Free Now Let's Talk of Graves by Sarah Shankman Page B

mother’s brother much in the first place. Tench had said, Now, I don’t begrudge his darling little girl that first quarter mil, that’s the kind of bite we’re set up for. But this other three-quarters? No way, son. Tench hitched up his pants, adjusted himself, went on. There’s no way a man takes out that kind of monster new insurance right ’fore he dies, ’less he knows somethin’. Don’t ever’thing show up in the pre-insurance medical. He still could have had a preexisting condition would turn that claim to mush no matter what the cause of death. The postmortem don’t say jack—you know that was a lick and a promise. Now, I know the man was killed by a hit-and-run. I know that. But there’s somethin’ here not on the up and up, either prior to—or in the doing. And you’re gonna find that thing, save us the big bucks. Ain’t you, son?
    It had crossed Harry’s mind to say at that juncture, Thass right, yes suh, boss, to do the Stepin Fetchit routine they’d taught him as the Only White Boy at Grambling. Yeah, Grambling had taught him a lot—which was a surprise, since he’d meant going there as a joke after he’d gotten himself thrown out of Choate, then flunked out of his first year at Harvard, bad, bad boy, Grambling had been his answer to his father’s plea to go to school somewhere, anywhere. But once the brothers had gotten over the fact that he was white, this boy who’d grabbed up a three-year track scholarship—Fastest White Boy in the South, they called him—they’d taught him moves and jive and street smarts. They’d taught him how to lay down a mean, driving rhythm. Taught him if a man keeps calling you out, get the first lick in, no matter what, and make it count. Yes, Grambling had been a four star educational experience. He learned he didn’t know diddle about being bad. Learned a whole lot about being a decent human being. He also learned when to bob and when to weave and when to cut his losses.
    That’s what Harry had really thought, the day Tench laid all that bull on him about Church Lee: He ought to cut his losses. Tell Tench to shove this job and stroll. He’d had his mouth open to do that when he thought, But wait!
    Where’d it gotten him, that decision he’d made when he was a youngster, when he’d thrown over all that Uptown, Garden District, blue-blood bull that was his heritage? Got him fifteen years, three nickels, of driving cabs, working rigs, process serving—all to support his songwriting, music-making jones—what’d he have to show for it?
    A handful of demo tapes, that’s what he had, when everybody he knew was married, renovating double shotgun houses uptown in the Lower Garden, bitching about their 2.5 kids’ tuition, going to tennis camp, working on their serves. Were they so wrong? Maybe he’d screwed up. Maybe he ought to try it, wear a suit and tie, work his way up some ladder, saying, Yes suh, boss.
    Now he looked at Sam, questioning his motivation and thought, What the hell? But instead of saying that, he reached for her bag again, Here, let me take that.
    No thanks, she answered, a pretty woman walking about two steps ahead of him, shouldering a carryon that looked like it weighed fifty pounds. She strutted like a dude in boot camp with something to prove.
    “Are you sure?” he asked again.
    “That’s all right. I got this far.”
    “It’s tough to be a gentleman these days.”
    That slowed her down. She laughed—she had a great laugh—and handed him the bag.
    “It’s been so long since I’ve seen a gentleman, I forgot what y’all look like.”
    Harry relaxed. Maybe she wasn’t going to hold this business against him after all.
    “You want to go by the Central Grocery, grab some lunch, sit down and talk about this thing?”
    She nodded yes.
    They were down the escalator now, across the lower level, passing the civilians at the luggage bays who hadn’t learned yet how to pack.
    The automatic doors slid open, and they stepped