 |
|
|
|
| An
Excerpt From Stormy
Weather |
|
Chapter
1
Truesdale, Justice, and the American Way
When we Justice kids were little and we'd finish watching
a movie with my parents, my mother would always ask, "And
what was the moral? What have we learned?" And while we
would squirm and make faces over how that question intruded
on our fantasies, I think I've finally figured out what
Joymarie meant.
It's like death. I've probably worked hundreds of homicide
cases over the years and they've all meant something different
to me, just like my favorite movies. Some homicides pull
at your heartstrings—the murder of an innocent child or
a battered woman—and haunt you long after the case is closed.
Others—gangbangers, a homeless person—make you wonder how
our society could stoop so low. Point is, you never know
how death will slap you upside the head, or what a homicide
investigation will uncover about the victim, the suspects,
or yourself.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving found me downtown at my
desk at the PAB, aka Parker Administrative Building, reading
the newspaper and trying to get motivated to eat the tuna
sandwich I'd bought off the local roach coach. It was unusually
quiet in the third-floor bull pen that housed the ten men
and two women in the Homicide Special unit of the department's
Robbery-Homicide Division. Almost everyone was out in the
field; the rest had cut out early to get a head start on
an extended holiday weekend. Among the absentees was my
partner, Gena Cortez, who had decided at the last minute
to take a few days off.
We should all be so lucky, I grumbled to myself as I began
unwrapping the stale sandwich before me. I was saved from
my mean cuisine by Ma Bell in the form of a call from Billie
Truesdale. Billie and I had worked a couple of homicides
during the Rodney King riots and had ridden out the ensuing
publicity storm together. Our trial by fire had forged a
sisterly bond between us, despite the difference in our
sexual orientation. That and the fact Billie worked South
Bureau Homicide, location of some of the city's most brutal
murders, while I was firmly, but increasingly unhappily,
entrenched as the only black woman in the celebrated and
celebrity-driven RHD.
"Hail to the conquering heroine," I teased Billie by way
of a greeting. "I was just reading about the verdict in
the Little Angel of Mercy case in the Times."
A year ago, Billie and her partner had hooked up a registered
nurse for the murders of several terminally ill hospital
and nursing home patients. An employee of HealthMates, a
South Bay home health agency, Angelo Clemenza had just been
convicted of moving through a dozen healthcare facilities
and private homes, leaving a trail of dead bodies in his
wake. His "mission" had gotten the diminutive, soft-spoken
man tagged by the right-to-die fanatics and the media as
the Little Angel of Mercy, a loose translation of his name
in Italian.
The fact that over half of Clemenza's victims were elderly
black men had raised the specter of the Atlanta child murders
back in the eighties as well as the more recent Jeffrey
Dahmer case, and had stirred up the CTs, or conspiracy theorists,
from here to Chicago. Billie Truesdale and her partner had
done a heroic job during the investigation, even appearing
with the LAPD Public Relations commander at town hall meetings
and on black radio programs while following Clemenza's devious
trail through the South Bureau's jurisdiction as well as
several neighboring suburbs. Clearing the Clemenza case
was what my acronym-spouting father would call a CEA—career-enhancing
achievement—and I was as happy for Billie as I would have
been for myself, conspiracy theorists be damned.
"At least now you can get the CT contingent off your back,"
I joked.
Taking note that Billie didn't laugh along with me, I was
even more curious when she asked, her voice uneasy and low,
"Are you tied up on something, Charlotte?"
I looked at the forms on my desk. Steve Firestone, my team
leader, was heading up a task force composed of me and Cortez,
a couple of detectives from Robbery, and some uniforms loaned
out from Central Bureau and assigned to solving a series
of home-invasion robberies and murders that were occurring
in L.A.'s most exclusive neighborhoods.
But despite the nature of the case and my years on the job,
I had been relegated to maintaining the murder books and
all of the related paper for the Home Invasion Task Force.
My sixth sense kept telling me that my string of back-room
assignments was part of Firestone's ongoing campaign to
get me into his bed or break my spirit and either get me
to quit the department or transfer out of RHD.
Not that those thoughts hadn't occurred to me, especially
after the trail of blue slime I'd seen left in the wake
of the Rodney King fiasco. For over thirteen years now,
my career had been the center of my life, part of my personal
mission of restoring the balance in our communities disrupted
by crime. But what I had seen and experienced in the past
few years had been so disillusioning, sometimes I wasn't
sure what good I could really do.
But if I left the LAPD it would be for my own reasons and
under my own steam, not because a jerk like Firestone railroaded
me out of the department. Shoving the paperwork to a corner
of my desk, I replied: "Nothing that couldn't wait. What's
up?"
"Meet me at Teddy's."
She was already at the diner when I arrived, ruining her
lungs with a cigarette under an awning in the drizzling
rain. Although I hadn't seen her in a couple of months,
Billie Truesdale looked great. Her pixie haircut had grown
out a little, soft black tendrils framing her heart-shaped
face and the three moles that rode under her right eye.
