Latoya: Episode XIX - Unseen Connections

 

I checked into Panache Motel which turned out to be exactly what Captain Wilkens had said it would be. It was a comfortable and cheap motel, and their employees seemed pleased to see me.

The room they gave me was in the third floor. It faced the beach and ocean, and had a private bath. One of their employees helped me to carry my bag up to my room. As we were going up,. He asked me if I wanted a bottle of Vodka sent up, I told him it’ll be a good idea. He brought the bottle of Vodka himself without the usual irritating delay.

“Anything else, Mr. Emeka?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “Can you tell me where Mt. Vernon Avenue is in  Old Town?”

“Sure,” he said. “Turn left when you leave the motel, and drive to the main street. Turn right on the first intersection, and continue up to the fourth set of traffic lights. Next, turn left and that’ll bring you to the St. Lo Road. Mt. Vernon Avenue  is the fourth on the left. Note that it’ll take you about fifteen minutes to get there by car.”

I thanked him and gave him a dollar.  When he had gone, I took off my clothes and had a shower. Then I took another drink, got dressed, and went down to where I parked the Chevrolet.

It took me exactly fifteen minutes by the dashboard clock to reach  Mt. Vernon Avenue. I can see clearly that this neighborhood is for the rich people. Small and single luxury houses, each of them with a perfectly groomed gardens, stood in isolated tree-surrounded plots. Every house in the neighborhood is different, and you could see that the architect that designed each house had tried to do better than their rivals by putting up a better, more modern and flashy building than the one next door.

Number 230 Mt. Vernon Avenue was at the far end of the avenue, and was probably the last of them to be built. It was a two-storey townhome  with a gable roof Dormer window. A flight of wooden steps with a carved handrail led to the front door which was of white oak with a lion’s head in the wood for a knocker. Overhead hung a wrought-iron Victorian lantern that was probable made by some local blacksmith in an artistic moment.

The garden was one of the tidiest I have ever seen. In fact, if I own a garden like this, I don’t think I would allow anybody, including myself, to walk on it.

I left the Chevrolet, pushed open the gate and walked up the path, flanked on either side by different types of flowery shrubs. I climbed the steps to the front door, lifted the lion’s head and knocked.

There was a pause while I leaned against the carved handrail. I can feel the sun hot on my back, and as I was about to knock at the door again, the front door opened.

A tall, lean black man stood in the doorway, with his muscular, hairy hand resting on the doorpost. He looked as if he had  just stepped from the glossy pages of the Ebony magazine. He had a face which most ladies who likes the actor type will consider remarkably handsome. He had on a light blue pyjamas, open at the throat, and his feet were also in a light blue open heel slippers. He was a sight that would make a lady’s heart flutter, but he didn’t do anything to mine.

“Hi,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

A blast of Vodka-laden breath  nearly blew the skin off my face. H hasn’t been drinking Vodka; he had been bathing in it.

“Mr. Quentin Powell?”

“Yes,” he said. “Who wants to know?”

He leaned a little more heavily against the doorpost. I began to ask myself if I would ever get anything reasonable from him in his present drunken state.

“I’m Emeka Okeke,” I replied. “I write for Baltimore Star, and I wanted to talk to you.”

He frowned and half closed his eyes.

“Baltimore Star? You mean the newspaper?

“That’s right,” I said. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

“Sure, mate,” he said. “Come in and have a drink.”

With that, he stood aside.

“I am glad to see you,” he continued. “In fact, I was getting as bored as a dick at an abstinence party. Do you ever get bored?”

I moved into a hall full of fancy carvings, basketball souvenirs, a British grandfather clock and ornate rugs.

I said I get bored sometimes as well.

“Only sometimes?” he asked. “You are a lucky guy then. Come on in.”

Crossing the hall, he went down three steps into a large lounge. He was so drunk that he only just made the steps. He would probably have sat on the floor if he hadn’t clutched on to the back of a chair as he approached the steps.

His lounge was both comfortable and ornate. I have no doubt in my mind that the architect who designed this room was either from Britain, or has British taste, given the way it was designed. With one of the paintings on the wall showing snow heaped against the widows of a house and the other showing an avalanche breaking loose elsewhere, the architect do indeed have the British motive firmly in mind when he has set about this room.

