couldn’t tell him that.
“Teresa, can’t you just leave it alone, please? You met Lionel so you know, right? I didn’t like the guy! Can’t we just leave it at that? What do you want to know this for?”
“Because I care,” I answered. “I thought we had a connection.”
“We do!” he insisted. “It’s just…Life is getting a bit complicated, well, my life anyway. I’m sorry you got mixed up in all this. Getting questioned by the cops, must have been embarrassing—”
“I’ll live,” I said. I pulled the car into a fresh parking space and cut the engine. I took his hand in mine. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?”
“Can you be my friend in this?” he pleaded. “Sure, we sleep together, but this has bloody well scared the hell out of me, and I need a friend now.”
I nodded.
He took a deep breath and went on. “Look, you know what I do and you seem cool about it, and you and I are getting along. But babe, I can’t pretend I haven’t got close to anyone before. There’s someone I’ve been involved with. We break it off and get back together, and we break up again, and then we make up, and everyone says we’re nuts, and even we can’t figure it out.”
Janet.
He looked through the windshield, searching for words, and then declared, “I’m…not proud of everything I’ve ever done in my life, but I try to be a good person. And I can get jealous like any guy—and no, I know I have no right to, but it’s not an emotion that makes sense, is it? Anyway, Lionel won this person in a game, and I could have handled it if he hadn’t rubbed my nose in it so much. So I did a shitty thing back to him.”
Shondi.
I had to nod politely and pretend I knew nothing about the strip dominoes circuit as he explained it to me. I had actually guessed it would be cards, but the fine details weren’t that important. As I suspected, Neil had decided to pay Lionel back in kind. You take my woman, I’ll take yours.
I could visualize it all. He had worked the network until he found where Lionel and Shondi liked to play. Humiliating the guy in the nightclub would be so much better than a private party. The tunes were blaring, and there was the firecracker roar of the bones flying down. Shondi, hair done in her elaborate cornrows, wearing a fire engine red triangle top and white shorts. “She was dressed for success that night,” Neil remarked acidly. For all that Lionel had claimed about not liking the dominoes circuit, he didn’t mind showing her off as he squired her around. But he didn’t like to lose, either, and Neil had come with that purpose in mind.
“And I made her peel. Right down to her white pumps. Guys were cheering the show, and I made a big deal out of taking off my shirt and unbuckling my pants, and the thing that really pissed him off was that I was about to drop trou, and she was up for it. She licked her lips and came scrambling across the table for me. And then I zipped up again, pointed to one of the other losers at the table and said, ‘Go on, man, I changed my mind.’ The boy lost it, right there. Took three guys to hold him back, and she tried to throw a glass at me, too.”
“Why didn’t you just have her?” I asked. “Your grudge was with him, not her.”
“I made my point without going through with it. I didn’t mean to diss her necessarily—”
“Come on, Neil, you did. You didn’t have to offer her like a whore to another guy at the table.”
He recanted quickly. “Yeah, okay—yeah, I did a little. I’m not proud of myself, like I said. Shondi is…Look, to be honest, she’s beautiful, but she likes the gutter and maybe she belongs there. To be honest with you, I’ll do the circuit because everyone’s checked out, but they’re animals in there, doing it for a crowd.”
“You and I did it in front of others.”
“There’s a big difference between the little group at the private games and that club.”
I wanted to tell him that this was the exact same point that Lionel had made to me. There were degrees. Even Helena said there were limits, and I kept wondering what were they? Unless they were ones of class and money. I think if you gave in to certain appetites, even those wouldn’t matter to you anymore.
If you fucked in front of four to seven people, what inhibition was left to stop you from opening your legs in front of fifty? Or a hundred? It made me wonder all over again if I was thinking too much and not feeling enough. After all, I had pegged Lionel for the blackmail, attributing a cash-and-wounded-pride motive. But as Carl had said, the killer had made it very personal. If you lost all your sexual inhibitions, I had to wonder if that meant you could strike a blow as easy as you made a caress.
His place again. He insisted on cooking a meal for me, even though I told him he shouldn’t go to the trouble. “It’s okay, I like cooking. I actually find it relaxing. I run through lines in my head, practice my diction. Why don’t you pour yourself a glass of wine and relax? Put on some music if you like.”
I did. I hadn’t checked out his CD collection the last time I was here, but then I had been busy making a thorough inspection of other physical belongings. Now I let my fingers do their walking through Courtney Pine, Joss Stone and Craig David. I selected a Toni Braxton album and threw it on. I caught him smiling at my choice, perhaps thinking he had gained a little insight into me through it. I was glad to see the tension of his ordeal with the cops dissipating. Maybe they still considered him a suspect. I didn’t anymore.