She was wearing a red, short-jacketed pantsuit that contrasted
nicely with her sepia-toned skin and fit her smallish frame
perfectly. But her hug was perfunctory and her right eye,
always a bit lazy, was way off kilter, a sure sign she was
stressing about something.
Helga Roosevelt, a grandmotherly German immigrant who'd
lived in Los Angeles longer than I've been alive, gave us
both a Brunhildean hug and showed us to my regular booth,
a sun-cracked relic near the back. While Helga was getting
our drinks, Teddy, her husband and co-owner, saluted us
from his post at the grill. "Well, if it ain't Truesdale
and Justice," he shouted over the sound of frying food.
"All y'all need is the American Way!"
Groaning at Teddy's pitiful Superman pun, I shot back: "For
a man whose mother actually named him Theodore Roosevelt,
you sure got your nerve, old man." Teddy's was one of my
favorite hangs, as much for the good-natured dozens the
elderly black man played with his customers as for his double
chili cheeseburgers, which in my mind were the eighth wonder
of the world.
Teddy came out from behind the grill to take our orders
himself, a bantam rooster in a chef's toque. "Saw you on
the news, Detective," he said, beaming at Billie. "Glad
it was you who caught that Angel of Mercy lowlife. Doubly
glad it wasn't one of us what did the deed, if you take
my point."
Billie ducked her head and scooted around in her seat.
"Always happy to see cullud folks gittin' ahead," he went
on, oblivious to her discomfort, " 'specially in a plantation
like the LAPD. They gon' make you gals overseers soon!"
Teddy was old enough and crotchety enough that he could
call grown women "gals" or black people "cullud" and not
give offense. And I could call him an old man and get only
a mock-insulted wave of his dish towel in my direction and
a chuckle and nod of agreement from his long-suffering wife.
Billie, however, seemed unable to join in our good-natured
banter, unable to look even me in the eye.
"I've got a potential problem," she began as soon as our
drinks arrived and Teddy was out of earshot.
"Is it the Little Angel of Mercy case?"
Her good eye fixed on mine. "How did you know?"
"You didn't seem too enthused when I mentioned it on the
phone, and with Teddy just now . . ."
"Guess that's what I get for talking to a detective." She
laughed, but her fingers were locked tight around her glass,
another sign of trouble.
"So?"
"I'm beginning to wonder if we hooked up the wrong man."
"Is this a legitimate concern, or is this just you second-guessing
yourself in some sort of 'I don't deserve all this attention'
crisis of confidence? Because if it's the latter, you're
just going to have to get used to it, girlfriend."
She gestured quickly with one hand, said, "It's nothing
like that," and knocked over her iced tea in the process.
She jumped to wipe up the mess with napkins while Helga
ran for a dish towel.
"Well, be careful," I cautioned, moving my glass out of
the way. "You can see where that kind of notoriety has gotten
me—ostracized and targeted by my D-III as if I had a bull's-eye
on my back."
"Steve Firestone is a skirt-chasing wannabe!" she said heatedly
as she passed Helga the wet napkins. "Did you ever tell
your lieutenant about him coming on to you?"
My jaw and neck muscles tightened, but I forced a smile
and shook my head. "Nice try, my sister-in-blue, but we're
not here to talk about my troubles. Tell me why you think
you hooked up the wrong man."
Billie slid forward in the booth, her voice low. "What have
you heard about Maynard Duncan?"
"Just what was on the news this morning." I sipped my drink
and remembered: "Seventy-six-year-old black filmmaker and
community activist died last night of cancer, right?"
"That's what the paramedics first thought," Billie replied.
"Duncan had suffered from lung cancer for a year and a half,
so they were prepared to chalk it up to respiratory failure.
But when they were examining the body last night, one of
the paramedics noticed something funny and called out a
black-and-white from the Wilshire division."
"And they called you?"
"No, actually it was Mikki Alexander. When she arrived on
the scene behind the detectives, she discovered the vic
had been a patient at Green Pastures Nursing Home last summer.
Four of Clemenza's victims were patients there, and she'd
investigated those cases for the coroner's office."
"But hasn't Clemenza been in custody for the last year?"
She leaned in a little closer, the aged Naugahyde-covered
seat beneath her squeaking in protest. "That's what's been
gnawing at me since Mikki called this morning," she whispered.
Although California voters had recently defeated an assisted
suicide proposition, it had stirred an intense debate between
a vociferous few who supported the concept of euthanasia
and those in the medical ethics and religious communities
who felt passage of the bill would lead down a dark path
Americans were not equipped to travel. In the current climate,
and with the Clemenza case so fresh in her mind, I had a
pretty good idea where Billie was headed. "So you're thinking
what . . . that this old man's death was an assisted suicide
made to look like Clemenza's work?"
"Or maybe," she whispered, her errant eye wandering from
her clenched hands to my face, "a second Little Angel of
Mercy working in tandem with him."
