Urban Renewal (33 page)

THE CTA
bus rumbled to a shuddering stop at the fringe of the ruins that had once been a fully occupied Housing Project. The front doors clacked open, and a tall black woman stepped to the sidewalk. She was dressed in a dark raincoat over a nurse’s uniform, the white stockings and shoes a dead giveaway, even in the black night.

Adjusting her shoulder bag for maximum protection against a snatch attempt, the woman turned toward the cluster of mostly empty towers a quarter of a mile away. She walked past the bus-stop bench, her carriage proud and erect despite the exhaustion that suffused her body. She didn’t even glance at the slumped-over figure of a man, sensing rather than seeing the near-empty bottle of cheap wine clutched in the bum’s slack hand.

“Tough working two jobs, isn’t it, Clara?”

The woman whirled sharply, her eyes X-raying the seated bum as she shifted one leg behind the other to brace herself—either to run if she could, or to fight if she couldn’t.

“Cross?”

“Sit down,” the bum said quietly. “Have a talk with an old friend.”

The woman took a tentative step forward, eyes wary. “What happened to your face?” she asked, peering into the darkness.

“Just a little help from the makeup department, Clara. It’s me.”

“How would I know that?”

“Come on, Clara. You recognized my voice on the phone. You knew I’d be somewhere around here tonight. And you caught my voice again after you got off that bus.”

The woman’s hand slid into the pocket of her coat. Stayed there.

“Lots of people can do voices,” she said.

“Big Luke always said you were a hard woman.”

The woman blinked rapidly, tears very near the surface. But her hand stayed deep in her pocket.

“Even when you were a little girl, he told me. One night, we were talking. Just before we went in. Talking to kill the fear, you know what I mean? He told me about your pink party dress—about how you wore it to church one day and people were whispering behind their hands about it. How you just stared them down, backed them away, all their fake-Christian nastiness. He said he knew he wanted to marry you right then.”

The woman took her hand from her pocket, walked over, and sat down next to the bum. Her nose told her the truth—whatever the man was, he was no wino.

“I still miss that man,” she whispered.

“He knows. He knows what you’re doing, how good a mother you are to the girls. What sacrifices you make for them.”

“You believe that? You truly do?”

“I do. He’s watching,” Cross said, thinking,
Somebody sure as hell is
, as he felt the burning sensation high on his right cheekbone.

“I feel that, too, sometimes. That’s why I never even thought about …”

“I know.”

“I know things, too, Cross. I know about you. Things I hear. Who’s watching
you
, then?”

“Damned if I know.”

“You might be close to the truth with that, Cross.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I have all his letters. From over there. I read them, all the time. Read some of them to the girls. He wrote to them, too, you know. Separate letters he wrote, even though they’re twins. Like he knew they would be different. I was pregnant when he went over. He never saw them.”

“He sees them now, Clara. Sees you, too. Days at the Motor Vehicle Bureau, nights at the hospital. No vacations. No fancy clothes. Every penny for the girls.”

“I keep them safe, Cross. It’s hard lines here. Even the gang-bangers have walked away from the projects now—what’s left of them, anyway—but I can’t pass up the rent. I been tempted. Many, many times. But there’ll never be a man for
me
—I’m waiting on Big Luke, and we’ll be together again soon enough. But having a man for … protection, you understand?”

“Yes.”

“But I go it alone.”

“You want to move out, yes, Clara? Out of here. To a safe place.”

“That’s what I’ve been saving for. But the girls go to school, that comes first. That’s our way. Me and Luke’s, I always tell them. You finish college, make something of yourselves,
then
you go out and earn some money, buy your Mama a little house someplace.”

“It’s time now, Clara. As you sow, so shall you reap.”

“The Word of the Lord? Cross, that’s blasphemy in your mouth. I told you, I know what you do. Some of it, anyway.”

“Same thing I did over there. With Big Luke.”

“My man died serving his country,” she said, head back, eyes flashing. “I knew he wasn’t gonna get no medals for it. He wasn’t still in the army, but …”

“It was just another war,” Cross said, lighting a cigarette. “And I never had a country to serve.”

