SEVEN

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, JAMAL? Where have you been?” I wailed like a kid, grabbed my son, and held him tightly.

“He’s been down here with me. Where you think he’s been?” said an indignant DeWayne. Releasing Jamal, I jumped in DeWayne’s face.

“What the hell is wrong with you, DeWayne Curtis? Why don’t you join the twenty-first century and keep on your damn cell phone? Do you know what I’ve been going through up there? Did he tell you what happened? Have you lost your fuck—”

“Mom.” Jamal placed himself between me and his father. “It’s not his fault. I only told him you didn’t know where I was a couple of hours ago. Don’t blame him!”

I glanced at my watch, then at my son. “Then let me blame you! Do you know what time it is? It’s midnight! I had my cell on while I drove. I left a dozen messages on your cell. Do you think I pay my hard-earned money to Verizon Wireless every month for the hell of it?”

“Let’s go in the house, sit down, and sort this mess out,” DeWayne said, interrupting me in the sanest voice I’d heard in years. “Come on, Tammy, I’ll get you a drink. You look like shit.”

Silently, the three of us settled around the kitchen table like some sitcom version of a happy family. DeWayne’s kitchen was small and neat, the shiny stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher hinting that they were rarely if ever used. I recognized the blue Formica table as one that had belonged to his grandmother; that was one thing he hadn’t changed. It was wobbly and narrow; I pulled my knees in so they wouldn’t touch his.

It had been years since I’d sat across from my ex-husband, and every feeling I’d ever had about him swept through me in a miserable rush. First came bitterness about his countless betrayals, and disgust at how easily he’d fooled me, then, unexpectedly, a gentler emotion—recognition of his love for our son. If there was one thing in DeWayne’s wretched world that made sense to him, it was Jamal, and I had to respect him for that. He would give his life for this boy as quickly and unquestionably as I would mine.

This was his son, there was no mistaking that. His eyes were the long-lashed ones of his father, which could charm an uncharmable woman with a wink. He had DeWayne’s build, and seeing the two of them together reminded me of what I’d once loved about the man. His voice had grown deep like DeWayne’s even though it kept the easy rhythm of my brother’s.

“How about a drink?” DeWayne said, bringing me from my thoughts. “Should be some of that red wine Shelia left in the wine cellar when she split.”

“So Shelia left you?” DeWayne had been involved with so many women for so many years, I’d stopped keeping count. According to Jamal, Shelia was the latest and the best. She was about my age, which made her ten years younger than DeWayne, smart and classy, with a PhD in English from Rutgers and a pedigree from a family tree of New Brunswick doctors. DeWayne had wooed and won her as he had so many others—with his GQ good looks and the sharpest wheels in town. But I noticed with some satisfaction that he was beginning to show his age. His eyelids had a droop, and his dull skin hinted of too much good scotch gulped down with too many fast women.

“Yeah. They all leave me sooner or later, don’t they, Tammy?”

“If you call me Tammy again, I’m going to stab you through the ear,” I said; I was in that kind of mood. He actually looked scared for a moment, then chuckled.

“All that time we were married, you’d think I’d remember by now, don’t you?”

It had been the eyes that had gotten me, that lazy smile that promised a woman more loving than she’d ever had before. I’d found out the truth of that pretty damn fast.

“Another one gone, huh?” I couldn’t resist it.

“You’re still my favorite.”

“Mom,” Jamal warned, spotting the loathing that flashed in my eyes.

“Let me get you that wine, Tamara.” DeWayne saw it, too, and headed out of the kitchen and down into the basement. When he was gone, I hugged Jamal again, and my eyes filled with tears.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I just didn’t know what else to do. Everything happened so fast, I knew you were mad at me, and—”

“Do you know the police are looking for you? They came by the house.”

“Cops? Why are they looking for me? I didn’t do nothing!”

“Lilah Love is dead, Jamal. Somebody beat her to death.”

He didn’t move but looked straight ahead as the terror gradually overcame him, beginning in his eyes, traveling down to his trembling lips, then down to his young, broad shoulders. I got out of my chair and held him, big as he was, like he was my little boy again.

