Lion Plays Rough Read Free Page B

upstairs?”
    â€œI’ll buzz you in.”
    She’d changed clothes since I saw her. Now she wore a navy-blue suit over a blouse with a plunging neckline.
    â€œYou don’t waste time,” I said. “You got your checkbook along?”
    Her hand lay on mine. “I’m sorry about what happened this morning, and I’m sorry if I seemed preoccupied, Mr. Maxwell. It’s just that my brother—”
    She broke off, seemingly overcome. I cleared the mess off the extra chair in my office and she sat. “I pride myself on not being an overly emotional person. Jamil—”
    I got the box of tissues from the drawer, but she ignored it, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose.
    â€œTake your time.”
    Finally she opened her eyes and let her hand drop from her face. Her eyes were perfectly clear, a striking auburn brown, a shade lighter than her freckled skin. It was as if she’d wadded up the emotional part of herself and thrown it away.
    â€œI suppose I should begin by telling you that my brother has a lengthy criminal record.” She spoke slowly. “Most recently he did two years for robbery.”
    â€œTwo years isn’t so long.”
    â€œDaddy’s a man of the cloth. He had work lined up for Jamil when he was released. Nothing glamorous. Janitor work. It wasn’t good enough for Jamil. He’d met some men in prison, and some friends of theirs gave him a job when he got out. Security work, supposedly.”
    â€œDaddy,” I repeated.
    She went on. “Jamil was pulled over on San Pablo last night. The police searched the car and found a gun.”
    â€œThe DA’s office will violate him in about half a minute if he’s on parole. If he’d been an ordinary citizen, and wasn’t drunk or high or doing anything else obviously illegal, we might have a chance, but the cops can search a parolee anytime, anywhere. They don’t even need a reason.”
    â€œMy brother and I both realize that a return to prison probably can’t be avoided. The question is how long and whether he’ll be getting out. You see, according to Jamil, the gun they found in the car was used two weeks ago for a murder. Sooner or later the police are bound to discover this weapon’s provenance and charge my brother with that crime.”
    â€œProvenance.” I gave her a hard look, feeling a pulse of excitement at the thought of a murder case. There was no way to keep her from telling the police everything Jamil had told her. “You’d better start at the beginning.”
    She leaned forward. “The murdered man was a local businessman. Some say in reality the head of a syndicate of drug dealers and shakedown artists. Maybe you heard about it.”
    â€œI only know what everyone in this city knows,” I said. “That the real issue is the white establishment’s inability to stomach black economic independence. That we can’t hear about a black man dying violently without thinking he must have done something to deserve it.”
    I’d heard about the murder she’d mentioned, of course. It bore all the marks of an internal struggle for control over Oakland’s drug trade, which is how the killing had been reported in the papers for about a day and a half, before they moved on to the next one.
    â€œI suppose you think that because you’ve represented black men in court you can talk about our community like you’re some kind of insider, someone who knows how it is.”
    I wasn’t going to rise to the bait. “This afternoon you were driving a convertible in Marin County, but I actually live in this town.”
    â€œAnd I don’t?”
    â€œIn the hills, maybe. But the hills aren’t Oakland. You’ve got a gun in your purse and you’re still afraid to stand alone on Grand Avenue after dark—yet you come in here on your high horse.”
    She paused, then sighed.