The Stiff Upper Lip (4 page)

“People like Johnny Vee, Roscoe?”

He didn't look at me then, but his mustache twitched.

“Johnny Who?”

“Johnny Vee. You forget, else Valérie forgot to tell you. I'm from L.A. too.”

“I don' know no Johnny Vee.”

This was a fairly dumb answer. It was, in fact, a fairly dumb conversation, and going nowhere. By this time Valérie was staring into her coffee cup. Roscoe's gaze was across the room. The only other person in sight that I knew was the waiter. I caught his eye and made an adding motion with my index finger. He nodded back at me.

“O.K., Roscoe,” I said. “Suit yourself. But if you ever remember who Johnny Vee is and want to talk about it, you know where to get hold of me. Anyway, don't forget that it wasn't my idea to come along tonight.”

“Not
your
idea!” he said, aloud. “Not
your
idea! Well, shoot, man, it sure as shit wasn't
mine!
”

Which narrowed it down, kind of. Valérie looked up at me, then at him.

Then she started to cry.

I haven't said much about her that night. Up to this point, she'd made herself scarce. Probably she'd had it in mind for me to take over; but there was also something equivocal about her position. I mean, I'd asked her if she was in love with Roscoe Hadley, and she'd asked me back if I was jealous. I'd said no, I wasn't jealous, and she'd said the word
love
wasn't in her vocabulary, I'd said why had she gone to so much trouble for a stiff if she wasn't in love with him, and she'd said men didn't ask questions like that unless they were jealous, and we'd tangoed it down to the end of the ballroom and back. As far as I was concerned, though, the one time we'd gone to bed together had been by way of sealing a bargain. It had had its moments, sure; but it hadn't been repeated.

Anyway, now she was blubbering full-tilt, her shoulders aquiver, her face buried in the Coupole's napery. She pulled out all the stops, and if it was nothing more than a female trick, the tears welling out of her eyes when Roscoe pulled her hands away were the genuine article.

“Shit, Val,” said Roscoe Hadley hoarsely, “I'll tell him. I'll tell him everything, honey.”

He kept repeating that.

Finally she let him lift her head. He took her whole face in his palm and stared at her anxiously. The hoods had lifted and his eyes were suddenly big and serious. If she wasn't in love with him, I'd sure have to say he was with her.

Even at the risk of appearing jealous.

He sweet-talked her, and she let him. Then she went off to the toilet for repairs, looking suddenly small in a black velvet pants suit with a silk foulard spilling out of the neck. And while she was gone, and after she came back, Roscoe Hadley did tell me everything. Mostly. In fact, he was quite the raconteur. We ordered more coffee, and cognac to keep it company, and by the time he was done and had outgrabbed me for the check, they were stacking chairs on the tables around us.

Suffice it to say, for now, that the day he picked up a loose ball in that Paris gym, he became a marked man again. Maybe the “trouble,” like he'd said, had stayed where it was those years when he'd been on the move under an assumed name, but once he had the ball in his hands, it was like programmed for him to start shooting hoops with it, and once that happened it was only a matter of time before somebody said: “Hey, I hear there's a boy, over in Paris, France, of all places, name of Hadley, plays just like Jimmie Cleever used to. They say he's tearing up the league.” At which, six thousand miles or not, the trouble would have to go take a look. In fact, according to Roscoe, the trouble had already looked. And Roscoe, or Jimmie, had gotten the word; his buddy and teammate, Odessa Grimes, had passed it on to him.

“It sounds to me like you've got two choices,” I told him when he was done.

“Yeah, me too,” he said, stroking his mustache. “But look, man, I
like
it over here. I'm not runnin' no more, that's behind me. I did my time like, all those runnin' years. Now I'm playin' ball again, it's what I mean to do. The money's good. It'll be better once we win the league. Four, five, six more playin' years, more if I'm lucky. Then there's coachin'. They
needs
coachin', man. Basketball's
growin
' over here. They're even talkin' about a all-Europe league. 'Sides,” he added, looking at Valérie, “there's other things keep me here.”

