All I Did Was Shoot My Man

43

Central park is glorious after dark. City lights glow in the distance, making the shadows between the trees even deeper. Many a night when I was on the run from child services and the police I’d slept in the hidden recesses of that man-made wilderness.

It might have been dangerous for some but I was armed and angry. The .25 in my pocket looked like a toy when in my big hand but it could still rip through flesh and bone, spill any man’s blood who wanted to do me harm.

I strolled around the dark paths with impunity, maybe even hoping a little that some poor miscreant wanted to confront the short and fat middle-aged park walker.

Lucky for the unnamed troublemaker, he didn’t see me or was wise enough to keep his distance.

The pink lady was the only classical music nightclub in all New York — maybe even in the entire world. That evening a woodwind quintet was playing eighteenth-century sonatas and chamber music.

There were fifteen or so round tables set in a semicircle around the dais where the musicians performed. There was also a bar. People sat and drank, spoke in soft tones, and appreciated the European precursor to jazz.

Lowry sat alone at a table set farthest away from the players. She was sipping at a bright pink drink of sloe gin and strawberries — the signature cocktail of the club.

“Hey,” I said, taking the seat next to her.

“You found it okay?”

“I used to come here with a friend a long time ago.”

“Really? I wouldn’t expect you to know a place like this.”

“Why not?”

“What did you want with me, Mr. McGill?”

“You were born Dwalla, Iché Dwalla. The name might be from Africa but your people were in Alabama for generations all the way back to the seventeen hundreds. They were Tellfords and Mintons, Mummers and Daltons before becoming Afrocentrists. But you rebelled against that — renamed yourself and went on to Harvard, then Stanford. Your education might seem to some to be at odds with the decision to join the army but I see that as the continued rebuke of your parents’ politics.”

“Impressive,” she said. “You know how to get information. But I don’t have anything to hide. I’m not afraid of your knowledge.”

“I’m not trying to frighten you. I’m just explaining why I wanted to meet.”

“And why is that?”

“I don’t know who’s trying to kill me, Ms. Lowry. I don’t have any millions of dollars. Zella Grisham is innocent. So I figure that it’s either the heist men or Rutgers after me — either of them or both.

“You’ve only been with Rutgers for twenty months. When the heist went down you were entering the armed services as an intelligence trainee.”

A light slowly rose in the dark woman’s eyes.

“Why would you suspect the company that was robbed?” she asked. “Why would they do something like that and put me on your trail too?”

“Maybe not the whole company,” I ruminated. “Maybe just a few parties who set up the robbery. Clay Thorn might not have acted alone.”

“And you think because the hit men were exotics that only someone with power could have set it up,” she said.

“The top heist men could set up a hit like that but these guys didn’t.”

“Oh?”

I told her about Clarence Lethford’s tale of Bingo, and his men. I didn’t say anything about Nova Algren.

“I didn’t know that,” Antoinette said. “I knew that Lethford had been in charge of the investigation but he refused to talk to me. Now I can see why.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “he probably suspects you guys too. So the only question is, would you follow the bread crumbs if they led you back to your own masters?”

“That’s my job,” Antoinette Lowry said solemnly. “But I have no reason to think that the guard Thorn had anything to do with the upper echelons of Rutgers. The internal investigation after the heist revealed that he had a cousin doing time for armed robbery. We believed that his cousin’s contacts got him to set up the job.”

“Have you proven that?”

“No.”

“Have you at least interrogated the cousin?”

“Steven Billings died of lung cancer three years after the robbery.”

“But if you suspect Thorn and Billings, why believe that Zella had anything to do with it?”

“There was proof in her storage space. Do you have proof that any other employees of Rutgers are involved?”

“Not ironclad — no.”

“Then why are we here?” Antoinette asked.

Instead of answering I gestured toward a young waitress. Like all of the servers she was white and blond, wearing a little black dress.

“Yes, sir?”

“Cognac,” I said, “as close to twenty-five dollars a glass as you can get.”

She smiled at the ordering technique and went away.

“The corporate flowchart indicates that you don’t report to Johann Brighton,” I said to Antoinette.

“I could have you arrested for just knowing that.”

“Is that chart telling it like it is or is it just a fiction?”

“I don’t report to him.”

“Did you know that Minnie Lesser, the girlfriend of the man that Zella Grisham shot, is now Brighton’s personal secretary? She changed her name to Claudia Burns.”

The slip of a waitress brought me my snifter. I took a sip and savored the burn.

“But you claim that Grisham is not involved,” Antoinette said when the waitress was gone again.

“Somebody had to set her up.”

I was on shaky ground. I knew that Minnie couldn’t have been involved with the crime before it was committed but that didn’t mean she wasn’t pulled in after. And even if it was some big coincidence I still needed Antoinette working with me.

By any means necessary, as my father and Malcolm X were known to say.

The quintet was playing something from the Romantic period. It sounded like Brahms without the piano. Lowry turned her attention to the music while taking small mouthfuls of her pink drink. I allowed her to savor and listen, knowing that I had brought a bitter taste and a sour note to her investigations.

She was in a tight spot. If someone from the upper crust of Rutgers was involved, the solution of the crime might have been beyond her pay grade. She could get fired or even follow in the footsteps of Bingo and his friends.

She put down the glass and returned her full attention to me.

“I’m not afraid of a fight, Mr. McGill.”

“You should be.”

“Tell me something.”

“What’s that?”

“The person you came here with, were they white?”

“She was a black woman,” I said. “As a matter of fact you remind me of her in many ways.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was murdered.” A muscle in my diaphragm twitched.

“You loved her?”

“Not enough.”

“I’ve given up on black men,” Antoinette said as if this was somehow a logical continuance of our conversation.

“You don’t like us?”

“No, it’s not that. I find black men infinitely attractive and interesting. But they take me to a place that I don’t want to revisit.”

“Maybe down in Alabama,” I said. “In New York we might take you to the Romantic era.”

“I’ll consider what you said... about the robbery. I’ll look into it a little and get back if I find you’re being straight with me.”