Those Bones Are Not My Child (73 page)

“Was it something I said?” Preston laughed, playing with the levers.

“Perhaps you’d like to substitute a fruit salad,” Delia said helpfully when once again Carole attempted to dip her spoon into the cream of cucumber soup only to have the surface pucker. “Looks like pond scum,” she added, turning to call one of the waiters over.

The waiting had begun to frazzle nerves. Few tables were filled, and many had been totally abandoned by guests who took their place cards to other tables to be with friends.

The two women looked toward table 31, where Bryant, an ample supply of business cards tucked in his cummerbund, was glad-handing the Lederers. At one large table were four generations, from glistening pigtails to snowy white chignons and beards, a few jerri curls and forties-styled pageboys in between.

At table 17, several men reared back in their chairs, laughing loudly, ribbing the other men, who rolled from side to side fumbling for their wallets. Last year, Delia had learned, bets had been made on the outcome of the trial of Jimmy Carter’s ex-budget director. The winners at the table near the dance floor were gloating, boasting political realism. The losers grumbled about nepotism and good-ole-boyism, and continued fumbling, maintaining that the bet should run until the next trial, for there had to be a next trial, the crooks.

“It’ll be all right, Delia,” Carole said with a bosomy sigh, and Delia smiled, grateful for the encouragement, though whether Carole was referring to the evening’s festivities or to the “Spencer operation” was unclear.

The bellboy glided up, bent, and whispered into Carole’s ear. She
didn’t take her handbag, Delia noted; she simply rose, her lavender strapless rising too but in a breathtaking three-second delay, and swept off across the dance floor.

Delia watched heads turn as her employee went out the doors. She felt tired. The heady anticipation of an evening out hobnobbing, the elegance of the gathering, the prospects of profitable encounters, had been initially spoiled when they’d been seated at table 23, close to the door to the ladies’ lounge and obviously a last-minute addition. The table, much smaller than the others, and round, not square, was draped in white-on-white only, different from the peach-and-lime color scheme that marked the gala’s decor. Added to that were Carole’s constant comings and goings, with only the slimmest hints as to what she was up to. And only after a great deal of prodding did she share what, after all, was their business, being family. “Why you, Carole?” and the thoughtless response, thoughtlessness a rarity in their years of working together, “Who else can he depend on?” Delia had not sufficiently recovered from that, with Bryan’s affectionate squeezing of her hand under the table more annoying than soothing, when Carole, leaning down to retrieve a slip of paper, said, as Delia was pointing out young people on their way up, “You mean wired up.”

She’d been mistaking cocaine confidence for success. She must have been on the threshold of that knowledge for some time. Drugs certainly explained a lot of behavior, alliances she could never fathom, directives that gave her the responsibility of covering others’ mistakes and making them look good. In recent years, watching people who’d been under her in seniority and know-how go off to Washington when Carter was elected, she’d told herself she’d been outclassed by youthful stamina and the confidence that came with family background, good education, and connections. But all along she’d been competing against the euphoria and enthusiasm of cocaine and didn’t know it.

Delia poured herself a glass of wine. In spite of it all, and while running their real-estate business too, she’d managed to become a supervisor. There was something to be said for that. She toasted the silver-papered gift she’d brought along for her brother and resolved to have a pleasant evening, whether the Webbers showed or not. Their delay was merely impolite; the lateness of the children was worrisome.

“Such a good-looking bunch of people,” Bryan said, hiking up his
jacket in back to sit down. His chest high, his eyes shining, it could have been his testimonial dinner and not a bon voyage for the Webbers, who some said were leaving Atlanta at “someone” ’s request. She’d thought of eavesdropping to learn about this “someone”—the DA, the mayor, the governor. She hoped their leaving had nothing to do with the favor she’d asked of Mrs. Webber. Mrs. Webber had interceded and gotten the phone company to tap Marzala’s incoming calls.

“Who is that keeps calling Carole away, do you think?” Delia reached over and patted Carole’s evening bag. “Not even a key or a lipstick, Bry.” Paper crinkled inside the silver mesh bag. “She must know that when Nathaniel brings the children Zala will likely come along.”

