“...that you might not be able to deliver. Certainly Boyd, when he called this morning, indicated the possibility.”
“No. I’ll make it happen.”
Maybe I would. Not sure yet. Still bobbing and weaving, when I should be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.
“So,” he said, “this is the payoff call.”
No pompous phraseology when we were this down-to-business.
“Yeah,” I said. “I still have to go in the office and deal with the cops. You’re sure my cover story will hold?”
“For now, yes. Long-term, of course, doubtful.”
That meant no.
“Tell the client,” I said, “to arrange the drop for me to pick it up tonight at four A.M.”
“Why four A.M.?”
“I have things to do until then.”
“Sounds like another busy night.”
“I do try to make good use of my time.”
We hung up.
Back at Coalition HQ, I found Ruth finally at her desk. But one of the detectives was interviewing her. I was on my way to my usual post when a hand wrapped around my arm. Not firm, not gentle.
I turned and looked into the beautiful if troubled, heart-shaped face of Mrs. Raymond Wesley Lloyd. Big brown eyes, apple cheeks, gentle slope of a nose, bright red-lipsticked full lips, lovely mahogany complexion, shoulder-length processed curls. She wore a fur-collared gray topcoat beneath which a black dress with pearls peeked.
“Excuse me, young man,” she said. I had a hunch she might be twenty years older than me, but it might have only been ten. “Are you Mr. Blake?”
“John Blake, yes, ma’am.”
She beamed, beautifully, but it didn’t make the pain in her eyes go away. “Could I speak with you? Could we perhaps step outside?”
Nobody ever asked me to step outside so sweetly before.
“Absolutely,” I said, and instinctively took her arm and stepped outside into a chilly but not windy afternoon. Did I sense Ruth’s eyes following us, or was that my imagination?
“Young man,” she began, but I interrupted.
“Mrs. Lloyd,” I said, “please make it ‘Jack.’ When a woman as lovely as you calls me ‘young man,’ I feel like the world has passed me by.”
She gave me a wide white smile, and maybe her eyes weren’t quite so sad now. Not quite.
“I’m going to impose on you,” she said. “I don’t know you at all, but I want to ask you something personal, if I may.”
“Impose away.”
She smiled again, but she’d put her dazzling white teeth away. “You were on the weekend campus trip.”
“I was.”
“I’ve heard from... my spies... that you and, uh, the young lady... Ruth... are something of an item.”
“We’ve been spending some time together.”
“Did you spend time together on the bus trip?”
“We did.”
“Did she... did she spend any time with my husband?”
“She did not.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“Can you keep a secret, Mrs. Lloyd?”
“You have my word.”
“I hate to kiss and tell, but Ruth and I spent the night.”
Relief flooded her face. “Well... thank you. Though I hope I don’t seem catty if I make another comment, which is that it doesn’t surprise me she found someone to sleep with in such short order.”
I grinned. “You have a right to that opinion, and I’m not offended. But if you knew me better, you’d realize with someone as irresistible as me, Ruth took a lot longer to fall into bed than is usual with the ladies.”
That stunned her momentarily, then she smiled so wide it made her apple cheeks even fuller than before, and she tapped me on the chest lightly with a small fist.
“I believe you’re telling me the truth,” she said.
“Oh, I am. The females fall all over themselves trying to get next to me.”
That made her laugh. No sadness in her eyes now.
I said, “By the way, you’ll be seeing me tonight.”
She frowned in confusion. “I will?”
“Yes, I’m going to be a house guest of yours, at least this evening. Because of these violent events, I’ve been added to your husband’s security staff.”
“That’s an excellent idea, Jack, but I won’t be there tonight. Because of this violence.”
“Oh?”
She nodded. “Raymond is concerned for me. I’m staying with my sister tonight, away from the house. And...” She added this with a twinkle. “...apparently away from temptation, since you’ll be there.”
She pinched my cheek and went off down the sidewalk, smiling.
My good deed for the day. Perhaps I shouldn’t admit it, but this encounter was making me question the Reverend’s sanity. That was a woman any man could love, in all the word’s meanings.
I stepped back inside HQ and Ruth was right there, looking worried, even alarmed. “What was that about?”
“Oh, Mrs. Lloyd wondered if I was available for dating. I hated to disappoint, but I told her no. That you and I were going steady.”
She smiled big at that, but didn’t pinch my cheek. She did slap me on the chest, not gently, and say, “Oh you.”
Still, I was charming them left and right, wasn’t I?
I told Ruth about my addition to the Reverend’s bodyguard contingent and she was glad to hear it, but advised me to be careful.
She frowned. “You heard about that neo-Nazi in Ferguson? And poor André, right in our backyard?”
Back alley, actually, but I nodded.
She shook her head glumly. “When did America get so violent?”
“Right around the time,” I said, “my ancestors were throwing your ancestors into chains in the bottom of ships.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Good point. But do be careful. It’s getting crazy out there.”
“I noticed.”
Then one of the cops wanted to talk to me. The interview took three minutes. He was really impressed by my Bronze Star.
Fourteen
The Reverend lived in the Ville, a residential and business district just northwest of downtown. According to Ruth, it was for many decades an African-American cultural center, dating back to when the neighborhood was one of a handful where blacks could own houses and business properties, or even rent them.
“In that small area, of less than a square mile,” she told me at Coalition HQ, “there were black businesses, schools, community groups, a hospital... stayed that way till maybe ten years ago.”
“No kidding,” I said.
I must not have seemed suitably impressed, because she added, “Chuck Berry and Tina Turner grew up there.”
“Together?” I asked, and got another “Oh, you!” look out of her. Truth was, that was impressive.
But driving my Impala through this black neighborhood in the early evening, I wasn’t impressed. At least not favorably. The Ville was pretty rough now. Buildings were tumbledown with windows boarded over, and junkies prowled the streets like rats looking for garbage cans.
The two-story white-trimmed red-brick house, however, was on a block where the homes were generally well-maintained. Sitting on a modest lot, the Lloyd residence had an open porch with a swing and a row of three windows above the overhang. A matching freestanding garage waited at the end of a cement drive. Out front the familiar black Grand Prix was parked.
Ruth said that the Reverend could afford to move out of the neighborhood, but he wanted to show solidarity with other residents of the Ville.
I pulled the Impala in behind the Grand Prix and got out and was soon up the brick steps and at the front door. The nine millimeter, which I’d been requested to bring, was in my waistband, under a new navy windbreaker; my light-blue sportshirt, jeans and sneakers were new as well. Nothing like getting drenched in blood to prompt freshening up your wardrobe.