office, got some blank press passes, and headed for Darby Elementary School. He looked around for a parking spot and glimpsed Buddy Kilgore leaving the school. He grabbed his camera out of the glove compartment and snapped the man’s picture as his feet touched the bottom step, and stayed in the car until Kilgore turned into Dolphin Street and was out of sight. Sure that his hunch had been right, he barged into the principal’s office unannounced just as the man began to cram papers into the shredder. He wished he’d brought his camera. With his recorder running in his jacket pocket, he walked over to the shredder, stopped it, retrieved the papers, and looked at the top page.
“What do you have to say?”
“Me? Nothing, Mr. Banks. I’m just getting my desk straightened out like I do every day before I leave.”
Duncan released a half laugh. “So you know who I am? Who tipped you off? Kilgore?”
“I’ve seen you around, mostly over on Liberty Street in CafeAhNay. Nobody told me anything. Mr. Kilgore came by to ask me to vote for him for the City Council.”
“No kidding. Hadn’t heard he was running. And you’d think a reporter would know things like that.”
“Whatever you’re after, man, I don’t know a thing about it; I’m just doing my job.”
“Yeah? Well, next time, don’t trash your invoices. Of course, if you’re double billing or maybe giving your supplier a cut, I can see how that shredder over there comes in handy. Keep the faith, brother.”
It didn’t take genius to detect a lie that thin. He walked out of what the city fathers regarded as a bastion for the development of youthful minds, and shook his head in disgust at the debris and graffiti that decorated the building’s exterior. How could a child formulate goals and pursue them in an environment that consisted of vacant buildings whose windows and doors stood shuttered with plywood? Every building in sight was an example of someone’s failure, and every man-made thing that an eye could see stood in some stage of disrepair. He stopped at the sight of a two-story-high pile of rubbish that small children barely school age were using for a playground. No wonder childhood mortality was on the rise among the urban black poor. Broken glass, cracked sidewalks, and potholes were what most African Americans in West Baltimore got in return for their taxes. With an hour to kill, he headed for Micah’s Restaurant to get some crisp fried lake trout and the best soul food in Baltimore.
At six o’clock, Kilgore was where Grace said he’d be. Duncan sat in a dark corner of CafeAhNay trying to adjust his nostrils to the mixture of dime-store perfume, beer, and sloe gin, a favorite of the locals. No matter how many times he sat there, he always left feeling soiled, not that he’d let on to the owner and habitués; his bread and butter depended on their considering him one of them. He whittled on his egg-sized carving of a Frederick Douglas bust—as the regulars were used to seeing him do when he sat there alone—and watched the school principal rush over to Kilgore. He’d seen enough, so he slipped out of the place, leaving the two men gesticulating as though nervous and excited, and went to find the manager of Kilgore’s Cleaning Service. Two hours later, he had it on his recorder that Kilgore billed the system for twice the value of the merchandise, the principal signed the order to pay, and Kilgore gave the principal ten percent of the excess. One bill went to the school board and the other, a smaller one, Kilgore kept for the IRS. The scheme guaranteed that a lot of schools paid one dollar for a roll of toilet paper, fifteen dollars for a seven dollar box of Tide, and other exorbitant charges. He’d gotten the story, but he had a hunch that wasn’t the end of it.
It had all gone too smoothly. He had the facts, but his sixth sense warned him that more would come. He wove his way through the dense, stop-and-go traffic on Highway 295 to Washington, and in the slow driving conditions, his mind flitted between thoughts of Kilgore and the immediate rapport between Tonya and Justine. Justine’s odd femininity and warm personality could get to a man, but to a baby?
Justine put Tonya’s car seat in her car and drove with the baby to the post office. She hadn’t asked Duncan’s permission to take the child out of the house, so she’d get back there as quickly as possible. The sight of a dozen letters to Aunt Mariah escalated her spirits, and she could barely wait to read them. She parked in Duncan’s two-car garage seconds before he pulled into the other spot.
As she jumped out, he opened the back door and took Tonya from her car seat. “How’s Daddy’s girl?” but his gaze bore into Justine, unreadable and disquieting.
“I hope you don’t mind that I took her with me; I had to run a quick errand.”
“I don’t mind.” Did she imagine a reluctance in his voice? “Leave me a note, though, when you do that. I worry impatiently, Justine, and I don’t like to waste my time like that.” The smile that gleamed from his sleepy, reddish-brown eyes would have taken the sting out of his words and comforted her had it not sent hot darts zinging through her limbs.
But she refused him the satisfaction of knowing that, looked into his eyes as brazenly as he’d looked into hers, and assured him, “Of course, I’ll abide by your rules.”
He started walking toward the front door and stopped, when Tonya reached for her. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing. When I’m around, Tonya sticks to me like glue. She’s been with me a couple of seconds and wants to go back to you. I didn’t hire a hypnotist, did I?”
“Children Tonya’s age enjoy the comfort of a soft bosom, which you don’t have.” She wanted to eat the words even as they slipped out of her mouth, uttered in a desperate effort to divert his mind from its dangerous track.
Her normal composure nearly deserted her as his rapt stare appraised her. Unwavering. She couldn’t erase the words and didn’t dare try to explain them, so she stepped past him and reached for the front door knob. His hand whipped out to grasp her elbow.
“I take it you weren’t being provocative with that comment, but if you were, you might remember that children aren’t the only ones who enjoy a warm, soft bosom.” He released her arm, opened the door, and headed upstairs as Tonya looked over his right shoulder and sang out, “Juju. Bye, bye Juju.”
Most men declared war when they wanted to fight, but this one gave no warning. She watched his long lithe body stride up the stairs as Tonya continued to wave good-bye to her over his shoulder. Several retorts surfaced to mind, but she couldn’t afford flippancy. She would have to decide how to deal with Duncan Banks, and she wouldn’t let his cool, self-assured manner tempt her into an ill-considered reaction to that taunt. After all, it was she who had everything to lose. Legally, he was Tonya’s father, and he didn’t have to make up stories or play games in order to be with her. But he’d better watch it; she had never played roll-over for anyone, and Duncan wouldn’t be her first experience at it.
Duncan removed Tonya’s jacket and cap and put the happy baby in her crib. He knew he should have let Justine do that, but he was close to furious at his reaction to her innocent comment. Yes, innocent. She’d been embarrassed at her words, for they had surprised her as much as him. He didn’t need the reminder that he had a lovely, desirable woman sleeping across the hall from him, a woman who responded to him without his having to encourage her. He changed Tonya’s diaper, as he had done for months past, without remembering that he was now paying a nanny to do it. He gazed down at her, lying there so peaceful and trusting while she fought her drooping eyelids and lost the battle.
What could he say to Justine after his own provocative and unnecessary remark? He stepped out of Tonya’s room seconds before Justine closed her bedroom door. Whiffs of her gently seductive perfume assaulted his nostrils and quickened his blood, but her door,
