Through the Flames (6 page)

Lionel was disgusted. He was relieved to know that André was still alive, if you could call this living. There was always a chance for André if he didn't kill himself or get himself killed first.

Was this the life André thought was better than what the rest of the family enjoyed? There had never been cigarettes or booze in Lionel's house. When guests asked his mother if she minded if they smoked, she always said kindly, “Of course not. I have an air-conditioned facility for you just beyond that door.” It was the door to the driveway. And when Mrs. Washington's colleagues at
Global Weekly
magazine forgot themselves and showed up at dinner parties with gifts of expensive liquor or wine, or if they sent the same as Christmas gifts, she thanked them politely. She did not serve the stuff, of course, but the next day sold it to the manager of the beverage department at the corner store and gave the entire amount to the church. “The devil used that money long enough,” she would tell her husband sweetly, winking at Lionel. “It's time the Lord got it back.”

How Lionel missed his mama at times like this! What had he been thinking when he considered being a rebel with André better than being part of the family of God?

The only things André had to change into were brightly colored and way-too-big workout shorts and a T-shirt that had been left in the apartment. Lionel could only wonder whose place this was and whose clothes those were. André padded out, keeping the shorts up with one hand.

“You look better,” Talia said, smiling. “But not much.”

André did not smile. “Man,” he said, “it's good to see you both.”

Lionel was frustrated. This was no family reunion. This was the only family he had left. “André,” Lionel said, “I want to know what happened after you left that crazy message on my answering machine.”

But the phone rang. André jumped, then stared at Talia. “How'd you get here?” he asked.

“I borrowed LeRoy's roadster.”

“What? He doesn't loan that out!”

“He doesn't exactly know.”

“Oh, man!”

André answered the phone and immediately glared at Talia. “LeRoy!” he mouthed silently. “And he's not happy.”

A
NDRÉ
stood and paced, stretching the phone cord to its limit. He whined, cried, begged, explained, and tried to cover for Talia. “It was my fault, man,” he told LeRoy. “I called and begged her to come here and see me. . . . Anyone with her? No, why do you ask? . . . No, you don’t need to come here! She’ll be right back. . . . I just needed to see her, that’s all. I want to get out of here! When can I live with you guys? . . . I did my part! . . . I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just askin’.”

Lionel had no idea what LeRoy was saying, but André was as scared as Lionel had ever seen him. “I’ll send her right home, LeRoy,” André said, “but remember, this was all my idea. Don’t take it out on her.”

André hung up. “LeRoy’s mad,” he said.

“No kidding,” Talia said. “And you were a lying wuss. Don’t you ever get tired of being a coward?”

“I was just trying to protect you, girl. You ought to be grateful.”

“You were protectin’ yourself, André! And I don’t need your help.”

“LeRoy will kill you and never think twice about it. You’d better get back there.”

“We’re going,” she said. Come on, Lionel.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lionel said. “I need some answers, and I’ll find my own way back.”

“Yeah, right,” Talia said. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not going,” Lionel insisted. “Go if you want to.”

“Well, I’ve got to go. If you want to find your own way back—”

“If you don’t get back soon, Talia,” André said, “LeRoy will come looking for you, and we don’t want that.”

“This bus is pullin’ out, Lionel,” Talia said. “Last call, all aboard.”

He waved her off.

“Suit yourself,” she said, as if he had made the dumbest decision ever. She went through the whole unlocking routine to let herself out, and then André had to lock up again.

“What is all this about?” Lionel demanded. “Talk to me!”

But André had turned out the lights and crept to the window to keep track of Talia on her way to the car. “Ooh, that
is
LeRoy’s roadster! Oh, man!”

“What’d you think, we were lying? Now, c’mon, André! I’ve been worried about you for days!”

“Shh!” André said, still peering out the window. “You don’t know what kind of trouble I’m in, and if you’re not out of here soon, you’re gonna be right in it with me.”

Lionel turned the light on, and André ducked away from the window, crashing into a chair. “Don’t do that!” he said. “Somebody’ll see me!”

“Who are you afraid of? LeRoy isn’t even around here.”

“How do you know? He wasn’t at your house, or he never would have let Talia leave with you.”

“Is he coming here?”

“He might. Not too many other people know where I am.”

