Due east from downtown, almost on the exact opposite side of the city from where Charlie Wesson took a bullet, lay the nightclub district clustered along Elm Street, better known as Deep Ellum. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the area had been home to the city’s brothels, gambling houses, and opium dens as well as a series of narrow clubs and taverns, long-since-forgotten places where the black men of the day had come to hear their music, the blues, played with smoky authenticity by people like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, and Leadbelly Ledbetter. Elm Street ended a few blocks from the entrance to Fair Park, the 277-acre, art deco wonderland that hosted the Texas State Fair every year and was home to the Cotton Bowl.
Aaron Young kept his office on Second Avenue, on the south end of the fairgrounds. We skirted the edges of downtown, made our way down Elm Street, passed the neon of the bars darkened by daylight, and approached from the west, on MLK Boulevard, following the edge of the fair. The monstrous Ferris wheel that dominated the midway cast a long shadow across the road. I took a short cut through a residential section, the houses small and wood-sided. The only faces I saw on the street were black.
At Second, I turned south into Aaron’s neighborhood. The buildings
on either side were old and brick, worn but maintained, and most were painted or decorated in some flamboyant fashion. Someone had made a lot of money selling neon-colored pennants this year. Every third storefront promised to have the best barbecue in Dallas. The rest housed dusty bars and narrow shops selling secondhand appliances or used tires. Old men sat in lawn chairs, leaning against the sides of buildings, smoking and visiting as children dashed down the crowded sidewalks, threading between the adults who made a slow promenade in the June sunshine.
I drove below the speed limit so as not to miss Aaron Young’s office. It also helped to avoid potholes and the children on bikes careening down the avenue. Nolan spotted it first. “There. On the left.” The place was the newest on the street, a one-story, shiny redbrick strip of a building, half a block long. Young Enterprises occupied the south end. A daycare center and a beauty shop rented the northern spaces. I eased the truck into the parking area and turned off the motor, leaving the keys in the ignition.
“What do you want me to do?” Nolan said.
“Stay out here. I don’t want to overwhelm this guy.” Truthfully it would have been better to have two sets of eyes and ears during the interview. In reality, I was used to working on my own, even though Ernie and I were partners. The other part of the equation was that the interview was a long shot, but until I found the whereabouts of Fagen Strathmore, it was the best I could do. Plus, I didn’t want to hear that Young had narcissistic sexual hydrophobia or whatever the psychosis of the week was.
“Keep an eye out for Coleman Dupree.” I said the last in jest. Even if we were in Dupree’s part of the world, it was a sunny morning with people on the street. His kind favored the anonymity of the night. Besides, we didn’t know what he looked like, and only I had seen his chief enforcer, Jack the Crack.
The front door to Aaron Young’s office was metal, painted to look
like wood. I pushed it open and entered the reception area, enjoying the blast of cold air that hit me in the face. Parquet flooring and beige walls dominated the small but well-appointed room. A navy sofa and two wing-back chairs formed a small sitting area to the left. To the right was a receptionist desk. A conservatively dressed woman in her fifties sat behind the desk. She was sorting a stack of papers when I walked in, and did a half-second double take when she saw a white man in an untucked denim shirt with a bruised cheek enter the office.
“May I help you?” Her tone was courteous but clipped.
I tried to smile, but it hurt my face so it probably ended up as a grimace. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Young. My name is Hank Oswald.” Definitely a grimace because she peered at me, eyes narrowed into a frown. Finally she arched one brow. “I’ll see if he’s available.”
I nodded and she punched some numbers into the phone beside her. As she spoke into the receiver the door opened behind me and a young woman with a group of children entered. There was a blizzard of activity—talking, teensy arms and school bags flurrying about. The swarm stopped when they saw me standing there. I nodded hello and tried to smile. The woman smiled back and corralled the children over to the sitting area, shushing them. She was in her late twenties and pretty.
The door behind the receptionist desk burst open and Aaron Young swept into the room. He breezed by me, touching my elbow for a moment before embracing the woman on the other side of the room. “Coleeta, my dear, how are you? It’s been too long.”
“I’m fine, Aaron.” She pulled away and gestured toward the children. “I wanted to show you what some of my pupils have done. Children, this is Mr. Young.”
A chorus of small voices said, “Hello, Mr. Young.”
Aaron Young beamed. “Hello, children. Sit down and tell me what you’ve done.” He plopped down on the sofa and gathered the youngsters around. At Coleeta’s prompting, they took turns reciting their accomplishments, a piano recital well played, a good grade in a hard subject, a
difficulty overcome. Aaron listened and nodded appropriately to each child. When everyone had their say, he produced a wad of five-dollar bills from a pocket. Amid the squealing he doled out one bill per child.
