Wherever There Is Light (45 page)

Alan said, “Get to it, Stevie. Like I told you.”

Stevie had Bobby help him turn the jockey toward the house. Then he put the beret on his head and wedged the toy gun inside the metal ring the jockey held in his right hand.

Stevie and Bobby worked their way down toward the village. In total, Bobby had spent fourteen months in Lovewood, so he was aware that the statues were insulting to Negroes, but he was unclear about how insulted he should be. In fact, Bobby was getting bored until Stevie said, “The last one's Karl Fuchs's house. It's at the bottom of Tillou Road. And there're two jockeys.”

That piqued Bobby's interest, but the police were out to prevent the mischief from escalating into vandalism, and a patrol car began tailing the Mustang. Alan had to pass by Karl's, hang a left into the village, and park outside Reservoir Pizzeria before the patrol car sped by.

“Agenda's changed,” Alan said. “If the cops bust us, they'll arrest me. So we can stop now; I can wait here while you take care of Karl; or I can leave you at Karl's, give you money, and you can walk to the village and get a taxi.”

Bobby, with the delectable tingle of retribution in the pit of his stomach, said, “As long as we take care of Karl.”

Stevie said, “Enough money for a taxi
and
pizza?”

“You got it,” Alan said.

The lawn jockeys at Karl's were difficult to turn. The wiring of the lanterns was threaded through a cement base and buried in the ground. Stevie and Bobby, glancing nervously over their shoulders, clawed at the grass around the bases with their fingers, creating enough of a gap that the jockeys could be swiveled toward the columned portico of the house. The boys were arranging the berets and submachine guns when behind them a man said, “That you, Bobby?”

A policeman, who had been watching with the headlights off, got out of his patrol car.

“Officer Nelligan?” Bobby said, his voice trembling.

“That's me. What're you guys doing?”

“We're union organizers,” Stevie replied. Alan had said that if a cop nabbed them, he'd prefer that explanation to revolutionaries.

Officer Nelligan inspected the lawn jockeys and laughed. “We got a complaint about this, so you'll have to knock it off. You're not in trouble or nothing. I'll take you to the station, and Mr. Rose can come get you.”

At the station, Officer Nelligan took two Hershey bars from a plastic pumpkin on the desk and gave them to Stevie and Bobby. He asked Bobby for his phone number, and the boy answered so softly that the officer had him repeat it. Then he phoned Julian. By the time he hung up, Stevie had scarfed his chocolate, but Bobby hadn't removed the wrapper from the candy bar.

“Can we see the jail?” Stevie asked.

“Anybody in there, Sarge?”

The desk sergeant held out a key on a metal loop. Bobby wouldn't have come unglued from the bench if Stevie hadn't tugged on the sleeve of his CPO.

“Check it out!” Stevie exclaimed, running his hands along the bars of the cells.

After one glance, Bobby returned to the bench. He was reading the wanted posters on the wall when Julian showed up, smiling and saying, “I appreciate it, Nellie.”

“Why so quiet?” Julian asked after dropping off Stevie. “I'm not mad. It's funny.”

Bobby hunched and unhunched his shoulders, a mannerism of Kendall's that Julian had seen so often, she must have bequeathed it to Bobby in the womb.

It wasn't until Julian was on the couch and using the clicker to turn on
Bonanza
that Bobby, running to his father and bursting into tears, spoke: “I-I-I'm going to pr-pris-on.”

Julian held him. “Why prison?”

“I shot a man. A policeman.”

Julian reeled with dread. “A policeman in Newark?” That would be expensive but possible to fix in a city where everything was for sale.

“In Lovewood.”

That was a problem. “Come in the kitchen.”

Julian opened a Dr. Brown's Black Cherry for Bobby and sat across from him at the table. “Tell me.”

“The mayor—”

“Jarvis Scales?”

“That's him. He wants to buy mom's land, and one night he came to the house. My bedroom's above the library. I could hear everything. . . .”

“Girl!” Jarvis snapped. “You got to be the stubbornest black bitch ever drew breath!”

Hurleigh was laughing. “She be nicer if'n I tear her lil pussy up.”

Kendall screamed, “Get away from me!”

Upstairs, Bobby removed the small automatic pistol from the night-table drawer beside his mother's bed. Kendall had taught him to use it weeks ago and ordered him not to touch the pistol if she weren't there—except in an emergency.

As Bobby stepped between the partially open pocket doors of the library, he saw his mother on a loveseat and Hurleigh slapping her across her face. Blood trickled from her nose.

“Stop,” Bobby said, raising the pistol.

Two other men behind the loveseat retreated to where a portrait of Ezekiel Kendall, illuminated by a brass picture light, hung above the fireplace.

Mayor Scales said, “Hurleigh.”

The policeman, in a hat and sunglasses, sauntered toward Bobby. “Boy, put that down.”

“Hurleigh,” Kendall pleaded, “don't hurt him. I'm begging you, Hurleigh, you want me, Hurleigh, don't you, Hurleigh?”

The policeman got closer. “Boy, I'll shoot yoah pickaninny ass.”

Bobby stared at Ezekiel's burning eyes, and when he felt his great-grandfather staring back, he pulled-pulled-pulled-pulled the trigger.

The policeman fell. The other men dove to the floor. Kendall shouted, “Bobby,
lâche ton arme! Va-t'en!”

Bobby followed her instructions, dropping the pistol and running to Lucinda's, where he stayed sometimes when Kendall traveled. Lucinda had some clothes for Bobby in a suitcase, and her neighbor drove them to Lucinda's sister in downtown Miami. In the morning, they left for New Jersey.

