Sherree was a hit. She became known as the Hands-On Girl; she was modest but provocative, always drawing a decent crowd. Life was a ball for a while, until she got pregnant, got laid off, drew unemployment, then had to go on welfare.

Sherree's baby girl, Lucilla, was only a few months old when Burgess moved into the Convent to live with Sherree's lifelong friend Janine. He was a rich man come to live among the poor people, using his money to buy medicine and a playground for the kids, repairing the Convent buildings when the city wouldn't do it, installing smoke alarms when the city said it couldn't afford to, paying Sherree to run the day-care center, paying Dexter to run for him. And she was learning to read too, at the literacy center Burgess got the nuns from St. Stephen's to start right there in the Convent.

Burgess was a hero to the people in the Convent; he was like Robin Hood to them. So when Sherree, annoyed, suggested to Dexter that he worry about saving his own skin, she was also smart enough to realize that this meant saving Burgess' skin as well.

The next morning she and Dexter both began some serious networking. She got Dexter up early so he could talk to as many men in the Convent as possible before he went off to work. From the day-care center, she pa.s.sed the message on to all the women who dropped off their children. By the following afternoon, almost everyone in the Convent was wearing a black hat, women as well as men.

Sherree had all the kids out in the yard teaching them a new dance routine when she heard a series of coded whistles, a warning to Burgess and his men that strangers were in the Convent. Burgess wasn't around and the whistle codes were not the ones used for the police, so Sherree was more curious than scared. She kept on dancing, counting out loud to keep the kids moving in time to the music coming out of the boom box next to them on the lawn. Most of the tenants in sight were heading indoors. Sherree looked back toward Convent Street and saw TV trucks parked at the curb. People with cameras and microphones streamed into the Convent yard. Heading the pack was an extremely good-looking brown woman, full straight hair, aquiline nose, thin lips, dressed in a bright blue dress, black patent high heels, and a lot of chunky gold jewelry. The woman came straight for Sherree, undoubtedly attracted by her crimson leotard and tights and the large black straw hat she was wearing. Sherree turned off the box and told the kids to sit down in the gra.s.s and be good for the TV cameras.

The woman introduced herself as a reporter for one of the local TV stations. Sherree recognized her but didn't want to say so. She put one hand on her hip and looked hard at the woman, at her two-inch-wide gold necklace, the matching bracelet on the wrist of the hand holding the microphone, earrings the size of silver dollars. The woman asked Sherree a couple of preliminary questions: did she live in the Convent and, laughing, were all these kids hers, not a laughing matter as far as Sherree was concerned.

Two more reporters, both black because it wasn't safe to send whites into the Convent, men from other local stations, put their microphones up close to Sherree as she explained that she babysat with the children while their mothers went to work, that was how she made her living. She was careful not to use the words day-care center, since the center was not officially certified by the city. As she spoke, Lucilla ran up and clutched one of her legs. Sherree put her hand on top of the child's head and told the reporters how, prior to her daughter's birth, she'd been a professional dancer.

One of the male reporters asked Sherree if she wasn't afraid in the Convent since the cop had been killed.

"There ain nothin to be afraid of 'cept the cops themselves," Sherree said, getting belligerent. "They come in here and beat up our men. Two days ago they come in and take my boyfriend downtown for questionin. You wanna know how they question people from the Convent these days?" she asked them, pushing her face up closer to them so they had to back off with their microphones. "They put plastic bags over their heads first."

By this time black-hatted tenants were back in the yard, out on the porches, and up on the balconies, watching.

"What were the police questioning your boyfriend about?" the other male reporter asked.

"Whatever they felt like," Sherree said.

The well-dressed woman reporter said to her, "Rumor has it that one of the biggest drug traffickers in this part of the country is hiding out here, in the Convent."

"Girl," Sherree said, her hand on her hip, "a bishop could hide out in this here Convent and no one'd know 'bout it, not even the people that live here."

On the news that night, Burgess, though still anonymous, became known as the Bishop of Convent Street.