Billie proceeded to tell me how, during a search of Clemenza's
apartment, she and her partner had discovered a detailed
scrapbook, complete with pictures of his victims, obituaries
from the newspapers, and lengthy letters and diary entries
addressed to someone Clemenza called "the Twin." Clemenza
seemed to think this twin's and his destinies were intertwined,
a fact he wrote of in more than one hundred items taken
into evidence. "We initially thought he meant a literal
twin—until we found out he was an only child," Billie explained.
"So the DA's investigators started checking out his friends
and coworkers, but no one seems to have been that close
to him. They finally concluded the letters and the rest
were a bunch of delusional nonsense."
She shifted uneasily in her seat. "But with this new victim
sounding like the others, I'm wondering—what if we were
wrong and the defense was right? What if Clemenza was being
framed with those vics? Or maybe there were two of them
doing these old men together."
Los Angeles had endured its share of infamous serial killers,
some of whom were suspected of working in tandem. The idea
of another deadly duo caused the hairs on my arms to tingle.
"Who's the primary over at Wilshire?" I demanded, digging
into my purse for my notebook.
"Ron Neidisch." A look of frustration crossed Billie's face.
"But he just 'bout bit my head off me when I called over
there to give him a heads-up."
Her response brought me up short, forcing me back in my
seat. I remembered Ron Neidisch from the Academy. Why would
he be uncooperative with a detective from another shop,
especially as closely as the neighboring South Bureau and
Wilshire had to work together?
"Neidisch's response just seemed weird to me," she continued,
echoing my thoughts. "That's why I'm pulling your coat on
this one. The original Little Angel of Mercy case stretched
across so many jurisdictions, you guys should have handled
it from the get-go, but you know our CO wasn't about to
let RHD get its foot in the door after what happened when
you came in on one of our cases the last time. But now .
. ."
Her voice trailed off as Helga put the chili cheeseburgers
before us, two masterpieces of grease and goo. Billie studied
her burger, but made no move to pick it up. "My CO would
have me shot at dawn if I even hinted that RHD should be
called in on this thing," she confided. "But with Neidisch
getting all hincty, I was thinking . . . you know Mikki
Alexander pretty well . . . maybe you could chat her up,
get something concrete you could take to Armstrong . . ."
Captain MacIverson Armstrong was the pony-playing commanding
officer of Robbery-Homicide Division. I knew for a fact
he was pissed that Billie's CO had managed to keep the Little
Angel of Mercy case in South Bureau, but I wasn't sure if
he'd want to disrupt his social calendar to get caught between
two hard-charging homicide units.
"He and the chief coroner are pretty tight. I can always
put a bug in his ear and see if he ferrets out the details."
"Anything you could do would help," she replied, her hands
relaxing for the first time since we sat down. "I just don't
want somebody from Wilshire futzing around with the Clemenza
case and undoing what I know in my bones was a solid collar.
After all the good press South Bureau's gotten on this case,
having it blow up in our faces would be a disaster all the
way around."
For the bureau as well as the detectives on the case—my
friend and colleague chief among them.
"You know I'd love to help you out, Billie. But RHD's taking
over the case doesn't mean our team would be the ones working
it. There're a whole bunch of detectives senior to Firestone,
Cortez, and me who line up for the celebrity cases. And
twinning serial killers . . . they'll be tripping over their
tongues to get put on that one. I bet we'd be the last team
who'd get an assignment like that."
Billie sighed as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders
and said, "I'm sure you're busy anyway," pushing her plate
aside.
Taking another healthy bite of my burger, I studied the
lines furrowing my friend and colleague's brow and knew
I'd find the time to help her out somehow. "Let me see what
I can do."
"Thanks, Charlotte. I owe you one."
"You sure do." I slid the check in her direction with a
smile.
"And don't think I won't collect either."
When I got back to the office at two, I left heads-up messages
about the Duncan case for my lieutenant and captain and
reluctantly went back to my paperwork. I'd been at it for
a couple of hours when Manny Rudolph walked up to my desk,
a mess of files under one arm. A D-II like me, Rudolph had
been assigned to the Home Invasion Task Force from the Robbery
side of the shop, but was already managing clues and chasing
down leads while I stayed virtually chained to my desk.
But that didn't stop me from liking Rudolph, who was always
quick with a joke that was never off-color, never insulting
to women or minorities like some of my so-called colleagues
on the job.
A lanky man with skin the color of cooked lobster, Rudolph
scratched at the corner of his gray-blond mustache. "Hey,
Justice," he drawled, his voice betraying a bit of Tulsa,
Oklahoma, that thirty years in California and even four
in Paris at the Sorbonne studying art history had yet to
dispel. "Firestone wants these filed into the murder book
before you go home tonight."
I cut my eyes across the bull pen to Firestone's empty desk.
"Why didn't he tell me himself?" But that was just like
Steve Firestone, putting someone else up to doing his dirty
work. Always ready to throw a rock and hide his hand.
