I'm Glad I Did (18 page)

Close to half an hour later, he asked if he'd given us enough. Luke and I stood and thanked him. He reached across the desk and shook each of our hands. “It's been a pleasure,” Professor Brown said. “Please send me a copy of the article. I'd love to show it to my own students.”

I felt my stomach fall to my toes, but I assured him we would.

Once we were back on the street, I sneaked a look at Luke. Night had fallen, and the streets were crowded with college kids.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

“He's hiding something,” Luke stated without a hint of doubt.

“Do you think he was worried about Dulcie's memoir? Do you think he was afraid she might reveal something about him?”

“I do,” Luke said. “The question is, was he worried enough to kill her to keep her quiet?”

I paused at the corner under a streetlamp. “Listen, I'm calling McGrath tomorrow. It may not do any good, but it may get him back to thinking about Dulcie, if he isn't already.”

“What are you going to tell him?”

“That he should be talking to the people we're talking to. That Dulcie wasn't in a frame of mind to kill herself. She was clean and having someone over for dinner, and that doesn't add up. We can leave the neighbor out of it, but both Rosetta and Lincoln should be talking to the police, not to us.”

Luke thought it over. “Okay. You're right. Wanna share a cab, Watson?”

“Only if—”

“Only if you pay half,” he finished, looping his arm through mine. “I know.”

“You use your powers of deduction well, Mr. Holmes,” I joked. But it sounded flat. All I could think of was how good it felt having him so close. Luckily, he didn't seem to notice. We walked arms linked, leaning against each other until we found a taxi.

The next morning, I called McGrath the minute I got into work. Luckily, Rona wasn't in yet, so I could use her phone without being watched and judged. But the policeman who answered told me McGrath wouldn't be in until one, so I left a message with Good Music's number.

Then I made another call. One that I'd been dreading.

I hadn't had lunch with Bernie since I broke the news to him about Dulcie's death. Marla had called me to tell me that he wasn't feeling well and that he wasn't coming in to the office for a few days. I hadn't minded; I'd needed some time off from my uncle after what I'd discovered about his shady dealings with Dulcie. But now I had to clear the air between us and get some straight answers. We set up lunch at The Turf.

WHEN I SPOTTED BERNIE
at our usual table, I was surprised at how tired he looked. He seemed to have lost some weight. His tan face was pasty. Something about him had changed.
His sadness was almost palpable. He'd already ordered a drink, and it was half gone, even though I was only a minute late.

“How's it going, Justice, baby?” he asked as I sat down. “Writing any smashes?”

“I've written one song I like a lot,” I told him. “Are you okay, Uncle Bernie?”

“Fine,” he said, downing the rest of his stinger in one gulp. “What does Bobby think of your song?”

“He hasn't heard it yet. I'm saving it until just the right artist is looking.”

Bernie nodded, rattling the ice cubes. “Good plan. Nothing older than yesterday's song except yesterday's news.” There was a silence as he motioned for another drink.

I struggled to find a way to ask my question. “Uncle Bernie, I have something on my mind, and I don't know quite how to say it.”

“Well,” said Bernie with a little bit of his old twinkle, “I'll tell you how to say it once you tell me what it is.”

“Very funny.” I tried to match his light tone but couldn't. “This is serious.” I took a ragged breath. “I need to know if you put your name on songs you didn't write. Specifically on songs written by Dulcie Brown.”

He blinked a few times at me, waiting for the waiter to return with his next stinger. Then he shrugged. “The short answer is yes.”

My jaw tightened. “Please, if there's a long answer, I want to hear it.”

“Justice, baby, I can see you're upset. You have the same
look on your face Janny gets.” He managed a sad chuckle. “But you're still a kid. There's a lot you don't know. I found Dulcie Brown when she was nowhere, and I took her somewhere. She had the talent, but I had the smarts, and without me and George, she would have slipped into oblivion like hundreds—no, thousands—of good-looking colored girls who can sing.”

“And that excuses you?” I returned, a little too loudly. The waiter brought his drink.

Bernie glanced around and took another sip of his stinger. He lowered his voice. “You gotta understand, this is the music
business
. Why do you think I take you to lunch? Why do you think I'm trying to teach you everything I know? You have writing talent, but I had another kind. I took artists who didn't know what they were doing or how to do it, and I invested my time and money in them. I had to find a way of sharing in their success.”

I shook my head, trying to keep the disgust out of my voice. “But you were their manager and their publisher—and sometimes even their record producer and record company. So you got your own royalty. Why did you have to take theirs, too?”

Bernie sighed. “Funny. I guess I really forgot that you're just a kid. You're too naïve to understand.”

“So explain it to me.”

His eyes hardened. “It wasn't enough considering the investment I made.” He spoke coolly and crisply now, as if I were a business associate. He pulled out a gold toothpick and stuck it between his teeth. “I bet on the song,” he said as he chewed it. “The song is what lives on. After the
records stop selling and the singer stops touring, people keep recording a hit song. It lasts a few lifetimes. I needed to be part of those hits forever. Make sense?”

