“Reverend Grove had been seeing my cousin.” Lies came out of me like shit from a pig, as my Aunt Calais used to say. “She went missin’ behind all kindsa crazy stories. I wanted to find out where she was.”
“Who’s this cousin?” an unnamed deacon asked.
“Elana Love,” I said. A feeling of triumph snaked down my spine. Let them make the connections, that was the only way out.
“Elana,” another deacon said.
“Yeah,” I said. “She came to me talkin’ ’bout how Grove had stolen her stuff and now her boyfriend out of jail, Leon, was comin’ after them. Now Grove is dead, and I want to know about my cousin. She haven’t called or nuthin’.”
I was trying to keep my breathing from going crazy. I knew that if I showed the panic I felt, they would think I was lying — and if they thought that, they might not let me go.
It seemed like a long time before Bigelow said, “Get the hell outta here.”
They let me go but didn’t stand out of the way. I had to walk around them on the recently watered soggy lawn. But I did so happily.
In the storefront church, the congregation was still mourning the empty coffin. They were drinking wine and eating sandwiches. I half-expected someone else to grab me, to interrogate me, to threaten my life, but no one even noticed. I slipped through the throng, no more remarkable than a shadow.
27
I WAS SWEATING, but it wasn’t hot. My heart was throbbing instead of beating, and my legs couldn’t seem to coordinate to keep a steady stride. When I got in the car my fingers went numb, and I couldn’t seem to hold the key right. It took me four or five tries before I realized that I was trying to fit my new apartment key into the ignition.
I started the car and drove off. Three blocks away I pulled to the curb. There I took in great gulps of air, trying to bring my spirit back into alignment with my body — because that’s how it felt, as if my soul were somehow trying to flee the flesh, as if I had been so close to death so often in the past few days that the ghost was ready to bolt. That’s how it goes with me. I face danger and survive it, acting just fine, but as soon as it’s over and I’m alone, I break down.
There was a World-Wide gas station just up the block. There I found a phone booth.
“Hello,” a woman answered flatly.
“Charlotte?”
“Hold on.”
The phone rumbled from being set down on a hard surface.
“Hello?” a much sweeter voice asked.
“Charlotte?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Paris.”
“Oh, hi,” she said. “I thought that number you gave me was just sumpin’ you thought up when I called it. It sounded like a law office or sumpin’.”
“Can we get some coffee or something?” I asked.
“Yeah. Why’ont you come on ovah?” She gave me her address.
CHARLOTTE’S APARTMENT COMPLEX was a series of big brick-and-plaster affairs on 109. The buildings were long and thin looking, like army barracks, separated by green lawns. She was in building K on the third floor.
The hallway was lit by the setting sun through a window at the far end. The walls were white and pretty except for a mark here and there. You could tell that the place was new. I hoped that it would maintain its beauty, but I had my doubts. The suffering of a people often showed up in their material surroundings. Like a broken heart leaving a forlorn lover a physical mess, the weight of racism and poverty often made colored neighborhoods downtrodden and marred.
Charlotte answered the door. She was wearing a close-fitting but not tight black dress with no hose and no makeup.
“Hi.” She smiled and looked me in the eye, but then she saw something and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Can I come in?”