Seeing my reaction, Rudolph ducked his head and blushed
a deeper red. "He had to leave early to pick up his kids
from his ex for the holidays."
I could feel my cheeks getting hot, too. "Is that ex number
one or ex number two?" Eyeing the stack of files under his
arm, I figured I'd be in the office until eight trying to
catch up. Why had I promised my mother I'd help her peel
apples for pie this evening? "What is that stuff? More tips
on the home invasions?"
"Yeah," he replied, almost sheepishly. "Since one of the
victim's families offered a reward, we've been busier than
a bunch of one-armed paper hangers." He laughed quickly
and released the files onto my desk with a thud. "We been
runnin' these down over the last week, and they're all dead
ends. But . . ."
"I know." I tried for a smile but felt my face settle into
a grimace. "They've got to be logged and filed in case we
need to come back to them later."
Rudolph sat at Cortez's vacant desk across from mine and
toyed with his mustache some more. "You're a real good sport
to be doing this, Charlotte."
I avoided his hazel eyes. "It's my job, Rudolph, that's
all."
"But I woulda thought Firestone coulda had one of the uniforms
assigned to the case doin' this kind of stuff. You and I
should be makin' headway out in the field. I've heard you've
got excellent interviewing skills."
"Woulda, coulda, shoulda," I muttered to myself.
Rudolph frowned. "Huh?"
"I'm sure we could," I said a little louder, "but as the
D-III on the case, that's Firestone's call, not mine." Or
yours, Rudolph, quiet as it's kept.
He blushed again. "If you keep doing that, Manny, I'm going
to have to start calling you Rudolph the Red." I smiled
at him, trying to lighten the mood.
The perplexed look on his face didn't go away. "I don't
usually work with you Homicide folks, Charlotte, so excuse
my ignorance, but is there some reason you're always behind
a desk?"
Dropping my head, I busied myself by examining the files
to hide the color I could feel betraying my face. "None
that I know of, Rudolph," I mumbled. Except that you won't
sleep with your D-III, a little voice in my head reminded
me.
Eventually Rudolph slapped his knees and rose to his feet.
"Well, I'm gonna talk to ol' Steve about it when we get
back from the holidays."
I kept my head down to hide the mounting anger I felt radiating
down my neck to the pit of my stomach. "Suit yourself, Rudolph,
but I'd stay out of it if I were you."
I could feel Manny Rudolph's eyes on me, hear him sigh and
move away as if he finally got the picture. I guess all
that time at the Sorbonne was good for something. "Whatever
you say, Detective Justice. Have a nice Thanksgiving," he
drawled.
Surveying the mountain of papers, thinking of the grand
diva fit my mother would have when I called to tell her
I wasn't going to be able to help her tonight, I mumbled:
"I wouldn't take any bets on that if I were you."
Chapter 2
Third Native from the Left
That was because Thanksgiving dinner at the Nut House,
my parents' home in View Park, an upper-middle-class black
neighborhood of Los Angeles, was an extravaganza that my
mother spent weeks planning. Between her obsessive preparation
and the combustible potential involved in getting our eccentric,
nut-colored brood together, Thanksgiving dinner could be
heaven or hell, in living color, with all the trimmings.
My contributions to the festivities were cranberry sauce
and a couple of videos for us to choose from after dinner.
And to my mother's delight, this year's culinary contribution
wasn't going to be my usual can of Ocean Spray, but homemade
cranberry pear relish made by Aubrey Scott, a childhood
friend of my brother's who I'd been seeing since he treated
me for a dislocated shoulder in a hospital ER during the
riots.
Even though I'd dated a few men since I'd lost my husband
and daughter some years ago, I was always hesitant to bring
them around my family, fearing somehow I was being a traitor
to Keith's memory. Or the poor guy would find our family's
wild ways and cut-'em-low film criticism too abrasive. Or,
in Aubrey's case, even worse—that my mother would start
campaigning to make me the next Mrs. Dr. Scott. So I'd eased
him in with a few family barbecues in the spring and summer,
thinking that by the time we started up our monthly Justice
Family Film Night in the fall, either he and I would have
parted company or he would be accustomed to the Nut House
crew.
Thinking back on it now, I don't know why I was tripping
in the first place; Aubrey had his own history with my family,
dating back to when he shot hoops in our driveway with Perris
and worked part-time in my father's cosmetics lab during
summers home from college. In his adult incarnation he'd
even managed to endear himself to my mother, swapping recipes
and taking great pains to admire her perfectly presented
meals.
It was Joymarie's suggestion that Aubrey make the cranberry
relish. "Given the fact your job hardly allows you to open
the refrigerator, much less a cookbook," she'd complained
when she called to review the menu and my assignment the
beginning of the month, "I think letting Aubrey do it would
be the best bet."
Which, while I knew she was right, made me a little uneasy.
