“Uh, I’ll have to check.”
He opened the door and peered inside. The interior was dirty, and the seats weren’t leather. Damn, and no tape deck. I sighed. Beggars can’t be choosers.
“Twenty-eight thousand miles. Runs good. This baby hums.”
“Right, Herman. Tell it to your other saps. I’ll give you fifteen hundred total.”
Herman blanched. “Aw, Amos, you’re the one who’s kidding, right? I can’t let this go for that kind of money.”
“That’s what I got, Herman, and I want to drive this car off the lot tonight.”
“Well, uh ...”
Herman hemmed and hawed—his way to avoid.
He said, “You really got no more money, Amos?”
I shook my head.
“Well, gee, Amos ... okay. What say you give me the fifteen, and I’ll put another fifteen under contract?”
“You mean I’m going to owe you?”
“Well ... uh, yeah, Amos. You’ll owe me. Spread it over a year.”
I glared at him. He belched and stuttered, “T-two years if you like,” he said.
It was hard to do, but I said, “One’s year’s long enough.”
Herman beamed. “Well, all right then, good deal. I’ll draw up the agreement right away.”
He waddled off to get the papers and the keys. I walked around the car, inspected the tires, and shook my head one last time. The path of the righteous is one hell of a big comedown.
Chapter 15
Sunday morning, the pious and the good-timers passed by me on their way to church, as I scoured the interior of the clunker I had driven off of Herman’s lot yesterday. This wasn’t Baby, not by a long shot—naming this one Stepchild. I poured a mixture of water and ammonia on a sponge and purged the funny-looking spots that dotted the backseat of the car. I didn’t care to speculate about the spots.
The car was ten years old, and the best Herman could come up with. I had to make do until times got better. Pissed me off that I owed Herman money. But it officially made me a member of the middle class.
I wrung out a sponge and caught the eye of an old woman with a pleasant smile who strolled by, Bible pressed against her bosom and carrying a large purse that could hold a week’s worth of groceries.
I shouted to her, “Got a car note, ain’t that something?” The church lady was dressed in white, a purple sash strung from shoulder to waist, and a starched hankie standing stiff in her dress pocket. A model of Christian charity, she lifted the edges of her mouth up in an uncertain smile and blessed me anyway.
I stood back and surveyed my work. Not too bad. I frowned. No tape deck. That was a drag. The interior had a few rips and tears, but Herman promised me the engine was solid. I sighed. As if I could trust Herman and his word. That white boy lied so much, he confused himself. But as much business as I had given the man, and as much business as I had sent the man, I expected him to do right by me.
I flicked a rag over a speck of lint left on Stepchild’s exterior, ditched the water in my cleaning bucket at the curb, picked up my supplies, and went whistling into the house.
I had time to kill before my date with Catherine, so I deposited the cleaning stuff in the office and I started sifting through things in my father’s crusty file cabinet. I had been putting this job off for a while, but today I felt energetic, so I got to work. I pulled a stool close to the cabinet and pulled out a drawer.
Jesus. I looked inside at all the junk, got discouraged, and slammed it shut again. Maybe I didn’t feel like doing this after all. I tried the bottom drawer next. It had rusted shut, and I tugged until I jerked it open.
What was in it surprised me—an array of photographs, and on top, in the back of the drawer, I found an ancient Brownie camera protected by its own black leather carrying case. What do you know? My father had a hobby. Something inside me stirred. Would there be pictures of me in this pile? Growing up, I never remembered anyone taking a picture of me. I wasn’t crying about it—it was just a fact.
Stone-faced, I picked up the camera and studied it. I looked through the viewfinder. Wondered how old something had to be before it’d be considered an antique. I put it aside, intending to hold on to it.
I surveyed the drawer crammed with pictures. The story of my father’s life? Maybe. Was I interested? Not really. I’d gone this long without knowing anything about him. I was about to dump the pictures in a heap to make a Go pile when I stopped.
