And Sometimes I Wonder About You

53

I’d never seen a boxing gym so festive and nonviolent.

Streamers and flowers and pastel silk everywhere. There were boxers in borrowed suits and all kinds of black people from Houston, Texas — relations of Sophie Bernard. She and my kids and my wife and my sometime girlfriend had done a great deal of the last-minute planning. The only contribution Gordo made was the jazz quintet that usually played in an uptown hotel near Lincoln Center.

It was nice hearing live jazz at a wedding.

The ceremony would be in the center ring. The minister, Lucius Crow, was a Bernard family friend. He’d performed the ceremony for Helen and Gordo thirty-some years before.

“Hey, LT,” a familiar voice said.

Bug was wearing a pink tuxedo, blush white shirt, and a red bow tie, reminding me a little of Paulie DeGeorges. Zephyra was standing next to him in a jade-and-cream gown. She was breathtaking. Tall and black and smiling like those Valkyries I loved.

“Thanks, man” was all Bug had to say.

Later on Zephyra told me that I was right to call her.

“David gained twelve pounds in the forty-eight hours I was gone,” she said.

Twill was wearing the same suit he’d pretended to be Melbourne’s assistant in. He was there with Liza and Fortune and a young cocoa-colored woman named Véronique who spoke only French. Her black skin glistened and Twill seemed to bask in that glow.

I traded a few sentences with Véronique but then Liza took me aside and handed me a hefty envelope.

“I tried to give this to Twill,” she confided, “but he said the agency is yours and you collect all monies.”

“How much you got in here?” I asked her.

“One hundred eighteen thousand dollars.”

“That’s too much.” I laughed at myself and how much I must have changed to be turning down serious money like that.

“No,” Liza said, holding up her hands when I tried to return her money. “I decided when Twill took the job that I would pay the cost of the necklace I gave Fortune if he got us out safe.”

Clarence and Gordo were in a far corner regaling each other. I didn’t really like it that they got along, but I figured that that was my problem and I’d just stay away and keep it to myself.

“LT,” Kit said. He didn’t say but I’m sure that Twill invited him to the festivities.

“They make you chief yet?” I asked.

“We failed to find his blackmail files,” the cop said as if we were on the site of an active investigation. “You got any ideas?”

“Me? You the one took him down.”

“And you’re the one that killed him.”

“I just shot him.”

Kit had to smile at that.

“Doesn’t look like he groomed a successor. His confederates, the other ones you killed, were Joe Riley and Max Brown. Not their real names. I don’t think we’ll ever ID most of the people in his syndicate. Most of them came in as kids under ten.”

I was listening but I saw something across the room, something that needed attending.

“Leonid,” Hush said when I walked up to him. He was talking to Johnny Nightly.

“Hey,” I said, eschewing using a name for Hush. “Johnny, can I have a minute with my friend here?”

After Johnny was gone I said, “I didn’t know you knew Gordo?”

“We met before.”

“You here for the wedding?”

“No. I just wanted to congratulate you on surviving and to say thanks.”

“Thanks for what?”

“Bringing me those kids. Putting me in that danger took away all the tension. I knew you were going to be here so I just dropped by to tell you that I told the government men no.”

My half-Asian daughter, Shelly, hugged me and kissed me and asked a hundred times if I was okay. She saw me as her father and no mirror in the world would dissuade her. We sat side by side through the ceremony. Katrina sat with Clarence. Iran Shelfly was Gordo’s best man. A woman named Reesa was Sophie’s maid of honor.

As the ceremony unfolded I began to cry. That was the biggest surprise I’d had all week. Something about love and ceremony and big changes at the last minute got to me.

Lucius Crow was asking Gordo if he would love, honor, and respect and I looked up, tears brimming in my eyes. Aura was sitting on the other side of the ring looking at me. Whatever she saw touched her and she blew me a kiss.