“What happened, Ma? What happened? Why would that person kill her?”

I stopped and studied his face. “Why would what person kill her?”

“The person who got into the car with her, the person she said she was picking up! Why would somebody kill her? She wasn’t going to do anything to anybody, she was really nice, and she—”

“You don’t know what that bitch was capable of doing,” I said, angry at him all over again for getting into the car to begin with. “What in the hell is wrong with you? How could you risk your life like that? Why would you—”

“Stop yelling at the boy and let him tell you what happened!” DeWayne interrupted me as he strode into the room with an attitude and a bottle of wine. “You yelling at the boy ain’t going to do no good. Did I hear you say something about the police?”

“They came to the house tonight.”

“About what?” he eyed me suspiciously.

“About a woman who was murdered, the one who was going to bring him down here.”

Fear was in DeWayne’s face now, too. “Was that the woman who you said didn’t come back, your mama’s friend?” DeWayne asked Jamal, throwing me a dirty look, but his eyes softened as he sat down. “We in this together, Tamara, you know that as well as me. We got to take care of this together.”

This sudden talk of togetherness made me sick, but he was right, so I nodded in agreement. I took a sip of the wine, then damn near choked when I noticed the glass it was in. It was part of a set of crystal ones I’d bought the last year we were together. At least three had been hurled at him from across the room, the first when I found out he was sleeping with his secretary.

“Only one left, saved it for you. I’ll break it when you leave,” DeWayne joked. He always did like to play with fire.

“Here, let me do it for you.” I swallowed the wine in a single gulp and hurled the glass hard against the far wall above the sink. It shattered, leaving a blood-red stain over the lemon yellow kitchen wall. I thought about how the Barnes kid had thrown that ashtray across the room and was ashamed that I’d let this fool get the better of me.

“Feeling better?” said DeWayne, the “mature” adult.

Jamal looked from him to me, and his eyes got big like they used to get when we fought and he was a little boy.

“I’m sorry about that. My nerves are really shot,” I said, and meant it.

He shrugged. “No harm done. This has been a bad night for all of us.” He got the broom and dustpan, swept up the glass, and sat back down. I reached across the table and took Jamal’s hand.

“Start it from the beginning, baby. Right after we had that fight.”

“Fight? You had a fight? No wonder the boy left!” DeWayne reared back in protective papa mode.

“Shut up and listen,” I said. He glanced at Jamal and took my advice.

“When I logged on after I went upstairs, I—”

“Logged on? What’s he talking about?” DeWayne’s puzzled gaze clearly revealed his age, proving he was even more ignorant about computers than me.

“Then I surfed the Web for a while and came back to my page when I got a message from Miss Love. From Lilah to something I had written,” Jamal continued.

“‘Need to get da fuck outta here. Fast,’” I said.

Jamal covered his face, “Mom, I didn’t know…”

“Do you think I was born yesterday?”

“What the fuck is he talking about, writing something like that, using language like that? What the fuck kind of boy did you raise—” DeWayne sputtered on. I ignored him, and Jamal continued.

“So she wrote me an answer to what I, you know, said and said she’d pick me up if I called her, so I did.”

“What time did you call her?”

“While you were in the tub. She said she’d pick me up near the house at one a.m. and she’d give me a ride wherever I wanted to go. So when I knew you were asleep, I climbed out my window and pulled the shade down so you wouldn’t know it was up. I didn’t want to risk going downstairs—you know that stair that creaks? The roof from my window is low, and it’s not that far from the ground. I just jumped down into the backyard.”

“So what did she say when you got in the car?”

“Said she was going to Atlantic City, and she could drop me off on the way. At my dad’s place. Said she’d like to meet him anyway, since she knew you and everything.”

“Now that would have been a match straight from hell,” I muttered. “Go on, Son.”

“She was real nice, like she was in your office, and she said she was your friend, and—”

“Didn’t you teach my son never to talk to strangers?” DeWayne’s face filled with paternal outrage.

