The Further Tales of Tempest Landry (7 page)

The waiting room was situated on the fifty-ninth floor of the Midtown Carter-Owens Building. The west wall was one solid window that looked far out over New Jersey. The floor was made from tiles of pinkish-red Italian marble and all of the furniture—chairs, tables, and even the standing chest of drawers—were carved from smooth alabaster stone. The walls were tiled in onyx. There was no softness in the room, only the austere beauty of formed stone and sunlight.

I was seated on a white stone chair—waiting.

A young woman had met me at the receptionist's desk and brought me to this space of cold opulence.

“Mr. Billings will bring the client in to confer with you,” the lovely raven-haired aide with eyes that could have been actual emeralds told me, “as soon as he arrives.”

“Ezzard?” I said. “Here?”

She smiled but did not answer, turned and left me to wonder.

Nearly an hour later the door, which was made from flat, black slate, swung open.

“Angel,” Tempest said, smiling as he entered. “This is some kind'a great, huh?”

I stood and we shook hands. Over my charge's shoulder I saw the bull-like form of our legal contact at the firm—Cato Billings.

Billings was a tall white man but didn't seem so because of his extra-wide, bulging shoulders. His suit looked to be sewn from ship-sail canvas but I was sure that it was actually raw silk.

Billings's big head was also wide as was his smile. The blond-colored eyes were rather close set and his hair was the red brown of uncured cow leather.

“Mr. Angel,” Billings said grabbing at my hand and squeezing it mightily. “Well, here we are. Sit, sit.”

With little strain Billings turned one of the heavy chairs around so that it was facing its sofa mate. Tempest and I settled next to each other. A grinning Cato Billings sat opposite, framed and darkened by the bright sun behind.

“This is where it all happens,” he said.

“How did you get Tempest here with no guard and in civilian clothes?” I asked.

Tempest was wearing dark green slacks and a yellow, square-cut sports shirt.

“We're all civilized up here, Mr. Angel. The court knows that when we make a promise we keep it.”

“What promise? And what does the court have to do with our meeting?” I asked. “I thought that I came here to be introduced to Stuart Noble?”

Billings's helium smile brought him up out of the chair like a grotesque and weighted balloon float in a small-town parade.

“I have to be going,” he said. “Another meeting on the fortieth floor.”

“But—” I said.

He cut me off with a hand gesture and replied, “Your answers will come in a few moments, Mr. Angel.”

With these words he moved the rough-silk-wrapped bulk of his body toward the slate door and out.

I stood up to watch him go.

Tempest sat back and smiled.

“What are you grinning at?” I said peevishly.

“You treat a brother right, Angel,” he said. “Assistant Warden Lumpin came to my cell at four thirty this mornin' and said that they were transferring me for a new trial. They brought me these civvies and even took me out for a breakfast at IHOP. You know I had six orders of sausage.”

“I don't understand,” I said. “I just delivered the money yesterday afternoon.”

“Money talks,” Tempest said with fake sagacity. “It walks at a good clip too.”

“The love of money—” I began.

A voice finished the sentence for me, “Is the root of all evil.”

We hadn't heard the slate door open but there in its frame stood a man, tall and slender. His suit was black and so was his skin. He looked more like an African than an African American, the features were so pure—maybe Nigerian or Malian. He was a young man with old, dead eyes. His smile was uplifting, however, and the grace he showed walking into the room was that of human perfection.

Tempest rose to meet our host.

“Mr. Angel, Mr. Walcott,” he said in greeting. “My name is Stuart Noble.”

He shook both our hands and then took the seat that his brutish minion had vacated.

Tempest and I both sat. I stared into Noble's expressionless eyes and speculated.

“You gentlemen have met your side of the bargain and I will now meet mine.”

“How did you get Tempest out of prison?” I asked.

He hunched his shoulders and smiled easily.

“I asked that he be released into my custody while we do the paperwork,” he said. “This isn't a high-profile case. None of it has made the news. Why not release him?”

“He's a convicted felon,” I pointed out.

“An innocent convicted felon,” Tempest insisted.

Noble smiled. There was something about that smile that reminded me of…Tempest.

A muffled knock came on the stone door.

“Come in,” Stuart Noble said.

The raven-haired aide came through, leading state prosecutor Darryl Cruickshank and sitting judge Jasmine Beam into the room.

Noble leapt up and moved chairs for the two state officials to join our circle. He pushed the stone chairs along with remarkable ease. Maybe, I thought, they had wheels or some kind of sliding mechanism underneath.

After a few bland pleasantries Noble said, “Now that we're all here we can see to justice.”

Seated in an arc around the settee, the representatives of the legal system smiled and nodded.

Noble began the dialogue.

“Let me begin by saying that we are all in agreement that Mr. Walcott did not kill F. Anthony Chambers.”

The judge and prosecutor made small head motions that might have been assent.

“And,” Noble continued, “that the only reason he fled was to avoid a punishment unearned.”

“But he did flee,” Judge Beam, a smallish woman, said.

