Harlem Hit & Run

by Angela Dews

  I stopped one flight up to wait for some more noise and looked in at Viola’s suite of rooms. Her bedroom was painted a sumptuous deep blue-gray and the Chinese deco carpet added mad color. Something red was hanging on the back of the door in dry cleaner’s plastic.

  Once I got the accompaniment of another truck clanking and the welcome bass from some car speakers, I moved up the stairs to the top floor where Virginia was sitting on her canopy bed reading.

  “Auntie Pearl? I have some cool Band-aids. Does your face hurt?”

  I put my finger to my lips to keep her volume down. “Hi baby. It doesn’t hurt any more. Are you okay? Are you afraid?”

  “I’m not a baby and I’m not afraid.”

  “I’m going to take you over to my house because I don’t want the company your Auntie Viola’s getting ready to get to see us. You can wait there. Will you come with me?”

  “Is Auntie Vy coming?”

  “Yes. But you’re going first. We’ll hear an explosion in the alley in about 45 minutes. We’ll leave together. But if I have to leave before you, I want you to run downstairs and out the window on the parlor floor. You know the routine. I’ve heard about your adventures.”

  “Yes. I know how to get out.”

  I leaned over and kissed her on her head.

  “Why do you run away?”

  “I don’t run away. I just visit my friends. Auntie Vy is not home at night.”

  “How do you climb out the window?”

  She pulled a rope ladder from under her bed.

  “I use this when I have to get back in. I drop down from the window on the parlor floor. It’s unlocked. The fire escape makes too much noise.”

  “Why’d you throw away the red sneakers? I saw them sitting on the garbage cans outside.”

  “I didn’t. Look. Here they are.”

  I found out Viola had company when the volume of the music dropped and I could hear her talking. And it occurred to me it was not likely to be the kind of company that would be happy to see me.

  I looked at the time. I had 35 minutes before I would get the cover of noise and confusion I was hoping for.

  I could hear the conversation from the ground floor and then a new tune, loud, on the box.

  “I’m going now,” I told Virginia. “Will you come?”

  “It’s a good thing Uncle Marcus already took his suitcase. He asked me to watch it for him.”

  Pause. “What suitcase?”

  “He left one in the closet but he took it when he was babysitting me before Auntie Vy got back.”

  She looked very serious and her eyes were big when she came to me for a hug.

  I could hear the activity below us in the distance. I waited for the accompaniment of a truck rattling up St. Nicholas Avenue, more traffic, and then a siren to cover the sound of our footsteps moving down the stairs and the protests the old house made. I followed Virginia’s lead and we made our way across the room along the wall at the edge of the floor, and we tipped over to the back window.

  We stopped when the noise stopped. When another siren filled the space on the avenue, Ginny hooked the rope ladder over the sill. She climbed out a few rungs and then she dropped down into the alley. I climbed down most of the way and I dropped down and landed in the alley behind her.

  I saw a man standing in the shadow and grabbed Ginny and turned to run.

  “Whoa. Where are you going?”

  It was Adrianne in a baseball cap.

  “I thought you were a man. You have my keys. Take Virginia to my house.”

  “Why don’t you come with us?” Adrianne asked.

  It sounded like just what I needed to do. But I said, “No. Whatever is going down needs to go down here. I don’t want them at my house. Just see about Ginny for me.”

  “You take good care, girl,” she said.

  We got to the alley opening and I watched Adrianne and Virginia catch a black car. I told the driver my address and stood for a minute and waved.

  C H A P T E R • 54

  * * *

  “Don’t turn around. Walk!” I heard him speak at the end of a shuffling sound that caught my attention too late. I was feeling mildly surprised and mostly resigned. “Bobby? Now what?”

  “Lt. Summer Knight, you’re getting ready to get real ugly.”

  He pushed me back towards Viola’s house with one hand around my arm, while he held something at my back. There was no way I was going docile on him, but breaking away wasn’t an option if it meant getting shot.

  He pushed me again. “I said walk.”

  When I turned my head, I got to see the bandage on the damage I had caused when I cut his face with the throwing star. And he watched me register the knowing and jabbed something hard into my ribs. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of any more than my groan to acknowledge how it hurt.

  My brain was dancing through my few choices. The sidewalk was clear, and at the same time I hoped for one of the neighbors to witness and report, I didn’t want anyone to be hurt as the drama unfolded.

  The hand around my arm tightened and I could feel the other arm moving behind me.

  “Turn around. I want you to see this.”

  I turned around.

  “It’s a nasty thing to cut somebody’s face,” he said.

  He had holstered his gun and he swept with a dramatic flourish to open a knife, which left his middle open.

  I drove my knee into his groin hard enough that he closed down on himself. Even with my injured rib, he was at the disadvantage and I took the gun out of his holster. Still, I had to back up quickly after I took the knife to steady myself and be in the position of holding the gun on him.

  “You won’t shoot me,” he said.

  “The hell I won’t.”

  But I can’t say whether I would or not because Viola came out through her parlor floor door.

  “Please get off the street. Get in here. Where’s Virginia, Pearl?”

  “She’s safe.”

