Last Call

"You're making a lot of assumptions there. But if I take what you're saying at face value, why would someone do that?"

"Because they thought he was going to call me."

"But let's assume Andie was telling the truth: law enforcement didn't put it there. Why would anyone else even care if Isaac spoke to you after breaking out of prison?"

"I can't answer that. But whoever it was heard that first call when Isaac said he was going to be at H-boy's at one a.m. Home-boy's shut down while I was still on death row. So it's somebody who knew the old 'hood."

"That's my problem, Theo. That makes you a prime suspect."

"Let's get real, okay? Every cop in the county was looking for Isaac and they couldn't find him. So either his shooter stumbled on him – a random shooting or something – or he was shot by whoever bugged my phone. No one else knew exactly when he was going to be where he was."

"But the tap on your telephone could be completely unrelated to Isaac."

"I might agree with you if it had been there for a month or longer. But you heard your friend Vi

"That still doesn't mean your eavesdroppers were sitting around listening to your phone on a Saturday night. Or maybe they heard it and didn't do anything about it. The FBI could take the position that you're the only one who got the message, you went to see Isaac that night to find out who killed your mother, and you ended up killing Isaac."

"Except that I have an alibi."

"The jails are full of guys whose only defense was an alibi from a girlfriend."

"They don't have a girlfriend like Trina."

"That's the interesting wrinkle here. As of Saturday night, I thought you didn't either. You told me you were done with Trina because of the Prince Albert."

"We made up."

"Happy to hear that. But if I'm a cop, that's awfully convenient timing."

"What if you're Jack Swyteck?" said Theo.

Jack felt like he was being tested. "I don't doubt you, Theo. But you didn't answer your cell that night."

"Did you call Trina's?"

"Of course not. I wasn't about to dial her number at one o'clock in the morning after you were so adamant that it was over between you two."

"So what's your point?"

"I'd feel better about this alibi if I had talked to you or her the other night."

Theo slid his cell across the countertop. It hit Jack in the elbow. "Call her now," said Theo.

Jack's gaze was drawn to it. It would have been a betrayal to pick up the telephone and check out Theo's alibi. He slid the phone right back at him. "I don't need to talk to her."

Theo put the cell back in his pocket.

Jack looked away then back. He wanted to change the subject – but only slightly. "That was one hell of a shot that took out Isaac," he said. "Right between the eyes, dead of night, bad lighting, twenty or more feet away."

"Could be a pro. Could have been lucky."

Jack gave his friend an assessing look. "Sooner or later, Andie or somebody is going to latch onto the fact that your brother was a contract killer."

"Tatum's dead," said Theo.

"But I'm sure he had friends who could hit a shot like that."

"That don't make 'em my friends. I got friends on death row. Does that make 'em yours?"

Fu

Silence fell between them, and then Theo smiled. He gave Jack a playful punch to the left bicep. It hurt.

"So, nothin' to worry about, right dude?"

Jack rubbed his aching arm. "No," he said. "We're cool."

Chapter 17

Theo's tour started appropriately enough at the Knight Beat – "the swingingest place in the South" – and then moved on to the Cotton Club, the Clover Club, and Rockland Palace Hotel. The night wouldn't end until they reached the Flamingo Lounge at the Mary Elizabeth Hotel. All of these clubs had disappeared years earlier – some before Theo's birth – but Uncle Cy's anecdotes brought them to life.

''The day Miami was born, the official name for this area was Colored Town," said Cy. "Then it was Overtown. I like to think of it as Little Harlem."

They walked side-by-side down Second Avenue, between Sixth and Tenth Streets, once a lively stretch that, back in the day, was known variously as Little Broadway, the Strip, and the Great Black Way. Uncle Cy was dressed like a relic from the jazz and swing era, wearing a three-piece Norfolk suit in natty vintage tweeds, as if defying the fact that it was a balmy evening in May.

"Ain't you hot?" said Theo.

Cy flashed a mischievous smile. "Last time someone on Little Broadway asked me that question it was more like, “Cyrus Knight – hoo-wee, ain't you hot!"

"Must have been one of the many women you managed to convince that the Knight Beat was named after you."

"How'd you know about that?"

"'Cause it's what I would have done."

They stopped at the corner. A chain-link fence surrounded a vacant lot. A big painted sign promised condominiums "Opening Summer 2003" – a deadline that could now be met only with the aid of time travel. "American Dream Development Ltd.," the sign said, "a Fernando Redden Company." There were a few mounds of gravel and deep ruts from truck tires, but the weeds had taken over. It looked as if the distinguished Mr. Redden's construction had ceased as soon as it had started.

"This used to be a joint called the Harlem Square Club," said Cy.

Theo saw not a trace of the original building. All that remained was the nostalgia in the old man's eyes. "I've heard of it," said Theo.

"Hearing of it ain't nothin' like hearin' it. I was sittin' at the bar in 1963 when Sam Cooke did a live recording. I seen 'em all – Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, B. B. King."

"Pretty cool they could book acts like that."

"Yeah, thanks to Glass Killens. A real charmer, famous for carrying around a mystery mug – contents unknown. And one smart promoter. Black entertainers played all the swanky hotels on Miami Beach, but they couldn't stay there. Whites only. So they popped across the causeway to find a room, and Glass would get 'em to play a late-night gig at places like the Harlem Square."

Theo let him have all the time he wanted, but there was no escaping the fact that a community once filled with pride and music was now Miami's poorest neighborhood. More than half the residents lived in poverty, two-thirds of households were headed by unmarried women, and only one in ten dwellings was owner-occupied. Those cold statistics were borne out by the panhandlers on the streets, the abandoned stores and decrepit buildings marred by gang graffiti, and the virtual nonexistence of trees and green space. Cy's gaze drifted toward busy I-95 and I-395, which intersected in the heart of Overtown. Even at night, the pall of the elevated expressway was palpable. Ironically, the federal government had started construction of the interstate just as Congress was passing the Civil Rights Act – a fatal blow in a time of great hope.

After a minute or two, Cy shook his head in silence, like a man turning away from the grave of an old friend. "Let's go," he said.

They walked on. Theo's car was parked on the other side of the street, two blocks north.

Theo said, "We're pretty close to where you used to live, ain't we?