Valérie looked at me, then away.

“Tell him to quit, Cage,” she said quietly.

That was one of his choices, maybe not the best. In any case, he wasn't having any part of it.

“No way,” he said, blowing smoke rings. “Let them come. I'm ready this time.” Then, at me: “I'm goin' to fight them this time, Mister.”

“You and what army?”

“Oh, I got friends.”

“Who, Odessa?”

“Yeah, Odessa for one. He's a good ole blood, Odessa.”

“That's not a choice,” I said, “that's suicide. What are you going to fight them with, basketballs?”

“We can take care of ourself, man.”

“Sure, you can. And they'll run you down while you're doing it. They'll run right over you and make it look like an accident. You've been away too long, Roscoe. You forget.”

He shook his head slowly.

“No, I don't forget.”

“Neither do they.”

There was another possibility, and the only way I figured I could be of use to him.

“You can always try negotiating,” I counseled Roscoe Hadley.

“Negotiatin'? Negotiatin' with what, man?”

I shrugged.

“I'm none too sure,” I said. “But it's up to us to find it.”

It was too late, though, too late for me and my bright ideas. Like I said, they don't forget. A couple of days later, the Paris Law had one dead black basketball player on their hands and another one they couldn't find. They found me instead. The only thing was that the dead man was Odessa Grimes, who'd been slit ear to ear, jungle-bunny style, and the one who'd disappeared was Roscoe Hadley.

3

“Least you were wrong about one thing,” said Roscoe Hadley. He ran his hands into his hair on either side and squeezed. “They didn't make it look like no accident. They made it look like it was
me
.”

“Why did they kill him, Roscoe?”

“
Why
? You ask me
why
? How the hell do
I
know, man?”

The
they
he was talking about wasn't the French press, but it could have been. Less than twenty-four hours had gone by since Odessa Grimes had been found with his throat slit in the locker room of the Paris University Club, but the French press, true to form, already had the crime solved. One newspaper, to its credit, still hesitated. The caption under Roscoe's photograph only asked the question: “Is this the assassin of the black American basketball star?” But the rest had already gone on to the motive: “Why would Roscoe Hadley have murdered his teammate?” and the Communist blatt had blamed it on the invasion of capitalist imperialism, made in U.S.A.

As far as I was concerned, the verdict was doubtful, but my stomach was still riding a trampoline. It had started jumping the day before; it hadn't stopped. Among other things, I was none too happy about the hideaway Valérie had found him. Admittedly, she hadn't had time to go house-hunting, but if you were going to try hiding a long-armed spade in Paris, one who went six-seven in his socks and had his picture in all the media, all-white Neuilly was about the last place you'd choose.

“O.K.,” I said to Roscoe, “now let's go over what happened to you yesterday.”

“I already tole Val, man.”

The lady in question was standing by the window staring out over the rooftops toward the Bois de Boulogne and looking a little frayed around the edges.

“Right, And now you're going to tell me.”

“O.K.,” he said with a sigh.

“From the beginning.”

“The beginning, yeah. Well, where it begins, man, is that I overslep'. I was supposed to meet some of the brothers at the Puke yesterday mornin', like we do. Odessa too. On'y I overslep'. Shit, man, there's no law against
that
, is there?”

The Puke stood for the P.U.C., or Paris University Club, which runs an indoor sports emporium up at the top of the Boulevard St. Michel. There's a nice little gym in the basement, and though you're supposed to be a member to use it, nobody I know ever got asked for his diploma.

“Who else was there,” I said, “besides Odessa?”

“How do
I
know, man? I was in bed!”

“But who was supposed to be there?”

“Anybody who was in town.”

“Well? Who was in town?”

“I don' know. Johnson and Bully Reed mos' likely, you saw them play the other night. Ath'ton. The boys from Bagnolet too, they's got a home game comin' up. Plus a couple o' bloods from Barcelona, tha's what Odessa said.”

“Barcelona?”

“Barcelona in Spain, man.”

“Isn't that a hell of a long way to come for a pick-up game?”

