unable to learn even her whereabouts. I suppose, in fact that I had come to resign myself to her continued absence-inasmuch as one ever does.' He paused. 'You're a father too, as I recall.'
'Did she tell you where she was calling from?'
'No.'
'Or why she was calling after all this time? Did she ask for money?'
'Perhaps she intended to. She would have gotten it, of course. Whatever she needed, without question. But very soon-we'd scarcely begun talking-we were cut off.'
'Probably she just spooked, when it came down to it, and hung up.'
'That is certainly possible, of course. But I think not.'
Very well and Ithink not, both in the space of minutes.
'She said she was in trouble, Mr. Griffin.'
'Trouble's pretty much where she lives. You know that.'
'Which is why I have to think that, for her to call me, the trouble this time must be extraordinary. At any rate,' he said after a moment 'it occurred to me that, whatever trouble she might be in, as long as sheremainedcapable of doing so, you're the other person Alouette would be likely to contact' He cleared his throat. 'Have you heard from my daughter, Mr. Griffin?'
'No. Neither recently, nor since she left here. I'm sorry.'
'I see. And could I ask a favor? You've certainly no reason to grant me one, I realize.'
'I'll call you if I hear from Alouette-yes.'
'Thank you, Mr. Griffin,' he said quiedy. 'Perhaps we might get together for lunch one day.'
Moments went by.
Then the dial tone.
The third call came later, as I settled ever deeper into my old white wood rocker by the front window. Shutters pulled, blinds drawn. Murmur of a rising wind outside. I was on my third cup of coffee, playing a Mozart serenade for winds that was a favorite of Clare's.
I picked up the phone on the fifthring and said hello.
Though no one answered, the line stayed open, and for whatever reason, I didn't speak again. I stood listening, feeling the presence there at the other end, on that other shore.
Then the dial tone.
In a drawer of my desk I had a seven-year-old tape with two twenty-second segments that sounded and felt exactly like this. Back then, not long after I pulled the cassette from my answering machine, sitting in darkness like a cat with the fruity smell of gin and a murmur of wind outside, I had known that the old man's bottle and mute acceptance in that final scene from my novel were my own, and that I would not see my son, would not see David, again.
15
I can tell you in a few words who I am: lover of woman and language, in terror of tlw history wlwse responsibility I bear, a man awake at night and alone.
At 3:52 A.M., to be precise.
I put the book down and picked up, for the second or third time, my empty glass. The radio was on, Art Tatum silk-pursing some well-nibbled sow's ear of a popular song. Zeke had turned up around nine and now was installed, and asleep, upstairs. I could hear the window unit in his room laboring; whenever its compressor kicked in, lights dimmed momentarily, like a caught breath.
This time of night, this circle of light with music welling up outside, this solitude-we were all old friends. Over the years we'd sat here together many nights just this way. With houses and apartments empty around me, with Alouette asleep upstairs, with Vicky away at the hospital taking on the nightly freight of violence that finallysent her, low in the water, home to France.
Or with LaVeme out working. We'd climb from bed at five or six, when most of those caught up in the world outside our window (so very, very different from the world inside) were ending their day, to begin ours.
Suddenly Bat emerged from the darkness around me and sprang onto my lap.
Ezekiel had been something of a surprise too. Not long after I got back home, he'd come knocking at the door and when I opened it, said, 'Lewis?' Peering up, because he topped out at about four foot six. 'Here I am.'
He looked not at all like any of the photos of him I'd seen. What he looked like was a cypress knee someone had carved into the likeness of a man.
I fed him leftover red beans and rice while we sat at the kitchen table going through a couple of pots of coffee together. Topics? How exciting and scary Zeke'sfirst months at the prison paper were, and how uninspired the last years, when only a sense of duty and need of something to do kept him plodding doggedly on. Praise for Hosie Slaughter's crusading work with Tlie Griot — now published out in Metairie and given over exclusively to 'aits and entertainment.' Excited questions about movies like Boyz N the Hood and Spike Lee's, which of course he'd not seen. Mention of the novel Zeke thought he might someday write. Until finally he said, 'Okay, Lewis. Point me to my comer. 'Cause this ol'fighter's'bout to fall down.'
High point of the afternoon had been when I dropped by Deborah's, about six, to say hello and make a date for dinner the next day. 'You mean I'm getting asked out? Like normal people?' she said. I asked her if Commander's would be okay, and she told me it always had been. 'But let's go early. Because afterwards, I have a surprise for you.'
Low point of the afternoon was everything else.
Following that morning's three phone calls, I'd sketched out my itinerary: head uptown to see what I couldfind out about Daryl Anthony 'Dap' or 'Dapper' Payne at Tulane's registrar; revisit the tract house on Old Metairie Road where I'd come across the body and where surely some subtle, obtuse clue awaited me; along the way, check out outlying missions and shelters.
That was an awful lot of moving about.
I called Don back.
'You using your car?'
'What for? No way they're letting me leave here, not with all this shit going down. For all I know they've got it booted, so I can't get away.'
'Okay if I borrow it?'
'Why not? It's in the lot out back. I'll send the keys down, let them know you're coming-Hang on, Lew, I've got another call, supposed to be urgent.' He was gone four, five minutes. A couple of times other people came on, asking if they could help me, and I told them I was holding. Then Walsh was back.
'That was Danny, Lew. He's okay. Says he met an old friend at one of the malls, some guy he went to school with. Been staying over with him, catching up on old times. They saw a movie or two, had some burgers. He's home now. Said he'd probably sleep right through to tomorrow.'
'That's good, Don.'
'Yeah. So, you gonna bring the car back here when you're through with it, or what?'
'I'll bring it back.'
Though for all the good it did me I might as well have left it there in the lot, and sat in it myself the whole time.
Yo, black sheep. Got any wool? I'm down for it, man. Three bags full.
And wool's all it was.
No one at Tulane could tell me anything I didn't know already. Out on Old Metairie Road a lawn mower had been run through the ankle-deep rotting leaves and sashes of yellow police tape clung to trees, but nothing else had changed. The two or three mission-looking places I found were closed-whether permanently or just for the day, I couldn't tell.
So around six, swimming upstream of outbound traffic, Middle America making its way home, I drove back into New Orleans, dropped by Deborah's to say hello and set up our date (parking illegally out front: most cops knew Don's god-awful old Regal by sight), and returned the car. Don and I had dinner together, my treat, at Felix's.