  “I’m not through with you,” Bobby said. “Know that I owe you.”

  I pointed his gun at him until we got to Viola’s kitchen. Then I let it hang heavy against my leg and kept my distance. She looked at it and handed me my vodka and OJ.

  The back of her hand was covered with scratches, and long welts and scabs also showed red and brown on the skin up her arm.

  When she handed him his drink, Bobby took it with one hand and with the other arm brought her to him and they kissed.

  “So, you like them young. Daddy must have bored the hell out of you.”

  “No,” she said. “When he was healthy he could get down. We had a bunch of fun.”

  I had a little speech to make, whether I felt like it or not. And I did not. But I said, “Viola, you were right about your Chicago audience. Some of them were disappointed when you didn’t show up Thursday night for the Black Women Business Owners Festival. It was Thursday night Heavy was murdered.”

  “I thought you said you were calling me from Chicago when you told me where the money was,” Bobby said.

  “You were my last secret, darling. Don’t listen to her. Thursday is when I got sick and had to cancel my presentation. There are people who saw me in Chicago. She’s wasting our time with this.”

  “If she called you and told you to go to Al’s, then she set you up for a murder,” I told him. “Because Heavy was dead in there. And I’m betting those sneakers in the shopping bag behind your garbage cans probably fit the footprints I saw in Al’s backyard, Viola.”

  “Oh please. No doubt those were Al’s own footprints in his own backyard.”

  “Or, how about you made them when you came back to town and went to Al’s dressed in a red track suit? People saw you. You must have been desperate.”

  She reached into a kitchen drawer and pulled out a gun she pointed at me. “Give me that,” she said.

  I let Bobby’s gun hang against my leg just a little longer. It was my welcome companion. Then I laid it on the counter.


  Bobby started for it.

  “No. You stay there,” she said and turned her gun on him.

  “Vy. Vy. You going to shoot me girl?” he asked and laughed.

  “You don’t have anything else I need. You’re the last mess I have to clean up.”

  “So, now I’m a mess? Ain’t that some shit?” I felt a little sorry for him.

  “More like a loose end. If it wasn’t for you, Charlie would have left me most of his money in the will. I was counting on his money to pay back whatever cash I can pull together to get out of this mess. I need that money.”

  “You also need me. I’ve bought you the time with my partners to straighten out this bank confusion. And tonight, I aimed a Chevy at this one. You can’t do this without me.”

  He was moving toward her when she shot at him.

  “I won’t miss again. Sit down.”

  He sat on the edge of a chair and she sat down on the other side of the kitchen but with her gun still pointed at him.

  “You know, desperate is such an unattractive word,” she said. “I had to wait for Heavy to let me in to Al’s apartment after I rang and heard the rustling. I was tempted to wave at him when I knew he could see me outside around the curtain that was moving just enough. But I didn’t wave. I’m not the type on a good day. And this was not a good day.”

  “He was wired and he was high from what I had the cop man deliver. He said it helped with the pain. He said his face hit the steering wheel. He took a pose. I suppose it felt like a tough guy pose from where he stood. It looked foolish and pitiful to me.” She leaned a little forward. “And he was not dressed for travel.”

  “He took some of the money out of my little rolling suitcase and released the bills from the rubber bands. He said he was glad they were small bills and they would be easy to spend down south where he had some family. But he needed more, because it was one thing to drive a car at somebody and keep on going. It’s another thing to have to cover up a murder and keep ahead of the cops.”

  She leaned back. “It was strange how in those few beats it was a relief—when I knew for sure what I had only anticipated. I told him I would get more money and to leave the door open so I could get back in. And I showed him the surprise I brought him. We shared the joy because we both wanted him good and high.”

  She looked at me directly. “I gave him time. And when I went back in and walked into the bedroom, he was unconscious. Then I heard someone outside. It must have been you Miss Thing. I couldn’t tell if he was still alive, so I hit him with the baseball bat and ran out the back and climbed over the fence and landed in the bushes on the other side and got all scratched up.”

  I interrupted. “And you couldn’t get the suitcase over the fence, so you called Bobby to tell him there was money at Al’s and to go get it.”

  “That’s your story. But how do you like this story, Pearl?” Viola said. “Bobby shoots you with his gun. And you shoot him with yours. You two are the only ones who know.”

  Although, I must say I always had the instinct there was something off about her damsel-in-distress act, I still had a hard time imagining Viola was capable of this level of evil. She shot Obsidian? She paid to put Cecilia in mortal danger? And, within a matter of days, this latest information was more like a wrinkle. She killed Heavy with the baseball bat. And now, she was getting ready to kill us.

  “You are multi-tasking like a motherfucker,” Bobby said, laughing absurdly for a man who’d already been shot at once.

  “I’m not armed,” I said.

  Bobby bought me some time because he had pulled a small pistol out of his pocket and he aimed it at her.

  At the same time, we heard the sound of the explosion, Viola shot him. She ran up the stairs.

  “Call an ambulance,” Bobby said.

  “I will,” I told him. And, using all the chops I’d learned as an actress cop, I ducked and ran, hugging the wall. When I got up to the landing I saw Viola going out the window and I heard what sounded like gun shots at the front door.

