Crimson Footprints (2 page)

Deena turned her attention
to the Asian man once again. She was struck by his eyes, wide and
heavy-lidded. His mouth was generous, his square face softened by
layers of thick black hair. He had boyish good looks and a long,
lean athletic frame.

Japanese.

She was certain he was
Japanese.

It was only when his eyes
caught hers and vaulted back towards her brother did she face
Anthony once more.

“
Will you put that
goddamned thing away?” Deena hissed.

The two stared at each
other, older sister, young brother, eyes narrowed. When he didn’t
move, Deena stepped between gun and stranger, eyes level with her
brother’s. A tense moment passed and in it Deena thought a thousand
thoughts—figures about accidental deaths and the number of people
killed each year by family members. Still, she stayed until Anthony
lowered his gun. She took the opportunity to snatch it. Only
afterwards did it occur to her that it could’ve
misfired.

Breathless, Deena turned to
the stranger.

“
I assume that’s your car,”
she said, nodding towards a sleek gray convertible parked
haphazardly, a shiny nickel in a murky puddle.

He nodded, glossy black
tresses falling into wide almond eyes.

“
Yeah, um, about that.” He
cleared his throat. “He, uh, took my keys.”

Deena turned to her brother,
hand extended in impatience. Anthony dropped the keys into her
waiting palm with a sigh, a new Ferrari slipping from his grasp
with reluctance.

She passed the keys over and
their fingertips brushed. Something warm and foreign turned over
and her lips parted in surprise. She thought she saw the makings of
a smile in his eyes, but she dismissed it. He took the keys and
thanked her. And as she watched him peel off with the top down on
his sleek convertible, Deena’s pulse skittered then and long
after.

CHAPTER TWO

Takumi Tanaka was possessed.
Only days had passed since he’d last seen her, but in that time,
he’d been consumed. She was everywhere. Pages and pages of his
sketchpad were devoted to her, the canvas on his easel, the canvas
in his mind. She’d haunted him that first night, that first moment
really, so much so that he’d rushed home and put pencil-to-paper
like a madman.

There was something about
her eyes. He couldn’t convey what he saw under those heavy
lashes—pain, sadness, defeat? Whatever it was, he’d wanted to
smooth it away with his hands, his lips and his heart.

He stared at the floor of
his studio, littered with sheets of ruined canvas, and knew he had
to see her again. With a groan, Takumi abandoned his work for the
morning paper. He had a love-hate relationship with The Arts
Section of
The Herald
, where he could laude their brilliance one minute and curse
their convoluted conclusions the next. So, he ventured out into the
hall and grabbed the paper from the corner it rested in. He was
grumpy and needed coffee, even as he opened the paper, an act that
would undoubtedly make him feel worse.

He scanned the front.
There, below the fold, was a common South Florida headline:
Liberty City Teen Found Slain
. And beneath it, a picture of his would-be assailant, the
six-foot hooligan who’d put a .32 to his face.

Anthony Hammond’s funeral
was in three days.

*

Anthony’s service was held
at Emmanuel Rises Baptist Church. It rained the day they buried
Deena’s brother, and according to Grandma Emma, it meant the devil
had come for his soul.

The windows of the limo that
housed the Hammond family were tinted, making a steely sky even
darker. Deena’s gaze fell from the heavens to a puddle in the
street and watched it swell with each gray and acidic
drop.

“
Honestly, I don’t know
what we expected,” Aunt Caroline said with. She paused long enough
to fuss through an oversized black purse, before coming away with a
lighter and a pack of Newports.

“
We shoulda expected this.
Especially after Man-Man got killed.”

“
But he didn’t even do
that!” Lizzie cried. “It was just—just a rumor.”

She was Deena’s last
sibling, fifteen, an ancient fifteen.

“
Mhm,” Caroline
said.

She balanced her cigarette
between fat and rouged lips before lighting up. The drag she took
was long and indulgent.

“
We shoulda been ready for
this,” she said with a nod. “I hate that I didn’t prepare myself
mentally. You know?”

“
Will you shut your ass
up?” Grandma Emma shouted. “And put that goddamned cigarette
away.”

She snatched it from her
daughter’s fingers, never one to wait, let the window down and
heaved it.

“
Got a mouth like diarrhea.
You keep on and somebody’ll stop it up for you.”

Silence filled the limousine
again. Silence, save for Lizzie’s sobs, soft and gut wrenching.
Deena turned back to her puddle and soon a tap on the window
interrupted them.

It was time.

They were escorted into the
sanctuary by twos, an usher flanked on either end by a Hammond.
They took their seats on the front left pew, under the watchful
gaze of a full house. Standing sprays of white roses, larkspur and
gladiolus surrounded a solid copper casket at the front. But no one
would see the beauty of the cream quilted interior that cradled
Anthony’s body—four gunshots and Miami heat prevented that. But
Deena had seen it, seen him, before the lid of a coffin closed
between them forever. And the blood of her brother had painted her
nightmares ever since.

Floor arrangements of
lilies, statice and caspia flanked each end of Anthony’s coffin,
brilliant in sunburst orange, lilac and ivory. A poster-sized
portrait of him in a button-up and tie stood at the back of the
casket, facing an audience with standing room only. Walter Haines,
an old and weathered black man who’d played at her father’s and
grandfather’s funeral, stroked out gentle gospel from an organ
onstage. Deena wondered if he’d play at her’s, too.

Seven years had passed
since the last Hammond burial, when they laid to rest Deena’s
grandfather. Were he still alive, she knew what he’d say.
Justice.
Anthony’s fate
was justice, as sin begot sin.

