Nine Deadly Lives Page 13

  “Lady, I’m married.”

  “Oui? Your wife has good taste.” She nibbled on my ear, Nadine’s signature gesture. Very pleasurable from Nadine, but disturbing from a woman not Nadine. “The place—you like? Me? You like?”

  Ms. Monet’s skin was wrinkled, but she’d maintained the bone structure of great beauties. Her cheekbones arched up towards her eyes, which sparkled with intelligence.

  “You’re a nice-looking lady. But like I said, I’m married.”

  “True filmmaker recognize talent,” she pouted and sank onto her couch. “You not real filmmaker.”

  “And you’re not really French.”

  “How you know?”

  I explained that something about the way she spoke French reminded me of the odd way some people spoke Spanish. “If I had to guess, I’d say you were from the D.R.”

  Ms. Monet sighed. “Alright, yes, I’m Dominican. When I lived on the island, I picked up French from my Haitian neighbors. But for years, I told everybody I was from the south of France. Life sounded more romantic that way. Can you really fault an old lady for trying to distinguish herself with a bit of French flair?”

  I nodded, finding her intriguing and a bit silly all at once.

  “And you? You know my secrets, but who do you pretend to be?”

  “I’m not a location scout,” I admitted. “I just want to find out more about Terry Bunch. He may be able to tell me about Walker’s death.”

  Ms. Monet didn’t react the way I thought she would. I thought my confession would make her more forthcoming, but instead, she reached for her dress. “I should put my clothes back on,” she muttered.

  “You know something, don’t you?”

  “Go talk to Terry. He lives right below and he’s most likely home—he doesn’t go out much, anymore. That’s the life of an old man. Not that’d you know about that. You can’t be much older than thirty, if you’ve made it that far.”

  “So, he’s home a lot. What else do you know, Ms. Monet? We’re two people who like to pretend with other folks, so we might as well be real with each other.”

  Ms. Monet slithered back into her dress before sitting down again. I noticed a small golden locket around her neck. In the locket, instead of a picture of a sweetheart or a child, was a beautiful snow-white Persian with bright blue eyes.

  “Roquefere,” she said, after she noticed I was watching. “He died a few weeks ago.”

  I nodded, waiting.

  “Roquefere—probably the only male who ever loved me, and he couldn’t talk,” she began. “I had an affair—with Rube, and later, with Terry. Don’t look at me like that. Both affairs went on for years, but it was never about me. It was their stupid rivalry. I see that, now.”

  “Was Rube with you the day before he died?”

  “No. Rube lived a block away. He’d come over once a month for an afternoon poker game against Terry, and some of their friends. Twenty years ago, Rube took his second wife, and things slowed down with him and me.”

  “Did Rube’s wife know of the affair?”

  “How could she not? She knew what it meant to marry a local celebrity. I remember she met me once, at a party. It was obvious she didn’t like me. I was wearing a yellow dress Rube had bought me, and wearing it well—in those days, I was something else. Fifteen years younger than Terry or Rube, and quite a beauty. You know, the dress was far from the only thing Rube got me—for years, they competed with gifts. They competed so well, I really thought it was all about me.”

  “What happened that night?

  “Come.” Ms. Monet walked over to a large window that overlooked the street. Ms. Monet’s apartment wasn’t very high—the entire building was only six stories tall—but the window was so wide she had an expansive view of Harlem. I could see my car, Jackie Robinson Park, Jake’s Coffee Shop, and most importantly, all the people who entered and left the building. “Rube had a quiet, almost peaceful, nature. He was much less competitive than Terry, who kind of spurred the whole thing along. That afternoon, Terry won a lot of Rube’s money in the poker game. And because Rube didn’t have much left, he ended up gambling away his plaque.”

  “The one given to him by the commissioner?”

