WE SEARCHED ALL NIGHT LONG. We took Teddy’s black Escalade with silver rims with a few of his people following. We used a ton of cell phones and followed a trail through so many strip clubs that I started to smell like smoke and could guarantee that they’d play some Aerosmith song before I left. We checked out late-night diners like the Hummingbird and clubs where he’d hung out. We checked out this Uptown apartment he’d shared with a woman who’d borne two of his children and even deep down into the Ninth Ward to the leaning shotgun houses where the Paris brothers had grown up.
Teddy told me stories about their grandmother and that an uncle of theirs had been some kind of soundman for the Ohio Players. He told me about his first business running dime bags for some local hustler in the early seventies and how Malcolm once had a box haircut so tall it bounced when he walked.
He talked about his brother’s talent and how he recognized hit songs the first time he heard them on the radio. Teddy talked about how Malcolm had found Dio and how it had changed him from a man selling CDs out the back of his Buick Regal to being one of the richest African-Americans in Louisiana. He smiled.
“We worked together, all right,” he said.
He steered the Escalade with both hands.
“We done all right.”
We drove.
No one knew a thing about his brother. ALIAS still wouldn’t answer his phone.
From cinderblock bars in Algiers to some backdoor clubs in the Quarter, we were worn-out by 6 A.M. I was outside the Ninth Ward Studio leaning against the gold brick wall and smoking when I heard Teddy walk back out.
The sky had just started to turn purple at dawn. The air in the Ninth Ward smelled salty and mildewed from the channel. I could smell the diesel fumes from the trucks and hear the hiss of the brakes as they moved on. I watched Teddy as he rolled up his sleeves and made a couple more calls, pacing.
ALIAS came down to the studios about 7:30 wearing the same clothes from when I’d left him at his house. He gave Teddy and me a tired pound and said, “I heard.”
Everybody had heard. Everyone Teddy knew – a big crowd – was looking for Malcolm.
We all drove. The thought of Cash seemed weaker now. Teddy almost welcomed it.
“The deal’s off,” Teddy told me with such confidence I almost believed him.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“My family’s in trouble,” he said. “That will make sense to him.”
“And you being dead wouldn’t cause trouble for your family?”
“It ain’t the same,” Teddy said, wheeling the Bentley with me and ALIAS back down Canal and onto St. Charles and then to the Camellia Grill at the end of the streetcar line. He bought breakfast for twenty-three people who’d been out looking for Malcolm and gave a big speech right outside the diner as the rain first started to come about 8 A.M.
He offered a reward for anyone who could find his brother alive. He never mentioned the note or suicide or anything other than that something had happened. I got the feeling that most people blamed Cash.
I had just gotten my third cup of coffee to go and was walking outside when I saw Teddy leaned against his Bentley crying. He just kept nodding and nodding but his words made him sound like a child who was confused.
I watched ALIAS disappear down the streetcar tracks and then turn his walk into a run as if he could escape from the sadness that was about to wash over people he knew.
I walked slow across the tracks and stood by Teddy.
He looked down on me.
“They found him,” he said. “He’s come home.”
“What?”
“He’s finally come home.”
Teddy had cracked. I just helped him into the car and aimed it toward the parish line. That’s where Teddy said they were keeping the body.
The rain started hammering the hood of the car just as we made the turn by the Metairie Cemetery.
