Flamethrower (14 page)

“Marlon making a stink again?” Phil asked Ruby.

“Huh?”

“Old bum guy in the deli? Wearing a big coat?”

“Oh. Yeah. He’s a regular?”

“Oh yeah,” Phil said. “I’ll get your car,” he added, apparently losing interest in the deli drama.

While Ruby waited, she watched the cops escorting Marlon out of the deli. He was still shouting, and one of his slippers was gone.

RUBY MADE IT TO
The Hole in less than fifteen minutes, and by seven-thirty she’d mucked the stalls, fed Locksley, and groomed her horse. She was putting the wheelbarrow away in the stable yard when Coleman pulled up in his cream-colored Eldorado. The passenger-side door opened, and Honey the pit bull jumped out and trotted toward the barn with remarkable grace considering the fullness of her figure. Pokey, a scary-looking white pit with a head the size of a bowling ball, jumped out after Honey. Both dogs eyed Ruby, decided to remember that Ruby was allowed to be there, then ambled over to the empty stall Coleman had transformed into a deluxe doghouse.

“What are you doing here so early?” Coleman asked.

He was walking slowly, and there was a little hitch in his step.

“I’ve got a bunch of stuff going on today,” Ruby said. “Just wanted to get my chores done in case the day got away from me. You okay?” Ruby motioned toward Coleman’s leg.

“My new woman’s wearing me down,” he said slyly.

“Oh,” said Ruby. She briefly envisioned a strapping vixen keeping Coleman prisoner in her bedroom.

“You get on that horse today?” Coleman had actually caught Ruby riding Jack two days earlier. He’d been as pleased as he’d been shocked.

Ruby shook her head. “Not today, no time.”

“Why? What you doing now?” Coleman knew a little about what Ruby’d been up to recently, but she didn’t feel like explaining that she was on a wild goose chase for her psychiatrist.

“I’ve got to do a favor for a friend. That’s all.”

“Uh,” Coleman grunted. “Well, I got some horses to ride,” he said. He nodded at Ruby and walked into the barn.

RUSH HOUR WAS HIDEOUS
. Ruby remembered how only weeks earlier she’d vowed never to drive in intense traffic. So much for vowing.

It took close to an hour to get to The Crone’s neighborhood, and all Ruby wanted was to get out of the car and stay out. She found a spot on St. Nicholas Avenue. It took her a while to actually park the damned car though. She’d passed
the parallel parking portion of her driving exam, but just barely. She was inching the car forward for the fifth time when she noticed a pack of kids on a stoop pointing and laughing at her. When she finally got out of the car, Ruby waved and smiled at them, and they laughed some more.

The Crone’s block wasn’t one of the more gentrified blocks of Harlem, and it seemed to Ruby that her white face was drawing attention as she walked slowly, looking at the building numbers. It reminded her of the time she and Ed had looked at a crumbling brownstone for sale in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant. It was a gorgeous old building with soaring ceilings, ornate moldings, and wide-plank floors. A little bit of hard work would have restored it to its former glory. But as Ruby and Ed walked down the block, everyone stared at their white faces. Ruby didn’t feel unsafe, but she didn’t want to live like that, sticking out as the white girl. That seemed a few lifetimes ago. A lifetime when Ruby had felt sure of Ed and of what was between them.

Ruby found The Crone’s building, a brownstone that had seen better decades and coincidentally resembled the one she and Ed had looked at in Bed-Stuy. The stoop’s steps were chipped, and weeds were sprouting from holes where a railing had once been. There were three old-fashioned doorbells. None marked. Ruby couldn’t decide which she wanted to do least, use the cell phone to call The Crone or ring all three doorbells and invoke ire from strangers. She opted for calling The Crone even though she thought it might give the woman a last-minute chance to back out.

The Crone grunted a hello, then grunted again when
Ruby told her she was downstairs. A few moments later, a boxy woman lumbered to the door.

“Hiya,” she greeted Ruby.

“Hello, I’m Ruby.” Ruby tried to sound sweet.

“So I gathered.” The Crone emitted a short, sharp, barking sound that Ruby guessed was a laugh. “I’m Millie.”

Millie was about Ruby’s height, five-four, but considerably wider. Her dark, dense hair was cropped close to her head, her eyebrows were bushy, and she had no lips to speak of. Not that you’d want to speak of them if they’d been there. She was wearing a huge purple T-shirt over a pair of red sweatpants. The Crone’s enormous breasts hung down to her waist.

