‘So now you have another good reason to drop me and get a real lawyer,’ Edward said to his client. Donald took up most of the space in the front of Edward’s car. They were swooping around the elevated wing of Interstate 45, heading south of downtown.
‘But then what about you? They wouldn’t let you be a lawyer again.’
‘It’s not as much fun as I remember. Don’t worry about me, think about yourself.’
‘I am. I still think you’re the best, Edward. Let’s just see how the judge reacts to you next week.’
If Donald thought he was that good a judge of character, fine. They drove in silence until Edward turned off the highway and entered the Third Ward, the neighborhood where the SWAT team had found Donald with Diana Greene. It immediately felt like another country. The houses were little wooden frame houses, most of them needing paint. Some of them were ‘shotgun shacks’, a living room facing the street with a bedroom behind it and a kitchen behind that, three rooms and a bathroom with no hallways, narrow houses looking defensive. Some gentrification was setting in; real estate this close to downtown was too valuable not to change. Many houses were ones on which the homeowner had lavished attention, with fresh paint, curtains in the windows, a flower bed near the house or the curb. Those houses looked very brave.
‘You remember which one it was?’
‘Sure. Turn right down here.’
Following Donald’s instructions, Edward pulled up to one of the crummier-looking establishments. Of the two front windows, neither had window treatments and one had cracked glass. The house didn’t look like it had been painted this century. Edward stared at it. It looked like a haunted house.
‘How’d you get here?’
‘Mrs Greene’s car. She drove. I never saw the place before.’
Edward looked around. At a few of the houses people sat out on their front porches. At one a few doors down a woman worked on her flower garden. No one made any pretense of looking anywhere except at Edward. And every face was black. The house and the neighborhood looked like the kind of place Donald would have brought his victim, the kind of neighborhood where Diana Greene had never been before.
They got out and looked in the windows of the house. What they could see of the interior was as Diana had described, barely furnished, dusty, trash on the floor. A strip of yellow crime scene tape dangled from the front doorknob. Edward rattled the knob but it was locked, amazingly.
‘What were you supposedly doing here?’
‘Just waiting.’
‘For what? Donald. You have to talk to me. I can’t go into court with nothing.’
Donald looked off across the unappealing landscape. ‘Mr Greene told me his wife was meeting here with a dealer in stolen jewelry. Emeralds. He said good ones are more valuable than diamonds. He wanted me there as the muscle.’
Edward stared. It was an idiotic story. Rich socialite travels to a neighborhood she’d never turn into of her own accord to wait for some mysterious stranger dealing in hot jewels, taking with her a new friend known for only one thing: kidnapping.
Donald must have felt Edward’s stare, but he kept looking away. So he knew how dumb the story was.
‘He wanted you here as protection but without a gun?’
Donald shrugged.
‘How long did you spend here?’
‘Not long. Couple of hours tops.’
Even that part of their stories didn’t jibe. Diana said they’d been here for hours, making it sound endless. Edward looked around at some of those staring faces. ‘Well, let’s see if anybody can corroborate your story.’
Nobody could. The neighbors were probably more receptive to Edward and his large black friend than they’d been to police, but no one had seen much. The man directly across the street, a thin African-American of about seventy, wearing dress pants and a white undershirt, said he’d noticed them pull into the driveway.
‘Who was driving?’
‘I didn’t really notice until they was walkin’ into the house. They walked in together.’ The man watched Edward closely, ready to cut off the flow of information if Edward looked doubtful.
‘Was Donald here holding her? Holding her arm or anything?’
‘Nah. He was lookin’ around like he didn’t know where he was. She marched right up to the front door like she was terrified.’
That was unhelpful. Edward asked a few more questions. The man had left to run an errand after a while, came back to find he couldn’t get back into his neighborhood because cops had it cordoned off.
Edward looked at Donald to see if he had questions, but Donald just shrugged. He and the neighbor were watching each other closely, maybe communicating on a level Edward couldn’t discern.
‘Well thank you, sir. I appreciate your help.’ Edward gave the man a card. ‘Oh. One more thing. Would you know the woman again if you saw her?’
‘Sure. She turned and looked right this way as she was going in the door.’
‘But what about the bag over her head?’
The man stared at him. ‘She a fine-looking woman. Why would he put a bag over her head?’
Well, that was something. One little chink in the Greenes’ story. Edward could tell Donald expected him to fall all over himself in credulity after that. But Edward could picture that neighbor on the witness stand, picture at least half the people in the courtroom, including some on the jury, thinking he was just helping a brother out. Edward thanked him politely and he and Donald returned to the kidnap house. Peering through the windows, Edward had a strong feeling there was someone in there to tell him something. He needed to look at the police scene photos. But he’d prefer to return here with lockpicks and look the place over for himself.
