Through the Flames Page 5

  Talia seemed unable to concentrate even on where she was going. All she could say, over and over, was “Ooh, LeRoy’s gonna kill me if he finds out about this!”

  Lionel tried to talk to her, mostly to simply change the subject. “So, Talia,” he said, “where were you when the disappearances happened?”

  “What?” she said, as if demanding to know what in the world he was talking about. “Where was I?”

  “Yeah. Simple question. Everybody remembers where they were. I was sleeping in my basement with André. Where were you?”

  “I was at a party André shoulda been at. So he was with you?”

  “He didn’t tell you where he was?”

  “No! I told you! He’s usually at all the parties, but he owed these guys some money, so I figured he was laying low.”

  “I thought he was hanging with us because we’re family.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Talia said. “That’s André. Big family man.”

  “He could be, at times.”

  “I know. Whenever he really needed something, he played you guys like banjos. When he needed cash or a place to crash, he’d run back to the family and get religion. Am I right? Huh? Am I right?”

  Lionel shook his head and looked out the window. Talia was driving toward Chicago. It didn’t seem to slip past her that Lionel had ignored her question. “Tell me,” she said. “Isn’t that what André pulled on your family every time?”

  Lionel nodded, but she must not have seen him. “Isn’t it?” she pressed.

  “Yeah,” Lionel muttered. “So, what did you think when people disappeared?”

  “Nobody disappeared from that party, honey. Made me start believin’ it was only Jesus’ people who flew away.”

  “You believe that?”

  “No! I’m just sayin’ . . .”

  “That’s what I believe, Talia.”

  She whirled to face him. “No lie?”

  “No lie,” Lionel assured her, nodding toward the road where another car was signaling to move into Talia’s lane. Lionel hated when she took her eyes from the road. She was an erratic enough driver when she was paying attention.

  “So,” she said, “how’d you miss out then, comin’ from a family like yours? André says they’re all gone but him and you.”

  “Right,” Lionel said, and for the next several minutes and most of the ride to Chicago, he told her his story.

  Lionel almost wished he hadn’t started on the subject. Within minutes, Talia was wiping her eyes with her fingers while still trying to maneuver LeRoy’s roadster through Chicago traffic. Lionel was eager to reconnect with André, but he didn’t want Talia crying and driving at the same time. He was relieved when she finally pulled to the side of a street about six blocks south of where the police found the body they thought was André’s.

  Talia shifted into park and buried her face in her hands. “My mama’s gone too,” she wailed. “I knew the truth. I always knew the truth. I was raised the same way you were. Well, maybe not the same, but Mama warned me and warned me about this!”

  “It’s not too late, Talia,” Lionel said. “I’m a believer now, and so are three of my friends and lots of other people—”

  “No! No! It’s too late. When Jesus took the Christians away, the Holy Ghost left and nobody can be saved anymore!”

  “That’s not in the Bible,” Lionel said. “You need to talk to our pastor.”

  “Your pastor was left behind?” Talia said.

  Lionel told Bruce’s story. “And he told us the Bible talks about a great harvest of souls during the last seven years of the world. Something like a billion and a half people will get saved, and there’ll be like 144,000 Jewish evangelists.”

  “Even if what you’re saying is true, Lionel,” Talia said, “I know I’m too far gone. If there really is a second chance, I don’t deserve one, I know that.”

  “Nobody deserves a first chance. If we had to deserve it, nobody would make it.”

  To Lionel it appeared that Talia suddenly realized she was pouring her heart out to a thirteen-year-old boy. She quickly wiped her eyes again, turned the rearview mirror so she could check her face, and quit crying. “André is close by,” she said, “but I’m gonna have to let him know you’re here and find out if he wants to see you.”

  “Never mind,” Lionel said, reaching for his door handle. “He does.”

  “You can’t just barge in there with me,” she said.

  “Yes, I can, and you know it. You know he wants to see me.”

