Of Blood and Sorrow (3 page)

“He’ll be with you soon. Have a seat over there.” He gestured toward a couch, which was the same color as the carpet and seemed to melt into the wall. But it was hard and uncomfortable, and made me yearn for the comfort of the carpet. I glanced around for something to read, but there was no coffee or side table. No pictures hung on the stark white walls, and no plants softened the floor-to-ceiling windows. No music piped in through invisible speakers; no workers walked to and fro with coffee or afternoon snacks. There was nothing but deadly silence, and me and this man. I sat uneasily, hands folded in lap, studying my chipped nail polish.

You be careful around Treyman Barnes, you hear me, Tamara?

Ten minutes passed, then twenty.

“Will he be much longer? I have another appointment,” I said. My white lie broke the silence, and the man jumped. As if on cue, the phone rang, and he picked it up.

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir,” he said with a glance in my direction. “He’s ready now. You can go in.”

Unless Treyman Barnes had a back stairway or had beamed up through the air ducts, it was clear to me he’d been sitting in that office wasting my good day.

“I sure waited long enough,” I muttered, standing up, my legs so cramped from that horrible couch, I had to stretch them.

A button was pushed, and the door separating the two rooms pulled open. As I stepped into Treyman Barnes’s office, the word
lair
came suddenly to mind.

THREE

A
NARROW BLACK COUCH COILED
like a snake against the pale yellow wall and curled toward a stained-glass window that threw off a bloody red glow. The carpet was gold like the one in the outer office, but the nap was short and tough like bristles on a brush. The one bright spot in the room hung on the wall—an enormous white mask sprouting yellow raffia and baring fangs that gave me the creeps. Treyman Barnes sat facing the window. He spun around Hollywood-magnate style and nodded toward a chair in front of his desk. I smiled obsequiously, swallowing my attitude about the wait. He stared at me for a moment as if getting his bearings.

“First thing, everything stays confidential, got it? Nothing leaves this office, not to nobody. For Nellie’s sake more than anything else. I assume that’s the way you work. It
better
be the way you work,” he said.

“Confidentiality is a given,” I said.

He glanced at his desk as if reading my file, then back at me. “You come highly recommended.”

“Thank you.”

He hesitated, as if preparing to share an unpleasant truth, then said, “My son, Troy, just got back from that war. Crazy son of a bitch. I don’t know why he went over there, but he sure as hell did. Told him not to go. Told him he was making a fool of himself going when nobody else was. Half the kids he went to school with are in law school now, business school. And him? He’s as stubborn as Nellie is. Went over there to fight about nothing and came back that way. My father, rest his soul, made sure I got out of Nam when they called me, and nobody even called this boy. He didn’t have to go. Can’t do shit for himself now. That war turned him into shit.”

I and other people I knew had marched against the war, but people were still proud of the kids who were fighting and made sure everybody else was, too. I couldn’t stomach a man talking bad about a boy who risked his life thinking he was doing his duty. But I kept my feelings to myself.

“And the reason you called me has something to do with your son?” I said.

“He has a baby daughter, and his ex-wife took the baby from him. I want you to get that baby and bring her to me and my wife so as we—my son, my wife, and me—can raise her. His ex-wife is a tramp.”

“Does this…tramp have a name?”

“Lilah Love.”

Oh Lord! Baby Dal born on April 1 to Lilah Love
Barnes.

I took a breath and said, “Mr. Barnes, I’d like to make you aware of something. I, uh, met Ms. Love a number of years ago in Jamaica and did some work for her down there. Ms. Love stopped in my office early this morning and asked my help in finding a lost child. Her baby’s name was Baby Dal. Is this the child we’re discussing?”

His eyes got narrow, and his voice got loud. “Lost? What you mean lost? Kidnapped? Is that what she said? I thought
she
had her. You mean to say that dumb little bitch let somebody steal that child?”

“I only know what I was told, which is that Baby Dal is missing,” I said neutrally.

“And that’s another thing. Baby Dal! First thing Nellie and me are going to do is change that damn name. That’s number one. Then I’ll make sure that slut gets what’s coming to her.”

“Are you sure you’re legally entitled to the child, Mr. Barnes? Despite what some might consider her…limitations, Ms. Love is the child’s natural mother, and the law considers a mother’s rights sacrosanct in matters such as this.”

“Sacrosanct! Bullshit! She let the damn kid get stole, didn’t she? What kind of sacrosanct is that? I don’t give a shit about the law. There are ways around the law, and I know how to find them. The child is my blood; she belongs to me. As far as I’m concerned, neither one of the natural parents can raise her properly. The woman’s a whore and the boy’s a nut. Does she know who took her?”

