Lives Laid Away

by Stephen Mack Jones

  No bodyguards, dead or alive. No little man with round glasses.

  I got to the door in time to see Miss Olivier hustled into the back of a black Chevy Tahoe, no plates.

  One of the last men standing by a second black Chevy Tahoe started to get in, hesitated, then turned to me. He took off his helmet and balaclava. Smiled. Saluted. Then got in the SUV and closed the door.

  Trent T.R. Ogilvy.

  Three SUVs sped past me, bouncing onto Woodward Avenue and racing off into the night.

  Looks like I’m stuck with the check.

  Forty-two

  “So, what’s the deal?” I said, swallowing a large bite of my turkey Reuben. “You still FBI? Or you looking for exciting career opportunities at WalMart?”

  O’Donnell issued a hint of a smile. “Still FBI. With caveats.”

  “Caveats,” I said. “Is that like fish eggs?”

  We were in a booth at Schmear’s Deli in Campus Martius enjoying a noonday repast; me with a gigantic Reuben, mound of sweet potato fries with honey-horseradish dipping sauce, and Schmear’s new Watermelon Lemongrass Iced Tea (passable); O’Donnell fiddled with her large Cobb salad, which was accompanied by a glass of water. If history is our teacher, O’Donnell would pick at the salad, then box up the remains for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.

  “It went pretty much like you said it would.” O’Donnell stabbed a piece of Romaine. “Director Phillips tore me a new one in his office for about fifteen minutes. Then he shook my hand, said ‘Good work’ and half-jokingly promised to boot me to the moon if I ever did anything like that again.”

  “You’re lovable!” I said brightly. “I mean, come on. Look at that face! How can anybody get mad at the poster-girl for parochial schools? By the way. Was that sniper rifle yours or FBI property?”

  “On loan,” O’Donnell said coyly. “Another sin I’m doing penance for.”

  I told O’Donnell about my very interesting dinner engagement at The Whitney a couple days earlier.

  “Essentially, you’re asking me what I know about that, right?” she said.

  “You’re connected,” I said. “Thought you might know a bit of something.”

  “And if I did, you somehow think you’re entitled to know what I know because—why exactly?”

  “We’re ol’ pals?”

  O’Donnell uncharacteristically blurted out a laugh.

  “You crack my snowflake ass up, August,” she finally said.

  Then she asked for a carry-out box for her salad.

  Before leaving, O’Donnell said, “Some answers you’ll never have, August. Then again. There are times when the answers to life’s most vexing mysteries lie at the center of a strawberry cream donut and a nice bourbon.”

  “She ain’t never gonna trust me again, is she?”

  It was a thick, eighty degree late June evening and I was sitting at the lone round table in the kitchen of the Soul Hole Donut Shop. I was eating a strawberry cream-filled donut and sipping Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve bourbon from a jelly jar that had Winnie the Pooh stenciled on it.

  Lady B stood by a big Hobart double oven, drinking her bourbon. The whole place smelled like warm confectioners’ sugar and flour.

  “She’ll come around,” I said. “O’Donnell’s biggest battles are with herself. She has a very strict personal code of conduct that sometimes doesn’t jibe with the way things play out in the real world.”

  “I like that white girl,” Lady B said. “But down here in the Big Black Below, you got to be quick and ready when whatever goes down. I had no choice but to put that man down, else y’all woulda been about a month in yo graves.”

  “I understand,” I said. I looked around at the tight array of kitchen equipment—the butcher block tables, sinks, ovens, racks, mixing bowls and large trays. “Still don’t know how you got rid of the body so fast.”

  “Y’all want me to tell you?”

  “Would it ruin my appetite?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then hell no.”

  We took sips of our bourbon, using the silence to run a thousand questions about each other through our brains.

  Then I said, “How long have I known you, Lady B?”

  “Since you was ’bout seven or eight,” she said, grinning broadly. “Yo momma and daddy used to bring you here on Halloween ’cause they knew I had a warm cinnamon donut and fresh apple cider for you. You all dressed up like Mickey Mouse or some spaceman. Oh, you was the cutest thing!”