  Ms. Monet nodded. “It was identical to Terry’s, but that didn’t matter. It was the principle of the matter. Terry made Rube walk back home, pick up the plaque, and bring it to him. On his way back to Terry’s, Rube was so upset, he rang my door and asked if I would speak to Terry, try to get him to change his mind. I was trying to listen to Rube, but I got a call from my sister. And because I hadn’t spoken to her in weeks and was worried about her, it wasn’t like I could hang up as soon as I picked up the phone. But when I took my sister’s call, Rube got angry and left my place in a huff. He slammed the door behind him and scared little Roquefere so bad he fell out the window.”

  “That’s what killed your cat?”

  Ms. Monet nodded. “Three weeks ago—that was the last time I saw Roquefere and Rube. From here, I saw Rube stumbling out of the building. He was being followed by a bunch of young hoodlums.”

  o0o

  It was still early, about nine-thirty, when I left Ms. Monet’s apartment and headed to Bunch’s. I knocked on the door. It took three knocks for him to answer.

  When Bunch finally came to the door, I saw why he and Rube Walker had carried on with mistresses and poker games like men decades younger: the agility they’d achieved as former athletes hadn’t quite left. When Bunch answered the door, his back was straight and he didn’t shuffle; though from the way he peered at my face, it was obvious he couldn’t see well.

  “What you need, son?” The door cracked open, and you could smell the dusty, closed-in scent of his apartment.

  “Heard about the movie shoot?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “There’s flyers posted all around the building.”

  “I ain’t been down yet.” Bunch started to close the door, but I blocked it with my shoulder.

  “I’m scouting locations for a new Spike Perry movie. Alright if I come in, have a look around? I promise not to take too long.”

  “No,” Bunch began pushing the door again. “Them films a disgrace

  to the race.”

  I tried one last tactic. “Your friend Ms. Monet doesn’t think so. She said your place has good light.”

  “Lela recommended you?” Bunch smiled for the first time. “Guess I can let you in a while.”

  “Mind if I take your picture?” I set up my camera in the far end of the room, the one closest to the window. “See how this light looks against an actual body?”

  Bunch sat down on a ripped, leather couch. I noticed that while Monet’s apartment couldn’t have been more maintained, Bunch’s had a shabby look—newspapers piled in corners, a grayish-green curtain draped over a window as though it’d been placed there by accident. “Been over a year since I had my picture taken.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Baseball commissioner decided to honor some of us old ball players. We was in all the local papers.”

  “How long did you play?” I tried to look nonchalant.

  “Started when I was nineteen, right before the majors got integrated. Played with Satchel Paige, and my team—the Cubans—won the Negro World Series in ’47. I like to think I had something to do with that.” Bunch smiled, then kneeled down next to my camera, inspecting the tripod. “Can’t be easy carrying this thing along, ’specially in this heat. Care for some water?”

  “That would hit the spot,” I said.

  Bunch nodded and walked into the kitchen.

  “Heard about one of your teammates—a Ray Walker? He just passed away?”

  “Not Ray, Rube. That old son of a gun!” Two cups of ice water shook in Bunch’s hands. There was anger there, but something else, something I couldn’t place until finally, it came to me. It was pride. The rivalry, the memory of it, was what was keeping Bunch alive. I saw how much he wanted to talk about this
, and I felt bad for bothering him, bad for deceiving him.

  Bunch handed me the water and watched as I drained the glass.

  “I’d better get on,” I said. “Go through the rest of these locations before it gets too hot.”

  “I like talking to you. Come back,” Bunch said. “On another day when the heat’s less.”

  “I will,” I said—and meant it.

  o0o

  As I walked out the building, I ran into the young woman who’d been watching me earlier. She was wearing her nurse’s uniform, but she didn’t appear concerned about anyone’s health—least of all, her own. She was smoking, and smoking hard.

  “You ain’t no damn location scout for no film,” she said to me. “Don’t nobody care about this place.”

  “You’d be surprised,” I paused on the sidewalk. “There’s history here.”

  “You spoke to my granddaddy? That’s about all the history left in this building. And that ain’t much.” The woman blew smoke at the sky.

