Last Call

Chapter 17

Theo's tour started appropriately enough at the Knight Beat – "the swingingest place in the South" – and then moved on to the Cotton Club, the Clover Club, and Rockland Palace Hotel. The night wouldn't end until they reached the Flamingo Lounge at the Mary Elizabeth Hotel. All of these clubs had disappeared years earlier – some before Theo's birth – but Uncle Cy's anecdotes brought them to life.

''The day Miami was born, the official name for this area was Colored Town," said Cy. "Then it was Overtown. I like to think of it as Little Harlem."

They walked side-by-side down Second Avenue, between Sixth and Tenth Streets, once a lively stretch that, back in the day, was known variously as Little Broadway, the Strip, and the Great Black Way. Uncle Cy was dressed like a relic from the jazz and swing era, wearing a three-piece Norfolk suit in natty vintage tweeds, as if defying the fact that it was a balmy evening in May.

"Ain't you hot?" said Theo.

Cy flashed a mischievous smile. "Last time someone on Little Broadway asked me that question it was more like, “Cyrus Knight – hoo-wee, ain't you hot!"

"Must have been one of the many women you managed to convince that the Knight Beat was named after you."

"How'd you know about that?"

"'Cause it's what I would have done."

They stopped at the corner. A chain-link fence surrounded a vacant lot. A big painted sign promised condominiums "Opening Summer 2003" – a deadline that could now be met only with the aid of time travel. "American Dream Development Ltd.," the sign said, "a Fernando Redden Company." There were a few mounds of gravel and deep ruts from truck tires, but the weeds had taken over. It looked as if the distinguished Mr. Redden's construction had ceased as soon as it had started.

"This used to be a joint called the Harlem Square Club," said Cy.

Theo saw not a trace of the original building. All that remained was the nostalgia in the old man's eyes. "I've heard of it," said Theo.

"Hearing of it ain't nothin' like hearin' it. I was sittin' at the bar in 1963 when Sam Cooke did a live recording. I seen 'em all – Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, B. B. King."

"Pretty cool they could book acts like that."

"Yeah, thanks to Glass Killens. A real charmer, famous for carrying around a mystery mug – contents unknown. And one smart promoter. Black entertainers played all the swanky hotels on Miami Beach, but they couldn't stay there. Whites only. So they popped across the causeway to find a room, and Glass would get 'em to play a late-night gig at places like the Harlem Square."

Theo let him have all the time he wanted, but there was no escaping the fact that a community once filled with pride and music was now Miami's poorest neighborhood. More than half the residents lived in poverty, two-thirds of households were headed by unmarried women, and only one in ten dwellings was owner-occupied. Those cold statistics were borne out by the panhandlers on the streets, the abandoned stores and decrepit buildings marred by gang graffiti, and the virtual nonexistence of trees and green space. Cy's gaze drifted toward busy I-95 and I-395, which intersected in the heart of Overtown. Even at night, the pall of the elevated expressway was palpable. Ironically, the federal government had started construction of the interstate just as Congress was passing the Civil Rights Act – a fatal blow in a time of great hope.

After a minute or two, Cy shook his head in silence, like a man turning away from the grave of an old friend. "Let's go," he said.

They walked on. Theo's car was parked on the other side of the street, two blocks north.

Theo said, "We're pretty close to where you used to live, ain't we?

"Not too far. Just a tiny wooden shack on Northwest Twelfth Street." His eyes brightened with another twinkle of nostalgia. "Used to call them shotgun houses, because a bullet fired through the front door would shoot out the back without hittin' anything on the inside."

"You seen many bullets fly?"

"Mostly dope dealers shootin' each other. You got used to that kind of thing. But it was the riots in the early eighties that finally made me move out for good."

A homeless man leveraged himself up from his bed of corrugated cardboard on the sidewalk. His lips were moving, but he was either too weak or too strung out to speak. As Theo and his uncle passed, Theo dug out a ten-dollar bill and deposited it into the dirty paper cup that held a few loose coins.