The woman made a face. “I don’t allow cigarettes in my house. Not liquor, either.”

The man snapped the cigarette away without taking a drag.

“It’s time for that house, Clara.” He reached into his voluminous coat, took out an envelope, handed it to her. “There’s a piece of paper in there along with the money,” he said. “It’s got names, photos, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, copies of signatures. They’re all going to have to renew their licenses within the next few weeks. All you have to do is make sure each one gets registered as an organ donor.”

“Why do you …?”

“You don’t want to know, Clara. You worked your whole life, now harvest time is coming. The crops are ready to come in. Take the money, buy your house. There’s enough there. More than enough. I’m just planting my own seeds, that’s all.”

“Couple of Luke’s letters, he talked about you, too. He said you didn’t care if you lived or you died.”

“He told you the truth.”

“And he cared so much. He had so much to come back to. You didn’t care. But you came back and he didn’t. Why is that?”

“I don’t know.”

She reached over, took the envelope, put it in her pocketbook.

“Goodbye, Clara.”

“Goodbye, Cross.”

“
HE
’
S ON
the top of the list,” the white-coated intern said into the pay phone in the basement of the hospital.

“You’re sure.”

“No doubt about it. He gets the next one.”

“Kiss your student loan goodbye,” a voice told him.

A PHONE
rang in the living room of a modest home in Merrillville, Indiana. It was snatched on the first ring by a pretty woman whose face showed the etched lines of living with death hovering just below the ceiling of her home.

“Yes.”

“It’s time,” a voice said. “You remember where to meet?”

“Yes.”

The woman put down the phone. “Lois, come in here,” she called.

A teenage girl walked into the living room, a paint-daubed artist’s smock covering her to her knees.

“What is it, Mom? Did they find …?”

“Not yet, darling. I have to go out for a while. You watch your little brother. And say a prayer, okay?”

The girl nodded. Stood patiently for her mother’s kiss.

The woman drove quickly to the parking lot of a local diner. She pulled into an empty slot in the back and started to roll down her window. Before it was all the way down, she saw a man detach himself from a motorcycle and start toward her.

He approached, leaned against the car, his face hidden from her eyes.

“He’s on the top of the list,” the man said.

“We waited so long.”

“You sure you want to go through with this? It’s expensive. And they might find a donor on their own. Maybe in a real short time.”

“He doesn’t
have
time,” the woman said. “What good’s a house if one room will always be empty?”

THE MAN
was so old that even his expensive cologne couldn’t mask the stench of the impatient grave. A silk suit hung limply on his wasted frame. A two-carat blue-white perfect solitaire flickered in the neon light, sliding down his bony finger toward the knuckle as his palsied hand trembled.

The black stretch limo was parked in an alley behind the bar, the old man seated in the cavernous back seat. Bodyguards flanked the limo, standing outside.

The chauffeur’s partition was closed.

The door opened, and a man climbed inside and seated himself across from the living skeleton. One of the bodyguards closed the door behind him; it made a noise like a bank vault.

The two inhabitants of the back seat sat in silence, both waiting.

“You are very good,” the old man finally said, his voice a reedy imitation of a human’s. “You have patience. Respect. The old ways. Too bad you were never one of us.”

“There aren’t enough of you left,” the other man said.

“Yeah, that’s true. Less of us all the time. This … thing you got to do, it ain’t for me. Rocco, he couldn’t take me down. Too many buffers. But I got people I got to protect.

“ ‘The Accountant,’ he calls himself. Like he knows it all. But he
don’t
know. The big thing he don’t know is that
we
do. The indictment is sealed, but we got a little peek inside. He turned. Rolled over like the cowardly dog he is. Figures he’ll take a couple a years in a Level One, play some tennis, come out, and start over.”

The other man stayed silent.

“You got everything you need?”

“Rocco Bernardi.”

“Then it’s done, Cross?”

“We got two things left, then it’s done.”

“Here’s one,” said the old man, handing over a thick envelope.

“Watch the news,” Cross said, stepping out of the limo into the night.