Although Aubrey Scott had been seducing me with food—and
a few other things—for six months, I wasn't sure whether
putting him in my mother's domestic crosshairs was a particularly
wise thing to do.
It was twelve-thirty Thanksgiving afternoon and I was reviewing
a couple of the home invasion files when Aubrey arrived.
He was dressed in brown corduroy slacks and a tan flannel
shirt that accentuated the golden tone of his skin and his
broad shoulders. He stepped through the door, his hands
finding their way around my waist as he bent over to give
me a long, sensual kiss. "You weren't supposed to be here
until one-thirty," I noted.
"You're wearing this to dinner?" he asked, fingering the
silk of an old kimono I'd thrown on.
I was about to answer when Beast, my Boxer, trotted into
the living room, a rubber ring in his mouth. "Don't let
him sucker you into that," I warned. "You'll be here all
day."
Aubrey bent down and started scratching the dog's ears.
"It's okay. Besides, what's the rush? We don't have to be
there until three." He gave me a suggestive look. "You aren't
even dressed yet."
Moving to the files on the dining-room table, I said, "I
thought I had an extra hour," trying not to make my voice
chiding. "And we don't have as much time as you think. Dinner's
at three, and if we don't get there at least an hour ahead
of time to receive General Joymarie's last-minute orders,
there'll be hell to pay. I'm already in the doghouse for
having to work late last night and not being able to help
her make the pies."
"She didn't mean that crack about the doghouse, fella,"
Aubrey whispered in Beast's ear, then stood up to face me
with an encouraging smile. "Charlotte, relax. Your mother's
the most capable woman I know—next to you. And with your
sister Rhodesia and Louise and Grandmama Cile to help her,
I'm sure everything is totally under control."
He walked to where I was standing in the dining room, tugged
at the sash on my kimono, let the silk tie flutter to the
floor. "We've both been so busy with work, we haven't seen
each other for a week," he murmured, his honey-colored eyes
lighting up when he saw what I wasn't wearing underneath.
"Why don't we just slow down and have a little pre-Thanksgiving
feast of our own before we go over there?" He moved closer,
caressing, then kissing the side of my neck. "I am a little
hungry," he admitted.
I felt my body stiffen, tried to brush away the realization
that in the six months we'd been together, Aubrey and I
had seldom made love in my house, the house I'd bought with
Keith. Besides, the files on the table were calling me,
the clock on the breakfast-room wall reminding me we had
to hurry. But soon my guilt gave way to an insistent tingling
that spread over my whole body. "Me, too," I admitted reluctantly
and let myself be led to the leather sofa.
It was two-thirty by the time we got to the Nut House—guilty
but satisfied—our holiday assignments firmly in hand. My
worst fears were confirmed when my mother answered the door,
one hand propped firmly on her slim hips and hopping mad.
"You know dinner's at three," she scolded. "And you know
how I hate tardiness." She eyed me suspiciously. "Was that
godforsaken job of yours making you late again?"
"Hey there, Mrs. Justice," Aubrey interrupted, kissing my
mother on the cheek and handing her a plastic container
of cranberry relish. "I figured you had a special dish you'd
want to put this in."
She returned his kiss with a peck on the cheek. "I do, Aubrey,"
she replied, cutting her eyes at me, "but it needs to be
rinsed out."
Aubrey heard the tone in her voice, looked around for an
escape route. "Where's Mr. Justice?"
"In the den watching football with the twins, Perris, and
Uncle Syl. You can join them, if you want. Charlotte can
help us in the kitchen."
Taking the videotapes from me, Aubrey gave me an encouraging
"You can handle this" look and hightailed it toward the
back of the house while I dutifully followed my mother into
the kitchen, aka Thanksgiving Command Central. The battle
stations were fully manned: Perris's wife, Louise, a chef's
apron over her clothes, was stirring gravy at the cooktop;
my youngest sister, Rhodesia, her dreads pulled into a topknot,
was putting monkey bread into one of the wall ovens; and
I could see Grandmama Cile through the doorway, lining up
the pies in the butler's pantry. I also noticed Macon, my
middle sister, was not in attendance. I wondered what excuse
she'd used not to come down from Oakland this time.
"Hey, girl," Louise greeted me. "Where's that gorgeous man
of yours?"
"Who, Aubrey?"
"Like there's anybody else," Rhodesia noted with a snicker.
"Watching the game," I replied, embarrassed by my baby sister's
teasing. I edged my way to the door. "Which I'm going to
do, too. You've got plenty of help here, Mother."
Joymarie blocked my exit, her gray eyes flashing like lightning.
"Not before you tell me why you couldn't make it over last
night to help your grandmother and me."
I tried to get around her, knowing now why my younger sister
Macon would not subject herself to this mama drama for the
holidays. "You know I'm useless in the kitchen, Mother.
Besides, I called and left you a message saying I had to
work late."
"The night before Thanksgiving?"