I had never seen a picture of my mother either. Aunt Reba had never shown me any, though I had pestered her. She told me instead not to dwell on my mother’s death. What a load of shit. Her response never made much sense to me—then or now.
The pictures in front of me made me curious though, and I shuffled through the pile and scanned each photograph I pulled from it with greedy eyes. Would I even recognize my mother if I saw her?
I made a game of it. One by one, I continued through the pile. Bunches of women. Collectibles. My old man a connoisseur. Saw Twenties women with bow-shaped lips, marcelled hair, all gussied up in lush furs, dresses, or bathing suits—but I didn’t see the woman I thought could be my mother. Or any baby pictures of me. Was I secretly hoping?
Photos of my father, Montcrieff, alone and together with Zeke, posed, both of them sharp as tacks in their salad days. The same pencil-thin moustache lined Zeke’s upper lip and made him recognizable immediately.
Zeke of yesteryear looked more filled out. The men looked like brothers, my father the shorter of the two. Was the old fool crazy back then?
Scrawled across the bottom of one picture, the two dressed in suits and fedoras on their heads, was Zeke’s signature with the promise “Friends to the end.” Well, buddy, I thought, you lied on that score.
Some grudge with Montcrieff obviously festered deep in Zeke’s soul, and I supposed my presence had dredged it up again. Well, Zeke had to learn that I was not my father.
I tossed the picture. Rummaging deeper into the drawer, I rescued a gold-framed sepia photograph of an older woman with smooth brown features and hair piled high upon her head, dressed in clothes three generations removed. My grandmother? Great-grandmother?
I searched the face for a resemblance to me—compared eyes, nose, hair. The old woman gazed mutely back. She wasn’t giving up a clue.
While I stared, I felt a sting in my nostrils, and something unraveled inside me. Lost in thought, I was horrified when I saw that dots of moisture had collected upon the glass covering the woman’s picture. I swiped at my face and at the picture with my undershirt, and wondered, what the hell? I was out of control here.
A lump rested in my throat. I shook myself like a dog shakes water. I bounced to my feet, dumped all the photos in the drawer. Then I hesitated and picked up the woman’s picture again and moved the frame to my desk and stood it in the center. When the phone jangled, I jumped back, startled. Shit.
I lunged for the phone.
“Catherine,” I shouted.
“Yes. Where are you, Amos?”
“Here. That’s why I’m answering the phone, but I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Okay? Fifteen minutes.”
Silence, then, “Amos, it’s three-thirty. You were supposed to pick me up at three. Is this going to be your modus operandi?”
Dig this chick throwing Latin at me. What’s she think, I’m dumb? She couldn’t know, but Latin was one of my best subjects in prison-school. Aloud I said, “I apologize. On my way. Uh, stay sweet.”
Blam. I hung up the phone and raced into my apartment. Took a one-minute shower, ix-nayed shaving, threw on some clothes, and flew out of the apartment. Two seconds later I flew back in to pick up my keys. For once I knew where to find them and I rejoiced.
Stepchild moaned a little as I threw her into gear, and I roared away from the curb as if demons were after me. I recalled the photographs. Maybe they were.
Chapter 16
I pulled up in front of Catherine’s doorstep, checked my watch. Okay, it took me more than fift
een minutes. So another five couldn’t kill, or could it? As I bounded up the steps to her front door, Catherine anticipated me and whipped the door open, purse in hand, sweater draped over her arm.
The daggers she shot pierced me to my core. In fact, I clutched my chest and fell back a step, as I attempted to explain.
You think it mattered? She ignored me big time.
“We have twenty-five minutes to make it to the four-fifteen show. It’s at the Academy in Queens. Can we make it?”
She swept down the steps and waited by the car, arms folded. Then she did a double-take at Stepchild and looked up to me, the unasked question dancing in her eyes.
I leaped after her to do the gentlemanly thing and moved to open the car door for her. Wouldn’t you know—the damn thing stuck. I pulled again. The car door wouldn’t budge. “Don’t do this to me, Stepchild,” I muttered. I kicked at the door, and then I rattled and shook its handle.
