by Angela Dews
* * *
By Friday morning I was feeling the effects of not having had a good night’s sleep in a couple of days. And it felt like Bobby’s fist broke through my protective layer of busyness and denial. And it was also Friday when some of the details came together. Looking back, I wonder how I missed it.
It was early, but I had already discovered that Elizabeth had gone out, and I wasn’t getting any better at this death business. Daddy’s seemed almost part of the natural order of things when compared to these latest losses. And I could only visualize Ceel dead. I had a whole gallery of living images of her laughing, busy, dancing. But now, I only had the vision of her lying on the street.
First, I called Viola and waited while I got a little Phyllis Hyman and a request to speak slowly and leave a detailed message with a time and a phone number. And the wish for a blessed day.
“Viola, I’m thinking I might want to see a plastic surgeon. When you get back from Chicago, let me know how to get in touch with your person.” When I hung up, it occurred to me I’d never heard her say she had one, although she obviously did.
Then I called Adrianne. “Where’d you go? You left me with that mad man.”
“You said you wanted to look around and I had no idea the murderer would come back. You told the police I was at Al’s. I was up half the night dealing with their accusations. I suppose they wanted to see if our stories jived. And, by the way, they asked me again where I was the night before when Obsidian was shot since I have keys to the office.”
She was indignant, and then not.
“But, girl, you are all over the news this morning. At the scene of a murder last night, and at the precinct being arrested, looking like a movie star. Are you okay? Is your nose broken or anything?”
“It’s not broken but I need to have someone look at it. My fans won’t like it if it turns into a bump or something. Do you know a plastic surgeon?”
“I do. But, you know, forgive me, but you can’t pay for that kind of publicity.”
“Except a young man died and I got punched in the face.”
∗ ∗ ∗
When I got outside, the morning remains of the day before spoke to the activities that had taken up the time of my neighbors. The leftovers from meals at the fish place had spilled or been dumped from garbage bags. What looked like someone’s entire belongings were piled in front of the single-room occupancy hotel aptly named Stop Inn. And empty crack vials and their absurdly innocuous pastel tops studded the pavement on the next block.
Stores were doing a good business on Lenox Avenue in Harlem in 1990 and long stretches of them beckoned with the names of their owners: Majester’s, Virginia’s, Lucille’s, Bernice’s, Vernon’s. Others lured more seductively: Welcome Restaurant, Friendly Vegetable Market, Community Grocery.
And then there was simply: Eats, Fruits and Liquor. Liquor had been open since the crack of 8 and the early birds were already heading back down the boulevard in ones or twos with their morning hits in hand.
I navigated through my neighbors who caught up with each other on corners and stoops.
The herds of cars and trucks stampeded at the pedestrians strolling across the crosswalk. Twice on the way, I gasped, once when one very old woman couldn’t, and once for an adolescent who wouldn’t, hurry to move out of the way. It’s a wonder.
The several men who swept in front of the stores barely paused for pedestrians. But when they paused, they spoke: “Mornin.”
“Morning to you too,” I said.
At 125th Street in front of the fenced empty lot where the bazaar begins, the once and present Africans were setting up tables in their allotted reserved spaces.
“Good morning, my sister.” A brother’s smile stopped me.
“Do you have Universal Love?” I asked him, standing in front of his table full of incense and oils and brass and wooden things to burn them in.
“No. But I have musk, kickass, strawberry and pussy.”
“Never mind.” I put a tiny incense burner back on the table.
“Use this on your wrists and you’ll have a bountiful day.”
I barely dodged his out-stretched finger. Patchouli wafted after me.
Other business people were laying out bolts of fabric and hanging garments on the fence. Hats covered a table in color-matched piles and adorned Styrofoam heads on sticks clipped all around the table’s edges. Dolls and dresses and carved wooden animals filled the next table. And tapes and beads and belts and jewelry were arranged in the prime spot just at the corner next to the IRT subway station.
It was a good time of morning before the demands of one of my long days kicked in.
“Braid your hair?”
The trio of Senegalese beauties took up more than half the sidewalk as they tried to stop people trying to walk by.
“No thank you,” I said to the first one and only shook my head when the next two asked.
Before it got too crowded, the avenue could have been Tombstone. The hunks of hair that escaped out the doors blew down the boulevard like tumbleweed.
But now the day was starting.
Beyond the women, three tour buses were setting loose a crowd of white tourists in front of the Apollo to get their pictures taken. They would probably be Germans and Japanese, or out-of-towners from the Midwest. White New Yorkers usually didn’t come uptown unless they worked in a state office, needed to renew their licenses, were headed for Metro North trains or were driving though on the way to the Triboro Bridge.
But I have to admit that I couldn’t be sure because I didn’t get close enough to hear them speak.
And the persistent part of the city that was Harlem had pulled me back for another day.
C H A P T E R • 31
* * *
When I got to Harlem Hospital, they let me in to see Obie.
