Disaster Among the Heavens - Don E Peavy Sr (best books for students to read .TXT) 📗

informed that you id’d the Assistant to the police. We have reason to believe that your husband lied about being from the coroner’s office and took the Assistant, who wasn’t dead after all, away from Chicago.”
“No, it can’t be!” exclaimed Pamela. “My husband barely knows the Assistant. He saw him a few times during college. He can never remember the guy’s name. He’s so bourgeoisie he would never involve himself in such an idiotic enterprise. You are mistaken.” The Wife was in hysterics.
“Well, you know the Assistant quite well, don’t you?” questioned Officer White. Officer Black sat at the edge of the couch. “In fact, the two of you are intimate friends, are you not?” White continued.
“We know each other, yes,” whispered Pamela as she buried her face in her hands.
The officers were stoic. Officer White withdrew his note pad and pointed to several entries as the other officers looked over his shoulder and nodded their heads in agreement. Realizing she was being ignored, Pamela soon settled down and continued, “I remember how bitter he was when they refused to allow him to return to the hospital. He hated the Assistant whom he blamed for what happened to him and his friends. He would never have helped that man!” Pamela’s voice was adamant. "You never know what a man might do,” opined Blundus. “Just when you think you know a guy, he comes out of a whole new bag. Still, we can’t argue with facts. Is this your husband?” Blundus handed her a photo which she received from White.
“Yes, it is. Where did you get it?”
“We got it from the crime scene photographer who took it of the doctor who removed the Assistant’s body.” Officer Blundus retrieved the photograph as she looked deeply into the eyes of Pamela. Her instincts told her that Pamela was not being completely honest and forthcoming. Blundus had also made note of several inconsistencies and outright lies in the Wife’s story.
“I just don’t understand this. This is all so crazy – so incomprehensible!” exclaimed Pamela. She launched into a new round of weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
“Please, please, please,” pleaded Blundus. James Brown flashed across her mind’s eye and inwardly, she heard him belting out his trademark song and then shook the image out of her head as she ran her hand through her lavender hair.
“Do you have any idea where your husband could have taken the Assistant?” asked Black in a calmer voice than Blundus was using.
“No,” answered Pamela is a hushed voice.
“Look, lady, your husband is in deep shit,” declared Officer White. “You’d better tell us what you know. Otherwise, we won’t be able to help him. We need to get to him before the Feds do.”
“I don’t know anything. I’m so confused, I need time to think.”
“Mrs. Diggs, listen to me and hear me good,” said Officer Blundus in a cool, calculating voice. “We don’t have time to play games. If we don’t find your husband before the Feds, you will never see him again, unless it’s at his funeral. Is that what you want?”
Officer Black walked over and sat on one of the arms of the love seat. He placed his arm around Pamela’s shoulder and whispered, “Look, we are trying to help you and your husband. Help us help you.”
The Wife fell into a most grievous wailing. Tears flowed from her eyes like the mighty Mississippi. Officer White tossed Black the box of Kleenex which he caught with his left hand and put in Pamela’s lap while extracting two which he used to wipe away her tears. He had to repeat this ritual several times.
Black pulled the Wife into his chest and let her cry freely. The other two officers watched in unsympathetic detachment. Black stroked Pamela’s hair and continued to whisper sweet niceties into her ear. Finally she gained her composure and sat up.
“Excuse me a minute. I am going to the restroom.” The officers watched Pamela as she strolled to a restroom opposite the living room and disappeared behind the door.
“What you think?” asked Officer White as Black rejoined him and Blundus on the couch. “Think she’s levelling with us?”
“Hell, no!” argued Blundus. “Here we have a woman married and living a middle class lifestyle and yet carrying on an affair with a known criminal. Then, she betrays the bastard who gets shot and her husband comes down to rescue him. Now both the fugitive and her husband are missing. Dammit, White, this lady is waist deep in shit trying to smell like a rose.”
Black was about to speak when he saw Pamela exit the restroom. He motioned for the other two officers to be quiet. Silence ensued as Pamela entered the room and reclaimed her seat. The plush carpet muffled her footsteps. Officer White was about to ask a question when the telephone rang.
Pamela reached over to a side table next to the love seat, picked up the receiver of the princess telephone, and answered it. “It’s for you,” she said as she offered the phone to Officer White who walked over and took hold of it.
“Yes, sir,” White said into the receiver. He looked at his partners as he listened intently. “You’re right. I see. OK. That sure clears up a lot of things. Okay. Yes, sir. We’ll get back to you on that. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Roger that. Over and out.”
