The Straight Man - Roger L Simon (9 page)

"Oh, yeah? Who're they afraid of? Nancy Reagan?"

I half smiled.

"Anyway, we got a contract, so what's the big
deal? Listen, you look like a decent guy."

Wilkes leaned back and lit up a Jamaican cigar.
"Jewish intellectual . . . guilty . . . smart. One of those
ex-civil-rights dudes gone confused because the brothers have
rejected you. You oughtta be ashamed of yourself, workin' for that
social-climbing Svengali Bannister. That sinister fuck'll do anything
to get his claws into Otis. You call that therapy? Filling Otis's
head with all kinds of vile shit over a little toot?"

"More than a little toot, if word has it
correctly."

"All right. More than a little. But so what?
He's not hurting anybody except for himself. And Bannister's
shameless. He even tried to get to be Otis's beneficiary. Can you
believe that? . . . Janelle, where are you, girl? Bring this man some
coffee."

Janelle sashayed into the room with the coffeepot,
five foot six of exquisitely formed burnt siena flesh bursting out of
a beige silk paratrooper jump suit. This was the kind of black woman
that would normally start my blood percolating so fast I'd have steam
coming out of my ears in under thirty seconds, but this time, oddly,
I scarcely reacted. I hadn't reacted on the plane either when the
stewardess practically grabbed my crotch while pouring me a Bloody
Mary. I wondered why that was and the image of Chantal filtered up
through my brain like a holograph. I pushed it away and focused on
Wilkes.

"I share your opinion of Bannister, Purvis. But
I'm not really working for him. I'm working for Emily. Ptak's widow."

"Sister Salvation? You gotta be kidding. What's
she after? There's not enough famine in Africa, she gotta be sending
you to the Bronx?"

"What she's after is trying to figure out why
her husband committed suicide. More important to you is that the L.A.
police think it had something to do with some massive drug connection
between Hollywood and the Bronx."

Wilkes broke up laughing. "That's pretty funny,
isn't it?"

"My guess is Otis thought they were going to
connect him into it. That's why he split. Apparently, in the middle
of the night, some mysterious person called him to warn him his
brother was in trouble."

Suddenly Wilkes wasn't laughing. He waved Janelle out
of the room with the back of his hand.

"King's too smart for shit like that," he
said. "He's a businessman. He doesn't intrude on the province of
other businessmen."

"Where is King?"

"You never know."

"What about Otis?"

Wilkes stared at me. "You know, a boy like you
could get killed fucking around where you don't belong."

"Couple of people already have been killed—Mike
Ptak and a Romanian named Nastase."

"And what do you expect me to do about that? Let
me tell you something about the way the world works around here, my
white liberal friend. Otis King's mother was a hooker who died of an
overdose when he was four years old. His father's doing ten-to-twenty
at Riker's Island for knifing a man in the back. Otis himself was out
on the street by the time he was nine. Got his first robbery
conviction at eleven and spent the years twelve to fifteen in
juvenile hall. If he couldn't make people laugh, he'd be spending
most of his life in jail for sure. Because it would have been the
only way he could've survived. Only way he could eat, because the
motherfucker can't read, can't spell. He can barely count to twenty.
He's no different from the rest of those assholes out on the street
there spending their days shooting China white because it's the only
way they can make it till dark without killing themselves. That's the
way it is here, Mr. Wine. And that's the way it's always been. And if
you think people from my world are ripping off your world, you gotta
be crazy. It's the other way around! Now, get out!"

I stumbled out of Wilkes's office wondering what I
had done to deserve this. I was tired of black people holding me
responsible for everything from food stamp cutbacks to the Zionist
conspiracy. And I was tired of excusing myself for things I had about
as much to do with as the last space walk. I was about to go back in
and give him a piece of it when Janelle came running out on the
sidewalk straight up to me.