“What do you mean, ‘needed'?” I leaned across the menu I hadn't bothered to open. “Uncle Bernie, you
wanted
to be a bigger part of those songs than you deserved to be. You bet on
people
who knew you and trusted you, not horses.”

The waiter appeared again, eager to take our order.

“In a minute,” Bernie snapped at him. He turned back to me. “Things are changing now, but everybody did it back then. It was the way the business worked. Justice, baby, you gotta grow up and smell the money. Damn it, I did deserve it. I created the person who created the song. Don't you get that?”

“No, I don't.” I backed off a bit and found myself in a strange state of calm. “What I get is that you stole. And you knew it was wrong because you covered it up. You kept two sets of books. I know all about it. You took advantage of people who didn't know how music publishing worked or were so desperate that they'd do anything to get a break. So desperate they'd even give away something that was rightfully theirs.”

Bernie spit the toothpick back into his hand and dropped it back into the cylinder, avoiding my eyes. “It really hurts me to hear this,” he said under his breath. “That you of all people should hurl these accusations at me disturbs me beyond words. JJ, I want you to understand. I had great affection for all my artists. Dulcie Brown was …” He stopped.

“Was what, Uncle Bernie?”

“She was special.” His voice trembled. “Don't think I didn't care about her. I still haven't gotten over her suicide.”

“Neither have I,” I told him.

He stared down at the ice cubes in his empty glass. “I don't know what else to say to you, Justice, baby, except that I care about you, too.”

“Does that mean you want to put your name on my songs, too?” I blurted out.

His head snapped up. The grimace on his face told me I had gone too far. His expression shifted from sadness to rage.

“I'm sorry, Uncle Bernie. I didn't mean that—”

“Justice,” he cut in, his teeth clenched, “if you were anyone else, I'd walk away from this table. But I have a feeling that this is about something more than my business practices. So why don't you say what's really on your mind?”

I looked into his eyes, trying to read what was behind them, wishing I'd held back more. “I'm sorry,” I said again. “But you're right. You've been so unavailable and upset since Dulcie's death, I can't help but wonder if there is something about your relationship with her that you're hiding.”

He turned away and snapped his fingers for the waiter. “Is this about how a one-hit wonder became a janitor in our building? Is that what's eating you? You're out of your league here, Justice, baby. You've lived a very sheltered life. Dulcie was a client and a friend years ago before you were even born. Her death shook me. And I do have a heart, no matter what you or your mother may think.”

“I know you do, Uncle Bernie.” I stood and pushed back my chair as the waiter approached. “I've seen it. And I love you. But now I've lost someone who was hurt by the way you operate. So I'd like to take a break from our lunches for a while.”

Bernie didn't react. He showed no emotion other than impatience for his next vodka stinger. For the first time in my life I understood what the term
poker face
meant. He didn't even blink. “For a while or for good?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I said. My voice cracked. “For good, for now. I gotta go.”

Only then did his face fall.

I turned and walked away. I knew then for sure Bernie hadn't been conning me. And I hadn't been conning him either. He did have a heart. I only wondered if it was hurting as much as mine was.

I held in the tears until I got into the elevator, but all Nick had to say was “What's wrong, kiddo?” for the floodgates to open the way they typically did in his “office.” He stopped between floors and let me cry it out. As polite as ever, he just stood there with a solemn face until my handkerchief was a soggy mess, then handed me a Kleenex.

“Do you want to talk?” he asked.

“I don't know.” I answered. But I did want to talk, and he sensed it. “Nick, what do you do when someone you love disappoints you? When they do stuff that breaks your heart? Do you forget that you love them? Do you get over it?”

“That happens to be a subject I know all about,” Nick answered without hesitation. He closed his eyes for a moment, reaching back into his memory. “It happened when I was just a little kid, but it feels like yesterday.”

I sniffed and leaned against the elevator wall. “Can you tell me about it?”

“Sure.” He adjusted his cap and looked down at his shiny shoes. “It was my mother. When I was ten, my ma told my pop that she wanted to ‘find herself.' Turns out she was ‘finding herself' with her English-as-a-second-language teacher. I found that out later. But the next night, Ma told me she was leaving us. When she told me she was going away, I felt … I can't even tell you how I felt. It was like I was dying. She was standing there with her suitcase, and I grabbed at her skirt. And she said … I'll never forget her words …” He tried to repeat them, but even after all these years he couldn't. He shook his head.

“I'm so sorry,” I breathed. “I shouldn't have asked. It's so much worse than what happened to me.”

He shrugged and straightened. “Everyone's pain is their own. That's one thing I've learned. You can't compare pain.”

“I'm just sorry I made you remember that,” I said.

“That's okay, kiddo,” Nick said softly. “The doctor's office is closed now.” He put on his cheery face and started the elevator. Then he stopped for a second and smiled at me with genuine affection. “Just be strong and let it go. It's all you can ever do.”

AFTER WORK I HEADED
down to 717 to fill Luke in on my lunch with Bernie. The story that came pouring out was an incoherent jumble. I covered the facts we knew, Bernie's rationalizations, my reactions, and my contradictory feelings, loving him and hating him. As usual Luke listened, hanging on to every word of what would have sounded to anyone else like gibberish.