  “According to a recent Gallup Poll, nine out of ten women—and two out of ten men—think I still am,” I said. “That being said, I guess I really don’t know much about you. I certainly didn’t know you were capable of putting a bullet in the back of a man’s head.”

  Lady B swirled the bourbon in her jelly jar glass. “Well,” she began. “Like I said—here in the Big Black Below . . .”

  Then she said, “I been a lot of things in a lot of places for lots of reasons, young Snow. You know where I’s born?”

  “By the accent, I’d say somewhere in southeastern Georgia.”

  She smiled. “Seattle, Washington. Went to school in Georgia. You know where else I went to school?”

  I said nothing. I simply waited for the answer.

  “NYU,” she finally said. “And TUM, Munich. Trinity in Dublin. Language arts. Linguistics and ethno-cryptology. Tell you the truth, son—I don’t even remember what I used to sound like. Sure wasn’t no down-home Georgia girl.” She took a seat across from me at the table. “You wonderin’ ’bout that English heifer, right? Miss Olivier? Margot Allister Wentworth. Ex-MI6 but not no spy or such. Financial assistant director, covert operations. Budgets, allocations, opposition economic analysis, false-front business constructs. A glorified accountant staring at spreadsheets all day. Finds out she’s pullin’ down 18 percent less than her male colleagues. And baby goes boom. You know how white folk get when they been shorted a dollar and cheated a dime. Next thing you know, she’s way deep gone. Come out of the dark four years ago working for this trafficking cartel out of Hong Kong making ten, fifteen times what she was making shiftin’ numbers around for the queen. This whole thing? The kidnappings? The women? The sex clubs? Wasn’t nothin’ but numbers to her. Logistics and analytics.”

  I stared at Lady B for a moment before I said, “How—”

  “Got me a couple contacts at the British Consulate over there in Chicago,” Lady B said with a wink. She poured herself another shot of bourbon. “Amazing what you can learn when you grease the palms of a consulate domestic, cook and janitor. Shoot son, we may not say much when we cleanin’ yo house, but we sure as hell got our ears on.”

  “Miss Olivier,” I said. “She the one that cultivated the relationships with ICE?”

  “Probably not,” Lady B said. “Don’t know who ran her. Ain’t got time or inclination to care. Hard enough keepin’ an eye on this backwoods-ass city with all the newbies struttin’ in the front door and the old steppers creepin’ out the back.”

  I told her I admired her information network. I openly wondered if she ever thought about a merger with Smitty’s Cuts & Curls. Seemed like a natural fit.

  “Oh, baby, you know us colored folk,” she said. “Gets us a little green half acre and ain’t nobody else allowed to tip a toe on it. Rather salt that little bit of earth than let another sista plant a seed.” She took an introspective moment staring down at her glass, then said, “We could have this whole damned city wired if we all just come together for a minute. But . . . well . . .”

  We were quiet for a moment before I raised my glass to her and said, “Thanks for saving my life, Lady B.”

  She grinned. “Oh, honey, anytime, any day.”

  “You ever do anything like this for my father?”

  Lady B suddenly roared with laughter. “Once,” she said. “Had to pa
rley some shit twix yo daddy and Duke Ducane. A loan Duke done give him. Wasn’t nothing but a minute’s holla.”

  “A—loan?” I said in disbelief. “My dad took a loan from Duke Ducane?”

  Lady B sighed heavily, put a hand on mine and said, “Yo daddy took a loan from the devil so he could save his angel. You remember when yo daddy took yo momma down to the Cleveland Clinic for a couple weeks? They was doin’ some sort of ovarian cancer clinical trials down there. Two weeks in a hotel on a cop’s pay? Plus, don’t no insurance pay for no clinical trials. Ducane heard about yo daddy’s predicament. Loaned him the money. No interest. No special favors. That’s what yo daddy demanded and Duke abided by it. Eventually yo daddy paid Duke every penny back, son. Wished he could’ve paid for more of your college, but—well—a deal’s a deal.”

  I sat for a moment feeling the earth fall away from me.

  Then I gave Lady B a kiss on her warm, plump cheek and left.

  Forty-three

  There is no path forward.

  No dream to realize.

