Tropic of Night by Michael Gruber Read Free Book Online Page A

years. His mother lived on the pension. He was a student at Miami-Dade. His sister had wanted to be a hairdresser and was studying for her license. The father of the baby was Julius Youghans, an older man, resident in Overtown. Youghans had a pickup truck and did light hauling and odd jobs. No, his mother had not approved of the relationship, but only because Youghans was not a member of their church, not a churchgoing man at all.
    Paz and Barlow exchanged a look. Barlow said, “Mr. Wallace, was your sister a churchgoing woman?”
    “Well, we was both raised in the church. My momma’s a amen-corner lady, you know? But, you know, you get older, sometimes you tend to drift away. I went. Dee, she didn’t always make it.”
    “This was from when she started going with Mr. Youghans?”
    “Well, yeah, but she been kicking back at it for some years now. Then she got pregnant, you know, and like, that set Momma off on her, and she didn’t like coming around. I got to be like one of those UN guys going back and forth.”
    “Uh-huh. Did you have any idea that your sister or her boyfriend was involved in another kind of religion?”
    Wallace knotted his brows. “What you mean, like Catholic?”
    “No, sir, I mean like a cult.”
    A startled expression crossed Wallace’s face. “Like that Cuban shit?”
    “Well, anything out of the ordinary, something new she might’ve just got into. Or him.”
    The young man thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Not that she ever told me. Of course, since she been going with Julius, we ain’t been that close. But … nah, I kind of doubt it. Dee’s like more of a down-to-earth sort of girl. Was.” A pause here. “There was that fortune-telling thing, if that’s what you mean by something new.”
    “And what was that about?”
    “Oh, well, she told us, it must’ve been two, three weeks back, she found this fortune-teller dude, and she used to go to him for like, what d’you call ‘em, readings? And anyway, he gave her a number and it hit. That’s how she got that couch and TV and shit. So she was pretty pumped on him for a while.”
    “Do you know this man’s name or where we can get ahold of him?”
    “Nah, it was some African name. Like Mandela: Mandoobu, Mandola? I can’t remember. She didn’t say much about him. Look, could I just call my mom now? I already told you everything I know, and if I don’t get back to my car there ain’t gonna be nothing but wheels left …”
    The two detectives agreed with a glance and sent Raymond Wallace off with a uniform for a drive back to his car, with the cop given private instructions to take his time. Paz drove to Opa-Locka with Barlow beside him, keeping under the speed limit, as Barlow preferred, wishing he could smoke a cigar, something Barlow deplored. Paz imagined he put up with Barlow because the man was a superb detective and because Barlow’s tolerance of Paz gave Paz a certain standing in a department that by and large disliked him. Kissing Barlow’s ass (if that’s what this was) obviated the necessity of bestowing such kissing elsewhere.
    The interview with Mrs. Wallace went as these things always did. The Wallaces had imagined that by staying straight, and getting married, and remaining so, and going to church, and pursuing a respectable and honorable life in the military, and moving at last to a reasonably stable lower-middle-class community they could avoid the current Kindermord of the black people, but no. Paz sat in his cool and watched Barlow handle the hysterics. Mrs. Wallace was a hefty woman and took some handling. Peace restored, calls made, neighbor ladies flocking inward, in a ritual of comfort lamentably too well oiled, the two cops got to ask some questions. They learned that Deandra had left home after an argument, had used her survivor’s benefits to pay for the apartment in “that awful neighborhood,” had started to take courses in beauty school. The detectives learned that beauty school