  Talia hesitated. She snorted. “True enough,” she said. “He probably wants to see you more than he wants to see me.”

  Lionel got out of the car, prepared to follow Talia. As he fell into step behind her, he said, “You two not getting along?”

  “I’d still marry him, messed up as he is.”

  “He doesn’t want to?”

  “Obviously! But I’m scared to death to be facin’ the future alone.”

  “But André is really messed up,” Lionel said.

  “Not as much as me,” she said.

  Lionel wondered what kind of a couple those two would make.

  Talia led Lionel around the back of a three-story brick apartment building in a bad neighborhood. Lionel wondered if Judd and the others were still keeping track of him. In a way he hoped they were, but he also wondered what three white kids would do to protect him in this neighborhood.

  As they approached the rear entrance, Lionel noticed the lights went off in the apartment at that end on the top floor. As they climbed the square staircase, Lionel was quickly enveloped in odors and noise. People were apparently cooking, arguing, and fighting.

  As they reached the third floor, where the lights at the end of the building had gone out, Talia put a finger to her lips and knocked four times at the door. Silence.

  She knocked four times again. “Open up, André!” she called out. “It’s jes’ me.”

  “Somebody’s with you!” André hissed from just inside the door. “Who is that?”

  “It’s your nephew! Now open up!”

  Before the words were out of her mouth, André had begun the process of unlocking, unbolting, unchaining, and opening the door. He peered out from the dark apartment, then grabbed Talia and Lionel and yanked them inside. He shut, locked, bolted, and chained the door in the dark. “Now,” he said finally. “Let’s get a look at you.”

  Lionel couldn’t help but chuckle. His uncle had always been a little crazy, but—

  “It’ll be a long time before my eyes get used to the darkness and I can see you,” Lionel said. “Get a light on in here.”

  Lionel heard André feeling along the wall for a switch. When a single, bare bulb came on above them, Lionel was stunned to see his wasted uncle. André was barefoot and wore a pair of old, shiny suit pants and a sleeveless T-shirt with food stains down the front. He appeared to not have bathed for days. His hair was matted, his facial hair patchy. His breath smelled of alcohol, and his dark eyes were bloodshot. It was all Lionel could do to keep from gasping and telling his uncle how bad he looked. Lionel assumed André knew that and didn’t care.

  “Oh, André!” was all Talia seemed to be able to say, and when he approached her, she stiffened. Whatever relationship was there or had been there or was trying to be rekindled, Lionel knew André’s present condition wasn’t helping.

  “Ain’t there no shower in this place?” she finally managed.

  André shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Get your stinking self in there and get cleaned up,” she said. “Shave and brush your teeth too, and don’t be comin’ back out here until you do.”

  André squinted at her and looked as if he were about to burst into tears, but his shoulders sagged and he skulked away like a little boy who’d been ordered about by his mother. “Oh, man!” he whined.

  “Hey,” Lionel said. “I haven’t got all night. I got people who worry about me when I get in late.”

  “That’s more than I
can say,” Talia said, collapsing into a plastic chair at the Formica-topped dinette table. A heavy, glass ashtray full of butts and a nearly empty bottle of cheap wine graced the table. Talia noticed them as if an ugly insect had just landed before her.

  “Oh, for the love of all things . . . ,” she said, never finishing the thought. She had just used her foot to slide out another chair for Lionel when she stood and grabbed the wine bottle in one hand and the ashtray in the other. She tossed the bottle into a wastebasket nearly full of beer cans, where it settled at a crazy angle. She held the ashtray at eye level, looked resolutely at Lionel, and let it drop. It smashed the wine bottle, and Lionel heard the last of the wine drip to the bottom of the basket. The contents of the ashtray, however, scattered on the floor. Talia swore.

  Steam poured from under the door of the nearby bathroom. Over the sound of the cascading water, André hollered, “What’s goin’ on out there?”

