1.
I drove my tiny cream-colored Bianchina up the FDR to Seventy-First, crossed the park, passing the Strawberry Fields memorial, and then made my way up West End a few blocks until turning left, finally arriving at an imposing gate in the Great Wall—the only entrance to a sprawling estate overlooking the West Side Highway and the Hudson.
I stopped at the thick crisscrossed stainless steel bars and waited. Across a broad, two-hundred-foot-deep lawn could be seen the four-story white stone home. The structure itself occupied half a Manhattan city block.
The owner of this impressive example of opulence was multibillionaire Roger Ferris, called King Silver by international society pages, jealous competitors, and those who liked catchy nicknames that had the ring of truth.
The not-so-reclusive Ferris had moved out of Stonemason’s Rest Home to take up residence in the heavily guarded hall because he was in serious negotiations with his son and daughter over control of MDLT (Mains dans la Terre) Inc. Roger’s children, Alexander Ferris and Cassandra Ferris-Brathwaite, had filed suit claiming that their father was no longer competent, arguing that the board of directors of MDLT and the state of New York, among others, were legally bound to appoint them his trustees. If they were successful, they would become executor and executrix of an international conglomerate estimated to be worth north of eight hundred billion dollars.
Sitting in my minuscule Italian car, I considered the siblings’ claim against their father. He was ninety-one years old, an advanced age for a captain of industry. The kids were both past retirement age themselves. The argument that he, Roger, was too feeble to run an international conglomerate made sense except for the fact that anyone who spent more than five minutes talking to the man knew that he was vibrant, vital, and vigilant. He played a mean game of chess, and before the recent pandemic and legal troubles, he still danced every day. I knew of his gamboling because his regular dance partner was my grandmother—Brenda Naples.
Brenda was ninety-three, sharp as a whip, and black as a moonless night on an ancient sea. She met Roger at Stonemason’s and they quickly became three-quarters of an item.
It was an unexpected coupling. Roger had been rich since the moment of his conception, whereas Brenda was born of sharecroppers, the issue of earlier sharecroppers, who were, in turn, born from three centuries of enslavement.
“Hey, King,” intoned a voice I knew quite well.
“Forth,” I replied, turning my head to gaze out the driver’s window at the huge white man who seemed to have materialized from nowhere.
Forthright Jorgensen was six foot five with more muscle than most athletes. His hair was tawny and his eyes a color blue that almost seemed synthetic, it was so bright.
Forthright’s father, Anders Jorgensen, was an anarcho-syndicalist who only believed in The Struggle; one might have said that this was his religion. Forthright became an old-school libertarian and started organizing unions. When he gave up on the American brand of labor coalitions, he published a notice in the Western Worker magazine saying, “I am abrogating my membership in the unions I belong to because of their inability to inspire political change and to fully eradicate sexism and racism from their ranks, and their failure to comprehend the underlying fascist tendencies of modern-day capitalism.”
“You here to see Brenda?” Forth asked me.
“She’s here today?”
“Been all week.”
“Well then, I’ll be happy to say hey.”
“If it ain’t her, then what brings you up here?” Forth was close enough that he could give my small auto a cursory once-over. He was, after all, in charge of security for the mansion and everyone in it.
“Roger said he wanted to see me about something. You know he won’t talk about anything serious over the phone.”
The security guard lifted his head, looking at the sky, and said, “You get that?”
He was talking into a microphone secreted somewhere on his person. There were a dozen security guards sprinkled around the grounds and one in a communications center where pertinent information was transferred to Roger.
When I heard that Forthright had given up on unions because of his stringent beliefs, I told him about the job Ferris had and he took it because in MDLT’s recent incarnation, Roger had instituted a profit-sharing program in which 40 percent of real profit—those monies made before taxes, reinvestment, bonuses, and perks—was divvied up among all employees who had worked three years or more for the company.
“You think you’ll get rain before a hail of lead?” I asked the security chief, killing time while we waited for a reply from on high about my status as visitor.
“It’s no joke, Joe. The kids are really serious about fleecing the old man. They know he wants to turn MDLT over to the employees…and I’m not just talkin’ about the dudes and dudettes in monkey suits. He wants everybody, including the foreign mining staff, to share in ownership. I’m absolutely sure that his kids would kill Roger if they could.”
