“Would someone mind holding the baby for a second?” Mimi hollered from upstairs. “He’s just hungry. I’ll be down in a second to feed him.”
In a house that had seemed so filled with relatives, I was sure someone more appropriate than the friendly local newspaper reporter would materialize and take care of this duty. My maternal instincts rank slightly ahead of wolf spiders—inasmuch as I know better than to eat my own young—though I’m not sure I had much to offer beyond that. So I sat still and waited for the noise coming from the Pack ’N Play to quiet. It was my version of the “not it” finger to the nose.
But I soon realized I was the only one in the house. And Jaquille’s frustration was mounting. I went into the living room and looked down at him as he squalled.
“Uh … what … what exactly do I do?” I hollered upstairs.
“Just pick him up,” I heard Mimi say.
And how do I do that?
I wanted to say. Did the kid come with a handle on him or something? Among the many skills I had managed to pick up in the newsroom over the years, this was not one of them. We often talked about babysitting the interns, but our interns usually knew enough to keep their weeping more private.
Still, Jaquille’s distress was only increasing, so I did what any good reporter does in an uncertain situation: I summoned all the confidence I had and faked it. Like a seasoned wet nurse, I reached down and grabbed him with two hands, then cradled him to my body. He was small enough that I’m sure I could have one-handed him. But since I cared enough to catch a softball with two hands, it seemed the least I could do for this little guy.
“Okay, pal, it’s okay,” I said in what I hoped was a reassuring voice.
Jaquille was unconvinced. My faking hadn’t fooled him. He screamed even louder, and even though his eyes were closed, he was thrashing his head around, his mouth searching for … something. But what?
Oh. Right. A nipple.
“Sorry, friend,” I said. “I got two of those, but neither is going to do you much good.”
Jaquille screamed some more and I became aware of my desire to do something, anything to make him stop. So I stuck my finger in his mouth. He immediately clamped down on it. Hard. Like he intended to suck the nail clean off my finger.
But at least he was quiet, contentedly taking these long pulls on my finger like it was going to get him somewhere. I kept worrying he would figure out nothing worthwhile was going to come of it, but he seemed unbothered. He was just looking up at me with those big, glassy, grateful eyes, like I was the only important thing in his tiny little universe. I was starting to understand how it is parents first fall in love with their kids. Another human being—even a shriveled, alien-looking one—gazes at you like that, and it makes you feel like you’ll do anything for them.
“Don’t worry, little guy,” I cooed. “I got your back.”
Jaquille sucked a few more times, his eyes never leaving my face.
“Oh, look at you, you’re a natural,” Mimi said as she descended the stairs.
“Yeah, don’t let that get out.”
“Here you go,” she said, taking the baby from me. “How’s my little man?”
As soon as I pried my finger from his mouth, Jaquille renewed his protest. I was going to take that as a perfectly good excuse to announce my departure, then the doorbell rang.
“I’m sorry, can you answer that?” she asked. “If this baby doesn’t eat, no one around here is going to be able to think.”
Since when had I become the nanny
and
the butler? As Mimi disappeared with the baby into the kitchen, I opened the door.
The man standing there was huge, dark-skinned, and cologne-doused. He had on a gray pinstripe suit that, at a quick glance, looked like it was silk and custom-tailored. He wore a hangdog look on his drooping face, gold-wire-framed glasses, and a fedora, which he doffed as he entered. He looked familiar, though I couldn’t say why.
“Good day to you, sir,” he said in a deep, bass voice, walking in like I had already invited him. “Is Noemi here?”
He took care to pronounce Mimi’s full name, doing it so deliberately it sounded more like “No Emmy”—like it was something with which Susan Lucci would have once been familiar. As soon as he was done, I heard her call from the kitchen, “Pastor Al! Come in, come in!”
The man shuffled in and I backed up to give him room. He was at least five inches taller than me, and if I could guess from the size of the body filling his suit, he needed one of those scales that went beyond three hundred pounds. He was dabbing sweat with a handkerchief, even though it wasn’t that hot.
“Have a seat, Pastor Al. I’m just heating a bottle for the baby,” Mimi said.