"Look, I wasn't too keen about it, either. But my D-III
left me with a lot of paperwork that had to be filed on
the Home Invasion Task Force—"
"Is that the half-white fool who's been tryin' to get in
your pants?" Grandmama Cile called out from the pantry.
I hissed a warning to my grandmother through clenched teeth,
but it was too late.
"He what?" my mother practically shrieked.
"I never told Grandmama that," I swore to my incredulous
mother. "She must have me confused with someone else."
My grandmother had come back into the kitchen by this time,
a stricken look on her face. "I'm sorry, Baby Girl, but
I can't lie—I did overhear you talkin' to Matt about it
at our last Film Night."
"I'm going to watch the game," I muttered, and tried again
to get away.
"No you're not, young lady." My mother's eyes were accusing
and her pale-as-an-almond-shell skin had turned a mottled
red. "You mean to tell me you told your father about some
white man on your job harassing you and you didn't tell
your mother?" She was practically sputtering with rage.
"Half-white," I mumbled. "And can you blame me for not saying
anything? Just look at how you're behaving!"
My mother was trembling now, and there were tears in her
eyes. She grabbed me by the arm. "Did he put his hands on
you? Did he hurt you?"
I twisted away from her grip. "Quit overreacting, Mother.
I can handle myself. It's not that big a deal."
"Not that big a deal!" Joymarie threw up her hands, looking
to the others for confirmation of my lunacy. "I bet Henry
Youngblood wouldn't think so!"
"Leave Uncle Henry out of this! The last thing I need is
the deputy chief of police getting in the middle of my business,
even if he is my godfather!"
Joymarie had screwed up her mouth to say something else
when, dreadlocks flying, Rhodesia stepped between us, put
a hand on my arm, and asked my mother: "Is four seventy-five
the right temperature to warm up the bread, Mom?"
"Good heavens, child, you'll burn it up!" Joymarie exclaimed,
pushing past us both to the oven. Rhodesia gave me a wink
and sauntered over to the stove to listen to my mother lecture
her about proper reheating techniques for bread. I could
see that doctorate in psychology my baby sister was getting
was actually coming in handy.
It only took Joymarie a few seconds to turn down the oven
and check the bread. "I'm not finished with you yet, young
lady," she warned me, finger pointing.
I was about to reply when Louise broke in. "Let's just everybody
calm down so we can have a peaceful meal. We have a lot
to be thankful for this year."
"Not the least of which is the love and concern we all feel
for each other," Rhodesia added.
"Amen to that," Grandmama Cile agreed, looking anxiously
between my mother and me.
While the tension from my run-in with my mother had subsided
by the time we sat down to dinner, I was left feeling edgy,
as if my body was waiting for the next storm to roll in.
But everything seemed to have blown over, Joymarie beaming
contentedly as she watched us devour the five-course, five-star
meal she'd so painstakingly prepared.
Two hours later, we were scattered about the den like beached
whales, listlessly watching my niece Ebony and nephew Ivory
playing tag near the pool outside. Behind them a thick layer
of dark clouds was gathering in the twilight, a portent
of wet things to come. Among the dinner's other casualties
was my mother's brother, Sylvester Curry, who'd been roused
from the sadness of spending his first Thanksgiving without
his beloved Jackie by an old family album.
"There I am!" Uncle Syl exclaimed, pointing at a yellowed
photograph. "Second native from the left."
I peered over his shoulder at a publicity still from a thirties
Tarzan movie, of a bright-skinned, impossibly young man
with rings in his lip and ear. "I thought you were supposed
to be helping out on the costumes," I teased, rubbing his
shoulder playfully, "not trying to get an Oscar nomination
on the sly."
Uncle Syl chuckled briefly, falling back on the sofa and
wagging his silver-gray head. " Helping out? Shoot, Baby
Girl, I practically saved that white woman's job! See, she
was a wardrobe mistress who didn't want to get close enough
to the extras to fit the costumes on them." His big hands
fluttered like flapping birds as he pursed his lips in imitation:
" 'I'm not touching those Negroes,' she tells Mama. So she
convinces her good friend, the noted 'French' fashion designer
Madame Violette—that was the alias your Grandmother Vi used
when she opened that dress shop up on Wilshire—to let her
borrow one of her colored 'helpers' to do the dirty work.
My reward for playing the Sambo role was getting a loincloth
of my own."
He smiled in sad triumph as he ran his finger along the
row of grimacing extras. "Your grandmother was mortified,
but what could she do, tell that white woman I was her son?
So I went out to the studio with her and did the fittings,
then put on my own costume and snuck onto the set."
Despite the offensive denial of her race—and her son—in
my late grandmother's little charade, you could tell that
it was clearly one of the best days of Uncle Syl's life.
"That's Maynard Duncan, right next to me." He pointed out
a soulful-eyed, dark-skinned young man, taller and more
handsome than Johnny Weissmuller, his arm entwined in a
thick jungle vine.
I took a look, then joined Aubrey on the love seat. "This
is the director who died yesterday?" I asked, trying not
to appear too eager to pick my uncle's brain.