After being shown how by a burglar client Edward had become pretty proficient at breaking and entering. So, he later discovered to his surprise, had his sister Amy, through a different route. The very respectable Dr Amy had her own set of lockpicks, though she was supposedly retired from criminal trespassing.
‘I don’t know …’ he began, when he noticed Donald had stiffened beside him. They were on the side of the house. Edward looked around the corner and noticed all the neighbors had disappeared.
‘What the …’
‘Oh, shit,’ Donald said. He was staring at a black sedan with very tinted windows coming down the street, picking up speed as it neared them. The driver’s window was coming down.
Donald shoved Edward. Hard. They were standing next to a window and Edward went right through it, his shoulder breaking the glass. He landed among the shards on the hard-interior floor. And the window was empty. Donald had vanished.
The gunfire had started now. Edward kept his head down. But the bullets were coming through the walls, stitching their way toward him, heading straight for his legs. Or, if the shooter raised his aim slightly, his heart. Edward stared at that syncopation of murder. It was mesmerizing.
Just before the bullets connected the dots to him, he rolled, skidded backwards on his back, looking back over his shoulder for a door to go deeper into the house. There wasn’t any, but there was an opening. The bullets had started coming higher now, the shooter apparently realizing he’d laid down enough to kill someone at the front of the room. They were spraying wildly around him. Edward went through that opening into a bedroom. The sound of gunfire diminished a bit. Edward scrambled to his knees and crawled fast through that room and the one at back. He reached up for the back-door knob, opened its simple lock, and the door burst in on him. Edward was flung back.
Donald stood there for only a moment before hurtling in. Not nimble enough to jump in the window, he had run around the house hoping Edward would know to let him in. He fell on the floor and the two lay there panting for a minute. Then their eyes both lit on the open back door. Edward kicked it shut. It was flimsy protection but the sound of it opening would at least give them some warning.
‘How many in the car?’
Donald shook his head. ‘Wasn’t lookin’. I had my head down.’
Edward nodded. Good plan. He cautiously raised his own head. Had the shooting stopped? His ears were still ringing.
They waited in the kitchen a good ten minutes before venturing out. By that time they could hear a siren. The black car was gone. The neighbors were creeping back out of their houses. There was no clue who had been shooting. Edward looked at Donald, who shrugged.
‘Somebody really wants you dead,’ Edward observed in the kindest possible tone.
‘Hey, they were shooting at you too.’
There was a point. Edward looked at the smashed window beside him. ‘Well, we managed to get into the crime scene.’ Optimist.
He decided not to tell Linda about the drive-by. Edward’s other news was going to upset her enough already.
Besides, he had no idea what the drive-by meant. Another attempt at Donald, revenge for some prison or jail slight of a gang leader Donald had done without realizing it. Something from his past he wasn’t willing to share with Edward? But as Donald had pointed out, this time Edward had been there too, and the gunfire had followed him when he went through the window into the house.
Neither of them had caught even a glimpse of the interior of the car. The window going down was a signal Donald at least had known instinctively. Edward was going through the window before he could observe anything. Donald was sprinting for the back.
They’d left the scene before police had arrived. There was nothing they could tell the cops, and didn’t want to be suspected of anything themselves. Already behaving like good Third Warders, they’d bolted at the sound of the siren.
Edward dropped Donald off at the friend’s house where he was staying, urging him to find a new place for a while, but Edward understood the look Donald gave him. He didn’t have a lot of options. A recent ex-con with a new charge pending had limited real estate choices.
As Edward neared ‘home,’ Linda’s house, he stopped on the side of the road and made sure he didn’t have pieces of glass on his clothes. His face in the rearview mirror looked back at him very palely.
‘Babe?’ he called as he came in the door, in a bright, high tone that sounded fake even to him. He wanted a second take. And Linda was very intuitive.
She peeked around the corner wearing work clothes, a skirt and blouse and indeed, she was frowning. ‘Hi?’
‘Hi. How was your day? You look great by the way. Like you lounged around a spa all day. Instead of the hard work I know you did.’
‘Edward? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ He shrugged theatrically, then forced himself to say nothing and calm down. While he just stood there looking at her, he actually did. Sight of Linda always had the weird effect of exciting him and calming him. He walked slowly toward her. ‘Where’d you get those dimples?’
She dimpled. ‘Like them? I’m just renting them now, trying them out.’
Then they were in each other’s arms. After a long kiss he drew back. Linda smiled at him lazily. ‘What do you want for dinner? I’ve got chicken thawed. I’ve got a new recipe. But, you know—’
‘Tastes like chicken,’ they said together, then Edward said, ‘actually, I’ve got something to show you. Take a ride?’
She looked at him suspiciously. His winning smile really needed work.
