Trip Wire_ A Cook County Mystery - Charlotte Carter [45]
The two of them walked me to the elevator. “Get some rest,” Ivy cautioned. “You’re all frayed-looking. And have Sim wait until you get inside your apartment.”
“I will. But we’re pretty protected now. The uniforms are coming and going all the time.”
8
I threw myself onto the seat next to him and sat there brooding.
Sim waited and waited, finally asked, “Where we going now?”
I turned to him. “I’ll tell you in a minute. Sim, did I thank you for your help today? I meant to.”
“What you doing—you crying?”
“No. Sim, what do you do when you’re mad and relieved and sad and . . . and everything you can think of . . . all at the same time? Where do you turn for comfort?”
“I don’t know.”
I put my hand inside his coat. “Wouldn’t you just want to hold on to somebody?”
“Yeah, that’s prob’ly what I’d do.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, okay? I’m not saying you’re simple or anything. But I bet you don’t make a practice of complicating things when you don’t have to.”
“What you talking about?”
“I mean, if a woman let you know she was interested in you, you’d know where to take it from there, wouldn’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And it wouldn’t take you six months to say something if you had a thing for her. Would it?”
“Naw.”
“Do you think I’m ugly, Sim?”
“Where you get that? You look okay to me.”
“I’ve got some good-looking grass in my purse. Where is it that you live?”
“West Side.”
Gulp. Juvenile gang heaven. “Where on the West Side?”
“Congress Parkway. That where we going?”
“That’s where we’re going.”
9
We shared the can of Miller he had in the refrigerator.
“This is my jam,” he said, taking a well-worn record from its sleeve. “You like the Delfonics?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stylistics? I could play that.”
“I don’t really know them, either.”
“Bet you like Smokey.”
“Not really.”
“You kidding. How come?”
“Well, they always played the Miracles when the kids were slow dancing. Nobody ever asked me. I guess it’s stupid, but I don’t like being reminded. I was alienated.”
“You crazy, Cassandra. What you listen to?”
“Hendrix. And I like Beethoven. And Cream.”
“Who?”
“Say my name again.”
“Cassandra.”
Shortly after that, we climbed into his long, plain bed.
Holy Richard Alpert! We were like mating whales.
My aunt Ivy once confessed to being a bit afraid of James Brown. I liked him, but I knew what she meant. However, it wasn’t until that evening that I appreciated the profundity of his use of repetition. Namely, baby, baby, baby. The same thing with please, please, please.
I dozed off with Sim’s powerhouse arm across me. Dreamed. Woke. Lay there for a while looking up at the ceiling. I was depleted, but I also had that interval of peace I’d been looking for since the day I heard Clea’s terrible wail, when she found Mia’s and Wilt’s bodies.
I scared the shit out of Sim when I jerked up suddenly and jumped out of bed.
I wrenched my purse from the arm of the chair and turned it out on the plywood table in the middle of the modest room. I pawed madly through all my junk, looking for the silver peace symbol.
Something to remember him by. Hope Mobley’s phrase was echoing in my mind. I already had something to remember him by. At least, I thought I did.
I’d been carrying Wilton’s keys around with me since the day after the murder. At least, I thought I had.
I had not seen them, as a matter of fact, since that bastard assaulted me in the apartment. I flashed on the sight of my ruined canvas bag slit end to end, contents scattered all over the floor. Now I knew exactly what the intruder had been searching for, what he stole.
He put me through all that hell for Wilton’s keys.
Yes, of course. Keys that fit a door, a strongbox, a safe—or God knew what—but something in or near that house that had passed from one generation to the next of upper-crust Negroes who summered in Kent, Michigan.
10
Only a few days left before Christmas. The Loop was packed with holiday shoppers.
“You look good, Sandy.”
I had to laugh. It was so like Dan Zuni, at a time like this, after what he’d been through, to say something sweet like that.