A Toast Before Dying (8 page)

Judge Pink Patch cleared his throat. “At this time, the possibility exists that defendant, given the opportunity, may violate the terms and conditions of bail and not return to court at the appointed time. The court is aware that the defendant has a contract to work in Milan, Italy. The possibility exists that he may not return. Bail is therefore denied and trial is scheduled for Tuesday, October 1, 1997.”

At first, I wondered where the sound was coming from: a low whimper that rose and settled like a high keen on the wind. Bertha’s mouth was open and she had thrown her head back and crumpled into the seat, holding her hands to her chest. Kendrick, his eyes tearing, called to her. “Be strong, Bert. I’ll be all right. Be strong.”

At the sound of his voice, two officers attached themselves to each of his arms, as if they expected him to fly off through the barred windows, and a second later he disappeared through the door at the left of the bench.

Elizabeth had left the table and was bending over Bertha now, rubbing her hands, patting her shoulder.

“Listen, Bertha: This is not the last word. I’m going
to keep trying for bail. After all, it isn’t as if he’s accused of shooting the president.”

Outside, on Canal Street, the sun beat down like the fist of a seasoned heavyweight. Bertha walked like an old woman. Her face was streaked with tears and she was unusually quiet.

Suddenly, she stopped and stared at me. “How did that fuckin’ judge know about that contract? I bet wasn’t nobody but that funkpot Laws tipped them. Well, he gonna get what’s comin’ to him, you hear? He gonna get what’s comin’. Mark my words.”

We threaded our way through the maze of electronics and seafood stalls cluttering the sidewalk, and I wondered why the vendors had been pushed from 125th Street while this street had been left untouched. The thought lasted only a second because Bertha’s voice was rising again, bubbling up like yeast in the dry afternoon heat.

“I bet it was Laws sent a letter. He was jealous of Kendrick, that’s what. He knew if Kendrick went to Italy, he wasn’t comin’ back to no damn small-time bar. His life woulda been changed. His career woulda taken off … his actin’ and everything …”

I nodded and glanced at her as we headed for the subway, wondering if those were Kendrick’s plans or the dreams that she herself had for him. I listened and thought again of Kendrick standing before the court, straight and silent, and the judge never looking up. I thought of Alvin. He was going to call this evening. My attention veered away and I no longer heard Bertha. I was busy fashioning a lie for Alvin.

I
fixed Bertha a pot of Sleepy Time herbal tea, made sure she was comfortable, then I back-tracked downtown. Forty-second Street was more crowded than ever now that the Disney renaissance had replaced all the ratty peep shows, adult bookshops, and porn theaters.

Two blocks west, on Ninth Avenue, a high-rise apartment complex for performing artists stood surrounded by new soft-lit restaurants where regular hamburgers now masqueraded as minced New York sirloin on fresh sesame bun, coffee had names with accents, and menus were slid under your nose by wait staff who’d scored high on the Madison Avenue-boutique test for attitude.

I found the place I was looking for tucked away on the third floor in one of a string of small buildings known as Theater Row, across from the high-rise complex. In the small lobby, I picked up a flyer and history
of the company before climbing a narrow stairway to a door spray-painted with the company’s name, Star Manhattan.

It was a small space, no more than sixty seats, and a rehearsal was in progress, so I eased into a seat three rows from the last. According to the history, seven actors worked in repertory on the weekends—six since Kendrick was in jail, but his name was still on the flyer and his handsome face still smiled from the company’s roster.

Four of the six sat in the first row watching Teddi Lovette onstage, crouched in front of an older woman seated on a tattered brown velvet sofa. The woman looked straight ahead, staring into the space that the audience occupied on weekends.

Teddi bowed her head and held tightly to the woman’s arm. Then she broke off in midsentence and quickly got to her feet.

“This isn’t working, guys. Doesn’t feel right just yet. There’s a certain …”

Behind me, a sliver of light stabbed the darkness. Someone, a woman who had been sitting in the last row, got up and left. No one in the first row turned around, but concentrated on Teddi Lovette as she paced the stage, moving like a cat in her black leotard and print wrap skirt. Onstage, she appeared taller than I remembered. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed her hair into a tight ball, back from her face—a gesture vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it. Finally she sighed. “Okay, that’s it for today.
We’ve been working hard since this morning. This was good but we can make it better by Friday, okay?”

