Color of Justice (21 page)

Bellva looked at the graveyard with fear and excitement in her heart. The sun felt warm against the back of her neck, but a cool breeze blew in her face from the cemetery. For a second, she felt caught between two worlds, the heat of hell, and the coolness of heaven. Ironic that the heavenly feeling came from a place of death, she thought.

The wind from the graveyard smelled of flowers and cut grass, not the smell of death that she'd read about so much. In fact, she didn't really know what death smelled like. Was it putrid and thick like old blood or was it sharp, piercing, and suffocating like fear? She imagined it was the latter for that was what she faced each day, the fear and uncertainty of life in the street with nothing but her addiction to move her from one place to the next.

Bellva had managed to fool the two detectives who'd picked her up, even though she had been coming down from a high. The black one was not hard. He'd looked at her with the familiar sense of
sorrow and disgust that she was used to. But the white one, the one who sounded like a black man, had been trying to get inside her head, to know what made her tick. He looked
inside
her and that was scary as hell. He suspected something and that was not good.

Ever since the cops had told her that John Baker was dead, she'd been running hard and fast. Running because she knew why he was dead and because she had a good idea who had killed him. John had told her about the scam he was running, the money he was stealing, and from whom. She had been his confessor. She didn't understand what the Internet company was, or how he'd taken the investors, but she did know they were pissed about it.

John Baker had been much more than the occasional boyfriend she'd told the cops he was. They were lovers, friends, and more like father and daughter than she wanted to believe.

She stood outside the gates of the burial ground on the far east side. She wondered if she would be here one day soon, tucked into the cold ground, looking up into the darkness of eternity. Not if she took care of her business, she thought. John Baker had left something and she planned to get it. But she was a frail, weak, drug-dependent woman who was out of money and almost out of time. She turned away from the gate as the attendant rode by on a golf cart, his tools rattling noisily. She walked away from the graveyard and decided she needed to eat.

Bellva walked up to Eight Mile and strutted until she flagged down a fat white man in a Toyota. They pulled onto a side street and ten minutes later she had her lunch money. She stuffed the cash in her bra away from the money she'd saved for drugs. As desperate as she was, she still obeyed the first rule: never use your drug money to eat.

Bellva went into a Taco Bell and ordered a combination meal. She ate thinking about how she could get to what John Baker had left behind. She was convinced that he'd told her about it so she could have it when he was gone.

She barely tasted the food as she forced her mind to focus on a solution to her dilemma. The food was warm, thick, and salty. It tasted neither good nor bad. It was what she did to keep going between highs. Food was like a battery in her car. Heroin was the fuel.

A greasy-looking man in a shirt with the telephone company logo on it walked by her table and winked at her. She still had it, she thought. She was still pretty enough to get a man's attention. But for how long? she thought. How long before she was like her friend Lilly, tired and dead-looking? And what would happen to her when the men stopped looking?

If she could just get to what was in the cemetery, she would never have to worry about getting high again. She would have all the drugs she wanted.

She saw herself floating, dressed in fine clothes, high on the best shit on the planet. It would be a
good life, filled with an addict's dream to be endlessly fucked up.

Then in her tortured brain a plan emerged. It stepped from behind her dreams and the ever-present need for drugs, and she saw it. She could make it happen, she could get to John Baker's treasure.

If she had a partner.

Bellva finished her meal and got on a bus, riding east. Eventually she jumped off and walked a few more blocks. She turned down the street she was looking for. Her heart was pumping and she was feeling the need for a hit again. But she held it off. It didn't happen often, but there were some things that were more important than getting high.

Bellva stopped short as she got halfway up the block from the house she was looking for. There were men all around it, and she'd been on the street long enough to see that they were armed.

A man in a puffy jacket walked to her quickly. She froze, knowing that any sudden movement might be interpreted as offensive. Her life in the street had taught her a great many things, chief of which was to never challenge someone unless you were ready to back it up. Bellva waited as the man moved toward her. She smiled feebly as if this would calm him. But he kept coming at her with the same mean expression on his face.

The man in the puffy coat got to her and looked her up and down. His face was young but hard-looking, and above his right eye there was a wound that was still healing. Without saying a
word, he reached inside his coat and pulled a gun. After he was sure she saw it, he cocked it and pointed it at her face.

 

Danny had been sitting outside his father's house for over an hour. He'd started to go in more than once but lost his nerve. He had officers out to warn all of the people on the Stallworth list, and for the first time, he felt that he could do what he had come here to do.

Danny was thinking that maybe he didn't need the knowledge that was in his father's head, maybe there were some things better left unknown in this world. His mother was gone and nothing would ever change that. Nothing he could say or do would bring back that half of him that had fallen down those stairs with her, or give him the chance to tell her all of the things he'd never said.

His hand shook as he realized that he was holding the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had turned white from the force of his grip. He let it go and watched the blood flow back into them, turning them pink.

A police cruiser rolled slowly down the street. It stopped by a house, then kept going, passing Danny. Inside, there were two uniformed officers who eyed him suspiciously.

Danny watched the cruiser for a moment. He remembered the first time he saw his father in his policeman's uniform and how proud he felt when he knew what it stood for. He saw him marching under the morning sun into the elementary school
with the young boy he used to be. Robert Cavanaugh was the symbol of what it meant to be in law enforcement, bold, unerring, and strong. The thought of what those things meant to him filled his heart and he started to move. Danny had always known that his father was a better cop than he was, but perhaps he was a better son.

Danny got out of the car and went to the door of the house. He knocked only once before his father answered. Robert saw his son and didn't say a word. He looked at him for a moment then he just walked away from the open door.