While I kicked like a madman, Catherine strolled around to the driver’s side, slid across the front seat, and opened the door.
“Get in, Amos, and let’s go.”
Still fuming, I hiked up my pants, swaggered around to the driver’s side, and hopped in.
“That was a test. I wanted to see if you would pass it.” I looked at her. “You did.” I gunned the motor.
Catherine rolled her eyes at me, Stepchild hiccupped, and off we went to Queens.
The movie was good. At least we shared the same taste in entertainment. Afterward I took her to a homey Italian café I knew of that served great food. Eddie, the owner, always gave me top-drawer service. The food and wine made Catherine mellow, and put me in a better mood too. I glanced at her breasts a lot.
She sipped her wine and asked me, “So when are you going to tell me about your car?”
I hesitated. “Uh ... now. My ... my other car is in the shop.”
“Really ... ?”
“Cancel that. I sold the damn thing and paid off my debt to your uncle.”
She set her glass down. I guess she saw I was having a hard time. “I’m sorry, Amos. I know you loved that car.”
“Yeah, well ...”
“Sometimes the Great Arranger conveniently moves things out of our lives when we get too attached to them—gives us a wake-up call. Lets us understand what’s really important.”
“The Great Arranger, huh? Is that the deal? Hey, listen, I know what’s important. What’s important starts with an M and ends with a Y.” I couldn’t help myself. I was agitated, and she was talking about some fucking Arranger.
“Money isn’t the end-all and be-all for everything, you know.”
“No? It sure as hell is, and if you don’t think so, you’re living in a dreamworld.”
“What are you so upset about? Love’s important. Family’s important. Money is the least important.”
When she mentioned family I looked up from my food and glared at her. Damn. There it was again. A bubble of emotion threatened to spill over.
I responded too loudly, “Don’t want to bust your bubble, but love can be bought. On the corner of Fifth Avenue and 132nd Street, for instance, you can get all the love you want for two dollars a pop. And family? I’m doing A-okay without one. It’s highly overrated.” The woman with the piled-on hair made a face at me from the recesses of my mind. I pushed the image aside.
“That’s not love, and you know it. Amos, how can you put down something you’ve never had? You have no idea whether family is important or not.”
I twirled my spaghetti, paused, and looked up at her. “You’re right.” I pushed a forkful of pasta into my mouth.
“That’s it? No more argument?”
I sighed. “What’s the problem now? I said you were right.”
“But you don’t really think I’m right.”
She began to sound like Gloria, my ex. Why did women do this? I belched. Using my napkin, I wiped marinara sauce from my upper lip and deflected what I thought was turning into an argument. “I think you’re cute.”
“Amos.”
“Look, in my book, money is important. And yes, I’m upset because at the moment I don’t have any. Money equals status. Money equals respect. Money equals education. Money equals—hey, how about that? Tell me, what are you going to college for? And don’t say to improve your mind, because I ain’t buying it. You want to get yourself as far away as you can from a ghetto that represents L.O.M.”
“What’s LOM?”
“Lack of money, honey.” Catherine sucked her teeth at me and stuck her nose way up in the air, away from me. I finished off my spaghetti and tossed down some wine and let the silence thunder.
In the stillness I counted the waiter’s steps as he walked back and forth across the tiled floors. After a respectable amount of time elapsed I said, “Guess this means you’re mad at me.”
She balled her napkin up and flung it on the table. “On the money, honey.”
What could I say? I looked at her breasts some more. She twisted her napkin around her finger.
Catherine broke the silence. I knew she would. “Amos, are you upset about your car?”
“Not my car. My life.”
“It could be worse, Amos. Your life could be my life. How would you like to work forty hours a week, go to school full-time, and take care of a sick mother? With no social life.”
I looked at her. For the first time we connected. We both smiled, and I reached across and took her hand. “You are cute, you know.”
“So are you.” She gritted her teeth. “And damn you, Amos, I put three kinds of lotion on my hands; don’t you dare say anything about them.”
