C Corwin - The Cross Kisses Back

Aubrey and I sneaked out of the newsroom at four and walked down the hill to Ike’s Coffee Shop. Ike’s was the only remaining tenant in the eight-story Longacre Building, a beautiful old art nouveau palace that once housed many of the city’s most prestigious doctors and lawyers. The faded sign in the window of the empty storefront next to Ike’s had been announcing a major renovation of the building for at least a decade.

But Ike hangs on, selling lattes to-go to harried white office workers and mugs of regular coffee to the retired and under-employed blacks who like to linger at the little round tables. I buy my tea bags there, in bulk, not because I get a better price, but because Ike needs the money, and, well, I just like his company.

Ike was at the sink washing mugs when we came in. He sang out: “Morgue Mama!”

I wriggled my fingers at him. “Tea and a regular coffee, Ike.” We sat at the empty table by the cigarette machine.

Aubrey was surprised. “You let him call you that?”

“Ike has earned the right,” I said.

“I’m jealous-how has he done that?”

“Driving me home a hundred winter nights when my car wouldn’t start. Always making sure I’m having a good day.”

Ike brought our mugs. “Morgue Mama ever tell you why everybody calls me Ike?” he asked Aubrey. “Even though my real name is Leonard?”

Aubrey gave me a playful glower. “I’m afraid Mrs. Sprowls keeps lots of secrets from me.”

“Well-It’s because I was the only black man in Hannawa anybody knew who voted for Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

Aubrey looked at me for help.

“You’ll have to forgive Miss McGinty,” I said to Ike. “She is very, very young.” I leaned toward Aubrey and whispered. “Ike was Eisenhower’s nickname.”

Ike laughed and went back to his dirty mugs. Aubrey and I started making plans for her now-official investigation of the Buddy Wing murder.

“You don’t look too happy about Bob and Tinker giving you the go-ahead,” I said.

“Every word I write they’ll be perched on my shoulders like a couple of big-nosed parrots. Can’t say that! Awrrrak! Can’t say that! ”

“That’s the way big papers work,” I said. “It’s your reporting but their reputations.”

She sarcastically toasted me with her mug. “Well, just so you can sleep nights, I’m going to play by the rules.”

“Which are?”

“That I simply try to prove Sissy couldn’t have done it-which we’ve pretty much done already-and, if I can manage, get her to admit it on the record.”

“But not try to find the real killer?”

She imitated Bob Averill’s slow, dry Midwestern voice: “That is the police department’s responsibility.”

“And it is,” I said.

She returned to her own voice: “But they do want a series-five or six parts-so we can still do lots of snooping. Background on the atmosphere that led up to the murder. History of the church. Bandicoot’s split with Wing. The anger and the rivalry. How easy it would be for someone else to paint that cross. How the police rushed to judgment. Whatever we can put together to paint the big picture.”

I sipped my tea and waited for one of Ike’s regulars to rattle a pack of Kools out of the cigarette machine. “You still want this to be we? Even after I let the cat out of the bag?”

“It’s still we, Maddy. You, me and my wild, Asian-American sex toy.”

We laughed and sipped and ducked the cigarette smoke wiggling toward the ceiling.

The paper-rightfully-did not want Aubrey looking for the real murderer. But I knew Aubrey would keep looking. She not only wanted to free Sissy James, she wanted an arrest and a trial. She wanted a story that would go on for months. She was as interested in advancing her career as Bob Averill and Alec Tinker were about advancing theirs. The Herald-Union was not going to be her last stop. She had her eyes on the Washington Post or The New York Times. And why shouldn’t she?

“What happens,” I asked, “if we do stumble onto the real killer? Would you go to the police, like you did with the football coach at The Gazette?”

“I suppose.”

We passed on the free refills Ike offered us and started back. Central Avenue, pretty much empty all day, was filling up with rush hour traffic. “Did you tell Bob about your car windows?”

“Am I out of my mind?” she asked.

Sunday, May 21

Before Aubrey could pursue the Buddy Wing story full-time, she had to finish her series on the city’s street prostitutes. She worked day and night all week. I dug out all the old files I had on the subject, some going back to the twenties. Prostitution is not only the world’s oldest profession, it’s one of the world’s oldest newspaper stories.

On Sunday the first story of her series ran. “ WALKING THE WALK,” the headline across the top of Page One read, “ THERE’S NOTHING SEXY ABOUT THE SEX TRADE.”

Accompanying the story was a shadowy photo of a girl with chubby, naked legs leaning into a car window. Aubrey’s story was chilling:

HANNAWA -Keesha will party with a dozen people tonight, but she will have a lousy time.

That’s because Keesha is one of an estimated 50 to 60 women selling sex on Hannawa’s bleakest streets. Like Keesha, most of these women are not women at all, but teenage girls, some still attending high school. Most, like Keesha, are black.

“I ain’t doing this forever,” Keesha said minutes after exiting a dark green Ford Explorer, where she’d performed oral sex on a big-bellied white man.

SEE WALK PAGE A6

Tuesday, May 23

Aubrey leaned on the counter where I was sorting out a month’s worth of obituaries. She was smirking. “Maddy-you’ll never guess who’s descended into the dark, slimy world of corporate PR.”

I made sure my expression was as flat as an Ohio corn field. “Dale Marabout?”

Her smirk got even uglier. “I figured you already knew about it.”

“Of course I know about it.”

She leaned on the counter. Rested her chin on her knuckles. “I ran into him at the library last night. Working away at a little table in the corner like a Franciscan monk.”

“And he told you about the job, did he?”

“Only that he was doing a freelance project for a local company. He was pretty tight-lipped about it.”

“And you figured I’d fill in all the horrible details?”

“Well-yeah.”

I did not like Aubrey taking pleasure in what she considered Dale’s misfortune. Nor did I like her drilling me for information. “Dale and I have been friends for a long time,” I said. “You and I have been acquainted for five minutes. If Dale doesn’t want you to know more, then neither do I.”

The word acquainted stung her and I was glad it did. “Come on, Maddy-I’m happy for him,” she said.

I batted the air. “Poop! You’re just happy it isn’t you.”

“True enough,” she admitted. “I think I’d slit my wrists before I sank to writing PR.”

Good gravy, Aubrey made me angry that day. Angry at her and angry at myself. I was helplessly attracted to her sassiness and her tenacity, like a mosquito to a bug zapper, as they say. But I was also helplessly loyal to Dale. “Not if you had a family to support,” I growled. I gathered up the obits and headed for my desk. She knew enough not to follow.

I wasn’t about to tell Aubrey, but Dale never would have taken that freelance assignment if it hadn’t been for me. I’d learned about the job though the grapevine and knew it would be perfect for him. It was with a prominent corporation in town. It would pay big bucks and maybe lead to a full-time job. So I’d invited him to Speckley’s and told him about it.