10.

Janine and Burgess sat on the red plush sofa. They were waiting for the evening news broadcast. Sherree told them to be sure and watch, she'd been pretty good in front of all those cameras.

Janine waited, expectant, excited, her best friend was going to be on TV, telling everybody in the city how the police put a plastic bag over Dexter's head to make him talk. Let everybody know how bad the cops could be, let them know the way it was in the Convent these days: the police didn't protect the tenants, the tenants needed protection against the brutality of the police.

After the news Burgess would feel better. The past couple of days he'd been tense, Janine could feel his edginess, making her edgy too, though she was afraid to show it for fear of getting him angry. As quickly as he'd come, he could go away that fast. He stayed away from the Convent during the day, coming home after five o'clock as if he had a regular job. He didn't say anything to her, but she knew he was busy keeping out of sight.

She was dressed up for him this evening, the black dress with the purple roses on it and the peplum he liked to put his hands under, run them over her hips, down her sleek thighs. He asked her why she was all decked out, her high-heeled shoes on, her hair done, her makeup just so. Not yet, she said, she wouldn't tell him yet. She was picking her time. After the news, when he felt better. Then maybe they could go out to the Solar Club, get something to eat, do a little dancing. Celebrate.

There it was on the screen in front of them, the Convent. There was the rehab center, the vegetable garden, over there the kids' playground, a woman's smooth but businesslike voice telling about the cop killing, the fear in the Convent, how this black community was pulling together to improve the project and their way of life. Telling too about the housing authority's financial problems, the mayor's proposal to raze the project, asking the question everybody was going to want to know the answer to: If the city isn't paying for all this, then who is?

Janine sat forward. Now here was Sherree, looking good in her red dancing outfit, that big black hat, one hip thrust forward, talking to the reporters as if she did it every day. No question about it, a natural-born entertainer. That's right, girl, you tell them.

Now some pictures of the tenants all grouped around, wearing their black hats: Sherree so proud of herself earlier, telling Janine her foxy idea. And now the woman reporter putting the cap on her story, a memorable little twist, making a mystery out of it: So where is all the money coming from? And who is the Bishop of Convent Street?

Burgess. .h.i.t the off b.u.t.ton and fell back on the sofa. "They know for sure I'm here now."

"The Bishop of Convent Street?" Janine said. "Come on, that's just some wisea.s.s reporter making her story."

"That's not what I mean. It's the hats, all those hats, everybody wearin a black hat."

A few seconds lapsed before Janine got it, then the blood left her face. If she hadn't been sitting down, her legs would have gone out from under her, the shock of realizing that Sherree, with all good intention, had told the cops exactly what they wanted to know, what they had not found out for sure from Dexter even though they put a plastic bag over his head.

She couldn't speak, her tongue was like a slab of hide with a thick coat of fur on it. That feeling of dread she'd had the other day when Dexter was talking about Burgess' hat, it was back. And with it came the voice of her mother: No man is dependable, you remember that, especially after he goes and knocks you up and makes sure you got no way out.

No way out. She felt as if she were going to vomit, vomit up those words, vomit up the dread, vomit everything inside her. Because Janine had gone out and got herself a home pregnancy test and this morning it had showed up positive.

She swallowed hard, swallowed it all down. "You got to hide."

You got to hide. Hide as if there would ever be a time that he could stop hiding. Hide as if there were life after hiding. Hide as if his future depended on it. But there was the catch. He was famous now. People who were famous were supposed to have a fabulous future ahead of them, as long as they didn't go and mess it up themselves. It didn't work that way for Burgess; his future diminished in direct proportion to his fame.

Janine was panicking, pulling at his arm, saying, "You got to hide," maybe dragging him out the door next, she was so scared.

He laughed. "I am hidin, remember?"

"Somewhere else."

"They ain no better place to hide," he told her, and was telling her not to be afraid, he'd be all right, they'd be all right, all the while thinking to himself no place was safe, no place would ever be safe again.

