Mandisa phoned at seven the next morning. I’d just nodded off. The Wild Turkey wasn’t doing its job. She said she wanted to meet me at Denny’s in Alameda in half an hour. “I might as well check out the competition’s menu,” she said, “while we discuss our business.” I didn’t know she had a sense of humor.
I got there five minutes late and resisted ordering the dollar size. All I needed was a bottomless cup of coffee. She ordered a root beer float.
“I’ve only discovered them recently,” she said. “They’re terrible for the waistline but so delicious.”
Her outfit surprised me—ordinary blue jeans, a Nike T-shirt and matching cap. Totally casual and the red streak was gone. Wraparound sunglasses hid her greenish eyes.
She swirled the ice cream in the root beer with a long silver soda spoon.
“I found the names and phone numbers of a couple of men in one of her bags,” she said. “I remember her mentioning them before.”
“Business associates?” I asked.
“Social, but there may have been some sort of business as well. There was an element of desperation in Prudence’s life.”
“So it seems.”
“She used men as sugar daddies,” Mandisa said, “got what she could from them.”
“Including me?”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Or wouldn’t tell me if you did.”
“I suppose not but I don’t know.”
She poked around in the float trying to break up a big lump of ice cream at the bottom.
“I think she had quite a few, uh, gentleman companions. She was clever and beautiful.”
“It didn’t help her much in the end.”
“She was desperate because of problems at home. Life is different in Zimbabwe. So hard.”
“I read something about this, what’s his name?”
“Mugabe?”
“Yes. Kicking all the whites off their farms. Sounds like a real bastard.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” she said.
She was probably right but the last thing I needed was a discussion about complications in a far-off land. I didn’t even keep up with Sacramento, let alone Washington, D.C. My conversation had raised one burning question for me though—one apparently without an answer: did Prudence ever call me a sugar daddy?
Mandisa handed me a piece of binder paper with two names and phone numbers printed in careful, feminine lettering.
“Be careful,” she said, “these are important people. They’re married, respectable. They’re not interested in being connected to a murdered African seductress.”
“You’re sure she wasn’t English, with that accent?”
“Zimbabwe used to be a British colony. Also South Africa. They taught us Africans how to speak like them. If the Americans had colonized us, we’d be saying ‘French fries’ and playing this funny football of yours instead of soccer.”
I read the names: Alfred Jeffcoat and Carlton Newman. Fast Freddy wasn’t lying to me. Jeffcoat was the name he’d given to us outside the King and Queens. At least someone believed in us.
“Do you know anything about them,” I asked, “like where they live or work?”
“Prudence told me if I ever needed money, they could help but that I should be careful. She said they had houses, boats, planes. They’re loaded.”
“Did they ever threaten her?”
“Not that I know of. She just said they were rich. Newman is black.”
“Did you just remember all this now?”
“Some of it came to me earlier but I didn’t know the names.”
“Anything else come to you?”
She slurped at the bottom of her float until every drop was gone.
“No, but if I think of something, I’ll call you.” She moved the empty glass to the edge of the table.
“She said if you ever had trouble with Jeffcoat, just mention the name Peter Margolis.”
“Who the hell is that?” I asked.
“No idea,” Mandisa replied. She wrote down the name on the napkin and handed it to me.
“Did you talk to the police?” I asked.
“No. Never.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“The police shot my neighbor Billy Mzimane when he was coming back from the shops with a loaf of bread. He was running, pretending he was playing soccer. He was eleven years old. It was like that for us then.”
“For who?”
“Blacks, blacks in South Africa.”
“Is that why you left?”
“Something like that,” she said. “I have to go. I must catch a cab and get to work.”
“I’ll give you a ride.”
She adjusted her cap and got up to leave.
“No thanks, I’m fine.”
“By the way,” I said, “where is it?”
“What?”
“This place where you grew up.”
“You’ve never heard of it.”
“Try me.”
“Katlehong. Near Johannesburg.”
“I know Johannesburg,” I replied. It was the biggest dot on the map when I was looking for Zimbabwe. Almost as big as Philadelphia.
“Good for you,” she said and headed outside to look for her cab.