Murder My Past

by Delia C. Pitts

  “Mr. Rook, it is such a pleasure to meet the namesake of our company at long last. I’ve heard many nice things about you.” His voice was creamy, lite-jazz smooth.

  No way Annie’s pillow talk included compliments about me. And this joker had zero standing to call me Mister, like I was a senior citizen in a rocking chair. Tight smile, bright voice: “Call me Rook. Annie tells me your company’s going gang-busters.”

  “Yes! We were named one of the region’s top ten minority-owned businesses last year by the Miami Herald. Our contracts surpassed one million for the third straight year. We’re developing a fifth location to open in Hialeah by next spring. Anniesha has built something terrific out of Rook Cleaning Services. It’s a privilege to work with her!”

  Ricky’s elevator spiel was convincing. His youthful exuberance almost persuaded me to invest in the company. But my name was contribution enough. To stop Luna from gushing more, Annie placed her hand on his forearm. Looking deep into his eyes, she squeezed. Twice. Lovers for certain. Was this boy one of the “little amusements” she’d mentioned earlier?

  I dropped the smile. “Tell me, Ricky. What brings you to New York?” Annie’s eyes narrowed. She recognized the danger behind my clenched teeth.

  Her infant VP babbled on unawares. “Supporting Anniesha, of course. Getting invited to give the keynote address at a conference as big as this is quite an honor. Everyone at the company is so proud of Anniesha. So, we wanted to show the flag and demonstrate how much we support her leadership at Rook.”

  And take care of business in the sack too. A snarl rose at the back of my throat, scratching to escape through the tight smile on my lips.

  Annie intervened in Luna’s defense. “I asked Rick to assemble the analytics for my presentations this week. And when he saw how busy I was preparing the Power Point slides for tomorrow’s presentation, he prepared the slides for the keynote for me. Since he did such wonderful work, it was only fair Rick come along for the trip too.”

  Fingers beside my pocket curled into a fist. If I sucker-punched him, I’d confirm the hostess’s race bias. So, I clutched, gritted, and laid low.

  An explosion would have been earned—a burst to gut our fake civilized cheer. A snap to make the snooty hostess renew her membership in the KKK. Ignition, lift-off. I opened my mouth to drop a snide quip, but Annie blocked me. She waved in the direction of the bar’s entrance. Again. She half-rose from the bench to signal our location to two more intruders. Had she invited the whole damn convention to join us for drinks? The newcomers teetered over to our table with wide grins and fluttering fingers. They shook hands, thrusting dry palms against my damp one.

  “Are we late, darlings? Did we miss anything juicy?” The male invader spoke first. He planted a kiss beside each of Annie’s eyes, then dropped an open-mouthed smack on her lips for punctuation.

  The female unfurled a violent side-eye at this moist greeting. Resentment pursed her lips, but she said nothing except a chilly hello to me. Why blame me for the slippery intimacy between her companion and Annie? The duo fell into chairs and scooted forward. I studied them through lowered lashes.

  Annie introduced the pair with quivering exclamation points. Gerald Keith! was a professor of anthropology! at Alexander University! His companion Sarah Anastos, a post-doctoral fellow at New York University! was also an anthropologist! He was handsome in a brainy way: Woody Allen without the creep factor. And she was sexy in a downtown elfin style, long face, nice figure. This academic odd couple seemed out of place in a conference of hard-charging entrepreneurs. What did Annie see in these trespassing snobs?

  Dr. Keith dressed like Indiana Jones just returned from dusting sand off the Ark of the Covenant. He wore a multi-pocketed khaki vest over a thin white shirt with no collar and well-cut gray slacks. His four silver rings featured coral and turquoise nuggets. Had he scored them after shrewd bargaining with a desert caravan merchant? Smugness bent his lips; maybe he’d sold the Ark to the highest bidder.

  In contrast, Dr. Anastos was dressed in the black uniform required of all true New Yorkers. Her loose trousers were gathered at the ankle like harem pants, highlighting four-inch heeled silver sandals. A skinny black undershirt showed off her gleaming white breasts and wiry arms. Giant hoop earrings with coral chunks were her nod to evening wear. Both anthropologists kept their curly red hair cropped in identical fashion–high on top, close over the ears. Maybe to underline their tribal connection. Anastos’s hair was darker, like Cherry Coke. Keith finished his look with a goatee, its reddish growth flecked with white.

