'What if you're Jack Swyteck?' said Theo.
Jack felt like he was being tested. 'I don't doubt you, Theo. But you didn't answer your cell that night.'
'Did you call Trina's?'
'Of course not. I wasn't about to dial her number at one o'clock in the morning after you were so adamant that it was over between you two.'
'So what's your point?'
'I'd feel better about this alibi if I had talked to you or her the other night.'
Theo slid his cell across the countertop. It hit Jack in the elbow. 'Call her now,' said Theo.
Jack's gaze was drawn to it. It would have been a betrayal to pick up the telephone and check out Theo's alibi. He slid the phone right back at him. 'I don't need to talk to her.'
Theo put the cell back in his pocket.
Jack looked away then back. He wanted to change the subject – but only slightly. 'That was one hell of a shot that took out Isaac,' he said. 'Right between the eyes, dead of night, bad lighting, twenty or more feet away.'
'Could be a pro. Could have been lucky.'
Jack gave his friend an assessing look. 'Sooner or later, Andie or somebody is going to latch onto the fact that your brother was a contract killer.'
'Tatum's dead,' said Theo.
'But I'm sure he had friends who could hit a shot like that.'
'That don't make 'em my friends. I got friends on death row. Does that make 'em yours?'
Funny, but Andie might have said yes – at least that was the way Jack had taken her 'bad joke' that led to their breakup. 'I guess not,' said Jack.
Silence fell between them, and then Theo smiled. He gave Jack a playful punch to the left bicep. It hurt.
'So, nothin' to worry about, right dude?'
Jack rubbed his aching arm. 'No,' he said. 'We're cool.'
Chapter 17
Theo's tour started appropriately enough at the Knight Beat – 'the swingingest place in the South' – and then moved on to the Cotton Club, the Clover Club, and Rockland Palace Hotel. The night wouldn't end until they reached the Flamingo Lounge at the Mary Elizabeth Hotel. All of these clubs had disappeared years earlier – some before Theo's birth – but Uncle Cy's anecdotes brought them to life.
''The day Miami was born, the official name for this area was Colored Town,' said Cy. 'Then it was Overtown. I like to think of it as Little Harlem.'
They walked side-by-side down Second Avenue, between Sixth and Tenth Streets, once a lively stretch that, back in the day, was known variously as Little Broadway, the Strip, and the Great Black Way. Uncle Cy was dressed like a relic from the jazz and swing era, wearing a three-piece Norfolk suit in natty vintage tweeds, as if defying the fact that it was a balmy evening in May.
'Ain't you hot?' said Theo.
Cy flashed a mischievous smile. 'Last time someone on Little Broadway asked me that question it was more like, “Cyrus Knight – hoo-wee, ain't
'Must have been one of the many women you managed to convince that the Knight Beat was named after you.'
'How'd you know about that?'
''Cause it's what I would have done.'
They stopped at the corner. A chain-link fence surrounded a vacant lot. A big painted sign promised condominiums 'Opening Summer 2003' – a deadline that could now be met only with the aid of time travel. 'American Dream Development Ltd.,' the sign said, 'a Fernando Redden Company.' There were a few mounds of gravel and deep ruts from truck tires, but the weeds had taken over. It looked as if the distinguished Mr. Redden's construction had ceased as soon as it had started.
'This used to be a joint called the Harlem Square Club,' said Cy.
Theo saw not a trace of the original building. All that remained was the nostalgia in the old man's eyes. 'I've heard of it,' said Theo.
'Hearing
'Pretty cool they could book acts like that.'
'Yeah, thanks to Glass Killens. A real charmer, famous for carrying around a mystery mug – contents unknown. And one smart promoter. Black entertainers played all the swanky hotels on Miami Beach, but they couldn't stay there. Whites only. So they popped across the causeway to find a room, and Glass would get 'em to play a late- night gig at places like the Harlem Square.'
Theo let him have all the time he wanted, but there was no escaping the fact that a community once filled with pride and music was now Miami's poorest neighborhood. More than half the residents lived in poverty, two-thirds of households were headed by unmarried women, and only one in ten dwellings was owner-occupied. Those cold statistics were borne out by the panhandlers on the streets, the abandoned stores and decrepit buildings marred by gang graffiti, and the virtual nonexistence of trees and green space. Cy's gaze drifted toward busy I-95 and I-395, which intersected in the heart of Overtown. Even at night, the pall of the elevated expressway was palpable. Ironically, the federal government had started construction of the interstate just as Congress was passing the Civil Rights Act – a fatal blow in a time of great hope.
After a minute or two, Cy shook his head in silence, like a man turning away from the grave of an old friend. 'Let's go,' he said.
They walked on. Theo's car was parked on the other side of the street, two blocks north.
Theo said, 'We're pretty close to where you used to live, ain't we?
'Not too far. Just a tiny wooden shack on Northwest Twelfth Street.' His eyes brightened with another twinkle of nostalgia. 'Used to call them shotgun houses, because a bullet fired through the front door would shoot out the back without hittin' anything on the inside.'
'You seen many bullets fly?'
'Mostly dope dealers shootin' each other. You got used to that kind of thing. But it was the riots in the early eighties that finally made me move out for good.'
A homeless man leveraged himself up from his bed of corrugated cardboard on the sidewalk. His lips were moving, but he was either too weak or too strung out to speak. As Theo and his uncle passed, Theo dug out a ten- dollar bill and deposited it into the dirty paper cup that held a few loose coins.
'Now don't blow it all on food,' said Theo. 'Be sure to get yourself some liquor.'
The homeless man actually smiled.
Theo and his uncle crossed the street. A low-ride sedan rolled past them, rap music blaring from a boom box so big that it filled the entire rear seat. The red metallic paint glistened beneath the street lamps, and a cryptic black- and-gold gang symbol stretched across the hood. The twenty-two-inch rims were chrome-plated with a triple cross-lacing spoke pattern. Three black youths were in the front seat. It reminded Theo of the old days – him, Tatum, and Isaac.
'I lied to my best friend today,' said Theo. Inna?
'No. Jack. I told him I got no idea who would tap my phone line after Isaac busted outta prison.'
Cy did a double take. 'You know who did it?'
'No. But I do got an idea.'
The old man was about to ask who, and then he stopped.
Theo didn't say it. He didn't have to.
Cy said, 'You ain't serious, are you?'
'You tell me.'
His uncle stepped up onto the curb. 'You think