“They had an exhibition up in Belgium. Them an' some Belgium club. Jus' passin' through Paris. Odessa knows 'em. Leas' he did.”

It still struck me as strange that pro athletes would not only play for free but go out of their way to do it. Unless, that is, they had other business in Paris. But, according to Roscoe, the class basketball in Europe went on not in the leagues but in the pick-up action at the Puke, where they had nobody to put it on for but each other and the losers paid for beers.

“O.K., so you overslept. Then what happened?”

“Then I woke up, man.”

“Where?”

“In bed, where did you think?”

“And what time was that?”

“I don' know exackly. Must have been near one.”

“You didn't know what time it was but you still knew you'd overslept, right?”

“Tha's right. I oversleeps a lot during the season. I needs my sleep.”

He had his head down, though. His hands were into his hair again and squeezing, like he was in a big wind and holding on to his wig. I glanced at Valérie, but she was still gazing out the window, counting chimneys.

“Then what did you do?”

“I got dressed, got me a cab, rode over to the Puke.”

“You didn't eat breakfast?”

“Naw, I wasn't hungry.”

“Where'd you find the cab?”

“Down on Abbesses, man. You can always find a cab down on Abbesses, pretty near.”

Abbesses is the name of a street in Montmartre. Roscoe Hadley lived just up the hill from it.

“So you rode over to the gym in a cab. What time'd you get there?”

“I don' know. Say half an hour in the traffic. That'd make it half pas' one maybe.”

“And you thought they'd still be there?”

“Shit, man, sometimes we jus' keeps on playin'. We loses track o' time. Guys drop out, go 'round to the café, guys come back in.”

“What café?”

“Any café, man. There's plenty o' cafés near the Puke.”

“So what happened when you got there?”

His hands had come out of his hair for a while, to fiddle with his mustache, but now they grabbed again.

The vibes had started going bad, he said, even before he got there. He'd made the cab stop a block away. A good thing too. He saw the blue lights blinking even before he saw the cars. They were blocking half the Boulevard St. Michel, police cars, ambulances, they'd made a regular traffic jam, and a big crowd of people was jammed on the sidewalk in front of the Puke, with the police holding them back.

“I was
scared
, man. It look like all hell had bust loose. Lord, I thought, now it's started. It like to blow my mind inside out.”

“What made you so scared?”

“
Shoot
, man! I figured if they got Odessa, it was my turn nex'! How'd I know they wasn't still in that crowd, waitin' fo'
me
?”

“Who's
they
?”

“Johnny Vee's boys, who else? The hit men he sent in.”

“But how'd you know it was Odessa?”

“I didn't know, man! But I
knew
! We was
thick
, man, me an' Odessa. Soon as I knew they'd got some black man.”

“But how'd you know they'd got anybody?”

“I ast somebody. I said, ‘What's goin' on in there, man?' Then I
saw
him! I saw the stretcher come out, them loadin' him into the ambalance, saw the ambalance drivin' off, the sireen …”

“Who'd you ask?”

“
Ask
? Ask what?”

“You said you asked somebody what had happened.”

“Tha's
right
! I ast somebody on the street. Somebody says, ‘They killed some black man.' ‘Killed who?' I says. ‘Some black man,' he says.”

“Did you talk to him in French?”

“French? How do I know, man? French? English? You don' understan', I was
scared
! I thought that was
me
on the stretcher! I know that sounds crazy now, but that was
me
, man! I could see
me
! I mean, maybe I had two feets on the sidewalk, but I was thinkin'… not like it
could
've been me but like it
was
me! Somebody's come into the Puke, man, an' sliced me ear to ear! Jus' like openin' a can o' tomatoes.”

“How did you know he'd been sliced ear to ear?”

“Because that was
me
on the stretcher, man. An' I was already
dead!
”

His hands had come free, palms up and gesturing, and he was looking at me now, niggerlike, eyeballs rolling in the sockets. They left a lot of white. He sure
looked
scared. Maybe you could say his storytelling was so good that he'd spooked himself.