Finally, my brain clicked in and I realized who Pastor Al was and why he looked familiar. He was one of Newark’s celebrity ministers, a man well represented in the three Bs of local outdoor advertising—billboards, buses, and benches. His church, Redeemer Love Christian, was a nondenominational house of God that used the slogan “Let Jesus Redeem You” and always featured “The Reverend Doctor Alvin LeRioux, an Anointed Man of God” in its advertisements.
We had written a story about the church not long ago. It had something like eight thousand members, many of whom had been talked into tithing by the anointed man of God. The story raised the question of where that money all went—other than the three Bs and the chauffeured SUV that the good Reverend Doctor was known to ride around the city in—but never fully answered it. Unlike other nonprofits, churches are exempt from laws requiring them to expose their finances to public inspection.
Suffice it to say, the piece probably wasn’t Pastor Al’s favorite reading material. I had heard talk that after our story ran, he gave a sermon calling our newspaper an agent of Satan—or something similarly unflattering. I can’t say that kind of talk made me want to like him any more than he liked me. Still, he was a man of some standing in the community, and I was going to treat him with all due respect.
“Reverend LeRioux, I’m Carter Ross with the
Eagle-Examiner,
” I said, extending a hand. He shook it, though I could tell he didn’t want to. I could also tell I was going to smell like his cologne for the rest of the day, no matter how many times I washed myself.
“I’ll be out in a second,” Mimi called.
Pastor Al hobbled in arthritic fashion over to one of the couches, where he landed heavily. He stared straight ahead, dabbed his forehead, and seemed to be making a point of not talking to me. The baby was still caterwauling, then abruptly quieted—the bottle, at long last, had been delivered.
Mimi came into the room a moment later with a happily suckling Jaquille cradled in one arm.
“Pastor Al!” she said.
“Noemi, my child,” he said, without getting up.
“It’s so good of you to come.”
“I came as soon as I heard.”
I thought, at that point, he would offer a prayer, read some Scripture, or do something appropriately nonsecular. Instead, he gestured at me.
“Noemi, I was hoping we could share some words in confidence,” he said. “I am troubled by the presence of a reporter here.”
And I am troubled by ministers who wear two-thousand-dollar silk suits. But at least I’m polite enough to keep it to myself.
He continued: “I know the media enjoys publicizing tragedy for its own purposes. But these are private moments to be shared by family and loved ones.”
Mimi looked over at me, obviously torn. I had earned her trust, and I could tell she liked me. But, at the same time, Pastor Al trumped Reporter Carter in her world.
I saved her the trouble of having to kick me out.
“Actually, I was just leaving,” I said. “I’ll call you later.”
Pastor Al was still mopping his forehead as I left.
* * *
Relieved to be no longer serving as a human pacifier, I returned to my car, having already decided on my next course of action. With apologies to Mike Fusco, I had to figure out if Darius Kipps had been a straight-up cop.
If he wasn’t, it meant he probably did kill himself, in which case I was just wasting my time. It’s not that crooked cops don’t make for great copy—they do—it was Brodie’s suicide policy. There would just be no getting around it. Besides, I’d never get anything on-the-record. No one was going to piss on a dead cop’s grave, even if he
was
bent.
Then again, if Darius Kipps wasn’t dirty, it opened the possibility the suicide wasn’t what it seemed, in which case I had a load of dynamite on my hands. Either way, I wasn’t going to find my answer in the phone book or on the Internet. I was going to find it on the streets.
I started driving through the heart of the hood, down a series of avenues I have come to know as well as any place I’ve ever lived. During my years at the
Eagle-Examiner
, the milieu had become familiar, even comfortable: the vacant lots and abandoned buildings, the aging Victorians and ancient storefronts, the new construction and glistening chain stores. It’s the hodgepodge that is present-day Newark, a city forever striving to renew itself, with mixed results.
I love it when some visiting journalist parachutes into town for three days to write the Definitive Newark Story. Because the fact is, if they’re looking to write “Newark: City on the Rise,” they’ll find that. And if they’re looking to write “Newark: Still the Same Hellhole Despite What the Mayor Keeps Telling People,” they’ll find that, too. To me, the city is like its own kind of Rorschach test. What you choose to see—whether you want to be optimistic or pessimistic in your view—says as much about you as it does about the place.
