Drumsticks (21 page)

“And your old man,” Sweet added.

“Yep,
and
my very own father. Anyway, of all of them, Miller seems like the hands-down candidate to be involved with the girl, 'specially if the involvement includes sex. Benson claimed he had nothing against Felice, but I never bought that. Anybody could tell he detested her. And I know I'm not objective, Sweet, but there's about as much chance of my pop seducing Felice Sanders as me playing a sold-out gig at the Garden.

“So what do we have? Everybody's tied up with everybody else. Including yours truly. Everybody's suffering over their losses and trying in whatever way they can to get back what they've lost—or to get even. I'm telling you, Sweet, when you pick through all the strands, the answer is right there. So simple.”

“Simple?” he said. “You mean you know what it's all about—who did what to who? Go ahead, give me the word.”

“Okay. Like I said, it's simple. But so sad. Sad enough to make you start drinking.”

“You done enough of that for one night, Cueball. I'm coming to get you. Where are you calling from?”

I was about to answer that question, but we were cut off.

No, Ma Bell didn't disconnect us. Nor did Sweet hang up on me. Jacob Benson had reached over my shoulder and broken the connection.

He had his own gun, too.

The last thing I saw as Dr. Benson propelled me away from the telephone was a cockroach scrambling for cover.

CHAPTER 19

As Long as I Live

He flung little Black Hat into the nearest sidewalk trash bin.

“What kind of black monster are you, bringing her that goddamn thing? You like seeing her misery, don't you? Even after she's got nothing left, you people are still trying to suck her blood. You won't be satisfied until she's dead!”

His raw whisper was like a lash across the back.

I wanted to speak. He didn't even try to hear me.

“Say nothing,” he warned. “I'd just as soon kill you right here. Do you understand?”

What did he want me to do? Which was it? Keep silent or say that I understood?

He cuffed me once and I hit on a compromise: I nodded my understanding.

A gun grinding cruelly into the nape of my neck. I was on a forced march. Where was he taking me—to his apartment for a nightcap? Not bloody likely.

Now I knew how Howard must've felt.

In fact I was identifying with Howard on a number of fronts. New York City—seven million of us, right? Yet our attackers (in his case the “attacker” was me) seemed to have no trouble finding deserted locales in which to terrorize us.

No people coming in or out of the many medical facilities lining the streets. Visiting hours were long over. The neighborhood businesses dependent on the hospitals—the delis, the dry cleaners, the florists, the bookstore—all shut down tight. City buses were running maybe one every twenty minutes this time of night. No subway stations at all this far east. If I survived the night, I'd have to write the mayor a nasty letter about that phantom Second Avenue subway.

One thing there was plenty of—for a change—taxis.

The cabs were zipping down York like yellow bugs. Be nice if I could flag one of them down. But my arms remained at my sides. Benson may have been old, but he was moving fast on those long stiff legs of his. We scooted across the traffic, heading east, moving further and further away from whatever life there might have been on the avenue. Further away from help.

He turned me abruptly to the left, uptown. Maybe we were going to his place after all.

No. At 73rd Street he went east again. Perhaps he had a swim in mind. There was nothing ahead of us but the East River Drive, and on the other side of it, the big water.

Benson was probably going to force me into the fast-moving traffic on the highway. I was going to end up as roadkill on the Upper East Side. How uncool could you get?

To use Aubrey's all-purpose phrase, Fuck this.

I found my woman warrior voice. “I'm going to talk now, Dr. Benson, whether you like it or not.”

He started, as if I had awakened him from sleep.

“Listen to me, before this goes too far. You've already killed two people. But I know what kind of pressure you were under.”

“
Pressure?”
he snarled, curled lip and all. “You call what I've been through ‘pressure'? I ought to kill you for that alone, you heartless dog.”

“I only meant that I know why you did it,” I said, trying to placate him. “But this is different. You don't have to do this. This is plain premeditated murder and you know it.”