“What’s it all about, André? You make that crazy call and leave a long message on our machine that sounds like you’re going to kill yourself, and when I get to your place to check on you, the cops tell me you committed suicide and where I can identify the body. So I go to the place and there you are, but it’s not you. Who killed himself or got himself murdered wearing your clothes and carrying your identification?”

André sat and buried his head in his hands. “I didn’t mean it to come to all this,” he wailed. He was interrupted yet again, this time by another knock on the door. He looked up with a start and motioned frantically for Lionel to turn off the light. Lionel did, but then turned it back on when he heard Talia’s voice.

“It’s just me,” she whispered loudly through the door. “Don’t open up. I just wanted to tell you there’s an expensive car full of white kids down the block. Looks like they’re up to no good, but they’re in the wrong neighborhood. They’re going to get that nice car stole. If you pulled that off, André, you might be back in good with LeRoy.”

“I ought to already be back in good with LeRoy,” André said, but Lionel was beginning to unlock the door.

“Don’t be openin’ up now,” Talia insisted. “I’m going.”

“No!” Lionel said. “Wait!” He got the door open. “Those are my friends down there. Tell ’em I’m all right and that they should wait for me. They’re my ride home.”

Talia rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Whatever. But that car would sure get LeRoy’s attention.”

“You and LeRoy already hassled one of the kids in that car,” Lionel said. “One more deal like that and you’ll be out of my house sooner than you think.”

“Ooh, tough guy,” she said. “I’ll tell your chauffeur you’re on your way.”

André and Lionel fell silent, listening to Talia’s footsteps all the way down the stairs and out into the alley, where she fired up the roadster. Lionel turned out the light, and they watched out the window as she pulled down the street and stopped next to Judd’s car. Lionel only hoped the others would believe her and not come charging in to rescue him. Who knew what Ryan would do after having been chased by her and LeRoy earlier?

Lionel was mad. “Turn the light on, Uncle André,” he said. The word
uncle
nearly stuck in his throat because he sure had seen a new and unattractive side of André. He didn’t seem older or wiser or worthy of any respect like he sometimes used to. Now it seemed as if Lionel was the one who should be in charge. Maybe André was in trouble, but did that justify his acting like such a wimp? What was wrong with him?

They both knew that the faith they had turned their backs on before was right and true and could save them now, so why was it only Lionel, the younger of them, who had seen the light?

André turned the light on and sat down, as if expecting a lecture. But a lecture was not what Lionel had in mind. He had a lot of questions, and he wanted answers.

“When you called my house, drinking and crying and slobbering and talking about killing yourself, were you serious or were you put up to that?”

“Both.”

“What do you mean? Part of that was just acting?”

“Part of it,” André said, staring at the floor.

“I was worried to death about you. I didn’t want you to go to hell. Anyway, we’re family, man. We’re all we’ve got left. We’ve got to watch out for each other.”

“Listen, Lionel, I’m going to hell whether you want me to or not.”

“You want to?”

“’Course not! But that’s where people like me go!”

“I’m not going there!” Lionel said. “And I used to be like you.”

“You were just a kid. I was afraid I was the one who made you what you were. I’m so glad you’re a Christian now.”

“Then why aren’t you?”

“It’s too late for me.”

“You know better than that! You know the truth. You just have to act on it now, André.”

“You have no idea.”

“Then tell me! What’s going on? I want to know!”

André stood, paced, then sat again. He let out a huge sigh. “All right,” he said finally. “That guy found in my apartment was one of the guys I owed money to.”

“Really? He wasn’t one of the two I met that one time, was he? He sure didn’t look like them. They were both a lot bigger.”

“Those two just worked for him. They were his collection guys. When they couldn’t get any money out of me, he came lookin’ for me. It was pay up or be killed. I had held out on him way too long. Well, I had no money, and LeRoy wasn’t about to advance me any, so it came down to kill or be killed. That’s when I called you. I didn’t want to die. If I was going to go, I was going to go on my own terms. I’d rather kill myself than die that way.”

“So you were serious.”

“Well, mostly. LeRoy had come up with a plan. He knew this guy I owed the money to, see, and he was the one who reminded me that the guy was my size. It was LeRoy’s idea to get him to come to my place for the money. He told me to leave some message somewhere that would make it look like I killed myself. I called your machine, left that message, talked about how guilty I felt about you and all that, and then even wrote a suicide note.