"Yup. Third native from the left. You'da never known he
had all that talent, playing those sorry African bushman
parts, would you, Cile?"
Grandmama had just entered the den with a tray, bearing
slices of her special pecan pumpkin pie. She paused, squinted
through her trifocals at the photo, and sighed. "I'da climbed
that man's tree any day," she declared as she started passing
the dessert around. "Even if I had to knock that wife of
his out of the way."
Uncle Syl glanced away, his shaggy eyebrows drawn together
and his mustache puckered with some unspoken emotion, probably
relief that my mother was still in the kitchen. My father's
mother had a way with words that got under her daughter-in-law's
skin worse than a tick in summer. And Grandmama's unabashed
admiration for "show people" was something Joymarie Justice,
a third-generation Angeleno and sometimes too much her mother's
daughter, just could not tolerate—despite her own husband's
and brother's lifelong, albeit behind-the-scenes, involvement
in the industry.
Grandmama Cile sighed and shook her head sadly. "But Maynard
Duncan, God rest his soul, wasn't any different from any
other Negro in this country. He and Ivy had to wear a bunch
of hats just to survive. Especially in Hollywood."
"You know you're telling it now, Cile," my uncle chimed
in. "We did whatever it took to make it back in those days—took
bit parts in bad movies, fitted wardrobe, swept up behind
the elephants—and in between started costume companies or
talent agencies or directed, like Maynard."Z
"And it ain't changed," Grandmama Cile added. She sat down
next to my uncle on the sofa and handed me a slice of pie.
"It's like them young girls, after you to make a movie about
what happened to you durin' the Uprisin'."
"I don't blame these young actors." My father's voice boomed
from over by the entertainment center, where he stood looking
through some videotapes. "You gotta make some noise if you
wanna get some attention. It's the only way to make it in
this man's town. Take me, for example. If I hadn't've spoken
up about Miss Horne, I'd still be a starvin' artist moonlightin'
as a janitor somewhere." He held up a tape. "How 'bout Panama
Hattie? It was Miss Horne's first big studio film."
Lena Horne was my father's favorite, ever since he worked
at Max Factor's Studios as a teenager during "Dub-yu Dub-yu
Two" and convinced the chemists there that a broom-pushing
colored boy knew enough about "war paint" to formulate makeup
for her MGM film debut. My father's formulas would eventually
provide the company with a whole new market for makeup,
but his so-called impertinence got him fired.
Lucky for us it did. Matthew Justice went on to change his
major at UCLA from art to chemistry, and to formulate makeup
for everyday black women and, quiet as it was kept, for
the best-known black stars for more than forty years. But
he always had a soft spot for Miss Horne, his first inspiration.
Consequently there was always a debate when we got together
at my parents' home about which black classic film we should
watch.
"Now, Mr. Justice," Aubrey began, with a nudge and a wink
of a honey-colored eye in my direction, "I love me some
Lena, too, but how about a little something different tonight?"
"I brought Carmen Jones with Dorothy Dandridge and Harry
Belafonte," Rhodesia offered.
"And we brought a couple of Charles Burnett films," I added.
Louise suggested, "How about Ruby Dee and Sidney in A Raisin
in the Sun?"—dodging the daggers in my brother Perris's
don't-go-there look. Was my sister-in-love's suggestion
of the sixties film—the story of a black family's conflict
over moving from their rented ghetto apartment to an integrated
suburb—coincidental, or a not-so-subtle salvo in her ongoing
battle with Perris to buy a house away from the golden ghetto
of View Park? Ever since the riots she'd been on a campaign
for my brother to move her and the twins to a home in one
of the city's gated communities—or at least to put up a
wall around their house in the old neighborhood.
Or, I thought, maybe there was something else going on between
them. I heard Perris say, "Let's watch Amos 'n' Andy," a
look on his face of pure devilment—that, and the effects
of the Chardonnay he'd been sneaking sips of all day. Ignoring
his teetotaling wife's warning look and the ensuing uproar,
he contended loudly, "I don't care what you say about the
stereotypes, it's just as funny as that show they got now
with that fool comedian and his friends!"
Bearing cups of coffee and tea on a rattan tray, Joymarie
Curry Justice swept into the room on the tail end of the
outcry, but she had heard enough to have made up her mind.
"A Sidney Poitier movie is fine, but I will not allow my
grandchildren to be exposed to those ridiculous stereotypes
in our home," she declared, sounding for all the world just
like her late mother.
"But Duncan was the uncredited director on a whole tapeful
of Amos 'n' Andy episodes I've got here!" my father complained.
"What else do you have of his?" I asked.
"I've got every movie he ever made," my father said proudly.
"Maynard Duncan was one of a kind."
"Can I borrow them? Sounds like Maynard Duncan was one of
those unsung heroes."
"No different from me, your father, or a dozen other successful
Negroes Hollywood would just as soon forget," my uncle asserted
with a forcefulness that was unusual for him.