As he chopped vegetables on the cutting board and fussed over a sauce, I tuned out Toni and picked up the muttering under his breath. “…When I did speak of some distressful stroke that my youth suffer’d. My story being done, she gave me for my pains a world of sighs…”
I wandered over to the bookshelf and searched. There was a well-worn copy sitting on the top shelf, and by the time I found the scene, he was already at “She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d, and I loved her that she did pity them.”
I knew he’d pause after the speech, so I skipped ahead and called out to the kitchen: “That I did love the Moor to live with him, my downright violence and storm of fortunes may trumpet to the world: my heart’s subdued even to the very quality of my lord…”
He took one step out of the kitchen, still holding a chopping knife and a green pepper, with a big delighted smile of white teeth. “Hey! Listen to you.”
“Yeah, right,” I laughed. “I signed up for a stage class at a community centre once. I went for one night then chickened out on the rest.”
“Too bad. You sounded good.”
“I don’t think the West End will miss me.”
I wandered back into the kitchen and slipped an arm around his waist. The gesture of affection felt natural, easy, as I asked him if I could do anything to help. He shook his head.
“You know that’s my favourite play,” he said.
> “Why?”
“It’s bloody brilliant. The poetry, the story…It’s a fantastic part. I think he’s the noblest of all Shakespeare’s heroes, and that’s what makes it so achingly sad. It’s my dream role. I see every version I can get my hands on. I got the Laurence Fishburne version on DVD, probably the best one there’s been in a while.”
I was beginning to see what else drew Janet Marshall to him apart from the hot bod. It was doing a great job of pulling me in as well. Character. He had a lot of it. Despite the sincere speeches about the struggling thespian, the boy was together. He kept a clean house. He was mature. He was cultured and charming. I gave him my opinion of that Othello remake, how I thought ol’ Larry had been great, but Kenneth Branagh had stole the thing with his slightly OTT Iago. No doubt Helena had traded Shakespeare notes with him, too, when she first checked him out. He listened well, not simply waited for the other person to finish before his next comment. And oh, yeah, he cooked. Gotta like that. And let’s not forget he was also incredible in bed.
We were into a reasonably engaging conversation over dinner about different spots to check out on vacation in Spain when Neil suddenly sat bolt upright in his chair. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“Oh, shit. What time is it?”
“Nine-ish, I think, eight-thirty, maybe. Why?”
He covered his face with his hands and said, “I was supposed to call this director back this afternoon at six-thirty. He’s a knob, but a friend put in a good word for me, and I was supposed to do a reading over the phone for him. Shit.”
“Oh, Neil, I’m sorry…”
“Not your fault,” he said, standing up and walking away from the table. “When did they let me out? Around five? There was enough time. I simply forgot—that’s all. Stupid.”
“No, just distracted.” I tried to be comforting.
And then like a spring coiled too tight, he simply blew. His hand flew up in an arc, and he knocked a low pile of paperbacks off the mantelpiece. I started, more at the suddenness than the crack of the books hitting the floor.
“They come along and fuck with your life, and no ‘sorry for the interruption, mate’—oh, no!”
“Neil,” I said calmly.
He stared at me as if I had just materialised into the room.
“Kind of scaring me, babe.”
He came out of it. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, Teresa! Please, it’s just bad nerves. They were talking to me as if I was actually guilty of killing the dude.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “But it’s over now, and you’ve got to forget about it—”
“They drag you in, ask you all these questions. I know Helena’s going to hear about it, and what the hell is she going to think? I need her bookings—”
“I know, babe. Helena won’t think anything. She’s cool, you’ll see.”
“You think?”
“I know. Why don’t you lie down, and I’ll give you a massage.”
“You don’t have to, Teresa. You’ve been great, really.”
“Shut up. I want to.”
“All right,” he said. “I’m all yours.”
“That’s what a girl likes to hear. Now take off your clothes, and let me take care of you.”
Around ten o’ clock the next morning, Helena called on my mobile, asking if I had heard that Neil had been taken in for questioning over Lionel’s murder. Yes, I had, I said, not bothering to mention that the gorgeous form next to me between the sheets belonged to her escort. Nothing to worry about, I said.
Helena made a sound that caught in her throat, something between an “Oh?” and a “Ehm,” and then she said she did worry about it, since Neil wasn’t answering his mobile or his landline.
“Listen, darling, do you fancy a trip to Surrey? I’ve got Janet coming over, and she’s having a meltdown over this. Found out about it from one of her mates in the Black Police Officers’ Association, part of their monitoring of every murder investigation of a black victim and all that—”
“But Neil’s in the clear,” I said, and I was still saying it after I left the man sleeping with a note that apologised for taking off, conference to go to, sorry, babe, and after I had dragged my butt out to the house in Richmond and begged Helena to put on some coffee.
Janet Marshall had indeed come over, acting like a woman scorned, ready to think the worst of her lover. And there I was rolling my eyes at Helena, wondering why I was needed to hold Ms. Marshall’s hand.