I had only time to take the room in with one quick glance before I became aware of a fat black girl sitting on a red divan looking at me the way one looks at a fly that fell into their coffee. Though she was fat, she was very, very, lovely. And, as someone who likes fat, black ladies, I began to envy Mr. Powell  for having her. She had on a light-blue  sun-suit that failed to disguise her good points, her long, bare, fleshy legs were the nicest I had seen so far in Alexandra.

She got slowly to her feet, with her eyes glittering with well controlled rage, even though she managed to smile a me – the kind of smile in which the rest of the person’s face stay still while they are smiling.

“But Quentin darling,” she said, “we were talking…”

“This is Mr. … Damn! I forgot  again,” Mr. Powell said, squinting his eyes and peering at me. “What did you say your name was?”

“Emeka,” I said, “but if I’m in the way…”

“No, you are not,” Mr. Powell said, putting a hot, heavy hand on my shoulder. “Latasha dear, this is Mr. Emeka. He has important business to discuss with me. Perhaps we can meet tomorrow instead? I will pick you up myself. What do you say?”

The girl stared angrily at him, then walked past him, up the stairs and into the hall, her hips bouncing seductively as she moved. Mr. Powell turned slowly to watch her. She went to the front door, opened it, passed on to the stoop. Then slammed the door so violently one of the basketball souvenirs on the wall in the hall fell down.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Powell. I didn’t …” I began.

Mr. Powell laughed.

“Don’t worry about her,” he said. “You don’t know how glad I am you turned up. Latasha is cute and sexy, but she drives me nuts.” He went over to a cocktail cabinet loaded with bottles, and poured two enormous Vodkas. He added ice and steered himself back with some difficulty to where I was standing. He then handed me one of the drinks, dropped drunkenly into a sofa and waved his glass at me.

“Phew!” he said and drank deeply. Sighing and setting down the glass, he waved me to a chair.

“Sit down, Mr. Emeka. Relax. Do you like fat, black women?”

“I must confess that I do,” I said, sitting down.

“I have a weakness for them,” he said, gloomily. “I bring them to my house and get laid. After that, they start getting on my nerves, and if I let them go away, I become lonely. It’s a hell of a life, isn’t it?”

I said I agrees with him.

“So, we have similar experience then,” he said.

He saw I was taking another look at the room and said hurriedly, as if he was concerned I would think he was responsible for the décor, “My landlord is nuts. Don’t think I did this. Yes, I only rent this dump. I plan to go to Britain one day and put up an American styled bungalow. That will shake them more than this dump shakes me.” He ran his fingers across his forehead, frowned, then continued, “What do you want from me, Mr. Emeka?”

“I understand you wrote to the Baltimore City police about the photo of LaToya Young that appeared in the press.”

He stared at me, blinked and nodded.

“Yes, I did,” he said. “How did you know?”

“I was walking with the Baltimore City police on this case,” I replied. “We want to find something about LaToya’s background.”

“What the fuck!” he said. “Why the hell did the police sent you to me, instead of coming themselves?”

“Alexandra is out of their jurisdiction. I said I would see you to avoid complications.” I took LaToya Young’s photo from my wallet and offered it to him. “That’s LaToya. Do you still remember her?”

He took LaToya’s photo, squinted his eyes while peering at it. Then he reached out and turned on the table lamp to see it better.

“That’s her,” he said. “The face is the same, though she was a little darker than in this photo when I knew her. But I can’t forget that face. Mind you, I’m an expert when it comes to women’s faces. I had to because I design cover pages for magazines.” He waved the photo at me. “A girl with this face modelled for me. Latasha, the girl who went out just now also models for me too. You have no idea how crazy these girls are.” He waved LaToya’s photo again. “This one cost me both time and money. You wouldn’t believe it to look at her, correct? I thought when I met her she would be easy to handle. How wrong I was! She turned out to be as crazy as the rest of them.”

“Was her name LaToya Young?”

He shook his head.

“No. Her name was Leisha  York. She was one of the strippers at the Golden Triangle. That’s a popular night club on Eisenhower Boulevard in case you don’t know.”

