Down in the living room, the television still played loud, a black-and-white film of the Liston-Clay fight, which my father had spoke of often. He was missing the fight now. His chin was resting on his chest and his useless hand was kinda curled up like a claw in his lap. The light from the television grayed his face. His eyelids weren’t shut all the way, and the whites showed. Aside from his chest, which was moving some, he looked like he was dead.
Time will just fuck you up.
I can remember this one evening with my father, back around ’74. He had been home from the war for a while, and was working for the Government Printing Office at the time. We were over there on the baseball field, on Princeton, next to Park View Elementary. I musta been around six or seven. My father’s shadow was long and straight, and the sun was throwing a warm gold color on the green of the field. He was still in his work clothes, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His natural was full and his chest filled the fabric of his shirt. He was tossing me this small football, one of them K-2s he had bought me, and telling me to run toward him after I caught it, to see if I could break his tackle. He wasn’t gonna tackle me for real, he just wanted me to get a feel for the game. But I wouldn’t run to him. I guess I didn’t want to get hurt, was what it was. He got aggravated with me eventually, lost his patience and said it was time to get on home. I believe he quit on me that day. At least, that’s the way it seems to me now.
I wanted to go over to his wheelchair, not hug him or nothing that dramatic, but maybe give him a pat on his shoulder. But if he woke up he would ask me what was wrong, why was I touching him, all that. So I didn’t go near him. I had to meet with Leticia about this thing we was doing, anyway. I stepped light on the clear plastic runner my mother had on the carpet, and closed the door quiet on my way out the house.
On the way to Leticia’s I cupped a match against the snow and fired up the joint. I drew on it deep and held it in my lungs. I hit it regular as I walked south.
My head was beginning to smile as I neared the house Leticia stayed in, over on Otis Place. I wet my fingers in the snow and squeezed the ember of the joint to put it out. I wanted to save some for Le-tee. We were gonna celebrate.
The girl, Flora, had witnessed the murder of Rico Jennings. I knew this because we, Leticia and me that is, had found her and made her tell what she knew. Well, Leticia had. She can be a scary woman when she wants to be. She broke hard on Flora, got up in her face and bumped her in an alley. Flora cried and talked. She had been out walking with Rico that night, back up on Otis, around the elementary, when this boy, Marquise Roberts, rolled up on them in a black Caprice. Marquise and his squad got out the car and surrounded Rico, shoved him some and shit like that. Flora said it seemed like that was all they was gonna do. Then Marquis drew an automatic and put three in Rico, one while Rico was on his feet and two more while Marquise was standing over him. Flora said Marquise was smiling as he pulled the trigger.
“Ain’t no doubt now, is it?” said Marquise, turning to Flora. “You mine.”
Marquise and them got back in their car and rode off, and Flora ran to her home. Rico was dead, she explained. Wouldn’t do him no good if she stayed at the scene.
Flora said that she would never talk to the police. Leticia told her she’d never have to, that as Rico’s aunt she just needed to know.
Now we had a killer and a wit. I could have gone right to Detective Barnes, but I knew about that anonymous tip line in the District, the Crime Solvers thing. We decided that Leticia would call and get that number assigned to her, the way they do, and she would eventually collect the $1,000 reward, which we’d split. Flora would go into witness security, where they’d move her to far Northeast or something like that. So she wouldn’t get hurt, or be too far from her family, and Leticia and me would get five hundred each. It wasn’t much, but it was more than I’d ever had in my pocket at one time. More important to me, someday, when Marquise was put away and his boys fell, like they always do, I could go to my mother and father and tell them that I, Verdon Coates, had solved a homicide. And it would be worth the wait, just to see the look of pride on my father’s face.
I got to the row house on Otis where Leticia stayed at. It was on the 600 block, those low-slung old places they got painted gray. She lived on the first floor.
Inside the common hallway, I came to her door. I knocked and took off my knit cap and shook the snow off it, waiting for her to come. The door opened, but only a crack. It stopped as the chain of the slide bolt went taut. Leticia looked at me over the chain. I could see dirt tracks on the part of her face that showed, from where she’d been crying. She was a hard-looking woman, had always been, even when she was young. I’d never seen her so shook.
“Ain’t you gonna let me in?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong with you, girl?”
“I don’t want to see you and you ain’t comin’ in.”
“I got some nice smoke, Leticia.”
“Leave outta here, Verdon.”
I listened to the bass of a rap thing, coming from another apartment. Behind it, a woman and a man were having an argument.
“What happened?” I said. “Why you been cryin’?”
“Marquise came,” said Leticia. “Marquise made me cry.”
My stomach dropped some. I tried not to let it show on my face.
“That’s right,” said Leticia. “Flora musta told him about our conversation. Wasn’t hard for him to find Rico’s aunt.”
“He threaten you?”
“He never did, direct. Matter of fact, that boy was smilin’ the whole time he spoke to me.” Leticia’s lip trembled. “We came to an understandin’, Verdon.”
“What he say?”
“He said that Flora was mistaken. That she wasn’t there the night Rico was killed, and she would swear to it in court. And that if I thought different, I was mistaken, too.”
“You sayin’ that you’re mistaken, Leticia?”
“That’s right. I been mistaken about this whole thing.”
“Leticia—”
“I ain’t tryin’ to get myself killed for five hundred dollars, Verdon.”
“Neither am I.”
“Then you better go somewhere for a while.”
“Why would I do that?”
Leticia said nothing.
“You give me up, Leticia?”
Leticia cut her eyes away from mine. “Flora,” she said, almost a whisper. “She told him ’bout some skinny, older-lookin’ dude who was standin’ in the alley the day I took her for bad.”
“You gave me up?”
Leticia shook her head slowly and pushed the door shut. It closed with a soft click.
I didn’t pound on the door or nothing like that. I stood there stupidly for some time, listening to the rumble of the bass and the argument still going between the woman and man. Then I walked out the building.
The snow was coming down heavy. I couldn’t go home, so I walked toward the avenue instead.
I had finished the rest of my vodka, and dropped the bottle to the curb, by the time I got down to Georgia. A Third District cruiser was parked on the corner, with two officers inside it, drinking coffee from paper cups. It was late, and with the snow and the cold there wasn’t too many people out. The Spring Laundromat, used to be a Roy Rogers or some shit like it, was packed with men and women, just standing around, getting out of the weather. I could see their outlines behind that nicotine-stained glass, most of them barely moving under those dim lights.
This time of night, many of the shops had closed. I was hungry, but Morgan’s Seafood had been boarded up for a year now, and The Hunger Stopper, had those good fish sandwiches, was dark inside. What I needed was a beer, but Giant had locked its doors. I could have gone to the titty bar between Newton and Otis, but I had been roughed in there too many times.