“They’re grown people, Dee,” was all he said, and was up again and gone before she could answer.

A number of people were crossing the parquet floor to the main doors. Those already there were chattering excitedly. When the doors were opened, a commotion from the lobby below attracted more people. Several musicians peeped from behind the curtain, then stepped out on stage. The piano player took up his position on the bench, looking for the emcee at table 21 to give him the high sign. Judging from the way people rushed out squealing, either Lena Horne or Prince Charles and Diana had come to the Hyatt.

Delia caught a glimpse of her niece and nephew stepping back to let people out. They turned in the direction of the corridor that led to the ladies’ lounge. Delia placed her napkin by her plate and got up, carefully. She gathered up the skirt of her gown so as not to upset the ashtray where Bryan’s cigar was smoldering. She resisted the urge to stub it out.

Delia swept toward the side door as the band glided into
La Mer
. Moving expertly in the narrow aisles between tables, she smiled hello to those who looked up in greeting.

A lovely young woman in green and a handsome young boy in a dark blue suit stood in the corridor. Not recognizing them, Delia moved directly to the mezzanine rail where Kofi and Kenti leaned over waving to someone below. By the fountain, seated on the nubby white sofas that encircled a glass coffee table, were her brother, an old man in suspenders, and Judge and Mrs. Webber.

“Walk on by like you don’t know us, Mother!”

Delia wheeled around just as the smaller children leapt at her and almost knocked her over. She felt something pop. “Well, look at you!”

“Well, look at
you!
”

“And look at you two.”

“We’ll be out here all night talking silly and miss the food.” Gloria took Kenti’s hand and went into the ballroom.

Delia bent down and inspected her strap.

While Alice Moore passed a snapshot around to the housekeeping staff and B. J. conversed with hotel security, Zala looked out of the Hyatt Regency’s glass elevator at the adjacent building. It was gray, gaunt, cold as a cliff. She was supposed to take up her post there in less than ten minutes.

As they rode down, collecting guests who gazed out on the rooftops below, Zala recalled the days in the sixties when Gerry and Maxwell would drag her from one tall height to another, directing her view through binoculars. They’d taught her to observe which roofs bore large white X’s, either chalked thick or painted with a wide brush. Homes of civil rights workers, supporters, donors, churches that hosted interracial meetings were kept under constant surveillance from street level to the sky. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee building on Spring Street was the one roof she could pick out from any vantage point—from the Equitable Life Building, from the bank towers, later from the rooftop restaurants of the new skyscraper hotels. It was Zala’s privilege as a child to transport the can of black spray paint to the top of the building owned by SNCC. As often as three times a week she sprayed the X black so armed helicopters could not easily locate it.

“Who’s the man in the picture?” B. J. nudged her arm from the rail and Zala turned. Alice Moore was huddled with the security man in his gray flannels and blue blazer. Zala shrugged and B. J. moved to that side of the car.

Everyone who boarded was in a chatty mood, the talk tinged with giddy nervousness as the glass car floated down past vine-tangled balconies toward the city streets below. A tourist just in from vacation in South America was telling his companion about the corrugated lean-tos in Lima, relieved that no unruly
cholos
threatened their family-reunion
holiday in Atlanta. A woman joined their conversation to say that in Rio the geography was the reverse; bandits lived in the hills with the poor and frequently came down from the favelas to raid the estates below. The threesome, chummy by the time the car reached the thirtieth floor, agreed that travel in Third World countries was dodgy.

On the twenty-sixth floor, another couple got on talking of “Les toits de Paris”—the roofs of Paris. The woman, clinging to the man’s arm, hummed the song in a jangling fashion. On Peachtree Street below were tourists in straw hats taking a buggy ride to Underground Atlanta, where the couple were going. Dante’s Down the Hatch had a good jazz combo, the woman interrupted her singing to say. Zala heard B. J. mutter something. Like the Omni, the Underground was feeling the impact of the curfew. The Omni skating rink was now closing at nine. The Omni movie theater, in a last-ditch effort to balance its books, had lowered its prices, vying with the dollar movie houses. Pan bands, breaker crews, and assorted young noisemaker artists who used to set up in the Underground parking lot weren’t there anymore to be chased away. Word was, someone had been hired to lure them back.