My destination was the Clinton Hill section of Newark and my man, Reginald “Tee” Jamison. The nickname came from the thriving T-shirt shop he ran—no one, other than perhaps his wife, called him by his real name. I had written a story about him a few years back, and we had since become unlikely friends. I say “unlikely” only in a statistical sense, inasmuch as there are roughly two hundred million white people living in America, and Tee is friends with only two of them.
Still, I was glad to be one of the two. Despite the superficial differences between us—he has more hair in two of his dreadlocks than I have on my entire head, not to mention more muscle in one of his pectorals than I have in my entire body—we were kindred spirits in more ways than not, and we enjoyed deciphering our respective worlds for each other.
Plus, he grew up in Newark, shuffling between a variety of foster care placements in all parts of the city, so he has a network of contacts that would make any reporter envious. If Darius Kipps was dirty, Tee might or might not know it. But he sure would know someone who knew.
I arrived at his store to find a half-dozen knuckleheads hanging around his front door. They were generally good kids—if you could ignore the pot smell that clings to their clothing—though their presence on Tee’s sidewalk led people to make certain assumptions about what was going on inside. Tee, who was a legitimate businessman, finally got fed up one day and posted a sign in his front window,
NO, WE DO NOT SELL WEED HERE
.
As I got out of my car, six heads immediately swung my way—well-dressed Caucasian men tend to have this effect on Clinton Avenue in Newark—but then they saw it was me. I’m a frequent enough visitor to Tee’s store that they know I’m not there to arrest them, harass them, or otherwise disrupt their mojo. With their alarm level back down, they returned to what appeared to be a dice game. And not Dungeons & Dragons.
I hit the buzzer by Tee’s front door and waited for the lock to release. When I walked in, Tee was designing a T-shirt for a pair of customers, who were seated in front of his desk.
“Uh-oh, it’s the IRS!” he hollered from behind his desk.
“Sir, this is a random audit,” I said, playing along. “I’m going to have to ask for your last five years of returns, including all associated receipts.”
“Receipts? What’s that? You know a brother like me can’t read. My massa won’t let me.”
“Well then, I’m afraid we’re going to have to throw you in jail with all the other darkies. Now excuse me for a second, I have to plant some drugs on you.”
“C’mon now, don’t make me go all Rodney King on your pasty ass.”
I think the customers knew we were kidding because we were both smiling broadly. But they looked like nice folks, and I could tell we were making them feel uncomfortable. So I pulled out of the act and said, “You want me to come back later?”
“No, no, I’m just finishing. Gimme a second.”
Tee took another five minutes wrapping up with his customers, while I perused some of his inventory, including the ever-popular shirt that showed a stick figure lying on the ground under the words,
WHY DON’T YOU GO PRACTICE FALLING DOWN?
I was admiring another one—a top-ten list of “Yo Mama’s So Ugly” jokes—when Tee came over and shook my hand.
“So what’s going on?” Tee asked. “You working on something?”
I told him what I knew about Darius Kipps, finishing with, “So, basically, I need to figure out if he’s crooked.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Tee said. “They all crooked.”
I had repeatedly tried to convince Tee of my belief that, in fact, the vast majority of policemen are not corrupt—in the same way the vast majority of newspaper reporters don’t make up stories. But it only takes a few reprobates to skew the reputation of the rest of them. Newark, for example, had roughly 1,200 police officers last time I checked. If even 99 percent of them were law-abiding, that still meant there were a dozen cops rampaging around the city, wreaking havoc.
Alas, it seems like Tee had experience with all twelve of them.
“C’mon, I’m serious,” I said. “I’ve got a picture of him. You think your friends outside are hard-core enough to know if Kipps was involved in something he shouldn’t be?”
“Them? Nah. They just playin’, you know what I mean?”
I did. In Newark, there were pretend gangs and then there were serious gangs, and it was important to know the difference. Kids like Tee’s knuckleheads might call themselves a gang. They might adopt some of the gestures, mannerisms, and clothing of a gang. They might even say they were Bloods or Crips. But, in reality, they were a gang in roughly the same sense as the Little Rascals. They hung together for camaraderie and mutual protection. They were basically harmless.