Done for a Dime (48 page)

A brief visit with the folks in the main house was required. Marisela’s father was Indian, a square-headed, jug-eared, gap-toothed man with an iron-hard body, a cagey mind, and a booming laugh. He drove into Guatemala every two weeks to cut trees single-handed, truck them to mill, then haul back the lumber. Her mother was fair-skinned and green-eyed, from a family of dentists, and she ran the office for the lumberyard.

In the small house, Ferry showered as Marisela prepared a supper of
camarones a la criolla
and
pupusas con loroco
. They ate on the porch in sling chairs, and once drowsiness hit they napped together, naked on a crisp, clean bed that felt like an impossible luxury after days on a fishing boat. Marisela, soft but strong, attended to him with passion and forgave him when he fell short. As she lay in his arms afterward, he felt badgered with an old, guilty disgust.

Ovidio appeared about nine o’clock. He wore street clothes, not the white shirt and navy pants comprising his PCN uniform. His smile was lackluster, his manner too polite. He told his sister he needed to take her
hombre guapo
away for a while, talk a little business.

Once in the car, Ferry said, “There’s something wrong.”

“Not here.” Ovidio cranked the ignition, gesturing with a nod of his head to the lamplit windows of the neighboring houses. “The people on this street, they’re like the old
orejas.
” The term referred to the secret underground of informants bribed by the military during the civil war.

They drove to a shabby café on the edge of the technical institute. The local coffee being notoriously bad, despite the crop being a major export, they both ordered
guanaquita
, a bittersweet hot chocolate served without milk. Ovidio made sure no nearby tables were occupied, then began.

“You know the Southern Command has installed an air base at Comalapa.”

Ferry nodded. “We saw the planes as we sailed south. Sure.”

“The FMLN says it’s illegal, it violates the peace accords.” He chuckled, like it was a childish joke.

“You didn’t drive me here to discuss current events.”

Ovidio turned his cup slowly in its saucer. “Well, not exactly. No. My point is to say your country’s presence here is increasing, bit by bit, some secret, some not so secret.” He smiled the universal smile of bad news. “It’s the preoccupation with Colombia. This will be a southern staging area, along with Aruba and Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles. They’re improving intelligence, which means some of their old friends in the Treasury Police, the National Guard, the National Police, are being rerecruited.” Ovidio glanced across the table with a look that said,
I can’t protect you like before.

“What’s Colombia got to do with me?”

“It’s not that. It’s the fact everybody will want to buy his way into good graces. Everybody. The embassy flacks are handing out money like business cards.” He took a sip of his chocolate. “And your name has come across the wires again. It’s different this time. They aren’t just going through the motions. They’re making noise. They think you’re here. They want you found.”

Ferry reasoned it through. He’d learned of Bratcher’s and Murchison’s deaths while en route, listening to the shipboard radio and getting translations when necessary from Rafael. Not like they can blame me for that, he thought, but no surprise, either, that they’d try. He’d managed to hide here for half a decade, relying on American distrust of the locals and local contempt for Americans. Now the war drums were ratchetting up, and with it the heel clicking, the moneygrubbing, the secret little deals with the local breed of devil. Add to that the fact the FBI had egg on its face, a dirty informant not only exposed but killed, based on a tip from Ferry. Well, of course they were upset.

“I shouldn’t stay with Marisela.”

“Oh no. Definitely not. I’ll make up something to tell her if you like.”

“That’d be good. Thanks.”

“But that just leaves us with the question of where you should go. It’s not a minor difficulty. There’s a very substantial price on your head.”

Ferry looked into his friend’s eyes and saw something unappealing. “That just means I have to outbid the bounty. How much are we talking about?”

Ovidio smiled, turning his cup slowly in its saucer again. “How much, yes, that is the question.”

Toby marveled at the crowd amassed inside Mission Baptist for the service. His Uncle Lamont and Aunt Glovina had flown in from Bremerton, and for the sake of peace sat with Veronique and Exeter. Across the aisle—it might as well be across the universe—Toby’s mother sat with Sonny Marchand and their daughters, Toby’s stepsisters. Cousins and relations further removed, some of whom had traveled from as far away as Cleveland and Montgomery, took seats where they thought best, hoping not to tip the scale of sympathy too far in one direction or the other.