I shrugged noncommittally. No sense in showing all my cards.

“How long were your son and Ms. Love involved?” Lilah had conveniently left that out.

“She trapped him into marriage with the oldest trick in the book. He was looking for something ‘to believe in,’ as he put it. She spotted him in his fancy uniform and knew just where he was headed. Sent him a photo of the baby and a Dear John letter a month after he got stationed in Fallujah. Probably figured the shock of it would get him killed, probably figured she’d get his insurance money.”

“So why didn’t he divorce her?”

He shook his head. “Didn’t want to give up the baby. He was in bad shape when he came back. His mother said he needed something to keep him alive. His mother needed something, too, that would make life good for her again, and that baby was it.”

“What do you mean?”

“My wife has been…ill for a number of years.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, noticing the pain in his eyes.

“I’ll do whatever I have to do to make things better for her. No matter what it costs.”

I nodded, understanding what he meant.

“Lilah Love came around here six weeks ago talking about how she would let my son and his mama keep the baby for a ‘certain price.’ Thought she was slick. Dumb bitch doesn’t know who she’s dealing with. I learned what to do with trash like her on my daddy’s knee, and I learned that good. She comes from trash, and that’s where she’ll end up. In the trash. And now you say that somebody done took her little meal ticket and gone? Ain’t that some shit! So I take it you’re working for Lilah Love?”

“No, I turned her down,” I said quickly.

“So you’re available to work for me?” He didn’t miss a beat.

No, sir, I’m not,
said that voice inside me, the one that I should listen to but seldom do.

“Yes, sir, I am,” I said without hesitation.

How could I lose? I figured. Lilah had told me where the baby was, with her “lame-ass, no-count, baby sister Thelma Lee,” and had even written down where the girl was staying. Treyman Barnes was no great shakes in the character department, but I’d bet the child would be better off with her father and grandmother than her crazy mama, especially since Lilah had tried to sell her, which told me how desperate she was for cash. A desperate Lilah Love was a dangerous Lilah Love. No baby deserved to suffer through that.

Thelma Lee had the baby, and I had Thelma Lee. Had her address anyway. Baby sister was smart enough to know Lilah was
not
mothering material. All I had to do was go to said sister, tell her what was going on, report my findings back to Treyman Barnes, and broker the exchange between them—probably with cash—or ask his lawyer to do it. They’d end up fighting it out in court anyway.

“Your fee for this service?” He brought me back to the moment.

“Depends on the difficulty,” I said, looking him in the eye.

He scribbled out a check and pushed it across the desk. “This should cover your immediate expenses and any lingering doubts you have about the…delicacy of this situation,” he added with a smirk that told me he
thought
he knew me better than I wanted him to. I glanced down at the one followed by three neat zeros and had to admit he did.

“Thank you.” I quickly folded the check and stuffed it into my wallet.
Out of sight, out of mind until I put it in the bank.
“I’ll send you a receipt when I return to my office. It shouldn’t be hard to get some leads, sir, and I’ll begin my search right away.”
Starting with my wastebasket.

“I’ll wait to hear from you, then.” Suddenly the gentleman, he stood this time and smiled so sweetly I wondered if I was wrong about him.

“I’ll call you as soon as I have any information.”

As I turned to leave, a large woman and youngish man stepped into the office, and Treyman Barnes’s smile faded. The man picked up the square glass ashtray that sat on the desk and hurled it hard against the opposite wall. I jumped back as shards of shiny glass sprayed across the room.

“I told you to leave me the fuck alone, you lying old bastard!” His voice shattered in the room as loudly as the glass.

“Have you lost your fucking mind coming in here and throwing shit around? But that’s what happens these days, isn’t it, you crazy son of a bitch!” Treyman Barnes screamed back.

The woman, who I assumed was mother and wife to these two, was a stout woman with a plain, pockmarked face and eyes with no sparkle. Her white linen suit was stylish and expensive, and I recognized her turquoise silk blouse as one I’d seen recently in a Nordstrom catalog. From head to toe, she looked the part of the rich suburban matron—diamond studs sparkling tastefully beneath short, graying hair, feet casually clad in chic tan sandals. But that secure suburban matron disappeared when she fanned a plump bejeweled hand across her mouth and stifled a cry.
Time for me to go!
I nodded at Barnes and made my way to the door.

“Ms. Hayle, I’d like you to meet my son, Troy, and Nellie, my wife,” said Treyman Barnes, blocking my exit.