  “What made your grandfather so special?”

  “Played baseball. Everybody in this neighborhood knew him.”

  “You must be proud.”

  The woman, I now knew, was Taneika. She nodded in response.

  “You a nurse?”

  “Home care assistant. Not a real nurse. Don’t have time for all that. I wash them, clean up their mess. Film that with your little camera. Working ten to six every day, making almost no money—”

  “Can’t be that bad—you get breaks. Looks like you’re on one now.”

  “For what? Five minutes? Ten? Whenever this arbitrary lady decides she’ll let me get some air?”

  An ice cream truck pulled up in front of the building, and its sing-songy tune interrupted our conversation.

  “Too early for some ice cream,” Taneika complained, but I realized she sounded wistful, not angry. “It’s not even lunch yet.”

  Early as it was, a few kids clamored around the truck. Only one kid didn’t; he was on a bicycle, moving around the truck in wobbly, unsteady circles. His movements reminded me of the little boy I’d seen yesterday with the basketball. But instead of looking carefree like the other kid, this one looked industrious, focused.

  “I got to go back and check on this woman. But before you leave here, you make sure you talk to my granddaddy,” Taneika said as she put out her cigarette and stomped back down the street.

  The moment she was out of sight, I walked over to the boy on his bike.

  “Want to make some money, kid?”

  “How much? I don’t do anything for less than five dollars.”

  I handed him a ten, scribbled a message, and waited for the sparks to fly.

  o0o

  Coogan’s Bluff is a dim reminder of what it once was. It’s hard to believe some of the world’s most famous baseball games were played here. Now, sixty years after the Cubans played there, the place is overrun with trees and weeds, and almost always deserted, though it’s not exactly a wildlife refuge. I stared at the scattered trash—soda cans, candy bar wrappers— pressed into the overgrown grass as I watched the killer walk into partial view.

  The kid on the bike had earned his ten bucks. It was all falling into place now, with the message I’d given to him to deliver.

  “How did you know?” she asked simply. She was close enough to me to be heard, but her face and body were obscured by a few tall trees.

  “I didn’t want it to be you, but you made it easy, Ms. Monet.” I stared at her closely. From the shady place where she was standing, it was hard to tell if she had a gun in her hands, but she was definitely holding something. “I could tell from the way you described Rube’s personality that you were in love with him, even though his passion had slowed over the years, and he wanted to break it off with you. But, you’re a bit of a narcissist, and you couldn’t take it.

  “When Rube came over to tell you it was over, you were livid. I suspect that you didn’t lie about your sister calling—she did—but that wasn’t the reason Rube walked out of your house in a huff. When your sister called, she spoke with you in Spanish—your native language—but Rube had played with Dihigo, who was Cuban, and Satchel Paige, who had played in the Dominican Republic, and other players who spent years playing in the Dominican Republic. I think you told your sister— in Spanish—that you were going to harm Rube’s wife. But he understood enough of what you were saying that he got upset and left your house to warn her. You were angry that not only was Rube breaking up with you, but he was also protecting his wife, so you banged him on the head with his plaque just as he was leaving.”

  “You think you’re so clever,” Ms. Monet said, and as she spoke, the sun moved from behind a cloud. I saw the black steel in her hand.

  “These were all just guesses until I thought about what you said about the cat. You said when Rube left your apartment, his loudness disturbed your cat so much that it jumped out the window. I’d read that white cats with blue eyes are usually deaf, but then I thought it was possible your cat felt the vibrations, and again, I wanted to believe you—until I realized there was no way your cat died from that fall. Cats have a terminal velocity that’s different from humans.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Their bone structure allows them to fall more slowly, and from a short building like this one, your cat would have survived. When Rube left your apartment, he was stunned and bleeding from the head, and he stumbled around a bit outside, probably sat down on the ground somewhere. Your cat was the feline Lassie, and fond as it was after years of seeing Rube, jumped out to comfort him. In the process, the cat got Rube’s red blood all over its white fur. When you came down to check on your cat, you realized that Rube was in bad shape. But rather than help him out, you picked up your cat and decided to get rid of him as efficiently as possible—and because you knew that there was a risk of getting the blood from the cat all over your white apartment, you went to the nearest animal shelter and claimed to have found an abandoned cat.

