If I Should Die (13 page)

“What? You told him what?”

I hadn’t meant to shout and Mrs. Johnson looked at me, bewildered.

“Well, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to say nuthin’. He’s a cop, ain’t he? And he wanted to know if the man in that car, the one that Morris punched, didn’t look like Clarence. And Morris said no. Over and over that it wasn’t Clarence. I didn’t know we wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

“Well, it’s not that, Mrs. Johnson. It’s just—well—” I was at a loss and flashed a glance at Tad, trying to read his signals. He let a moment pass, then he smiled at her.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Johnson. Don’t worry about it. Just try to get down to Central Booking. Here’s the address. Whatever happens, please give Mali a call right away. And it might be a good idea if you didn’t mention this visit to anyone else.”

She took the paper, visibly relaxing in the warmth of his smile.

We made our way back down the darkened stairs, smelling the same smells and listening to the same scurrying sounds we had heard earlier.

The basketball court was deserted as we strolled through it and I thought of telling Tad how Clarence had stayed out here alone, sometimes past midnight, practicing,
not wanting to face whatever it was he had to face when he finally went home for the night.

The trees were beginning to bud out and the long branches created a mesh overhead that would have, on another evening, seemed like a protective embrace. Tonight, however, the shadows from the streetlights fell through the moving branches like stark points of electric current, painting our faces a ghostly gray.

We walked in silence for three blocks before I said, “Why did you suggest she go downtown? You know Danny’s working right now to book Clarence for Erskin’s murder.”

“Danny’s not that sloppy. He has information but he needs something to make the charge stick. I know how he works. He doesn’t like for a case to blow up in his face. He’s too ambitious. Wants to move straight to the top and breaking this case will help do it.”

“We’ll see,” I whispered.

T
he auditorium had filled up fairly quickly and I was lucky to slip into a seat in the last row.

Everyone settled down as Lloyd Benton pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his brow. He tapped the podium for quiet and the last scattered murmuring subsided once he began:

“I want to thank all of you for being here today. As you know the Chorus has been through a very difficult period, having lost two very distinguished members of our staff under tragic circumstances. It was only fitting to close for three weeks not only to honor their memory but also to work closely with the police to assure the safety and security of our choristers. Thanks to some very fine detective work, a suspect was apprehended ten days ago and is facing charges in the death of Dr. Harding.”

There was a low murmur and he paused to gauge the response before he added: “And the young man, a former member of our chorus whom we tried very hard to rehabilitate, may also be implicated in the death of
Gary Mark. Needless to say, this person has been expelled and we can only hope that justice will be done.

“We would like to put this terrible period behind us now and concentrate on the future. I called this meeting to inform you of our plans to reopen and resume rehearsals in preparation for our upcoming Christmas tour. As you know, we regularly meet on Saturdays, but since we’ve lost three weeks, I’m asking for an additional three hours on Friday afternoon for the rest of the month. This is a small sacrifice. Again, let us put this period behind us and look to the future.”

There was a mild smattering of applause and I knew the parents were not satisfied with this explanation. Everyone had read the papers. Everyone knew that Clarence had been arrested and was being held on high bail. But based on the street news—which was the real news—very few believed he committed the crime.

“Violent Animal” was how one downtown scandal sheet had headlined him, with very little information to back up the description. “Troubled Home Life of Chorister,” reported another paper. Both had had Clarence’s picture plastered across the front pages but there was no story. His mother had checked out of the hospital and could not be found, and Mrs. Johnson, to her credit, had refused to be interviewed. So this had left the reporters with their usual “unnamed sources” and vivid imaginations to fill in the blanks.

The night of the arrest, the ten o’clock news had shown Clarence being led from the precinct by Danny Williams, looking stern with badge pinned prominently to his lapel.

It looked good on television but to date there still was no confession.

“What’s going to happen to Clarence? Where is this leading? Danny must know he’s not guilty.”

I had put these questions to Tad and was desperate for answers.