I felt the chill of fear pass over my shoulders. My grandmother would be in danger if assassins came in to eradicate Roger. I wanted to keep her safe but knew that she wouldn’t have any of that.
I’m over twenty-one, Black, and free, I imagined her misquote. Ain’t nobody gonna make me scared. Nobody but the Lord.
“Go right in,” Forth said over my worries.
The stainless steel gate lifted, and I drove about twenty feet until reaching seven granite buttresses that blocked my way. After the gate lowered behind me, the stone ramparts sank seamlessly into the ground.
I was free now to approach the manor.
Dozens of yellow rosebushes lined the road up to the house. The paved lane formed a semicircle up past the front door. I exited my minicar, leaving the keys in the ignition so one of the security staff could park it somewhere underground.
Up close, the white walls of the house showed underlying veins of faint primary colors. I’d been told that the manor was constructed from the most valuable stone extant.
The front doors occupied an area twelve feet wide and fifteen high. The door to the left was made from pink ivory wood filigreed with gold wire in the shapes of various sinuous flowers. The right-hand door was ebony wood, carved with a bas-relief of dozens of laborers in the process of building a great but undefined edifice.
There was no knocker or doorbell, but that wasn’t necessary, as every visitor was announced well before they reached the threshold.
My grandmother opened the door maybe two and a half minutes after I got there.
“Baby,” she said, and then pulled me down by the lapels of my powder-blue sports jacket in order to kiss my lips—a greeting that was our custom.
Behind her was a vast foyer with five doors. This lobby was painted buttery yellow and sported a vase at the center of each intermittent wall. Each urn contained two dozen roses of either the primary or secondary colors.
“What you doin’ here on a Sunday when you should be in church?” my grandmother asked with feigned suspicion.
Brenda told everyone that she was four eleven, but I was sure that she’d fudged an inch or two. She hadn’t topped a hundred pounds in the decades I’d known her.
“Roger asked me to drop by,” I replied to her semiserious query.
Brenda’s face got a look that I recognized as stern. She let her head dip to the side, then clasped her hands in front of the bright scarlet kimono she wore.
I understood her trepidation but didn’t want to feed that worry, and so said, “You’re looking pretty spry, Grandma.”
“All that dancin’, I suppose.”
“You still go out dancing? I thought Roger was worried about gettin’ shot?”
“He hired a quartet to play Tuesdays, Thursdays, and every other Friday. Got me so I can take a walk around the property every mornin’ ’fore five.”
“He wake up that early too?” I asked.
“You know I don’t sleep in that white man’s bed, King.”
“I don’t know,” I protested with a smile. “It’s been a while, and he’s got you up on your toes.”
“He’s a fine man, okay? But a woman cain’t be rushed.”
I wondered what a rush to sex felt like at ninety-plus years of age.
“You have any idea why your friend called me?” I asked, wondering when she was going to invite me inside.
“No. But you don’t want to get too deep into anything with a man like that.”
“Because he’s white?”
“Because he’s rich and spoiled and don’t give a goddamn about little people like you and me.”
“But he’s your boyfriend.”
“That don’t matter. One time, back down in Mississippi, I had a beau name of Rooster, his given name. He ran a juke in the Delta and killed four men and one woman—that I know of. I loved that man like okra loves rain, but you better believe I knew what he could do.”
“You gonna let me in, Grandma?”
While she pondered that question, the sound of hard-soled footsteps came from one of the five halls leading into the deep yellow foyer.
“Joseph!” Roger Ferris hailed from a doorway to my left.
My grandmother winced.
“Roger,” I intoned.
“Come join me in the office, young man.”
I did not take umbrage, because forty-four compared with ninety-one actually was young.
“Lead the way.”
Considering the general lavishness of the manor, Roger’s den was an anomaly, as it was small and unadorned. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all somewhere around eighteen feet in width and length. The floor was sealed pine, and the desk pressboard lined with lime-colored linoleum. Slatted folding chairs were the only seats. There wasn’t even a window.
He went to stand behind the zombie desk.
“You don’t have a bookcase?” I asked, lowering into my seat.
“This is the room I do business in,” he said. “No comfort, no distractions.”
Roger was six feet tall and weighed maybe forty pounds more than my grandmother. He sat, exhibiting both gravity and elegance. Then he took out a pair of glasses with semitransparent red frames and donned them. Staring at me through those lenses, he was reminiscent of a predatory bird from thousands of years before humans dominated the Americas.