Musicians with local roots had come, too—Sly Stone, Lowell Fulson, Felton Pilate—and they sat with Johnny Otis, Strong Carlisle’s onetime boss. John Lee Hooker’s nephew and children—Archie Lee, Zakiya, and John Lee Jr.—came to pay respects on behalf of their late father, another old local, together with his longtime slide guitarist, Roy Rogers. Elsewhere in the packed church Toby spotted jazz and blues musicians from around the region, some of them friends, some players he knew only by name, all of them there to pay homage. Others, unable to attend, had sent flower arrangements, so many they crowded the aisles, and a thick and heady fragrance lingered heavily among the pews. Toby wondered at the irony of how a man who rattled around in that sad old house by himself while alive could pack a church like this once dead. It seemed sadly fitting, he supposed. Meanwhile, the only person missing, besides his father of course, was Nadya. And in that regard, the place felt empty.

He sat with Francis and the members of The Mighty Firefly, positioned across from the choir. The choir began the service with three spirituals: “There Is a Balm in Gilead,” “I Believe I’ll Go Back Home,” and “Didn’t It Rain.”

Next, the pastor rendered his sermon. He was a massive, gray-haired man with a voice that could coo and thunder by turns. But today he did not offer solace—no verdant pastures or overflowing cup. He breathed fire. He’d been building all week, one homily after the other—for people he knew, children as well as adults, murdered for money if the rumors were true—and his rage had burned hotter with each climb to the pulpit. He no longer asked God for pity. He wanted justice. He exhorted the congregation to see in the senseless death suffered by this man, Raymond Carlisle—as it turned out, just some reckless hireling’s lashing out—see in this death and all the others that followed a measure of the evil they faced.

“You hear it time and time again. Whenever someone dares to ask, ‘What in God’s name has gone wrong?’ So-called welfare reform, packaged with tax cuts for the rich. Wages no family can live on, scraping by, mothers with two jobs, three jobs, while thieves and hustlers sneak millions upon millions into offshore accounts. Corporations evading billions in taxes, while our sons and daughters, from this community right here—
our
community—man the front lines and risk their lives when the military gets the call to fight. Someone dares to say, ‘This is wrong. That isn’t right.’ What do they hear? ‘Why, you’re talking
the politics of envy,
’ they say.
‘Class warfare,’
they say. Well, good God almighty—if what has happened to this community isn’t class warfare, I fail to see what is.”

He concluded by reading from Psalm 17, David’s “Prayer against Persecution.” Its conclusion was the Firefly’s cue. Toby had conferred with the band members on which tunes to play. His father had been right, they’d accepted his lead. It humbled him. He admired these men. You heard them and understood what it meant to pay your dues, heard in their solos what a savage business music was, full of stolen promises and night-after-night of having the gift but not the prize. And yet, for all that, there was the music, and the rule there was: Hold Back Nothing.

For the sake of solemnity and to suit the surroundings, they began with “Come Sunday,” from Ellington’s
Black, Brown & Beige
, with an alto from the choir singing the part made famous by Mahalia Jackson. Next came a more secular offering, “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” Mingus’s elegy for Lester Young, followed by the most personal of the set, Toby alone with just piano and bass, playing J. J. Johnson’s “Lament,” a haunting modal tune that Toby punctuated with a high, lilting solo on the second chorus, a whispered cry.

The band had insisted they finish with a roof raiser, something to truly conjure the image of the man they’d known as Strong. “God knows he’ll haunt us if we don’t,” Toby’d agreed. The choice was automatic—“Moanin’,” with Francis assigned the missing man’s lead.

The intro hook resonated eerily with the pastor’s sermon; you could feel the collective shiver up every spine in the place. They built the tune up till its echoes rocked the packed church. Every man took a solo, a final tribute to the man who’d brought them together, and members of the congregation rose from their pews, crying out in praise or grief, lifting their arms above their heads to handclap. The choir followed with “I’m Gonna Walk Right In and Make Myself at Home”, then the choir and band joined together in one of the few spirituals Toby knew had gained his father’s fondness, the old Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Lucky Millinder rendition of “Lonesome Road.”

