One False Move

He nodded into the phone. He knew. He thought about what Esperanza had said, about how he “used to” leave himself totally exposed, keeping his feet planted with nary a worry of getting beaned on the head.

“I’ll see you at the game,” he said.

Then he hung up.

He sat and closed his eyes and thought about Brenda. For a moment he didn’t push the thoughts away. He let them cascade over him. His body tingled. He started smiling.

Brenda.

He opened his eyes and came out of it. He switched on the car phone again and dialed Win’s number.

“Articulate.”

“I need some backup,” Myron said.

“Bitching,” Win said.

They met up at the Essex Green Mall in West Orange.

“How far is the ride?” Win asked.

“Ten minutes.”

“Bad area?”

“Yes.”

Win looked at his precious Jag. “We’ll take your car.”

They got into the Ford Taurus. The late-summer sun still cast long, thin shadows. Heat rose from the sidewalk in lazy tendrils, dark and smoky. The air was so thick that an apple falling from a tree would take several minutes to hit the ground.

“I looked into the Outreach Education scholarship,” Win said. “Whoever set up the fund had a great deal of financial acumen. The money was dumped in from a foreign source, more specifically the Cayman Islands.”

“So it’s untraceable?”

“Almost untraceable,” Win corrected. “But even in places like the Caymans a greased palm is a greased palm.”

“So who do we grease?”

“Already done. Unfortunately the account was in a dummy name and closed four years ago.”

“Four years ago,” Myron repeated. “That would be right after Brenda received her last scholarship. Before she started medical school.”

Win nodded. “Logical,” he said. Like he was Spock.

“So it’s a dead end.”

“Temporarily, yes. Someone could prowl through old records, but it will take a few days.”

“Anything else?”

“The scholarship recipient was to be chosen by certain attorneys rather than any educational institution. The criteria were vague: academic potential, good citizenship, that type of thing.”

“In other words, it was fixed so the attorneys would select Brenda. Like we said before, it was a way of funneling her money.”

Another nod. “Logical,” he repeated.

They started moving from West Orange into East Orange. The transformation was gradual. The fine suburban homes turned into gated condo developments. Then the houses came back—smaller now, less land, more worn and crowded together. Abandoned factories started popping up. Subsidy housing too. It was a butterfly in reverse, turning back into a caterpillar.

“I also received a call from Hal,” Win said. Hal was an electronics expert they had worked with during their days working for the government. He’d been the one Myron had sent to check for phone taps.

“And?”

“All the residences contained telephone listening devices and traces—Mabel Edwards’s, Horace Slaughter’s, and Brenda’s dorm room.”

“No surprise,” Myron said.

“Except for one thing,” Win corrected. “The devices in the two households—that is, Mabel’s and Horace’s homes—were old. Hal estimated that they had been present for at least three years.”

Myron’s head started spinning again. “Three years?”

“Yes. It’s an estimate, of course. But the pieces were old and in some cases crusted over from dirt.”

“What about the tap on Brenda’s phone?”

“More recent. But she’s only lived there a few months. And Hal also found listening devices in Brenda’s room. One under her desk in her bedroom. Another behind a sofa in the common room.”

“Microphones?”

Win nodded. “Someone was interested in more than Brenda’s telephone calls.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Win almost smiled. “Yes, I thought you might find it odd.”

Myron tried to enter the new data into his brain. “Someone has obviously been spying on the family for a long time.”

“Obviously.”

“That means that it has to be somebody with resources.”

“Indeed.”

“Then it has to be the Bradfords,” Myron said. “They’re looking for Anita Slaughter. For all we know, they’ve been looking for twenty years. It’s the only thing that makes sense. And you know what else this means?”

“Do tell,” Win said.

“Arthur Bradford has been conning me.”

Win gasped. “A less than truthful politician? Next you’ll tell me there’s no Easter Bunny.”

“It’s like we thought from the start,” Myron said. “Anita Slaughter ran because she was scared. And that’s why Arthur Bradford is being so cooperative. He wants me to find Anita Slaughter for him. So he can kill her.”

“And then he’ll try to kill you,” Win added. He studied his hair in the visor mirror. “Being this handsome. It is not easy, you realize.”

“And yet you suffer without complaint.”

“That is my way.” Win took one last look before snapping the visor back in place.

Clay Jackson lived in a row of houses whose backyards sat above Route 280. The neighborhood looked like working poor. The homes were all two-family, except for several corner residences that doubled as taverns. Tired neon Budweiser signs flickered through murky windows. Fences were all chain-link. So many overgrown weeds had popped through the sidewalk cracks that it was impossible to tell where pavement ended and lawn began.

Again all the inhabitants appeared to be black. Again Myron felt his customary and seemingly inexplicable discomfort.

There was a park across the street from Clay Jackson’s house. People were setting up for a barbecue. A softball game was going on. Loud laughter exploded everywhere. So did a boom box. When Myron and Win got out of the car, all eyes swerved in their direction. The boom box went suddenly silent. Myron forced up a smile. Win remained completely unbothered by the scrutiny.

“They’re staring,” Myron said.

“If two black men pulled up to your house in Livingston,” Win said, “what sort of reception would they receive?”

Myron nodded. “So you figure the neighbors are calling the cops and describing two ‘suspicious youths’ prowling the streets?”