Having been told that this utility closet of an office was only about business, I asked, “This got to do with your kids?”
“Not at all.”
“Huh.”
“There’s a man named Alfred Xavier Quiller,” Roger began.
I’d heard the name. The natural-born genius Quiller was a poster boy for the Men of Action and other like-minded alt-right organizations. I knew the name, though at that moment I couldn’t recall his shtick.
“Mr. Quiller has been detained by an as-yet-unidentified branch of the government. That or maybe an independent agency representing them.”
“An independent agency? How does that work?”
Roger sat back in his folding chair, evaluating the question.
“There are times,” he said, “when legitimate federal institutions are not allowed to take action. At these times they often use independent agencies to obviate the law.”
“I see,” said the blind man.
“Quiller is being investigated for tax evasion,” Roger continued, “of involvement in the murder of a US citizen on foreign soil, and for the sale of sensitive information to the Russians.”
“That’s a full dance card.”
“I don’t like him. He’s a misogynist, a racist, a thief, and an elitist of the highest order. I’d be happy to see him shot by a firing squad, hanged by the neck, or stoned in the town square. But the government may very well be railroading him, and the betrayal of our civil rights is a crime worse than any he’s being held for.”
“So the stoning has to wait for a constitutional review?”
“Excuse me, Joe, I…This issue is important to me.”
His plaintive response was a surprise. Ferris was an easygoing boss man—most of the time. That and he usually laughed at my jokes.
“Sorry,” I said.
King Silver squinted hard and then lowered his head. He had to reach up to keep the red glasses from sliding off his nose. After a few seconds, he looked up again.
“Quiller got a note to me. He said that he was innocent of the crimes he was blamed for, that he was extradited from France only after being kidnapped from a dacha he owns in Little Peach. That’s an exurb of Minsk in Belarus. He says that the government has been holding him without due process.”
“When did this all happen?” I asked. “I mean, usually something like that is twenty-four-hour news fodder.”
“I’m not sure. Maybe the government is afraid of what might come out. That’d be a good reason to hold him without a judicial review. Fucking Patriot Act.”
“If he’s being held unofficially, how did he manage to reach out to you?”
“He bribed a guard. Gave him a, you know, um, a token I’d know was his and a note explaining his situation.”
Roger looked into my eyes, nearly beseeching me, though I could not tell for what.
“They have him in a private cell on Rikers Island,” he added.
“Rikers.” I uttered the word with hardly a tremor.
The cold went through my shoulders all the way down to my fingertips. I’d spent time as a prisoner at Rikers. They gave me a private room too; it was called solitary confinement and nearly broke me.
“Yes,” Roger concurred. “They’re holding him there illegally while getting their ducks in a row.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
The billionaire let out a silent sigh, then hesitated.
“He knows that my weak spot is human rights.”
It didn’t sound like much of a reason, but I kept that opinion to myself.
“I want you to go to Quiller,” Roger went on. “Question him and then look into his claims. Find out if he really was kidnapped. Identify the dead man. Decide if he was murdered, and if he was, was the killing justified.”
“Guilt or innocence is why you have a trial,” I countered.
“A trial would be meaningless in this case. I’ve reached out to the so-called authorities, and they have turned a cold shoulder.”
I smiled, thinking about my own joints.
“Something funny?” Roger wanted to know.
“Calm down, man. You asked me to come, and I’m here. You wanted me to hear you out, and I’m listenin’.”
Roger nodded and leaned back in his uncomfortable chair.
“I know, Joe. Thank you for coming.”
“So what if you believe this man is not getting a fair shake? I could point at ten thousand young, and old, men and women around the country in the same situation. What’s special about Quiller? Or, in other words, what’s he got on you?”
My question had a definite impact on Roger’s face. It was the look of haggard determination.
“I have committed no crime,” he said.
“But are you innocent?” I shouldn’t have asked, but I just couldn’t help it.
“I’ve done my share of wrong in this long life,” he acknowledged. “I’ve cheated and stolen. Some might even say that I’ve been the cause of a few deaths. You’re right, I owe a debt to Quiller, but not because of any culpability on my part.”
It was a delicately constructed claim. A slight breeze could have blown it over. But that was true of most of my clients.
“Is that all?” I asked the brooding billionaire.
