Wendy Hornsby - Bad Intent

“Pinkie is Charles Conklin?” I asked.

She nodded. “What I say?”

“Do you believe he’s innocent?” I asked.

“Don’t care about that, neither.” She slurred her words less as her apparent interest level rose. “Where he is now, he don’t pay no child support. He don’t do nothin’ to help bring up the boy. I want his ass out here where he be some use to me.”

“Tell me about Mr. Conklin,” I said.

“Got nothin’ to say about him.” With the bottle, she was waving me away. But she kept talking. “He is scandalous. I told my girl to stay outta his way. He was dealin’, rennin’ my baby on the street, stealin’ cars. He was sent up for messin’ with his own little girl.”

“Roll that by me again,” I said. “The little girl part.”

“He went to jail for messin’ with this little girl,” she said, her pitch rising at the end. “Left my girl with a baby when he got arrested. She was only fourteen herself.”

“Besides Tyrone, he has a daughter?”

“He has a lotsa kids. An’ he don’t take care of none of them.”

“Nice guy. this Charles Conklin.” I began to relax for Mike a little. Even the most egregious sob sister or opportunist, Roddy O’Leary included, couldn’t make a media hero and martyr out of a child-abusing pimp.

Etta refortified herself with a long pull from her bottle. When she put the bottle down again, she seemed surprised to see me still there. “Was there somethin’ else?”

“That’s about it,” I said. “Except, maybe you should get yourself a lawyer.”

“Me?”

“You may need to protect yourself, Etta, if the sleaze TV people come asking you to sign exclusive interview agreements with them. They can be tricky.”

“What did you call that?”

“An exclusive agreement.”

“Is that like the paper you had me sign?”

“No. You signed a release form giving me the right to commercial use of the interview we taped. It doesn’t keep you from giving interviews to other people.”

“If I sign a’ exclusion thing with you, will those reporters you told me about stay away from me?”

“Not necessarily. Anyway, I can’t pay you for an exclusive. The best I can offer is to put you up in a hotel for a while if things get hinky,” I said, hoping I had a credit card that wasn’t coaxed out if it came to that. “You could take a little vacation until the press loses interest and moves on.”

She smiled at the idea. “I ain’t had no vacation in a long time.”

Baby Boy had a gleam in his eye.

I was ready to go pack her a bag, even though hiding her away was a risky idea that could backfire on all of us if the story got hot. I kept talking. “Go to legal aid tomorrow and get a lawyer before you do anything.”

“Hold on one minute.” Baby Boy took a step toward me. “You say you don’t have money. But those TV people do. A lot of money.”

“How much?” Etta demanded.

“Depends on what you have to say and how badly they want it,” I said. “Anywhere from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands.”

“They gonna ax me about Tyrone, the way you done?”

“Probably not,” I said. “They’ll want to talk about Charles Conklin and the police who sent him to prison. The district attorney is saying the police threatened the witnesses to make them identify Charles. Do you know who those officers were?”

“Yes I do. Officer Flint and Officer Kelsey. I know them for a long time.”

“They must have questioned you and your daughter, maybe some of your neighbors. Did you ever hear anyone say Officer Flint threatened them? Mistreated anyone? Forced them to change their testimony?”

“He’s the police,” she said, shrugging. “You know how they are.”

“No, I don’t know,” I said. “Suppose you tell me.”

“Uh huh.” Etta, who had been very serious and very blase through the entire conversation, finally gave me her beautiful, big, toothy smile. “Now let me ax you a question. Did Officer Flint ever mistreat you?”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“I’m beginnin’ to understand what you doin’ here. He told me you was his lady now. I think I better take your advice and get me a lawyer before I talk to anyone. Includin’ you.”

“You catch on fast,” I said. “Just one more question, and it has nothing to do with the other business. I’ve been looking for a woman named Hanna Rhodes. She grew up in the projects. She would be twenty-four or twenty-five years old now. Do you know her or her family? The last address for her grandmother is on Grape Street.”

“Hanna?” Etta looked up at Baby Boy before she answered. “Go look in Sybil Brand or Frontera. She in the joint more than she out.”

“Thanks,” I said. “What about Wednesday morning? Do you want to come to Juvenile Hall with me?”

“We’ll see,” she said, flirting at Baby Boy. “We’ll see.”

Smooth dismissal gambit: Baby Boy opened the screen door and held it for me. “Thanks for comin’ by.”

“Bye, Etta,” I said, walking out past Baby Boy. “I’ll be in touch.”

No one bothered me on the walk back to my car, not with Baby Boy standing in the doorway watching. I was grateful to him, and grateful that the car was intact. I wasted not a step, not a movement getting to the car and inside with the doors locked behind me. The engine started, the lights came on, reverse worked, so did drive. I sighed; none of my doomsday scenarios had happened.

I had a moment’s pause, however, when I noticed that the boys who had harassed me going in were sitting on the grass eating coconut cake and drinking Dr. Pepper.

At eleven, when I got back to Encino, the night was still warm and the condo grounds were still deserted. I had expected people to be outside when the air had cooled off, to walk or swim, or get blasted al fresco. If they had come out, they had gone back inside early. The quiet was beautiful. I walked straight to the pool.

Again, no one. For a change, there were no splashing toddlers, no cocktail-hour schmoozers and oglers, no senior watercisers. Simply, no one. Such a rare circumstance left me with no alternative: I stripped to bra and bikini panties, black ones, and dove into the cool still water.

The first lap was heavy going. My arms seemed weighted and I couldn’t find my rhythm. By the third lap, I was moving easily, loose and strong. I didn’t bother to count turns, I just swam like a machine until my thighs were full of fire and my shoulder muscles froze up from fatigue.

At the point where I could not swim another stroke, I stopped in the middle of the pool, rolled onto my back, and looked up into the black and starless night. I floated while I caught my breath, my heaving chest sending ripples around me.

The pool was a delicious luxury. So was the solitude. I thought about the kids at Jordan Downs who had access to neither. I suffered a flash of guilt for the pleasure I was having, a pang akin to the stab I felt when Oscar said “la-di-da” when I told him what my parents do. He had meant it as a put-down.

I wasn’t born poor, nor was I born rich. We were hardworking comfortable, somewhere in that range where children might have ponies but weren’t taken skiing in St. Moritz. I was never coddled or spoiled. I never went hungry. In my heart I knew I had nothing to be ashamed of. But, as Guido had pointed out, my heart still bled for everyone else.

Relaxed to the point of sleepiness, I hauled myself out of the water, slipped into my shirt, gathered my things, and stumbled home.

Michael was asleep on the living room sofa. He had ceded his bedroom to Casey, how willingly I wasn’t sure. I suspect that it had been Mike’s idea, born out of a notion that girls need more privacy than boys, some stubborn remnant of chivalry. Whatever, it was a noble gesture, a big help in the short run. I felt very strongly that we had to find Michael a space of his own, and soon.