by Rick Bennet
“A hooker murder ain’t exactly pressworthy these days.”
“No.”
“So. The New African woman who got you involved gets nervous. She’d probably vouched for you with Khalid, and then when you got shy, she, or they, got nervous. Not drastically nervous, or they’d have killed you. Just a little nervous. Wanted a little insurance. Called me. Set it up in a manner in keeping with this woman’s position at BTN.”
Ottaway nods.
“Take the glossy,” Kellogg says. “And the letter. They’ll clear you with your wife anyway, if the subject ever comes up. And I will back you on the story, that the sexual harassment was just role playing. But do yourself a favor—get a job someplace else.”
Ottaway nods. He knows.
10
SOLEMN LONG RAY MOVES DOWN AN ALLEY, comfortable there, in the dark. He’s wearing blue jeans, boots, and a hooded sweatshirt, the hood pulled over his brow.
He’s spent this day letting the city know he is back. Tracking down people he knows. Asking questions as coolly as possible. “What’s up with that murder? That Henry James murder? What you think about that boy being gone?” Asking like his is just the same curiosity everyone has, nothing more.
But he’s only got rumors (those LTC people got the boy and tortured him/sold him/killed him; the police did it, ‘cause Henry James was investigating them). He hasn’t heard any stories he couldn’t have invented himself. And his attempt to find Chavez has been pointless. He went to an old address his mother had for the man, but no one there knew him, or would admit it to a six-ten black man.
He called the Mayor’s office. Left a message. Called back. Left another message. Called a third and fourth time.
Now he walks across the city, at night, looking in the windows of nice restaurants where well-dressed white people are eating; past emptying office buildings of the sort he’s never been in for any good reason; through the blacker and blacker, tougher and tougher residential neighborhoods of Northwest Washington, until he’s deep into Northeast Washington, on a commercial block off New York Avenue. Single- and double-story broad warehouse buildings, fast food, cheap motels. Skyscrapers aren’t allowed in Washington, so its buildings flow gently over its slight rises. It’s a beautiful, tree-filled city for the most part. Not this part.
He comes to a new, red-brick, two-story building. The sign there says: NEW AFRICA. He peers through the dark glass windows, into the well-lit lobby. Sees four men in black suits, white shirts, brightly striped ties. The New Africa uniform.
Long enters the lobby and the four men stand, move to confront him.
“Can I help you, brother?” asks one, looking up at Long, as they all must.
“I’m here to see Khalid.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“You have to have an appointment.”
“No I don’t.”
The other three men stand behind the speaker, ready to back him up but not liking the prospect. The speaker takes a more aggressive posture and vocal tone. “If you don’t have an appointment, you have to leave, brother.”
Long smiles slightly. Death-looks the four men, none of whom can hold his gaze. He comes from a place, has seen things, in himself and others, that set him apart and above other men in any situation of threat or fear. He’s hard at a higher level.
“Pick up the phone,” he commands. “Call Khalid. Tell him I’m here. He’ll see me.”
As an act of appeasement, looking put out, the man speaking for the four says, “What’s your name?” as he picks up the phone on the desk.
“You just tell him what I look like. If he wants you to know my name, he’ll give it to you.”
The man pushes a button on the phone. After a moment, he speaks into it, saying only, “It’s some really tall guy who says he knows Khalid.” After a moment, he says, “Yeah, I guess so.” After another moment, he hangs up. Looks up at Long with respect and relief. He lets his breath out. Says, to the others, “It’s okay.”
The others also look relieved. Long shakes his head, disgusted.
Though it’s only a two-story building, it has an elevator. That elevator opens, and the handsome, light-skinned Khalid steps out, followed by two pretty, long-legged, big-bottomed young women in the female version of the New Africa uniform—black skirt and pumps, white blouse, bright green and brown and red scarf.
Khalid beams as he grabs Long, who smiles genuinely back at him.
“Remember this man,” Khalid says to the others. “Remember his face. He is the man referred to in my book as the Tall One. The man who gave me hope and help during my year in the Slave Pens.”
Khalid leads Long, with the two silent women, into the elevator, then upstairs, into his well-furnished office suite.
Another young woman and two other men, all in uniform, are in the anteroom, at a desk. Khalid introduces Long to them.
“Our fine New African women, they do not suffer the white disease of gender fear, gender hate. Because of our basic precept of respect for women, they are comfortable in their respect for men. Satisfied with their role as leaders, not of nations, but of families. This is the natural way, the African way, which has been corrupted by weakling white males, whose women revolt from sexual and moral dissatisfaction. But our women seek only to bring happiness to the world.”
By this speech, Long understands that Khalid is telling him the women are available.
Long says, “Let’s talk.”
Khalid smiles. “Of course. You want a drink? Soft drink, of course.”
Long shakes his head no. He and Khalid go alone into Khalid’s large private office and shut the door behind them. Khalid sits grandly behind his broad oak desk with its computer and phone. Long looks at the expensive furniture. Without sitting, he says, “You’re doing well.”
