A Champion for Tinker Creek, page 17
“Lyle James and Jose Porter to visit Lucinda Alverez on the fourth floor,” I said to the young guard behind the desk.
He consulted a clipboard. “Certainly, sir. I’ll need driver’s licenses from each of you.” He collected them, then put them on a small glass window and covered it. There was a flash, and then he handed them back to us along with two ID cards.
“Wear these on the upper torso as long as you’re in the hospital,” he said. “Place the cards in front of the reader on any locked door, and it will open if you’re authorized. Elevators are behind you. Have a good visit, gentlemen.” We pinned the cards to our collars and went to the lifts.
Oscar, Esteban, and Dr. Lundi were already inside Lucinda’s room. If Oscar and Dr. Lundi looked upbeat, Esteban looked almost transformed. His wide smile lit up his entire face and never seemed to leave.
“Thanks for coming,” Oscar said in a low voice while shaking my hand. “I know she wants to see and talk to you.”
“Of course.”
“And who is this?” Oscar asked.
“Oscar Torres, may I introduce Jose Porter? Jose is the reporter who wrote that front-page story we woke up to this morning,” I said. “Jose, this is Oscar Torres, manager of the Tinker Creek Community Credit Union.”
Oscar took Manny’s hand and pumped it enthusiastically. “Thank you so much for all your hard work writing such a comprehensive story. I think we really have a chance of fighting this off now.”
I leaned into Oscar to keep my voice low. “Is she still not awake?”
“Oh no, she came out of the coma at about eleven last night, but she just dropped off to regular sleep about five minutes before you arrived,” Oscar said.
Dr. Lundi, who had drifted closer, chimed in. “Irregular sleeping and waking times are a normal part of the recovery process,” she said. “I expect she will be awake again in about another ten or fifteen minutes.”
“Dr. Lundi, this is Jose Porter, a reporter for the South Georgia Record and a friend of mine,” I said. “Jose, Dr. Lundi.” They shook hands. “I should add that Dr. Lundi looked after me very well when I got too close to that exploding bomb.”
“A privilege,” she said. “By the way, how are the shoulder and arm?”
“Almost one hundred percent, Doc. Just for fun, I tried a couple of pull-ups the other night and didn’t even get a twinge.”
“Well, don’t push it too hard. I still want to see you for final X-rays and scans next week.”
“Shh! She’s waking up again,” Esteban said in a fierce whisper from beside her bed.
We all drew close to the bed so Lucinda could see us without raising her head.
“Ah, mis amigos,” she said, smiling. “I’m so glad to see you. Lyle. You are okay? The last thing I remember is seeing you fly through the air like a doll.”
“I’m fine, Lucinda. I’m just glad you’re back with us again. I was afraid we’d lost you.”
“Pah!” she spat. “It takes more than an explosion to kill this old crow. But I am glad to be back too. Esteban told me I was gone for five days?”
“Actually, almost six,” Dr. Lundi said.
“And in the time there has been a newspaper story? Esteban read it to me this morning, but I am still not certain if I dreamed it or not.”
“You didn’t dream it, Lucinda. In fact, I have the reporter who wrote that story right here,” I said, pulling Manny from slightly behind me to the edge of the bed where she could see him. “Lucinda Alverez, this is Jose Porter of the South Georgia Record.”
“Ah, señor! Muchas gracias,” she said, beaming. “You have done everyone in this neighborhood a very great service.” Then studied him more closely. “How old are you, señor? You look so young. Tan joven.”
I watched a sudden blush flame up Manny’s face. “I’m twenty-seven, ma’am. Tengo veinte y siete años.”
“Ah, a baby,” she said, laughing a little. “Why don’t you all go to the guest suite down the hall and get us some sodas while Lyle and I talk a bit. Esteban, you can stay, and Doctor, you too.”
Dr. Lundi laughed. “Thanks, but I was already planning on it.”
She waited until the last person left the room before she spoke again. “Lyle, Dr. Lundi says I can go home soon but not back to work—the restaurant, our efforts, nothing—for like a month.”
I glanced up at Dr. Lundi and received her quiet nod.
“The café doesn’t bother me. I trained a good staff and I trust them. But we can’t spend a month doing nothing about our properties. This article gives us a chance to craft a strategy más pronto, understand?”
I nodded.
“Oscar will email you the contact information for an old friend of mine,” Lucinda continued. “Her name is April Hewitt. H-e-w-i-t-t. She is local. I want you to go to talk to her. She will give us advice for our next steps. After you talk to her, we can decide how to move forward.”
“How will I meet her? Why will she want to talk to me since she’s never met me?”
“Tell her you are a friend of mine, and we are working on this thing together. I will be extremely surprised if she doesn’t already know all about it. But in case she wants proof we are friends, tell her I know she made that deposit.”
“What deposit?”
“That’s all you need to say. Find out all you can from April and then come tell me. We can plan what to do then. Now, I can hear them coming back.”
Sure enough, the door opened and the others returned.
“We bought you a ginger ale,” Oscar said.
“My favorite.” She smiled. “Esteban, can you put a little in a cup with some broken ice in it, please?”