“Will you do it?”
“I’ll start and see where it goes.”
“That’s all I can ask,” he said, and then paused. “Brunch is served soon. Let’s go over the particulars and then have something to eat.”
2.
Roger and I spent the next three-quarters of an hour going over the details of what he’d been told and what he’d found out on his own, how much I’d charge, and, finally, what resources he could make available to me.
“Let’s wait till I ask around,” I said, “before you call out the cavalry.” I stood up from the folding chair and added, “After all, this is intelligence gathering, not war.”
He nodded, but my estimation of the job caused a sour twist in the rich man’s lips. He was used to bullying his way through the world.
I was used to clapping bullies into cuffs.
“I have something for you,” he said, reaching into a pocket.
“Hi, Daddy,” Aja, my daughter, hailed as I stepped out of the cube room into the wide, blue-carpeted hallway.
“What are you doing here, honey?”
“Grandma B invited me to brunch.”
Aja was a couple of inches shorter than I with dark brown skin and bright eyes. Valedictorian of her high school class, she swam competitively and loved playing in basketball pickup games around Manhattan. There were very few women allowed in those games, but the city basketeers knew that she left it all on the court.
“I thought you were going to write that paper today.”
“And that I wouldn’t even eat?”
I smiled and she kissed my cheek, the scarred side. She was the closest person in my life and I thanked the God I didn’t believe in every day for her.
“Aja-Denise,” Roger greeted, coming out after me.
“Hello, Mr. Ferris,” she said. “How are you?”
“Even if I fall dead after our meal, this would have still been a pretty good day.”
My daughter giggled at his over-the-top words and the three of us made our way toward the afternoon dining room.
Everywhere was a trek at Silbrig Haus, Roger’s name for his humble abode. We walked down the long hall, through a painting gallery, across a sitting room, and finally into a room that sported a twenty-foot-long hickory table set next to a bulletproof wall of a window that looked across the Hudson into New Jersey.
Everything Roger had or did, lived in or thought, was immoderate and excessive.
Seated at the north end of the dining table were my grandmother and her grandnephew, my watered-down cousin, Richard “Rags” Naples.
“Rags,” I said, holding out a hand as he rose to his feet.
“King,” he rejoined.
I felt the strength in that grip. Rags was a rough-and-tumble ex-soldier, ex-mercenary, ex-bodyguard who now worked as a specialist in delicate extractions. Ten years my junior, he didn’t look dangerous but that’s what made him so good at his job. His hands were not only powerful but roughened from extreme exertions. His face was…wizened; not wrinkled, but rather etched with extremely fine lines. He was acorn brown and the same height as my daughter.
“How’s extractions?” I asked.
“Keepin’ me on my toes, all eight of ’em.”
Everyone got to their feet to exchange kisses, hugs, and handclasps. My grandmother’s place was at the head of the table for all daylight meals. Roger took that position for dinner.
After Forthright came to join the get-together, we all sat.
The meal consisted of buckwheat waffles, wild rice and citrus salad, smoked salmon for my daughter, who’d given up mammal-red meat, and thick bacon for the rest of us. The serving staff brought out the trays containing the meal and then left us on our own to divvy up the largesse.
“So,” Roger said a while after we’d started eating, “Aja-Denise, how’s school going?”
“Okay. They have us studying world history from the Industrial Revolution up through the later nineteenth century.”
“That’s an interesting period,” Roger said. “A lot happened then to shape the world—for better and for worse.”
“That’s what they say in almost every lecture,” Aja agreed.
“What college is it?” Rags asked.
“Beckton University.”
“Never heard of it,” our cousin stated.
“It’s in Detroit, been around for nearly fifty years.”
“You moved to Michigan?”
“Beckton is a low-residency school,” Forthright put in. “They offer what one might call a radical arts education.”
“So what do you study there?” Rags asked anyone who wanted to answer.
“They have all kinds of degrees,” Aja responded. “You can study architecture for the twenty-first century, Chinese medicine, footprint ecology, and about fifty other subjects.”
“And what’s your major?” Rags asked.
“I’m getting a degree in knowledge, which is also called a PhD in liberal arts.”
“PhD? Don’t you have to get a BA first?”
“It’s a six- or seven-year course of study,” my patient daughter explained. “You pick up the lower degrees along the way.”
. . .
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