Little Girl Lost 6: The Return of Johnnie Wise (41 page)

The whole thing seemed crazy to her, but she simply said, “Sure. No problem. I’ll be right there.” She grabbed a skirt and blouse combination, pulled off the tags, and took them into the other room.

“First, I need you to help me get him on the floor. Then, I’m going to lift his torso, and you’ll have to slide his underwear on.”

She looked at his naked flesh and said, “I think I should clean his thing off. If the coroner sees it dripping, he’ll get suspicious.”

“Good idea. But hurry up. We gotta plan this thing out and we don’t have much time.”

She hustled into the bathroom, wet a face towel, and put some soap on it. Then she came back and cleaned his leg and his penis off. She had cleaned Earl off many times before, but having Masterson watching her do it made her uneasy.

She took the towel back into the bathroom, rinsed it, and hurried back into the bedroom. After removing the soap, she said, “What do you need me to do?”

“Put his underwear on and pull them up as far as you can. Then, I’ll hoist him, and then you can pull them up the rest of the way, okay?”

“Okay,” she said and picked up his white underwear. She lifted his left foot and slid the garment over it. Then, she did the same thing to the other foot.

“One. Two. Three.” He grunted when he lifted Earl, and she quickly slid his underwear up to his waist. He eased Earl back to the floor and said, “Now the pants and we’re almost home.”

After putting Earl’s shoes on, they walked back into the other room and sat down at the dining table across from each other. “Gloria’s a smart cookie, Johnnie. What are you going to tell her?”

“I’m going to tell her I need her to help me get the paper in the typewriter straight.”

“That’s not going to work. She’ll wanna know why it’s so important to get it done tonight.”

“She knows why it’s important tonight. I told her earlier I need to get Hank’s stock portfolio done tonight. She knows how important it is to me to get it done, but if that gets done too fast, I can talk to her about what stocks she might want to look into to keep her busy. She’s been trying to get me to tell her since I got here. I told her I had to charge a fee just like she charges for rooms. I think she’ll jump at the chance to get some insight on a stock or two.”

“Okay, but don’t force the issue. Let her lead the conversation to the stock market. Otherwise, she might get suspicious. Can you handle that?”

“Yes. How much time do you need to get him out of here?”

“Hopefully, about fifteen minutes, but try to see if you can keep her busy for twenty to thirty minutes just in case I run into a problem. Then you need to get back up here and get in bed.”

“I don’t think I can sleep in that bed again, Paul, if I can sleep at all.”

“I understand. Sleep wherever you can, but try to get some sleep. It’s important that you show up for work tomorrow and every day for the next three weeks until you leave town. Everything must look like it did since you arrived.”

“What are you going to do with Earl?”

“I’m going to drive him back to New Orleans. I’ll have to catch a bus back. I know I told you I was going to stay another week or so, but the smart play is for me to get outta town in the morning.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“That’s up to you.”

“I’d love to see you again, Paul, but just in case I don’t, I want you to know how much I appreciate you helping with this. Things would have turned out real bad for me if you hadn’t come up to see me.”

“This is going to sound crazy, but if you want to seal this deal, we outta get married. That way if something unexpected happens, if they find something in his car or at his home that we don’t know about, or if he told someone he was coming here to see you, we can’t be made to testify against each other.”

“Why would I testify against you, Paul? You didn’t do anything.”

“I’m what the police would call an accessory after the fact. I can go to jail for covering up what could be construed as a crime. And since they would love to arrest you, they’d be glad to get me, too. It’ll be another sensational case with the same woman that supposedly killed her stockbroker. Only this time you won’t get off. This time, they’ll make sure you go to prison. But getting married is up to you. Once I’m gone, I won’t be back here for a long time, so you need to let me know now what you wanna do.”

“We can’t get married, Paul? You’re white, and I’m colored. It’s illegal, isn’t it?”

“Sure, we can, Johnnie. There are a number of states that’ll let us get married. I’ve actually married a number of blacks and whites in the northern states.”

“Yeah, but was it legal? Will their marriages hold up in a court of law?”

“Yes, it is legal, and it’s been legal for a long time. You and most Americans don’t know the law in other states.”

“Are you sure? I’ve never heard anything like that. Since when can blacks and whites get married? This must be fairly recent, if what you’re saying is true.”

