In This Rain (21 page)

“Who are they, the members? Who speaks for them?”

“It’s a large group. You want to talk directly to someone, I suppose you could try Ford Corrington. Over to the Garden Project.”

“Garden Project, Garden Walls. I get it.”

“You ask Ford what his group plans for that site, and how the mayor treated him, as a representative of this community. And you tell Ford that Edgar Westermann sent you.”

“That won’t get me thrown out of his office?”

Westermann’s eyebrows rose. “Was a time it would’ve. Surprised you know that.”

“Actually, I was surprised to see Mr. Corrington at your press conference Saturday, when you spoke about the woman who was killed at the Mott Haven construction site. Anyone who reads the papers knows you two don’t get along.”

“Well, it’s no secret Ford and me have had our differences of opinion. Ford’s a headstrong young fella. Sometimes I guess he can be a little unorthodox. But let me tell you, sometimes in this world a man’s got no choice! When Ford asked could he stand up with me Saturday, I thought, Yes! Let’s show the world Harlem united!”

“When you say ‘unorthodox’

?”

Westermann’s eyes narrowed. “See, now, there you go. You’re looking at a black man don’t toe the line, you’re thinking all kinds of bad things. I’ve been telling that boy for years, you want to make a point or you want to be effective? You keep doing like you do, all that happens, you scare white folks off.”

“Mr. Westermann, I’m not thinking anything. I’m an investigator with a job to do. I’m about to go see Mr. Corrington on your suggestion and I’d like to have as much background as I can.”

“Background? You check me out before you come up here, get yourself some background?”

“I didn’t have to. I’ve followed your career. You’re a public figure.”

“Well, I suppose I am.” He nodded gravely. “Made it my life’s work, to be visible, give the black community a voice. Now Ford, maybe he’s a little hotheaded. But I think in his heart he wants the best for Harlem, too. Take that garden over by his building. Beautiful place, can’t argue with that. And big. Lot used to be owned by the city. One spring, Ford took it over. Borrowed a bulldozer, cleared it, had all the little children plant flowers. After that, all that spring and summer, never a minute when there wasn’t a dozen children in the garden, day and night. Put up a tent, had ’em sleeping there. They called it a ‘sleepin.’ Pressuring the city to give it to him. Mayor had plans for that site, but who’s gonna send marshals to evict little children? Too much like Selma. This here’s the civilized North. Turned into a standoff.”

“I remember reading about that. In the end Mr. Corrington won.”

“In the end he got lucky. So did the mayor, you ask me. Not Charlie Barr, guy before him. Oh, this was years ago. Ford was out hustling while the kids were sleeping in. Found a wealthy white lady, lots of money, lots of guilt. Struck a deal with the city. She bought him the lot. Nice tax-deductible donation. Everybody comes out smelling like a rose.”

“And that’s typical of how Mr. Corrington operates?”

“Hundred and ten percent. I suppose you could call it civil disobedience, twenty-first-century-style.”

Ann thought back. “As I say, I remember reading about it at the time. You were opposed. Or am I wrong?”

Westermann grunted. “Yeah, I thought it was a lot of hallelujah for not much rain.”

“You liked the city’s plan for the site better?”

“The city wanted to build a walk-in clinic. Not as flashy as a garden, but something Harlem sorely needs.”

“That’s right, now I remember. In a program the city used to have to decentralize that kind of service. Those programs were administered through the Borough President’s offices, weren’t they?”

“What’s that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything, Mr. Westermann. Just checking my memory.”

“You saying my opposition came from— ” He broke off. “No disrespect, but you look very familiar. Have we met?”

“Three years ago,” Ann answered levelly. “Dolan Construction.”

Westermann nodded. “Quite a tragedy. That little girl died. But how— ?”

“More than one tragedy. My partner went to prison.”

“Went to prison? That’s right, that was a DOI man, wasn’t it? The one who took bribes— ”

“He didn’t.”

“He was convicted.”

“Unfairly. Because of public pressure.”

“Public pressure. Oh, oh, I see. I spoke out on that case, as I recall.”

“Yes, you did.”

“To demand justice for that poor child’s family.”

“You were pretty unrelenting, Mr. Westermann.”

“Why should I relent in my demands for justice?”

“Another man might have waited until the facts were in.”

“If he was black that other man would have done just what I did.”

“Mr. Corrington didn’t.”

Westermann gave her a long look. She returned it.

