“But not Henry,” I prodded.
“Brawly brought him by—”
“So you and Brawly still talked?”
“Of course we did. I was close as a mother to that boy. He’d get jealous when I had a man around. That’s why him and Aldridge fought—”
“So that did happen?”
“Yeah,” Isolda said. “Only it was just a push-fight. They were gettin’ close again already. It was just the whiskey that made them mad.”
“So what happened with Henry?”
“He said that he was tired of tryin’ to fight for equal rights, that he’d been active in politics all these years and nuthin’ was changin’, not really. He said that he was gonna make a big deal and then go to a country where black men knew how to be bankers and presidents. He said he wanted me to be with him.”
“He didn’t tell you that his money was really comin’ from the cops?”
“He didn’t say nuthin’ but that he was gonna make a deal. But now that you say it, it makes sense. You’re right, I knew what was happenin’ ’cause Brawly told me about it. Brawly tells me everything.”
“What’s Aldridge got to do with all this?”
“Brawly told him, too,” Isolda whispered. “He knew that it was Aldridge with his uncle in that robbery all them years ago. That’s why him and his daddy fought back then. He was mad at Aldridge ’cause he knew that Alva went crazy ’cause her brother died. For a long time he was mad but then he told Aldridge that he was gonna do the same thing. He was gonna rob a payroll.”
There was a lull in the conversation then. Isolda was getting on thin ice and I was afraid to find out who might fall in with her.
Finally I asked, “So did Brawly do it?”
“No.”
I couldn’t help the smile on my face. Even if Isolda was lying, at least she was protecting Brawly.
“Who did?” I asked.
“Mercury.”
I wasn’t surprised. Mercury had the build for the kind of violence that was visited upon Aldridge.
I wasn’t surprised but I asked, “How the hell did Mercury get in on it?”
“He was hangin’ out with all of us. And one day I found cotton panties with that little bitch Tina Montes’s name written in ’em — in Hank’s bottom drawer.”
“Oh.”
“He didn’t put no ring on my finger, so when he’d tell me he was too busy or he was tired, I’d call Mercury and get him to come by.”
“So you told Mercury about the robbery?”
“Naw. He was already in it. Brawly told Hank about Mercury and he asked him to help us plan it. Then Merc found out that Aldridge was makin’ noise that he wouldn’t let Brawly be part of any robbery. He told me to ask him to my house so they could talk, alone.”
“So you were in on the plan to kill him,” I accused.
“No. I wasn’t even in town. I was in Riverside, like I said. I didn’t know what Merc was gonna do.”
“What you think he was gonna do?”
“Talk,” she complained. “Like he said. But after...after he told me that Aldridge attacked him. It was self-defense.”
“And was Henry Strong self-defense, too?”
“I told Merc that Henry planned to run. I had to. Henry wouldn’t let me in on what they was doin’. He wanted to take me away but he didn’t wanna get married. What would I do if he left me high and dry in Jamaica?”
“So what was I doin’ there?” I asked her.
“Mercury told Henry that you were followin’ Brawly and Conrad. He said that he wanted to beat you up bad enough that you’d lay off until the job was over. Then he told Conrad that Henry and you was gonna throw ’em ovah.”
“So they planned to kill me, too?”
Isolda looked away.
— 44 —
“Where’s Brawly?” I asked, just to see what she would say.
“I don’t know.”
“If you in on the plan, then why wouldn’t you know?”
“They were all shaken up with the bust and you nosin’ around. With all that heat, they went into hiding,” she said. “Mercury said that he was gonna come to me after it was all over. He said that we’d go down to Texas and split his share.”
The fact that she could say those words amazed me. I just stared at her, wondering how she could get so deep into evil and not seem to have any remorse at all.
“What?” she asked. “What?”
“Why did Strong want to get in with Mercury in the first place?” I asked. “I mean, he’s no race man.”
“Henry didn’t talk to me about that. He didn’t even know that I knew anything,” Isolda said. “But Brawly told me that he was interested in the construction business from the beginning. He talked to him about payrolls and the police. And when he heard that Mercury and Chapman specialized in payrolls, Hank said that he wanted to meet them.”
I just shook my head.
“It’s not like you think,” she said. “I’m just tryin’ to make it.”
“By turnin’ Brawly in?”
“I was tryin’ to save him.”
“Save him how? By blamin’ him for murder?”
“I only said that. I knew he had a alibi. He was with me. He the one drove me up to Riverside. All kindsa people saw us. I thought that if I told John and Alva that he might’a killed Aldridge, that they would have taken him away or somethin’. I didn’t want him messed up with Merc an’ them. I knew that it’d be dangerous.”
“Why was Brawly with them in the first place?”
“He thought that they were raising money for the First Men,” she said. “That they were going to use it to build their school.”
“Where’s Brawly?” I asked again.
“I don’t know. They in hidin’, like I told you. They was in a house down Watts but they got scared because that bitch Tina was supposed to show up but she never did. They thought that you must’a grabbed her or somethin’.”
“Then they called off the robbery?”
“They never told her about what they were doin’,” Isolda said. “They asked me to rent ’em a house, but I said no. I didn’t want to be tied to no robbery. So they got her to do it, but she didn’t know why.”
“If you know where they ain’t, then why don’t you know where they are?” I asked.
“I don’t,” she whined. “They broke up and went into hidin’. All they told me was that they was gonna take refuge, that was somethin’ Strong used to talk about. They only gonna come out when it’s time to do the job.”
For some time I had wanted to slap Isolda Moore across her face. The desire became stronger as the minutes went by. Finally I stood up. The suddenness of my motion scared her enough that she pushed back and fell over in her chair.
I didn’t help her to her feet.
“You better run, woman,” I said. “Because I’m not gonna let that robbery take place. And when they catch your boy Mercury, you better believe he’s gonna turn over on you.”
Down on the street and in my car I didn’t know what to do. I had solved a crime that nobody asked me to solve. It wasn’t my job to catch murderers or foil robberies. All I had to do was keep Brawly out of trouble. But that was impossible because he was in trouble before I was called in.
I drove in circles, wondering what I should do. I was afraid to go to John because he might have put his own life on the line trying to save the boy. Lakeland was planning to catch them in the commission of the crime, I was sure of that. He would clean out the problem by setting them up.
Tina wouldn’t have talked to me; neither would Xavier.
Clarissa was at Sam’s house but she refused to come to the phone.
I finally decided to go over to John’s lots. Him and Chapman were working on the support for the front porch of a faux-adobe house. It struck me as senseless to be working while so much wrong was going on. How could those men still lift their hammers, knowing that their best friends and loved ones had gone so far astray?