“Why are you doing this?” Her forehead creases with anxiety. She tries to wrench her arm free but I hold her tighter, almost involuntarily.
“I have to know. Did he hit you?”
“It’s my business.” She yanks her arm from my grasp and backs unsteadily away from me toward the refrigerator door. Behind her is a jumble of crayon rainbows and happy-face suns. Maddie’s drawings. “My business.”
“It’s my business, too!”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Mom, there’s no shame in it. It’s not your fault.”
“None of this is your concern.”
“I knew he left us, I never knew why. Is that why? Did you throw him out because he beat you? I’m not blaming you, I just want to know.”
“Stop! Stop it right now!” She holds up a veined hand, her finger pads curled over like the tines on a hand rake. Years of nicotine, the doctor told her.
“Ma—”
“You let me be!” She hurries out of the room but I follow her, almost panicky. To make it better, to make it worse, I don’t even know.
“Ma, it’s just that I’ve been wondering—”
She whirls around and silences me with a crooked index finger. Her face, for the first time in my memory, is full of pain, and she fights for control. “Let it drop. What’s done is done. Going over it doesn’t do me any good, doesn’t do anybody any good.”
“Did he hit me too, Ma?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Something happened the other day at the office, and I remembered.”
Her chest heaves like a boxer’s under the silly sweatshirt. “Grace Deasey—”
“Grace Deasey Rossi, Mom. I had a father, and I would like to know what he did to me. That is my business.”
She snatches her purse from a chair and almost runs to the front door. “You’re out of your mind. You’ll drive me out of mine if I let you. But I won’t let you.”
“Ma—”
“No,” she says simply and walks out.
NUMBER ONE GRANDMA winks at me as the door slams closed behind her.
16
“Let’s do it,” Eletha says grimly as we encounter the first wave of reporters along the wall of the outer lobby to the courthouse.
“Grace! Grace Rossi!” one of them shouts.
Shocked, I turn toward the voice. It’s the reporter from the day before, Sandy Faber. He’s wearing the same sport jacket and more stubble. “Remember what I said, Ms. Rossi?”
“Which judge does she work for?” one of the women reporters asks. He ignores her, so she shouts at me. “Who do you work for, Ms. Rossi? Do you have any comment on Hightower? Why did it take so long to get the transcripts of the oral argument?”
“Holy shit,” I hear Eletha mutter beside me.
I push forward away from the reporters, but the lunchtime crowd is barely trickling out the narrow courthouse doors.
“Come on, Ms. Rossi!” Faber shouts. “You gonna talk to me? Come on. Gimme a break here.”
The heads of three other reporters snap in my direction. I feel Eletha’s hand on my forearm.
“Who do you work for, Judge Meyerson? Judge Redd?” the woman shouts at me. “I can find out, you know.”
“No comment,” I say.
“Aw,” the woman says, “just tell me who you work for. It’s Simmons, right? That’s who? Simmons?”
I feel Eletha’s talons dig into my arm; she seems shaken. I press ahead, pushing in line for the first time in my life as a good girl. It works. The crowd surges forward, and Eletha and I squeeze out the door and into the crowd outside the courthouse.
“You all right?” I say to Eletha, but she can’t hear me over the Hightower supporters to our left. “No justice, no peace!” they chant. Their signs read: DEATH PENALTY=GENOCIDE OF AFRICAN AMERICANS! ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY! SUPREME COURT ADMITS “DISCREPANCY CORRELATES WITH RACE!”
“Let’s just get out of here,” Eletha says.
“I’m trying, El.” One of the signs is a picture of a young black teenager with smooth clear skin and a shy smile. He wears a red varsity football jacket. Hightower. The sound of the chanting resounds in my head.
At the front line of the swelling Hightower contingent is a prominent black city councilman and members of the black clergy. An older black woman standing next to one of the clergymen catches my eye; she’s heavyset but dignified in an old-fashioned cotton dress, a calm eye at the center of a media hurricane. I recognize her from TV: Hightower’s mother, Mrs. Stevens.