"Now don't blow it all on food," said Theo. "Be sure to get yourself some liquor."

The homeless man actually smiled.

Theo and his uncle crossed the street. A low-ride sedan rolled past them, rap music blaring from a boom box so big that it filled the entire rear seat. The red metallic paint glistened beneath the street lamps, and a cryptic black-and-gold gang symbol stretched across the hood. The twenty-two-inch rims were chrome-plated with a triple cross-lacing spoke pattern. Three black youths were in the front seat. It reminded Theo of the old days – him, Tatum, and Isaac.

"I lied to my best friend today," said Theo. Inna?

"No. Jack. I told him I got no idea who would tap my phone line after Isaac busted outta prison."

Cy did a double take. "You know who did it?"

"No. But I do got an idea."

The old man was about to ask who, and then he stopped.

Theo didn't say it. He didn't have to.

Cy said, "You ain't serious, are you?"

"You tell me."

His uncle stepped up onto the curb. "You think I bugged your phone line?"

"I ain't makin' no accusations. Just throwin' it out there."

"Well, throw it right in the trash."

"Relax, okay? I never thought you was trying to hurt me. You found Isaac's prison clothes in the stockroom, and I thought maybe you wanted to make sure I wasn't stupid enough to help him."

Cy winced, as if this were the dumbest conversation since the development of human language. "What makes you think I even know anything about phone taps?"

"Jack's tech guy said it was basic equipment."

"So you think an old man who is still recovering from a stroke climbed up on a ladder and spliced a phone line?"

"It's as easy as stealing cable TV. For fifty bucks, you could hire half the people who walk into my bar to do it in ten minutes."

His uncle stepped closer and looked Theo straight in the eye. He didn't look angry. He looked hurt. "I didn't tap my nephew's phone." He shook his head and walked away.

Theo wanted to call out and stop him, but he was momentarily frozen. It was as if the weight of his own stupidity suddenly came down upon him, crushing his heart as completely as the interstate had crushed Overtown.

"Cy, wait," he said, but he wasn't sure his voice could be heard.

THAT SAME METALLIC red low-rider was cruising down the street again, the boom box blaring.

Cy kept walking. He went right past Theo's car.

Theo called louder. "Where you going?"

He turned around. Now he did look angry. "I'm gettin' myself a cab."

Theo drew a deep breath and let it out. He knew it wouldn't do any good to chase after him, but he wasn't about to let his uncle take a cab home. He watched, hoping the old man would decide on his own to turn around and come back. But he was a block away and showing no sign of slowing down.

"Uncle Cy!" Theo shouted, but the boom box from the passing car was too loud. No way the old man could have heard him. Theo started after him, half walking, half jogging. He was about to call out his name again, but that damn box was blasting even louder.

It was as if the low-rider was keeping pace with him.

Theo stopped and wheeled toward the street. The passenger-side window was half-open, but from Theo's angle it was too dark to see inside the vehicle. "Hey, what the hell-"

The crack of gunfire ended his sentence, and his dive for cover came way too late. He was suddenly down on the sidewalk, his head throbbing like he'd been hit with a sledgehammer. Theo tried to get up but couldn't. Something hot was running down his face and neck, but, strangely, the sidewalk beneath him was turning cold.

"Nailed him!" the gunman shouted, and then Theo heard the low-rider burn rubber and speed away into the night.

Uncle Cyrus, he tried to shout, but he couldn't find his voice.

He wanted to wipe the blood from his eyes, but his hands wouldn't move. His vision was a blur, and he suddenly noticed the glow of a street lamp. The lighting, however, was no longer diffused. It was intensely bright in the middle, like a blazing star in the dead of night. Lasers of equally brilliant light shot out from the center at twelve and six o'clock, also at three and nine. Or was it north and south, east and west? There seemed to be a strange confluence of light, time, and direction.

He heard his uncle shout his name, but it didn't sound real.

Then came darkness.