Winter Johnsons 4

Winter

Johnsons 4

Jamal Johnson arrived early for the 8 AM meeting and the principals—Junior Johnson, Senior Johnson, Stan Barber—had already arrived. Even without the attempted assassination of Curtis Cream, the foursome would have had plenty to discuss. Immediate concerns took precedence.

“He called me himself, while he was being treated in the ER. Told me to get down there immediately. I make a couple of calls and a police cruiser shows up at my doorstep and turned his lights on for me.”

“He wanted you to make out a will?” Senior inquired.

“No, Uncle Tecumseh. Nothing like that. I got this honorary Houston PD badge that I can legally wear and I got it around my neck. We pull into the ER entrance and there are cop cars everywhere. In the gimp spots. The fire lanes. The sidewalk. They do look after one another.”

Jamal paused to let his cousin to let his cousin interject. “So, my source says he got hit up close but he just happened to be wearing a vest around the house on a Saturday morning…”

“That is exactly what happened, Cuz. And as soon as I got out of the squad car, these two gorillas with DEA blazers on approached me.  I have never seen these two studs before.

“Anyway, the bigger of the two pointed this sausage of a finger at me and said, ‘that’s him.’ Next thing I know, they were dragging me through this ocean of blue and brown. Cops all over the waiting room. Cops lining the halls. We zip past all of them and tiptoe past all the sickly and the wounded and the bleeding and we find our way to Curtis’s room---yes I am on a first name basis with him—and we get to Curtis’s room and there are six doctors and nurses and what have ya hanging over him and he says, “That’s my lawyer,” and they all scatter.

“He puts his bed upright and starts barking out his commands. He wants me to recover the vest from evidence and he wants me to call the manufacturer to see if he could be their paid spokesman.”

Chuckles ensued.

“So he took a shotgun in the chest and was unscathed?” Junior asked.

“He was in a lot of pain but he made a point of saying pain didn’t bother him. He checked out last night so he could arrive first thing in the AM.”

“I should tell you that he left against medical advice,” Stan Barber chimed in. He suffered bruising to his chest and the gun blast landed him on against a kitchen chair, resulting in eight stitches to the back of his head. The impact of the gunshot, delivered in an upward motion, injured his spine. That is the wound that concerned the medical staff.”

“Did he go to work today?” Junior inquired.

“Yes, He arrived about twenty minutes ago like the king returning from battle,” Stan answered.

“Not like the king. As the king,” Senior stated with reverence.

There was often a short silence after Senior spoke. Junior got the ball rolling once more. “Did you land your client an endorsement?”

“It blew my mind,” Jamal stated, glancing briefly at Senior who disapproved of most slang. The Watson Group flew someone in from Memphis and he met with Curtis Sunday afternoon. Contracts are contracts and I can plow through them pretty fast but Mr. Briefcase arrived with six-hundred-forty-one pages of documents. I spent all night slogging through the wherefores and I still have a ways to go.”

“Just get him signed!” Senior pounced. “He will think you did something good for him. If there’s any remorse, that will turn up in the distant future. Let him know you landed him a contract.”

Jamal nodded and Stan Barber took over the meeting. “What are your initial impressions of Curtis and Katrina Cream?”

Senior responded instantly. “Well, you tipped your hand when you had something to reveal. And the divorce rate for men who are away from their wives for long periods is astronomical. And Curtis Cream spent most of his career in deep cover situations. But!” He paused and scanned his audience. “At the Cimmaron Society, they presented as the perfect married couple.”

The other three nodded in unison. “I concur,” Junior added.

“As do I,” Jamal chimed in.

“And I will go along with the consensus,” Stan Barber summarized. “Their presentation was great. Now, you ready to have your bubble popped?”

Jamal reached into his pocket for a US Mint breath lozenge and placed it on his tongue. He sipped his Girl Scout Cookie flavored coffee and waited for Stan Barber’s revelations.

“Jamal, you remember Walter Peacock?”

Jamal shook his head. “No.”

The two men played informal games involving sports trivia and wacky names and most enthusiastically, the intersection of the two. Not just the Dick Trickles and Chubby Cox and Rusty Kuntz but the Polly Pickles, Orville Overalls and King Solomon Judds as well. Stan Barber briefly flashed a gloating smirk and returned to his presentation.