“We are doing well. You know I haven’t forgotten you. You got the money I sent?”
Long nods. Khalid had sent a man to meet him when he was released from prison. That man had given him three thousand dollars.
“That’s one of our promises to the people,” Khalid says. “Three thousand dollars, a car, and first month’s rent and deposit on an apartment to all freed slaves. For you, of course, there’s a lot more than that.” He hesitates only a moment, then asks, “You wanted some private time, you said, before coming to see me, since getting out? Why? I mean, it’s okay, of course.”
“I didn’t want to rush back into the world. I wanted to just be slower about the adjustment than I was last time. I didn’t want to fuck right back up again.”
“But I could have helped you with that.”
“Don’t take it personally, man.”
“I know, I know.”
“And thanks for arranging for me to get out of that halfway house bullshit.”
“That was easy. A call from me to the Mayor, from the Mayor to whoever runs that office. Done.”
“The Mayor,” Long says derisively. “I been calling the motherfucker, but he won’t talk to me. What’s up with him?”
“Don’t worry, we got him.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. Long, we got him all boxed up. Thanks to the work you did with him while he was inside.”
Long smiles, and Khalid does too.
“Motherfucker can get busted for crack and get reelected anyway,” Long says. “But one look at him getting a blow job from a white woman, and his ass is cooked.”
While in prison, the Mayor received visits from prostitutes, one of whom was white. Long had made these arrangements and also arranged for one such meeting to be videotaped.
“He’s not a true believer, of course,” Khalid says. “He doesn’t care about anyone or anything except himself. If he was white he’d be George Wallace. But that’s okay. In his own way, he’s very predictable. We probably don’t even need that tape. Still, you know how I believe in insurance.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anyway, man, brother, we got it s
o going on, it’s scary. We got multimillion-dollar contracts with the city for housing-project security, for Afrocentric education, for commercial development. We’ve got a theater, two restaurants, a music and book store. We’ve got branches in New York, L.A., Detroit, and of course the big one, Atlanta. We got the Mayor in our pocket because of that prison tape, we got the FBI director because of that frame-up murder we did, and we got the Chief locked up with the riot tape.”
“That’s all right.”
“And with our pull on the Director, we had him set up what we call a Goof Squad. Check this out. The Director, he pulls together the four most incompetent, idiotic, and racist agents in the force. White guys so fucking worthless no one wants to work with them anyway. He assigns this Goof Squad to investigate political corruption in D.C. They are so stupid, these guys, they can’t find shit. But even if they did, we all got an out, because these Goof Squad fucks are all documented racists, so their testimony wouldn’t mean shit even if they did find something. Understand?”
“That’s slick.”
“It is. I’m telling you, brother, it’s all going to happen. We got to take our time and do it right, but it will happen. I’ve got the psychology down, just like we used to talk about all them long old nights in the joint. The psychology of the black man to pull him together. The psychology of the white to rip him apart. And the Simpson verdict. What a blessing that was. God is great.”
“I hear that.”
“Now tell me, what do you want to do now?”
“I don’t know”
Khalid nods. “No need to rush into anything. Whatever you want you got. In the meantime, go see Personnel tomorrow. Get on the payroll. Fifteen hundred a week.”
Long smiles. Nods his head. Khalid, seeing Long smile, is happy.
“That money, that’s yours if you want to do anything or not, you understand. That’s just yours. The people owe you for what you’ve done for me. You can just come in once a week and pick up your check, no problem.”
“I might do that for a while.”
“No problem.”
“I got some personal things to take care of.”
“Don’t get yourself in trouble.”
“I won’t.”
“If you got scores to settle, let me know. We’ve got men on staff, women too, who can do what needs to be done.”
“I’m all right.”
They look at each other. Khalid gets up, goes to Long, hugs him again. Says, “I am so glad to see you. I need you, brother.”
He and Long talked a great deal about political philosophy while in prison. Especially Long’s views, which Khalid had eaten up, about the nature of political emotions with respect to issue positioning, preemptive accusation, and aggressive claims of victimization. Long, the English teacher’s son, thought of writing a book about what he’d learned of human nature, of politics, in prison, a world of cut-throat deceptiveness and fatal clique errors. A Machiavelli-type book. But instead of writing it he told it, over and over, to Khalid, refining it in response to Khalid’s probing questions until he tired of it himself but with interest and pride later watched Khalid apply it through New Africa.
Khalid gets a look on his face. Long, knowing him well, asks what’s wrong.
Khalid says, “Brother, there’s one big thing fucked up right now.”
“Go ahead.”
“I hate to hit you with this, you just out, but I got no one else I can really go to.”
“What?”
Khalid, sighing, says, “The tapes are missing.” Long shakes his head, sad.
“I know, man,” Khalid says. “We got some treasonous motherfucker on staff.”
“You got no copies?”
“I didn’t get around to doing it myself, and I didn’t want to let anyone else do it.”
“Shit, man.”
“I know, I know. I fucked up.”
“Where’d they get stolen from?” Khalid points to a closet door. “It had a handle lock and padlock.”
