Time's Witness (42 page)

I said, “I don’t know. Do you?”

His eyes were vanishing. “You tell me, okay.”

I nodded. “Well, I guess I’d say you look like you might be carrying a little extra weight for good health. That might be a problem.”

He decided not to play anymore, just wait until I hit him with whatever the charge was going to be. The waitress was back so fast with a bottle of Bud on a tray, you might have thought I’d called ahead. I stepped around Fattie and sat down across from Ham Walker, who’d watched this exchange with his ironic half-smile as he stroked the fold in the crown of his hat. Maybe he had hats to match all his jackets—I don’t think I’d ever seen him without one—or maybe he kept them on because he was losing his hair.

When I slid into the booth, Fattie's whole body, of which there was an unbridled glut, relaxed with a shiver: the world made sense, there
was
a serious problem, but it wasn’t his, it was Ham Walker's. Happy, he set the beer and glass in front of me, said, “Budweiser,” and disappeared.

Walker spun the swizzle stick off his fingers, raised his high-ball glass, and gave me a nod. “
À votre santé
,” is what he said.

I poured some beer, and lifted it. “
Salud.
Sorry to keep you waiting. I had to drive somebody's mother home.”

“I’m not waiting. I’m here.” (“Here” had an existential flavor to it.) “Emory gave you my message?”

“Right. It's too bad you couldn’t have persuaded that girl to come forward seven years ago about her little rendezvous across the
street with Winston Russell. It might have made a difference to George Hall.”

“That so?” The sardonic smile spread across his mouth.

“Well, it might make a difference this time. Hall's getting a new trial.”

“I heard.” He scratched a sideburn, then picked up a small card on the table and tapped it against his glass. “I heard this time he got a real lawyer.”

“True. So where is this woman? Emory said she’d left Hillston.”

He flicked the little card so it landed on my side of the table. On it was written a woman's name and a phone number; the area code was Washington, D.C.

I said, “Thank you. Did, in fact,”—I looked at the card— “Denise tell you about this episode with Russell at the time it happened?”

“In fact?” Walker took a slow swallow of his drink. “In fact, no. I got that story a long way down the road. From another sweet young lady, a friend of Denise's, who woke up in the hospital following her own ‘little rendezvous’ with that same”—he set the glass down and smiled—“motherfucking pig.”

I smiled the same way. “I put Winston Russell away for what he did to Brea.”

“I heard.”

Twisting out of my jacket, I rolled up my right shirt sleeve. Years later, the burn scars were still fish-white and bald. I said, “When Russell got out, he came to see me with a present.”

“I heard that too.”

“You hear everything that goes down in this city, Mr. Walker?” He took off the hat, and stroked its lines; his hairline was, I noticed, slightly receding. He said, “Everything? Oh no, sir, Captain, sir. I only hears the kinds of things a nigger pimp need to hear.” The man had a truly nasty curl to his lip. “I don’t hear lots of honkie things, like what's happening over at the Hunt Club. I just hear honkie things in the way of business. Like which of you fuzz I can buy, which I can fuck, which are gonna fuck me, and which I can invite over for a drink.”

I poured some more beer. “Your busy grapevine mention how
bad I want Russell? Well, I want him
real
bad. He shot Cooper Hall.”

Sipping at his drink, Walker shrugged. “That's what they say on the news.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“Oh I believe it. Russell, or somebody else. The man's dead, I believe that.…Excuse me one second.” Suddenly sliding out of the booth, Walker took a leisurely tour of the crowded bar, pausing to slap a hand or rub a back. The noise had gone up as the night went on and the alcohol went down. People were laughing like they weren’t convinced tomorrow was a sure thing. On a raised platform against the wall, three young men were untangling the electric cables to large,
large
amplifiers. Walker ended up as if by accident near the entrance beside a young black woman with extremely red hair, a short fur jacket to match, a tangle of bright necklaces, and, again, dangerous-looking shoes. He leaned down with a smile, said something to her, hugged her by the waist, put a spin on the hug, and sent her back out the doors.

While he was gone, Fattie-Smoke brought over more drinks. “One vodka tonic. One Budweiser.” He tried to hang around the booth, but on his return, Walker told him bluntly to “beat it,” then announced to me with a drumroll of his fingers on the table that we needed to talk some business because in a few minutes he needed to leave to do some business.