Nods and murmurs as the group, three men and two women, rose and gathered their things. The network of klieg lights criss-crossing the ceiling blinked once and the stage went dark. In the dim glow of ordinary lighting, the group filed past me and I caught the low murmur.

“Where’re we eating?” the woman who had been onstage asked.

“Billy’s, I guess.”

“Yeah. Kendrick’s not home and—”

“Damn, he got a bad break …”

They glanced at me and nodded as they filed past. I waved and smiled quickly as I made my way down front and across the small stage to the back, where Teddi had disappeared. I didn’t know if there was another exit and I wasn’t taking any chances. She hadn’t returned my calls and it was time to find out why.

The dressing room was not a dressing room in the strict sense: no star on the door because there was no door, only a space cleared in a corner for three small tables with makeup mirrors and unshaded lamps, a half dozen folding chairs stacked near two coat-racks hung with costumes, and a large steamer trunk stuffed with wigs, gloves, hats, and other accessories. Coils of electrical cable ringed the area like thick snakes, and I trod over them carefully. I was a foot away when Teddi leaned close to the mirror, then turned to face me. “Hi?”

It was a question more than a greeting, which
meant she didn’t remember me. “I’m Mali Anderson,” I answered, “a friend of Kendrick’s sister. I’ve been trying to contact you—”

“Oh.” Her face brightened at the mention of Kendrick. “Come in. Come in.”

I looked around and stepped across the imaginary boundary that defined the perimeter of the dressing area. She closed the lid of the trunk and waved her hand.

“Here. Have a seat. I apologize for not returning your calls. I …” She spread her hands wide. “I’ve been so …”

I eased down onto the trunk but couldn’t get comfortable. A part of an old-fashioned hand fan was sticking out and scratching my thigh when I moved. I smiled anyway. “That’s all right. I know how it is. I only caught part of the rehearsal, but what I saw, I liked. Kendrick talked about the group all the time and I’m glad I finally got a chance to see you folks.”

I said this with what I hoped was a straight face. Kendrick had never mentioned a thing to me until today in court, when he’d given Elizabeth the company’s address. I wondered if he’d even mentioned it to Alvin. Probably not. This was a small group and perhaps he was waiting for a part in a larger production before inviting friends and family. I thought of asking Alvin, but that might lead to other, more complicated, questions.

Teddi had been brushing her hair when I’d approached and now she placed the brush on the table near a wig stand.

“How’s he doing?”

“As well as can be expected, I guess. The judge refused bail.”

“Oh, God.” She closed her eyes and touched her hair with her fingers, and there was that oddly familiar gesture again. “Everyone’s just devastated over this. We … miss him so much. We can’t understand how this could have happened.” Her eyes shone and she blinked rapidly. “What’s going to happen? He didn’t do it. He’s not like that. He told me himself that they were just friends.”

I gazed at her and right away translated all those plurals—we miss him, we can’t understand,
we
—to a single voice. Her voice.

“How long have you known him?”

She rested her elbows against the cluttered table, busily calculating a time and date she probably had already encoded in a special place. Finally, she sighed. “About three months, since he joined the group. We hit it off right away.”

We hit it off right away
.

I wanted to smile. Thank God for melanin in colored folks. We can lie and if we don’t get too shifty-eyed can get away with a truckload of bullshit. Other folks, on the other hand, had a serious problem when the red started creeping across their cheekbones. As was happening now with Teddi. It’s damn hard to hide the fever of love.

We hit it off right away
hung in the air until I said, “The rest of the crew is gone. I’m not holding you up, am I?”

“No. Not at all. I’m meeting someone else. My mother. But I have time.”

“So how is Kendrick—as an actor? Is he good?”

Some of the tightness left her face, and when she smiled, her teeth were bright and slightly crooked. Her voice was softer, quite different from the stage voice. “He’s very good.” The tone made me wonder if she was describing his talent on- or offstage.

“Well,” I said, “too bad he may have to spend hard time in jail for something he didn’t do.”

The smile disappeared and she leaned forward, closing the space between us. “Listen: How well did you know Thea?” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, although I was sure there was no one else on the floor but the two of us.