"Hey, wait! Wait a minute, Mr. Wine . . . Otis
needs help. He's gonna die out there on those streets if he stays any
longer . . . like one of those zoo animals they send back and they
can't live in the jungle anymore."

"I know what you mean," I said.

She looked at me a moment, trying to decide whether
she could trust me or not. "You know Della?"

"
You mean Otis's girl friend?"

"Yeah. She said she was with him last night, but
she kicked him out because he was so loaded."

"Any idea where he went?"

"Maybe. She didn't say."

"
Where does Della live?"

"Oh, hey, you don't wanna go there. That's not a
smart place to go."

"
I know it's not smart, but where is it?"

She looked back at the building. Wilkes was standing
in his office window.

"I gotta go."

She started off, but I grabbed her by the arm.

"Tremont Avenue Projects, number Seventeen B.
But don't go in by l79th Street."

"
I won't," I said, letting her go. She ran
back into the building before I could say thanks.

It took me about twenty minutes to find a cab that
would take me up to the Tremont Avenue Projects. But when I got
there, I was surprised to find it wasn't half as bad as I expected. A
few junkies were wandering down 179th Street in the midday sun that
late October afternoon, but there was nothing particularly
threatening about the neighborhood with its variety stores, hardware
shops, and paint outlets. Some of the streets were cobblestoned and
there was even a quaint reminder of the old Bronx in the way the road
meandered up the hill toward Van Cortlandt Park.

The project itself was in remarkably good shape for
public housing dedicated, according to the bronze plaque, in 1962 by
then Bronx Borough President Joseph Periconi. Only a handful of
windows were broken and most of the graffiti had been restricted to
the handball courts, the recognized canvas for the art form. Even the
lawns were relatively clean, with a few flower beds sprinkled here
and there.

Just beyond the courts and over a chain link fence a
group of aspiring Dr. Js were visible, practicing their slams and
jams in bright orange and black uniforms that said Tremont Avenue
Dunk Club. I stood there watching them a moment, wondering what
politician was reaping what benefit keeping this particular housing
project in such classy shape, when a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud drove
past me and slowed by the Dunk Club, three brand-new basketballs
flying out of the Rolls's window and over the fence into the hands of
the club members, who cheered and waved as the Rolls drove off.

I looked from them over to the forbidden 179th Street
entrance. A couple of junkies were weaving between the two
seven-story buildings past a baby in a carriage, but nothing seemed
particularly ominous until my gaze drifted up to the tops of the
buildings where, on each side, two men in berets oddly reminiscent of
the old Black Panthers were standing on opposite roofs surveying the
area. They each held walkie-talkies and crossed back and forth along
the roof' s edge in paramilitary fashion. Before they noticed me, I
turned and headed around the block, moving at the pace of the average
Bronx pedestrian, which meant fast enough to avoid trouble but not
too fast to attract attention. In five minutes I came around the
other side of the project on Knox Avenue. The street was narrower
there and I stayed close to the building
to
avoid surveillance. Nothing had happened, yet I felt a tingling,
urgent sensation on the edge of paranoia. I kept my eyes straight
ahead and moved with the purposefulness of someone who knew where he
was going. By the time I reached the rear entrance to the project, my
hands were damp and I was feeling a little light-headed. I made a
quick right through a gate and came through the entrance where two of
the buildings formed a cul-de-sac. I walked straight through the
nearest door into a stairwell. A couple of dozen men, most of them
looking pretty stoned, were lined up on the stairs, shuffling about
and talking to themselves as if they were waiting for a store to
open. They stared at me blankly as some guy came lurching down the
stairs, clutching a small balloon. I was about to turn and leave,
when, from out of nowhere, someone grabbed my arm. It was one of the
watchmen in the black berets. When I looked at him, I saw he was
sixteen, maybe seventeen, just the age of my older son. He grabbed
the sleeve of my jacket and yanked it upward, revealing what appeared
then to be a very pale white inner arm clearly devoid of tracks.

