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Keith shook his head. “The situation will just be a daily nuisance for your mother but you are in real danger. I won’t allow you to stay here.” He paused with his hand on the door handle. “Are you ready, Mrs. Blue?”
“Yes.”
Mama and I hugged each other and then Keith opened the door. I clutched the keys to my hiding place in my palm.
Paul looked dazed, and although he held my hand tightly, neither of us was in the mood for conversation.
The only thought which swirled through my mind on the way downtown was that I’d buy a gun and kill myself before allowing anyone to lock me in a jail cell again.
My hideout was a three-story brownstone near Houston Street. When the driver parked in front of it, I asked, “Which floor am I going to?”
He laughed. “This whole building is Mr. Williams’s place. You can live in any room you want.”
I dragged my tired body up the steps. My life in Harlem was on hold. This new home in Greenwich Village was only temporary. What was going to become of me?
It was an elegant, twelve-room residence with high ceilings, decorative molding, hardwood floors, huge French windows, and a back garden. There was a grand piano in the first-floor living room with a four-foot stack of Keith’s autobiography, Winner, standing next to it, a round wooden table with four chairs in the huge, eat-in kitchen, and a fully furnished bedroom on the second floor. Otherwise, the place was bare.
Was this where Keith brought his one-night stands? It certainly seemed that way. I couldn’t help laughing at Keith’s setup, and the sound echoed off the bare walls.
Paul had been following me around the place without saying a word. Now he asked, “What is so funny?”
“Look around,” I replied. “I think this is Keith’s booty barn. There is a plush bed for the dirty deed, a table to allow her a cup of coffee in the morning, and she can tinkle the piano keys while Keith gets her coat out of the closet. He probably tucks a copy of Winner into her hopeful hands before hustling her out to the limousine. Then he goes to see his real girlfriend.”
“Boy, talk about jumping to conclusions,” Paul chuckled. “Actually, this place is a tax write-off for Keith. When you’ve got that much money, it’s hard to find ways to shield it from the IRS.”
After we explored the brownstone, Paul sat down at the kitchen table and lapsed into silence once more. Was he worried that I’d jump bail and he’d lose his home?
I decided to check my home voicemail. There were thirty-two messages on my home phone but aside from Alyssa, Pam Silberstein, and Elaine, not one of them was from anyone I knew. Every one of the major talk shows, magazines, newspapers, and wire services had telephoned, seeking an interview and offering staggering amounts of money.
I went back downstairs to the kitchen. Paul was still sitting and staring into space.
“I need to buy something new to wear,” I told him. “Will you walk out with me?”
He got up without saying a word and we went back out into the street.
Greenwich Village used to be a community of writers, musicians, painters, and other creative types. Now it was home to young, white, corporate professionals—the high cost of rent had driven the artists over the bridge into Brooklyn.
This neighborhood still had a little charm left. It was full of nooks, crannies, side streets, coffeehouses, clothing boutiques, and several places that sold vintage albums and used books that I made a mental note to explore when things settled down a little.
After walking five blocks, we found a supermarket and a cheap clothing outlet. I bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, bread, bacon, cheese, crackers, eggs, orange juice, a pack of panties, a new sweat suit, and a pair of pajamas.
As we carried my packages back up the steps, I remembered something.
“Paul, I have a little chore to take care of and I think you should stay outside so you can truthfully say later that you don’t know anything about it.”
“Jackie, I’m sorry I left you alone for so long to deal with all this, but I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere until this is all over. What is it that you’re going to do?”
I told him how anxious Detective Gilchrist was to get his hands on my Filofax the night I was arrested. He had probably cursed that poor rookie cop out by now for allowing it back into my hands. That meant he was going to serve me with a subpoena to get it back. The organizer had to go.
My hands shook as I turned the keys. I locked the door carefully behind us and searched the kitchen drawers until I found a box of matches.
As Paul watched nervously, I burned every single page of my Filofax and watched all the negative comments I had made about Annabelle and Craig, along with my obsessive scribblings about Victor, go swirling down the toilet.
I leaned on the sink and cried.
“Jackie, you’re exhausted. Why don’t you clean yourself up and take a nap. I’m going to the office and handle some stuff but I’ll be back later, okay?”
After Paul left, I bathed and washed my hair with soap. Then I climbed into Keith’s bed and went to sleep.
