“What happened to Smiles?”
“Well, you know,” Toolie said, unconsciously raising a defensive shoulder. “Me an’ them used to go to this construction site to get high.”
“Smiles, too?”
“Yeah. Back then that white boy was our nigga. Smiles could hang. But you know, in the summer he’d go upstate to be wit’ his father an’ them. But then he’d come back down in the fall ’cause he had a scholarship to this private school.”
“He lived with his father?”
“Yeah.”
“What about his mother?”
“She was sick or sumpin’. Maybe she was daid, I don’t know.”
“What school?”
“I’on’t know, man. But Georgie Girl’s brother worked there an’ she met Smiles through him.”
“You mean Georgiana Pineyman?” I asked.
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“Was she there at the construction site?”
“Naw, man. It was just us. Jumpah had some blunts and we was gettin’ high. That’s all.”
“How did Smiles die?”
Toolie gave me a sharp glance. He knew that he couldn’t push the truth too far out of shape.
“Can you really help me, like you said?” he asked.
I nodded. “Now tell me what happened.”
“That was Big Jim’s fault. I mean, it was a accident, but if Big Jim didn’t keep on runnin’ his mouf it wouldn’ta been no accident.”
“What did Jim say?”
“He kep’ sayin’ how B-Brain was keepin’ Georgie Girl company in the summah when Smiles was upstate. He kep’ sayin’ it an’ Smiles got hot. He was white an’ all, but that boy was tough. Roger tried to laugh it off but Smiles was high an’ wanted a fight. He came at B-Brain but that niggah runned.” Toolie laughed at the memory. “He ru‹€memory. nned up a ladder and climbed out on one’a them—what you call ’em—them girders. Roger could move. But Smiles was mad an’ so he went after him. So Roger went higher an’ higher an’ then when he was about six floors up he jumped on this elevator platform one floor down. Smiles tried to do it, too, but he fell. Broke his neck.
“We tried to run but somebody musta called the cops so they arrested us. We was in jail two days but they called it a accident an’ let us go.”
“You know his mother’s name?” I asked.
“Roger’s?”
“Smiles’.”
“Naw, man. Smiles lived with his old man, like I said. Upstate.”
“Albany?”
“How the fuck I know? So you gonna help me?”
“Do you know his father’s name?”
“Naw, man.”
“Yeah,” I said to the big wheezing convict, “I’ll help you.”
I was thinking that the best thing I could do for him was to hide his knife and fork.
E€„
33
On the drive back home I called Christian and asked him to tell his boss to put out the word to protect Toolie.
“Tell him that it might come in handy somewhere soon,” I added.
Christian hung up when I said these last few words and the phone vibrated in my hand. TTS, standing for Tony the Suit, appeared on the display. I thought about it for two full throbs before pressing the ignore button. I then entered my own number at Zephyra Ximenez’s office.
“Hello, Mr. McGill,” my telephonic and computer personal assistant answered cheerily. “How are you?”
“I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”
“How can I help you?”
“Albany,” I said, “and this time make me a reservation in a good hotel.”
“The Minerva’s the best,” she said.
“How do you know that?”
“One of my clients is a plastic surgeon who works there two days a week. He always stays at the Minerva.”
I WAS GETTING USED to the flight. I just brought along my MP3 pZ€…layer and a blindfold. Norah Jones sang to me in darkness. I think I might have even fallen asleep for a moment there.
THE MINERVA WAS an old-fashioned place with a real desk where you sat down to check in. The young woman receptionist didn’t frown at my shoes or knuckles.
There was a wide stairway covered with red-and-blue carpeting that led to the first stage of the upper floors. It was so inviting that I shunned the elevator for the climb.
The room was large, much like a room that an upstate relative might keep for guests. I intended to take a bath but the tub was very close to the design of the one that I found Norman Fell in, so I stripped down and washed at the sink before taking my rental down to Tinker’s Bar and Grill in the South End.
It was a
