Our Man in the Dark (22 page)

I wipe the heat of Mathis's breath off my face as I stand.

“I think we're done here,” Strobe says.

I don't say anything. I just close the door behind me.

Mathis was practically on the verge of hysteria. A man in that state needs to be watched. It's almost comical listening to him go on about mortgages and property taxes—his membership dues in suburban conformity—to show he's like the rest of us. What kind of desperation would prompt that kind of frantic outburst? I need to find out, and he may have given me a way to go about it.

I meet her again in front of the county assessor's office where she works as a clerk. She's still skinny, but she's added a few pounds, I hadn't noticed that, and I can tell she is not married even before I see her bare ring finger. Pearls, white gloves, shoulder shawl—she's dressed like a woman expecting a man to call on her, like she's ready for a date.

Samantha DePlush. Her mother is friends with my mother. A preacher's daughter, smart as a whip. She went to Spelman, the all-girl college next to Morehouse, and was in a co-ed accounting class with me. We Morehouse boys used to pray for classes that would allow us to penetrate that fortress of steel and brick and stone, so we could catch a glimpse of those golden-brown treasures that waited inside. She had a thing for me back then. Well, more than a thing really, but I was too busy pining over Candy to even notice or act on it. It's not that she was unattractive. She had a nice enough face, but her body was a little too boyish, not curvy like I like them—like most Southern men like them. The weight of her desperation seemed to add to her thinness, flattening out the roundness of her breasts and hips.

I got her phone number from my mother—who was more than happy to retrieve it from Samantha's mother, despite the possibility of being embarrassed about her delinquent property taxes. She seemed excited enough to hear from me, so we scheduled a time for me to meet her outside of her work.

I get out and open the door for her.

“Ooh, nice car, John,” she says once I'm inside.

“Thank you.”

“I was surprised to hear from you, but I'm glad you called.”

“After I saw you that day, I've been thinking about you.”

“You've been thinking about me?”

“Yeah, I'm in a bit of a bind and I need your help.”

Her eyes drift dejectedly out the window. “Of course. You need some help and you thought of me.”

“No, Sam, this isn't like cribbing your notes in accounting class. It's not like that at all. I'm working for Martin Luther King—”

Her eyes light up. “Really?”

“Don't act like you didn't know. We've got the same kind of mother.”

She laughs. “Okay, I knew. Go ahead.”

“This man wrote us a bad check and I neglected to collect on it in time. The money has already been spent, creating a deficit in the books—”

“Right . . .”

“The address he gave me is a dead one. He either moved or never lived there.”

“That's terrible. What do you want me to do?”

“Well, I was hoping you could get me a current address.”

“John, this is my job. That's illegal. There's no way I could do that. How could you ask me to do something so . . . so
unethical
?”

“I know, Sam, I know. I'm in a lot of trouble here . . .”

“Well . . . what's in it for me?” she asks, looking first at her folded hands, then directly into my eyes. I'm not sure what to offer her—my time or the fattened envelope inside my glove compartment.

“All you have to do is tell me what you want, Sam. What is it that you want?”

She answers my question with a dive toward my mouth. A hard lustful kiss, more breath, mouth, and tongue than actual kiss. Something must have changed in me over the years. I feel myself responding to her.

“Is there some place we can go?” she asks.

We drive back to my apartment with the awkward silence dragging time, despite the shortcuts I pursue.

The experience was far more pleasant than I anticipated. She did most of the work—not like she was merely servicing me, but more like I was her plaything and she did with me as she willed.

I open my eyes after a brief postcoital slumber and she looks at me
triumphantly. I feel myself growing smitten in that moment.

Fluttering those long eyelashes and parting those lips, still tinted with a passion-smeared shade of ruby red, she says, “I gotta go,” and jumps out of bed and starts getting dressed.

I sit up and pull the sheets to my chest. She puts on her undergarments with her back turned to me.

“Give me the name of the guy you're trying to find,” she says, “and I'll call you from the office when I do.”

“It's Dick Mathis,” I say to her back, waiting for her to turn around and give me some recognition. “Try ‘Richard.'”

Now dressed, she faces me. “When I have it, I'll contact you. Don't worry about driving me. I'll find a cab or a bus—or I'll walk or something.”

“You want to get some dinner some time—my treat to say thank you?”

She keeps her eyes on me, but I can tell she would rather look away. “John, I want to apologize to you.”

“Apologize about what?”

“Well, back in school, with the way people chattered about you. Sometimes that place was so much like high school, with people making their snide comments all the time.”

“I'm confused. What does that have to do with me?”

“I just want you to know that I am a good Christian woman. I normally don't condone that sort of thing, but sometimes the peer pressure is just too great and we do things we don't want to do to fit in. I always felt guilty for not defending you, but now I see that I should have told you, maybe it would have given you a chance to change . . .”

“Are you saying that you and other people were talking about me behind my back?”

She adjusts her shawl in response.

“Well, what sort of things did they say about me?”

“You know . . . just the usual obnoxious sort of things.”

“Such as?”

“Well, the obvious—look, I'd rather not get into it. I just wanted to apologize.”

“No, it's okay. I'm a big boy. I can take it. The obvious stuff, like
what?”

“John, please, you're making me uncomfortable. I just wanted to say I'm sorry. That's all.”

“I see. So people were making fun of my brace and limp, is that it? People were making fun of me for surviving a childhood horror. I'm walking around with the battle scars to prove it, and people were making fun of me? And you're joining in on it?”