"And he was only seventy-six," my grandmother added, blowing
thoughtfully over the top of her coffee cup and wiping an
eye. "We should watch somethin' of his tonight, just to
commemorate the man's passin'. Maynard Duncan worked on
more than them jigaboo films, you know."
My grandmother was particularly shaken by the news; I knew
from the papers that in addition to being more than ten
years younger than she, Duncan was chairman of Still We
Rise, a grassroots rebuilding effort backed by a coalition
of black churches, hers included.
"You got Murder in Mudtown over there, Matt?" Uncle Syl
asked. "It was Maynard's directorial debut."
" 'Mudtown'?" Louise asked suspiciously. "Is that some kind
of racial slur?"
Grandmama Cile let loose with a half-chuckle. "They claimed
they called Watts Mudtown 'cause of the floods it used to
get, but it was also the section of the city where they
stuck all the colored folks. But Negroes was glad to be
there, 'cause it was one of the few places in Los Angeles
you could buy property. So lots of our VIPs lived there,
from Arna Bontemps to Charlie Mingus."
I pulled away from Aubrey, who was whispering something
lascivious in my ear, to ask, "And Maynard Duncan set his
first movie in Watts?"
"Sure did," Grandmother Cile replied. "Nineteen forty-one.
It was the first movie ever filmed in Watts, and I want
to say it was the first mystery movie directed by a black
man."
"Uh-uh," my uncle broke in. "That woulda been Oscar Micheaux,
back in the twenties. Now mind you, Duncan's and Micheaux's
mysteries were long before those blaxploitation films you
kids were so wild about in the seventies. And talk about
creative! Murder in Mudtown had songs and dancing, like
a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film. And I'll swear and
be damned that rolling-dolly shot Spike Lee and a bunch
of other directors use today—with the actors looking like
they're being pulled on a little wagon—they got from Maynard
Duncan's work in Murder in Mudtown."
Mention of Spike Lee's name set off a spirited sidebar discussion
between Perris, an ex-cop turned lawyer, and my grandmother,
the family rabble-rouser, about the merits of his latest
film and its chances of getting any Oscar nominations. "I
think Denzel deserves a nomination for Malcolm X," Perris
argued.
"You know they only give Oscars to Negroes for certain kinds
of roles," Grandmama Cile noted sarcastically. "Malcolm
X was too dangerous for white people to recognize in real
life, never mind in a movie. Negroes winning Oscars for
acting are typically playing buffoons or 'noble' Negroes,
not someone as in-your-face as Malcolm."
"You tell him, Grandmama," Rhodesia chimed in with a nod
of her dreadlocked head.
"And as for poor Spike," my grandmother continued, "outspoken
as that child is, you know they gonna pimp him. When has
a black man ever won an Academy Award for best director?
Never! And Best Picture? In your dreams, grandson. It's
like Langston Hughes once said—as far as Negroes are concerned,
Hollywood might just as well be controlled by Hitler!"
Uncle Syl hugged my grandmother into silence. "Now, Cile,
we'll get to Spike and Langston later." He asked the rest
of us, "Are we going to watch Murder in Mudtown or not?"
There was general agreement around the room, my mother the
only holdout. "Don't we have enough murder and mayhem in
our midst without seeing it on the screen, too?" she complained,
cutting her eyes in my direction.
Aubrey reached for my hand, gave it a secret squeeze. "Thanks
for the vote of confidence, Mother," I muttered.
"Come on, Mom," Rhodesia pleaded. "What did we agree to
in the kitchen?"
"Can't a mother be concerned for her daughter's safety?"
"I don't want to hear this tonight," my father warned. "This
is a film, not a referendum on Charlotte's career!"
My father cued up Murder in Mudtown in silence and then
plopped down in his easy chair. "Maybe we could watch Lena
in The Duke Is Tops afterward," he said finally, a dejected
tone in his voice. "I named my Bronze Nightingale line of
face powders after her role in that film. Biggest-selling
products I ever developed."
As the credits rolled, my uncle leaned over to the love
seat and whispered behind the back of his hand, "Why are
you so interested in Maynard Duncan?"
"No particular reason," I lied, collecting pie crumbs on
my plate with the back of my fork. "It's just when I heard
about his death, and how he was a contemporary of yours
and Daddy's, I got curious. Occupational hazard, I guess."
My uncle ratcheted up a bushy eyebrow, trying unsuccessfully
to stare me down. Finally he gave up, saying, "Well, whether
he ever gets the recognition or not, Maynard Duncan was
a great man and a trailblazer among those of us in show
business."
"It sounds as if Mr. Duncan led an honorable and meaningful
life." And may be the victim, I told myself, of a suspicious
death that deserved all the attention I could give it.
"Unfortunately, it was a life that was only meaningful to
us, Baby Girl," my uncle replied, a faraway look in his
eyes. "Only to us." |
|
|
|