“Yes, abuela.”
A nurse entered the room with a tray of paper cups on it.
“Ah, and I am going to exercise my doctor’s prerogative and kick you all out,” Dr. Lundi said. “Here’s the latest round of meds, and she won’t be awake that much longer anyway. You can all come back tomorrow.”
Esteban looked upset and cast sorrowful eyes up at her. She shook her head at first but nodded.
“Okay, everybody but Oscar and Esteban. You can have thirty minutes more, but then she has to be able to get some rest,” Dr. Lundi said as Esteban settled back into what had clearly become his seat beside her.
We all put on our outerwear and left by ones and twos. We turned our badges in at the guard station and headed out in silence. Halfway back to the car, Manny said, “Did she say she was still heading up this group or whatever it is?”
“Yes. Well, no, not explicitly. She gave me instructions she expects me to follow, so she still considers herself in charge.”
“What were the instructions?”
“I’m supposed to look up an old local friend of hers.”
“Did the friend have a name?”
“April Hewitt.”
“April Hewitt, with two T’s?”
I nodded. “Why, you know her?”
“I might, but I thought she was dead,” Manny said excitedly. “And if it’s the woman I’m thinking of, you know her too. You’ve just forgotten.”
“So, who is she?”
“You might know about her husband, Gus Hewitt, because he was a real political character while he was alive. One of the first Black federal representatives elected after the implementation of the Voting Rights Act. He cofounded the Congressional Black Caucus.”
“Drawing a blank here, sorry.”
“He always wore a tux whenever he was on the House floor and was known for his speeches.”
“Yeah, it’s coming back a little. Didn’t he do like a follow-up to a Frederick Douglass speech about the meaning of July Fourth?”
“Yes! That’s probably his most famous. Well, he died in office as a relatively young man in 1979 and his widow, April, took over his seat. She held it for three more terms until the Republican legislature gerrymandered her out of a seat in the mid-1980s.”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know. I did a paper on prominent Georgia political families but don’t remember too much from it.”
“Maybe she fetched up here,” I said.
“Well, he was a Georgia politician, so anything is possible, but it would be remarkable.”
Chapter Seventeen
At Sea Oates
Oscar sent April Hewitt’s number from his mobile phone. I thanked him, then turned to Manny. “I have the number. Do I call now?”
“Why not?”
“It’s Sunday afternoon. She doesn’t know me from Adam.”
“That’s true,” Manny said. “But Lucinda called her an old friend. People are happy to hear from old friends anytime. It’s not like you’re trying to sell her something.”
Lucinda had described her as an old and local friend, and sure enough the number had the first three digits for the Tinker Creek exchange. The phone rang four times before someone answered.
“Hewitt residence,” said a low, dry voice I couldn’t identify as male or female.
“Good afternoon. My name is Lyle James. Mrs. Hewitt and I share a mutual friend, Ms. Lucinda Alverez. Ms. Alverez suggested I should call Mrs. Hewitt and request an appointment.”
“Hold the line, please,” the voice said, letting me listen to Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” for two minutes.
“Ms. Hewitt asks if you will come for coffee at Sea Oates tomorrow at ten a.m. You may bring one associate if you wish.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you,” the voice said. “She will expect you then.”
“Oscar and I are going to Sea Oates,” I told Manny.
“What’s Sea Oates?”
“You know that big house at the end of Breaker Street you can only see the roof line from the street?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s Sea Oates. It’s an estate a railway executive built back in the 1920s, and I thought a foundation owned now. I didn’t know anyone actually still lived there.”
“Is that where she lives?”
“I guess. It’s where Oscar and I are going for coffee at ten a.m. on Monday.”
Only Oscar couldn’t make it. When I called him later to let him know, he begged out because his board of directors meeting took place at the same time.
“We got people flying in for this thing,” he said. “And I am kind of the emcee and the main attraction, so I have to be there.”
In his absence, I offered to bring Manny along.
He jumped at the chance. “Of course. She’s a political legend. Meeting her will be an honor.”
He went home Sunday night, back to the butler’s quarters at Tommy’s place. He needed to get some different clothes for Monday morning, and we both agreed slowing down a little might make sense. Though my comfortable bed had always brought me sleep quickly, it didn’t do the job as well without him in it. I had to admit I missed him even after this small amount of time.
I picked him up outside the gate at Tommy’s place at 9:40 and turned onto Breaker Street off Jefferson.
“Have you ever been to this place?” Manny asked.
“What? Sea Oates? Nope. I think a grade school class might have had a field trip there once, but I missed that day. It was one of those days Mom was too blitzed to get me to school, so I just heard about it next day.”
Past the Dead End sign that let drivers know Breaker doesn’t go on forever, we started gliding by the estate’s walls with their cracked and faded yellow stucco. A placard read “SEA OATES Keep Right” as we entered a traffic circle. That brought us before a large wrought iron gate complete with a gargoyle overhead. I rolled my window and checked my watch. It read 9:55. I punched the button beside a loosely mounted wall speaker.
“May a help you?” A definite male voice this time. Younger and crisper. More military.
“Lyle James and associate for a ten o’clock meeting,” I said.
