Free If I Should Die by Grace F. Edwards Page A

Probably happened while we were in the Pepper Pot trying to decide what to do about Clarence.”
    “Could’ve been a robbery, a random thing,” I whispered, knowing it was not.
    I took a long sip from my glass, avoiding Tad’s look as he continued. “Wallet, keys, credit cards, all there. It was a quick hit and the guy jumped into a waiting car.”
    “Where did it happen?”
    “Right in front of the rehearsal hall.”
    “Anyone see the plates?”
    “If they did, no one’s talking.”
    A dizzy feeling came over me and I sat down. Perhaps I had swallowed my drink too quickly, perhaps it was too much alcohol on an empty stomach …
    “Mali. You all right?”
    “Yes. I think so …”
    Two murders and an attempted kidnapping. The toll was rising. I did not want to think about who might be next.
    This murder made all of the papers, the
Daily Challenge
and the
City Sun
carrying it and the major media—print and television—flooding the area with reporters pushing mikes under unsuspecting noses.
    “What do you think is the major cause of crime in the area?” one young reporter asked brightly on the six o’clock news, her question interspersed with stock footage of graffiti-scarred walls and burned-out tenements.
    “Let’s see …” came the bewildered answer of one of the locals, smiling wide because he was finally being recognized on national television as the probable authority on urban decay. He blinked and smiled into the bright lights and straightened his Mets baseball cap and smiled some more.
    “I’d say it was them drugs, that’s what I think.”
    The reporter shook her head sadly and waved the mike back and forth like a wand. “So you think drugs are the problem, the major cause of crime in the area?”
    “Well, yeah. Definitely. I think so.”
    I didn’t know whether to throw up or throw my shoe at the television screen. Never mind that eighty percent of the population who are drug dependent live outside these “urban areas” and never mind that the chemicals needed to convert the plant to cocaine are manufactured in the United States and then shipped to South America—basic facts the reporter must have known as she asked:
    “So what do you think can be done to solve this problem?” Flashing a smile brighter than the lights that surrounded them.
    “Well, you know, the drugs—crack—is all over theplace. Police need to git on the case. Do somethin’ to clean it up. If a kid in the street know where the dealer is, how come the top cops don’t know and they gittin’ paid big bucks to know what’s goin’ on. How come they can’t stop these out-a-town kids from comin’ into this neighborhood to cop the stuff, and while we at it, how come every time somethin’ bad happens—I ain’t talkin’ about this crime, you understan’, ’cause it did happen right here—but how come when it happen up on, say, Riverside Drive, or Washington Heights, y’all still say Harlem? But when somethin’ okay happens, y’all say Upper West Side? What’s happenin’ wid yo’ geography, ma’am?”
    “Well, yes, those are interesting observations but drugs are a problem, a major problem, in many urban areas, thank you.”
    Fade away to graffiti-scarred wall and burned tenement, this time with baggy-pants teenager wandering into the camera’s path and staring, bewildered, into the blinding lights, then back to reporter.
    “And there you have this breaking story, folks. The police have no suspects but the investigation is ongoing. More at eleven o’clock. Back to you at the studio.”
    There had been two days of saturation coverage before the cameras disappeared. All this time, Alvin and I had remained glued to the television and I was glad when the news shifted to the criminal pursuits of the other boroughs.
    The papers treaded lightly on Gary Mark, briefly mentioning his career as a whiz kid on Wall Street in the high-flying eighties before his conviction on insider trading. He had