The next morning, two bodyguards dressed in workman's white overalls with him, Burgess went over to Thea's house to get the work on the parlor started. He took his time. He had tea with Delzora. He talked to Thea. She'd changed her mind, she wanted to paint, not paper. Was that a problem? No problem at all. He went back to scratch, how much paint would it take, how much would it cost, he'd get his two expert painters on it, the same two guys, it turned out, who were the expert paper hangers. He went out to look at the gazebo again. He had coffee with Thea. He was in no particular hurry to leave.

Because as long as he was at Thea Tamborella's house, he was safe.

11.

Thea went with Bobby to a dinner party, a gathering of some old friends at the new-southern-style home of Lyle and Sandy Hinder-mann. By the end of the evening she was afraid to be alone in her own house.

Waiting for Bobby, she stood in the wrecked parlor surveying the work in progress for the third time that day but really wondering if she were dressed correctly in her basic black dress, pearls, and low-heeled pumps. She wondered if it would be like high-school days when no matter how good she thought she looked before going out, the minute she saw a girl like Sandy she would feel she was dressed all wrong and it was hopeless that she would ever get it right. She could never be like those girls, the golden girls, with the right looks, the right backgrounds, the right credentials, and all the right moves, the kind of one-foot-directly-in-front-of-the-other walk that made them look so s.e.xy and made her look punch drunk when she tried it in front of her bedroom mirror.

She told herself that was all high-school nonsense, but as she and Bobby stood on the portico of the Hindermanns' plantation-like house, the curtains open so that the windows were tantalizing showcases for the tempting life inside, Thea was nervous, her fingers floating on the slick of sweat they left on the black leather clutch she was carrying. It slipped to the brick portico floor. She picked it up quickly, before Bobby could, his movements so slow they might open the door and catch him at it. She tucked it securely under her arm.

The party was for Thea, to welcome her back to town. She was flattered, but besides being nervous and uncomfortable, she was also surprised. The old friends coming to the party were not her old friends: the only one she could remember from their high- school cla.s.s was Mona Dupre, Sandy's old friend. For that matter, her own friendship with Sandy couldn't qualify as an old friendship, hardly as any friendship at all. Lyle and Sandy and Bobby and Thea had made a foursome back in high school, but that was because Lyle and Bobby were best friends and so they double-dated nearly every weekend. Sandy had been very nice to Thea on those weekends, even making a confidante of her sometimes, but around school she remained aloof, as if a friendship with Thea might lower her social status. Which Thea thought it probably would, so she didn't hold too large a grudge against Sandy.

Sandy opened the door and held her hands out to Thea, then embraced her warmly. Thea was relieved-her clothes were okay. In fact, she and Sandy were dressed so much alike, both in basic black and pearls, that it was nearly distasteful. Lyle came up behind Sandy, echoing her words of welcome-it had been way too long; glad they were neighbors again-as if he could think of nothing to say himself, leaning forward, his head large and bullet-shaped with his hair a closely cropped flattop, to kiss Thea.

They both still had their Waspy, sun-streaked blond good looks. The image of them driving around town in Lyle's father's baby-blue Cadillac convertible was imprinted on Thea's brain forever: Sandy's hair flying, bright and shimmering, she and Lyle waving, the king and queen on parade, important, flamboyant, their smiles a quick gleam shrinking to self-satisfaction.

But now there was something off-key about them, something strange about their eyes, the way Lyle looked at Thea directly when he kissed her yet seemed to be looking inward, the way he wouldn't look at Sandy at all, yet her eyes searched constantly when they were on him.

The eyes. Always she was aware of eyes, a habit left over from long ago when everyone would look at her and say such nice, warm, sympathetic things, but their eyes would not be warm. They would be curious, watchful, keeping their distance all the while the were saying the right things, being so very nice. People were only nice like that if something was wrong with you, if you were crippled or deformed. If your parents had been shot down in their grocery store. Then they became curious: what had it done to you, where were you crippled, how were you deformed?