“Hold please.” There was a hum, and the huge gates began to open. “Proceed the length of the driveway, and you will find available parking on the left side of the front door,” the voice said.
I eased the car forward as the gate opened.
“Lyle James and associate?” Manny shot me a look.
“I used the word they used when I set it up.”
I knew from my city maps Sea Oates covered a fair amount of area, but it felt like it took us twenty minutes to drive past numerous flower beds, hedgerows, fruit trees, and ponds to finally reach the front. I pulled into the first spot on the left. We got out and approached the massive wood door with a dangling rope beside it.
“I think we’re supposed to pull the cord,” I said, so Manny stepped up and gave it a firm tug. Somewhere in the distance, we heard what sounded like a gong or a deep bell. We waited. I was ready to pull it again when the door opened to reveal a slight, formally dressed Asian man.
“May I help you?” he asked, and right away I recognized the voice I heard when calling yesterday.
“Lyle James and Jose Porter to see Ms. April Hewitt,” I said.
“Do you have cards?” he asked. I reached into my pants pocket and fortunately found one of mine lurking there.
Manny whispered to me, “My cards haven’t arrived yet.”
The Asian man looked at him.
“I’m Jose Porter. I don’t have any cards yet.”
The man took mine and motioned us into a richly furnished entryway. “Please wait here,” he said, disappearing behind the door ahead of us. We studied the space.
To our right a large portrait of a severe Black woman wearing mourning black with a single strand of bright white pearls looked down on us from her post above a large, inlaid entry hall table. Her expression managed to convey both surprise and disdain as though to demand we explain how we got inside. Up ahead, a diminutive suit of armor flanked a doorway set into the right wall. The antique looked entire, but about two-thirds the size of others I had seen.
“It’s not enormous, but it’s intimidating,” Manny said, meaning the space. He pointed at the painting. “Who do you suppose she is?”
Before I could respond, the Asian man reappeared and motioned us to join him in front of the door beside the suit of armor. He moved forward, swung it open, and announced, “Mr. Lyle James and Mr. Jose Porter.” Then he stepped aside, bowed slightly from the waist, and motioned us to enter.
Inside, sunlight streaming in through three large bay windows made it clear the room looked out to the building’s southern side, and the built-in bookshelves on two walls argued for its purpose as a library.
In front of us stood a round, glass-topped games table with four ornate wrought iron legs shaped like stylized dragons. The platform had comfortable-looking medium-sized leather chairs on three sides and one antique wicker one facing us on the fourth. In that chair sat a thin, older Black woman wearing a bright yellow blouse and a single strand of pearls. Whether because of the luminance of the room or of her top, her skin could have been carved of ironwood or ebony, though I doubted any artist could have completely captured the network of fine wrinkles on her hands and face.
“Please come in, gentlemen,” she said in a low, melodious voice. “Pardon my not getting up to greet you, but I have only just gotten myself comfortable in this spot and, like one of my cats, I am loath to move once I have settled myself.”
We stepped forward.
“That’s quite all right,” I said. “I’m Lyle James, Ms. Hewitt, and this is my associate, Jose Porter. Thank you inviting us.”
“Not at all, not at all,” she said. “Thank you for coming. The pleasure is mine. Please take a seat, gentlemen.”
We each sat in one of the leather chairs, which turned out to be as comfortable as they looked, just as the Asian man reappeared.
“Ten minutes, Duc,” she said. “Then a full coffee service with maybe some of those biscuits that Alicia brought.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, disappearing again.
She smiled. “How may I help you gentlemen?”
I cleared my throat and leaned a bit forward in my seat. “As I described to Mr. Duc when I called seeking a meeting,” I began, “our mutual friend, Lucinda Alverez, advised us to consult you about an ongoing situation of ours but didn’t give us anything other than her assurance that you would know what it is we need.”
“I see. Well, may I ask if this topic has anything to do with the eminent domain controversy I read about in the Record yesterday morning?”
I think Manny and I both sighed with relief.
“Yes ma’am,” I said. “In fact, the reporter who wrote that story is here with us now,” I said, indicating Manny.
“Really? I thought I recognized the name but wasn’t sure.” She sat up a little straighter and gazed at Manny intently. “Young man?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“First, that was a very well-researched and presented piece. Thank you for applying the time and attention to the topic,” she said. “Second, in order for you to continue in this meeting, I must have your assurance everything discussed and reviewed here is off the record and will not be used by you or another Record reporter. If you can agree to this, we may continue. But if you cannot, I will have to ask that you depart. Duc can call you a cab if you need one.”
“May I circle back to seek other interviews to follow up on a topic or piece of information I might learn about in this meeting?” he asked.
She eyed him and smiled slightly. “You may, but I will not guarantee such an interview will be forthcoming or will be conducted on your terms. If you’re thinking this is lopsided and I hold all the cards, you are correct. But take it or leave it, gentlemen.”
She said this last bit looking at both of us. Manny gazed intently at the middle of the table. “Fine,” he said, looking up at her and then over at me. “This was his meeting, not mine. I’m not crazy about your conditions, but it’s literally your house, so your rules.”