“So that’s what this is all about?” he asked. “You’re looking to poke holes in what I said yesterday because of your partner? Make me look like a fool if you can?”

“No. You were the one who wondered if we’d met. We have. But that has nothing to do with why I’m here.”

“I don’t believe you told me yet why you’re here.”

“Yesterday, you made allegations at your press conference. I’m following up.”

“About Charlie’s dirty deal on Block A.”

“If you’re right, I’ll investigate.”

“Yeah. Only I get the feeling I’m not about to be right. Just ol’ Westermann, don’t pay him no mind, he’s been going on like this for years and years. Now, I don’t suppose there’s anything else I can do for you?”

She regarded him steadily. “Not right now, thank you. If I need to speak to you again— ”

“Oh, you just call me. I’ll give LaTasha instructions, go ahead and put you through. Anytime.”

Harlem: Frederick Douglass Boulevard

It was a soft summer afternoon in Morningside Park, pale green grass a thin thatch over the damp black earth. And it was a hard-faced group of young men who, from the benches under the oaks, turned their eyes to Ford.

He was walking straight at them, something no one did. Most folk, if they had any reason to come this deep into this part of the park, cut a wide circle around these benches. The Amsterdam News regularly bemoaned the lawlessness of this path between glacial boulders as though it were a valley held by bandits. The Times joined in sometimes, usually when some oblivious Columbia student had been made to understand that the meaning of “public” had as many shades as skin had. Cops would make sweeps and politicians would make promises, but nothing changed. The area was governed by a social contract as powerful as any other. One of the contract’s clauses was the inarguable truth that everybody has to be someplace. These young men, never offered anyplace worth going or anything positive to do when they got there, had staked out their own territory. For its part, Harlem seemed willing to cede them this path as not too bad a price, considering the alternatives.

It was one of the things Walter Glybenhall hadn’t understood when he offered, as part of his rationale for sticking his 9/11 memorial here, the idea that it would bring visitors to this area of the park, making it safer. “Safer for the visitors,” Ford had declared at the first of many press conferences, “at the expense of the people who walk along the streets, shop here, live here.” Harlem wasn’t interested in breaching a contract. Especially for a red-white-and-blue-blooded memorial that had nothing to say about the complex patriotism of people uprooted, first from tribal Africa, then from the rural South, and then, over and over, from New York neighborhoods disregarded by white people until the morning some white developer woke up and sniffed money in the ghetto air.

They’d won that round: Glybenhall’s memorial had been built in Riverside Park, where the joggers and dog walkers had been, according to Charlie Barr, “pleased and proud to welcome it.” And Ford had squeezed a new swing set and bench repairs out of the Parks Department, as guilt money.

You guys don’t know it, Ford thought as he approached the young men along the bandit path, but wasn’t for me, your bad asses would have no place to sit. It was a funny thought, but it would have been a mistake to smile. He slowed his stride as he came close, let his hands dangle open, held his shoulders loose and easy. He searched their faces, to see who was here. Three of them were young men he’d known when they were boys, still knew to talk to. Most of the others were familiar by face and reputation. When he reached the group, he stopped. He nodded but kept his expression carefully blank.

A short, tense silence; then, “Mr. Corrington.” A dark-skinned boy, younger than the others, acknowledged him. His voice was sullen and his eyes narrowed, but he spoke. “What you doing here?” His name was Armand, this boy, and when he used to come around the Garden Project for tutoring, that’s what they called him. But the tutoring didn’t take and Armand stopped coming. One day his mother moved upstate with her boyfriend, taking Armand’s younger sister, leaving Armand on the street at thirteen. If Ford remembered right, he called himself A-Dogg now.

“I’m looking for someone,” Ford said.

“We ain’t seen him.” That came from a chubby guy. Ford searched his memory for the kid’s street name. Something unexpected. Blowfish, that was it. Blowfish snickered and Armand’s eyes took on a worried look.

“Kong,” Ford said.

A ripple went through the group: backs straightened, a fist clenched. Blowfish shook his head, suppressing a smile. The rest of the group moved closer like a gathering storm.

“Fuck shit is that?” A handsome kid, a deep voice. “What you say that for?”

“Carlo, I’m looking for your brother,” Ford said to the kid. “I know Kong hangs here.”

“Yo, nigger, you think you funny? I show you funny!” Carlo’s sneakers thudded to the earth. Blowfish shrugged, then stood, and another kid stood, too, one easing to each side of Ford as Carlo came and crowded him. Ford didn’t move back, didn’t move at all.