Julian felt sick: Bobby had used the Beretta he'd given Kendall when she moved to Greenwich Village. And he was angry with himself: he should've strangled Hurleigh on the beach and then taken care of the mayor.

“How come you've been saying your mother was dead?” Julian asked, confused, struggling to parse the details of Bobby's story.

“Because Lucinda told me if those men didn't kill her, Mom would come for me in a couple weeks, and that was forty-six weeks ago.”

“You didn't see anyone kill her?”

“No, I didn't.”

“You didn't,” Julian said, but he was talking more to himself than to Bobby.

T
he following afternoon Julian and Eddie flew to Miami and, after checking into a two-bedroom suite at the Eden Roc, changed into Florida wear—pastel sea cotton, pale linen, Italian calfskin. Then Julian placed a call to the Goldstein brothers. They had quit the rackets a year before the Kefauver Committee got going, and Julian hadn't seen them since Abe's funeral.

When he hung up, Eddie asked, “We squared away with Looney and Gooney?”

“We're meeting Looney.”

“They quit dumping gas on people and lighting them up?”

Julian laughed. “As far as I know.”

“I always figured them two firebugs would own filling stations.”

“Once they moved to Miami Beach, the gun-shop opportunity fell in their laps.”

Julian and Eddie were sitting in a booth at Wolfie's on Lincoln Road when Looney plowed through the crowd at the entrance like a fullback busting into the end zone. He was carrying a shopping bag from Burdine's and decked out in a Hawaiian shirt, striped Bermudas, and sandals with gray athletic socks. He waved for the waitress, a young Latin woman with a black ponytail.

“The usual,” Looney said to her.

Julian asked for a brisket sandwich, Eddie for corned beef, and Looney said to the waitress, “Honey, scoop some cabbage on that corned beef, he'll sing ‘Danny Boy' for ya.”

The waitress tittered like a bashful schoolgirl before she went to put in the order.

Eddie said, “Looney, you must be some tipper; she likes your jokes.”

“And you must still be the mick schmuck don't know my first name.”

“Morris, but Looney's . . . more fitting?”

Looney, scowling at Eddie, held out his hand to Julian, and they shook.

“You look well, Morris,” Julian said.

“Ain't at the shop but three days a week. Me and my brother got brand-new apartments across the street from here. Lots to do. Gin rummy, shuffleboard, adult education classes at the library. Miami Beach's changing some. With all them Puerto Ricans comin' over from Cuba.”

Eddie said, “Morris, how's that geography class goin'?”

“Geography, O'Rourke? Are—”

Julian asked Looney, “You get everything?”

“The road map's marked like you wanted; I got the papers from the recorder's office to my lawyer in Fort Lauderdale—he can straighten out that Lovewood deal—and you need me and my brother, we'll help. And I got you them Nambus.”

His voice low, Eddie said, “Them Jap pistols are junk.”

Looney hissed, “Can't trace nothing nobody knew was here. I just got Nambus 'cause if cocksuckers try and sell me Lugers—or any Nazi peashooter—I throw 'em the fuck out.”

Julian drove the rented Impala along the ocean to Lovewood, the light spreading like pink-and-violet satin over the sand and water. When he saw the gates of the college he expected to tumble back into his past, but seeing the deserted campus only made him sad. Bobby had given him directions to Lucinda's, and he passed the shacks of the tenant farmers, with the handbill advertisements peeling off the exteriors like mildewed wallpaper, and parked by the streambed Bobby had mentioned. Black faces eyed them suspiciously from doorways and porches, and less than a quarter mile down a dirt road, Julian recognized Lucinda. She was rocking in a chair on a porch and smoking a corncob pipe.

She said, “Been wonderin' when I be seein' you.”

Julian said, “Miss Watkins, this is my friend, Eddie.”

“Sit yoahselfs down.”

As Julian and Eddie sat on the edge of porch, Lucinda disappeared into the shack and brought out two Mason jars of clear liquid, handing one to Julian and the other to Eddie, then picking up the jar beside her chair and taking a seat. She drank. Julian and Eddie joined her. The liquid tasted like fruity varnish.

Lucinda said, “Now g'wan and tells me 'bout my Bobby.”

“Doing well,” Julian said. “Wishes his mom was with him.”

“Gon' be wishin' foahevah. That Mayor Scales done kilt that girl. Or had her kilt.”

Julian felt his hope draining out of him. He asked Lucinda why she was certain Kendall was dead.

“Kendall done loved that child, and if she be alive, she be comin' foah Bobby.”

“Miss Watkins, could you start at the beginning?”

Lucinda struck a wooden match with a thumbnail and fired up the corncob. “The day Kendall tell me about it be so hot the trees beggin' the dogs to cool 'em off. The college broke; been borrowin' foah years; all them siddity Negroes teachin' be gone. Onliest ones feelin' good be the sharecroppers. Ain't nobody collectin' nothin' from them.”

Julian said, “So no one's met the new owner?”

“No, suh. But Kendall had to sell the land to pay off the bills or she gon' go bankrupt. The mayor, his daddy owned the land, and he offer to buy it. Kendall say she can get more from men want to build a hotel and golf course. So Kendall say she gon' sell to the highest bidder. The mayor's brother, Hurleigh, come 'round—mean as a snake with piles, that boy—and let Kendall know Bobby might could have hisself a accident. The mayor, he sick with the emphysema and done made Hurleigh deputy chief of po-lice. And after Hurleigh start talkin' ugly 'bout Bobby, Kendall say I'm gon' have to bring him north.”