She looked for their watchful curious eyes. Maybe they would want to know how rich she was and what the money had done to her, was she less crippled, less deformed? Actually, she wondered herself, but she hadn't had it long enough to know.

But their eyes reserved those kinds of looks for something else now, something that was wrong with their own lives, something they looked for deep down in themselves and each other, looking hard for it but not seeing it.

Two small light-haired children, a boy and a girl, came speeding down the stairs, their baby-sitter, an older black woman, running hard after them. They were introduced to Thea and sent off to bed. Then, while Bobby went off to make drinks, Lyle and Sandy showed Thea around as they waited for the other dinner guests to arrive.

The house was a mix of Old South splendor and contemporary showcase-the kind of place magazines call "fabulous"-and it gave them obvious pleasure to exhibit it to Thea. They pointed out the arched leaded windows from a church that had been demolished, the paneled wainscoting-doors, actually, from the old rectory-everything softly glowing under the recessed lighting in the ceilings or spectacularly lit by gla.s.s halogen fixtures on the walls. Thea's mother would have called them "house proud," as she had called Aunt Althea, but labels like that don't get attached to confident and beautiful wealthy people who live in magnificently, artistically, redone showplaces.

Thea thought about the way Lyle and Sandy had been in high school, a couple ever since she had known them, but not a couple she had perceived as being in love, or romantic, or caught up in any sort of pa.s.sion. Instead they were more of a romantic ideal, something quite different from flesh and blood that heated up and pulsated and desired. They didn't touch each other affectionately, not even the way she and Bobby touched each other, friendly, familiar; instead, they huddled together whispering, their eyes darting. Conspirators.

As they gave her their well-practiced tour, Thea realized that their romance had been based on the recognition of their mutual ambition; their pa.s.sion had been for acquisition, for social power. Lyle's position with the Cotton National Bank was a symbol of their standing in the community, as were the dinner guests they expected, all of whom regularly lit the society columns. And their house was the symbol of their ambition, a true reflection of their old southern family backgrounds and their modern acquisitional ways.

It was all as Thea would have expected, with one exception: on the way over to their house that night Bobby had told Thea that Lyle was banker by day, crimestopper by night, a reserve policeman taking an action-packed Sat.u.r.day night off to entertain her. Bobby said that Lyle patrolled the neighborhood and had a regular beat as well, answering calls-murders, rapes, robberies-the way any cop would.

And was that, Thea wondered as she stood in the backyard, the final stop on the tour, gazing down into the black-tiled swimming pool, a black lagoon against a backdrop of spotlighted tropical foliage and a gurgling fountain, was that a symbol of whatever was off-key with these two people?

The long dining table was draped with a bone-white linen cloth. Tall, tapered yellow candles, two feet long at least, burned on either side of a large bowl spilling over with yellow daisies and black-eyed susans. The twelve plates, edged with navy blue and gold filigree, held tiny glazed quails from one of Lyle's hunts, wild rice, and a mix of colorful vegetables. Over drinks before dinner Thea had been the center of attention, everyone wanting to know about her life in Ma.s.sachusetts, and she had surprised herself by saying that living in Amherst had been an interesting interruption. Now, during this reprieve at the dinner table, listening to their scattered conversations about people she didn't know, Thea wondered what exactly she'd meant by that. During the last few months in Amherst she had thought about going to school, getting a degree, though she didn't know in what-something that could eventually release her from her boring, dead-end job-and that thought had followed her to New Orleans. It wouldn't have to be anything practical now; perhaps she could become an expert on the works of Camus and the existentialists, study the meaning of being, or go straight to the cutting edge and study essentialism, write a dissertation on the meaning of meaning, become Dr. Tam-borella. She drifted back to reality: the fact that her education had been broken off, although perhaps part of what she meant by an interesting interruption, was not all of it. It would take some reflection.

