swiped at her cheeks and swore beneath her breath.
“I’m sorry, Benny.” She said the words like they were being ripped from her chest. I wondered if she’d ever apologized before. Didn’t seem likely.
“Stay here, Esther,” I said, turning away. I was so damn tired.
“Benny . . . please. Wait.” Her heels clicked against the stairs, and I paused, my back to her, angry and scared, but unwilling to make her chase me. When her hand slipped into mine, I stiffened in defiance, but my traitorous fingers tightened around hers.
“Did your father trust your uncle?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know about trust,” I whispered. “That wasn’t the way my father looked at it. He was totally and completely committed to him, though. Pop was loyal, through and through. He would have taken a bullet for Sal, no questions asked. He considered it his duty.”
“Do you trust him?”
“With you? No,” I said.
“What about with you? Would he protect you?”
“It depends. There’s a hierarchy in everything. If I started to be a strain on the operation. If I put people at risk. He would take me out. But family is a big deal to him. It was a big deal to my father. And we’re family.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to ask for his help. And then we’re going to Pittsburgh.”
The Barry Gray Show
WMCA Radio
Guest: Benny Lament
December 30, 1969
“If you’re just joining us on WMCA, you’re listening to The Barry Gray Show. I’m here with Benny Lament, and we’re talking music, murder, and one of the biggest stories of the decade, for a number of reasons.”
“Esther and I had the deck stacked against us, that’s for sure,” Benny Lament says.
“There are a lot of layers to your story, layers folks may not know about. It wasn’t just the obvious challenges of love and color.”
“The obvious is easier to deal with, because you can prepare. It’s when you don’t know who’s a friend and who’s a foe that things get complicated. When you don’t know who’s pulling for you and who’s plotting against you.”
“Were you ever scared?” Barry Gray asks.
“I was. Always,” Benny Lament answers. “Not of the music. Not of the work. But I was afraid of the things I couldn’t control.”
“Why?”
“My father told me once that men are put on earth to protect and provide. If a man can’t protect and provide it’ll make him mean . . . or it’ll drive him crazy. I thought that was just an excuse until I loved someone so much that I would do anything to protect them. I understand now.”
“You were worried you couldn’t protect or provide?”
“I’m big. And I’m ugly. But some battles are bigger than one man.”
“Bigger than one man and one woman?”
“Way bigger. But Esther said something once that I’ve never forgotten.”
“What’s that?”
“She said if you want people to change, you have to show them what it looks like.”
14
PANDORA’S BOX
I relented and took Esther with me to Sal’s, though I extracted promises as we pulled into the driveway.
“I have to speak to him alone, Esther. Do you understand?” I asked. “He won’t talk to me if you’re there. He may not talk to me at all, once he sees you. When I ask you to leave, you leave.”
“Will you tell me what is said?” she countered.
“No.”
She frowned, but she didn’t argue.
“Will you ask him what happened to Maude Alexander and Bo Johnson?” she said as we pulled up in front of his house.
“If he knows, he won’t tell me, Baby Ruth.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because I don’t have any place else to go.”
Fat Tony had followed us in his own car, and when we pulled into Sal’s driveway, he parked and accompanied us up the well-lit walk. He knocked and rang the doorbell, like a deliveryman in need of a signature.
Esther stood beside me, her lips red and her eyes steady, but it was Theresa who answered the door. Not Sal. And not Carla. I hoped for Theresa’s sake, and even for my own sake, that Carla was gone.
I greeted my aunt with a kiss on her cheek and introduced Esther, who held out her hand. Theresa took it, barely touching Esther’s fingertips, but she did not move aside for us to enter.
“I need to talk to Sal, Aunt Theresa,” I pressed quietly.
“Salvatore isn’t feeling well. He’s gone to bed,” she said. “Come back tomorrow, Benito. Or maybe . . . call first.”
It was eight o’clock.
“Uh . . . you’re going to want to wake him,” Tony said. “It’s