“Walter Peacock played tennis at the University of Maryland. He was better than average, a bit lacking in finesse. That name jumped off the page for me long ago and then I found out he was a brother…” He tailed off to see his audience nod their understanding.

“So Walter went on to law school.  He would eventually devote himself to a lucrative practice that specialized in immigration.  Prior to all of his professional success, he would volunteer as an assistant coach of the Lady Terrapins tennis team where he would meet a scrub player by the name of Katrina Simpson.”

All three spectators sat up straighter and Stan Barber continued in his melodic cadence and timely gestures. “Walter impregnated Katrina and they might have lived happily ever after except that Walter was already married to the former Marina Starling.”

“A Peacock married a Starling?” Junior requested clarification.

“Yes, and I am certain it was a memorable wedding. Can’t you see both families pecking the rice off the sidewalk?”

Stan Barber absorbed the polite laughter and continued. “Cut to the chase. Katrina Cream’s oldest and youngest daughters were sired by Walter Peacock. I will give you a moment to let that sink in.”

“So,” Stan Barber said and then paused. “What does this mean for all of us? I am always happy to see a black man climb the ladder. Even happier when I see that beautiful black woman standing next to him. I like to see successful black families. And if it’s someone who is willing to work with us…” Stan Barber sometimes left sentences uncompleted.

The speaker guzzled from his water bottle and Jamal removed a US Mint from his pocket, liberated it from its wrapper and placed it on his tongue. This was a Philadelphia Mint that followed the Denver Mint he had consumed earlier. Being a connoisseur of chocolate mints, Jamal had recently discovered that when he placed a Denver mint on his tongue and washed it gently with Girl Scout Cookie flavored coffee, followed shortly thereafter by a Philadelphia Mint, a distinct third flavor emerged that was good and sweet but not necessarily chocolaty or minty.

Jamal had experimented to find other elusive third flavors. He found that mixing Philadelphia and Denver Mints yielded a muddy taste, either with or without the addition of Girl Scout flavored coffee. Either mint combined separately with Girl Scout Cookie flavored coffee presented an enjoyable but predictable bouquet of flavors. And reversing the order—Philadelphia Mint, Girl Scout Cookie flavored coffee, then Denver Mint—produced a full spectrum chocolate mint experience but did not produce that cherished third flavor.

Following the established protocol, Jamal once more experienced the hybrid flavor that made Stan’s revelations all the more enjoyable. “And by the way,“ Stan Barber continued, his large hands poised like raven wings protecting a nest, “ I am sure you know this but the Stems were behind Saturday’s shooting. They always use white cleaners.”

“Yes.” Senior roared.

“I knew that.” Junior confirmed.

“I thought so. But usually the idiot gets caught. This guy vanished in thin air.” Jamal summarized.

“What I am trying to emphasize,” Stan Barber said as his affliction caused him to jerk back and forth three times as his mouth opened ever so slightly. “Is that we have a complicated situation on our hands. Not only do we have at least one, possibly more, cartels who want to eliminate Curtis Cream, he is also involved in an ongoing love triangle. Just so everyone is fully informed.” Stan placed his hands behind his back to signal that he was ready to field questions.

Senior spoke first. “How do you know for certain that this Peacock fella fathered two of Mrs. Cream’s daughters?’

“I’m glad you asked that question,” Stan said with a flourish and then looked directly at Jamal.

“Oh no, Uncle. You had to do it. You had to do it, didn’t you?” And he turned to Stan Barber for his prompt.

“Usually,” Stan Barber started and Jamal joined in unison. “When someone says ‘I’m glad you asked that question’ what they really means is,” As well as syncing his voice, Jamal was mimicking Stan’s theatrical hand gestures. “’I wish you had not asked that question.’ But I am genuinely pleased you asked that question.”

Junior and Senior voiced their appreciation throughout this, their first exposure to the routine. At the “genuinely pleased” passage, Stan Barber twice yanked his head back and looked shocked. Jamal, incorporated the Tourette’s spasm into his performance. The select audience howled its approval.