"What're you doing here?" he said.

"I'm looking for Seventeen B."

"Oh, yeah. Well, you got the wrong building.
You're lying to me. You're a narc, motherfucker!"

"I'm not a narc. I'm looking for a girl in
Seventeen B."

"Sniffin' poontang, Charlie'?" someone
shouted.

Everyone started to laugh. I began to back out of the
building as quickly as I could, but I hadn't gotten five feet when
two more guys, both about the size of New York Jets linemen and both
wearing the obligatory berets, were at my side, lifting me off the
ground as they escorted me out the door, through the gate, and into
the backseat of the same Silver Cloud I had seen, moments before,
dispensing basketballs like the lead vehicle in a drug dealer's
antipoverty program.

10

"Do you like Eastern seafood, Mr. Wine? The
scrod is good. I particularly recommend the scrod this time of year."
He pronounced it "scrahd" like a proper Bostonian.

"Fine. I'll take the scrod."

"Two scrod, Eddie," he told the waiter.
"Lightly grilled with lemon. And bring us a side order of your
cottage fries. I feel like going off my diet today."

Eddie nodded and slipped off. I was sitting opposite
King King in Nick's Sea Grotto on City Island, a minute enclave of
the middle-class good life floating incongruously off the eastern
shore of the Bronx. Through the window to my right was a tiny marina,
a pier, and some rustic Cape Cod frame houses. It could have been
Falmouth or Hyannis. King himself fit in perfectly, the well-groomed
but casual professional in a pale green Fila jogging suit, Sperry
Top-Siders, and a beeper on his belt. Even the car was right, a 1985
black Jeep Cherokee with wood siding and fog lamps. He was waiting by
it when the Silver Cloud pulled up to deposit me. He signaled its
drivers on with a dismissive wave of the hand meant to indicate,
incontestably, that parading around in a vehicle like that was a sign
of unspeakable vulgarity.

"I had an interesting fish on my last visit to
California," said King. "Orange roughy. From New Zealand."

"You get out West often, Mr. King?"

"Hardly ever. I don't like the weather. Too
consistent. And the real estate prices are a joke." He sipped on
his beer. "Though I understand some people think I have great
interests out there."

"Some people do. But you seem to be doing pretty
well where you are. Your business looks about as well organized as
General Motors."

"
Things aren't what they appear to be, Mr. Wine.
And I can assure you I suffer from the same syndromes as other
businessmen. Too many people on the payroll, murderous competition,
and the IRS snooping around every little nook and cranny. They don't
realize that if they put me out of business, the city has massive
unemployment all the way from l49th Street to the Cross Bronx
Expressway. But the fact is, right now I'd do anything to get out of
it."

"Come on now, King. You don't look like a man
who's struggling to stay afloat."

"It's not that simple." His beeper sounded
and he switched it off. "Do you have any children, Mr. Wine?"

"Two boys."

"Lucky man. I'd do anything to have children.
Move to Detroit. Have a house in Grosse Pointe. But I have to get out
of this business first."

"So get out."

"It's the only thing I know. I've been doing it
since Otis and I were kids. I was six years old when I sold my first
nickel bag to one of the fifth-graders in my grammar school. But I am
going to get out," he said, "and I'm going to get out big
.... See this?" He took out a small notebook and dropped it on
the table. "My vocabulary list. Every time someone uses a big
word, I write it down here and look it up when I get home: euphemism
. . . perspicacious." He read a couple from the top. "Soon
I'l1 be ready to make every one of those white-bread fucks at the
Harvard Club look sick. I'll take my rightful place as King King,
captain of industry . . . as soon as I get my stake."

"Your stake?"

"
I want to buy in on a level commensurate with
my position. Wouldn't you, Mr. Wine? After all, here in the Bronx I
have a certain status and, I'm sure you would agree, the skills it
takes to run my business are not altogether different from those it
takes to run a conglomerate."