“He needs to sleep,” the nurse said.
His skin contrasted dark against the pillow. His pajamas were a startling crème silk with a bit of blue trim. One pajama arm was draped over a bulge that would have been bandages and a sling.
I sat and took his other hand and breathed with him. And I watched him sleep. I did. That’s a reason it’s called a meditation practice. At that moment, I couldn’t have started from scratch to figure out how to let the fear drop from my mind where it was a story to be embodied with a kind of tenderness. But I had a reference to touch the place where we were connected, no matter what. I breathed and watched him, and I watched my feelings change and settle and discharge. He told me later he felt me.
After I left him, I went about the business of a little fact-finding. Al was still in jail, but his landlady was impressed enough with my expired press pass and a Lt. Summer Knight autograph to let me look out into the backyard from her upstairs window.
Sure enough, there was a gap in the wall of buildings beyond the back fence where one had gone down and where whoever killed Heavy could have made his way over Al’s fence and through the gap to 135th Street. Except, he would have had to brave the high branches and bushes against the opposite side and face the 32nd Precinct on the downtown side of the street. But he probably didn’t look like a murderer and a robber and a drug dealer and whatever else, once he got over the fence.
And if it was Bobby, he even came back.
I walked across Seventh Avenue to Ruthie’s. It was just as I remembered when Daddy used to take me there to eat chili and saltines. Mister Bell’s friends were drinking coffee in their designated places, facing the door.
“Good morning,” I said. “I came to thank you for looking out for me last night and to ask you again what it looked like at Al’s place from across the street.”
“Heavy showed up, like I told you, in his red sweat suit. Al must have let him in,” Joseph said.
“Al was in jail.”
“Then I don’t know. When we came back after the Nets game we saw the gate open and we saw you and Bop running out,” Riley said.
“Pearl, we were talking about last
night. You know, Riley didn’t call the police. He was looking for a working pay phone when he heard sirens.”
“I wish whoever it was had made the call before he punched me.”
“Your face looks like it’s going to be fine.”
“Thanks to you. They were impressed at Harlem Hospital with the job you did on my nose.”
“He pulled back a little, I think. It could have been worse.”
“Thank you for looking out for me. Do you know where Mister Bell could be?”
“He’s taking this hard.”
“The only thing I can think is that he’s following a lead in the case.”
“He’s going to solve this thing.”
“I hope he gets some help. It could be dangerous,” I said.
“He has sense enough.”
“And he knows he ain’t no young man no more.”
Their back-and-forth made me feel relieved and safe. My memory served up the two of them, two of the regulars my father stopped to argue and laugh with when I used to walk around Harlem learning who was friend and who was not by the touch of his feelings passing through our palms, with no censure.
“Please tell Mister Bell to call me if you see him before I do. And I’ll come back later when he gets here,” I said.
I put on my sunshades and took a matchbook with Ruthie’s number on it.
∗ ∗ ∗
It occurred to me I needed to get additional information about the bank. I could do it just a few blocks over at the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
The bank files were massive and I decided they called for a laser light of specifics rather than the lamp of curiosity I was bringing to the search.
There was plenty about board members, including our Right Reverend Doctor William Garrison. I looked through some of the clippings from magazines and back issues of newspapers, including ours. There were stories about the church and about his community development organization—Harlem Village. I even got a clip about how much one of his houses was worth when it went on the market. There were pictures of Gary and Cecelia hobnobbing with national politicians and big-name movie and music stars. A magazine interview turned out to be slick and unremarkable. The reporter failed to penetrate his well-constructed facade. She pitched him softballs, which he hit easily with his talk of community and accountability. He’s not a choirboy but nothing had ever stuck.
Protecting his reputation would be essential for maintaining his empire, and he looked like a man who had political aspirations—both strong motives for taking desperate action.
I also made notes for a feature about Mister Bell with the wonderful photos in his Schomburg file, most of which we also had in the Journal archives, including playing basketball for City College, fighting for community control of the schools, the bookstore. All of it.
Because I could, I looked up Captain Obsidian Bailey. One reporter called his 28th Precinct the most corrupt in the city because of the drugs, the most political in the city because of all the churches, and the most famous because of the Apollo. Sprinkled here and there, in addition to the action photos of Obsidian working, were the society pictures of the man about town with women on his arm. One woman looked somehow perfect beside him.
C H A P T E R • 32
* * *
At 2:30, I was sitting at the bar at Showmans next to Reverend William Garrison, far enough back to make room for my legs and sideways so I could put my notebook on the bar. His stool was close enough to mine to smell Bergamot. Nancy Wilson was singing “Fly Me to the Moon.”
He ordered a Dewar’s splash. I ordered a vodka martini and a little straw to finesse the drink around my swollen lip.
“Your face looks like it hurts.”
“It does.”
