“Duncan, honey, Buddy’s got a cover for every one of his businesses; he owns ’em, but somebody else takes the heat.”
Just as he’d thought. He leaned against the door and appraised her. She’d always been as transparent to him as pure water in a clean glass. “You going to tell him I asked about him?”
Her head jerked upward, and she glared at him, obviously affronted. “Of course not. That’s all you think of me? That I’m a stool pigeon? Dunc, honey, you know I wouldn’t do that.”
“I didn’t think so, Grace, but in this business, I can’t take chances.”
“No, I don’t suppose you can. Lots of people are pushing up daisies for trusting the wrong guy.”
“Tell me about it. I owe you one.”
She flashed a smile, but it didn’t ring true. Grace was suffering from a bad case of if, of what might have been. “Don’t mention it,” she said, grasping for her self-respect. “Just let me know what kind of payment you want to make and when you plan to pay.”
Heaven forbid that Tonya should let herself slip into the clutches of degradation as Grace had. She’d pulled herself out of it, he’d give her credit for that much, because most people who flirted with the drug culture and got mired into it weren’t so fortunate. Grace had been raised by a father who’d spoiled her, and she was one reason why he’d go to any respectable length to find a woman who’d be a good female role model for Tonya. A picture of her bouncing happily in Justine’s arms as he left the house earlier flashed through his mind. She hadn’t even cried when she saw him walk out of the door, and she usually kicked up such a storm that he’d taken to slipping out when she couldn’t see him.
He wished he could figure out why the ease with which Tonya had accepted Justine didn’t alleviate his concerns about the child’s well being. Well, hell. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be jealous of his daughter’s seeming fondness for Justine.
He stopped by The Maryland Journal editorial office, got some blank press passes, and headed for Darby Elementary School. He looked around for a parking spot and glimpsed Buddy Kilgore leaving the school. He grabbed his camera out of the glove compartment and snapped the man’s picture as his feet touched the bottom step, and stayed in the car until Kilgore turned into Dolphin Street and was out of sight. Sure that his hunch had been right, he barged into the principal’s office unannounced just as the man began to cram papers into the shredder. He wished he’d brought his camera. With his recorder running in his jacket pocket, he walked over to the shredder, stopped it, retrieved the papers, and looked at the top page.
“What do you have to say?”
“Me? Nothing, Mr. Banks. I’m just getting my desk straightened out like I do every day before I leave.”
Duncan released a half laugh. “So you know who I am? Who tipped you off? Kilgore?”
“I’ve seen you around, mostly over on Liberty Street in CafeAhNay. Nobody told me anything. Mr. Kilgore came by to ask me to vote for him for the City Council.”
“No kidding. Hadn’t heard he was running. And you’d think a reporter would know things like that.”
“Whatever you’re after, man, I don’t know a thing about it; I’m just doing my job.”
“Yeah? Well, next time, don’t trash your invoices. Of course, if you’re double billing or maybe giving your supplier a cut, I can see how that shredder over there comes in handy. Keep the faith, brother.”
It didn’t take genius to detect a lie that thin. He walked out of what the city fathers regarded as a bastion for the development of youthful minds, and shook his head in disgust at the debris and graffiti that decorated the building’s exterior. How could a child formulate goals and pursue them in an environment that consisted of vacant buildings whose windows and doors stood shuttered with plywood? Every building in sight was an example of someone’s failure, and every man-made thing that an eye could see stood in some stage of disrepair. He stopped at the sight of a two-story-high pile of rubbish that small children barely school age were using for a playground. No wonder childhood mortality was on the rise among the urban black poor. Broken glass, cracked sidewalks, and potholes were what most African Americans in West Baltimore got in return for their taxes. With an hour to kill, he headed for Micah’s Restaurant to get some crisp fried lake trout and the best soul food in Baltimore.
At six o’clock, Kilgore was where Grace said he’d be. Duncan sat in a dark corner of CafeAhNay trying to adjust his nostrils to the mixture of dime-store perfume, beer, and sloe gin, a favorite of the locals. No matter how many times he sat there, he always left feeling soiled, not that he’d let on to the owner and habitués; his bread and butter depended on their considering him one of them. He whittled on his egg-sized carving of a Frederick Douglas bust—as the regulars were used to seeing him do when he sat there alone—and watched the school principal rush over to Kilgore. He’d seen enough, so he slipped out of the place, leaving the two men gesticulating as though nervous and excited, and went to find the manager of Kilgore’s Cleaning Service. Two hours later, he had it on his recorder that Kilgore billed the system for twice the value of the merchandise, the principal signed the order to pay, and Kilgore gave the principal ten percent of the excess. One bill went to the school board and the other, a smaller one, Kilgore kept for the IRS. The scheme guaranteed that a lot of schools paid one dollar for a roll of toilet paper, fifteen dollars for a seven dollar box of Tide, and other exorbitant charges. He’d gotten the story, but he had a hunch that wasn’t the end of it.
It had all gone too smoothly. He had the facts, but his sixth sense warned him that more would come. He wove his way through the dense, stop-and-go traffic on Highway 295 to Washington, and in the slow driving conditions, his mind flitted between thoughts of Kilgore and the immediate rapport between Tonya and Justine. Justine’s odd femininity and warm personality could get to a man, but to a baby?
Justine put Tonya’s car seat in her car and drove with the baby to the post office. She hadn’t asked Duncan’s permission to take the child out of the house, so she’d get back there as quickly as possible. The sight of a dozen letters to Aunt Mariah escalated her spirits, and she could barely wait to read them. She parked in Duncan’s two-car garage seconds before he pulled into the other spot.
As she jumped out, he opened the back door and took Tonya from her car seat. “How’s Daddy’s girl?” but his gaze bore into Justine, unreadable and disquieting.
“I hope you don’t mind that I took her with me; I had to run a quick errand.”
“I don’t mind.” Did she imagine a reluctance in his voice? “Leave me a note, though, when you do that. I worry impatiently, Justine, and I don’t like to waste my time like that.” The smile that gleamed from his sleepy, reddish-brown eyes would have taken the sting out of his words and comforted her had it not sent hot darts zinging through her limbs.
But she refused him the satisfaction of knowing that, looked into his eyes as brazenly as he’d looked into hers, and assured him, “Of course, I’ll abide by your rules.”
He started walking toward the front door and stopped, when Tonya reached for her. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing. When I’m around, Tonya sticks to me like glue. She’s been with me a couple of seconds and wants to go back to you. I didn’t hire a hypnotist, did I?”
“Children Tonya’s age enjoy the comfort of a soft bosom, which you don’t have.” She wanted to eat the words even as they slipped out of her mouth, uttered in a desperate effort to divert his mind from its dangerous track.
Her normal composure nearly deserted her as his rapt stare appraised her. Unwavering. She couldn’t erase the words and didn’t dare try to explain them, so she stepped past him and reached for the front door knob.