Beloved Harlem by William H. Banks Jr

Author:William H. Banks, Jr. [Banks, William H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-51407-3
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2010-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

12

It was full dark now. Steering his car around great holes in the tattered streets, it was hard for Mitchell to believe he was still in New York City. He passed shadowed swamplike lots, glimpsed a goat in his headlights. In places, there were no sidewalks.

Opal’s nephew lived in one of a row of attached, three-story brick houses. Each owner had tried to make his house distinctive. One had a white picket fence and green awnings, another an iron fence and red awnings. But still, it remained one long building, with four or five entrances.

Mitchell pressed the button under the name—BEdLow The buzzer rang; he pushed open the door, stepped into a dark, cold hallway, and crept forward until he came to a stairway—then light.

“How do you go, Brother?” A young man’s voice.

“Hello?” Mitchell shouted. “What did you say?” He started climbing clean rubber-covered stairs, heard footsteps coming to meet him. He had almost gained a small landing, when the young man appeared around a corner.

“A devil?” The young man, in his late teens, was short, heavy eyebrows over brown eyes, embedded in an otherwise hairless dark-brown head. “What you want, devil?”

Mitchell stopped. “Are you Carlyle Bedlow?”

The young man did not answer, turned, and started back up the stairs. “A devil for you, Carlyle!”

Mitchell followed timidly, turned the corner, found another young man standing in a doorway, staring down at him. He was older than the first, his skin as dark, a mustache hiding his upper lip, his hair long—and straight? “What you want?”

Clearing his throat, Mitchell gave his name. “Your aunt, Opal Simmons, sent me over.”

The young man nodded. “Yeah?”

“I’m trying to find a friend of hers, and yours? named Cooley” Looking up was making his neck ache.

“Cooley? Cooley what? Sorry, Mr. Pierce. I don’t think I know no Cooley.” The young man was wearing a knit sport shirt, tight pants. “What’re you to my A’nt Opal?”

Mitchell explained that some two years before Opal had worked for him, and, beginning Monday, would work for him again.

While he talked, the young man lit a cigaret. “Yeah, I remember being told about you. You fired her for stealing, right? Yeah. A’nt Opal stealing, that’s funny as all shit.”

Mitchell nodded. “It was a misunderstanding. That’s why I rehired her.”

“Oh, I see it now. That’s real nice. Cooley. I think I know him after all. So you want to find Cooley, huh?” He stepped back into the apartment. “Come on up. I ain’t seen him in a while, but …”

Mitchell reached the top step, climbed into the apartment. The young man reached out his hand. “Carlyle Bedlow, Junior. Carlyle.”

“Nice to know you.” Mitchell took his hand.

“Come on in my room.” Carlyle closed the door and started toward the front of the apartment. Mitchell followed, looking over his shoulder, where a lighted doorway had attracted his attention. The first young man was sitting at a desk in a little room, reading. On the floor were piles of books and magazines, on the wall, a

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