  “I’m just clearin’ the table,” Talia answered. “What you been doin’ for food, just drinkin’?”

  “That’s all the food I need!” André said. “Don’t be messin’ with my hooch.”

  Lionel was disgusted. He was relieved to know that André was still alive, if you could call this living. There was always a chance for André if he didn’t kill himself or get himself killed first.

  Was this the life André thought was better than what the rest of the family enjoyed? There had never been cigarettes or booze in Lionel’s house. When guests asked his mother if she minded if they smoked, she always said kindly, “Of course not. I have an air-conditioned facility for you just beyond that door.” It was the door to the driveway. And when Mrs. Washington’s colleagues at Global Weekly magazine forgot themselves and showed up at dinner parties with gifts of expensive liquor or wine, or if they sent the same as Christmas gifts, she thanked them politely. She did not serve the stuff, of course, but the next day sold it to the manager of the beverage department at the corner store and gave the entire amount to the church. “The devil used that money long enough,” she would tell her husband sweetly, winking at Lionel. “It’s time the Lord got it back.”

  How Lionel missed his mama at times like this! What had he been thinking when he considered being a rebel with André better than being part of the family of God?

  The only things André had to change into were brightly colored and way-too-big workout shorts and a T-shirt that had been left in the apartment. Lionel could only wonder whose place this was and whose clothes those were. André padded out, keeping the shorts up with one hand.

  “You look better,” Talia said, smiling. “But not much.”

  André did not smile. “Man,” he said, “it’s good to see you both.”

  Lionel was frustrated. This was no family reunion. This was the only family he had left. “André,” Lionel said, “I want to know what happened after you left that crazy message on my answering machine.”

  But the phone rang. André jumped, then stared at Talia. “How’d you get here?” he asked.

  “I borrowed LeRoy’s roadster.”

  “What? He doesn’t loan that out!”

  “He doesn’t exactly know.”

  “Oh, man!”

  André answered the phone and immediately glared at Talia. “LeRoy!” he mouthed silently. “And he’s not happy.”

  SIX

  Answers

  ANDRÉ stood and paced, stretching the phone cord to its limit. He whined, cried, begged, explained, and tried to cover for Talia. “It was my fault, man,” he told LeRoy. “I called and begged her to come here and see me. . . . Anyone with her? No, why do you ask? . . . No, you don’t need to come here! She’ll be right back. . . . I just needed to see her, that’s all. I want to get out of here! When can I live with you guys? . . . I did my part! . . . I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just askin’.”

  Lionel had no idea what LeRoy was saying, but André was as scared as Lionel had ever seen him. “I’ll send her right home, LeRoy,” André said, “but remember, this was all my idea. Don’t take it out on her.”

  André hung up. “LeRoy’s mad,” he said.

  “No kidding,” Talia said. “And you were a lying wuss. Don’t you ever get tired of being a coward?”

  “I was just trying to protect you, girl. You ought to be grateful.”

  “You were protectin’ yourself, André! And I don’t need your help.”

  “LeRoy will kill you and never think twice about it. You’d better get back there.”

  “We’re going,” she said. Come on, Lionel.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Lionel said. “I need some answers, and I’ll find my own way back.”

  “Yeah, right,” Talia said. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going,” Lionel insisted. “Go if you want to.”

  “Well, I’ve got to go. If you want to find your own way back—”

  “If you don’t get back soon, Talia,” André said, “LeRoy will come looking for you, and we don’t want that.”

  “This bus is pullin’ out, Lionel,” Talia said. “Last call, all aboard.”

  He waved her off.

  “Suit yourself,” she said, as if he had made the dumbest decision ever. She went through the whole unlocking routine to let herself out, and then André had to lock up again.

  “What is all this about?” Lionel demanded. “Talk to me!”

  But André had turned out the lights and crept to the window to keep track of Talia on her way to the car. “Ooh, that is LeRoy’s roadster! Oh, man!”

