“So?”
“I think we caught most of the event on camera. Not usually a lot of cameras up around here, nobody bothered for a long time, but that night there were plenty. We think some film crew caught it-they were passing, filming on their way to 125th street, and they caught it.”
“I have to go.” I was going home to change for the party, to look good for Lily.
I looked at Radcliff. He’d mentioned the silver van casually, brought it up almost as an afterthought. But why? Did he know I’d been there? Was my red Caddy-you couldn’t miss it-on a piece of tape, caught by some passing film crew by chance on election night? I’d half forgotten the fucking thing, out of control, passing me like some crazy ghost van.
Did Radcliff want me to know he knew, without actually saying it? Why? To put me on edge? Was he fishing? Was it just conversation?
“No kidding,” I said. “Yeah, weird, right, so see you.”
“Worse, Artie. I was telling Julius Dawes over at my house the other day you know, we were talking about it, how this van just keeps going, gets up speed, turns the corner and pins a young guy against a lamp-post.”
Dawes, I thought. Dawes had mentioned my car, the paint on my car.
“And?” I turned up my collar, tried to stay cool, though I could see in Radcliff’s face something bad was coming, some piece of news I didn’t want to hear.
“It kills him,” said Radcliff. “Even if it was an accident, even if it was just some fool left a hand brake off, or a drunk in another car who nudged the van out of place and set it rolling, we’re into vehicular homicide. Either way, I mean, that’s jail time, Artie, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER 27
T here was already a crowd when I got to the Sugar Hill Club at ten, people looking for a good time. In the corner was a tall Christmas tree, blue and white lights looped through the branches, a silver star on top. Last time I’d been here was election night, six weeks ago. It seemed like years, but hard to forget-the joy, the celebration, and Lily.
I leaned on the bar, ate some peanuts from a bowl, and listened to the conversations swirl around me.
“Fucking Madoff. They should crucify him.”
“You saved anything when the shit came down?”
“ So not, but I’m stacking cheese like crazy now. Gotta save it.”
I needed a drink. I called out to Axel, the bartender, who crossed to me and said,“You wanna hear the one about the guy goes into a bar and drops dead…?”
“Zip it, man,” somebody shouted. “We heard that one already a hundred times. Enough!”
With his big soft shoulders, Axel was a chunky young guy built like a rugby player gone to seed. German mother, black GI dad, a crew cut dyed platinum, a red and white bandanna around his forehead, he was working on his routine as a stand-up comic. “So the other guy goes into the bar-Oh, fuck, I forgot the end,” Axel said. “What are you drinking, Artie? Man it is cold out there. Cold as you-know-what, witch’s tit in a brass bra-my old man used to say that in Berlin when I was a kid. He hated that weather. He wasn’t crazy about the Germans, either.” He laughed. “Have one on me, Artie.”
I asked for a beer. Axel set a bottle and a frosty glass on the bar.
“Ain’t seen you since, what was it, election night? I’m glad you brought your ass over here. It’s good to see you, man.”
I drank, looking at the door. I was waiting for Lily.
On the sound system Oscar Peterson was playing his elegant version of Christmas music, an album Lily once gave me. The six-piece combo played “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” as such a lovely piece of music, it made me believe for a minute in the whole holiday thing.
I had a second beer. Somebody switched the sound system off and a guy went to the piano, and started to play. I’d heard him the summer before when I’d been at the club.
He was probably seventy at least, but when he played “You Took Advantage,” he ran through it like a virile young man, smiling, singing to himself.
I signaled to Axel. I wanted to know the piano player’s name, but a familiar voice interrupted.
“Martini please, Hendricks gin, straight up, very dry, with a twist. Make it a double.” It was Virgil Radcliff.
Radcliff, who’d said he’d be working all night, was sitting with Carver Lennox, the two of them talking and laughing. I was pretty surprised. Radcliff had told me he didn’t like the guy.
“Artie, come join us,” Lennox called. He held up his glass, a smoky, golden single malt in it, and offered me one.
The whiskey was good. Radcliff wore the clothes he’d been wearing all day, but Lennox had on a beautiful black custom-made suit, the wool as fine as silk, and a pristine white shirt, open at the neck. On the bar was a red Santa hat.
After a minute or two of “how you doing” talk-we talked malt whiskey-Radcliff got up. “I have to go. Thanks for the drink, Cal.”
“Not at all, Virgil. Please, Artie, have another one. I had better do some circulating; there’s a big group coming on later.”
“Not everyone’s from the Armstrong?”
“From the Armstrong, plus other friends,” said Lennox, who picked up his Santa hat! “I’m hoping the mayor will show. He’s been so good to us up here, he’s a man that understands development. Helps out, attends the black churches. He gets it.”
“You want to walk me out, Artie?” said Radcliff.
“I thought you were working?”
“I’m on my way,” he said, as we made our way through the crowd. “I just checked up on Ms. McGee at the hospital, by the way; it was dehydration, heat got turned up so high in her place she passed out, wasn’t drinking enough water. They’ll have her home in a few hours.”
“Good. What’s with the ‘Cal’ business? I thought you didn’t like Lennox.”
“Friends call him Cal. Name’s Carver Antoine Lennox. Sometimes you need to make friends with the enemy, right?”
“He’s the enemy?”
“I’m speaking metaphorically. More or less,” Radcliff said. “Can you do me a favor? I mean, no reason you should, Artie, but I would like to ask you to do something for me.” He was hesitant, formal.
He was going back to work. Lily was on her way to the club. I felt generous.
“Sure.”
“My dad will probably stop by. I asked him to come before I knew I had to work tonight, and I can’t get hold of him. Can you just make sure he gets a drink or something?”
“There’s something else you want, isn’t there?” I saw it in his face.
“Since you were asking, Artie, yeah. You could tell my dad being a cop is OK. Maybe if he meets you, he’ll stop getting on me to quit and go back to grad school.”
“Why don’t you tell him?”
I saw that Virgil was nervous about his father. He was fearful, not that his dad would beat him or ignore him, but of the pressure. I knew about that. I remembered my own father pushing me at school, wanting to turn me into a linguist or a scientist, something important, useful, something that would aid the socialist cause we believed in-or that he did. He was dead before I became a cop, so it didn’t matter.
“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” Virgil said. “Ever since I was a kid, I did stuff they didn’t approve of, couldn’t even fathom. My idea of connecting with what my dad called ‘my people’ was wearing big satin basketball shorts and gold chains that made my parents go nuts, I mean, their Virgil, in bling? And us living in Cambridge when he taught at Harvard, and then on Riverside Drive? God, were they disappointed in me,” he said, lighting up a cigarette as we reached the door of the club. “Christ, I shouldn’t have had that drink with Lennox, not
