Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins (read any book .TXT) 📕

to tell her to come in. She said hello then reached in her pocket to show her ID, but the man smiled and said, “I know who you are. Everyone in every precinct knows who you are. Have a seat.”

Amara lowered herself into the chair in front of the officer’s desk and said, “I’m seeking information about Yvonne Robinson. She used to work here, but I hear she retired?”

“Yeah, five years ago. One of my favorite colleagues. Is there something I can help you with as a proxy?”

Amara looked at his tag that indicated his name was Evans and replied, “I’m not sure. Me and Officer Robinson connected on the fact that she was born and raised in Harlem, and it helped with her understanding a particular issue.”

“I was born and raised in Harlem too. What is the issue?”

A white man walked past the windows, and Amara waited until he was gone before she continued, “You familiar with the Melancon women?”

He burst into laughter. “Of course I am. Why?”

“I’m seeking more updates on them. Any . . . suspicious activity that you’ve seen, since you are close by?”

“Nothing too much out of the ordinary. Not enough for an arrest warrant, if that’s what you’re implying, so don’t think about just showing up, because that’s already been done.”

“Been done? By who?”

Officer Evans leaned over his desk and perched his fingers on the surface. “By me.”

Amara blinked and crossed one leg over the other. “I’m listening.”

“Both me and Officer Robinson had issues with those women. Quite a few do, but—”

“You need more muscle to really take this on, I know. Robinson told me this years ago.”

“Yeah, like a pro—”

“A prosecutor. I know.” Amara nodded. “That’s why I’m here.”

Officer Evans raised his right eyebrow and folded his hands on top of his desk. “So what is your plan of action, then? What charges are you going to go for, because what they do technically exists in a gray area.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Intrigued, Officer Evans raised his eyebrows. “I’m listening.”

“Organ trafficking. There’s your charge. And if the caul is traveling across state lines, that could be federal racketeering.”

“But the caul isn’t an organ. It’s not like kidney selling.”

“Is skin not an organ?”

“Heh. Well, I’ll be damned. Is it?”

“If the caul has tissues and it performs a task, then it is an organ. Trust me, I’ve been studying this for a very long time.”

Officer Evans said, “And so have we. Do you know how long we’ve been trying to nab them? Many false starts. Probably before you were even alive.”

“Yes, but I have the power.”

“Not yet, you don’t. If you want the manpower and the resources, then you, Miss Assistant DA, aren’t powerful enough.”

“I know that, which is why I’m going to run for DA.”

“Hmph.” His eyes drifted to the corner.

“What?”

“You got a plan for that?”

“Like a campaign?”

“No, no, a plan. I hope you don’t think you can just take the podium and say that you plan to go after these women.”

“No, of course not.”

“Good. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t let your right hand know what your left is doing. You just keep doing your job downtown and work on getting that money for your campaign. I’ll be watching. And if it picks up steam, we’ll find each other. Deal?”

“Deal.”

14

Months after Hallow held her meeting with the other caulbearers, Maman’s health had weakened and she needed more assistance. In the mornings, Josephine would tiptoe down the stairs with a bar of soap, towel, and washcloth inside of a plastic basin. Though on this day, Maman was not lying flat on her back in bed as she always did while Josephine bathed her but was instead sitting on the window seat facing the street. The sunlight that permeated through the window emphasized the sharpness of the bones in her body and the innumerable wrinkles on her face and neck. Her mahogany cane rested at her feet, and the wraps of her turban were folded across her small lap. From where Josephine stood at the foot of the staircase, her mother’s hair looked prickly as a porcupine’s but much more sparse and uneven, and the skin sagged so deeply that not even the sash around her waist could keep her body from looking as if it would droop onto the floor at any moment. She didn’t immediately call out for Maman but watched her by leaning against the bannister with a chest that ached for her mother.

This kind of reserve had been uncharacteristic for Maman only a few years prior, but now, she always looked out the front-facing window every afternoon or evening to watch passersby. Oftentimes, she would cry into the inserts of her bra or bite down on her knuckles with the heartbreaking realization that West 145th and Frederick Douglass might as well have been East 66th and Madison because of all the white people moving in. All of the women save Abigail—Patricia, Sister McCleary, and Claudia—had moved out to the Bronx, or to places in New Jersey like Elizabeth and New Brunswick. Starbucks outbid the bodega that the Melancons leased when it was time to renew, and Maman couldn’t bear to walk down that street any longer, because upon signing on the dotted line for that lease handover, Maman discovered that it wasn’t just about the money. She wanted to maintain a stake in Harlem, but she was disillusioned at the possibility that she was being uprooted.

“Maman?” Josephine drew closer to her mother.

“Hmm?” Maman turned her face toward Josephine. She could see from the redness extending beyond the gray rings around her mother’s eyes and the puffiness in her cheeks that she had been crying, a reaction that worried Josephine due to its increasing frequency.

“It’s time for your bath.”

Maman took a deep breath in and coughed from the exhale. She tried to lean over to grab her cane but wheezed and held on to Josephine instead.

When Josephine opened the door to Maman’s bedroom, she caught a coughing fit herself when a rancid smell ambushed her nostrils. She