“Are you surprised by the amount of support that’s being shown for your son?” a TV reporter says to her, thrusting a bubble-headed microphone in front of her face.
Mrs. Stevens looks startled, then the black councilman steps closer to the microphone, obstructing her from view. “We are going to hold a round-the-clock vigil to protest the death penalty, to show that it has always been racist in this country,” the councilman says. “The Baldus study shows that African Americans are more likely to receive the death penalty than whites.”
“Push, Grace,” Eletha says.
“Okay, okay,” I say. I force my way past the man in front of me, but find myself face-to-face with Mr. Gilpin, who’s standing in my path. Even in the midst of the hubbub, his face relaxes into a smile.
“Hello there, my friend,” he says, loud enough to be heard over the din. “Is this pretty lady a friend of yours?”
A tall black man in an X baseball cap chants over his shoulder, and behind him is the TV reporter and the black councilman. Gilpin acts like none of this is happening, as if it’s a squabble over a suburban fence, not an incipient race war.
“Mr. Gilpin, this is Eletha Staples,” I say.
Eletha extends a hand reluctantly. “Hello, Mr. Gilpin.”
“Call me Bill, Eletha. You girls goin’ out to lunch?”
“No justice, no peace!” booms a clear voice behind him, and the crowd begins to shove me aside.
“We’d better go, we’re blocking the way,” I say. I edge forward, but Eletha gets jammed between one of the Hightower supporters and a TV technician.
Gilpin grabs her arm and pulls her lightly to her feet. “Are you all right?” he says.
“Get me out of here, please. I hate crowds.” She places a hand to her chest and starts breathing in and out. I’m worried she’s going to hyperventilate and Gilpin must see it too, because in one swift movement he scoops us up by the elbows and drives through the mob. He deposits us at the curb and brushes back a pomaded hank of hair. “I played football in high school,” he says.
Eletha tugs a handkerchief from the sleeve of her sweater and dabs at her forehead. “Thanks a lot.”
Gilpin’s eyes skim the crowd unhappily. “We started this, I know. But it’ll be over soon.”
Which is when it occurs to me. The politics of the new Hightower panel is all over the newspapers; Galanter and Foudy aren’t closet conservatives. Gilpin must realize that Hightower’s going to lose, and he’s about to see his daughters’ murder avenged. I wonder if Gilpin is happy that Armen was killed. Suddenly I like him less. “We’d better be going,” I say.
He nods. “Sure enough.”
“Thanks again,” Eletha says, recovering.
We cross Market Street and the chanting trails off into the noontime traffic, making me suddenly aware of Eletha’s stone silence. She chugs along the sidewalk like a locomotive and I tense up, feeling like a curtain has fallen between us: white on one side, black on the other. We come to the corner of Sixth and Chestnut and she squints up at the light. An executive takes a second look at her, then stares right at my breasts. My tension, pent up, bubbles over. “They’re a B-cup, okay?” I spit at him. “Any other questions?”
The man hurries past us, and Eletha bursts into startled laughter. “I can’t believe you said that!” she says.
“Neither can I. It felt great. Absolutely great.” I laugh, suddenly lighthearted. “I’ve been wanting to do that all my life.”
“So have I.”
I meet her eye. “Are you mad at me, girlfriend?”
She shakes her head, still smiling. “I’m getting over it.” The traffic light turns green and we cross Chestnut.
“It’s not my fault I’m white.”
She laughs again. “It’s not that. It’s that I can’t believe you’re messin’ with Gilpin. You know better than that.”
“I’m not messin’ with him. He talked to me the first day.”
“You shoulda walked away.”
“I couldn’t walk away, he’s a person.”
She holds up a hand. “I don’t want to know he’s a person, and I don’t want to know Hightower’s a person. These are names on a caption, not people. If you start thinkin’ they’re people, you won’t be able to do your job. Look what happened to Armen.”
“What?” We stop in front of Meyer’s Deli, the only place she’ll eat; Eletha’s not Jewish, but she practically keeps kosher. “What do you mean by that, about Armen?”