  “What’d you think, we were lying? Now, c’mon, André! I’ve been worried about you for days!”

  “Shh!” André said, still peering out the window. “You don’t know what kind of trouble I’m in, and if you’re not out of here soon, you’re gonna be right in it with me.”

  Lionel turned the light on, and André ducked away from the window, crashing into a chair. “Don’t do that!” he said. “Somebody’ll see me!”

  “Who are you afraid of? LeRoy isn’t even around here.”

  “How do you know? He wasn’t at your house, or he never would have let Talia leave with you.”

  “Is he coming here?”

  “He might. Not too many other people know where I am.”

  “What’s it all about, André? You make that crazy call and leave a long message on our machine that sounds like you’re going to kill yourself, and when I get to your place to check on you, the cops tell me you committed suicide and where I can identify the body. So I go to the place and there you are, but it’s not you. Who killed himself or got himself murdered wearing your clothes and carrying your identification?”

  André sat and buried his head in his hands. “I didn’t mean it to come to all this,” he wailed. He was interrupted yet again, this time by another knock on the door. He looked up with a start and motioned frantically for Lionel to turn off the light. Lionel did, but then turned it back on when he heard Talia’s voice.

  “It’s just me,” she whispered loudly through the door. “Don’t open up. I just wanted to tell you there’s an expensive car full of white kids down the block. Looks like they’re up to no good, but they’re in the wrong neighborhood. They’re going to get that nice car stole. If you pulled that off, André, you might be back in good with LeRoy.”

  “I ought to already be back in good with LeRoy,” André said, but Lionel was beginning to unlock the door.

  “Don’t be openin’ up now,” Talia insisted. “I’m going.”

  “No!” Lionel said. “Wait!” He got the door open. “Those are my friends down there. Tell ’em I’m all right and that they should wait for me. They’re my ride home.”

  Talia rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Whatever. But that car would sure get LeRoy’s attention.”

  “You and LeRoy already hassled one of the kids in that car,” Lionel said. “One more deal like that and you’ll be out of my house sooner than you think.”

  “Ooh, tough guy,” she said. “I
’ll tell your chauffeur you’re on your way.”

  André and Lionel fell silent, listening to Talia’s footsteps all the way down the stairs and out into the alley, where she fired up the roadster. Lionel turned out the light, and they watched out the window as she pulled down the street and stopped next to Judd’s car. Lionel only hoped the others would believe her and not come charging in to rescue him. Who knew what Ryan would do after having been chased by her and LeRoy earlier?

  Lionel was mad. “Turn the light on, Uncle André,” he said. The word uncle nearly stuck in his throat because he sure had seen a new and unattractive side of André. He didn’t seem older or wiser or worthy of any respect like he sometimes used to. Now it seemed as if Lionel was the one who should be in charge. Maybe André was in trouble, but did that justify his acting like such a wimp? What was wrong with him?

  They both knew that the faith they had turned their backs on before was right and true and could save them now, so why was it only Lionel, the younger of them, who had seen the light?

  André turned the light on and sat down, as if expecting a lecture. But a lecture was not what Lionel had in mind. He had a lot of questions, and he wanted answers.

  “When you called my house, drinking and crying and slobbering and talking about killing yourself, were you serious or were you put up to that?”

  “Both.”

  “What do you mean? Part of that was just acting?”

  “Part of it,” André said, staring at the floor.

  “I was worried to death about you. I didn’t want you to go to hell. Anyway, we’re family, man. We’re all we’ve got left. We’ve got to watch out for each other.”

  “Listen, Lionel, I’m going to hell whether you want me to or not.”

  “You want to?”

  “’Course not! But that’s where people like me go!”

  “I’m not going there!” Lionel said. “And I used to be like you.”

  “You were just a kid. I was afraid I was the one who made you what you were. I’m so glad you’re a Christian now.”

  “Then why aren’t you?”

  “It’s too late for me.”