  “In the meanwhile, Rube stumbled home and died a couple of hours later, and the coroner attributed the head injury to the kind of falls that happen to a man his age. But that’s not what happened, is it Ms. Monet?”

  She shook her head. “When I looked at the message that you sent to me—when I saw that the number from the animal shelter was the same place where I had dropped off little Roquefere—I knew you knew. So, how much do you want? I don’t have much, just little trinkets that Rube and Terry gave me over the years. But you can have all of that. Look, it works for you: you can either forget what you know and get paid, or remember, and get killed.”

  Ms. Monet raised the gun towards me, but before she could shoot, one of New York’s Finest grabbed her. In the second before she tumbled to the ground, she somehow looked more glamorous than ever as she held the black gun in arms covered by a snow-white coat.

  After the police carried Ms. Monet away, I called Nadine. Summer was almost over, and there wouldn’t be many warm days left.

  “Nadine…hi, honey. About that picnic? Will you meet me for lunch—right over at the Jackie Robinson Park? No, don’t worry about packing anything—I’ll stop by Fat Larry’s. He makes the best fish sandwiches anywhere.

  “What about your case?” she asked, still a little miffed.

  I smiled, thinking of the ear nibbling Ms. Monet who I’d caught in the end, and felt a deep satisfaction in a job well-done, once more.

  “I wrapped it up. Now, it’s time for us.” I couldn’t wait to tell her all about the cat on Coogan’s Bluff…and how he’d helped catch his mistress who’d murdered a baseball star.

  About the Author—Rochelle Spencer

  Rochelle Spencer is co-editor of All About Skin: Short Fiction by Women Writers of Color (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014) and her work appears in several publications including Poets and Writers, Callaloo, The African American Review, Publishers Weekly, The Rumpus, The Ascentos Review, Mosaic Literary Magazine, and the Crab Creek Re
view, which nominated her nonfiction for an Editor's Choice Award and a Pushcart Prize. Rochelle is a former Board Member of the Hurston-Wright Foundation, a founding member of the Harlem Works Collective, and a member of the Wintergreen Writers Collective and the National Book Critics Circle.

  Missing Lynx

  Clay More

  A supernatural feline murder mystery tale from the silent movie era.

  1

  Manhattan, New York

  August 24, 1926

  Her whole life changed when Rudolph Valentino died.

  And judging by the throngs of people who had lined every spare foot of the streets along the way and the mountain of roses that were strewn about the bier as the cortege made its slow progress up West 49th Street in Broadway, it was clear that thousands of other women also felt that their lives had been irretrievably changed. They sobbed and wailed at the knowledge that the light had gone out of those magnificent sultry eyes that they had seen so often on the silver screen. They felt robbed of the love that could never be, of the caress that could never be felt or the kiss that would have stolen their hearts.

  Valentino, the Latin Lover was gone at just thirty-one years of age, struck down with peritonitis and taken from the world of his adoring public.

  Kay du Maurier was there for the funeral mass at Saint Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church along with her husband, Colonel Fenton Carlyle and her sister, Blanche Fleming. In any other gathering, the three would have stood out; yet, here at Rudolph’s farewell, they were but three among the glittering firmament that had gathered to pay their respects. Clara Bow, Douglas Fairbanks, and Irving Berlin were there, along with an entourage of lesser stars, all standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Rudolph’s family, offering what comfort they could to them. Most visible, however, dressed in black with a felt capeline hat and the cleverest of gossamer veils that highlighted rather than obscured her weeping face, was the distraught Pola Negri. She wore a blood-red rose, which matched the thousands of others that surrounded the white blooms that spelled out POLA, that she had arranged to travel in the hearse with his coffin.