Benson kept piloting me forward, silent.

We were running out of pavement. I was beginning to scent the river and hear the whirr of traffic on the drive.

I'm a talker. I was prepared to bluff and bluster for as long as it took. Either my eloquence would dissuade him from killing me, or I'd have to distract him long enough to get at my gun.

I boomed out: “Hey! Are you listening to me here or what? I know the terrible way Ida Williams betrayed your wife. Lenore thought she was just a sweet little vendor selling dolls at the crafts fair near your house. She didn't know Ida was about to drag her down into hell.

“I know how angry you were when Kevin dropped out of school. When he told you what he wanted to do, it was like he was spitting on your values, trashing you and everything you gave him. He fought with you over money, over his girlfriend, his music—everything. Then he walked out and wouldn't even speak to you anymore. Lenore was vulnerable and close to the breaking point. She needed someone to talk to, someone to lean on. So she told all her troubles to Ida.

“When Kevin was killed, your wife lost it completely. It was too much to bear. Ida and a man who called himself Miller got their hooks into her.”

“They got their hooks into
me
,” he corrected.

“You?”

“It was more than a month before I found out that Lenore had been feeding my hard-earned money to those bloodsucking savages. She gave them thousands of her own money, and then she started in on our joint account. They were bleeding her. Not only was she turning over money to them for their so-called services; they were forging checks.”

“That's despicable,” I said. “Horrible. But you found out what they were doing. You could have had them behind bars in ten minutes. But that wasn't enough for you.”

“Hell, no, it wasn't enough. Why should it be enough for me to send them away to jail? A year or two in prison wouldn't begin to make up for what they did to our lives.

“You think my lady was vulnerable? You stupid, vile—She was worth a hundred of you. Stronger than all of you put together. She had been stable for more than fifteen years. She pulled herself out of a mental hospital twenty years ago. Pulled herself out of hell. She survived miscarriages, injustices, sacrifices you couldn't even begin to understand. When Kevin was taken, I thought it would be the end of her—it was the worst thing imaginable. Her only child in this world! Laying there with half his face torn away. I thought that would kill her. But it didn't. But someone like you wouldn't have an inkling of how terrible a thing that is, would you?”

I didn't dare contradict him. I let him go on testifying.

“Then those cannibals got ahold of her. Yessir. They finally broke her—finished her off.”

“Your wife isn't dead, Doctor.”

“She might as well be. She'll never come back to me again.”

“Right. You're the one with all the losses in this thing, right? And so you started evening the score. You began with Ida,” I said.

“I kept all those goddamn dolls so that every time I looked at one of them my hatred would grow stronger. I needed to be strong for what I had to do. I wanted to see that old bitch's eyes when I blew her head off. But I was deprived of that pleasure.”

“What are you talking about? Couldn't you get close enough that night to see her eyes when you shot her?”

“
I was deprived!”
he screeched. “But that doesn't mean I won't enjoy killing you. You and anyone else working for those two. You cheated her when she was too weak to think clearly, tortured her with that evil shit, destroyed her mind for good.”

“I did no such thing, Dr. Benson. I did nothing to your wife. I was conned by Ida the same way Lenore was. I went to visit your wife because—”

He acted as if he had not heard me. “All of you hopeless, perverted niggers,” he said. “I can't rest until I put every goddamn one of you in your grave.”

“Hey!” I screamed. “I'm sorry about what happened to your family. But you know where you can take that shit.”

He was breathing heavily, enraged. And so was I.

I kept swinging. “What about Felice Sanders, Doctor? Was she one of us perverts, too? I don't think so. I think she was just the little girl your son loved.”

He couldn't ignore that. His body seemed to twitch at the mention of Felice.

“What's the matter, wise old healer of sick children?” I said cruelly. “What are you thinking about now? Reliving the moment you pulled the trigger on that girl? Murdered another woman's only child? The moment you turned into a monster yourself?”

I didn't expect an answer. He gave me one, though. “Yes,” he said simply.

