C H A P T E R • 22
Viola’s house might have been the kind of showplace the Queen of Harlem would pull together for herself if she liked mock French provincial. There was even a small chandelier in the bathroom.
I was glad to have time to spend with Virginia before leaving again. Although I was home longer than usual, I had been so busy. She was now an eight-year-old dynamo with a face full of eyes and mouth and a head full of hair. Viola was on one side and I was on the other and we loosened the last few of the tiny braids while Ginny watched a video on a huge television.
“This is the kind of crap you’re likely to buy on the street now,” Viola said, indicating Ginny’s murky movie and keeping her hands busy in the little girl’s hair.
“Al is going to make some money with his first-rate copies,” she said.
“You know about that?”
“Bobby scooped some of them up from the table yesterday morning,” she said.
The video images were supposed to keep Virginia occupied while we talked woman talk. Somewhere in our distant girl memories we must have known her ears were tuned to our conversation; our words were all tangling in her crinkles like glitter. She was another black girl in a line of millions, hearing her version of what’s real through the antennae on her regularly and roughly tended head.
I said as much to Viola who said, “Like boys in barbershops, only mostly all they hear is lies.”
I asked, “The first thing I want you to tell me is why Daddy withdrew most of his money from Independence National Bank?”
She stood up. Ginny said, “Ouch.”
“Honey, let me finish making our brunch. Then we’ll do the last of your hair.”
Ginny starting singing, “Good-by. Good-by. Gotta go now.”
“Do you know where that’s from?” I asked her.
“Fingertips. Little Stevie Wonder. I can play ‘I Wish’ on my guitar.”
“She loves I Love Lucy and The Temptations too,” Viola said. “You know these kids are reincarnated from the boys from Vietnam. They brought their memories back with them.”
We heard her singing up the stairs as I joined Viola in her kitchen where she was making chicken and waffles—one of her specialties—and flitting around in an apron. Daddy used to love that shit.
“I like the idea that maybe some boy or some girl might have returned as this beautiful, curious child,” she said.
“I don’t know what to think about past lives. But I do believe karma affects moment after moment in this life. For instance, you must be doing something right or something wrong really well. Your bar was all over Ceel’s money lists.”
“A bar is a cash business. You’re liable to see a lot of activity from my bar at that bank.”
“How long have you had your account?”
“My first husband had it when I got here and I kept it when he died.”
“That’s right. You came from Ohio.”
“Ohio was where my ancestors came across from enslavement in Kentucky.”
“You and Daddy had that in common. What made you leave and come to New York?”
“They counseled me to find my good elsewhere.”
“Your ancestors speak to you?”
“Yours too. They all do. You all just don’t listen.”
“One more thing,” I said. “I saw you with Bobby Bop on the street. How do you know him?”
“I’m a club. He plays at the Kat. It looked like he needed an intervention yesterday.” She laughed. “It was fortunate for him that I decided to be on the street.”
“I called you yesterday to ask you about it when I was writing the story.”
“Pearl, I hope you’re not going to keep investigating all this bank business and what happened to Cecelia. You seem to keep forgetting you’re not a real cop. You’ve been out in Hollywood pretending to be a police woman. That’s acting. That doesn’t make this your job.”
“I was ready to let Obsidian do it. But he can’t now.”
“Neither can you, Pearl. Get the glasses please. I’m making mimosas.”
I went to the cherry cabinet with the stemware showing through glass. “House renovations? They must have cost you some money.”
“They did.”
“You all are doing quite well up here in Harlem. Cecelia has some lovely art pieces. Was she making that kind of money at the bank?”
Viola walked closer. “Pearl, I know you. You think you got where you are because you’re smarter than any black person who lived before you showed up with Charles Washington as your daddy. But you need to let me know what you’re doing. You really can’t do this alone.”
“Maybe,” I said. And I made a decision that took me across the space I usually kept between her business and mine. “I found another withdrawal list Cecelia made. Can you tell me anything about these companies? They’re not familiar to me.”
I handed her the lists I had just taken from Cecelia’s Chinese trunk and when she saw them she squealed, actually squealed. “I love this. You know some of these are music names. Let me make a copy.”
“Why would she have a separate envelope with withdrawals from September until now?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Did you find anything else?”
“What do you mean? Like what?”
“I don’t know. Anything else?”
“Did you see the newspaper?” I asked. “Everything else is in the paper,” I lied. And I handed her the copy of the Journal out of my tote.
“I haven’t seen the paper yet. Let’s sit down and I’ll look it over while you talk to Virginia. I’m sure she has a story to tell. I love her stories. But, you know.”
∗ ∗ ∗
As I was leaving, she gave me back the original of the lists and I counted to make sure I had them all.
She held up the front page of the paper. “This front page is so real it’s hard to look at. You took pictures of the car when he killed Ceel. But you don’t have a photograph of the driver?”
“No. I was focused on her and he was driving away when I turned back to capture the car.”
“I’ll call you when I get back from Chi.”