Hosannas from the church.
“Why me?” I say.
“I ain’t gonna lie to you, Ann. You got me curious, showing up out the blue like you done. I want to know your story. I can tell — see, I been watching you — you’re looking to learn. Hoping to find — ”
“Not oregano.” Jesus, what do I mean? Why am I even talking to him?
He laughs. The sacred steel slithers past quirky, sorrowful blue notes.
“So what can I do for you? What do you need?” Rue asks.
“I need you to leave me alone, thank you.”
“Seriously, Ann.” He slides his shades down his nose.
“Seriously?”
He licks his lips.
“All right. Seriously. That little boy Michael at the Row Houses? Stop threatening him. Stop trying to deal to him and his mom.”
“I thought you might say that. And I’ll go you one better. I’ll take it on myself to educate the boy. Tutor him.”
“No. Just back off, that’s all. Please.”
“Boy’ll need a mentor, he gonna survive. ‘Specially with that mouth. He lucky I ain’t capped him already. For you, Ann, aight? He golden now. Won’t nobody touch him. That’s a promise.”
“Thank you.”
“And in return, I ‘spect a little respect from you. How ‘bout it?”
“We’ll see.”
He appears to enjoy my defiance. He walks me back toward the house. Quietly, then, the Beamer rolls up beside us from around a corner. Lord. Was his friend waiting for him the whole time? Covering his back? Of course. Rue’s a “player.” Nothing happens here without a game plan.
“My nukka,” Rue says to the driver. “What up?”
“We got us a situation, Morgue. Joneser. Threatening to talk.”
He turns to me. “Business, babe. Caretaking. Remember the deal, then. Golden boy. Respect.”
“Wait. I didn’t make you a deal,” I say. “I asked you for a favor, a humane act — ”
He laughs. “Deals is favors and vicey-versey, Ann. This here’s fucking America. I get back wit you soon. Oh — and Telisha?” Damn him. “Say hi to your old uncle for me, aight?” He reaches into his left boot, pulls out a small silver pistol, laughs once more, and steps into the car.
Ariyeh takes some loss time so we can kidnap Bitter. As I’m waiting for her in front of the school, the custodian I’d seen before yells at a pair of boys who are trying to shimmy up the flagpole. “Boot camp, boys, that’s where you’re heading! Got no respect…”
Ariyeh slides into the car, chuckling. “Old Johnson.”
“The janitor?”
“Yeah, he sure gets bent out of shape.”
Harshly, he swats at one of the boys with his broom. “Wind up in the pen …”
Ariyeh waves at him. “Hi there, Mr. Johnson. Keeping them all in line?”
“Cain’t stay on top of it, Miss. No way.” He slumps against the pole, hugging the broom like a bride.
Ariyeh waves again, then we head for Bitter’s place. We’ve told him she wants to inspect a house she’s thinking of buying; she needs his opinion. “Ain’t setting up shop with that bull-head Reggie?” he’d asked her.
“No, no.”
As I drive, I distract him with an old Cab Calloway album I found at the CD store. He’s sitting in the back seat, humming. Earlier, I’d asked him if he knew Rue Morgue. He shook his head.
“He knows all about you and me,” I said.
“Guys like him connected. Don’t mess with them.”
“No, of course not.”
Now Ariyeh’s telling me about a meeting she attended last night to discuss the school disappearances. “Nothing but finger pointing. A local church leader said public schools were unsafe. Too democratic. That’s not how he put it, but that’s what he meant. Naturally, he wants more funding for private religious schools. The fundamentalists and the city council are pushing vouchers — the marketplace mantra. The teachers blathered on about unions and higher pay. Parents blamed the schools for all their problems … no one there mentioned the missing children. It was astonishing.”
Six boys have vanished now, she says. A quiet, nearly invisible riot in the streets, more horrible, finally, than Vida Henry’s insurrection.
“—too busy trying to impress each other or scapegoat someone else, ‘cause it’s easier than actually solving anything.”
“Were the cops there?” I ask. “Any progress?”
“No. Whatever’s — ”
“What the hell — ” Bitter’s stiff now, alert. “A medical clinic? You — ”
“Take it easy, Uncle.”
“What the hell is this?”
I park the car and assure him no one’s going to cut him open. “It’s just so they can check you out.”
“You lied to me.”
“You lied first, Daddy. Telling me your pains had gone away,” Ariyeh says. “Now let’s stop whining about it and get it over with, okay? It’ll probably turn out to be nothing.”
At the receptionist’s window in the cramped waiting room she flashes her Blue Cross card. Bitter and I sit in the molded plastic chairs, the kind you see in airports, designed for people about to move on. Muzak and women’s magazines. Sulking, Bitter crosses and uncrosses his legs.
Mercifully, a nurse calls us right away, weighs him, takes his blood pressure — frowns — then leads us to a bright room where we’re joined by a young blond doctor. He looks like a surfer, tan, slicked-back hair. He hooks Bitter to an EKG machine, asks about his pains. Bitter stares in horror at the little white pads on his chest. I study a poster on the wall behind the doctor, a cartoon cutaway of a man’s right lung.
Bitter grabs himself.
“What is it? Are you experiencing angina?”
“Ain’t got no vagina. Kinda doctor are you?”
In a few minutes he’s better. “Well, the good news is, the EKG shows nothing serious,” the doctor says. “You haven’t had a heart attack. But your blood pressure’s high, and these pains you’re having suggest to me we should take a closer look. I’d like to order an angiogram — ”
“You just said it’s nothing serious,” Bitter says.
“I said — ”
“I heard you. Ain’t going no hospital.”
The doctor doesn’t push it. He’s got other patients to see. Or breakers to catch. He wishes us luck.
“These aren’t the Needle Men,” Ariyeh tells Bitter back in the car.
“Don’t be too sure. I once knew a fella back in N’Awlins went to the infirmary, come back with spiders in his veins.”
“Daddy — ”
“God’s honest truth. They can inject you with anything in there.”
We take him home. While he shuffles through his records in the living room, Ariyeh and I try to hatch another plot. “We could tell him the utility company has overcharged all its customers, and he needs to go downtown for a refund check — ”
“He won’t trust us now. He’ll never get in the car. Short of brute force … what’s the rest of the week look like for you?”