No Time to Die (25 page)

Suddenly the phone beeped loudly and the operator came on. A recording that sounded almost absurd in this arena of overturned lamps and chairs and furniture dotted with blood: “If you wish to make a call, please hang up and—”

The line had been open. Tad had probably heard and was on his way. Maybe halfway here, turning the corner, running, flying, driving, he had to be almost at the door. If I could just keep him talking.

But he yanked the cord from the wall as I glanced around for something to defend myself with. Before I could reach for anything, anything at all, he cleared the sofa in a lightning move and shoved me against the mantel. His hands were at my throat, trying to loop the cord around my neck.

I clawed at his face but my arm by now was useless. My breath left me and I felt as if I were being submerged. I was drowning. My other hand scrabbled against the mantel trying to hold on. My head was exploding. I was underwater at a great depth and my
lungs had blown up. I raised my arm and grabbed a piece of flotsam to try to keep afloat. I held on tight but the bulging, unblinking eye in the face loomed larger. I struck once, a swift powerful blow, before the waves closed over me.

I don’t know who arrived first.

Tad, ready to shoot to kill, or Alvin, who aimed to maim. Maybe they burst in together. I don’t know. I do know that Ruffin nearly finished the man off before Tad got Alvin to pull him off.

I ended up back in Harlem Hospital, where the doctor shook his head at the sight of my swollen neck, puffed eyes, and battered limbs and said he was going to start charging me rent.

I woke up in what appeared to be the same bed I’d occupied during my earlier vist. This time I had not gone into a coma although the blood loss had been significant. I had only, the doctor said, been choked nearly unconscious.

I gazed around the room as he stepped outside and said, “You folks can come in now, but only for fifteen minutes.” And everyone seemed to crowd in at once. Dad, Alvin, Tad, Elizabeth, and Bertha. No one said anything. Elizabeth bit her lip, blinked, then burst into tears. Alvin followed. Bertha gazed at me and whispered something too soft for me to hear. Dad slipped
into the chair by the bed and simply stared. For a minute, I thought he would start crying also.

Only Tad kept his composure, but the longer he stared, the more unsure I felt.

“Did I get him?” My voice sounded feathery, as if it wouldn’t carry beyond the edge of the bed. My throat hurt when I spoke.

“Did I get him?” I whispered again.

Tad looked from me to Dad, then back to me again. “Mali. You got him. You got him.”

“You did a job,” Alvin said, recovering quickly so as not to get left out of the telling. I looked from one to the other. Dad had gotten up to console Elizabeth, and Alvin quickly slid into his seat and rested his elbows on the bed.

“Girl, you put his lights out,” Bertha said, beaming through her tears.

“One light,” Tad corrected, taking my hand. “When we came in, the guy was on his knees howling, trying to pull Felicia’s statue out of his face. His eye was enucleated.”

“What?” Alvin looked at him.

“Punctured. Completely punched out. Or in. Whichever.”

“He’s not dead?” I asked.

“No, but where he’s going, he won’t be needing twenty-twenty vision.”

Tad passed his fingers lightly over my face and neck. “You’re pretty well bruised up.”

So that’s what had everybody so upset when they walked in. They probably never saw a dark brown person that had turned blue. I closed my eyes to keep from laughing but opened them when Tad spoke. “Your legs gonna take a bit longer to heal. Last night’s gymnastics sent you back to square one.”

I nodded, not sure I understood. I closed my eyes and heard the doctor say, “Time’s up. You can visit her again tomorrow,” and I was grateful. All I wanted to do now was sleep.

This time it only took three days before I went home. I was supposed to remain off my feet for several weeks and Tad was only too happy to assume the difficult task of massage therapist. He was so dedicated he covered more territory than he needed and concentrated specifically on my hips and legs.

“My arm could use some attention also,” I murmured at one point.

“Oh. Yeah. You’re right. Just let me—”

That was the good part, those early-evening-into-late-night sessions.

The bad part was listening to the story of Charles Milton unfold. The fibers on his pants linked him to the Bronx murders but this forensic evidence was simply an overleaf:

Manacled to a bed in Bellevue’s prison ward, he’d boasted of all the killings, swore he’d do it again as soon as he got out; that he wasn’t finished because no one was going to ignore him and live.

He spoke of a Mercy Anne Tompkins and also of a girl named Natalie, left on a roof near 154th Street and Eighth Avenue. He wanted to speak to Geraldo, but since he, Ache, still had work to do, Geraldo would have to wait.