Coleeta kept her attention focused on me, her expression somewhere between curiosity and hostility. After the noise from the children died down to a low hum, Young and Coleeta herded the group toward the door. She kept looking back to me as the children shuffled out the door.
Calmness returned to the office as the door closed. Aaron turned his attention to me, the thousand-watt smile never diminishing, just changing hue from juvenile to adult. “Well then, Mr. Oswald. I’m not surprised to see you here. You have the look of someone who doesn’t give up easily.”
“That’s me, Mr. Stubborn. I had a few more questions.”
“And I may or may not have answers; we’ll see.” He gestured to the door. “Why don’t we talk about this in my office.” Before I could respond, he strode out of the reception area, leaving me to follow. The receptionist frowned as I walked by. I winked at her and shut the door behind me.
We were in a long hallway, and Aaron was already at the end, motioning me to hurry up. There were six or eight offices off the hallway, each with an occupant or occupants on the phone or banging away on a computer. Several looked at me as I passed, faces impassive.
Aaron sat behind his desk when I finally entered his office. It was surprisingly small, not much larger than my converted bedroom on Reiger Street. Just nicer, newer with better furnishings. Windows overlooking Second Avenue covered one wall. A map of the southern sector of Dallas, up to downtown, covered the opposite side. Stick pins of various colors and sizes dotted the surface. A bookcase dominated the wall behind the desk. It was half books and half plaques and awards, various recognitions for civic activities. It contained a great deal of community recognition for a man who appeared to be barely forty.
A complicated stainless-steel apparatus sat on a counter against one
wall. Aaron hopped up, talking to me as he moved. “Espresso, Mr. Oswald? Maybe some cappuccino?”
“Coffee’d be good. Nothing in it.”
“Black coffee it is.” He twisted and turned and tweaked things, and a few moments later brought me a steaming mug emblazoned with the Young Realty logo, a Y and an R intertwined. “That’s a special roast, from northern Sumatra.”
“Oh.” I blew on it and took a small sip. It had a unique taste, a cross between something left on the burner too long at Waffle House and shoe polish. I tried not to frown and said, “Good coffee.”
Aaron took a long pull of his and then leaned back in his chair. “That’s quite a bruise you got there; looks like it’s better than yesterday. Got anything to do with the guy that died?”
“Indirectly.” I took another small swig of the Sumatran blend and placed it on the edge of his desk, on a Texas-shaped coaster superimposed with a silhouette of Martin Luther King. “So what’s that with the kids out there?”
Aaron chuckled. “It’s a thing I do with several of the schools in the area. A private reward system I developed. They need a pattern of reinforcement for making good choices. Also, it’s important to provide the kids in this section of Dallas with positive role models.” He took another sip of coffee. “I don’t want to bore you with the statistics but over half the families fall below the poverty line. Two-thirds of the children in this neighborhood come from a single-parent household. That means no daddy at home. If they see me, somebody who came from their same background and made something of themselves, then maybe, just maybe, the allure of the street life, the gangs and the drug dealers, won’t be as strong.”
I didn’t want to get into a discussion of the socioeconomic factors in the North Texas area, so I said, “You from Dallas?”
“Born in New York City, raised here, though, grew up near Redbird Airport.”
I picked up my coffee but didn’t take a drink. “New York City? That’s quite a change.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Aaron smiled. “My mother had dreams of dancing on Broadway, really making it big up there … until I came along. My father took off, and she moved back here to be near family.”
I nodded politely but shifted gears. “Tell me about the house where Charlie Wesson died. Who had access to it?”
Aaron pursed his lips. “No one, really. It was boarded over. Plywood on the windows and doors. But as I mentioned, it’s an old place, scheduled to be demolished, so it’s not like we keep it guarded or anything.”
“So nobody could get in or out?”
Aaron pursed his lips. “Well … there’s my head of maintenance.”
“Who’s that?”
“Guy named Marvin Jones. Been with me for years. Good man.”
I nodded and tried to look thoughtful, while filing the name away. It was those good ones you had to be careful about, kind of like an unloaded gun. “Would you mind if I talked to Mr. Jones?”
Aaron Young sighed. “I don’t mind, really.” He paused a moment. “Besides, I’ve talked to the police and it’s their understanding that Charlie Wesson committed suicide.”
“That may very well be so,” I said. “But the family has hired me to determine the particular details of this case.”
Aaron didn’t say anything for a long period, just stared at me without blinking. I made no move to fill the void. Finally he said, “And would you be this conscientious if I’d owned the house that Charlie Wesson had died in and it was in North Dallas? And Marvin Jones was a white man?” His voice was soft but firm.