When decorum was restored, Stan Barber explained his research. “I noticed that Katrina Cream had taken measures to hide her emails, her texts, her phone calls. Pseudonyms, burner phones. Fake ID. Very predictable methods.

“Then I found out that her communications were all going to the same person, Mr. Peacock, who was doing some of the same tricks. All circumstantial so far.

“I went to MyFace and looked at Peacock’s family. I looked at his four daughters and I felt déjà vu. Where had I seen these kids before?

“I went back to Katrina Cream’s MyFace page. It’s private but I sneaked in. Her oldest and youngest daughters looked like Peacock’s kids.”

Stan paused and Jamal let the silence sink in. The speaker continued. “Still just circumstantial evidence. But I have contacts at a certain DNA lab. Walter Peacock never submitted a sample. But Katrina did submit a sample for herself, her husband and her three daughters.”

“Why would she do that if the tests might reveal two fathers?”  Senior asked earnestly.

“To get ahead of the scandal. I have submitted my own DNA to the same lab and I can tell you it would be a snap to rewrite the information and forge their seal. Bet the farm that’s what Mrs. Cream did.

“So, she could hand over an identical profile for each daughter should they someday request such information. Meanwhile, I find a back door to the lab in question, Drum roll please.

“The oldest and youngest daughter both are one quarter native Australian. A little digging around and I find out that Peacock’s father married a full-blooded Aborigine. Gentlemen, I am certain Walter Peacock is the father of two of Katrina Cream’s daughters.”

Questions followed, the most crucial being, “Is Katrina Cream still involved with Walter Peacock?”

“The Peacocks and the Creams always lived in Suburban Maryland. Even when Curtis was in the military of undercover, Metro DC was home base.

“Peacock opens Immigration LLC’s up and down the Mid-Atlantic. North Carolina to Jersey.  Very successful and somewhat regional.  Nothing fifty miles inland. A week after it is announced that Curtis Cream will be headed the Big H, Walter Peacock visits Houston for the first time in his life and lays the groundwork for his local immigration office.”

Jamal let his eyes wander from the table. His uncle had covered several walls with paintings that featured Haitian zombioids and black super heroes and Afro-Hallmark depictions of conspicuous heartwarmings. Senior’s latest obsession was Othello Rasheed, who only painted portraits of black clowns.

The paintings were stacked along the walls in specially-ordered, museum-grade art storage units that cost Senior more than the paintings. Jamal had considered buying a dozen or so of the ugliest paintings and donating them to local charities but he knew his uncle would just buy more junk to replace them.

Clowns! Anything but clowns on the wall. A few weeks ago, Jamal had made the mistake of stating that the clown motif did not fit into the African-American experience. His uncle played spider to the nephew caught in his web and took his time to refute his ignorant assertion with a high degree of detail. Mardi Gras jesters, African, Jamaican and Haitian clown traditions, the understated African-American contributions to circus arts, the original American minstrels…Jamal wisely offered up a “you got me again, Uncle” and tried to change the subject.

To piledrive his dominance, Senior hung a portrait of Cyrus The Dwarf high on the conference room wall  snug against the ceiling where his loony bin eyes seemed to track Jamal no matter where he might sit. Jamal glanced at the broken-tooth grin and shifted his gaze back to Stan Barber.

“Peacock sold his house in Chevy Chase. He purchased three rental properties that he rents out on a nightly basis. I believe he uses the three sights as love nests for his encounter with Mrs. Cream. Anyone want to tell me why a deep-pocket immigration lawyer would move his family into  a fair to middlin apartment complex?”

Jamal and Junior answered in a dead heat that would leave Senior looking puzzled. They both explained that the wife always gets the house and the man gets the payments. Stan Barber nodded and summarized. “Gentlemen, the Stems might not be the only people who want to see Curtis Cream eliminated.” He then did an open palm flourish to signify that the presentation had concluded and he was open to questions.

The room fell silent and Jamal fixed his gaze on the wall behind Senior, where Cyrus the Dwarf seemed to be laughing at the assembled. As if he were reading his mind, Stan Barber broke the stillness. “That is one ugly clown.”

The workweek was underway.