“Certainly,” the lawyer I'd hired said with a nod, “and he has paid enough, I would say. One night in prison for an innocent man is like an eternity in hell. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Cruickshank?”

“I suppose that we might have been a bit overzealous in demanding the maximum sentence for a man driven by desperation,” the tall and darkly handsome state representative admitted.

“And if that is the case,” Noble said slyly, “then the court might agree to reconsider this thirteen-year sentence that the otherwise innocent Mr. Walcott has received.”

Instead of answering, Judge Beam frowned and stood up to her full four-foot-eleven height.

“The papers have already been signed and submitted, counselor,” she said. “We have only come here to put the imprimatur on the judgment.”

“So we agree?” Noble asked, holding out a hand for the judge to shake.

She did not return the gesture and only said, “Yes,” after she had turned her back and was heading for the exit.

Cruickshank did shake Tempest's lawyer's hand. He also handed him a large brown envelope.

“In the decree, Mr. Walcott remains a convicted felon and he will be considered to be on parole for the next four years,” Cruickshank said. And then he turned to Tempest. “You are to have weekly visits with your parole officer and will be expected to maintain a regular job. If you fail the requisites of the state, you will be returned to prison.”

“But I'ma be free?” was all Tempest had to ask.

“Yes.”

Only after the representatives from the state were gone did I understand what had happened.

“So I'm free?” Tempest asked Noble.

“Yes, Mr. Landry, you are free—on parole.”

“I know that one, man,” Tempest said. “I been there before in work release.”

If he had heard the lawyer using the name he went by before he died, he didn't let on.

“Bob?” I said to the lawyer.

He turned to me and smiled. His teeth were extraordinarily white.

“Nothing so exalted, Accounting Angel. My name, before I was murdered, was Lime, Harvey Lime. I was a Boston attorney who represented a lower class of clientele. I made the error of sleeping with one of those client's girlfriends for services rendered. I suppose she forgot to tell him about the arrangement.”

“But you're from hell?” Tempest asked.

Again Noble shrugged. “Bob, as you call him, has certain agents that he has freed upon the world. Heaven is not the only one to chum the mortal waters with its refuse.”

“What do you want with him?” I asked the man from Hades.

“You came to me, Joshua. You paid Billings the blood money to free your charge. I have simply done what you have asked me to do.”

For the first time in an eternity of existence I felt the urge to violence. I shivered and Stuart Noble smiled.

“Temper, temper now, Accounting Angel. You're already walking the razor's edge.”

“I thought Bob was afraid of what I could do to him?” Tempest asked as he took up the space between Noble and me.

“I am not privy to Satan's inner thoughts.”

“Aren't you afraid?” Tempest asked, taking a step closer.

“You can't harm me, Tempest. I'm just a man doing his job. A brother just like you.”

“You paid off the court?”

“Most certainly. All things human can be reduced to commerce and commodity. You just have to shop in the right places.”

“You took the money I gave Billings and spent it on bribes?” I asked.

“Billings took the money. He made the deal. I just sat in a room breathing the cool air of earth.”

On the street I felt light-headed and oddly betrayed, though I could not say by whom. Tempest stood next to me, a look of wonder on his face.

“Damn, Angel,” he said, “you got to watch yourself, brother, or we just might end up cell mates in hell.”

My first meeting with Tempest after his release from prison was at a small coffee shop on East 27th called the Silver Spout. This was across the street from the fourth-floor office of his parole officer. We were to meet at 9:30, two hours after his morning meeting was to begin, but Tempest didn't show up at the coffee shop until 11:48.

He came in wearing the same dark green slacks and yellow sports shirt that Assistant Warden Lumpin had provided him with for the impromptu trial that freed him.

I stood to shake his hand when he approached my table but he wasn't in a welcoming mood.

“Damn fool want me to jump through hoops like a trained seal,” Tempest said as he sat down.

“Who?” I asked.

“Bring me a menu,” he snapped at the waitress, who was startled and jumped to comply.

“What's wrong, Tempest?”

All my concern got me was a glower and a grunt.

He opened the menu but wasn't actually reading it. The brunette waitress was maybe twenty, white, and most certainly afraid of Tempest. I didn't blame her. Violence was pulsating around the newly released ex-con like the raised quills of a porcupine.

“You got eggs?” he asked her.

“We stop serving breakfast at noon.”

“Damn!”

“You still have ten minutes.”

“Gimme five eggs and some bacon,” he said.

“How do you want that?”

“The bacon?”

“The eggs,” she said apologetically.

“You got real eggs or powdered?” he asked.

“Real.”

“Four scrambled and one hard-boiled.”

“That's more than one order,” she said.

“Fine. He's payin' anyway.”

The frightened young woman looked to me and I nodded. She went off to make the orders and Tempest turned his head to look out of the window.

“What's wrong, Tempest?” I asked again.

