“That is I,” said the reverend.
“Driving around with that ugly thing on top your car, quoting Scripture out a bullhorn, making all kinds of racket when we’re just trying to sleep. What do you think you’re going to accomplish?”
“I’m trying to save our community.”
“How about saving my sleep? You get my age, it don’t come so easy. And then, just as I’m sinking into slumber, you drive along and blast me sky-high with your preaching.”
“Maybe you need saving, too, old man.”
“And you got that run-down hotel on Fifty-first that you turned into some sort of shelter and meeting place, the Hotel Latimore, it is, where you take care of all kinds of families don’t got no homes for themselves.”
“I do what I can.”
“Yeah, I know you, all right,” said Horace. “We got enough folks making things worse, so I appreciate those fighting to make things better. But you should appreciate what this boy’s fighting to do, too. He’s not from us, is ignorant of our ways, among many other things, but that don’t mean he don’t care. He had a choice, he could have walked away from this girl who he’s never in the life of him ever met. Others would have, said it was too hard, thrown up their hands. But he didn’t. Now he got himself in the middle of a mess, legally responsible for a girl he can’t find, standing up to a man with a bullhorn. It takes a heap of stupidity to do all that. It’s not up to you to shut him out.”
“I have my responsibilities,” said the reverend.
“So does he.”
“I am sorry,” he said. “I’ve done all I can.”
“That’s not good enough,” I said. “I am scared for my client, and I am not in the mood to be patient. I tried to do this the polite way, Reverend, but that’s over. Let’s go, Horace.”
Horace pushed himself to standing, propped his hat on his head. “Quite a boy, ain’t he?”
“A real firebrand,” said Wilkerson.
“I taught him everything he knows,” said Horace.
“Oh, Mr. Carl,” said Madam Anna before we could leave. “We had a deal. What about this paper from the city? What about the fines?”
“You want my help, is that it? My expert legal opinion?” I stepped to the table, picked up the notice, scanned it quickly. “This shouldn’t be a problem.”
“What should I do?” she said.
“Pay it.”
50
“There it is,” said Horace. “It used to be a place in the old days, used to be something special. ‘Where you staying?’ we’d ask our cousins visiting from down south. They chests would swell with pride, and they’d say, ‘The Hotel Latimore.’ ”
Horace was nodding toward a dilapidated four-story building, made of brick, wedged between a linoleum outlet on one side and a Chinese restaurant on the other. There were people milling outside, some going in, some going out, some just sitting on the porch and spitting. Parked in front was a large white van with a dummy in a suit on top, sitting up as if it had bolted right out of the coffin in which it had been laid to rest. An old neon sign swung above the building’s door, hissing as it blinked on and off: HOTEL LATIMORE.
“From what I been told,” Horace said, “his office is on the first floor. And there’s an old ballroom on the top where he has his meetings.”
“Who’s that guy standing by the steps?” I said.
“He’s big, isn’t he?”
“Big isn’t the word. Monumental, epic, and massive come to mind.”
“Never seen him before.”
“With his size, that black leather jacket, and the way he’s standing there, looking around like he owns the place, I’d make him for some sort of muscle.”
“What would they be needing with muscle at the Hotel Latimore?”
“Good question, but a guy that size, I’m not going to tap him on the shoulder and ask.”
“Does that mean you’re not going in?”
“I thought we’d sit here and stake out the place, maybe catch Tanya coming in or out.”
“And how would you recognize her, you fool? You got a picture?”
“No, I’ve got something better.”
“What?”
“You. We’ll stay right here, keep an eye out while we’re keeping out of the big guy’s way.”
“I didn’t know I was sitting next to a coward. Ugly, I knew. Dumb as a post, I knew. A taste in clothes would kill a mongoose, I knew.”
“What about the tie?”
“The tie, I like. What happened, you pull it out of a box of Cracker Jack?”
“It’s silk, baby.”
“Then it must have been a gift, because you being cheap as a two-bit whore, I knew. But I didn’t mark you as a coward.”
“Well, now you know that, too.”
“Keep hold of that tie. Yellow suits you.”
“Wait a second,” I said as a big red car slid to a stop right behind the van. “Wasn’t that car parked outside Madam Anna’s?”
We had driven to the Hotel Latimore right after our meeting with the good reverend in the fortune teller’s fortune-telling room. We had parked well down the road, in what I thought to be prime surveillance position. I had hoped we could get a jump on the situation before Reverend Wilkerson put out the word that Horace and I were personae non gratae, but that plan now seemed to have gone awry. The reverend himself stepped out of the red car, looked around, stopped his pan in the direction of my car, peered a little closer. He put his hand on the big guy’s shoulder and had a few words, pointing in our direction. I was coming to the conclusion that my surveillance technique, to be frank, sucked.
“You think he’s talking about us?” I said.
“You maybe. He’s got no beef with me.”
“Don’t slight yourself, Horace.”
“Go ahead, try to push this all off on Horace T. Grant, you yellow-tie coward. But that dog won’t hunt. Any idiot can see I’m just along for the ride.”
“You know, Horace,” I said, “except for that you are a hundred years older than me and a foot shorter than me and black, except for all that, we could be twins.”
“I dress better.”
“That you do. Here they come.”
“Shouldn’t we drive away?”
“That would denote weakness.”
“Nothing wrong with denoting. I’m all for denoting. But if we’re not driving away, shouldn’t we maybe lock the doors?”
“I tried that once before, and it didn’t work out so well. Come on, let’s step on out and face the music.”
We both climbed out from the car and leaned against the hood in as close to a posture of nonchalance as we could muster while Reverend Wilkerson, with his graveyard hunch, crossed the street toward us. The man mountain in the leather coat stayed slightly behind the reverend as they approached, and he looked away from us, first down one side of the street and then down the other, not an ounce of concern on his face. As far as he could tell, we weren’t trouble, we weren’t even potential trouble, we were gnats on the wall.
“I expected you’d pay us a visit, Mr. Carl,” said Reverend Wilkerson with his usual broad smile, “but I didn’t think you’d move with such alacrity.”
“Horace was telling me about the good work you do here, Reverend. I was hoping you could give me a tour of your facilities.”
“That won’t be possible. We don’t allow uninvited visitors, and you most surely are that. No one likes a snoop, especially Rex. Isn’t that right, Rex?”
The big man, while still looking away, scrunched up his face and grimaced, showing a row of twisted teeth. “That’s right, Mr. Reverend, sir,” he said in a rich bass.
“And of course the remark comparing what we do here to Waco was rather frightening, seeing as that situation ended in fire and death. Did you mean that as a threat, Mr. Carl?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I merely used it as an example of how small misunderstandings between people of goodwill can sometimes spiral out of control.”