“I think you’re not very safe with that woman alive, whatever Victor wants.”
Walter had worked for Victor since the beginning. He had to know the sordid mob politics behind each act of supposedly angelic justice. Had he, like Dev, assumed I guessed?
“Why did he have me kill Trent Sullivan, all those years ago?”
Walter kept his answer for a long moment; I could see him measuring me, and then his words, on a scale whose counterweight only he knew. He smiled a Red Man smile. “Trent worked part-time as a spotter. For people with appropriate talents. He was the one who found you at that club.”
Now I did sit down, hard, on my chaise lounge. I shivered. Trent Sullivan had found me at the club. Where I tossed darts at the fruit that I juggled while naked, letting the perfect halves fall down around me in circles.
Trent had known how to see us, the ones whom the hands had visited and left with their heavy luck. He gave our names to Victor. And then I had seen the photos of what happened next.
“Why aren’t I long dead, then?”
“The night you and Victor met, don’t you remember? You walked right up and offered him a deal. And he took it.”
I’m sick of swinging my girls on stage. That was my voice, wasn’t it? Or had been, a hundred years ago. I can throw knives, Mr. Vic. I can throw knives and I’m willing to throw them at those who don’t deserve to walk this earth anymore. You help me kill the bastard that killed my brother and I’ll kill any other real bastard that you like. I’ll be your angel of justice—your knife to throw.
Vic had laughed for nearly a minute. Now I knew why. I was an ignorant girl, whose hands were the only part of me he’d ever wanted. It must have been like hearing his steak begging for its life. But he’d agreed—Victor had helped me find the bastard who’d gunned down Roger in a basement card parlor on Amsterdam Avenue. And from then on I was his. Not an angel, but a very fine knife.
“And Trent? What’d he do to deserve a visit from me?”
Walter sighed. “He was a snitch. But I’m guessing someone told you that already. You might think about that. The plans Victor has for you, now. I owe him too much. My life, still. But you don’t, now, do you?”
I didn’t breathe. Then I made myself exhale, slow and businesslike. “I’m going to kill him.”
Walter’s eyes went soft. “Take it easy, Phyllis. Whatever you decide, I won’t stop you.”
We said goodbye; he left; I was alone. Someone told you already. But he couldn’t know—
I considered that I hadn’t seen Dev in four days.
I tried to read for a while—Their Eyes Were Watching God, Quicksand, Persuasion, my neglected copy of The Nazarene, which Gloria had raved about last Christmas—but even Hurston couldn’t keep my interest for more than a dozen pages. I wished the sun away, not because I craved darkness, but because then I would have survived another day. I stared at the clock, considered the wisdom of drinking at 3:20 in the afternoon, and pulled out the latest New Amsterdam News and New Yorker—food for Phyllis Green and armor for Phyllis LeBlanc.
My phone rang at four o’clock. I’d slipped into a merciful doze, cheek pressed wetly against a cartoon of Hitler marching across Russia, but I sprung up at the sound.
“Phyllis, that is you, right?”
“Hiya, Gloria.” I sank back onto the chaise. I felt glad to hear her voice, and immediately weary.
“I’ve called you three times in the last week! Where have you been?”
I considered. “Slow boat to China?”
She sighed. “I was worried, you know.”
“You coulda come over.”
“You don’t like it when I do. Don’t play martyr to me, Phyllis. You’re my little sister, you can’t stop me from loving you.”
“Can’t?”
“Well,” she said, laughing, “if it ain’t happened by now. So where you been? Having fun, I hope? A new man?”
Dev had put his arm around me, he had agreed to help. But I had hurt him somehow, and almost died in his arms; impossible to tell how much of that sweetness was nostalgia and how much was love. “It looks like I’m on the market, but not yet.”
“You were seeing that ’fay dentist, weren’t you? Got tired of him?”
“More like he got tired of me.”
“Oh, honey. Is that why you didn’t pick up the phone?”
“Sort of?”
“Then what’s the rest of it?”
“I was in the hospital, Glory.”
“For—for eight days?”
“Ten.” I waited. “Glory?”
“What—what happened?”
“A bullet.”
“Where?”
“High chest, right side. Played hell with my arm, but I’ll be all right.”
Her breath came tight through the receiver, otherwise I’d have thought she’d hung up. My throat ached, but I wouldn’t beg for sympathy; that had been my deal from the start.
Finally she said, “Come here. Live with us. Ida can sleep with Sonny, and you can have the extra room. I won’t lose you, too, Phyllis—Phyllis, if you had died, would anyone have even told me?”
“Dev would have,” I said.
“You know I don’t hold with what Tom thinks about your … talent, but sometimes I am mighty angry with the Lord for giving you and Roger that burden.”
“This isn’t like what happened to—”
“Roger got killed! A few inches to the left and that man you love would have knocked on my door with your ashes. Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to stop … doing what you do? I know Tom and I can’t offer you that downtown lifestyle, but we can offer love, honey, and safety, and Ida just adores you—”
“But poor Sonny,” I said. My tears didn’t show in my voice, I was almost sure. I had wanted this too badly to wish for it: my respectable Gloria, upending her whole life to save her prodigal sister.
“He’ll come around. Will you? Please say yes.”
Harlem felt a world away,