The bartender checked behind the bar but it was too early in the cycle for any articles or pictures from the free-lancers who dropped their stuff at Showmans when the newspaper office was closed.
“Tell you what,” he said. “See if you can convince the board not to take legal action to stop you.”
I flipped to the page in my notebook and read some account names to him. “The owners of these accounts all but closed them. It looks like Cecelia was not killed on purpose. It was supposed to be a warning. So, it’s not a murderer we’re looking for. It’s someone with a secret. That’s you and your board. And one or more of these.”
“I’ll tell you one thing. The only way you can take this bank story on is if you’re ready to leave town and never come back.”
“That sounds like a threat.” I wrote down what he said word for word. “And I already did leave town.”
There was a storm blowing across his face. Sometimes people respond well to coaxing, but I sensed that he might be diverted by another interruption. Little movements broke up the unflappable image he usually presented. He took off his jacket. Then he was up, walking down the bar to get an ashtray. I’m sure he did it to show me his gun in its shoulder holster, but to make what point I wasn’t sure. My dad no doubt loved that tough-guy thing about the Reverend.
Just then, four more bank board members walked in in four more good suits. Gary slipped on his jacket, but they must have seen the gun. Who are these people who make deals in bars with pistol-carrying partners, and what the hell was I doing in the middle of it?
I stood up and Gary introduced the suits. One was a member of dad’s board, who I already knew. But the others were strangers to me.
We hadn’t even moved past the pleasantries or sat down at the table when the bartender called Gary over.
When he came back he walked close enough to me that I had to step back.
“We just got a call. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation liquidators are at the bank,” he said. He looked wild. “They’re closing the bank.”
“So, that’s it then.”
C H A P T E R • 33
* * *
When I got to the office, Adrianne met me at the door. “Federal regulators are at First,” she said. “They plastered masking tape on the automatic teller machines and padlocked the front door.”
I tossed my notebook on the desk. “That is why the insiders were running and why Cecelia wanted the story told. And we missed it.”
“We didn’t have the whole story yesterday. Don’t have it yet today. But we will.”
“What time is the bank meeting?”
“They’re meeting at five.”
What was the edge I was picking up in her voice?
“I talked to the president.” She stopped. “He said I would be the one to represent the paper.”
“I’m the legitimate representative of the Journal. We should both be there.”
“That’s what I told him. He said the publisher of the other Harlem paper is an essential part of this community.”
“And I’m not?”
“He said, based on your attitude this past week, they can’t even be sure they can trust you to keep what they discuss off the record through the weekend.”
“Did you remind them we don’t have an edition coming out until next week?”
“I tried to convince him we should both be there, but he wouldn’t budge,” she said. “He said the way this information is handled could mean the difference between life and death. You look terrible, by the way.”
“You don’t look so great yourself.”
I left her, and put on my sunglasses and walked back to 125th Street, feeling the heavy public humiliation of not being on the scene of real news in the making.
“Hey, wait up.” It was John Johnson from the television station. “Pearl Washington, are you on your way to the meeting about First? The word went out today that FDIC liquidators are moving in to take over the bank. They sent me up to see what you all are doing about it.”
“If you hurry,” I said, “you can probably catch some of the people who are doing something about it.”
“Will you be available later, if I need to check some of the background for my stor
y?” he asked.
I handed him one of my father’s cards and wrote Adrianne’s name on it. “Call this number and ask to speak to my editor, Adrianne Sinclair.”
He was staring at the tape on my nose and the discoloration and swelling that was probably showing below the glasses, and he looked like he was going to say something. But then he probably thought better of it.
At the downstairs door to the upstairs office where the meeting was being held there was a bevy of representatives of the powers-that-be—the second tier, once or twice removed, eager, mostly young, dressed for effect in their conservative power suits.
“I want to know what we’re saving if we save this bank,” said the wisecracking sister who represented the white governor. Her life-long ties to Harlem gave her the kind of access he paid her for. But apparently not access to this meeting.
The congressman’s rep stood outside the door in his secondhand glory.
“Pearl Washington!” Reverend Garrison said and he smiled at me as the guard at the door ushered him in and closed the door against me and John Johnson and the small crowd of B-team others.
And I was left with the dawning realization I had just missed the Harlem scoop of the decade, perhaps the century.
C H A P T E R • 34
* * *
A wake is a place where an information junkie might overdose, and I was looking forward to having at everyone in the same room. But first I had to take care of my business. I was talking to myself as I went to get the money I had pushed through the hole in Cecelia’s wall into my house. While it wasn’t mine, it also wasn’t exactly Ceel’s. And it wasn’t stealing and I was definitely going to pay it back.
And it wasn’t there.
I crawled through our portal and ran my hand along the wall behind the cabinet looking for a sign that someone had used it. If someone did, they knew what they were doing. I had put the money there quickly when I heard Gary. But I made sure my side was tight when I went back the next day. So, who? How?