Then said it again. “Yes. That's what they made me. They turned me into a … black thing … who doesn't care and isn't cared for, who kills without thinking.” He looked at me, eyes glassy, and laughed way back in his throat. “A dead-end street. That's where all my proud father's sermons and all the trust in my little boy's eyes led me. I left every shred of my Negro fortitude there.”

Yeah, poor old you, I thought.

“You thought Felice was in with Ida and Miller. You leaned on her, trying to make her give up Miller; you waved your gun in her face, too, and when she kept trying to tell you she didn't know anything about the scam on your wife, you killed her.”

Benson nodded gravely.

“I know how you located her, too. That night I came to your apartment, the phone rang while we were walking down the hallway. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but before you picked up the phone you turned on the desk lamp. Why? Because you needed the extra light to read the number that your little caller ID box was showing. You saw it was somebody from the hospital calling and so you answered. But when someone else phoned a few minutes later, you looked at the caller ID again and decided the call could wait.

“I figure that Miller called your home at some time during the course of the scam. Maybe you came home and caught Lenore talking to him on the phone. At any rate, you took note of the incoming number. Then you realized it was the same phone that Felice Sanders was using when she called to apologize for acting out at the funeral. The machine told you the number belonged to a family called MacLachlin. One glance at the White Pages and you've got their address on Greenwich.

“But then, after you blew her brains out in that apartment, you had those terrible second thoughts, didn't you? When it was too late. You'll have to think twice after you kill me, too, Doc, because I can't tell you where Miller is either.”

Again, that heavy-headed nodding.

“Think now, man!” I pleaded. “Why won't you think
now
! How could I be part of that lunacy? It doesn't make sense. I was working with the cops, for Godsake.

“But you don't care about that, do you? All you know is that
your
family was destroyed …
your
money was taken …
your
conscience is killing you about Kevin. You keep thinking, If I hadn't done this, if I had let him do that, he'd still be alive. I'd still have my son and my wife.”

Maybe—just maybe—what I was saying had started to sink in. I couldn't tell.

“You make me sick, Benson. You pretend you're doing this because you care so much about Lenore. What's supposed to happen to her after they put your ass away for this? You'll die in prison—hell, they might even execute you if you do this.”

I began to invent. “Don't you realize the police know all about it now? They're looking for you even as you're doing this. That was Detective Sweet I was talking to.”

Benson spoke slowly, his voice goopy like melted ice cream. “I don't care who you were talking to.”

“What do you mean, you don't care? Of course you care. You're starting to believe I'm innocent. I know you are. You're just trying to stop me from telling the police what I know. But it's too late. They already know everything, okay? They know you killed Ida and Felice. They know you've been hunting Miller down. Even if you do kill me, they'll get you anyway.”

We were now at the point of no return. We'd hit the rock-strewn area just off the access road to the drive. In the summer the place was dotted with the makeshift tents of homeless men. This time of year there were only a few dead pigeons and the sundry detritus of human vice: used condoms, needles, and amyl nitrate vials.

Nothing to lose now, I looked defiantly at the old man. His face was deformed with anguish.

“What's this, Doctor—tears? What the fuck are you crying about?” I shouted derisively. “I thought you were going to enjoy killing me. Who are you crying for, anyway? Felice? Are you crying for Kevin? For the race?”

He did try to stop blubbering. He was snuffling and wheezing, trying to calm his breath. He wiped at his eyes with his free hand. But, when he pulled himself together, it wasn't in order to lower the gun and surrender.

Fuck! He was aiming at my heart.

This wasn't right. No, no, no. This was all wrong. I was supposed to live to age ninety and have a blowout weeping-and-wailing Negro kind of funeral like the one in that soapy flick my mom and I watched on the late show—
Imitation of Life
.

That, or I was going to buy it when I missed the hairpin turn in my fabulous convertible on the spindly road high above Saint Tropez because I'd had too much to drink at
le festival du jazz
.