“It is true, Johnnie. Why would I lie about something like that? I wouldn’t. But you’re right, California is fairly recent. They just changed their law six years ago in 1948, but blacks and whites have been able to get legally married in Pennsylvania since 1780. The state of Iowa changed its laws against interracial marriages between blacks and whites in 1851. Some of the other states that changed their laws against it are Maine, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, New Mexico, Kansas, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Washington. Now I know you black southerners like to call us white folk crackers, but who do you think changed those laws in the northern Midwest states? Negroes? No. It was decent God-fearing white folk who changed those laws, which means the Negro just might have a real future in this country—at least in those progressive states most Americans wouldn’t think of as progressive.”

Stunned that so many States allowed what she and others had always needed to hide, she shook her head and said, “Paul, you’re not going to believe this, but seconds before you knocked on my door, I thought I heard the Lord say he was sending me help. And the help turned out to be you. But I gotta be honest with you, I don’t love you. Now do you still want to marry me?”

“At this point, I can’t say I love you either, but, if we wanna be sure the law can’t come after either of us, I think the smart play is to get married. Besides, didn’t you say you wanted to be a traveling evangelist when you were a little girl?”

“You are. I think ol’ Earl dying the way he did changed everything. And besides, you said the Lord told you a little while ago that he had sent you some help, right?”

“Funny you should mention where I’d like to honeymoon. An old friend offered to take me to France, but I can go with you instead.”

“I’ll tell you what, meet me at City Hall in Providence, Rhode Island, at 9 am sharp the first of March, and we’ll get married if you don’t change your mind. I’ll book passage to sail over to France. I’ll take you to the Negresco Hotel in Nice, where we’ll spend a couple weeks together. Do you like to travel?”

“Yes. I mean, I think I do. I think I would love to travel. I think I’d love to get out of the United States for a while. If for no other reason just so I can relax and not have to worry about white folks trying to put me in jail for something I didn’t do.”

“I’ll tell you what then, let’s travel the world together. I bet you’ve never been on a passenger ship that can sail from one continent to the other, have you?”

“No. My goodness, Paul, you make it all sound so exciting.”

“It is exciting, Johnnie. You’ll love it. I’ve been just about everywhere. After we spend a couple weeks in Nice, we can travel around the world on a cruise ship for the next two to three years. That way, you can see all the wonders of the world, and if the authorities try to find us, we’ll never be in the same place long enough even if they did try to look for us in other countries. I don’t think they’ll do that, but if they did, it’ll be hard to track us down. They won’t even know your name because it’ll be Johnnie Masterson, and they’ll be looking for Johnnie Wise. After two or three years of constantly moving, they’ll get tired of looking.”

“Oh, Paul, it all sounds so wonderful.”

“It will be wonderful, Johnnie. We can spend some time in Hong Kong and visit the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City. We can go to India and see the Taj Mahal. From there, we can go to Rome and see the Colosseum and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. If you’re really adventurous, we can see Kathmandu City in the Himalayas. If all that isn’t enough travel for you, we can go to Egypt and see the Sphinx and the Pyramids. Personally, I’d like to go back to Greece and see the Acropolis. There are so many places to visit, so many things to do and that’s only a few places in the world.”

“That’s going to cost a fortune. I’ve only got twenty thousand. I don’t want to spend it all traveling. I need to make money not spend it.”

“Don’t worry about the cost. I’ve got plenty of money. You save yours, invest it, or whatever, but I’ll take care of all our expenses once we get married, okay?”

“Anywhere but the southern states, especially Texas. Now listen, you’re gonna need a passport. They have a regional agency in Norwalk, Connecticut where you can get a passport the same day.”

“Because Gloria could be listening. I’m sure she gets bored and listens to phone calls from time to time. It’s important that no one around here knows what we’re doing. If you have to tell your brother, and if you ever get a hold of your father, don’t tell them anything from the hotel phone. I wouldn’t even say anything over the phone period unless you’re going to tell them you’re getting married and where we’re going, okay? On second thought, don’t tell anybody anything. The less people know, the less they can say if somebody comes looking for you. When you leave, stick to the story.”

Laughing he said, “Yes, we are. I’ll probably buy a house in Rhode Island, where we’re getting married.” He smiled as if to himself and said, “How would you like living in . . . get this . . . Providence, Rhode Island?”

“Well, I’ve only worked there one day, but I think the best time to call is between 10:45 and 11:10. Don’t call before or after those times. I’ll be too busy to talk to you, okay?”