  “Anniesha, how marvelous to see you again!” Keith beamed and clapped in a theatrical manner, calling attention to his rings and thin elegant hands.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Gerry. We just saw each other this morning at that godawful panel on youth sports merchandising. And we saw each other last night at the reception after my keynote.”

  Annie’s rejection of Keith’s BS was gentle, and teasing, the way old friends–or lovers–interact. Though they were seated on opposite sides of the table, the connection between them was obvious. Too warm.

  “Ah, always the anti-romantic, aren’t you, my pet?” Keith beamed at Annie, ignoring the rest of us as if we were paddling down the Amazon river with slotted spoons. “I simply meant it’s damn good to see you. As always.”

  She chuckled at him. That low, rich laugh, combined with the “my pet” endearment, sent hot sweat dripping along my spine. Was Gerry Keith another of Annie’s “little amusements?” Kiddie Ricky Luna, Genial Gerry Keith. How many more men was she sleeping with at this convention?

  Sarah Anastos and Rick Luna both frowned at this exchange. I was as irritated as they were by the flirtatious banter between Keith and Annie.

  Anastos turned on me as the stranger to steer the conversation to safer shores. “When she invited us, Anniesha said you’re a private investigator, Mr. Rook. What exactly do you investigate?” She sipped her frothy Cosmo and licked her lips at me.

  Again, with the Mister. Did being a decade older earn me senior citizen status? Was I wearing a blue handicapped parking tag around my neck? “Call me Rook. Like the Cleaning Service.”

  They didn’t care about my work with the Ross Agency; lowered lids and puffed cheeks signaled boredom. But I gave a thumbnail sketch anyway. If I answered their questions first, I’d have free rein to drill into their backgrounds as the night wore on. I told them Norment Ross founded the agency over thirty years ago to provide services to people in our hard-knock Harlem neighborhood. We looked into those puzzles, disputes, and missteps that fell below the radar of the police. As free-range detectives, we offered security, confidence, protection, and peace-of-mind to clients whose lives often lacked those basic comforts.

  When I finished, Anastos blinked as if rising from a swoon. She piped at me through tight lips. “Where do you carry your gun, Rook? Slung on your belt? Strapped under your arm? Ankle holster?”

  “I don’t carry a weapon.” Flat, cool, and dry. If she imagined a hard-boiled detective would talk this way, then I’d deliver.

  Keith’s voice vaulted in disbelief. “That can’t be true! You’re a private eye. You have to carry a gun.”

  Annie rested her chin on a palm and leaned toward me, her black eyes sparkling. She was having fun.

  To her unasked question, I shaped a reply several words longer than my standard answer: “I end fights with fists, not bullets. Chances of surviving are higher if I leave guns out of the conflict.”

  Annie nodded. She knew about my bad war: the dead army buddy, the destroyed toes on my left foot. This slow head bob meant she got me. Opposite her Keith snickered, a delicate ripple.

  But a hoggish snort burst from Sally Anastos’s pixie lips. “A private dick without a gun! Sounds like a play by Edward Albee. Lots of existential angst, castration metaphors, and fragile masculinity galore.”

  She laughed
so hard a glob of Cosmo bubbled at the corner of her mouth. Keith patted his protégé’s forearm until her fit subsided. “Now, Sally, be kind.”

  Then he returned to patronizing me. “I find this absolutely fascinating, Rook. You delve under the facade to ferret out tensions roiling in the community and use that insight to solve problems. Like an anthropologist manqué. I’d love to learn more about your work sometime.”

  Probably the stiff Tom Collins talking, but Gerry Keith sounded almost sincere. Maybe he recognized in me a fellow student of the human condition. Or perhaps he thought flattering me would get him into Annie’s pants. Again. Maybe the gambit worked; she ordered another round of drinks to prolong the evening.

  When the waitress arrived with her loaded tray, it was my turn to ask the questions. Irritation made me curt, booze made me loud. “So, Gerry, what’s the link between anthropology and enterprise? Why are you at this conference?”