She looks warily at the lunchtime crowd. “Let’s talk inside, okay?”
We head into the noisy deli, with its old-time octagonal tile floor and embossed tin roof. Meyer’s is always mobbed, but the line moves quickly because everybody inhales their food; the clientele consists almost exclusively of hyperactive trial lawyers. The hostess accosts us at the door and hustles us to an orange plastic booth against the wall. Our waitress, Marlene, appears at our table from nowhere. “You havin’ the tuna fish?” she says to me, already writing down #12 on her pad.
“Only if you call me ‘honey,’” I tell her. “I want someone to call me ‘honey,’ and not just for my body.”
Eletha smiles. “Do what she says, Mar. She just attacked a man on the street.”
“Okay, honey,” Marlene says mirthlessly. She tears off the check and puts it face down, like we’re at the Ritz-Carlton. “You havin’ the whitefish on bagel, Eletha?” she says, scribbling on the order pad.
“Yes,” Eletha says.
“What’s goin’ on at the courthouse, girls?” Marlene says. She rips Eletha’s check off the pad and slaps it face down on the table. “They gonna kill that kid?”
Jesus. “We have no comment,” I say.
Marlene scowls as she slips the ballpoint into her apron pocket. “I’m sick of the whole thing anyway,” she says and vanishes.
Eletha leans forward. “So. I’ve been thinkin’ about what you said, about Armen. About him being murdered.”
“What?”
“Just accept that he’s gone, Grace. That’s hard enough. Anything else is a waste of time.”
“I don’t understand. You don’t think he was murdered?”
“I’m not so sure.”
Now I really don’t understand. “Since when? That’s not what you said yesterday.”
“I know what I said. But last night I tried to quit school, and they told me Armen paid already, in advance.”
“What are you talking about? You go to school?”
“Night school, at the community college. I got two more years left, and I’ve had it up to here.” She draws a line across her throat.
Marlene materializes with our food. “Enjoy,” she barks and takes off again.
“Eletha, I didn’t know you went to school.”
“I thought Armen might’ve told you.” She picks up a bagel half and spackles it with whitefish salad.
“He didn’t, but why didn’t you?”
“It’s a secret.” She bites into her sandwich, but I’m still too surprised to start mine. “In case I flunk out.”
“You won’t flunk out.”
“You never know. The whole damn thing was Armen’s idea. Now he’s gone.”
“But I think it’s wonderful, Eletha.”
“You don’t have to do it, girl. Three nights a week I get home at eleven o’clock. I gotta take two buses, then transfer to the subway. Malcolm’s in bed, I don’t even get to see him. If I’m lucky, I got an hour left to fight with Leon. I figured if I got an associate’s degree, maybe I could transfer the credits and go on to college, then who knows.”
“Maybe to law school?”
She smiles. “Maybe.”
“That sounds great. I think it’s great.”
She puts down her sandwich. “Nah, it was a pipe dream. The only reason I didn’t quit was Armen. He’d have been on my case forever, like he was till I quit smoking. That man was too much. He paid my tuition for me, clear through to graduation.”
“But why does he pay it at all, if I can ask?”
“I couldn’t afford to, so we had an agreement. He lent me the money and I paid him back in installments. When they told me it was all paid off, I started thinkin’. Maybe it was a suicide. Maybe he was fixing it so I couldn’t quit after he was gone.”
It can’t be. “Maybe he just wanted you not to worry about it.”
She shakes her head. “I feel like quitting anyway.”
“Don’t. He wouldn’t want you to.”
“I know that.” She bites into her sandwich.
“El, can I ask you a question?”
She nods, her mouth full.
“How much money are we talking about for your tuition?”
“Couple thousand a semester.”
“Where would Armen get that kind of money?”
“He makes a fine livin’, hundred thirty thousand a year, and he saved like a fiend. He never spent a dime, that man.”
It doesn’t make sense. Why would Armen save if he had over half a million dollars? “He was a saver?”
“Always. But he was cheap, they all are.”
“Who’s they? Judges?”