  No hope that can be offered in good faith.

  Father Grabowski, through his undocumented underground, managed to move Carlos, Catalina and their son Manny across the span of the US/Canada Bridge and into the temporary shelter of a small apartment in Windsor, Ontario. A safehouse the old priest had used for others who sought better than that from which they came only to find the flame in Lady Liberty’s torch extinguished.

  It felt like a strange death, sitting on my stoop, staring across the street at the empty house where Carlos, Catalina and Manny had, less than three days ago, lived.

  No lights.

  No sounds.

  Only a cocoon of darkness insulating this house where Carlos once found refuge and hope in the arms of his wife. Where Catalina shone like a courageous and compassionate beacon. Where Manny, his eyes and smile brighter than all the stars in all of God’s galaxies, waved to me as he ventured to school and before bounding up the steps home again.

  I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to Manny.

  God . . .

  . . . damn.

  I could have easily, angrily and with all valid justification laid blame at the cloven feet of ICE and a wayward government for the loss of my friends, my neighbors.

  I mostly laid blame at my own feet.

  At least Carlos and his family made it to Canada: Three bodies—a Somali man, his wife and baby—were found dead today in North Dakota just shy of Emerson, Manitoba. Police suspect the family got lost on their sojourn north; chilled at night, heat exhaustion and no water during the day. Animals dragged most of the baby off into the wilderness.

  Sitting on my stoop, nursing a beer, I felt as if I was looking across the street at an empty vessel that had once been filled to overflowing with the warmth of familiar voices. Now, those voice were gone. Vanished so quickly not even the chill of ghosts remained.

  Carmela and Sylvia, each carrying a glass of wine, joined me on my stoop.

  They joined me without greeting.

  Without quiet words of consolation or sympathetic whispers.

  Sylvia sat a step below me, an arm draped over my leg. Carmela sat a step above me, an arm around my shoulders. Together, we drank and stared at the empty house across the street where beloved friends once lived.

  This was our velorio—our wake—where prayers settled on the tongue like ash.

  For two weeks after Carlos and his family had been spirited across the Detroit River, I did light-sleep duty throughout the night and early morning ready to meet any and all fed-plated SUVs crawling down Markham. I wasn’t sure what I would have done having spotted a patrol, but I kept my Glock loaded and a nice piece of hickory by the door.

  I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed there were no patrols after two weeks. Exhausted, I found myself indulging in a well-earned afternoon nap on my sofa.

  Before my sofa nap I got a Skype call on my phone from Lucy.

  She was wearing an oversized hoodie, her neck wrapped with two scarfs.

  “You look cold,” I said.

  “Oh, gee—ya think, Sherlock?” she said. “It’s sixty-three degrees up here! And that’s today’s high!”

  “People miss you,” I said. “I miss you.”

  “And Jimmy?”

  “And Jimmy, too.”

  “Sylvia and Carmela still got my shit?”

  “I’m pretty sure the old girls do—”

  “Good.”

  She disconnected.

  My wonderfully levitating nap was interrupted when my doorbell rang.

  For someone to ring my doorbell indicated I needn’t interrupt my midafternoon slumber. It simply meant later I would find one of those annoying door hangers dangling from the storm door handle announcing a new lawn fertilizing service or the opportunity to get one of two dying daily newspapers at a fantastically discounted price. Maybe a copy of Watchtower announcing Jesus’s great displeasure with how I was living my life (no news there).

  I decided to let the two rings of the doorbell go unanswered.

  Unfortunately, there was a third, fourth and fifth ring followed by some very insistent knocking.

  Shirtless and wearing only a pair of fleece Wayne State Warrior basketball shorts, I schlepped to the living room window and discretely pulled the sheers back for a peek: Parked at the curb was a black Chrysler 300 with tinted windows and chrome wheels. A black man—maybe early thirties—wearing a white track suit, white Adidas court shoes and a white Kangol bucket hat had his ear pressed against the door.

  I opened the door and said, “May I help you?”

  “He here?”

  “‘He’ who?”

  “Aw, come on, man.” The man lifted a corner of his track suit jacket revealing the handle of a .38 short-barrel. “I ain’t playin’.”