I said, “Hamilton, that escort business of yours keeps real late hours, doesn’t it? Customized service must be your middle name.”

“Haver's my middle name.” His smile on the word
Haver
startled me. “But, yeah, we rocks around the clock, Captain. Demand and supply.”

“Right. Well,
skoal!
” I clinked my beer mug against his glass.

He toasted me back silently; I’d half-expected him to say something like “
L’chaim!
,” but he didn’t. He was “strictly business.” He said, “I’ve got something to offer you for a price.”

I said, “We don’t take bribes. And we don’t pay them.”

He said, “That so?”

I let the sarcasm float off before I said, “We expect citizens to be proud and eager to come to the aid of their police department. And
when they do, and when what they tell us is helpful, well then, we’re proud and eager to thank them. What helpful thing do you have to offer?”

Leaning back in the booth, he pulled one sharply pleated knee up, and looped an arm around it. A gold-linked watchband hung from his wrist. He shook his head. “Politics is not my bag.” (So that's where his nephew G.G. had gotten the philosophy from which he’d now apparently strayed.) “Democrats, Republicans, right, left, black, white, yellow, straight, homo, they’re all horny, and you strip ’em, they all look about the same.”

I said, “Well, you got the jump on politicians. You’re in the oldest profession. They’re just the second oldest.”

This made him laugh; there was a gap in the strong upper teeth, which may have been why he usually only smiled with one corner of his mouth. Then he settled back against the bench and slowly spun the new swizzle stick through his fingers. “I’m a businessman, Captain. But like you, I have a human weakness. We’re all born of women, and those cords are hard to cut. You had a mama?”

“I assume that's a rhetorical question, but the answer's yes.”

“Nomi Hall was good to my mama. During a time of troubles. Later on, I got to know her son Cooper when he was hanging around here, asking stuff about his brother smoking the cop. Sometimes, he’d show with this white buddy he had, named Jack…Medina, Molina, some wop name. Man always talking political shit ’bout Andy Brookside doing good stuff for the brothers. Man's a maniac.”

“A believer.”

“That so? At the time, I didn’t know where this girl Denise was at. But I told Cooper I’d check it out. I checked it out. Then I talk to Cooper. Then I turn on the tube one night and I see the man's been wasted.” He tossed the plastic stick onto the table. “That's the thing about ‘believers.’ I was in insurance, I wouldn’t want to sell one any big policy. Not a black one anyhow. Too many folks wanna figure the nigger that's gonna make some noise, and take him out so he stops making that noise. I see a believer, I see women crying by a pine box. But this kid Martin—he hangs round close with G.G.— he took it hard about Cooper.” Walker shook his head irritably, as if
disappointed in his human weakness. “And, well, I like G.G., he's a crazy motherfucker, but I like him—”

“So do I.”

He nodded. “I’d just as soon no bad shit went down on G.G.'s record. His mama wants him to go on to college. G.G.'s book smart, always was.”

I nodded back. “I’m a great believer in not interferring with a college education. So, let's talk about politics. I believe Officer Emory said you had information involving the governor's race.”

“That depends, Captain. Here's a taste of what I’ve got. A while ago, I met this class-act number calls herself Jamaica Touraine—”

“Are you talking about some hooker?”

He smiled. “You know that joke? Dude asks the lady, ‘You sleep with me for two million dollars?’ She's kinda shocked, but, you know, she thinks it over, finally says, ‘Okay.’ Dude says, ‘I ain’t got two million dollars. You fuck me for twenty bucks?’ Well, now she smacks his face, screams and hollers, ‘What you think I am, a whore?’ Dude says, ‘We already 'stablished what you are, lady. We just haggling about the price.’” Walker's eyes glittered hard as coal. “That's what you and I are gonna do, Captain. Haggle some about the price.”

I wiped my mouth with a cocktail napkin. “That charge about the Canaan riot that's troubling G.G.? Judge Roche is on the bench. Dolores Roche.” He nodded. I said, “Well, Judge Roche shares my high opinion of a college education.”

Reaching for his hat, he adjusted the brim with care. “You know Judge Roche personally?”

“I know her professionally. We both have a real lofty notion of our duties. We think we need to punish the wrong and save the wrongdoers if we possibly can. Especially young wrong-doers.…Okay?”