“You know that ain’t going to keep no pro out.”
“I know, man!” Khalid says, defensively. “I guess I just felt like the building itself was secure.”
“Was it the FBI who did it?”
“I don’t think so, because I can still push the Director’s buttons. Same with the Mayor. That was my first thought, that one of them did it.”
“The FBI could pull it off pretty easy And the Mayor’s got police aides who know how to break into places.”
“But this happened more than three months ago, and no one’s given any sign that I don’t still have power over them.”
“Inside job, then.”
“I know, I know.”
“Done any asking around?”
“Haven’t figured out how to do that without letting it be known that the tapes are missing. If no one knows, then it almost doesn’t matter.”
A light knock sounds on the door. Khalid calls out to come in. A middle-aged Hispanic woman enters with a cleaning cart.
“The maid,” Khalid says. “Another one of our businesses. Office cleaning. We hire Latinos to do it, and we make the capitalist profit. Nothing wrong with capitalism. Makes the world go round. But the Latinos, they’ll do this work cheaper and better than our own. We’re too regal, you know.”
“Uh-huh,” Long says.
Khalid tells the woman to come back later.
“Yeah. Listen, hey,” Long says. “What do you think of this Henry James thing?”
Khalid, of course, doesn’t know that Henry James was Long’s brother. Meanly, bitterly, he says, “That cocksucker. I don’t know for sure that Ells wasn’t backed up, and I don’t like no black man getting killed by a white, but still, I tell you something, I’m glad to see him gone.”
“Yeah, he was a dog-fuck,” Long says, maintaining the pretense.
“He was. Always after the Mayor for dealing with us. Every single city contract we worked out, he investigated. He had some shit on us too. I know it was just a matter of time before he took us to the grand jury.”
“How you know?”
“We got word on his staff. We know.”
“I thought maybe we did him.”
“I thought about it. Real hard. But no, that wasn’t us.”
“What about that boy?”
Khalid shakes his head. “Shit, man. Come on. That Ells motherfucker, he didn’t let no child live.”
“How you know Ells got him?”
“I don’t, I don’t. I just do. He had to. Had to be him. If it wasn’t, then where’s the boy? Huh? Nah, there’s no chance he’s alive. I don’t think I could honestly say I care about what happened to some spoiled little rich kid punk son of Henry James and that bitch whore wife of his anyway.”
Long shrugs.
“Could have been the FBI, though,” Khalid says. “They hated Henry. Could have been them using LTC, which they got a lot of power over. They could have set Ells up to do this. That’s my theory. The Director himself has told me that that Joan Price woman is on his ticket.”
Khalid asks Long to eat with him at New Africa’s newest business, an upscale restaurant. Leaving the office, Long sees the Hispanic cleaning woman. Thinks about Chavez. Thinks about the boy. Thinks about his mother and how he has no hope to give her.
11
KELLOGG: GO SEE THE MOTHER. The grandmother. Passer: Mrs. James? Kellogg: Yeah. Passer: What about?
Kellogg: Everything. Find out what she knows about what her son was working on before he got killed. Find out what she thinks about how the police and FBI have been handling things. Charm her. Sympathize with her. About the press, too, and what assholes they’ve been. You know. Get her to trust you.
Passer: Uh-huh.
Kellogg: And ask her what she thinks about the missing boy. I got a hunch that if the kid’s not dead, which he probably is, but if he isn’t, then she’s got him. Not with her, but somewhere. With a relative or old friend. Maybe she’s scared of the police. Maybe she’s sca
red of LTC.
Passer: Maybe she’s scared of the world.
Kellogg: Who could blame her? Passer: Right.
Kellogg: But where else would the boy go, except to her house, if Ells didn’t get him? Passer: That’s true. Kellogg: Black up a little. Passer: Why?
Kellogg: ‘Cause you don’t look half black as you are. Passer: I’m not half black.
Kellogg: That’s what I mean. Her grandkids are half black. You go in like that, it’s an edge. The subtle bonding thing.
Passer: Is this my end?
Kellogg: I’m just saying.
Passer: Is this my end? My department?
Kellogg: All right.
They’re in the coffee shop. He’s eating a double hamburger with a full-plate side of fries. Passer is stealing his fries as they talk.
Passer: From what I heard, she doesn’t talk to the press, the police, no one. Why should she talk to me?
Kellogg: I’m going to call her.
Passer: Oh, you’re friends with her now?
Kellogg: We did that one job for Henry James, on that Chavez case. And for whatever reason, she was there every day. I talked to her once, in the hall, during a recess.
Passer: I did that case.
Kellogg: By yourself, almost. Because of your Spanish. Passer: And I testified in that trial too. Which means she might remember me.
Kellogg: She’ll definitely remember you by the time I’m done talking to her. Passer: Uh-huh.
Kellogg: Stop eating my fries. I’ll get you a plate if you want, but leave mine alone.
Passer, taking another fry, stuffs her mouth with it and asks: What’s our official interest in her?