The Right Mistake Read Online Free PDF Page B

to usher in the young soul singer. Lodz wore a form-fitting dark green dress. Her face was wide and beautiful, the color of café con leche. She had a generous figure that was matched by a friendly smile. The woman beside her caught Socrates’ attention.
This woman was slender and very dark. She wasn’t smiling and she wore black pants and a white blouse. Her hair was the only expression to her; it was wild, sticking out all over the place as if she had just run through the woods escaping the dogs.
“This is my, uh . . . Socrates, Miss Barnet,” Darryl was saying as Socrates came up to join them. “Miss Lodz say that you know her cousin Leroy.”
“He took Leroy to the hospital when no one else would,” Marianne said. “And when I tried to pay him he said that he didn’t need to be paid for doin’ what’s right.”
Marianne shook Socrates’ hand and then got up on her toes to kiss his cheek.
“Hi,” she said. “This is my friend Luna Barnet. I hope you don’t mind that I brought her with me.”
Socrates had to concentrate to avert his gaze from young Luna’s passive stare. There was something sensual in the woman’s flat eyes. She seemed to be appraising the big man; he felt that she had put him up on the block as if he were being judged for his strength and stamina, his ability to take orders and lurking willfulness.
“Hi,” she said in a slow urban patois that had once languished in the southern states.
Socrates winced, stung by her mild salutation.
“Why don’t you ladies come on in?” he said, turning quickly, headed for the Big Table (as it came to be known).
Darryl hurried up next to him excitedly.
“Ms. Lodz said she’d sing for us if you wanted, Socco,” he said.
“Did you say hello before you asked her to sing?”
“Yeah,” he said defensively.
“This ain’t no concert, D-boy. It’s a meetin’.”
“But after the meetin’…”
“It’s not that kind of meetin’,” Socrates said, pushing on ahead of his ward.
When he came toward the table, followed by the panting young man and the women, Socrates said, “Ev’rybody, this is Marianne Lodz and Luna Barnet. Say hello.”
When he moved to the side for the people to come together Socrates noticed Luna still looking at him with the dispassionate interest of someone who had just roused from a deep sleep.
    Billy Psalms brought in a bottle of Blue Angel and a stack of Dixie Cups. The gambler and the lawyer, social worker and carpenter came around Lodz. She had a song on the radio at that time called “Bring it on over.” It played around the city and she was getting a name for herself. Darryl hung on her every word. She was kind and gracious but a little distant, like a friendly prison guard, Socrates thought. Then he saw Luna watching him while pretending to be looking around the room.
    Another knock at the door and Socrates was happy to turn away.
Mustafa Ali and Wan Tai had arrived together. Socrates thought that Mustafa had been at the Chinese man’s dojo before coming to the inauguration of the Big Nickel School.
“Socco,” the white bearded and brown skinned Ali hailed.
“Mr. Fortlow,” Wan Tai whispered, making the slightest nod as he spoke. The karate master always looked directly into Socrates’ eyes when addressing him.
The host put out a hand to each man.
“Welcome to the Big Nickel, brothers. They’re almost all here by now. Go on in and introduce yourselves.”
“Socco,” a man called before the front door closed.
It was Ronald Zeal. Even hearing the voice Socrates felt a thrill of excitement; not fear, not exactly—but the inner clenching he always felt just before a serious fight. It was a kill or be killed moment that he had to climb over before saying, “Hey, Zeal. What’s happenin’, man?”
“Nuttin’ to it,” the young man replied in his studiedly casual approach toward the big felon.
Socrates turned his head into the house and called out, “Billy, put on the cornbread.”
“Okay, Socco.”
Ronald