There was not a trace of light in her voice.
“Can you at least give me back the videotape I left here? I need to return it to the person I borrowed it from.”
“Well, all right,” she said. “I’ll just be a minute.”
In less than that, she cracked open the door and handed Gloria the tape, which she had placed in a small brown paper bag. Gloria saw that she was wearing a white terrycloth bathrobe and pale blue slippers. She’d been beautiful once, Gloria thought, but time and heartbreak had withered her.
Mrs. Diggs began to push the door closed.
“I didn’t see you at the courthouse Wednesday,” Gloria said.
“I decided not to go. Too many people. All those cameras.”
“You heard what the judge decided?”
There was tension on both sides of the door, each woman pushing lightly against it.
“Oh, yes. Kwame’s lawyer called me right away with the news.”
“If he’s released, will he be staying with you?”
“At first, yes. Until he gets a job.”
She thinks someone will hire him? Gloria thought.
“My baby might be coming home,” Mrs. Diggs said. A tear slid down her left cheek. “After all these years.”
Gloria thought she looked more apprehensive than happy. The rain was stronger now. The old woman pushed harder against the door. Gloria needed to keep her talking.
“Mrs. Diggs,” she said, “how come you’ve never asked me about my eye? I mean, you must have wondered.”
“Yes… but it’s none of my business. If you wanted to talk about it, you would have.”
“I’d like to talk about it now,” Gloria said, her lower lip quivering. “It was raining the night it happened. Now I’m terrified of the rain. Please let me in.”
“If this is another one of your tricks…”
“It’s not. I swear.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Mrs. Diggs said, opening the door wide. The bitterness slid from her shoulders, revealing the gentle, churchgoing soul beneath. “Can I get you anything? Do you need to sit down?”
“Just let me stand here for a moment and do my breathing exercise,” Gloria said.
Mrs. Diggs watched curiously until Gloria was finished.
“Does that help?” the old woman asked.
“It does.”
“Sit down, and I’ll bring you something,” she said, and walked out of the room. Gloria heard her fussing in the kitchen.
A few minutes later they were seated on the faded couch, cups of hot tea nestled in saucers on their laps.
“I’d just opened my car door when it happened,” Gloria said. “Out of nowhere, a man slammed into my back…”
Gloria felt guilty about manipulating this kindly woman; but the more she talked about the terror and humiliation of that night, the better it felt to tell the story to someone who was not being paid to listen. Mrs. Diggs sat silently, taking an occasional sip of tea.
When Gloria was finished, the woman took her hand.
“Good Lord!” she said. “You poor child.”
“It was awful,” Gloria said, “but not nearly as horrible as it was for the women and children your son killed.”
Mrs. Diggs glared at Gloria, then lowered her eyes.
“Did you watch the confession?” Gloria asked.
The woman’s head twitched, an almost imperceptible nod.
“Did you see anyone beating Kwame?”
She hunched her shoulders, then slowly shook her head.
“Did you see the way his eyes lit up when he talked about killing?”
Mrs. Diggs began to weep, her thin body racked with sobs. After a minute, maybe two, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then mumbled something.
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”
“The worst part,” the woman said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “The worst part was the way he laughed about it.”
Gloria took the teacup from the woman’s quaking hand and set it on the coffee table. Mrs. Diggs was sobbing again, her chest heaving. The robe parted, revealing a shriveled breast. Gloria averted her eyes and waited for the worst to pass.
“Mrs. Diggs? Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m not all right.”
“Neither am I,” Gloria said. “I’m scared.”
“Of my son?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you dyed your hair?”
“It is.”
The woman fell quiet again, then whispered, “Maybe they won’t let him out.”
“They’ll have to unless they discover something else to charge him with. Do you know of anything like that, Mrs. Diggs?”
The woman shook her head no.
“The police tried to connect him with unsolved crimes in Rhode Island and couldn’t find anything,” Gloria said. “Did you ever take him out of state? For a vacation, maybe?”
Another head shake. Then Mrs. Diggs began to cry again. Gloria quietly let herself out.
69
The streetlight outside Mulligan’s tenement had burned out months ago. From his kitchen window, he could barely make out the activity on the street.
He’d been drawn to the window by the pounding bass line of an overamped car radio. Some rap song he couldn’t identify. A white Escalade was rolling slowly down America Street, as if the driver were looking for an unfamiliar address. It pulled to a stop, the doors flew open, and four figures stepped out. Moments later, feet pounded on the stairwell leading to Mulligan’s second-floor apartment.
Mulligan didn’t like the feel of it. He went to the bedroom, opened his bedside table drawer, and pulled out his Colt.45.
The pistol was a family heirloom, his maternal grandfather’s sidearm when he served in the Providence Police Department. For years, it had resided in a shadow box mounted in a place of honor on Mulligan’s wall. But a few years ago, after his stories about a Mount Hope arson spree had led to death threats, he’d gotten a permit to carry. The only place he’d ever fired it was at the range at the Providence Revolver Club.
The visitors were pounding on his door now, a door not sturdy enough to keep them out if they were determined to get in. He tucked the gun into the waistband at the small of his back, went to the door, and opened it.
Four black teenagers swaggered in. They wore matching black-and-white Oakland Raiders sweatshirts and loose jeans that sagged low on their hips. Tattoos on their necks identified them as members of the Goonies, the city’s newest street gang.
“Where is it, muthafucka?” the shortest one said.
“Tell me,” Mulligan said. “Where did you guys get the name Goonies, anyway? Was it inspired by your favorite movie, or is it just an endearing form of goon?”
The short one raised an eyebrow and cracked a smile. “Shit,” he said, “I don’t muthafuckin’ know.”
Which was when Larry Bird decided to join the conversation: “Theeee Yankees win!”
“There’s the muthafucka!” the tallest one said.
“So,” the shortest one said, “why’d you steal our muthafuckin’ bird?”
“I didn’t,” Mulligan said. “After the shooting at Chad Brown, the cops didn’t want to be bothered with it, so they gave it to me.”
“You’ve been taking care of the muthafucka?” the short one said.
“I have,” Mulligan said.
“Feeding it and cleaning the cage and shit?”
“Yup.”
“That’s cool,” the short one said. “But we want the muthafucka back.”
“Can you prove it’s yours?”
“It belonged to my muthafuckin’ cousin,” the tall one said.
“The guy who got shot?”
“Yeah.”
The guys who shot him were also driving a white Escalade, Mulligan remembered, but he figured it best not to bring that up.
“How’d you find me?” Mulligan asked.
“We been askin’ around,” the short one said.
Mulligan raised an eyebrow. The short one did not elaborate.
“You gonna give us trouble, muthafucka?” the tall one asked.
“Muthafucka!” Larry Bird said. “Muthafucka! Muthafucka! Muthafucka!”