My eyes widened in astonished protest. I didn’t say a mumbling word. Besides, her hands were beginning to feel good to me. I paid the check and we left, arms locked around each other.
We got better acquainted on the way home. Stepchild’s engine cut out on me three times before we reached Catherine’s door, but all in all, it didn’t matter.
Chapter 17
I sat on the front stoop and thumbed through the weekly edition of the Amsterdam News, Harlem’s oldest newspaper, with my morning cup of coffee secure on the step beside me. The coming bicentennial activities filled the page. For the most part I ignored Gloria, who sat posed like a beauty queen on the stoop across the street, crossing and uncrossing her legs.
Since Catherine had just called me not ten minutes ago on her break at the hospital, I was pretty secure in the knowledge that Gloria and her nonsense had no power over me. The sun melted into my bones. I felt fine.
Things had settled into a routine in the landlord business. I had gotten used to imminent disaster, disaster, and holy shit. It occurred on a daily basis. Like day following night, I accepted the inevitability of it all. Like the alkies’ credo, I worked on what I could change. The rest? Fuck it. That included Zeke, whose face I hadn’t seen since last Thursday at Harry’s. He slipped in and out of the brownstone like a night crawler.
Luigi inside was refitting the sprinkler heads. More shit on my credit card. HPD demanded I finish the work, and the court backed the agency up. Life gives you choices. HPD doesn’t. I tried to hire black because black people needed the business, but black-owned businesses were scarce. The ones that existed often lacked either the people or the equipment to do a job right—and who wanted a job done wrong? Sick as I was of calling the downtown boys, I had no choice.
I sighed. Twenty years ago I used to be real critical of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and those political types. Now I saw up close what they had been hollering about. I was the stupid one. In Harlem and all over the country an economic squeeze play was going on.
Government-sponsored programs filtered money into the wrong hands. Kickback, payback, double cross, double deal, and double dip was the way it went in Harlem. I sipped at my coffee as I considered the dregs.
I’d put myself in debt again to get the work on the brownstones done, and now I wasn’t sure whom I’d rather deal with—somebody like Harry the Mo
nkey Chaser or some of these piranhas that devoured black businessmen like so many small fish. No choice, I bent over and took it, right in the ass. I needed to hang tough, and there seemed to be a conspiracy out there that didn’t want that to happen.
I fantasized about getting into one more poker game, make one more big play to get this load off of me, and looked upward for an answer.
Above me, the sky was spring-blue, the clouds a puffy white. Birds chattered and I heard the drone of traffic along Lenox Avenue. What I didn’t hear was an answer to my new problems.
And then a sedan pulled up, and Detectives Bundt and Caporelli got out. Something about the way they walked toward me made me uneasy. Caporelli swaggered too much, and both of them had a hard time looking directly at me.
“Morning, gentlemen. You know you all left me with a big damn- ass hole. What can I do for you?”
Bundt spoke. “Got some news about that skeleton. Thought you needed to know.”
Needed? What I needed was m-o-n-e-y. I didn’t give food or a fuck about some bones in a wall. But I waited for him to continue.
“FBI forensics identified the skeletal remains—female, black, approximately twenty years of age. Figured she was cemented in the wall of your property thirty-five to forty years ago.”
“Is that right?” I waited. “Good to know I’m not a suspect.”
I smiled at the two of them. They didn’t respond. “Something else?” I said.
Caporelli blurted, “It’s your mother’s skeleton.” Bundt nudged Caporelli with his elbow.
I stared at the two of them. My heart stopped, but other than that I was cool. I took a sip of coffee and replied, “That’s impossible. My mother died giving birth to me.”
Caporelli said, “Yeah? That’s what they told you? That’s not what her sister says—”
Bundt interrupted. “Reba McKinley filed a missing person’s report on her sister in 1945. We located Reba McKinley in Brooklyn and asked her to take a look at this.” He offered me a photograph. I looked at it.
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