He talked to the hat. “Sounds like a nice easygoing attitude. I’d like to think you had that attitude about other things too, about, oh, a little love and companionship between consenting adults. I’d like to think you were passing on your easygoing attitude to your boys on the beat around here.”

I said, “Lovers don’t usually expect cash payments for their
companionship.”

The look Walker gave me was oddly expectant. “There's all different kinds of costs to love. Money's one of the cheapest. You’d agree with that, wouldn’t you? All kinds of costs.” His smile flashed like a snake suddenly slithering past you in a lake. Then he tapped my fingers with the end of his swizzle stick. “Now, I’m reasonable. I don’t mind your boys taking my ladies on a little drive downtown every once and a while. Keep your books straight.” He shook the stick in front of my face. “But not twice a month, and sure not twice a week. That's harassment. Some of your boys have picked up the pace to where it's fucking with
my
books. I don’t know if these boys are bored, or born-again, or bucking for a bonus. But I do know, I don’t like what it's doing to my overhead.”

I said, “I can understand that. I’m sure so much transporting your ladies downtown adds to my overhead too. My budget's not big. I’m sympathetic.”

“I was hoping you would be. I’m counting on it.…Now, I believe we were talking about Jamaica Touraine.”

I nodded. “Um hum. I don’t believe my boys ever introduced us.”

He laughed at this notion. “They never will. It's hard to tell a real rich whore from a real rich…lady. Mostly, folks don’t even try.”

“This Jamaica's in your two-million-dollar category?”

“Class act. One of the finest-looking women
I
ever saw, and I’ve seen a lot of women.”

“She works for you?”

This time the laugh was rueful. “Nooooo. Jamaica mostly does sort of semipermanent arrangements, high-rollers, gentlemen only, with a little short-term freelance in between. But Jamaica and I have some—” He rubbed the glass rim over his upper lip. “Some mutual interests. I had an occasion to invite her for a drink one evening over at the Hilton—”

I said, “You invite Jamaica to the Hilton for a drink and I get Fattie's Beer?”

His eyes widened. “Man, I’d invite that woman to the moon, I thought she’d go. Fact I did invite her to Bermuda once, told her how I loved Bermuda, had a boat down there. But she turned me
down. Like to kill me.” At all this talk about Bermuda, my head twitched. What's more, Walker seemed to notice it. This suspicion stabbed further into me when he added, “You know how it is, Captain. Some women a man would crawl over briers on his belly to get to.”

All expression faded from his eyes as I stared at them, and finally I decided I was being paranoid. Why shouldn’t he like Bermuda? Lot of people do. I gestured for him to go on.

He said, “All right, that evening at the Hilton, these high-tone honkies come in the lounge. First, one of them looks like he maybe knows Jamaica, then he gives her the freeze. She laughs, says, look at that motherfucker frost her, after he paid her five thousand dollars to do a number.” Walker sighed, I guess at the difference between what he could command for the services of his hostesses, and the fees of the mythical Jamaica. “That's heavy bread.”

I said, “Certainly more than I make in a night. Do a number on
him?
”

“No, do a number on another dude. Find him, fuck him. This guy just wants her to let his man set up a video in her suite so she can turn it on when the time comes, and make herself a home movie of her and the other dude. The buyer wanted the movie. So she gets to the dude, she fucks him. But ’fore she called the hired hand to come pick up this tape, she has me make her a little copy for a souvenir. She didn’t mention that little copy when she handed over the original.”

I said, “Why did you think I’d be so particularly interested in this?”

“Just pay attention. She and I, we have our drink, talk about families and troubles, and so on, then she says, so long, she's off with a gentleman friend, he's taking her all the way to Buenos Aires…don’t some folks live the life? So she thinks she’ll give her copy of the tape to me, ’case I can put it to some good use. She said, ‘Contribution to the cause.’ Could be, Jamaica's interested in politics. I’m not.”

I drank the last of my beer. “But I bet you could tell me if you wanted to who these high-tone political honkies in the Hilton were.”

“I could tell you who the one humping Jamaica was. You could tell yourself, you took a look at this videotape. I think he's the one going to interest you most, but I guess Jamaica could tell you about the folks who hired her, if I could reach her long-distance. I don’t know if I can.”