“Didn’t you?” I shot back.

“He lives with you.”

“You both did,” Jamal said, pleading for peace. “I knew that. When I was a kid, you both told me. I know not to talk to strangers, I know never to get in a stranger’s car, but she wasn’t exactly a stranger. I met her in your office, Mom. And anyway, look at me. I’m not a kid anymore. I outweighed her by about a hundred pounds. I know how to fight; I know how to take care of myself.” He stiffened his back he-man style, and all I could do was sigh.

“Not if there’s some nigger in the backseat with a gun at the back of your head,” DeWayne said.

“I’m not stupid, Dad,” Jamal said, raising his voice slightly. “I checked the backseat before I got in. I looked around good before I threw in my bag. I knew she was alone, and I thought I could handle it, and I could have, if she hadn’t gotten that call.”

“What call?” DeWayne and I asked in unison.

“I told you, somebody called her.”

“Tell me everything you can remember about that,” I said. “Tell me how her voice sounded, exactly what she said to the person.”

“We were heading to the turnpike, and Lilah got this call on her cell. She got real mad, and she kept arguing with whoever it was and said it was nobody’s business what she did with what was hers. Then she started laughing and turned around and headed back to Newark. She pulled onto Raymond Boulevard, then pulled over to the side and called somebody else.”

“Did she say anybody’s name?”

Jamal thought for a moment. “No. She just dialed a number, then she said, ‘Guess who I’m talking to in half a minute. Yeah, that’s who it is, and it’s about you know what, too. What else we got to talk about?’ She laughed again and hung up. Then she pulled over to the side and told me to get out.”

“Told you to get out?” DeWayne asked.

“She said, ‘I got to take care of this before I leave town,’ and she nodded toward someone who was standing far away on the corner. She said she’d swing back around the block, then pick me up in about fifteen minutes when she was through.”

“Did the person see you?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know who it was because he was too far away to see his face.”

“How do you know it was a man?”

“I don’t know, Mom, I really don’t know!”

“Then it could have been a woman?”

“Yeah. I don’t know!”

“So what happened next?” I asked.

“She picked the person up, and she drove away. I waited for her for about an hour, then I walked to Penn Station and I got some money out of the ATM, then I waited for a bus so I could come down here.”

“Did anybody see you or talk to you?” I said, hoping he had some kind of alibi.

“No, I just sat there waiting on the corner, then I walked to Penn Station, and that was all.”

“Jamal, why didn’t you call me?” I couldn’t keep the cry out of my voice.

“I was afraid you’d be mad.” He shook his head wearily and sighed. “Mom, I’m sorry she’s dead. Maybe I should have stayed, maybe—”

“Never mind about Lilah Love. You better start worrying about your own silly behind. You left your duffel bag with all those tags in the backseat of the woman’s car. That’s how the cops knew you were there and how to find you. The police and anybody else who might be looking for you, if they couldn’t figure it out from all that dumb stuff you left on MySpace.”

“I didn’t put my address on MySpace. Everybody writes dumb stuff on MySpace,” Jamal said lamely.

“You put down your name, and anybody typing in your ZIP code could get to your page quick. That’s how Lilah found you.”

“MySpace? What’s he talking about MySpace? What do you mean he left some dumb stuff on MySpace?” asked DeWayne.

“It’s computer stuff, Dad,” Jamal said in a tone that said they’d had that conversation before.

“What time did you get the bus?” I said, ignoring DeWayne.

“I waited around in Penn Station and took the first bus I could to Atlantic City. I guess around noon. It was a local, so it took a long time.”

“He called me from the bus stop. I brought him here. He took a shower, had a nap, I got him a toothbrush and some more clothes, and then we went out to Friday’s. That’s his favorite spot, you know,” said DeWayne with smug certainty.

“Friday’s?” I asked, and Jamal gave me a guilty glance.

“That’s where he told me what happened. He didn’t know about anybody being killed. It’s a shame about that woman, isn’t it? Where do you know her from?” asked DeWayne.

“Jamaica. A long time ago.”