 

“You said she modelled for you?”

 

“Yes, she did,” he said. “At least that was my plan – to have her model for me. As a matter of fact, she did quite a lot of work for me. I met her at the club last June. I mean, June of last year. I spotted her at club because she have just the right face and figure for a good cover design. I scheduled several appointments for her to come out here and pose. At first, things were going well and she comes here regularly. Then suddenly, she had an appointment to come one day and she never showed up. I haven’t seen her since then.”

“When was that? Do you still remember?”

 “Around August last year,” he replied.

 “Could you give me the exact date, if you don’t mind?” I said. “It is very important.”

 “I believe you.”  He groaned as he hoisted himself out of the sofa and went unsteadily across the room to a big closet. He took from it a cardboard folder and returned to his sofa. “I still have the last drawing I did for her somewhere in this folder. It’s not done yet, but I wrote the date on the back.” Thumbing through a pile of half-finished sketches, he pulled out one and handed it to me.

“That’s the sketch of her,” he said. “The date is on the back.”

By looking at the sketch, I concluded that he certainly could draw. And I recognized the girl even though the drawing was only half finished. There was no doubt she was LaToya Young. I looked at the back of the sketch. The date was August 2^nd. Fifteen days after she posed for him in this room, LaToya had disappeared from Baltimore City. She had arrived in West Baltimore on August 9^th.  I began to ask myself what she had been doing between August 2^nd and August 9^th? It wasn’t an easy question to answer.

“Yes, that’s LaToya Young all right,” I said, handing back the sketch. “Can you remember if she gave you the impression that she might not turn up to finish her modelling?”

 He shook his head.

 “No, it was a complete disappointment,” he said. “She loved the sketch, and she said she was looking forward to seeing it finished. I told her it will be ready if I work on her for one more day. As a matter of fact, it was her who suggested she came the next day, and she chose the time she will be here too. Then I waited for her but she never turned up.”

“By what time did she left your house on August 2^nd?”

“Around four o’clock, I will say,” he replied. “I hated working long hours. She came at twelve-thirty, and we worked until two, then we had a Chinese food lunch, and she left at four.”

“Did she show up at the Golden Triangle that night?”

 “Yes, she did,” he said. “Incidentally, I was there and I saw her. She took part in the show.”

 “Do you know where she lived?”

 “I believe I do,” he said. “I am really meticulous, Mr. Emeka. You may not know it by looking at me, but I’ve got a method.” He produced a card index from the cupboard, flicked through it, found a card, and gave it to me.

 I examined the card.

 Leisha. York,  Lizzy. 259 N. Washington Avenue, VA 22314. Showgirl and Stripper.  The Golden Triangle Club. Age 26. Black (African American). Height 5ft. 7. Bust 38. Hips 40. Weight 160 lbs. Photogenic.  Good patient Model.

“I keep a record of them all,” he said. "So, when I want them again, I run through the cards until I find them.”

I wrote down the address.

“Do you know if she had a boyfriend?” I asked.

 “I don’t really know,” he said. “It is my policy not to get personal with my models. This is because I often run into trouble each time I gets personal with them. Latasha is a good example. I mean, she is a good model, no doubt. But then she thinks she can boss me around: she slams doors, gets mad at me whenever she feels like it, and she won’t do as she’s told. I blame myself though, because I got personal with her.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting personal with Latasha myself,” I said. “Anyway, do you know a guy who calls himself Eddie Peterson? He is a white guy of about  six foot, lean, with an eyebrow moustache, and he runs a grey-colored  BMW convertible?”

Mr. Powell shook his head.

“No, I don’t.” He closed his eyes, and I could see he was fast losing interest in our conversation. “Well, Emeka, if I can’t help you anymore, I guess I’ll get back to my bed. I’m not really feeling as alert and bright as I did when I got up this morning.”

“You did your best, Mr. Powell,” I said, getting to my feet. “And, I am grateful. I may have to call on you again. You go and get some sleep, sir. I can find my way out.”

I realized was talking to the air in the room. By the time I reached the hall, Mr. Powell had began to snore.

 

 

 

 

 

END OF EPISODE 19

P.S. Stay tuned for Episode 20, which  will be published here next Sunday.