  “Always digging for the core, hmm, Rook? Well, in fact, I owe much of my academic success to the delightful Miss Perry here.”

  He tipped an imaginary hat in Annie’s direction. She winked back. Goddamn him.

  “Several years ago, I decided I’d had enough of field work in Pondicherry. That’s in India, you know. The heat, the flies, the dust, the dysentery. Mind and body, I needed a respite. So, I looked for a way to apply the principles and techniques of anthropological research to a topic nearer to home.”

  As he warmed to his subject, a blush rose under his tan. Keith tugged the vest and glanced around the table to make sure we were following his lecture.

  “I’ve always contended that anthropology needn’t revel in its racist past and colonial roots by confining its work to the study of so-called ‘primitive’ peoples in exotic locales. I got into some trouble with the more tradition-minded members of my discipline, the Malinowski-and-Margaret Mead crowd, you know. But screw them. I knew I was on the right track and my research in working-class Miami neighborhoods proved it.”

  Keith’s lecture style was compelling, even if over-the-top for cocktail hour in a hotel bar. With his blazing green eyes and melodious voice, Gerry Keith was a born entertainer.

  “But you know my greatest work depended on the insights provided by my favorite project, Sally Anastos here. Doctor Anastos, as I should say now.”

  He shifted his smile to her and her hazel eyes glittered with happiness. She didn’t mind being called a “project.” In fact, she seemed blitzed by her professor. As Keith continued his praise of her work, she preened and squirmed. She’d start purring at any moment. Maybe flip on her back for a stomach scratch.

  “Sally was the one who worked for a year as a maid in Anniesha’s company, conducting Spanish and English language interviews with hundreds of domestic workers across Miami. You might think Sally was a spy of sorts. But really this was top-notch field work. We call it participant observation. She lived right among the people she was studying. She adopted their clothing, customs, language, rituals, and cultural constructs as part of her everyday existence.”

  The project sounded showy and patronizing. Cultural tourism at its worst. But I hoped Keith would go on, and he did without prompting.

  “The vast amount of data Sally collected from her informants shaped my most important new publication. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s called, The Dirty and the Clean: Authenticity Among Miami’s Underclass.”

  “No, I can’t say I have. Sounds fascinating, Gerry.” I flashed my molars. He was pompous and vain, seasoned with a big dose of cultural appropriation. But he liked my grin, so he aped it.

  I glanced at Annie. Did she agree with my unspoken appraisal? She kept her expression neutral and ducked my gaze. Her forehead was smooth and her mouth opened in a slight smile. She looked indulgent, not resentful. Maybe she really did admire this jerk. Rick Luna’s sneer suggested he was gearing up to mock Keith. Good for him.

  But Sally Anastos chimed in with formal accolades before Ricky could burst the prick’s balloon. “Gerry’s book won the top prize from the American Anthropological Association last year. Its originality and sweeping scope were cited in reviews in all the important scholarly journals. They said he’d elaborated a theoretical framework that blazed a new direction for the entire discipline.”

  Sally’s speech sounded like a pitch for a movie biography of the great man. Or maybe the first draft of his obituary. She was definitely fluffing Keith’s resumé.

  “Gerry’s work looks at the intersection of culture as it’s being re-made by immigrants confronting the loss and reassertion of identity in their new homes. Those peer reviews demonstrated how the most creative minds in the field appreciate Gerry’s work.” Her eyes burned with a fanatic’s gleam. The conviction of a true believer cancelled any objections we uninitiated little people might raise. “Gerry was at the top already, of course. But The Dirty and The Clean confirmed him as a superstar. Even that idiot dean, Galaxy Pindar, was forced to admit how important Gerry is.”

  Keith sighed and waved an elegant hand. “Galaxy Pindar is a fool, Sally, that’s for sure. But we have to give her obeisance. She’s Alexander’s dean of arts and humanities, after all. A fine example of the power of affirmative action, to be sure.” His little cheerleader grinned at the slur and rolled her eyes.