“After the guy showed up, LeRoy’s friends had his people outnumbered and ran them off. While the guy thinks he’s got his bodyguards protecting him from the hallway, LeRoy pops out of the closet and gets the drop on the guy. He makes him put on my clothes and put my wallet and stuff in his pocket. He put on my rings and watch and everything. Then LeRoy told me to off him.”

“Kill him?”

“Yeah. But I couldn’t do it. I had the blade and everything to make it look like a suicide. I was afraid the guy would fight and make it look obvious that someone had done it to him, but LeRoy had thought of that too. He tells the guy he’s going to die anyway and gets the guy crying and begging and starts loading him up with whiskey. This is real strong stuff now, the good stuff, not like I’m used to drinking. He gets the guy so mellow and out of it that he didn’t even struggle. I was supposed to cut him, but I couldn’t even do that.”

“Of course you couldn’t kill someone, André. You know better than that.”

“Oh, don’t be makin’ me out as some kind of saint now, Lionel. Fact is, I wish I could have done it. LeRoy was setting me up, don’t you see? I had told him all about your house and how I knew you would let us stay there and everything. But once he set up this fake suicide and murdered the guy, he made sure he had something on me.”

“What does he have on you? You owe him money too?”

“No! Think, boy! We never expected you to go identify the body. We figured you’d get the word and believe it was me, and that would be the end of it. But now that you told the cops it wasn’t me, it won’t be long before they figure out who the victim was, and guess who looks guilty? I mean, the guy was found in my place in my clothes. If it’s not me, it has to be someone I murdered and made to look like me, right?”

Lionel nodded slowly. “So, you’re hiding out from everybody. The dead guy’s men. The cops. Anybody who might know you and spread the word you’re alive.”

“Exactly.”

“André, I never told the cops it wasn’t your body I saw.”

André stood quickly. “What? You didn’t? Are you sure?”

“’Course I’m sure. I was spooked by that place, and I was so shocked it wasn’t you that I just left.”

“You didn’t even tell the coroner?”

“The only people who know are my friends and my pastor.”

André clapped and danced. “Oh, man!” he shouted. “I love you!”

Lionel sat and put both hands atop his head. “I don’t know what you’re so happy about. No matter how you look at it, you were there when a guy was murdered. You’re in on it. You’re as guilty as LeRoy.”

“Technically, legally, yeah, I guess,” André said, and the full realization hit Lionel how far gone his uncle truly was. “But don’t you see? LeRoy’s really got nothing hanging over my head! I can go live in your house with those guys. My debt is gone because the guy I owed is dead. LeRoy can’t keep me hidden away because there’s no need. I can just use a new name, get new papers, and nobody’s the wiser.”

Lionel suddenly felt very old. André was more than twice his age, and as usual, André seemed to know less than he did. How long could he get by after coming out of hiding before someone who knew him put the word out that he wasn’t dead after all? Sure, the cops had a lot of other stuff to do with all the chaos that had come from the disappearances. But no one was going to look the other way when there had been an obvious murder. An apparent suicide victim is in the morgue, and yet people see him on the streets? Lionel was amazed at the shortsightedness, the stupidity of his uncle. More, though, he was heartbroken at André’s complete lack of guilt or sense of responsibility for what had happened. Maybe the guy who died was a bad guy who deserved it. He had probably killed people himself. But that didn’t make his death any less of a murder, and André was in it up to his ears.

Lionel stood and moved to the door. “Tell LeRoy what you told me,” André said. “I mean, I’ll call him, but he won’t believe me unless you tell him too. Then I’ll be back at your house before you know it.”

Lionel just shook his head as he began the unlocking routine again. “Uncle André,” he said, turning to face him, “you have only one chance. You have to tell what you know about the murder, admit you were part of it.”

André laughed. “Yeah, good plan. I don’t go to heaven when Jesus comes back, I have to live through the Tribulation, I’m on my way to hell, and you want me to spend what’s left of my miserable life in prison.”

“What I want is for you to do what’s right.”

“I’ve never done what’s right,” André said. And for the first time that evening, Lionel thought André was right on the money.