On the nineteenth floor, another tall, slender preppy type in gray flannels and blue blazer boarded, palming his walkie-talkie and saluting his colleague, who immediately drew him over and introduced him to B. J. The word was the same. Reporters, plainclothes detectives, STOP members, and amateur sleuths were still streaming into the Hyatt looking for Roy Innis, Al Starkes, and Shirley McGill.

“I wish we could post a notice,” the new security man said.

On twelve, the guards changed over. The two lookalikes held the door open for the two new men in blazers and flannels, and apologized to those aboard for the delay as they got off. Strains of “You Light Up My Life” drifted up from the mezzanine ballroom and Zala turned again to look out at the hard, buff-gray line of the building next door. Lights in the lower three stories were blinking like failing fluorescents. She pressed close to the rail to make room for two businessmen with shiny, tight, fresh-shaven faces who, though slim, seemed to need a lot of room to trade roof stories.

In Tokyo, one explained, it was best not to book quarters anywhere near the university: students in post-exam disgrace were known to fling themselves from high ledges like kamikaze pilots. The other spoke of
the pigeon coops on the roofs of the San Juan hovels across the river from the Hotel Flamboyan. Eyesores, they spoiled the vista as one looked out from the casino windows to watch the sun set.

B. J. beckoned Zala over to hear what the security men had to say. It didn’t vary much from the earlier reports.

Days after the CORE group had checked out of the Hyatt Regency to the Downtown Motel at fifty dollars a night, then to the Atlanta at thirty dollars, people were still questioning the housekeepers and over-tipping the bellboys. Hypnotists, private detectives, and free-lance bodyguards left their cards at the desk should the New York-Miami group need help with their witness. Narc squad detectives and members of the Organized Crime Unit were interested in more detailed information from McGill about the cult’s drug operations. Members of rival CORE chapters had been in town too, holding forth in the lobbies at each of the three hotels, explaining that the Innis group were not “legitimate” CORE people, that Innis had been ousted at the South Carolina convention, that his term in office as national chairman had been vetoed because of misappropriation of funds, as a recent exposé on 60
Minutes
documented, that he was a publicity hound, that his self-aggrandizing schemes had threatened the credibility and functioning of the organization—in short, that the man was full of hot air. No word, though, about McGill, one way or the other.

“But what I find peculiar,” the older of the two guards said, lowering his voice, “is that members of Atlanta Intelligence and members of the State Organized Crime Squad are in and out of here tailing each other. It’s a circus.”

He turned his back to the others in the car and looked down to the lobby. B.J. hung in close by his sleeve and made room for Zala. For a long time he was quiet, looking over the people below.

“Two guys in particular have been in and out of here since the Sinatra show.”

“Back in February,” B. J. said, when he lapsed into silence again. “When there were threats that something would happen during the Sinatra-Davis benefit. So?”

“They were definitely together. They come in within five minutes of each other and leave within five minutes of each other. You never see them actually together, but a few of us have been able to put it together.” He turned toward the balconies, looking around. He pressed
his back to the rail and gazed out onto the streets, then pivoted around again, surveying the lobby.

“What’s your hunch?”

“I don’t know. But every time society Blacks have a banquet and the City Hall crowd shows up, we know it won’t be long before one or both of them turn up too.”

B. J. fingered the gold loop in one ear, then removed both earrings and pocketed them. “Keeping their eye on someone in particular, you think?”

“It’s only a feeling on my part,” he said, smoothing his hair from his forehead. “There,” he said suddenly, his finger bent against the pane. “That’s the other one. I forgot about him.”

They mashed themselves against the side rail for a glimpse of a thirty-five-ish blond in a blue-and-white sports jacket swiftly walking away from the bell captain’s stand. Zala felt B. J.’s elbow in her side. Tailing the man from the far side of the lobby was Mason.

“GBI or APD?”

“Neither. My partner pointed him out a few weeks ago. He was using a key on the room we’d seen the redhead come out of.”