Уолтер Мосли - Down the River unto the Sea

“Murdered?”

“Mugging, they say.” He looked up at me. “What do you say?”

Being a cop, I didn’t want to believe Lamont. He was the kind of guy I rousted and arrested, questioned, and, if the need arose, threatened. But I had lots of experience with seasoned liars. He didn’t seem to be one of them.

“Mr. Charles?” a woman said.

She was in her thirties but carried herself in a younger pose. She wore a green dress and a frilly white sweater. Her black shoes had respectable heels and her makeup had been applied with care. There were little gold flashes at the corners of her eyes.

New York white, she had no discomfort standing alone on a deck with two black men.

“Miss Gorman,” Lamont said. “Meet Mr. Joe Oliver. He used to be a cop.”

Also being New York white, she wasn’t necessarily fond of people in my profession.

“What do you want with Mr. Charles?”

“I...”

“He came here to aks if me and Manny weren’t fingered, Loretta.”

“Are you investigating Lamont’s case?” she asked me.

“Not directly,” I admitted. “I’m trying to see if Mr. Man’s conviction might be an injustice.”

I was used to the disbelief in her gaze.

“Me and Miss Gorman are goin’ out for hot dogs, Mr. Oliver. We do that at least once a week.”

“You guys friends?”

“I used to volunteer here before I got a job at Mercy Hospital,” she said. “We started our hot dog lunches then.”

It was no surprise that a young woman would be smitten with Lamont. Women didn’t necessarily need good men to excite them. What they needed, and most men needed too, was somebody who understood their desires and their fears — not necessarily in that order.

“Well,” I said, pushing up from the splintery railing, “I guess I’ll let you guys get to it.”

I’d reached the door when Lamont called out, “Oliver.”

I turned to see him scribbling something down on a little tray that the wheelchair offered.

When I got back to him and his date, he said, “I believe you.”

“Oh?”

“Lotsa cops and lawyers and other thugs have been up here talkin’ to me about Manny. They wanna know if he did anything wrong that they could pin on him. You know, like if he shoplifted a can of stewed tomatoes once, that proves he’s a murderer. I haven’t told them word one. But you ask the right questions and even if you don’t like me you still got natural respect.”

This compliment reminded me of Mel.

“Here.” He held up the slip of paper. On this he had printed an address and a phone number.

“Miranda Goya. She the one girl we saved who I know where she at. You don’t have to call her. I’ll do that. But you could go there anytime tomorrow afternoon or after that. Manny put his life on the line to save that girl. She will stand up for him.”

I considered the address for a few seconds, felt my brow furrow, and wondered whether I had convinced Lamont of my intentions or he was setting me up.

“Naw, man,” the gambler said. “Even if I thought you was dirty I’d just say I didn’t know nuthin’. I ain’t about to put my one good hand in cuffs over some ex-cop I don’t know.”

“You read minds, Mr. Charles?”

“Better. I read men.”

I drove home, parked the car in the small underground lot that Kristoff Hale has for his tenants, and then once again walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

That was midday and so there was a good deal of foot traffic. The path is divided — on one side pedestrians ruled and on the other bicycles whizzed past. There isn’t enough room for both and even if there was, tourists don’t really understand. They’re often standing in the bike path, posing for pictures or taking in the sights. And then there are those privileged individuals who feel that they have just as much right to be in the bicycle lanes as the bikes do.

I stick to the side of the path marked for pedestrians, refusing to move out of the way of couples and groups who don’t get or respect the rules. I like the rules; following them proves to me that I’m a civilized man.

I turned left on Broadway and hoofed it down into the heart of the Financial District, what they call Wall Street. I came upon a huge steel, glass, and blue marble building owned by Citizens Bank of Eastern Europe, whoever they might be.

It was a bustling building populated by a broad swath of cultures sporting everything from twig-littered dreadlocks to pinstripe blue silk. There were eleven banks of elevators. Number nine was dedicated to Suliman Investments between floors forty-four and fifty-eight.

“May I help you?” a tall black guard in a brass-colored uniform asked me.

Behind him stood two other guards, one white and the other descended from Asia. I wondered if they sent out guards the same color of people they might have to refuse entrée.

“Joe Oliver for Jocelyn Bryor,” I announced.

“Do you have an appointment?”

He was a young man who it seemed was prone to jump to conclusions. He had already decided that I would be turned away and asked the question to cut to that eventuality.

“Joe Oliver for Jocelyn Bryor,” I repeated.

“I asked you a question,” the hall guard — his name tag read FORTHMAN — said.

“I didn’t come here to answer your questions, son. I came here to see Ms. Bryor. It’s your job to call her assistant and announce me.”

“I’m not your son.”

“But you are their bitch.” I was ready for a fight. Those residents of Aramaya had made me mad at God and all his, or her, creation.

“What?” Forthman said in a threatening tone.

The Asian sentry, an older man, read Forthman’s shoulders and hurried toward us.

“What’s the problem here?” he asked. He had a slight English accent. At least this surprised me.

“I asked him if he had an appointment,” the young black man blamed.

“I’m here to see Jocelyn Bryor,” I said to the new player.

“But he don’t have no appointment.”

The Asian man looked at me, into my eyes, and asked, “What is your name, sir?”

“Joe Oliver. Some people call me King.”

“Wait here, sir,” the older sentinel asserted gently.

“But, Chin—,” Forthman managed to say.

“I’ll take care of this, Robert” was Chin’s reply.

Chin went to a standup desk anchored to the wall and pulled a phone from behind the plain facade.

Robert Forthman was staring daggers at me so I made a gesture with both hands, welcoming him to make manifest his anger.

He clenched his fists and I smiled. He took a step forward and the white guard moved up behind Forthman and uttered something. Forthman hesitated and the white man said something else. With a violent turn, the tall black uniform did a complete one-eighty and walked down the aisle of elevators to and through a doorway on the opposite end.

“Ms. Bryor will see you,” Chin said before Forthman was gone.

The white guard gestured for me and I went to stand next to a lift door.

He pushed a button and said, “That kid’s a light heavyweight.”

“That all? I thought he might’a had a gun.”

The elevator door opened and I went through.

The white guy leaned in after me, held a card in front of a sensor plate, and pressed the button for floor fifty-seven.

The car floated up at a respectable speed. I wondered about my reception. Gladstone told me about Bryor quitting the force and moving to the private sector. I had reason to hate that woman. This was why I was willing to pick a fight with a boxer.

The doors to the onyx-and-gold elevator car opened onto what looked like a foyer to some grand East Hampton mansion.

A beautiful black girl in a very tasteful dress greeted me.