Danny came inside and saw that the house was messier than the last time he'd been there. He followed his father into the kitchen, where it seemed he lived these days.

“Got some food if you want it,” said Robert.

“No thanks,” said Danny.

The two men sat and just looked at each other as Robert finished off a sandwich he was eating. In that moment Danny realized that he never talked much to his father, that all the things they needed to say had been said. Theirs had always been a quiet connection, one that had made both men comfortable.

“I came about Ma,” said Danny.

Robert looked up from his plate with a start then he looked back down. “What about her?”

“I know.”

Robert didn't say anything. He finished the sandwich, then started on a beer he had on the table.

“And what is it that you think you know?” asked Robert. He sounded official, as if the part of him that was a cop had suddenly awakened.

“I'm not in the mood to play games,” said Danny. “I saw the report you and Dr. Lester fudged. I know she didn't die from the fall she took in this house.”

Robert put down his beer and stared at his son. His green eyes were fierce from within the wrinkles on his face. This was the Robert Cavanaugh of old, Danny thought, the man who could walk through fire and stop the rain with a glance.

“You sure you want to come in here, in my house, and do this?” asked Robert in a voice that was as mean as it was strong. “You sure you want to challenge me, accuse me about this?”

“I'm here,” said Danny. He could not back down when his father got like this. If he did, his father would bury him under a mountain of strength and paternal guilt. Most men have to challenge their father one day of their lives. He never thought his time would be about the death of his mother, but he had to do it. Fate had left him with this and he was not about to walk away from it. “I'm not leaving until I get the truth.”

“Truth?” Robert laughed bitterly, a sad sick thing that was more like a rasp. “Is that what you want? Everybody thinks they want to know the truth until they hear it. You think it's some kinda medicine that'll cure all the shit that makes you sick, until you realize what the truth really is.”

Danny just stared at him, unwilling to give an
inch. Inside, he was dying. Everything he knew as a cop told him that his father was hiding some terribleness. And no matter how bad it was, he had to know it.

“What is it?” asked Danny. “What is the truth to you?”

“It's pain,” said Robert without hesitation. “It's the hard, fucked-up reality of what we all really are, what we really feel and do to each other…”

Robert pushed away the beer and started to get up from the table. Danny saw water in his eyes, and now he knew the world was ending for sure. Robert Cavanaugh had never cried in his life, even when his family was falling apart from his alcoholism.

The old man turned his back on his son and moved to the doorway. Danny wanted to grab him, to plead with him to give him the terrible truth that he so desperately needed. Just then Robert turned around to his son, his eyes now clearly filled with tears.

“I did it,” he said. “I killed your mother.”

 

Bellva could not take her eyes off the gun the man in front of her held in his hand. He pulled the gun down away from her face, then kept it in front of him, still partially inside his coat as if he'd been taught to do so.

“You don't need to be on this street today,” said the man in the puffy coat.

“I need to see the man,” said Bellva. She choked on the words.

“Man ain't seein' no hos. Bounce.”

“This ain't about no fuckin'. It's about bid'ness.”

“What kinda bid'ness you got, bitch?” Puffy Coat laughed. And now sure of her harmlessness, he put the gun away.

Bellva was getting angry, but it didn't pay to mess with these thugs. They had no respect for themselves let alone some drug-addict prostitute.

“I'll tell him in person,” said Bellva. “You tell him that it's Bellva. You tell him that and see how fast he comes outta that house.”

Puffy Coat looked at Bellva and he could see she did have something to say, but more important, she was desperate. He checked out her ass and legs, then brought his eyes back to hers.

“You wax my shit and I'll tell him.”

“What?” said Bellva before she could stop herself.

“Suck my dick,” said Puffy Coat. “I'm sho' you familiar with how it's done, bitch.”

Bellva looked at the young man with contempt. She knew from experience that if she did it, he would just laugh at her then send her away, and she'd never get to the man she needed to see. She was not tough like many of her friends in the profession. She didn't carry a knife or a gun and if a man gave her trouble, she usually cried and ran off. But this was too important to be timid. She had to make this thug respect her. And there was only one way to do that.

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Then get yo' stank ass off dis block,” said Puffy Coat. He opened his coat to show her the gun again.

Bellva didn't move. His obvious dependence on the gun told her that he was inexperienced. A real killer took it out only when he intended to kill, and then it was the last thing you saw. Puffy Coat had shown it to her twice and she was still alive. He could be intimidated if she did it right.

Bellva took a step toward him and to her surprise, the man moved back.

“You throw me off this street and you can be the one to tell your boss how you fucked him out of a score. Maybe he'll kill you, or maybe he'll make
you
suck some dick.”

Puffy Coat looked at the woman before him and saw the determination in her eyes. Bellva saw the hardness in the man's eyes fade. He didn't really have the stomach to shoot her. Whatever his job was, it didn't involve thinking or making his boss lose money.

“Come on, bitch,” he said. Then he turned and walked toward a house.

Bellva followed, smiling a little. Even though he had called her a bitch, the way he said it dripped with respect.

She followed Puffy Coat to the house and was patted down for a weapon. Something was up, she thought. There was more than the usual security here and the faces were new. Bellva walked inside the house and waited by the door. Soon, the Locke
came out, munching on a candy bar, looking at her with curiosity.

“What the hell you doin' here, woman?” he asked. He looked pissed, as if she had interrupted something important.

Bellva knew the man well enough to know that it didn't pay to beat around the bush with the Locke.

“I know where John Baker's money is,” she said.

 

Danny followed his father into the living room. Robert sat on the sofa. Danny took a chair next to him. His knees were weak and he almost collapsed into the seat.