  “Ooo!” I said raising my eyes from the gun to the young man’s bloodshot eyes. “Scary.”

  “Fo real, niggah,” Track Suit said. “He here?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest as to whom you are referring, sir,” I said. “However, I do know this: You’ve interrupted my nap and for that alone I am justified in my rights to tie your dick in the shape of a tiny giraffe and throw you into oncoming I-75 traffic.”

  Just as he was about to lift his jacket again, Jimmy mounted the steps. Seeing the man in the white track suit, Jimmy froze.

  “What are you doing here?” Jimmy finally said.

  “Yo, hey,” Track Suit said turning and sizing Jimmy up. “Damn! Look at you! Wearin’ a tool belt’n shit—lookin’ all gainfully employed.”

  “You know this guy?” I said to Jimmy.

  “Yessir,” Jimmy said quietly staring at the man. “He’s my, uh—brother.”

  “Cutter,” Track Suit said to me. “Tha’s what people call me on account I cut deals when I need to and flesh when I have to.” Then he turned to Jimmy and said, “You ain’t got no hug for yo big bro?”

  Jimmy took a step back and said, “What do you want?”

  “Oh,” the man calling himself Cutter said. “It’s like that, huh?”

  “How’d you find me? What do you want?”

  “Momma been shot,” Cutter said. “She at the doctor’s office. Been axin’ for yo ass.”

  “I—I don’t—”

  “Jimmy,” I said. “Come up for a second.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Jimmy came up to the door. I said, “I’ll drive. Give me a minute.”

  “Hey, man,” Cutter said to me, “this be about family, so—”

  “He is family,” Jimmy said. “He goes or I don’t.”

  For a large number of Detroit’s indigent community—the homeless, beaten down and elderly—the “doctor’s office” was Detroit Receiving Hospital. In a city constantly at war with its own soul, Detroit Rece
iving was as close to battlefield triage as you can get: doctors and nurses running twenty-four/seven on waning hope and bad coffee.

  Jimmy’s mom was in a crowded ward of the nearly dead.

  Near the nurse’s station was a Detroit cop leaning against a wall, flipping through a well-worn issue of Sports Illustrated. He saw the three of us—Jimmy, his thug brother and me—emerge from the elevator, instantly assessed our threat-level, then went back to his magazine.

  After fifteen minutes, Mrs. Radmon’s doctor appeared.

  He was a broad-shouldered white man with a shock of salt-and-pepper hair, five o’clock shadow and ruddy complexion. The name on his white coat read “Dr. Tim Seibert.”

  “I know you,” Dr. Seibert said without judgment to Cutter. “Who might you gentlemen be?”

  Jimmy told the doctor who he was.

  I introduced myself and said I was a friend of Jimmy’s.

  The doctor cut his eyes between Jimmy and Cutter. “Either of you mind my discussing your mother’s condition in front of Mr. Snow?”

  “Oh, hell yes,” Cutter said.

  “No,” Jimmy said glaring at his brother. “What you say, you can say to Mr. Snow.”

  Cutter shrugged. “Ain’t no thang.”

  “I’m going to interpret ‘ain’t no thang’ as yes, I can discuss your mother’s condition with Mr. Snow present,” Dr. Seibert said. Then he said, “There’s no way around it; she’s going to need a lot of care. The bullet passed cleanly through with minimal damage, but it’s what we found unrelated to the bullet wound that concerns us. She has what we suspect is alcoholic cardiomyopathy which is just another way of saying enlarged chambers of her heart that might eventually lead to heart failure. Complicating things even further is her history as an intravenous drug user—”

  “She ain’t used in five years, man,” Cutter said.

  “Five years. Fifty years. Doesn’t matter,” the doctor said. “It complicates her heart condition due to a number of collapsed veins from her intravenous drug use.”

  “Just do yo damn job, mothafucka,” Cutter said taking a step into the doctor.

  I started to intervene, but the doctor—apparently a veteran of too many years on the DR’s front lines—calmly looked at Cutter and said, “And I will. But you steppin’ in my square now and swear to whatever God eases and pleases you, you need to step off—you feel me?”