Ishmael Reed: The Terrible Threes

“I just thought you needed a job. You know the last time I saw you you were a private detective.”

“I never got a license.”

“I was down in Dominica covering the invasion. What a joke that was.”

“Joke? I thought that General Scott defeated the communist forces there. He was elected President on that right-wing ticket that was supposed to have been a change in direction from the drift toward the left begun with the Reagan admin—”

“Yes, that’s what they say. But actually they only uncovered one communist, and he turned out to be on the C. I. A.’s payroll.”

“What?”

“They didn’t realize it until the Marines shot up his hotel room.”

“But what about the combat footage?”

“It was manufactured by Towers Bradhurst, the man who invented Joe Beowulf. It wasn’t even shot in Dominica. It was filmed in Marin County in California.”

“Son of a bitch,” Nance said. “Why didn’t the press expose it?” Nance thought of what he had said, and they both laughed. “So is that what you wanted to tell me about the invasion?”

“No. I met these Rastas down there and they said they would pay $250,000 to anyone who would retrieve something that the Vatican had of theirs. Some sort of scepter-like object with a gold star on the top of carved wood. They said that it represents power over the nations of the world. Interested?”

“I don’t know about going back in the detective business. Besides, a lot of these Rastas are fake. They’re dumping crack into the ghettos. They had my neighborhood tweaked out until I snitched on their operations.”

“You can’t judge all Rastafarians by Black Peter and those who hang out on the beaches all over the Caribbean, smoking ganja and committing small crimes. There are bad Catholics, Buddhists, everywhere there’s religion there are con artists and mack men.

“So what’s the good news?” she finally said.

“You remember the first time we met?”

“Yes, you were searching for some man. You were on a job.”

“Well, I just ran into Black Peter on the subway—”

“But the toy manufacturers gave him a big limousine. What’s he doing on a subway?”

“They got rid of him since Nick is back. He’s in a terrible mess. Looks as though he hasn’t bathed in days. Has that surp smell.”

“You don’t believe all of that stuff, do you? Nola Payne. The turkey, and Fryer Moog. Jim Way and all of those Congressmen. It’s all of that cocaine that they’re dumping into the country. Everybody is seeing things and scratching themselves. Everybody is so hyper. Paranoid.”

“Black Peter told me that his friends killed Snow Man.”

“That gangster Joe Baby hired you to find?”

“Yeah. You see, I didn’t fail at all. Of course the jive turkey made up some kind of story about a zombie, and the walking dead, but I figured he must have been on drugs or something. I had to give him ten dollars so that he could call his mother and buy a bite to eat.” She was laughing.

“What’s wrong.”

“I haven’t heard anybody say ‘jive turkey’ in so long.”

She kept laughing. “Did you hear what Virginia said about you on television today?”

“No, what did she say?”

“She said that you were a boring lover. That you were a meat and potatoes man while she was the kind who liked to have an appetizer or a cocktail first. She said you always headed right for the main course.” Nance got up to leave.

“Nance, I didn’t mean—”

“Skip it. Nobody can bring me down tonight. It’s Xmas. I’m starting life with a new slate. I was depressed since the T.T. Xmas over not being able to locate that guy, Snow Man. Now, thanks to Black Peter, I know that he’s dead. That’s a good feeling.” He started out. He heard someone cough. He looked up and saw the Latin man climbing down the ladder which led to the second floor of her loft. He was just wearing a pair of shorts. Nance looked at Jamaica. She lowered her eyes. Nance headed for the elevator door. She rushed after him.

“Nance, you don’t understand. He’s mean, but he also has a good side. I can help him, Nance. I made him stop many of his bad habits. I mean, for example, he doesn’t execute whole families anymore. Just the family member he’s mad with.”

“Señor,” the man said, reeling about on the polished wood floors, a glass of wine in his hand. “When are we going to have our duel?”

“There’s not going to be any duel,” Nance said.

“Ah ha. Just as I thought. Cobarde .”

Nance entered the elevator. The man was standing there and Jamaica had her hand to her head. She was telling him to shut up. He kept calling Nance a cobarde . As the elevator descended, he still heard the man yell cobarde , and Jamaica say shut up. Then he heard a hard slap and a scream. Outside he walked past some carolers. They were singing a song about Joseph, the father of Jesus. He’d never heard of this song. He wondered did Joseph ever get into any duels or brawls. He wondered was Joseph somewhere right now thinking: Here I am, god’s stepfather, and all I get out of the deal is one song. I worked and saved, and paid my taxes, and took a lot of lip from this smartass kid too, whom his mother was devoted to more than to me, and ridicule from all of the guys for falling for that story about immaculate conception. I still think the butcher did it. Mary had a taste for lamb. Always had to take my meals after the family pets got theirs. Nobody even said, why thank you, Joseph, for raising this kid and giving him food and shelter.

When Nance entered the apartment the telephone was ringing. He picked it up. Long distance. Italy. He didn’t know anybody in Italy. They said to stand by for Cardinal Malidori. Cardinal who?

“Mr. Saturday, Nance Saturday?”

“You got him,” Nance said.

“I know that you’re a busy man, but if I could prevail upon you to lend some assistance to my organization. We would be eternally grateful to you, and—”

“Slow down. What organization, who are you?”

“Malidori is my name, and I’m calling from Italy.”

“How did you get my name?” He mentioned one of his former clients. She was really in a bad way, behind in her credit card payments — she owed over one hundred thousand dollars — her rent, not to mention the clothing, cosmetic surgery, and utility bills, and had nothing but a piece of Kraft cheese in her refrigerator until he straightened things out for her. Now she was in Italy and had embarked on a successful modeling career. He said that he’d read about his help to her in an Italian newspaper. That she’d always given him credit for getting rid of her debts so that she could make a new start. Malidori said that he was working with a man who was so obsessed with Satan that he threatened the survival of an organization that was almost two thousand years old. An organization that was two thousand years old must have accumulated a lot of assets, Nance thought. When the man told him how much his organization was willing to pay for his services, Nance imagined himself at La Guardia, reading the newspapers and checking his watch as his fleet of old black Cadillacs, driven by his drivers, made the trip back and forth from the shuttle to downtown hotels.

“When do you want me to start?” Nance asked.

“Your ticket is at the Pan Am ticket counter,” the man said.

After the man hung up, Nance thought about how his luck had changed during the course of the day. He had begun the day feeling like Boston, that day in 1987 after both the Celtics and Marvin Hagler lost. But now he felt like Scrooge must have felt after his long night of the soul, a character in the novel by the English novelist whose last name, Dickens, was a variation of the name Nicholas. And while he was in Rome, he could see what he could do to locate the Rastafarian scepter. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was a lot of cash. He saw himself in the yellow pages: Nance Saturday’s Limousine Service.