“Wow.”
“Wow what?”
“You sound like what the crime writers call hard-pressed.”
“The guy I went to meet tried to have me killed. At least I think he did.”
I explained the situation, naming names.
“Now I have to work both jobs without pissing people off so bad that they want me dead after.”
“That’s the trick,” my murderous friend agreed. “Give me the flight number and I’ll try to put something together.”
“Hi,” she said.
She had the aisle and I was next to the window. The seat between us was empty. The plane was taxiing for takeoff and I was looking out through a foot square of reinforced glass, feeling very much out of my depth.
“Hey,” I replied, wondering if my tone revealed the pressure.
My row mate was a Black woman ten or fifteen years older than I. Her skin was oxidized gold and there were freckles — a whole field of them — across her cheeks. Gray and brown hairs curled together easily on her head and the clip-on earrings she wore were crystal and sterling silver.
“Do you mind if I move next to you?” She was already unbuckling the seat belt.
“They’ll probably yell at you.”
Smiling, the older woman heaved up and landed in the next seat.
“Please remain in your seats,” a voice said over the speaker. “We can’t take off until everyone is seated with their seat belts fastened.”
My temporary friend was already buckling up.
“I know I shouldn’t do this but...”
A flight attendant stalked down the aisle, stopping at our row. She had soft red hair and angry blue eyes.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” said the woman who was now settled next to me. “I had to say something to my, my cousin here.”
After looking to see that the seat belt was buckled, the flight attendant shook her head and smiled.
When she walked back toward the bulkhead my neighbor asked, “Would you mind holding my hand?”
For only a second I wondered if this seemingly kindly, late-middle-aged Negro woman doubled as an assassin in Zyron International’s high marshal system.
But that was paranoia.
“Sure,” I said, holding my left palm up.
Her hand was sweating, but that didn’t bother me. It was my job to help clients. She was just another in a lifelong list.
“Joe Oliver,” I said.
“Gillian Haft.”
“You not used to flying, Gillian?”
The elder considered the question with gravitas. She seemed to be grilling herself with silent inquiries.
Finally she said, “Last week a young man named Tito called me from Atlanta. He said that my niece, Omolara, had a heart attack...”
“How old is your niece?”
“Only twenty-nine and she’s always been so healthy. Anyway, I dawdled for a day before I bought my ticket, and by the time I got there she was already dead. Already dead.”
Ms. Haft’s hand clamped down on mine, allowing me to feel the pain she was going through.
“That’s hard on the heart.” It was a term my grandmother often used.
Gillian looked up at me, a sheet of tears covering the freckled cheeks under her eyes.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said. “My sister died and I’m the only one Omo had.”
“That’s what hurts so much. There’s nothing you can do, nothing you could have done. You’re no doctor. And I bet you she was unconscious from the time of the attack until the moment she passed.”
“You think so?”
“And she had that young man...”
“Tito. He was there for her. She wasn’t alone.”
When the plane lifted up in the air Gillian’s grip lightened. For the next hour or so we talked about her younger sibling and niece, how the sisters were raised in Ohio but came to New York to be models. That didn’t work out but they had good lives.
I picked up my baggage at the carousel and walked toward the outer doors.
Melquarth was standing there wearing a black suit and a limo driver’s cap. He was holding up an iPad with the name Redbird emblazoned on it. He stepped forward adroitly, grabbed my bag, and said, “Right this way, sir.”
He had a black stretch limo in the parking area and even tried to get me to sit in back.
“Naw, man,” I told him and then went around to the passenger’s door of the front seat.
After we’d cleared the parking area I asked, “What’s with all the dress-up, Mel?”
“Doin’ what the situation calls for.”
“I just said wow. How much can you read into that?”
“I got a call from a man named Ingram yesterday.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“What did Mr. Ingram have to say?”
“He told me he had a call from a cat named Rembert Cormody.”
“What did the high marshal want?”
“What’s a high marshal?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“He asked me if I vouched for you.”
“And?”
“I told him to keep his fuckin’ nose outta my business.”
“Maybe not the most friendly reply,” I speculated.
“Maybe not. But right after you and I spoke I called a cracker I know down in Florida. Asked him to go up and take a look at your boy. By the time he got there word was Ingram was gone.”
“What you mean, gone?”
“Either buried in Georgia clay or sipping mimosas on foreign soil.”
“Huh,” I grunted with maybe a little too much emphasis.
“You don’t need to get all flustered, man. If your beef was with Ingram and Ingram has been removed, then there might be some wiggle room to deal in.”
“Like in playin’ poker with the devil?”
“No,” Melquarth said optimistically. “He called the killer on you without thinking it through. You proved too much for him and they sent Ingram away.”
“I can’t count on that,” I said. “I need to find a place I can work from and to set up a meeting with Roger Ferris.”
“You also need a bodyguard.”
“Hey, man, I’m not no Whitney Houston here.”
“Maybe not, but I got one for you anyway.”
19
Mel drove us to a sushi place in the Bronx. I didn’t ask why the restaurant or the borough. A schemer, a planner extraordinaire, he knew my troubles. I assumed he’d brought us out there to offer me assistance, and also, maybe a place I could stay.
I worked on a spicy tuna roll, an eel roll, and a few pieces of uni while Mel munched on a seaweed salad.
“Eatin’ light, huh?” I said. “You’re the one that’s worried.”
He smiled, quoting, “Never eat heavy before a battle. You can feast on the enemy’s liver when he is dead at your feet.”
“Who said that?”
“Masashige. A great samurai.”
“What are we doing here, Shogun?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“There’s something I want to show you in the park.”
“Pot of gold?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
“Come on man. What are we doin’ here?”
“It’s better to see after dark.”
Van Cortlandt Park. Big enough to be a wildlife preserve. It has its own zoo.
Mel brought us to a pretty desolate parking lot with fewer than a dozen cars. There he drove through a pretty much camouflaged space bracketed by two trees. This led to a dirt road. Ten minutes later we came to an empty dirt clearing.
We climbed out and Mel led me into a stand of pine. We walked no more than seven minutes through the trees, finally coming to a large hill made mostly of stone. That knoll was likely older, and definitely larger, than any dinosaur.
It was night by then, but Mel had an electric torch to light the way. He led me to a crevice the size of a doorway. We passed maybe fifteen feet and then came to a blank wall of stone. Mel produced a flat panel that fit easily in his hand, pressed a button, and the stone wall rose, revealing a room of some size.