“Well, I knew her but we weren’t what you’d call close friends,” I whispered.

“Did you know any of her family? Her mother, father, grandmother?” She spoke as if she was running out of time.

“No, I—”

“That’s what I need to know.”

“Why?”

“Because … I … we all know how and when and where she died. But if I can find out
why
she died, it might lead to … whoever wanted her out of their way. Maybe something or someone in—”

We both heard the quiet tap of high heels across the stage, and I watched Teddi’s face. A mask of chalk, stiff and formal, slid in place as she rose from her seat and walked to the edge of the boundary with outstretched
arms. “Watch your step, Mother. You can trip up in here.”

A voice came out of the darkness, soft but impatient. “Trip up? I’ve been waiting downstairs for the past twenty minutes. I—”

The woman who had slipped out of the door while Teddi was onstage had come back. She stopped abruptly when she saw me and her expression tore through an impressive number of changes in record time—surprise, fright, wariness, before finally settling into a tight smile. All this while stepping forward to shake my hand as Teddi introduced me.

Mrs. Lovette was about fifty years old, give or take a year or two, Miami-tanned, and slim, with silver blond hair pulled up to tighten the skin around the large, well-made-up eyes. Her white linen suit was fashionably wrinkled and the tiny black patent bag swinging from her shoulder was only wide enough to accommodate lip blush, eyeliner, and two major credit cards.

Her nose was narrowed as if she’d just strolled past a cosmetic counter and some clerk had wafted a stream of cheap perfume at her, but the tight smile held. Between mother and daughter, the mother so far was the Academy Award contender.

I remained silent, listening as Teddi outdid herself spinning a story: “Mali’s interested in joining the group.”

“Indeed. Well, it will be a pleasure to see you onstage. Have you any experience in acting?”

All my life, I wanted to say, wondering what the
hell was going on. I nodded and said, “Nothing much. Church plays and things like that. Nothing much.”

Her smile grew smaller. “Do you live uptown? Harlem?”

“Well, I—”

“She lives in Brooklyn, Mother,” Teddi cut in. “Why do you think all black people live in Harlem? She lives in Brooklyn.” And with a shake of her head, added, “Bed-Stuy, right?”

I stared at her. The girl had moved me from Harlem to Brooklyn in a blink.

“Right,” I finally said, waiting to see what would happen next. Mrs. Lovette remained silent as Teddi turned to me. “I’ll get back to you in a few days. I’m sure it’ll be good news.”

She was rushing now, throwing things into her straw bag and moving in the small space to turn off the lamps on the dressing tables. This left us in semidarkness and I was glad because no amount of melanin could hide the confusion on my face.

As we stepped off the stage and moved up the narrow aisle toward the door, Teddi was still talking—trying to get everything out and let nothing in. I was bringing up the rear, and she turned to me and said, “Mother’s on the board of several foundations, a few of which underwrite our productions quite generously.”

We reached the street and I said, “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Lovette.”

Her reply was dry and polite, as if she hadn’t recovered from the shock of meeting me. Then she
moved to the curb, where a limo was waiting. Teddi paused and fumbled in her bag, searching for something. I waited.

“Listen,” she said, her head still down. “There’s something I need to know. Very badly. But don’t call me. I will call you tomorrow. I promise. I will.”

Then she looked up, smiling toward the car. “I’ve got to go now,” she whispered through teeth that barely seemed to move, like a ventriloquist prompting a dummy. Then aloud, “You’ll definitely hear from me.”

She climbed into the car, and I watched it pull away from the curb.

I was lying across the bed dreaming of Tad when Alvin phoned. He came on the line sounding at least an octave lower than when he’d last called, and I wondered if he’d already started to sprout chest hair in the two weeks he’d been away. He was only twelve years old, but with his new basso-profundo sound could easily sub for Isaac Hayes on WRKS.

“What’s up, Mali?”

“Nothing much. What’s up with you?”

With a voice like that, I decided not to tease him with my usual “How’re the girls” question, preferring at this point not to know. When he returned home there would be time enough to deal with the necessary questions of sex and puberty and male hormones. Right now, I stayed on neutral ground. “How’s fishing?” I asked.