“You from the city?”
“No,” I said.
“You’re not here about them back taxes? He been getting letters.”
“No, we’re not from the city.”
“You cops, then?”
“Not that either,” I said. “I’m simply a friend of a friend. And these are my friends. We came to say hello.”
“In a suit?”
“I like to play it formal. My name’s Victor Carl.”
“I got to check with Romeo afore I let you in.”
“Romeo, huh? Is that what he’s calling himself? That’s almost sweet. Well, then, by all means check with Romeo. Tell him Victor Carl is here to see him. I’m sure Romeo will think it’s time we met at last.”
The woman eyed us for a moment longer and then pushed herself off of the bench, pulled open the screen door, and slipped into the house. A moment later she came back through the doorway, the screen door slamming behind her.
“Romeo’ll be out in a minute,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Maybe you should wait on that,” she said before sitting down again.
When the screen door opened once more, standing there wasn’t a dissolute drug addict with curly dark locks and a pout as I expected. Instead it was a giant of a man, with no neck and a shirt that hung over his belly like a curtain. A man to make Antoine look small.
“Where’s Romeo?” I said.
“I’m Romeo,” said the man, his voice deep enough to send wild dogs scurrying.
“You got to be kidding,” I said.
“Time to go,” said Romeo.
“I’m here to see Terry,” I said.
“That too bad,” said Romeo, “’cause Terry told me he don’t want to see no one.”
“But he’ll want to see Victor here,” said Derek. “We’ve traveled five hundred miles to find him. Why don’t you let us in there, Romeo? We’re just a friendly little crew. No reason to make a fuss about this.”
“There isn’t going to be no fuss,” said Romeo.
“You right about that,” said Antoine, taking a step forward.
“Antoine?” said Romeo, squinting down at him.
“Hey there, Bradley,” said Antoine. “You look like you eating at least.”
“You not starving yourself neither.”
“What the hell are you doing here, bwoy? Last time I saw you, there was work in Boston you were headed to.”
“It didn’t pan out.”
“So now you hanging out here with this motley bunch.”
Romeo shrugged. “It’s a place.”
“This is step back, bruddah.”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Well, bwoy, that’s just sad, that is. Now we’re going inside to talk to this man. And, Bradley, you don’t want to be getting in our way.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Antoine.”
“It’s not me you should be fearing, bwoy. Step aside, or I’ll tell your muddah what you’re up to, and she’ll tell Earl, and then Earl, he will lick you for sure.”
“Not from where he is.”
“Stop playing the fool, mon. You think he can’t reach out from lockup to take care of his likkle bruddah?”
Romeo stared at Antoine for a moment, licked his lips, and then stepped back, keeping the screen door open.
“Up the stairs,” he said, “room at the back.”
“You done right, bwoy,” said Antoine, brushing past Romeo to step inside the house. Derek and I glanced at each other nervously and then quickly followed.
The inside of the house was dark, filthy, a fetid swamp covered with a foul mist of smoke and despair. The living room, if it could still be called that, was crowded with mattresses and sleeping bags and dazed humans lounging lethargically as a large-screen television flickered. It smelled like feces and sweat, laced with marihuana. Two dogs yapped at us and snarled before someone threw a shoe. I started itching just being in there. On the far side of the room was a narrow staircase. We picked our way past the mattresses and sleeping bags. A hand grabbed at my ankle, and I kicked it off.
A few ghosts, languid and vacant, drifted down the stairs. As we rose past them, the sounds of a rock ’n’ roll band and a plaintive male voice climbed above the noise of the television. A whining, complaining voice wailing about bitter pills and love and loss.
On the second floor, there were four doors closed, the sounds of slow shuffling movement coming from within one, from another a groaning. And then the music, sad and angry and wistful all at once coming from the rear room, the front man not really singing, more howling out in desperation. Follow the voice, I figured.
A girl was sitting on the floor in front of the door, picking at a thumbnail.
“Terry in there?” I said.
She looked up at me, a pretty girl, young and thin, her face a terrifying blank.
“Let’s go, sister,” said Antoine, putting out his big mitt.
She placed her tiny hand in his and stood up slowly, swaying once before she moved away from the door.
I gave her a long look and then said to Antoine, “Wait out here. Make sure we’re not disturbed.”
“Not a problem, mon.”
I turned to Derek, nodded once, and pushed the door open. A waft of sickeningly sweet smoke tumbled out of the doorway along with the earsplitting music.
Together we pressed inside.
35
We entered a room so out of place in the middle of that crack house that my breath caught in my chest.
It was like a gentleman’s room from centuries past, or a whore’s boudoir, with blood-red curtains and gold flocked wallpaper. There was a huge, ornate bed in the middle of the bare floor, its carved posts reaching almost to the ceiling, its velvet bedspread mussed, its brown paisley pillows awry. The windows were closed, the curtains drawn, the room ill lit and smoky. In the corner sat a broken guitar, the neck detached from its body.
A cone of light fell from a lamp to illuminate a small desk set against one of the walls, where a man, with his back to us, was bent over, writing, writing away, scribbling with a great urgency, as if the true meaning of the world had just been passed to him in a whisper. He was wearing a jacket, jeans, no shoes, as the music poured out around him. Beside him on the desk was an ashtray with the stub of a dead joint perched on its edge.
I softly closed the door behind Derek and me, stepped over to the stereo. The band’s front man was now raging in compressed anger, a soul-shattering blast of teenage angst. In the middle of the howl, I punched the power button. The music died.
“Romeo,” the man at the desk called out sleepily, dreamily, even as he kept with his scribbling.
“Romeo’s busy,” I said.
Without moving his body, he tilted his head and held it for a moment, then turned around. He had a pale, handsome face, so classical in its features it was like a painted Greek statue come to life, cleft chin, thick pouting lips, cheeks smooth as alabaster, their highlights red as rouge. His curly black hair fell carelessly across his forehead, so perfectly carelessly that you could tell it wasn’t careless at all. I would have expected a shock of surprise on that strange mask of a face, but there was none. It was as if nothing could surprise its owner.
“Ah, so it’s you,” he said leisurely, through a blurry smile. “I wondered when you’d come.”
“And here I am,” I said.
“What’s the matter? Didn’t you find the music soothing?”
“More like a pick in the eye,” I said.
Terrence Tipton’s own eyes, red rimmed and blue irised, squinted in stoned amusement. But it wasn’t his eyes that drew my attention, it was his chest. He was wearing a suit coat but no shirt, and his chest was a gory thing, pustuled with welts and boils, striped with scars.
“Maybe you could come back later,” he said. “I’m working.”
“On what? A suicide note?”
“No, but keep hoping. Poetry. I dabble. ‘Such is the refuge of our youth and age.’”
“Sorry to interrupt your great work, but we need to talk.”
“Do we?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How did you find me? Julia?”