"Nothin', Crissie. Just talked mostly about ol' times, is all. Wasn't nothin' to it."
"Wardell Helms you ain't got the sense Spirit done give you and you tell me ain't nothin' to it."
The Mother shoved a chair away from the kitchen table, jerked her head at it.
"You set right down and tell me every word that passed between you two."
"Aw, come on, Crissie. The game's on."
She flapped a hand.
"I don't care nothin' 'bout no foolishness on the TV. Now sit down!"
It was his house and Wardell Helms was a big man, but he left his beer warming by the recliner and took the hard chair pushed toward him.
23
The bar was busy for a Sunday afternoon, most of the patrons sitting with their heads tilted up at the TVs. The Raiders and Broncos were brawling it out and as much as Frank wanted to watch the game, she had to concentrate on writing her notes.
Bored with resting and being nursed, albeit by the loveliest of nurses, Frank had run out to Eagle Rock hoping to talk to the Mother's other sister. She'd been initially disappointed that Jessie Helms wasn't home, but her husband, Wardell, was pretty talkative when he realized Frank didn't have a grudge with him. He'd offered her a beer—she'd demurred—and he'd settled back into his easy chair keeping half an eye on the morning game.
Turned out he grew up with the Mother in a little suburb outside of Compton that got buried under the Artesia Freeway. She let him talk about growing up, gently leading him where she wanted him. They all four of them, Crissie, Jessie, Olivia and Wardell, used to hang together catching crawfish and frogs in the ditch behind their house and chasing dragonflies with mayonnaise jars. They hung out in the same gang, the Black Swans.
"Nothing like the gangs today," he'd chuckled. "Lord, the things we did back then."
That's when the Mother had really started making her mark, mojoing rivals and hexing their girls. Crissie was arrogant and strong-willed, and Olivia whetted her budding piety on her sister's transgressions. Jessie, the quiet one, went her own way, and while not as good looking as her sisters, she was kinder.
"She a good woman and I'm still proud to have her on my arm."
Wardell had sipped on his beer, continuing, "Now you take Olivia. There's a woman whose love of the Lord has turned her bitter and close-minded. And Crissie, she started off with religion, their folks raised 'em right, but she took off on her own path."
He'd heard stories about her on the street. What she did in that church of hers. Dark things. Things he wouldn't listen to anymore and didn't want to believe were true.
"Like what?" Frank had asked.
"Naht—" He held up a meaty palm. "I don't mess with that. Jessie don't tell me nuthin' and I don't ask. I do not want to know," he stressed.
"How come?" Frank pushed, looking perplexed.
"I hear, rumors, a'ight? 'At's enough for me. At's more 'an I wanna know."
"How 'bout her business?"
Helms shook his big head.
"Crissie married into money. 'At's all I know. How she runs her affairs ain't no concern a mine."
"She married into money?"
The big man nodded, taking a long pull off his Coors.
"Right outta high school." He smacked his lips. "Married Old Man Love. Her daddy was dead by then. He'd a never stood for that. You know ML Laundries? Off Manchester and another to 76th, 77th Street? Those were his. And that old warehouse she livin' in? He won that in a game a low-ball. Can you believe that?"
Helms shook his head again, as if awed by the inequities in life.
"Pretty lucky guy," Frank agreed.
Helms snorted, "Not that lucky. Old Man died before his and Crissie's first anniversary."
"What'd he die of?"
"Old age? I don't know. Said it was natural causes. Natural enough a man his age couldn't keep up with the likes of a gal Crissie's age."
"How long before she remarried?"
Helms thought hard.
"It was some while. Before she took up with Eldridge, she was with a fella named Roosevelt. Lincoln Roosevelt. I always remembered him 'count of he was named after the presidents."
"Nice guy?"
"Line? He was tight. Kinda close-mouthed like Crissie. She got that church from him. He was a preacher too, if I recall correct. But she didn't bring him around too much before he went off to Kansas or someplace like that."
"He just gave her the church?"
"Yeah, I don't know." Helms waved a big hand. "You'd have to ask Jessie about that. All I know was he was gone and she got the church. And that fine Cadillac she still driving. That's a good car, Cadillac, uh-huh, way they made 'em back then."
"So who'd she take up with after Roosevelt?"
"I don't know that there wasn't anybody serious 'til Eldridge. Crissie fell for that man," he chuckled. "I mean hard. And God Almighty what a hustler he was. They was a perfect match those two. Mean as a nest of baby rattlesnakes and twice as hungry. Both of 'em. 'At's when she fell in with those Panamanians."
Helms tensed, his face locking into the mask of someone who realizes he's said too much. Frank didn't want to lose him so she eased into another area.
"Did she marry Eldridge?"
"Uh-huh," he said, tracking a shovel pass on the large screen TV.
"That's how she became Jones?"
"Uh-huh."
"What about her boys? Who's the father?"
"That'd been Eldridge," he answered. "They're good boys. Rough, but respectful."
"Yeah, they seem pretty devoted to their mother."
"Uh-huh."
"What do they do?"
"For work you mean?"
Frank nodded.
"Little a this, little a that. They mostly help Crissie run her businesses."
"Did she have other kids?"
"Just the twins. Didn't want no more after that."
"What happened to their father?"
"Eldridge?" Helms wagged his head again. "He got sent up to 'Dad. Got himself shanked in there. Aryan Nation done it, what I heard. Made a circle around him to keep the guards out long enough for him to bleed to death."
"Crissie"—the name felt strange in Frank's mouth—"she musta been pretty upset."
"Nah, she'd left him by then. Had no more use for that snake."
"She pretty mad at him?"
Helms grinned at her.
"Leave it to say I'm glad I wasn't Eldridge."
"Let me guess. He left her bank too?"
"No, he was different from the other ones. He didn't have much to start with. Worked the streets some, drove an old Lincoln, but he didn't have much to leave behind."
"She married him for love?"
"Much as that woman can love, yes, I believe so."
"So why'd she boot him?"
Helms chuckled again.
"You gotta understand, Eldridge was a player. Crissie couldn't keep that boy chained to her bed too long, see?"
Now it was Frank's turn to shake her head.
"What'd he get busted on?"
"Oh, he wasn't no good, old El. Got caught with five pounds of coke in his trunk. Uncut. Sent him up for dealing the stuff."
Satisfied with what she already had, Frank gambled, "And it was probably Crissie's all along."
"I ain't sayin'." Helms shrugged.
"Don't have to. Your sister-in-law's record's longer 'an your arm. What about that fortune-telling stuff she does? How long she been doin' that?"
"Oh, a long time. Crissie been doing that since we was kids. Always good at. She has her mama's talent. It runs in the Green women's blood, you know."
"She read the tea leaves for you?" Frank joked.
"She definitely has a gift for prophecy," Wardell mused. "She can see things before they happen. Between you and me," he confided, "that business makes me nervous. Jessie does it too, some, and I tell you, I don't like it. Makes me nervous."