Troy Barnes was built like his mother but had a long, homely face that didn’t fit the rest of him and that I couldn’t imagine smiling. He was a sloppy dresser, and his ill-fitting suit made him look like he didn’t give a damn or had gained fifty pounds quicker than he should have. I was struck by his eyes, though. They were filled with more sadness than I’d seen in a while. I wondered if Lilah Love had put it there, then realized that Lilah was incapable of inflicting soul-wrecking pain on anybody. A man might miss her in bed for a week or two, then realize he was better off without her. His sorrow was haunting; it hurt me just to look at him.

“You okay?” he asked his mother, his voice strikingly tender. She nodded, then glanced at me, embarrassed.

“You’ll have to excuse my son,” said Treyman Barnes, but his eyes and voice indicated I shouldn’t.

“No problem.” I managed a half-assed grin, eager to get the hell out of there.

“But it
is
a problem!” He glared at me, then at Troy.

“Leave Troy alone, and let the woman go, Treyman. Just let her go and find my grandbaby. Please!” Nellie’s voice was firm but patient, as if speaking to a beloved but wayward child. Wyvetta had it wrong. She probably knew everything there was to know about this man, and she loved—or hated—him with everything she had in her. But she was shrewd about displaying it, crafty. She seemed vulnerable, but I sensed she always got what she wanted. I’d seen that style in other women I’d known—shrinking violets with deadly thorns.

“Nice to have met you.” I edged toward the door determined to make my getaway, and I did this time. I closed the door behind me as soon as I was out, leaving them to play out whatever scene they were playing. I could hear the son screaming like a demon as I waited for the elevator.

I tried to put them out of my thoughts as I rode down to the lobby. My mind was on my money and my money on my mind, as my son says, quoting one of his favorite rappers. I’d go straight to the bank, then straight to my wastebasket, I figured. I’d had enough of Lilah Love for one lifetime, and I wanted the folks who came with her out of my world as soon as possible. But something made me glance up as I was signing out of the visitors’ sheet.

I hadn’t seen him in eighteen months, hadn’t heard from him in ten—long enough to tell myself I didn’t give a damn and that any man who waited that long to call wasn’t worth waiting for. What we had—or what I’d thought we did—made no sense in daylight. Sure, there were good things about him: he loved and respected me—body and soul—in ways that thrilled me every time I thought about him. He had never lied to me and had risked his life protecting mine. I didn’t know how he made his money or the lines he crossed to do it. I did know the very thought of him turned me inside out.

The sound of his voice when he said my name was an instant seduction, and the last two hours—last twenty-four—evaporated without a trace. Yet I wasn’t going to let my feelings about him get the better of me. I was involved with Larry Walton, a respectable, responsible man. We were involved in a respectable, responsible relationship, and I was determined to cool the fever that overtakes me whenever he enters my life.

“So, when did you get back in town?” I forced myself to look at him despite the danger.

Basil Dupre was an amazingly handsome man, his skin a deep coppery brown, nearly the color of the Blue Mountain coffee I love but can’t afford. His high cheekbones betrayed his Arawak roots, his eyes, which could flash from tenderness to passion in a blink, were as mysterious and sensual as the island on which he was born. Whenever he spoke, his voice took me back to the last time we made love.

“Day before yesterday.” He stood back slightly, and his eyes swept my body. “You look good, but you always do,” he said with the smile that charms me.

Why,
I wondered,
had I worn this ridiculous suit?

“I called you last night. Left a message with your son. I take it you didn’t get it.” He was right, of course. Jamal instantly forgets phone messages that aren’t for him. But how dare he assume that after ten months of silence, I would jump to the phone the moment he called?

“What are you doing tonight?” He didn’t wait for my answer.

“Busy.” It was a half lie. Larry had mentioned he might drop by, but it wasn’t definite.

“Tomorrow night?”

“Sorry.”

“When?”

“Never.”

“So, I’ve waited too long?” His smile teased me, as if we were playing a game, which was what our conversations always became—a playful seduction that usually ended in bed.

But I wasn’t playing this time.

“I’m seeing someone now. I’ve been with him for…well…let me see…ten months.” I said it with a schoolmarm’s scolding tone and raised eyebrow so he’d get the connection.

“Ten months?” He got it.

“What did you expect?”

His sigh was sorrowful but unconvincing. “You know my life, Tamara. You know how things go with me. You know me as no other woman does.”

“Oh, shut up!”

“It’s the truth. Don’t deny it.”

I avoided his eyes because I knew it was. Yet some connections are meant to be broken.

“I never stay too long in one place. Except home, of course. If you needed me, you should have called me. You know how to reach me, and that I’m here for you. Always.”