Her posture stiffens at that moment. “Actually, no, John, that's not what I meant.”

“Well, what did you mean?”

“It was your tendency to put on airs, to seem above it all. Your strange sense of superiority—arrogance, I think is accurate . . .”

“Okay, thank you.”

“Your naked cynicism and obvious disdain for other people.”

“Okay, Samantha, enough. I get the picture. Apology accepted.”

“Thank you, John. You have a good night.”

“Wait, Sam. You're right, maybe I could've benefited from spending more time with you, but why can't we start now? You never answered my question about dinner.”

“You're sweet,” she says. “But after I do this for you, don't ever contact me again.”

I had trouble sleeping that night—the newly christened air still lingered with her, and my distracted mind toyed with the cultivation of a new priority: ruining Mathis or winning her over? But my window was cracked, and by morning the night breeze had aired out the room.

Samantha provided two possible addresses, but the sign in the window proclaiming
Jesus Saves Niggers Too
quickly narrowed it down.

His home is a modest one-story in the Devonmoore district. The house could use a good paint job, and the yard is patchy with yellowing grass. Hearing that last tape of Martin put me in an extended daze. My actions were foggy, but now I see that I was propelled by an unconscious determination. As I watch his home, waiting for Mathis to surface, I am not completely sure how it is that I am sitting here.

“How long's this gonna take?” Lester asks me.

I turn my attention away from the street and look at Lester in the driver's seat. “I'm not sure. But don't worry—I'll give you a day's fare for this.”

“Why do you keep havin' me follow this guy, Mr. Estem? He owe you money or somethin'?”

The first night was a bust. Lester instinctively slowed for every person waving on a corner, and we lost him.

“That's right, Lester. He owes me money. Well, not me exactly—he wrote a number of bad checks to the SCLC, and since I keep the books, I intend to collect.” As I finish lying, Mathis comes out and gets into his black Ford.

My Cadillac may be too easy to spot after so many failed pursuits, so I've paid Lester in advance for his exclusive services, making him my driver, essentially. I know he's attempted to extend his hand in friendship, but I have to admit it feels good relegating him to being my chauffeur. I
used his need for money to put him in his place. Now I know how Count feels.

For the first few days, Mathis is consistent. Only work and home. However, today he takes a different route, and I sense he's not heading back to the office. I fear that he knows we're following him. I tell Lester to ease up—give him more room, set a rhythm for our strange dance. He may discover us. For a moment, I consider turning back, but then I embrace the consequences, and they do not frighten me. If he knows, to hell with him. If not, to hell with him anyway.

Finally, he turns onto a street with little traffic. We give him some room, and he pulls into a motel parking lot. I tell Lester to park in front of the union hall across the street from the Quiet Time Motel. The hillbilly on their large flickering neon sign slumbers identically to the cover of the souvenir matchbooks. The rooms are designed bungalow style—individual apartments, about twenty-five of them, slathered with stucco. A manager's office with a cold hard fluorescent light bleeding out the barred window sits up front.

I scan the parking lot, looking at the cars—the off-duty cabs of Lester's competitors, an assortment of clunkers, a rusted pick-up with a tin Confederate flag anchored to the bumper with wire, and right next to that is Mathis's black Ford. I watch him in the rearview mirror, as he runs a comb through his hair, perfecting the deep groove of his right-sided part. He looks down and to his right, presumably at his glove compartment, then rubs both cheeks with both hands, as if he were applying aftershave. He gets out of the car and goes over to one of the bungalows and knocks. The door opens slowly. He enters, but I can't see who was waiting for him. All the other bungalows are dark. Blurred televised images flicker behind the gauzy curtain.

“What are we doing here, Mr. Estem?” asks Lester.

“Watching. Gathering information. We're trying to find information about a man who has been very dishonest and deceptive, a man who wants to collect the secrets of others but doesn't want to share his own. So, Lester, we have to seek what he wants to hide. We must find the answers for ourselves.”

“And this man—does he work at this motel?”

I look at his dim pupils.

“We're going to find secrets about him in this motel?” he asks.

“Maybe, Lester. Maybe . . .”

A good deal of time passes, but I am still watching. I need to know who opened that door for Mathis, so I feel compelled to be patient. Lester, on the other hand, is growing anxious and feels the need to talk.

“All this waitin' around reminds me of when me and the boys would case a joint before we robbed it,” says Lester. “Man, I was terrible. I was taken in by an uncle after my daddy—or at least the man I thought was my daddy—found out that I didn't belong to him. He made my mama choose. ‘Him or me,' he said. She loved that man. So my mama put me out when I was fourteen. But I got a real bad temper, always have. So when that man that I used to call Daddy got in my face, I beat him so bad he reached out his hand and asked my mama for help. They sent me to live with my uncle, but he was too old to handle me. I get real angry sometimes. I know it, but I just can't help it. I'm better now, but at that age, I was a handful. I used to run with this gang—the Royal Peacocks. We used to get into some real trouble, especially me. I found out I loved to break into places, just for the challenge. I got this strange talent for knowin' how locks work. I broke into this funeral home once, because I noticed they didn't have no heavy-duty locks. I wasn't plannin' to steal nothin'. It was just for the challenge. But a night watchman found me. He started screamin' he's gonna send me to jail, and this and that, so I beat him senseless before I knew it. I guess I found out I was good for that too. My uncle got me out and put me with Mike. He taught me about boxin' . . . about life . . . about everything. I owe him everything.”