Sunday, June 15, 2014
Lia woke up thinking about the difference between knowing something and being able to prove it.
She stayed in bed for another few minutes, staring at the ceiling.
Then she got up.
Her father's journal waited on the desk.
She opened it beside her laptop and looked through the pages she'd already studied.
Names.
Dates.
Addresses.
Questions.
Her eyes stopped on one sentence.
People remember stories. Paper remembers facts. Check both. Believe neither until they agree.
Lia reached for a notebook.
She divided a page into three sections.
KNOWN.
POSSIBLE.
UNKNOWN.
Under known, she wrote:
311 DeKalb Avenue.
Atlas.
Construction/property records.
Under possible:
Connection between properties.
Repeated companies.
Repeated names.
She paused before writing the last section.
Why did Dad care?
That was the question she kept coming back to.
The building at DeKalb wasn't some secret fortress.
It was apartments.
People lived there.
Families had probably lived there for years.
So why had her father written the address down?
Lia searched through another set of property records.
Then another.
A company name appeared again.
She recognized it from one of her father's notes.
Her stomach tightened.
She opened another document.
Same company.
Different property.
Another connection to Atlas.
Not proof.
But a pattern.
Lia wrote the name down.
Then underlined it.
Her father's notes weren't about one building.
They were about who kept appearing around buildings.
She closed the laptop.
For the first time, she understood what he meant by follow the paperwork.
Deion picked her up around noon.
They grabbed food and spent most of the afternoon riding around Brooklyn.
Nothing serious.
Music played through the speakers.
Deion complained about somebody cutting him off in traffic.
Lia laughed at him.
"You drive like you're eighty."
"I drive safe."
"You drive scared."
"That's called surviving."
"Whatever."
He smiled.
She looked out the window.
They passed blocks of brownstones, construction fences and new developments.
Lia watched a crew working on an old building.
"Your dad still working today?"
"Probably."
"Sunday?"
"Construction doesn't care what day it is."
She laughed.
Then she waited.
"You ever ask him about DeKalb?"
Deion glanced at her.
"Again?"
"I was curious."
"About what?"
"Whether he worked there."
"He probably did."
"You don't know?"
"My pops has done work all over Brooklyn."
"Right."
She looked back through the windshield.
"What about Atlas?"
Deion's hands tightened slightly around the steering wheel.
"You really interested in construction now?"
"I'm interested in Brooklyn."
"That sounds like a politician answer."
"My father would've appreciated that."
Deion smiled.
"Atlas is a big company. My pops has done jobs for them."
"Good jobs?"
"He likes getting paid."
She laughed.
"That wasn't what I asked."
"Then I don't know."
Lia looked at him.
Deion looked back.
For a second, neither said anything.
Then he reached over and turned the music up.
The conversation moved on.
But neither of them forgot it.
Curtis Thompkins was finishing up at the site when Deion called him.
The building was old.
The work wasn't.
Curtis walked through the unfinished interior, checking progress before speaking.
"What she asking?"
Deion leaned against the car.
"DeKalb."
Curtis stopped walking.
"Anything else?"
"Atlas."
A worker passed them carrying lumber.
Curtis waited until he was gone.
"What'd you tell her?"
"That you've worked for Atlas."
"That true?"
"Yeah."
"Then you didn't lie."
Deion frowned.
"She knows something."
Curtis looked at him.
"You know that?"
"She keeps asking questions."
Curtis nodded.
"That means she's curious."
"What's the difference?"
"Curiosity asks everybody."
Curtis picked up a set of plans.
"Investigation asks the same question twice."
Deion was quiet.
Curtis folded the plans against his side.
"Don't lie to her."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good."
"What if she keeps asking?"
Curtis looked toward the unfinished windows.
"Answer what you know."
"And what if I don't know?"
Curtis looked at his son.
"Then find out."
Deion nodded slowly.
Curtis turned back toward the building.
He didn't look worried.
He looked interested.
Across Brooklyn, Nasir sat at a community center going over the final Juneteenth schedule.
Melo stood beside him.
Bishop worked from a nearby table.
Darius leaned against the wall, arms folded.
"You've got too many stops," Darius said.
Nasir looked up.
"I've always had too many stops."
"That's the problem."
Melo smiled faintly.
"Look at you giving advice."
"Somebody has to."
Bishop glanced at the schedule.
"He's right about the movement. Every transition creates another variable."
Nasir looked at both of them.
"I'll cut a few."
Darius shook his head.
"Not enough."
Nasir raised an eyebrow.
"You got something to say?"
"Stay longer at the main event."
Melo looked over.
Darius continued.
"You're going to have the most people there. More eyes, more security, more people who know you. Less moving around."
Nasir considered it.
Melo nodded reluctantly.
"That makes sense."
Nasir marked the schedule.
"Fine."
His phone vibrated.
He looked down.
Unknown number.
You can't be everywhere.
Another message appeared.
Choose carefully.
Nasir stared at the screen.
Melo noticed.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
"Nasir."
He locked the phone.
"Nothing I can use."
Bishop looked at him.
"Threat?"
"Maybe."
Darius pushed away from the wall.
"You think it's connected?"
Nasir looked at him.
"I don't know."
That answer seemed to satisfy Darius.
"Then don't give it more weight than it deserves."
Nasir nodded.
But he kept thinking about the message.
Not because of what it said.
Because whoever sent it knew enough about his schedule to know exactly what to warn him about.
Later that evening, Maine sat on the front steps with Rome.
A basketball rested between them.
Rome was eating something he had bought from the corner store.
Maine looked over.
"You always eating."
"You always talking."
"Because somebody has to."
Rome laughed.
They sat quietly for a while.
Graduation was still fresh.
Summer still felt new.
No classes.
No teachers.
No bells.
No deadlines.
Maine looked down the block.
"Feels weird."
"What?"
"Being done."
Rome nodded.
"Yeah."
"You think college gonna be different?"
"Hell yeah."
"How?"
"You'll have to figure it out."
Maine smiled.
"That's your answer?"
"That's my answer."
Maine picked up the basketball and spun it on his finger.
For the first time in a long time, nobody was telling him what came next.
He liked that.
Inside the house, Nasir stood near the window.
He watched them laughing.
His phone sat in his hand.
The message was still there.
He could have answered.
He didn't.
Instead, he put the phone down.
For tonight, he wanted to be Jermaine's father.
Not Nasir Connors.
Not the man people called when they needed something.
Just his father.
Outside, Maine and Rome kept talking.
Across the city, Lia closed her father's journal and wrote one final line beneath everything else.
The building isn't the story.
She stared at it.
Then added:
The people around it are.
She closed the notebook.
Tomorrow was another day.
And Brooklyn was already moving.