Parker 04 - The Fury (32 page)

Willingham?"

"Butch?" the man said with a high-pitched laugh.

"Try Albert. But close." Then Clarence Savoy hung up.

I tried the second number. It rang half a dozen times

but didn't go to voice mail. I let it keep ringing. After

three more rings, a man picked up. He sounded tired,

like I'd just woken him from a nap.

"Who's this?"

"Is this Clarence Willingham?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

"Clarence, was your father named Butch?"

"Yeah, the hell's this about?"

"My name is Henry Parker. I'm a reporter. I was

wondering if I could ask you a few questions."

I told Clarence about his father and Jack's book. I

needed to know if he knew anything else about his

father's murder or business practices. Clarence was

eight years old when his father died. There's a chance

he remembered something.

"I don't talk about this stuff over the phone,"

Clarence said.

"Well, my story is running tomorrow," I lied. "If you

see me in person, we can talk about you giving me in

formation as an unnamed source. If you don't cooper

ate, I can't promise anything."

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Jason Pinter

I heard a rustling noise in the background. Then a

female voice said, "Who is it?"

I must have interrupted Clarence. Too bad for him.

He shushed whoever was there and said, "Listen,

man, I'll tell you whatever I know about my dad, but

this is opening some seriously old wounds."

"Great. I'll be there in half an hour. What's your

address?"

He gave me his address, which I jotted down before

hanging up.

I checked my watch. It was almost noon. I stopped

at a Staples store and bought a new tape recorder, some

pens and paper. These were the tools I brought along

when conducting interviews, when talking to sources.

I hadn't used them much recently because this investi

gation had been more personal than professional. I

thought everything revolved around my father's arrest.

Only now could I see how wrong I'd been.

28

I kissed Amanda goodbye, made sure I was presentable

and headed uptown to meet Clarence Willingham.

I rode the 2 train to 116th and Lenox Avenue. It was

a hot day outside, the breeze that had felt so cool on our

balcony gone.

Morningside Park was actually part of a cliff that sep

arated Manhattan from Morningside Heights. It was

also the location of a massive protest in 1968, when

students of Columbia University staged a sit-in in and

around the proposed construction of a gymnasium on

the park grounds. With separate east and west entrances,

many assumed this was to segregate the gym between

black and white. University spokesmen denied the

claims, but abandoned the plans after students barri

caded themselves inside numerous university buildings.

After a group of students opposed to the protests

blockaded the occupied buildings, police came in to end

the struggle. Over one hundred and fifty students were

injured during the forced removal, and over seven

hundred were arrested. Because of the terrible public re

lations, specifically stemming from the student-on

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Jason Pinter

student violence, Columbia scrapped its plans and built

an underground gym instead. Ironically the blueprints

for the gym were then sold to Princeton University,

which appropriated them for their own use.

The address Clarence gave me was for a five-story

brownstone within walking distance of the park. A

pretty nice neighborhood. The Columbia campus stood

directly on the opposite side of Morningside Park, and

though Clarence did live far from student housing, the

university owned such huge swaths of real estate in

upper Manhattan that the neighboring streets were clean

and graffiti free, devoid of clutter and garbage. It must

have looked great in a brochure.

Before turning onto Clarence's block, I called

Amanda's cell phone. She picked up, answering with a

hard-to-distinguish,
"Heh-wo?"

"Amanda?" I said. "Everything okay?"

"Eating," she said, removing whatever had been in

her mouth. "Chocolate-covered strawberry. I swear, we

need to move in here."

"Where did you buy that?"

"I didn't buy it. They were in a small tin by the tele

vision. I think they're complimentary."

"Amanda," I said, shaking my head, "nothing in

hotels is complimentary. Check the box."

"Hold on." I heard her ruffling with something, then

whisper
oh hell
under her breath.

"What happened?"

"Um...you know that bonus I got for Christmas?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, it's going to have to go toward paying off

these strawberries."

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269

"It's okay," I said. "Just enjoy them. Watch some

thing crappy on television, I'll be back later."

"Okay,
fine,
I'll finish them. Be careful, babe. See

you soon. Love you."

"I love you, too."

When I arrived at Clarence's building I rang the

buzzer. I expected him to simply unlock the door, but

within a minute I saw a man coming down the stairs

toward me. He was wearing a bathrobe, loosely tied,

with white briefs and blue slippers. A paunchy stomach

hung over the elastic band of the briefs. It was a comical

look, and it was safe to say he was coming to greet me

rather than go for a stroll.

He opened the door, and I extended my hand.

"Henry Parker, nice to meet you, Clar..."

Clarence was ignoring me. My hand sat there

unshook, a lonely hitchhiker. Clarence wasn't even

looking at me, he was too busy looking down the street,

both sides, behind me, as though expecting a boogey

man or a ninja to jump out and kill him. His eyes flick

ered back and forth, widening and then closing. He

squeezed them shut hard, then opened them again.

Perhaps this allowed him to see better, or give him some

extrasensory perception.

When he seemed content that nobody was waiting

to jump out at him, he said, "You come alone?"

"Of course I did."

"You sure about that?"

"Um...yeah. Pretty sure."

"You a cop?"

I snorted out a laugh. "Are you serious? I said I was

a reporter."

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Jason Pinter

"Cops lie. I don't believe that BS about cops having

to declare themselves. If someone's recording this, I'm

calling entrapment on your ass."

I turned out all my pockets. Showed him I was

carrying nothing.

His brow furrowed. "That's not an answer."