“What’s up?” asked Blundus as White hung up the telephone and returned to the couch but did not sit down. Blundus and Black joined him in standing.
“The Captain. There have been some new developments.”
“Like what? Is it about my husband?” shouted the Wife. She too stood up.
“We’ll get to that in a minute. First, I need to ask you a few more questions,” answered White.
“Please,” pleaded Pamela, “I got to know. Have you heard something about my husband?”
“Yes, White; cut the mystery shit and get to the point!” demanded Blundus.
“Yea, White,” added Black, “Why put this young lady through any more suffering? Tell us what you know.”
“All in due time,” said White. “All in due time. Tell me, Mrs. Diggs, what do you think about this so-called revolution?”
“What? What kind of question is that?” fired Pamela as distress took hold of her. “What does that have to do with anything?” She felt weakness in her legs and so she sat down on the couch.
White gave her a searching look. He sat on the edge of the couch next to Pamela much like a hunter who has cornered his prey and said, “It has a lot to do with things. What’s the matter, do you have something to hide?”
This last question came as a surprise to all of the listeners. Black and Blundus gave White a penetrating look as if to ask, “What in the hell is your trip?”
Pamela buried her face into her hands and then convulsed over into her lap. She made a writhing sound; her body shook as if she was doing some African ritual dance.
“Get her a glass of water,” Black ordered White. White got up and went to the kitchen. He returned with a glass of water which he offered to the distressed Wife. She drank the water and soon composure returned.
The three officers huddled among themselves. They whispered softly while they awaited Pamela’s calming down.
Officer White broke the silence. “Look, Wife, we can do this the easy way or we can go Downtown and do it the hard way. You can cooperate with us and we can work this thing out together or you can keep playing hard ball, and we’ll continue to waste the precious time we don’t have and get nowhere. Which will it be?”
“I’m trying to help,” pleaded Pamela. She ran her fingers through her hair and dried her eyes with Kleenex tissues. “I want to find my husband. I’ve told you all I know.”
The Wife batted her eyelids. Her eyes glistened then darkened as her lips curved into a smile.
“Then why won’t you answer my question?” White continued. “What do you think of what the Assistant is doing?”
The Wife sat up straight. She looked at Blundus, then Black, then White. She wondered whether these officers were setting a trap for her. Yet, how could they? She had told the truth in her mind and had nothing to hide. Her only concern was finding out where her husband was and insuring he was okay.
She composed herself anew and said, “I think the so-called revolution is a bunch of shit. I mean, the Assistant never asked me or any other Black whether we wanted to be involved in a revolution. He, like so many other Negro leaders, took it upon himself to do what he thought was best for us. I’m sick and tired of living like that.
“Everybody thinks they know what is best for us. Hell, as Dr. Anna Julia Cooper has said so eloquently, ‘I just want to live my own life, in my own world, with my own chosen companions, in whatever comfort, luxury, or emoluments my talents and money can secure in an impartial marketplace.’”
“Why do you think I turned the Assistant in to the police? I didn’t like what he was doing. I’ve worked too hard to get to where I am, and I'm not going to let some idiot with pie-in-the-sky delusions ruin it! All I want is to be left alone. I don’t want my race to be a door or a key. I don’t want special treatment. I don’t want to be a quota. I just want to sail as high as my wings will take me or walk whatever path I choose. I just want to be me!”
“Right on, Sister!” shouted Black who raised a clenched fist to the ceiling. Blundus and White gave him penetrating and accusing looks.
“Sorry ‘bout that. Guess I got caught up in the rhetoric,” he said sheepishly. Notwithstanding his confession, Black joined the Wife who was now standing and shouting to the top of her voice. He hugged her and she hugged him and they hugged each other.
Blundus cleared her throat and this caused Black and Pamela to release each other. The three officers looked one to the other. They were impressed. They were convinced. Despite their earlier misgivings about her truthfulness, Pamela’s speech struck a chord with them which enabled the officers to recall that it was Pamela’s actions that had led to the discovery of papers identifying most of the leaders of the revolution. Many of them had been either arrested or killed. The others were forced underground by posters of them being circulated throughout the country.
“Okay, Mrs. Diggs,” said White. “We’re convinced you’re on the up and up. Go pack a suitcase. You’re coming with us.”
“With us, where?” asked a startled Black. Blundus echoed his question. So did Pamela.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” explained White. He looked at each of the persons in the room as he spoke. “Mrs. Diggs, we have every reason to believe that your husband and the Assistant are holed up at NORAD headquarters in Colorado. The Assistant killed one of our officers and we want his ass before the