Deena blinked in surprise
at the program in her hand. Looking down at the picture of her
brother, even now, she couldn’t help but smile back.
It was a portrait of Anthony in the
10
^th
grade, his grin wide-mouthed and toothy—silly in that
contrary way that was his alone.
He was
love one moment and fire the next, never able to find rest in his
mind. She only prayed that finally, he had.

Late mourners poured in, an
army of them, as if to make a show of it. Each wore a black tee
with white letters that read “R.I.P. Tony Hammond” and beneath it a
picture of Deena’s brother. In it, his hair was a cascade of toffee
coils that fell to his shoulders, so heavy that it parted down the
center from its weight. The smile here was ominous as he held a
Budweiser in one hand and a .32 in the other.

The picture looked recent.
Really recent.

“
Deena?” Lizzie
whispered.

She turned to face her kid
sister.

“
Yeah?”

“
I don’t want them
here.”

Deena nodded. She didn’t
want them there either.

Takumi slipped into the
church and stood at the back of the sanctuary, heart ricocheting
with the power of a cannonball. Settling on a place near a cluster
of ushers in navy vests, he let his gaze sweep the pews.

He saw her, saw the hair
first—coils of honey, cinnamon and chocolate, cascading like a
waterfall. A moment passed and he remembered to breathe
again.

A black woman with short and
plastered curls stood from her place on the front pew and
approached the microphone. She introduced herself as Rhonda
Hammond, aunt of the late Anthony Hammond. Her voice was soft and
therapeutic, the way only an aunt’s can be. With lips too close to
the microphone, she presented an assortment of sympathy gifts, but
there weren’t very many. A basket of fruit, a vase of Peruvian
lilies, a prayer plant from the church. Three dozen red roses from
Daichi Tanaka and the Tanaka Firm.

That caught his
attention.

Aunt Rhonda found her seat.
A short stout man named Mr. Phillips stood and ventured to the
piano. His wife, a tall and thick-browed black woman with a
hawk-nose and long fingers, followed him. Even as a child, Deena
thought the couple looked more like brothers than husband and wife.
Mrs. Phillips found the microphone, cleared her throat and closed
her eyes. Deena waited, knowing what would follow.

Mr. Phillips came in first,
delicate and unobtrusive on the piano with a subtle melody. When
his wife slipped in to join him, she pierced Deena with a voice she
both loved and hated. It was beautiful and awful, smooth, rich and
melancholy, all with the first damned note. They rose together,
piano and woman, never relenting in their melodic
sorrow.

“
It’s time to be with the
Lord,” she sang, and she for one was ready. “When our time here is
through, it’s time to be with the Lord.”

There were more songs,
hopeful, upbeat, rousing numbers sung by a rocking choir in white
robes. They served their purpose, Deena supposed, raising the
spirits of those around her, until most were on their feet
shouting, clapping, jumping in tune to love-filled lyrics. But
seven years of Sunday school had taught Deena that Anthony was not
in the joy-filled place they promised her. And because of that, she
was grateful when all of them shut the hell up.

People shared stories about
Anthony next. Aunt Rhonda murmured in a voice too low about his
pension for practical jokes and infectious smile, her eyes rimmed
red. A cousin of Deena’s, one of Caroline’s children, talked about
a time Anthony stood up and fought a bully for him. “Never a
coward,” he said in quiet admiration, “never.” Deena wondered if it
was bravery that put him in the ground. Others went, including
Lizzie, who broke down with the first word and had to be
half-carried back to her pew.

When Deena rose, she made
her way to the microphone with a wad of tissues in her fist. From
her place at the podium, she stared at the coffin. An eternity
passed, and finally, her own voice surprised her.

“
I didn’t want to do this,”
she said softly. Her eyes found the ceiling and she struggled to
inhale.

“
Coming here and talking to
you like this is an admission, an acceptance, and I’m not ready to
do that just yet.”

She laughed bitterly and
shifted her weight.

“
You know, if you knew my
brother, you know he was like a train wreck. He had no problem
tearing from the tracks and—and running roughshod through the
forest.” Deena swallowed, shook her head. “And as crazy as this
sounds, I admire that. I wish I had that kind of
strength.”

She lifted her gaze from the
coffin.

“
I don’t want to negate the
things he’s done, or the people he’s hurt. No doubt people have
stood, as heartbroken as I am now, because—” she broke off.
“Because of who my brother was.”

She surveyed the crowd,
meeting them frankly for the first time.

“
I need you to know, to
believe, that there was good in him. That he was a good brother,
that he had value and that people loved him.”

Deena opened her mouth to
say more, closed it, and retreated her the pew. Once there, she
collapsed in sobs.

When the service ended six
pallbearers, all cousins, hoisted the solid copper casket onto
their shoulders. They carried Anthony Hammond to the tune of an
upbeat gospel about marching up to heaven on an angel’s wings.
Deena stood, swayed a bit, and found Aunt Rhonda there to steady
her. They walked arm in arm, with Deena’s gaze on the floor as the
Hammonds made their way to the exit. God had given her so few to
love, so very few, and saw fit to take even them from her. He hated
Deena. And she hated Him.

Deena raised her gaze,
though she didn’t know why. Searching, searching until she saw him
tucked away near the ushers.

Their eyes locked, and
stayed locked, through Deena’s slow procession, until she was out
the door and could see him no more.

*

At the front of an empty
church, Takumi ran an appreciative hand over the brass cymbals of a
drum set. It was a Tama Swingstar, good quality, great price. When
he was seven, he fell in love with the sound of a birch Yamaha and
had remained true ever since. He didn’t get to play much anymore,
as the crashing sound was counter conducive to being neighborly.
These days, Takumi relied on the guitar or keyboard for a bit of
melodic retrospection. But none of that had a thing to do with the
price of dairy in Denver. So, why the hell did he
linger?