“My God,” said Janet, “why would they pull him in unless—”
“The police released him,” Helena replied quietly.
“They never formally held him,” I corrected her.
Both statements did nothing to mollify Janet. “The police let people go all the time because they don’t have enough to hold them. It doesn’t make them innocent.”
Helena’s voice was firmer now, trying to bring her back to earth. “Jan, you’re being irrational. You’re just displacing all your anger and jealousy, and whatever problems you and Neil have, you know he’s not capable of something like this—”
“He’s not,” I piped up. “He couldn’t.” Not the man who took me to his bed.
Janet Marshall turned on me, and her eyes were dark coals. “How?” she demanded. “How can you know?”
It was the first time I had seen a glimmer of her formidable temper, and it wasn’t nice to be on the receiving end. Combined with her force of personality and presence, it was the righteous fury that had made her such a skilled debater in committee rooms and helped her demolish the avuncular-sounding yet sinister white males who were her political enemies.
But the flash of imperious rage was another reminder of her blind spot. Her sexuality. Her hunger for love. Mature stateswoman or no, she loved with all the careless extreme passion of a fifteen-year-old.
“How can you be so sure?” she fired again.
I stood my ground. “There are details the cops haven’t released to the papers or the public. Lionel was…” I didn’t know how to put it or whether even to go into it at all. The grisly facts weren’t supposed to be my point anyway. “I don’t think Neil would be capable of the sadism the murderer brought to the killing.”
Then I added quickly, “I doubt many people would be.”
I thought that might settle her down a bit, but there was still an edge to her voice. “I should know Neil better than anyone,” she said.
I marked how she put this: I should know Neil. Did she have a clue about him and me?
“But lately,” she continued, “I’m beginning to wonder whether I know him at all.”
“The police let him go because he had an alibi,” I said. “He was at the poker game.”
“Lionel was killed some time after the game,” argued Janet, and she glanced at Helena for confirmation. “You said the police put the time of death after.”
Helena threw up her hands in a silent appeal to me, since I was, in point of fact, her original source of information.
“Come on, Janet,” I snapped. I didn’t know why I should feel mildly embarrassed, but I did, and it made me irritable and impatient. “Neil went to the game, so it stands to follow a good-looking fellow like him wouldn’t be going home alone that night, would he?”
The question was off her lips before I could even draw another breath. “Who with? Who was he with? Helena?”
Our hostess retreated to fetch the wine bottle. “Oh, no, you don’t, darling. Not this again—”
“If he is innocent, I have to know.”
“You do know!” said Helena. “All of us in this room know, Jan. You’re not asking for that reason, you know you’re not. It’s so tiresome when you do this. I tell women ‘Don’t fall for the escorts—you know what they are and what they do.’ And do any of you listen?”
“Please, Helena.”
“Same answer as always, Janet. No. You know better.”
“Helena—”
“No.”
And there I was, stuck
with deciding which was the worse anguish for Janet Marshall—suspecting her man was a blackmailer, a murderer and a sadist, or knowing for sure he was getting it on with someone else, i.e., yours truly. I didn’t have to tell her. I didn’t owe her anything.
And I’m not even sure I can pin down my motivation. Part of me thought it was the decent thing to do, that she was a big girl and could handle it. Part of me was practical, entertaining the possibility that Neil would get around to telling her himself, and then I’d have worse shit to deal with. A small part of me reacted again to her vulnerability. I sympathized with her just as I had that first night I met her and learned of her predicament. Up to a point.
Because another small, nasty part of my brain, the same place that inspires me to block out the teeth in Prince Charles photos in my royalist neighbour’s Telegraph, was interested in a twisted way in how she’d take me on.
“He was with me,” I said. “He won me in the game.”
And I waited.
“I see,” she said. You could freeze minced beef at the temperature of her voice. “So the price of your help includes taking my man.”
“He wasn’t your man that evening,” I shot back. “And I think you’re a little confused about who I’m trying to help. I’m getting paid by Helena and doing this job as a favour to her. If I save your reputation, that will be a bonus—it’s not my main job. If you get out of this mess unscathed, I only hope you’re not as big a hypocrite about your politics as you are about sex.”
“You little bitch,” she started, but she didn’t get to finish because Helena cut in.
“Teresa’s absolutely right.”
“Helena! You’re supposed to be my friend!”
“I am, and I’m also hers. And being a good friend, Janet, means I sometimes tell you things you don’t to want to hear. God knows, I admire all that you’ve accomplished, but Teresa’s right. You’re a bloody hypocrite and a pain in the arse about this. For the umpteenth time, if you want to play the field, darling, you can’t ask that Neil be exclusive, which by the way would be taking one of my best fellows off my roster. And I’ve never pointed out to you, Jan, how it’s bloody insulting to me each and every time you bug me over his trysts or suggest he ought to retire!”
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