“Armenians. You should see, when they’d have a dinner, I’d be countin’ dimes on my desk. Who had the iced tea, who had the wine. I’m serious.”
“That’s racist, El.”
“I know. But it’s true.” She laughs.
“Did his family have money?”
“No. Susan’s did, but he didn’t.”
“So how much did he have saved, do you think?”
“Maybe fifty–sixty thousand. He told me not to worry about it, he’d take care of Malcolm’s college. I worried plenty, but I don’t make enough to save shit. Why?”
I look down at a half-eaten pickle. “Just curious.”
We split up after lunch because Eletha has to run an errand; she promises me she’ll take the back entrance into the building, because there’s no demonstration there. As I reach the courthouse, I consider doing the same myself. The mob has grown. People spill out past the curb and into the street, filling the gaps between the TV vans and squad cars. The police ring the crowd, trying vainly to keep it out of Market Street.
I cross against the traffic light, which turns out to be advisory anyway. A gaper block stalls traffic up and down the street. As I get closer to the courthouse, I see that something seems to be happening. The chanting stops suddenly; the crowd noise surges. Reporters and TV cameras rush to the door. I pick up my pace. It looks like breaking news, maybe the panel decision. My pulse quickens as I reach the edge of the crowd. I look for the hot orange cones that mark the walkway into the courthouse, but they’ve been scattered.
“What’s going on?” I say, but am shoved into a woman in front of me. I turn around to see who’s pushing. A cameraman stands there, and a lawyer with a trial bag.
“Sorry,” says the lawyer, sweating profusely behind horn-rimmed glasses. “It’s this person behind me.”
“No!” someone screams at the head of the crowd, and then there’s more shouting and pushing. The mob’s moving out of control. I feel a sharp elbow in my back. It knocks me off balance.
“There’s a decision!” someone shouts up front; then there’s more yelling, even screaming. I feel panic rising in my throat as the crowd swells toward the door, carrying me with it, almost off my feet.
Suddenly there’s a painful whack at the back of my head. I feel faint, dizzy. Everything gets fuzzy. My arms f
lutter, groping for anything to stay upright.
Gunshots ring out like distant firecrackers, and there’s screaming and shouting, also far away. Strong hands catch me from behind. Someone says in my ear, “This is a warning. Let the judge rest in peace.”
The words and the pain melt together.
And then slip beyond me.
17
I wake up on a green plastic couch in a room I’ve never seen before. My head hurts, but I can see everyone clearly. Standing over me are Eletha and the law clerks. Behind them are a few marshals I don’t know, and the big mustachioed one, Al McLean, who was on duty the night Armen was killed. I’d been meaning to talk to him. His shrimpy sidekick, Jeff, sits silently in a chair nearby.
“Auntie Em, Auntie Em,” Artie says, but nobody laughs.
“Hey, baby,” Eletha says soothingly. She sits on the couch beside me.
“What happened?”
“You got caught in a riot, child. I shoulda walked back with you.”
“Fifteen people were wounded,” says Ben, from over Eletha’s shoulder. “They ran out of ambulances, that’s why you’re here.”
“Where?”
“Our lounge,” McLean says, which explains the odor of stale cigarettes.
“I still say she should go to a hospital,” Eletha says loudly, in McLean’s direction. It takes me only a second to picture the fuss she must have made before I woke up.
“Somebody had a gun,” Sarah says. “Two people were shot. Demonstrators.”
The gunshots I heard. “Are they okay? Are they dead?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows.”
Then I think of the warning just before I blacked out; it sends a chill through me. Was the person who warned me also the shooter? “Did they catch who did it?”
“No. No suspects, either. They don’t know if it was a demonstrator or just some nut.”
“And Hightower, the panel affirmed?”
“Names on a caption, Grace,” Eletha says.
My head begins to pound dully. “Which means Hightower dies.”
“Not so fast,” Sarah says. “Robbins dissented. It’ll be appealed to the Supremes.”
“Finis est,” Ben says with satisfaction. “All they have to do is find a vein.”