C H A P T E R • 31
When I got to Harlem Hospital, they let me in to see Obie.
“He needs to sleep,” the nurse said.
His skin contrasted dark against the pillow. His pajamas were a startling crème silk with a bit of blue trim. One pajama arm was draped over a bulge that would have been bandages and a sling.
I sat and took his other hand and breathed with him. And I watched him sleep. I did. That’s a reason it’s called a meditation practice. At that moment, I couldn’t have started from scratch to figure out how to let the fear drop from my mind where it was a story to be embodied with a kind of tenderness. But I had a reference to touch the place where we were connected, no matter what. I breathed and watched him, and I watched my feelings change and settle and discharge. He told me later he felt me.
After I left him, I went about the business of a little fact-finding. Al was still in jail, but his landlady was impressed enough with my expired press pass and a Lt. Summer Knight autograph to let me look out into the backyard from her upstairs window.
Sure enough, there was a gap in the wall of buildings beyond the back fence where one had gone down and where whoever killed Heavy could have made his way over Al’s fence and through the gap to 135th Street. Except, he would have had to brave the high branches and bushes against the opposite side and face the 32nd Precinct on the downtown side of the street. But he probably didn’t look like a murderer and a robber and a drug dealer and whatever else, once he got over the fence.
And if it was Bobby, he even came back.
I walked across Seventh Avenue to Ruthie’s. It was just as I remembered when Daddy used to take me there to eat chili and saltines. Mister Bell’s friends were drinking coffee in their designated places, facing the door.
“Good morning,” I said. “I came to thank you for looking out for me last night and to ask you again what it looked like at Al’s place from across the street.”
“Heavy showed up, like I told you, in his red sweat suit. Al must have let him in,” Joseph said.
“Al was in jail.”
“Then I don’t know. When we came back after the Nets game we saw the gate open and we saw you and Bop running out,” Riley said.
“Pearl, we were talking about last night. You know, Riley didn’t call the police. He was looking for a working pay phone when he heard sirens.”
“I wish whoever it was had made the call before he punched me.”
“Your face looks like it’s going to be fine.”
“Thanks to you. They were impressed at Harlem Hospital with the job you did on my nose.”
“He pulled back a little, I think. It could have been worse.”
“Thank you for looking out for me. Do you know where Mister Bell could be?”
“He’s taking this hard.”
“The only thing I can think is that he’s following a lead in the case.”
“He’s going to solve this thing.”
“I hope he gets some help. It could be dangerous,” I said.
“He has sense enough.”
“And he knows he ain’t no young man no more.”
Their back-and-forth made me feel relieved and safe. My memory served up the two of them, two of the regulars my father stopped to argue and laugh with when I used to walk around Harlem learning who was friend and who was not by the touch of his feelings passing through our palms, with no censure.
“Please tell Mister Bell to call me if you see him before I do. And I’ll come back later when he gets here,” I said.
I put on my sunshades and took a matchbook with Ruthie’s number on it.
∗ ∗ ∗
It occurred to me I needed to get additional information about the bank. I could do it just a few blocks over at the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
The bank files were massive and I decided they called for a laser light of specifics rather than the lamp of curiosity I was bringing to the search.
There was plenty about board members, including our Right Reverend Doctor William Garrison. I looked through some of the clippings from magazines and back issues of newspapers, including ours. There were stories about the church and about his community development organization—Harlem Village. I even got a clip about how much one of his houses was worth when it went on the market. There were pictures of Gary and Cecelia hobnobbing with national politicians and big-name movie and music stars. A magazine interview turned out to be slick and unremarkable. The reporter failed to penetrate his well-constructed facade. She pitched him softballs, which he hit easily with his talk of community and accountability. He’s not a choirboy but nothing had ever stuck.
Protecting his reputation would be essential for maintaining his empire, and he looked like a man who had political aspirations—both strong motives for taking desperate action.
I also made notes for a feature about Mister Bell with the wonderful photos in his Schomburg file, most of which we also had in the Journal archives, including playing basketball for City College, fighting for community control of the schools, the bookstore. All of it.
Because I could, I looked up Captain Obsidian Bailey. One reporter called his 28th Precinct the most corrupt in the city because of the drugs, the most political in the city because of all the churches, and the most famous because of the Apollo. Sprinkled here and there, in addition to the action photos of Obsidian working, were the society pictures of the man about town with women on his arm. One woman looked somehow perfect beside him.