  I climbed down the ladder to the alley.

  C H A P T E R • 55

  * * *

  I backed into Viola. She pushed me away.

  “Did they do that?” She pointed to a van where it was moving to exit the alley. Next door to her house, the burnt remains of the wooden box covering the generator was still smoldering.

  “Riley and Joseph said they could do it. It was clumsy,” I said. “But I couldn’t think of anything else to do to get Virginia out. I hope his friends call Bobby an ambulance.”

  “When did you take Virginia?”

  “She and Adrianne took a car just before Bobby grabbed me.”

  We both wanted to get out of there and she had the car, so I caught her keys when she tossed them.

  “Hurry.”

  “Who says it’s hard to find new money,” Mister Bell said, as he and Al walked out of the dark. He was carrying the Louis Vuitton speedy bag full of money.

  “Marc! We’re going to get Virginia,” Viola said.

  I walked to the front of the car. “We’ve got to get out of here,” I told them. “I think Bobby’s partners are in Viola’s house. I heard them shooting at the door.”

  “No. They’re not,” Al said. “I was waiting outside. There was two of them. When we heard the explosion, they shot at the door lock and broke into the house and then ran back out and took off down 145th Street. The good news is, they are in Bobby’s red Cadillac. Easy to find.”

  “If Bobby told them where Virginia is, they’ll know where Viola is going to be. Come with us. We need to go.” I held the car door open.

  “It looks like you have this under control,” Al said. “I’m not going to be standing around minding my business when the police show up. Let me see if I can get home without being stopped.” And he walked to the alley exit and away.

  Mister Bell said, “You go. I’ll ride over with my boys. Their van is on the street. That was a neat little explosive ordnance event wasn’t it? They called me, and I told them to go on ahead and blow some stuff up. They put a cherry bomb in the generator’s gas tank and stuck the fuse in a cigarette. When it burned down it blew and then they put out the fire. Easy.”

  He took Viola’s hand. “Virginia is a smart little girl. She’ll be okay until we get there.” He hugged her.

  I thought I heard a backfiring vehicle and Mister Bell became a weight on Viola before he slid down to sit.

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Get in the car,” he said and pointed to Viola’s window.

  When I looked up, I saw Bobby Bop was sitting facing the window, his big gun in one hand propped on the window ledge. We watched him fall over.

  “I’m okay,” Mister Bell said. “You go see about Virginia. I’m good. Take this.”

  Viola reached for the bag with the money and stopped. “I need you to carry that bag,” Viola said. “I can’t manage it. I hurt my leg when I dropped off that stupid rope ladder. It’s too much for me with this damn leg. Hurry.”

  I picked up the money bag with the intention of throwing it into the backseat of her Buick. And to make room, I pushed aside rags and tools and other junk someone must have been using to work on the car.

  I drove us to the alley’s opening, where there was a fireman blocking our way.

  I recognized him from the night the house two doors away imploded, and I rolled down the window.

  He remembered me too. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  “Have you been careful?”

  “Always am.”

  “I need to get to the street. The fire is out but I need you to call an ambulance. Two people are hurt back there. One is in the alley. One is in the building next to the one with the burnt generator. The window is open and he has a gun.”

  The fireman moved out of our way and we rolled out of the alley and onto St. Nicholas Avenue. The traffic was stopped to make way for another fire engine speeding north up St. Nicholas.

  I used t
he empty uptown lane to drive downtown facing the truck two blocks away and turned left just in time on 145th Street.

  I turned right on Edgecombe Avenue and drove south to 137th Street, and then over to Eighth, where I found a space at the corner. I moved the bag into the trunk and I walked and Viola limped down the length of the street, barely avoiding one of the neighborhood cats, now a gut puddle, at the curb in front of my house.

  I heard music and knocked.

  “Who?” Adrianne said.

  “It’s me.”

  She opened the door and Virginia ran to Viola for a hug.

  “I’m glad to see you too sweetheart. We’re leaving.”

  “No. You’re not.” Adrianne looked past us to the street. “We’ve got babysitters.”

  I turned around to look out.

  “They’re sitting in the red Cadillac down the street. But they’ll be back. They came in right behind us,” Adrianne said. “They don’t want you to go anywhere until they get their money tomorrow.”

  I walked over to the phone.

  “It’s dead,” Adrianne said. “What money are they talking about?”

  “We left it in the car. All that money and still not enough,” Viola, said, “Virginia. We’re going to get out of here. I’m not wanting to be sitting here with them all night. Seriously. They could do anything. Give me my keys, Pearl.”

  “Then I’m going with you,” I told her. “It’s not safe for you to be driving with your bad leg and with Virginia in the car. You’re liable to hit someone in a crosswalk.”

  She looked at me and raised her two hands in a surrender and smiled.

  Adrianne asked, “How do you think you’re going to get out? They’re not going to let you just walk out the door.”

  “I have an idea,” I said. “Come with me. We’re going upstairs.”

  “I cannot hang out any more windows,” Viola said.

  “No. We’re walking out the door.”