I met his gaze. “Until you mentioned it, I had no clue as to Marvin Jones’s race. But I assure you that since I have taken this case, I’m going to give it my best shot, no matter what part of town it may take me to.”
He had a point. Things happened differently in the southern part of
Dallas, where most of the black population lived. Crime was higher, police response slower. Disease ravaged more people, but fewer doctors practiced there. Unemployment was higher but there were fewer jobs available and less money to buy cars to get to the work centers in other areas. Which would have been okay if there were decent public transportation. Then there was the school system, an antiquated district full of overworked teachers, too-full classrooms, and test scores falling somewhere between ditch digger and assistant ditch digger.
“Do you have any other leads at the moment?” Aaron said. “Other than me and my house?”
“I’ve got a couple of things to follow up.” The bruise on my cheek started to itch. I resisted the urge to scratch it. “The place had been a drug house before you bought it. Any idea who used it?”
“At the risk of sounding trite, I believe drug users were the ones using it for drug purposes.”
“What I mean is, who was the supplier, the dealer?” I tried another sip of the rank coffee.
Slap. Aaron Young’s palms hit the desktop as he leaned forward. A vein in his temple throbbed. “What are you trying to say, Mr. Oswald? Just because I’m black, you think I know all the crack dealers in Dallas? Does your last name mean you know a lot of presidential assassins?” His café-au-lait complexion purpled with rage.
I kept my voice calm and even. “No offense meant, Mr. Young. I’m just looking for information.”
As quickly as it erupted, the storm passed. Aaron sank back in his chair and said, “I am sorry if I seem to have overreacted. I value my position in the community very much.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose and leaned back in his chair. “I also have … I am—” He seemed unable to find the right words and stopped for a moment. “I have a number of projects under development at the moment. All of which require my personal attention.”
“Don’t worry about it. I appreciate the time you’ve given me.” I stood up and put my coffee cup back on his desk. “Could I get a contact number for Marvin Jones?”
Anger flashed across his face for an instant. Then he smiled and scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Sure. This is his cell phone. Tell him I said it’s okay to talk to you.”
I took the piece of paper. “Thanks. I appreciate it.” I gestured toward the hallway. “How many people do you have in your operation?”
He jumped out of his chair, energized by my question. “We’ve got sixteen here, and another thirty people on site at various properties. Most of them are managers and maintenance people at our apartment projects.” He turned to the map across the room. “The majority of the apartments are west of here, in Oak Cliff.” He pointed to a series of red pins, south of downtown and the river, and west of Interstate 35.
I walked over to the map. It started in DeSoto and Lancaster, at the extreme southern portion of Dallas County, and ran to the Oak Lawn and uptown areas north of downtown. In the process it covered the entire wall. I spotted the location of my house and office, about eye level on the right side. There were several different-colored pins a few blocks south of me. “What are the green pins?”
Aaron beamed, that deep, broad smile he’d shown the children. “That’s for retail properties, shopping centers, things like that. We have ten of them now, over six hundred thousand square feet of retail property, new shopping in the southern sector. We’ve put grocery stores back in neighborhoods that had been without a place to buy food for years. The red pins, as I mentioned, are for apartments. We’ve got more than sixty complexes, almost eighteen hundred units, of clean, decent, affordable homes.”
“And the blue pins?” There were eight or ten, scattered about in no particular concentration.
“Those are offices or miscellaneous properties we own or manage. I have a couple I am particularly proud of here on Jefferson.” He
pointed to the map. “These were two older buildings, long since written off by most investors. I took them and cleaned them up; now they’re ninety-five percent full and cash flowing.”
“That’s impressive,” I said. Jefferson Avenue was the main thoroughfare of Oak Cliff, the largest section of the southern half of Dallas. The street was a vibrant but run-down little nugget of the city, all but unknown to the people north of the river. “What’s the gold pin?”
Aaron laughed. “That’s headquarters, where we are right now.”
I nodded and turned to leave. Something on the map caught my eye. It was an outline, not a pin, and it was in the Trinity River bottom, between North and South Dallas. “What’s that?”
Aaron’s voice took on the same intensity as when he’d chastised me about drugs, only without the anger. “That parcel there, Mr. Oswald? That’s going to be my crowning glory. That’s the Trinity Vista, something that will finally link North and South Dallas.”
“What do you mean?” I moved closer to the map.
“White Dallas has done its best to keep us separate.” He traced the Trinity River channel with one thin finger. “But not equal.”
I didn’t reply.
“But this will be the bridge.” The phone on his desk rang. He moved toward it. “You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
I nodded as he answered the phone and slipped out, smiling as best I could at the woman at the front. She managed not to frown at me as I left.