Danny, he said, was not discussing anything with him, but he suspected that Clarence was being used in order to draw in the real thing.

“Sacrificing Clarence seems more like it,” I said. “The boy has been locked up nearly two weeks already.”

“Mali, I don’t know what to say. Sometimes, ambition can get the better of the best of us …”

I wondered where Danny had gone that night after the camera’s bright lights had faded. Home to his ailing wife to complain about how tough life was in the big city or to his fly girl’s bedroom to celebrate. Probably went to the girlfriend. A shorter trip made for a longer night.

The crowd in the auditorium stirred impatiently, waiting for Lloyd to conclude, eager to ask questions.

I scanned the audience, trying to find Mrs. Johnson, but she was not there. I looked around at the faces nearest me and from their expressions knew that the director was in for some hard questions.

“How do you intend to secure the safety of the choristers?” a tall man with the heft of a linebacker asked. “There are nearly three hundred children here at any one time. Do you intend to have three hundred cops stationed at each rehearsal and ready to walk each student home? What’s to prevent another attempt at kidnapping?”

His question was met with loud whistles. Some parents stomped their feet as if they were at the Garden in the crucial minutes of a Knicks game.

Lloyd drew his breath and held up his hands for several seconds before quiet was restored. “Let’s try to deal with the reality of the situation,” he said. “We all know that total security is not possible anywhere. Not even at the U.N. Or the White House in Washington. And we all know that it is up to us, the parents and friends who care enough for our choristers, to assume the
responsibility for their safety. There are some things that we must do for ourselves. No one else should be made to assume those roles.”

“But that boy they holdin’ wasn’t charged with no kidnap. He was charged with manslaughter,” another parent said, rising quickly to his feet. “Where do the kidnap fit in? The cops got ’im in jail but the guy that did the snatch is still on the loose. Remember them two little kids that disappeared from that playground down on Lenox? They ain’t been found to this day.

“You sayin’ we gotta put this and put that behind us. That’s what them politicians always be sayin’. Well me, I ain’t no politician so I ain’t puttin’ nuthin’ behind me. I’m just a parent, worried about my son and lookin’ for some answers …”

More shouting and applause until someone else, a middle-aged woman with graying hair, rose. “I’m sorry. I came today to see what was gonna be done about the kidnapping. You’re right we got a responsibility, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. But we don’t need to be wastin’ any more time talkin’ about who’s in jail. That other man is still walkin’ these streets. We need to know that our children are gonna be safe. We’re taxpayers. Our kids got a right to be safe while they on these streets.”

I watched Lloyd’s eyebrows come together in the telltale line. The meeting was not going as planned so this session would be drawing to a close. Fast.

“The police have promised unmarked cars, more plainclothesmen patrolling the area, and random auto checks,” he said, trying to control the edge creeping into his tone.

“Random checks.” A woman next to me laughed aloud. “Now, that’s a joke. We’ve been having these so-called random checks on our streets for years. I haven’t seen any improvement, have you?”

She turned away from me and I shook my head,
beginning to feel sorry for the director. Still, he had a point. It was up to us to think about our children’s safety. I stood up to voice my opinion, and more to the point, to let Lloyd and everyone else know that Clarence was innocent until proven guilty—arrest or no arrest.

But the director held up his hands again. “I expect to see those choristers on Friday after school who are ready, willing, and able to work.” His eyes flashed beneath the black line. “And I suggest to those who are concerned with public safety—safety in our streets as taxpayers—to please contact the captain of your precinct or your local politician. Our most important tour—the Christmas tour—will be here before we know it. I intend for it to be our most successful event ever.”

He thanked the parents for coming out to such a successful meeting and turned and left the stage.

Two weeks later, four weeks after Clarence had been arrested, the
City Sun
revealed that a bond had been posted and he had been released.

I spread the paper out on the dining table and gazed out of the window. Who had posted the bail? Who?

It was time to see Bertha to catch up on the latest street news but I needed some other information first.

