The Mirror Thief(3)

Two hundred eighty degrees later he parks himself at a video poker machine, breaks a roll of quarters, wets his lips from his clear plastic cup. He’s been worried about recognizing her—he has no photo to go by, and only saw her once before, nearly two years ago, at his dad’s wedding—but now he’s surprised to find he knows her right away. She still looks like a college student, although she must be near thirty by now. She reminds Curtis of some of the white kids who used to Metro in from College Park to hear his dad’s combo play in Adams-Morgan, or on U Street. Cool, smart, a little cagey. Toughened up by a few hard knocks—brought on by bad decisions, not by circumstances or bad luck. Thin. Wavy brown hair. Big eyes, widely spaced. She should be pretty but she’s not. A mistaken idea of pretty. Pretty sketched by somebody who’s never seen it, working off a verbal description.

Curtis watches her for the better part of an hour: her shifting eyes, the trickle of people behind her. Waiting for her to move, or for Stanley to materialize from the crowd. Stanley never does, and she doesn’t budge. She’s definitely counting cards, but she doesn’t seem to be after a big score; her bets don’t change much as the count goes up and down. She seems distracted, like she’s just killing time.

The machine deals Curtis three queens, and he dumps one, afraid of hitting a big payout and drawing attention to himself. The girl is playing just like he’s playing. Does she know she’s being followed?

Then, off to the right, an old man in a sportcoat, slender and compact, hurrying along the patterned maroon bulkhead. It’s not Stanley—too gawky, too nervous—but the girl stops in mid-play, her eyes widening. She tracks the old man for a second, her brow furrowed, and then slumps in her seat. The dealer says something to get her back in the game, and she shoots him a glare. It’s all over in an instant.

But now Curtis knows: he’ll be able to find her here whenever he needs to. She’s looking for Stanley too.

He drops the last of his quarters and heads back to his room. A fax is waiting for him: a cartoon drawn on SPECTACULAR! hotel letterhead, showing a muscular dark-skinned man sodomizing an older guy with exaggerated Semitic features. The cartoon Curtis’s expression is grim, determined; his face and arms are densely shaded with slashing diagonals. Comma-shaped teardrops shoot from the panicked Stanley’s wrinkled eyes. Across the top of the page, Damon has written in block capitals, GO GITTIM!!! Across the bottom, THAS MAH BOY!!!!!

Curtis crumples the fax and drops it in the trash. Then he fishes it out, rips it into small pieces, and flushes the pieces down the toilet.





4


It rains overnight. Curtis wakes to see lightning flash against the bathroom door, rolls over to get a better look, and dozes off again right away. He remembers hearing drops against the glass, but in the morning there’s nothing, no sign of moisture at all.

He’s already dialed before he thinks to look at his watch—it’s Friday, nearly noon now in D.C.—but Mawiyah picks up anyway. Curtis! she says, a broad smile in her voice. As-Salaam-Alaikum, Little Brother! I didn’t recognize your number on the Caller-ID. You get a new phone?

I did, Curtis says. I sure did. Say, I just remembered what day it is. I’m surprised to find you home. I figured you’d be on your way to the temple by now.

Well, we’re running a little late this morning. And thank God for that, or we would have missed your call! How are you?

I’m doing all right. I don’t want to hold you up too much, though. I was hoping to catch my dad. He’s around?

Curtis hears a soft tap as Mawiyah sets the receiver down. Her whippoorwill voice grows distant, abstract, as she moves through the house. As he waits, Curtis is struck by a couple of memories in quick succession. First, her photo, hung outside the library at Dunbar: six years ahead of him, still a legendary presence there. Four days a week he passed it on his way to the practice field and another asskicking courtesy of the defensive line. Second, years later: her singing “Let’s Get Lost” in a tiny 18th Street club, eyes closed against the blue light. His father behind her, in shadow, leaning on his bass. Out of prison, not yet cleaned up for good. She was Nora Brawley then; his dad was still Donald Stone. Curtis had come straight from National, on leave from Subic, jetlagged and exhausted, still wearing service-alpha greens. He remembers a beerbottle’s sweat beneath his fingers, and the way everything seemed to be tipping over. Stanley was there somewhere, too. Invisible. His voice a loose thread in the dark.

Curtis hears his father’s heavy footsteps, telegraphed through the floor, the table, the phone. Little Man!

Hey, Pop.

Real smart, calling when you know I can’t talk for too long. Let me call you back on my cell.

No, that’s okay, Pop. I just want to ask a quick favor. I’m trying to get in touch with Stanley.

Curtis feels a bubble of silence open between them. Stanley? his father says. Stanley Glass?

Yeah, Dad. Stanley Glass. I need to get a hold of him. Do you maybe have a telephone number, or—

What in the hell you need to talk to Stanley Glass for, Little Man?

It’s—I’m just trying to help somebody out, Pop. Friend of mine’s looking for him. This is the guy I told you about, the one who’s gonna hook me up with that job at the Point.

At the what? I thought you said you’re gonna be working for—

The Spectacular. I am. It’s the same thing, Dad. Everybody who works there calls it the Point, because—