“Jamaica? You must have been down there with that damned Basil Dupre. I should have known he had something to do with this shit. I blame that son of a bitch for breaking up our marriage, Tammy. I blame that bastard—”

I threw him a look that shut him up quick. He finished his wine and poured himself some scotch. Straight. “So what we going to do about this here mess?” he said.

Jamal yawned, collapsing his head in his hands.

“Go on to bed, Son, and your father and I will talk to you in the morning,” I said. Jamal kissed me good night and headed upstairs.

“He better stay down here with me until this mess blows over,” DeWayne said as soon as he was out of earshot, and I agreed. “What else do you think we should do?”

“I’ll go back tomorrow and see what else I can find out,” I said.

“Don’t you have some lawyer-friend up there who can handle this?”

“He won’t be back until Monday, and I don’t know how to get in touch with him.”

“We can’t wait until then,” DeWayne said, shaking his head. “I got a friend I can call. A lawyer. Handled my last divorce. I’ll talk to her in the morning.” He yawned twice and stretched. “Well, I’m going to hit the sack, too. The couch in the study lets down into a reasonably comfortable bed, Tammy. I’ll go upstairs and get you some clean sheets.”

“No, you sleep on the damned couch in the damned study, and get me some sheets for that California king-size bed you got upstairs,” I corrected him. “I want some comfort, some privacy, and you out of my face.”

He looked hurt for a moment, then obediently climbed the stairs and got the sheets I’d requested.

I settled into his bed, every bone and muscle aching. But I had one more thing to do. I had to talk to a good friend, who I hadn’t spoken to in a month of Sundays. Her name was Matilda Gilroy, a cop in Belvington Heights, where I used to work. When I quit, they hired Matilda to fill the “woman” quota. We’d been friends ever since, and the fact that she was white didn’t change our friendship one bit. We both loved Sleepytime tea, had grown up poor, and been married to jerks. Our sons were about the same age, too. A couple years back, her son, Jeremy, had run away, and I’d found him and brought him home safe. She said she owed me big for that, and to call her anytime day or night if I ever needed anything. I needed it now.

“Matilda Gilroy here,” she said when she answered the phone. She was always business—at work, at home, in bed—and I smiled as her image came to mind. She was beanpole thin with a bony, narrow face that had never met a blusher it didn’t like. Her lank hair had been every shade of blonde there was, and her large, able hands, which never seemed to rest, were always topped by short nails painted some bright tropical color. Matilda Gilroy, bless her soul, was one of the oddest-looking women I’d ever known; she also had the biggest heart.

“Hey, Matty, it’s me, Tamara Hayle.”

“Tamara Hayle! What are you doing calling me at this time of night? Jamal okay?” she asked in the same breath.

“Barely. He had a close call with the boys, and I need you to get me some information.”

She coughed, and I heard her light a cigarette. “Our boys? Belvington Heights? They better get their shit together.”

“No. My town this time. They found a dead body in the trunk of a rented car this morning. A woman named Lilah Love. Can you get me some information on it?”

“They think Jamal is mixed up with that?!”

“I don’t know what they think, to tell you the truth, but get me what you can, okay?”

“You know I will, Tam.” She paused for a moment. “Every time I look at my son, I say a prayer for you.”

“Thanks, Matty.”

“First thing tomorrow morning I’ll look into it. I know somebody over there who owes me a favor, so I should be able to get something for you soon. Now I’m going back to sleep, okay?” She hung up before I could answer. I sank into DeWayne’s pillow of a bed and went out fast.

Matty was on the case. She called me back in the morning before I had brushed my teeth.

Lilah hadn’t been beaten like the cops had said, Matty told me. She’d been killed quickly and brutally: a fist driven straight through her throat, crushing her larynx back against itself like it was nothing. They suspected it was somebody she knew—unless it was a professional, which seemed unlikely; only folks you knew killed you like that. They liked this guy named Turk Orlando for the killing and were looking for him.

I thanked Matty for the information, shook my head, and sighed.

So my girl Lilah died just like she lived—fast and mean.