“Yo, Carlo, back off,” said Armand. A request, this was, not a command, and from the look Carlo snapped him Ford could see Armand was overspending his currency even so.

“Shut the fuck up, A-Dogg,” Carlo muttered, eyes locking again on Ford.

“Yo, nigger! Mr. Corrington ain’t like that.” Armand licked his lips nervously. “Y’all just better go,” he said to Ford.

“I’m not trying to piss anyone off,” Ford said. “Or get anyone in trouble. I just need to talk to Kong.”

“Fuck that! Fuck that!” Something jumped in Carlo’s hand: a box cutter, thin blade glittering.

“Carlo! Damn, Carlo, chill. He probably don’t know.” Armand looked at Ford with pleading eyes. Ford read: That’s all I can do for you, man.

Ford forced his hands to stay open, his feet not to jump back. He’d have liked to wipe the sweat newly trickling down his temple, but he didn’t move, didn’t even look down at the hand gripping the blade. Carlo’s face smoldered six inches from his. “If there’s something I don’t know,” Ford said in an even tone, “and my not knowing has caused offense, I’m sorry. I mean no disrespect.”

“Fuck you don’t know,” Carlo snarled, but his hand didn’t move and the electrical charge in the air dropped a volt or two.

“He don’t!” Armand grabbed his chance. “My man Kong,” he said quickly to Ford, glancing at Carlo, “he passed.”

“Passed? Oh, bitch, what you talking about, passed?” Contempt curled Carlo’s lip. “He ain’t passed. Some motherfucker blew him away! And when I find him, I make him the sorriest motherfucker was ever born!”

Sutton Place

Ann stepped from the air-conditioning of the glass lobby onto the hot, bright plaza. She bought a package of honey-roasted nuts and stood in the sunlight at the sidewalk’s edge.

People streamed into the State Office Building behind her and surged along 125th Street in front of her. Sellers of shea butter, foil-wrapped incense, and essential oils lined the curb. A man in a mud-cloth robe sat surrounded by posters of a dark-skinned Jesus floating above the African continent striped red, green, and black. Buses plowed by and pigeons swooped. Ann was eating peanuts and admiring some terracotta tracery across the street when her cell phone rang.

She wiped her hand on a napkin and checked the phone’s readout. “Hello, Luis.”

“Hey, I’m on her speed-dial! Is that like getting to first base these days?”

“No, it’s so I know whom to avoid.”

“But you answered! You can’t lie to me, I’m getting to you.”

“Yeah, but maybe not in the way you mean.”

“Don’t break my balloon. Listen, beautiful, I’m sitting here with someone I think you should talk to. Two guys, actually. Much as I hate to share you, any way you could come up here?”

“Funny, I was just wondering what to do now. It’s important?”

“It’s really just an excuse to get next to you, but please?”

“You know, Luis, they have laws against this stuff.”

“Special exemption para los Boriquas. With us it’s genetic.”

Ann laughed. “Where’s here? Your place?”

“My wife wouldn’t like it.”

“I meant— ”

“Yeah, I know. But no, I’m in Manhattan. The two-eight.”

“Harlem?”

“Yeah, 123rd and Frederick Douglass.”

“What’s that, Eighth Avenue?”

“To you honkies, yeah.”

“Luis, you’re as white as I am.”

“Princess, no one’s as white as you. How soon can you get here?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Even you don’t drive that fast. No, seriously, because— ”

“Nine.”

She clicked off, grinned, and slipped her sunglasses on.

Ann strode up the street past sneaker stores, discount clothing stores, a hair-braiding parlor, and three storefront churches. A sagging cross clung to the face of a brick rowhouse; through the open door Ann heard jackhammers and saw sunlight striping dust. On the next block stood the Apollo. When she and Jen had gone there a few years ago, to a Harlem Boys Choir benefit, the terracotta facade and plaster interior had both been shabby. Now a scrim draped from roof to sidewalk and the ruckus of construction was loud.

Ann was expecting a police station like the buildings around it: carved stone, tall windows, ornate doors. But apparently in the seventies the city had built the Twenty-eighth Precinct a new home. Raw concrete and polished stone stood frostily back from the sidewalk and then, in canted overhangs, loomed above it. Smoked glass ran high on the walls. The door was blank steel. On the front drooped the banner most precincts had carried since 9/11— The NYPD thanks you for your support. The Police and the Community, working together— but if one citizen in a hundred felt comfortable anywhere near this building, Ann would eat her hat.