  This festival of mush required a refill, so I raised a finger at the wide-beamed waitress. As she glided over with a fresh bourbon, I wondered again if Sally liked being called “my favorite project” by her mentor. Brina would have pulled a gun on him for that piggish BS. Maybe Sally considered the term a compliment. Or maybe she was used to the insult after so many years working beside him. Academic women are hard to read.

  Instead of basking in the glory alone, Gerry reflected it at Sally like a sun beaming its brightest rays on a pale orbiting moon. “But really, Sally deserves all the credit in the world. I got a publication out of it. And a little acclaim too.”

  Downcast eyes and pursed lips signaled his phony modesty. To save my bourbon, I glanced away from the sickening show.

  Gerry sailed on. “But Sally’s dissertation on the Miami maids earned her a post-doc fellowship at NYU. It’s highly competitive, you know. And our Sally triumphed over the best of the best to get that fellowship. She’s truly an academic star in the making.”

  Keith raised his glass to his disciple and drained the Tom Collins. The high praise flushed Sally’s cheeks, the pretty pink flowing to her lips and throat. She took another sip from the Cosmo to cover her pleasure.

  I coughed to break up the sentimental moment. “So, what exactly are you two doing here?” I wanted my original question on the table, since neither Keith nor Anastos had answered yet. So much mutual stroking, so little time.

  Gerry rode to the rescue with a simple response. “Since our work is based on field research in Anniesha’s company, we were invited to offer papers about the intersection of scholarship and entrepreneurship.” The link seemed obvious when he said it like that, which is what made him a great professor. “Sally gave her presentation on the first day of the conference. And I’m on a panel tomorrow morning. Do stop by, if you’re able, Rook. You’d be most welcome.”

  Annie, who’d been quiet during the Keith-Anastos vaudeville, tilted her head toward me.

  “Yes, SJ. Make a day of it. Come for Gerry’s panel in the morning and then catch my session at three. I’m presenting with a colleague of mine, Pearl Byrne. Pearl runs a cleaning service in Poughkeepsie that has taken off in the last couple of years, just like mine has. So, we thought we’d combine forces to make a presentation together.”

  Keith’s red eyebrows collided above his noble nose. Below the frown, his voice scratched. “Funny you working with that Byrne woman.” Gerry’s growl didn’t seem amused. “I can’t imagine what you see in her.”

  Ice in Annie’s glass tapped her teeth. “Pearl’s a friend. And a leading businesswoman in our field, Ger
ry. Why so bent?” Annie wrinkled her nose, like she knew the answer, but enjoyed needling her boyfriend. Or whatever he was.

  Keith tossed his head and pouted like a club kid. I figured he didn’t appreciate being surprised. Not by Annie. Not by anyone. “Pearl’s company was the other one we used for our research for the book. We wanted to interview workers at a cleaning service of comparable size to yours, but one that employed predominantly white workers in a northern city. A control group for your workers, Anniesha.”

  “Yeah, we figured that out, Pearl and me. To disguise the identities of our companies in your book, you invented names so we’d remain anonymous.”

  Annie looked straight at me, so interpreting her next remark was easy. “You called my company, ‘Brownie Cleaning Services.’ And Pearl’s was ‘Blondie Cleaning Services.’ Very clever. Who came up with that? You or Sally?”

  Keith and Anastos shared a glance, not sure how to read Annie’s tone. Was she outraged, amused, or disgusted? After considering for ten seconds, he decided a straightforward answer was the safest. “I think it was me, but to be honest, I’ve forgotten how we determined those names.” Keith dropped his lecture hall boom. “I went with simple phrases to avoid confusion. I hope you weren’t offended, Annie. Were you?”

  “No, no. Not a problem, Gerry. I know just how you meant it.” Annie flashed a radiant grin to suggest all was forgiven, if not forgotten. I remembered that look from the old days. Her cold voice sent tiny needles racing along my shoulders. “In fact, I hope you all can come by my presentation tomorrow. It should be quite a show.”

  Apple polisher Luna chirped: “Why’s that, Annie? What’ve you got planned?” Annie said Rick had prepared the slides for her other speeches. But he was in the dark about her final presentation.

  “Oh, it’s a blockbuster! Pearl and I are going to pull back the curtains covering up the business. Reveal how it’s done from an insider’s perspective. Expose the dirty underside of the cleaning business.”