“You know what's wrong, man. You know. I got to tell you about how they shot me down? How your people want me in hell? Or, when I just stood up for what I believed, how I was put in a body on the run from conviction for manslaughter? I got to tell you I'm on parole and I been in that office across the street for almost five hours waitin' for a eight-minute meetin'?”

“No.”

“Then why you ask?”

“I'm concerned with your feelings.”

“You want to send me to hell is what you want,” Tempest said in a voice loud enough to attract the attention of other patrons.

“Tempest.”

“You mean Ezzard,” he said. “Killer, thief, and ex-con—Ezzard Walcott. Puppet of angels and hounded by hell. Now I'm an ex-con with a record and a clock tickin' away like a time bomb strapped to my back.”

The timid waitress came up and slid the breakfast toward the angry man.

As she backed away I asked, “How did the meeting go?”

Tempest looked at me and for a moment I thought he might throw a punch. It was a wonder that we had never come to blows in the years that we'd known each other. He was an angry man and violent to the degree of protecting his territory. He'd just come out of prison but still he held his rage in check.

“They give me a envelope wit' sixty-two dollars in it,” he said when the tension abated. “I got a bed in a rooming house in East Harlem and a whole page full'a deadlines that if I don't meet 'em they put me back in prison.”

“Who did you speak to?” I asked to soften the words and their meanings.

“Aldo Trieste is his name. White guy look like he exercise three times a week but tells people he work out like some kinda athlete. Got a college degree on his dirty wall and a picture of a woman look like a stripper on his desk. Picture probably came with the frame and the degree came in the mail—I bet.”

“What did Mr. Trieste say?”

“Sixty-two dollars a week and a room with two keys. One of the keys is his. I got to try for at least twelve jobs a week and I have to get a job before the month is out, or I get sent back. He needs to know who hires me and he might visit my employer if he thinks that's justified. I can't be in proximity of any criminals and, even if I don't know about their records, I could be sent back to the joint for any what he calls ‘fraternization infractions.' I need to be in my place by eight thirty every night unless I have a night job and then I have to be back home forty-five minutes after work.

“I can have a girlfriend if she doesn't have a record but she can't be a prostitute and he can come in on us at any time and tell her to leave. He can arrest me for any or no reason at all and I can never deny him, disagree with him, or complain about him to his supervisors.

“I belong to him—that's what he said. He used those words. He said that I was his for the next four years and if he finds any infraction, illegal substance, criminal activity no matter how small—he will send me back upstate to serve my thirteen years with no further chance for parole.”

All the while Tempest talked he was eating. He put the boiled egg in his pants pocket, slathered catsup on the rest, and gobbled the bacon down as if someone might steal it. He didn't order coffee but drank what was left of mine.

“And you know what's worst of all, Angel?”

“No. What?”

“When it was all over he put out his hand for me to shake.”

“That seems like a gesture of friendliness.”

“Friendly?” Tempest said. “What if a man come to your house, tell you move out, say that he's keepin' all your money 'cept sixty-two dollars, and he wants your wife and oldest daughter too? He do all that and then smile an' say—
friends
?”

“Did you shake his hand?”

“When you on parole you got to lick the bossman's feet and then say that you like it. If you don't say you like it, then they put you back in a cage.”

The food was gone.

The waitress stood as far away as she could when she handed me the check.

“You must be very angry,” I said after handing the waitress a few bills and indicating with a hand gesture that she could keep the change.

I noticed that the cook had come to his order window and was staring at Tempest.

“You got computers up in heaven, Angel?” Tempest asked.

“No need for them.”

“When I apply for a job they gonna want my numbers and I'ma have to say if I evah been convicted of a felony. Now…it don't mattah that the felony I committed was runnin' away from a sentence that I was innocent of. All that matters is that a computer somewhere say that Ezzard Walcott has a felony conviction. That means nine outta ten places will put my application in the paper shredder. Nine out of ten of the places that would hire me got money problems and can't hire their own family. Nine outta ten of the places left ain't lookin' for nobody right now. That means one place out of a thousand might hire me…and that's just if I'm the only ex-con out there lookin' for a job.”

“My company won't hire ex-cons,” I said. “I asked them as soon as you were released.”

That was when Tempest laughed. It was a hearty, deeply felt guffaw. The cook looked nervous and the waitress exited through a side door.

“Is that supposed to be a joke, Angel?” he said with tears of mirth gleaming from his eyes. “ 'Cause you know if it was, it sure did hit the spot.”

“What are you talking about, Tempest?”

“Your bosses upstairs already said that I'm not welcome in your place and now the accounting firm says the same thing. Damn, Angel, you don't give a brother a chance. You got me comin' and goin'.”

I grinned and shook my head.

“You could end it all by accepting Peter's judgment and taking your place in hell,” I said halfheartedly.

“I could get some satisfaction by denyin' heaven and bringing down the walls of eternity.”

“There's that,” I said.

“You a cold mothahfuckah, Angel. Man point a pistol at your head and you just smile.”

I stood up and said, “Come on, Tempest. Let's go see if we can find you a job.”