There are all kinds of freedom in America — free speech, the right to bear arms — but when the years have piled up so high on their back that they can’t stand up straight anymore, many Americans find out they also have the freedom to starve.
a t a p h o n e b o o t h
down the street from Lena’s house I looked up a number and then made a call.
“Hello?” a man answered.
“Billy?”
“Hey, Easy. She ain’t here.”
“You know when she’ll be in?”
“She at work, man.”
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W a lt e r M o s l e y
“On Saturday?”
“They pay her to sit down in her office when the band comes in for practice. She opens up the music building at nine and then closes it at three. Not bad for time and a half.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go over and see her there.”
“Bye, Easy. Take care.”
Jordan High School had a sprawling campus. There were over three thousand students enrolled. I came in through the athletic gate and made my way toward the boiler room. That’s where Helen McCoy made her private office. She was the building supervisor of the school, a position two grades above the one I’d just left.
Helen was short and redheaded, smart as they come, and tougher than most men. I had seen her kill a man in Third Ward one night. He’d slapped her face and then balled up a fist. When she pressed five inches of a Texas jackknife into his chest he sat down on the floor — dying as he did so.
“Hi, Easy,” she said with a smile.
She was sitting at a long table next to the boiler, writing on a small white card. There was a large stack of blank cards on her left and a smaller stack on the right. The right-side cards had already been written on.
“Party?” I asked.
“My daughter Vanessa’s gettin’ married. These the invitations.
You gettin’ one.”
I sat down and waited.
When Helen finished writing the card she sat back and smiled, indicating that I had her attention.
“Philomena ‘Cinnamon’ Cargill,” I said. “I hear she was a student here some years ago.”
“Li’l young,” Helen suggested.
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C i n n a m o n K i s s
“It’s my other job,” I said. “I’m lookin’ for her for somebody.”
“Grapevine says you quit the board.”
“Sabbatical.”
“Don’t shit me, Easy. You quit.”
I didn’t argue.
“Smart girl, that Philomena,” Helen said. “Lettered in track and archery. Gave the big speech at her graduation. She was wild too.”
“Wild how?”
“She wasn’t shy of boys, that one. One time I found her in the boys’ locker room after hours with Maurice Johnson. Her drawers was down and her hands was busy.” Helen grinned. She’d been wild herself.
“I was told that her father died and her mother left for Chicago,”
I said. “You know anybody else she might be in touch with?”
“She had a school friend named Raphael Reed. He was funny, if you know what I mean, so he never got jealous of her runnin’
around.”
“That all?”
“All I can think of.”
“You think you could go down and pull Reed’s records for me?”
Helen considered my request.
“We known each other a long time haven’t we, Easy?”
“Sure have.”
“You the one got me this job.”