"No. I'm not a cop, I'm a reporter." I showed him my

business card.

"What'choo got in there?" he said, pointing to my

bag.

"Tape recorder, notepad."

"You can't bring that to my place."

"What do you mean?"

"Nobody records or writes down what I say. You

can't deal with that, you can leave."

I didn't have much choice, so I said, "What do you

want me to do with my stuff then?"

"Bernita down the hall will watch it."

"Bernita?"

"You can trust her. She got a plasma TV. Anytime

you have something you need stored safely, Bernita's

your woman."

I wasn't quite sure how that was supposed to

convince me to leave my equipment with her. I guess I

didn't have much of a choice but to trust Clarence's

sterling recommendation of Bernita's safe-deposit

skills.

"Okay, whatever you say."

"All right. Come on."

Clarence led me into the hallway, past a row of rusty

mailboxes and up the first flight of stairs. The building

smelled of mold, and the paint was chipping on the

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271

staircase railing. Clarence took a left and knocked on

the first door. A scraggly woman wearing a pink

bathrobe and smoking an unfiltered cigarette opened it.

I wondered if this was actually some sort of spa.

"Bernita," he said. "This is Henry. He's gonna be

leaving his bag with you for a while."

Bernita's apartment beyond her looked rather

massive, with a hallway splintering off to several dif

ferent rooms. The floors were scrubbed clean, and a

single dining table sat in the middle, uncluttered with

the exception of a pair of crystal candlesticks. It seemed

like quite a lot of space. Bernita wasn't wearing a

wedding ring. The fact that she had at least three or four

rooms for what looked like herself made me all the

more conscious of my own dwelling.

"How long?" she said.

Clarence looked at me. "How long you need?"

"Hour. Two, tops."

Clarence said, "Forty-five minutes."

"Whatever," she replied. Then she looked at me, her

upper lip curled back. "Henry. Ain't never met a young

boy named Henry."

Bernita closed the door before I could reply.

With my belongings safely--hopefully--squared

away, Clarence led me to the fourth floor. He lived in

apartment 4J. When we got to the door, Clarence stuck

his hand into his bathrobe pocket, pulling out a key

ring with at least thirty keys on it. I marveled at the

man's security methods. Then he went to work unlock

ing the half a dozen dead bolts on his front door.

Once Fort Knox was fully unlocked, he opened the

door and beckoned me inside.

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Jason Pinter

For the life of me I couldn't figure out why he went

to such ridiculous lengths, because Clarence's apart

ment was an absolute pigsty.

Garbage littered the floor like he was trying to save

room in the city landfills. Empty Chinese food and

pizza boxes were stacked in one corner. Beer cans were

strewn about, creating an aluminum carpet. I could

identify at least a half-dozen different brands, as well

as a few bottles of various liquors: Jose Cuervo, Cour

voiser, Hennessy. Clearly, Clarence Willingham was

not picky when it came to his booze.

"Take a seat," he said, gesturing to a beanbag chair

crisscrossed by duct tape like a low-budget surgical

patient. I sat down, immediately feeling the beans

shifting under me. The last beanbag chair I'd sat in was

during college, and I'm pretty sure a box of wine was

involved. "Can I get you a drink? Beer? Soda?

Absinthe?"

I was tempted to ask for the absinthe out of curiosity,

but decided I wasn't that thirsty. "Thanks, I had lunch

before I came."

"Suit yourself, man." Clarence reached under a desk

and pulled out a small wooden box. He opened it, and

took out what appeared to be a piece of rolling paper

and a bag of pot. He looked as me, pleased. "This is

some pure hydro. Fifty bucks a gram. You can snag an

ounce in Washington Square Park for about six hundred.

Sometimes you go up by the George Washington

Bridge, around 179th Street, you find some real fiends

who'll sell it for cheaper, but it won't be as good. And

you'd be surprised at how many of the kids from

Columbia deal right in Morningside Park."

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273

"Thanks for the info," I said, "but I gave up smoking

in college. I eat enough Cheetos these days as it is."

"Suit yourself, reporter man."

Clarence sprinkled some of the weed onto the paper.

Then he spent a minute picking through it, removing any

clumps or twigs. Once the mixture was in a slight cone

shape--wide to narrow--he began to roll. Clarence stared

at the joint with an almost trancelike intensity. He began

in the middle, using his thumbs to roll it evenly, gradu

ally moving his fingers to the ends of the paper. Once it

was a cylinder, he licked the top edge of the paper and

folded it over. When that was completed, he took a small

piece of thicker paper and rolled it tightly into a spiral.

He inserted that into one end of the joint. Clarence twisted

the end without the roach so nothing would fall out.

Taking the joint between his thumb and index finger,

Clarence held it to his lips, sparked a lighter and took

a deep drag. He drew it deep into his lungs, his eyes

closing as the end of the joint glowed. Finally he

removed it from his lips and puffed out a dark cloud that

hung over his room for a minute before disappearing.

When all that was done, he opened his eyes, looked

at me, held out the joint. "Best weed you'll smoke in

this city."

"No, thanks," I said. "I'm working."

"Whatever. So you said you wanted to talk about my

pops. What about him?"

"Your dad was Butch Willingham."

"S'right." Clarence took another drag. I noticed a

small corner of his upper lip was turned up. Either he

wasn't entirely fond of speaking about his father, or

hadn't in a long time.

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Jason Pinter

"Was he a good father?"

Clarence held out the joint. I don't think he meant it

that way, but I saw that as somewhat of an answer.