“Then why did he walk by the house three times in fifteen minutes?”
She glanced at him again and hit her brakes to avoid a car in front of them.
“Do you trust me, Mark?” she asked.
He looked at her as if surprised by the question. “Of course I trust you, Reggie.”
She smiled and patted his arm. “Then stick with me.”
One advantage of an architectural horror like St. Peter’s was the existence of lots of doors and exits few people knew about. With additions stuck here, and wings added over there as an afterthought, there had been created over the course of time little nooks and alleys seldom used and rarely discovered by lost security guards.
When they arrived, Clint had been hustling around the hospital for thirty minutes with no success. He’d managed to become lost himself three different times. He was sweating and apologizing as they met at the parking lot.
“Just follow me,” Mark said, and they darted across the street and entered through the emergency gate. They wove through heavy rush-hour hall traffic and found an ancient escalator going down.
“I hope you know where you’re going,” Reggie said, obviously in doubt and half-jogging in an effort to keep up with him. Clint was sweating even harder. “No problem,” Mark said, and opened a door leading to the kitchen.
“We’re in the kitchen, Mark,” Reggie said, looking around.
“Just be cool. Act like you’re supposed to be here.”
He punched a button by a service elevator and the door opened instantly. He punched another button on the inside panel, and they lurched upward, headed for floor number ten. “There are eighteen floors in the main section, but this elevator stops at number ten. It will not stop at nine. Figure it out.” He watched the numbers above the door and explained this like a bored tour guide.
“What happens on ten?” Clint asked between breaths.
“Just wait.”
The door opened on ten, and they stepped into a huge closet with rows of shelves filled with towels and bedsheets. Mark was off, darting between the aisles. He opened a heavy metal door and they were suddenly in the hallway with patient rooms right and left. He pointed to his left, kept walking, and stopped before an emergency exit door with red and yellow alarm warnings all over it. He grabbed the bar handle across the front of it, and Reggie and Clint stopped cold.
He pushed the door open, and nothing happened. “Alarms don’t work,” he said nonchalantly, and bounded down the steps to the ninth floor. He opened another door, and suddenly they were in a quiet hallway with thick industrial carpet and no traffic. He pointed again, and they were off, past patient rooms, around a bend, and by the nurses’ station, where they glanced down another hall and saw the loiterers by the elevators.
“Good morning, Mark,” Karen the beautiful called out as they hurried by. But she said this without a smile.
“Hi, Karen,” he answered without slowing.
Dianne was sitting in a folding chair in the hall with a Memphis cop kneeling before her. She was crying, and had been for some time. The two security guards were standing together twenty feet away. Mark saw the cop and the tears and ran for his mother. She grabbed him and they hugged.
“What’s the matter, Mom?” he asked, and she cried harder.
“Mark, your trailer burned last night,” the cop said. “Just a few hours ago.”
Mark glared at him in disbelief, then squeezed his mother around the neck. She was wiping tears and trying to compose herself.
“How bad?” Mark asked.
“Real bad,” the cop said sadly as he stood and held his cap with both hands. “Everything’s gone.”
“What started the fire?” Reggie asked.
“Don’t know right now. The fire inspector will be on the scene this morning. Could be electrical.”
“I need to talk to the fire inspector, okay,” Reggie insisted, and the cop looked her over.
“And who are you?” he asked.
“Reggie Love, attorney for the family.”
“Ah, yes. I saw the paper this morning.”
She handed him a card. “Please ask the fire inspector to call me.”
“Sure, lady.” The cop carefully placed the hat on his head and looked down again at Dianne. He was sad again. “Ms. Sway, I’m very sorry about this.”
“Thank you,” she said, wiping her face. He nodded at Reggie and Clint, backed away, and left in a hurry. A nurse appeared and stood by just in case.
Dianne suddenly had an audience. She stood and stopped crying, even managed a smile at Reggie.
“This is Clint Van Hooser. He works for me,” Reggie said.
Dianne smiled at Clint. “I’m very sorry,” he said.
“Thank you,” Dianne said softly. A few seconds of awkward silence followed as she finished wiping her face. Her arm was around Mark, who was still dazed.
“Did he behave?” Dianne asked.
“He was wonderful. He ate enough for a small army.”
“That’s good. Thanks for having him over.”
“How’s Ricky?” Reggie asked.
“He had a good night. Dr. Greenway stopped by this morning, and Ricky was awake and talking. Looks much better.”
“Does he know about the fire?” Mark asked.
“No. And we’re not telling him, okay?”
“Okay, Mom. Could we go inside and talk, just me and you?”
Dianne smiled at Reggie and Clint, and led Mark into the room. The door was closed, and the tiny Sway family was all alone with all its worldly possessions.
The honorable Harry Roosevelt had presided over the Shelby County Juvenile Court for twenty-two years now, and despite the dismal and depressing nature of the court’s business he had conducted its affairs with a great deal of dignity. He was the first black Juvenile Court judge in Tennessee, and when he’d been appointed by the governor in the early seventies, his future was brilliant and there were glowing predictions of higher courts for him to conquer.
The higher courts were still there, and Harry Roosevelt was still here, in the deteriorating building known simply as Juvenile Court. There were much nicer courthouses in Memphis. On Main Street the Federal Building, always the newest in town, housed the elegant and stately courtrooms. The federal boys always had the best — rich carpet, thick leather chairs, heavy oak tables, plenty of lights, dependable air-conditioning, lots of well-paid clerks and assistants. A few blocks away, the Shelby County Courthouse was a beehive of judicial activity as thousands of lawyers roamed its tiled and marbled corridors and worked their way through well-preserved and well-scrubbed courtrooms. It was an older building, but a beautiful one with paintings on the walls and a few statues scattered about. Harry could have had a courtroom over there, but he said no. And not far away was the Shelby County Justice Center with a maze of fancy new modern courtrooms with bright fluorescent lights and sound systems and padded seats. Harry could have had one of those too, but he turned it down.
He remained here, in the Juvenile Court Building, a converted high school blocks away from downtown with little parking and few janitors and more cases per judge than any other docket in the world. His court was the unwanted stepchild of the judicial system. Most lawyers shunned it. Most law students dreamed of plush offices in tall buildings and wealthy clients with thick wallets. Never did they dream of slugging their way through the roach-infested corridors of Juvenile Court.
Harry had turned down four appointments, all to courts where the heating systems worked in the winter. He had been considered for these appointments because he was smart and black, and he turned them down because he was poor and black. They paid him sixty thousand a year, lowest of any court in town, so he could feed his wife and four teenagers and live in a nice home. But he’d known hunger as a child, and those memories were vivid. He would always think of himself as a poor black kid.