The reception afterward was held at the Masonic Temple, with a reprise performance by the church choir. Toby felt uneasy—Veronique held court, queen for a day, the grieving little sister. Rumors of her involvement in Long Walk Mooney’s schemes, the forged deed, had yet to ripple very far outside the police and the family, and Toby was obliged to play along. In return, no more questions were raised regarding his status as his father’s son. It seemed a backhanded victory, given all he’d been through. Even as he accepted the kindness and affection of other family members, struggling with their own grief, and the well-wishing of so many others who’d come so far to pay their respects, he couldn’t shake his sense that there was a grating dissonance, a lie, at the heart of the occasion. It made him feel oddly alone, even with his own family, Francis and Miss Carvela, the players from the band. That, combined with a numbness, an inescapable, leaden sensation in his body and soul, made him realize where he needed to be.

As the reception wound down, he excused himself, then found his car, drove to Berkeley, and parked outside the music store where Nadya worked. If she didn’t come to the service, she wants nothing to do with you, he thought. On reflection, that seemed cowardly. Let her tell you herself what she wants or doesn’t want. Go from there.

The store was thickly carpeted and had that bright, clean, polished smell that since childhood had conjured an ineffable sense of welcome. Behind the counter hung a poster from Ernst Krenek’s 1927 opera,
Jonny spielt auf
, with its jazz-oriented score about a Black musician and his white girlfriend. He and Nadya had always joked about its being a good omen, having that poster right there in the store where they’d met. Even portents can be mistaken, he supposed, or short-lived. He feigned browsing, saw she wasn’t there, nodded hello to Mr. Kurtzmann, the owner, then went back outside, climbing the stair along the alley that led to her tiny two-room apartment.

Peeking through the window curtains, he saw her at her table eating a bowl of egg noodles with salt and butter, comfort food. He rapped gently on the windowpane, and when her eyes lifted at the sound he didn’t know whether to smile or not. Looking pale, unhealthy, she wore a long-sleeved blouse to conceal the scars on her arm. Her expression seemed grave but uncertain, even a little lost. And yet she put down her fork, came to the door, and opened it.

“I missed you,” he said. It hung there like a guilty secret, so he added, “At the service.”

“I wanted to go,” she said, unconvincingly. “Thank you for inviting me. I just felt—”

“Can I come in?”

The place was too small for more than the one chair at her table. The only spot for him to sit was the futon they’d shared when he stayed over. He ached for that, wanting it again more than he’d realized. To hold her, be held. His heart pounded as he looked about the room, his eyes registering the plants and the books and the shoes and the arty or cartoonish postcards taped to the walls. He felt returned to the one safe place he’d known lately. He feared it was gone for good now.

“You belonged there, at the service. As much as anyone. More than most.”

She picked up her fork, poked at her food. “It’s been difficult.”

Dark patches rimmed her eye sockets. A slight twitch flickered along her cheek.

“I’d like to help.”

She smiled sadly, tucking her shoulder up in a half shrug. “Like it’s been easy for you. Easy for anyone up there.”

“Doesn’t mean we avoid each other.”

She looked up finally. For the first time, he saw in her eyes what he’d dreaded he’d find there. Finality.

“It’s just been very difficult,” was all she said. Then: “I should get back to work.”

She put down her fork and rose from her chair and straightened her skirt. Toby didn’t move.

“Can I wait here for you?”

She seemed confused, like he’d posed a riddle. “I don’t get off till six.”

He reached out for her hand. “That doesn’t matter.”

She stepped toward him, placed her hand in his, trying to smile. When he gently pulled her toward him, she knelt down clumsily. Bending to him, she at last rested her face against his breastbone. He felt a shudder ripple up her back, and so he circled his arms around her.

“I can’t forgive myself,” she whispered.

“It’s my fault.” He stroked her hair. “I felt so guilty, so jealous. You caught that. I want to help now. Let me help.”

She was shaking. Her hands gripped his jacket. “I think about what happened day and night. I’m afraid to sleep, I can’t—”

“Let me help,” he told her again, kissing her hair. You can’t bring him back by killing yourself, he thought, though he understood the impulse. “Then—if you can, if you want—you help me.”