The lobby of the World Trade Center was jammed with a noontime crowd, and a line of tourists and business types waited behind the red velvet rope for the private elevator to take them to the restaurant on the 106th floor.

I had been surprised when Melissa Stewart agreed to meet me and was further surprised as she approached. We were the same age, give or take a year or two, but her hair, done up in a conservative French twist, was already streaked with gray. Only her high heels and the mauve
skirt hovering just at her knees indicated how young she really was.

She was not exactly pretty and she had never gone in for the latest makeup fads—just lipstick and perfume was all she needed, she said.

Apparently that had been enough, the proof being her recent engagement to a civil court judge. She raised her hand now to brush a strand of hair back in place and the flash on her finger was the brightest thing I had seen outside of Tiffany’s.

Her embrace was genuine and she held me at arm’s length: “Well, look at you, Mali. My goodness, it’s good to see you even if you are still thin as ever.”

She laughed easily and I tried to act casual as the speed of the elevator caused my ears to sing. The doors finally opened and we stepped into the mirrored and curtained foyer of Windows on the World where relays of maître d’s moved with impeccable swiftness to guide us to our table.

The murmur around us was low and expensive and the floor-to-ceiling windows radiated light from a sky that resembled an artist’s mixture of pink and purple. Across the Hudson, New Jersey looked like beautiful country.

I turned away when the Goodyear blimp floated by close enough to cast a shadow across my plate.

“Nice place. You come here often?”

“Not really,” Melissa said. “Only with the out-of-town clients who want to see what this is all about. Most days, I’m buried in paper in the office.”

The waiter leaned over four pieces of crystal stemware to hand me a gold-embossed menu.

“Well, I wish I could say ‘Let’s just enjoy lunch’ but I need to know something about someone who was recently killed uptown.”

“Oh yes. Gary Mark. I know who you’re talking about. He was something of a legend down here. Young,
single, seen everywhere with the model of the moment. Gary was a trader who knew everybody and who hosted some of the wildest parties this side of … well, they were just wild. Even by Wall Street standards. Rumor had it that he never served food, but there was a menu listing every kind of drug you could dream of and some that didn’t even have a name yet, just colors. The parties lasted for days at a time.”

She looked at me and laughed. “No, I wasn’t there, never attended and didn’t intend to attend. But his parties were never meant to be secret. Gary never hid anything. He simply did what he wanted because he made millions for his firm. Millions. He was, so to speak, the genuine, original golden boy. Weekend cruises for one hundred of his closest friends and chartered ski trips to Aspen with fifty or so people meant nothing to him.”

“What happened?”

“He had managed an investment account which made a lot of money for his company. Then he either got greedy or careless. He bet that certain stock prices would decline, but when the market moved against him, he didn’t cover his risks. Instead, he increased the size of his bet again and again. By the time he was found out, the losses amounted to nearly $145 million. A lot of money. And word had it that he owed someone uptown or somebody uptown owned him and he was trying to buy his way out. Who really knows … He’s gone now and we’ll never know …”

The filet mignon dissolved on my tongue like butter and the mimosas were served in the largest champagne glasses I’d ever seen. By the second drink, I had resolved to dedicate my life to achieving one goal: becoming rich.

“But that was a terrible thing to happen to the Chorus, Mali. We’re one of their corporate donors. In fact, it was Gary who approached us. What are their plans now? Do they intend to resume their program?”

“Yes. Of course they do. It’ll take time to recover from the fallout but I was at a meeting the other day. The Christmas tour is coming up and they’re preparing for it. My nephew’s in the Chorus, that’s why I wanted to speak to you about the director of development. I had heard that he had an uptown connection, but I don’t have a name …”

“Well, neither do I. The only thing I can tell you is that as wild as Gary was, he was also a nice guy, wouldn’t hurt a fly. Had a loft in SoHo filled with a spectacular collection of African American artwork. He was an early and avid collector. God knows what became of all that.