In the car she kept asking where they were going. ‘Not far,’ he kept saying. They had changed into jeans and more casual shirts. And in fact it wasn’t far. A small apartment complex on the edge of the Heights, Linda’s neighborhood. Conveniently near downtown, a few miles away (or forty minutes in Houston terms).
‘Have you found a new restaurant?’ Linda asked.
Damn, that would have been a good idea. Find a new place to take her after this. He nodded. ‘Not really.’
When he pulled into the parking lot her suspicion deepened. ‘An apartment? Eddie? Why are you bringing me here?’
Linda was one of the very few people from whom he’d accept a nickname. But now it sounded like a weapon. He cleared his throat, first move of guilty men everywhere.
‘Here’s the thing.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Just wait. It’s not bad.’
She turned toward him, crossing her arms. Crossed arms, always a bad sign. Some women did that in a way that emphasized their secondary sex characteristics. With Linda the pose seemed to bar access.
‘It’s not bad. Please don’t look like that. I’ve just gotten an apartment.’
‘Your apartment.’ She was looking straight at him, expressionless.
‘Yes. You know, I was living with Mike when you and I first met, then you and I started spending more and more time together—’
‘Living together,’ Linda said.
‘Well, yes. And I didn’t want to impose on Mike any more …’
‘I thought we were living together.’ Her lips clamped together, trying not to tremble. ‘Are you going to tell me you need your own space? Because I thought I’d made space for you in my … my house. Sharing my office, emptying that closet …’
‘You’ve been great, Linda. And I love you. I love being with you. I just …’
‘Is this about prison? Are you going to tell me you need your own space because you didn’t have any privacy for two years? I thought …’ She tightened her lips again.
Edward opened the car door. ‘Just come in and look, would you?’ He hurried around the car, opened her door, and held out his hand.
‘Why do I want to see your crummy bachelor pad? What do you want, decorating tips?’ She still had her arms folded, rejecting his hand.
‘Partly that. Please?’
She looked up at him. Her look hardened, then changed, ever so slightly. Curiosity had crept into her expression. She got out on her own, ignoring his hand. They walked across the cracked pavement of the parking lot. Edward picked up a shopping ad and tossed it into a trash can. The complex they approached was not very prepossessing. One two-story row of apartments, a dozen in all, looking squat. It was under new ownership, one reason Edward had gotten a good deal, and new paint had been promised. Now the blank windows stared mournfully.
‘This is what you’re leaving me for?’ Linda said.
‘I’m not leaving.’ He led her upstairs to number eight, took out his keys and found the new one. The lock at least was new. Two of them. Edward opened the door, then stepped aside and waved. Linda shook her head. So Edward stepped in, turned on the light, and reached for her. Linda stepped quickly past him. Then stopped, staring.
‘Oh, Eddie.’ Her expression changed completely.
In the front room were a desk, two slightly padded client chairs in front of it, a bookcase holding some legal tomes, and a couch, as if a waiting room and office had been squashed together. On the walls were his college diplomas and his law license. As he’d once told her, they didn’t physically take the document away when they legally stripped him of his right to practice. No photos, no personal touches.
Edward cleared his throat. ‘You know, I’m going to be interviewing witnesses and so forth and I didn’t want to bring them to your house. I don’t really have an office for my sales job, and I don’t want to bring those types there either. So I …’
Linda squeezed his arm. Her eyes liquefied. ‘I understand.’
She understood he missed it. Being a lawyer, having the trappings. A place to meet clients, ones he might never have again. Being a person of substance. ‘I’m sorry I got mad, Edward. I’m glad you have a place of your own again.’
‘I expected you to be mad.’
‘Not now that I see. Why would I be mad?’
He shrugged, looked around. ‘Because I could, you know, bring babes here.’
Linda laughed. She rubbed his arm. ‘Sure you could, sweetheart.’ She sounded like a mother comforting a child who’d lost the spelling bee.
‘Well, I’ve got one here now.’ They both laughed and found themselves in each other’s arms.
Some while later Linda drew back and looked around again. ‘Actually I’ve got news of my own.’ She suddenly looked nervous.
‘What is it?’
Linda smiled shyly. ‘I got a new job. Sort of. A court reporter job.’
His eyebrows went up. ‘That fast?’
‘Well, I’d been lining it up before. Just in case. They always need more at the courthouse.’
‘You’re going to be working in the courthouse?’
Linda nodded again, still watching him closely, as if for disapproval. ‘Which court?’
‘No specific one. I’m going to be a swing court reporter. A fill-in. For now.’
‘Baby, that’s great.’ He hugged her again, dipped in for a kiss. Drawing back, he said, ‘So now you swing?’
She laughed. ‘Only with you, sweetheart.’
They kissed again. It turned unexpectedly deep.
‘We have to celebrate.’
Linda nodded agreement. ‘So you got a bed in this joint?’
He did.