She found she was staring into the reflection in the dining room's wall of uncurtained French doors. It prevented her from seeing into the yard. She could see only back into the room, the candlelight and the people at the table, the darkness outside turning the gla.s.s into a smoky mirror. The effect was eerie, momentarily unsettling, as if they all had become ghosts, even with their voices ringing off the hardwood floors, the high curved ceiling, the wall of gla.s.s doors. It seemed that the moment she decided to tune in to the echoey din, someone's name reverberating, it stopped. Now a thick silence pressed against her eardrums, a large silence, everything larger than life in a room like this.

They were all looking at her. Thea swallowed a half-chewed piece of quail breast and felt it stick mid-esophagus.

"He was killed," Lyle said to her, "about three months ago, coming home from work. They shot him point-blank in the back of the head, execution-style. He was the second one in a month they killed like that."

Was this someone she had known? She didn't think so; the name had not triggered any memory. She looked across the table at Bobby, but he offered no help, fairly well plastered, his eyes glowing redly at her, a slight smile parting his lips. The silver fork seemed awfully heavy in her hand.

Lyle's eyes were on Thea, holding her. She was dimly thinking they were so small, their brown reminding her of old dull varnish. He had always been on the serious side, but in the candlelight Thea saw seriousness permanently etched in the flesh around his mouth, across his forehead, a deep cut between the eyebrows, down to the bridge of his nose.

"Most of us are carrying guns now," he said. "Women too."

Mona Dupre said, "I've got mine," her voice sounding oddly chirpy, only adding to the weight in the room. "Lyle taught me how to shoot."

Thea looked at Mona, glad for the release from Lyle, her eyes automatically riveting to Mona's hands, a large opal circled by diamonds on the right hand, a huge emerald-cut diamond flanked by sapphire ring guards on the left. A gun in those hands . . . guns in the midst of all their culture and high society and proper behavior. Imagine those uptown ladies shooting to kill, their legs spread as far as their fashionable clothes would allow, in a policeman's crouch as taught by Lyle, their jewel-bedecked hands clutching their guns . . .

"I carry two," Lyle said. He was talking to her again, forcing her eyes back. But everyone was watching him as he reached behind him, underneath his jacket, and placed a gun on the white tablecloth next to the bowl of yellow flowers, at the base of a silver candlestick. The candlelight reflected faintly, as if it were dying, in the gun's oily blue-black surface. His eyes never wavering from Thea's face, Lyle leaned down and pulled a second, smaller gun from an ankle holster. He let it sit in the palm of his hand, showing her how it fitted, how it could be hidden, before he placed it next to the larger weapon.

Thea felt trapped by his stare. She forced her eyes down, to the quail, their pitiful little legs sticking up into the air, no longer delicacies, just dead.

"I don't think there's anyone sitting at this table who doesn't know someone, more than one person, who's been held up at gunpoint, if not killed." Thea raised her head. Lyle nodded at the guns. "We have to protect ourselves, what we own. You might want to think about getting a gun too, Thea."

Lyle's eyes had become brighter, and Thea thought she could see rage smoldering behind them, giving them the only light they contained; she thought she knew what he was trying to tell her about the anger they all felt, and about the fear, the hate, and the helplessness. He was saying to her, It's been done to us too, now we understand, now we know what it's like to be a victim, to be connected to death by violence.

But there was something they did not understand, something they had not experienced directly, something that had come after she was worn out with anger, fear, hate, and helplessness. It was the sense of confusion that lingered. First there had been the confusion of coming home and finding the grocery store full of police, of not being allowed inside. Then the confusion of displacement, a new home, a new school, people behaving strangely toward her, and later the confusion of her feelings for her aunt. But there was this other confusion, dense and full of questions that refused to make themselves clear, a confusion from which there had been no release, not now, perhaps not ever.

Lyle went on, "They're all armed, so we have to be armed too."

"They've declared war on us," Mona said belligerently.