And every evening, the picture enlarged. Mercy Anne had been a classmate. Even though she had married and divorced, it had been easy for Tad to track her down. She had not moved too far from the neighborhood.

“I spoke to her,” Tad said, “and she remembered Charles in junior high school. Said he was off the wall way back then. Said he always showed up late for school, when he showed up at all. And when he did, looked like something somebody had thrown away.

“Mercy Anne remembered Natalie also. Last name was Wilson. Natalie’s mother had moved away after she disappeared, never knowing what happened to her daughter. Mercy Anne broke down when I told her what Ache had done, that he had killed Natalie.

“I went to the building where he said he had left her. The place had been renovated, done over about fifteen years ago, but the work had been done by homesteaders, sweat equity people, some of whom still lived there.”

Tad coughed, as if his throat had gone dry. A minute later he continued.

“One old man, a Mr. Caeser, was sitting on the stoop and remembered when his crew cleared the garbage on the roof. ‘We didn’t know what or who it was,’ he told me. ’Been there so long, nuthin’ but bones. A raggedy dress and bones. I followed the case, kept after the cops, but you know how that is, just one more black child murdered and nobody give a damn.

“ ‘So me and the boys, we ain’t had but so much—never did—that’s why we was workin’ for nuthin’ to renovate the place. Sweat equity give us our own roof over our heads, our own homes. Anyway, we chipped in, passed the hat, and scuffled till we scraped together enough cash to keep that little kid from bein’ put out there on Hart’s Island. You know how they have that Rikers Island prison detail? They the ones bury them nameless people in that potter’s field. Well, it wasn’t gonna happen to this kid. Got thrown away in life but we wasn’t gonna let that happen in death.

“ ‘Never did know her name or nuthin’ but I know she restin’ like she should. That’s all I can say. That’s all I can say.’ ”

Tad was sitting on the floor near the sofa, his hand resting on my stomach. He stopped talking and in the silence I heard Mr. Caeser’s voice, heavy with age and emotion. Then that also faded into silence. I heard Tad cough again. He had turned the table lamp off and only the streetlight splintered dimly through the blinds.

I touched the side of his face and he eased my hand away. In the dark I heard—felt—him inhale.

“Natalie’s in St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx. I figure by the time you’re mobile again, we could maybe take a run up there. See what’s what.”

“Okay,” I said, waiting.

“By that time, her plaque’ll be ready,” he whispered.

I could not see his face in the dark but I imagined the small marble square, the piece of stone designed to give a nameless child back her past and embed her in someone’s memory.

When Tad reached up to touch my face, he misunderstood my tears.

“You’ve been through a hell of a lot, baby. A hell of a lot. When you get on your feet, we’re gonna make up for all the lost time we—”

“That’s funny,” I whispered, feeling the palm of his hand press against my midsection. “I thought we were doing that now.”

“Oh no, baby. Not quite. Not quite.” He rose and turned on the lamp, then went to his jacket that was draped over the chair.

“I wasn’t supposed to mention this just yet, but I—”

We heard the key turn in the lock and Dad came in,
saw the packet in Tad’s hand, and said, “What? You told her already? I thought you were gonna wait.”

Tad lifted his shoulders and I saw that rare smile. “Well, I figured this was as good a time as any.”

I looked from one to the other. “What’s going on?”

“Jazz cruise,” Dad said. “I’ve got a gig on the
QE2
. Newport Jazz Festival. Lou Rawls, Aretha Franklin, Ruth Brown, Ron Carter, and whole lot of others will be there. This is the cruise of a lifetime.”

“What?”

“That’s right. We’re all going. Tad has your tickets right there,” he said, pointing to the packet.

Tad opened the packet and the tickets, traveler’s checks, brochures, and tags fell out. “I told you we were gonna make up for lost time.”

“This’ll do it,” I said, closing my eyes and thinking of Aretha Franklin. “This’ll definitely work.”

If you enjoyed Grace F. Edwards’s
No Time to Die
,
you won’t want to miss any
of her mysteries featuring
Harlem sleuth Mali Anderson.

Look for
If I Should Die
and
A Toast Before Dying
at your favorite bookseller’s.

And don’t miss
Do or Die
,
coming in hardcover from
Doubleday in May 2000!

GRACE F. EDWARDS
was born and raised in Harlem and now lives in Brooklyn. Her previous novels are
In the Shadow of the Peacock
and two Mali Anderson mysteries,
If I Should Die
and
A Toast Before Dying
. She has just completed her fourth mystery,
Do or Die
, which also features Mali Anderson.