Thea was beginning to understand that what they mostly empathized with was hate. But she did not hate anymore. As for fear, her fear had never been the same as theirs was now. Her fear had been about the loss of her parents, their love and their guidance, their special concern for her, unselfish concern, not at all like Aunt Althea's kind of concern; her fear was not fear of all black people. And her helplessness and anger were not their helplessness and anger: she had been helpless in having no one to turn to for other needs besides food, shelter, clothing-the need to talk to someone, to ask questions of someone trustworthy, of someone who knew the answers, of someone who could tell her what had gone wrong; she had been angry at her aunt for not being that someone.

Instead, that someone had been Delzora. She hadn't had all the answers, but she told Thea it was all right to be angry. She couldn't tell her what had gone wrong, but she helped her see it was wrong to hate.

Thea met Lyle's relentless eyes. "You know, my father wanted to protect his family and what he owned too. You may not remember, but the gun he kept in the store was gone afterwards, and the police believed he and my mother were shot with it." It was the first time she'd spoken of the murder with any of them other than Bobby. But everyone at the table, even Bobby, seemed frozen with some kind of prurient antic.i.p.ation.

Lyle said, as if trying to convince her, "They could have held a gun on your mother and gotten it away from him."

"Yes," she said, "they could have, it could have happened any number of ways. If you'd known my father and his Italian temper, you might think he'd have gotten them first." There were many questions and she'd asked all the ones she knew how to ask, but it was the answers to the ones she didn't know how to ask that she wanted, not Lyle's answers.

Sandy slid gracefully into the tension at the table. "Oh, I don't think we should talk about all this now. Thea will think she should go back to Ma.s.sachusetts, and we want her to stay."

The other women guided the conversation into safer waters and Lyle slipped the guns back out of sight into the holsters hidden on his body.

Later, when Thea went to the kitchen to help Sandy serve dessert, Sandy said, "Listen, I'm really sorry about all that-Lyle ..." She hesitated as if she were at a loss for words, a first in Thea's recollection.

"It's okay," Thea said.

But Sandy shook her head, rather violently, the golden hair flying away from her neck. "No, no, it's not okay." Her eyes were too bright. She lifted a hand, her mouth opening then closing, her hand falling. She blinked rapidly three or four times and said, "He's gone mad on law and order."

After the party Lyle walked Thea and Bobby to the car with his big oily blue gun drawn and ready. He clapped Bobby on the back and held the door for Thea, his eyes roaming continuously.

Thea stood at the side of the car. She laughed nervously. "This seems awfully dramatic, Lyle."

His eyes came to rest on her. "It's sad, isn't it, that this is what it's come to. I don't mean to scare you, but the truth is we just can't be too careful anymore." He kissed her cheek and she got into the car. "Well, this was fun," he said jovially, his roving eyes continuing their search beyond the car. "We'll do it again soon." He punched the lock down with his free hand and closed the door.

12.

After the Hindermanns' dinner party, Thea asked Bobby to take her straight home. Bobby, even in his inebriated state, could see she was upset.

"Don't pay any attention to Lyle," he said as they stood just inside her front door. "He thinks he's Supercop disguised as a mild-mannered banker." His speech was slower than usual and a bit slurred.

Thea smiled faintly. Encouraged, Bobby bent toward her. He almost lost his balance and took a short step forward as he encircled her in his arms, pulling her in. Thea put her arms in between them, her hands against his chest. "I know he means well," she said, "but it bothers me when someone thinks he has all the answers, that's all."

"He's pretty arrogant about it." Bobby held her more tightly, forcing her arms around him, his lips in her hair, now grazing her face as he said, "I only have questions, like are you going to ask me to come in for a while?"

The smell of bourbon on his breath spread in the air, and Thea turned her head away. She put her arms in between them again and with a slight pressure on his chest pushed him from her. His arms fell away. "I'm tired, Bobby. This wasn't easy for me tonight-parties like that have never been very easy for me, you know that."

"We don't have to go to any more if you don't want to."

She frowned. That wasn't the point. Bobby was too drunk to understand anything except what he wanted. Suddenly all she wanted was to be alone. "I need to go," she said.