“What can I do for ya, Ruby?” The Crone asked as she ushered Ruby into a dark, narrow hallway.

“I want to talk to you about Jody.” Ruby followed The Crone up a set of stairs.

“Doesn’t everyone,” The Crone said.

“Really?”

“You and that fuckwad husband of hers. I guess that’s why he sent you. He knew he wasn’t getting nothin’ out of me.”

Ruby could hear Millie’s breath coming in quick gasps. Even the modest effort of climbing the stairs was winding her.

“And don’t tell Jody I used a double negative, will ya?”

Ruby laughed.

“She doesn’t like me coming off like a moron,” Millie said. “I always told her, if someone wants to pigeonhole me based on my using double negatives, that’s their business. I’m not big on appearances.”

They reached the top of the stairs where a door stood ajar. The Crone shuffled into the apartment ahead. The floors were lovely old wood parquet, and a chandelier hung from the ceiling. The walls were painted blood red, making the place seem vaguely threatening. Ruby followed The Crone into a living room crammed with droopy, expensive-looking furniture. Two old-fashioned French windows looked out over a large garden. The place was pretty but oppressive.

“Make yourself comfortable.” The Crone motioned toward a red couch that matched the walls, then sat down in an armchair opposite Ruby.

“So Jody’s on the lam?” The Crone said.

“Yeah. Tobias can’t find her,” Ruby said.

“What’d she do, take the kidnapping money and run?”

“Oh, so you know?”

“Sure. Jody tells me everything. Well, just about. She didn’t tell me she was gonna take off with the money. But I could have predicted it. She looked like she was well on her way to an episode.”

“Episode?”

“Fugue. Mental fugue. She gets a little lost sometimes. Little mini-breakdowns. She spirals and gets so low she can’t move. Hard to say what brings it on, though in this case probably the husband pulling this stunt.”

“Do you know where she might have gone?”

“Probably,” said The Crone, slitting her eyes. “Remains to be seen if I tell you about it though.”

“Ah,” Ruby said. “What is it you do?” Ruby heard it pop
out of her mouth. Sometimes she wished she had a few seconds’ warning before she found herself asking questions like this.

“Do?” The Crone looked peeved. “You mean what’s an old white lesbian doing living in a really nice apartment in the heart of a black neighborhood?”

“Something like that,” Ruby said, deciding she might actually like The Crone.

“I’ve done it all, darlin’,” The Crone said. “Right now, I work for the CF Foundation. Cystic fibrosis. I had a kid sister died of it way back when. As for Harlem, my girlfriend’s black. This is her place.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ruby said, “about your sister I mean.”

“It’s okay. I’m over it,” The Crone said.

Ruby smiled benignly and was about to ask The Crone if she had Jody’s keys, when one of the most beautiful women Ruby had ever seen walked into the room. The woman moved fluidly, barely touching the ground. A pink cotton sundress exploded against her dark skin, and her black hair trailed in slender dreadlocks down her back. She came to perch on the arm of The Crone’s chair and smiled a small, curious smile.

“Babe, this is Ruby, friend of Jody’s. Ruby, this is Felicia, my wife,” The Crone said.

Felicia’s smile expanded, revealing a row of tiny, perfect teeth. She arched one eyebrow in Ruby’s direction.

“Nice to meet you,” Ruby said.

“How do you do?” Felicia said, coming over to Ruby to formally extend her hand.

Ruby shook the hand, taking a moment to marvel over exactly how stubby and white her own hand looked next to Felicia’s. Ruby glanced over at The Crone’s hands. They were tiny and puffy. She could almost imagine coarse black hairs sprouting from the palms.

“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Felicia said, turning and floating out of the room. She was presumably out of earshot when The Crone perked up. “How’d an old bag like me land a delicious piece of ass like that?” she asked, winking at Ruby. “I guess the gods like me,” she shrugged and laughed, making herself jiggle.

Ruby laughed back and decided she really did like this Crone, who reminded Ruby of a forlorn young woman she’d had a lesbian encounter with in her early twenties. The woman, Matilda, had been exactly as physically attractive as The Crone. Which is to say, not at all. To this day Ruby, who didn’t possess strong same-sex longings to begin with, had never figured out exactly what had possessed her to have sex with Matilda. But whatever it was, it probably went a long way in explaining how The Crone was doing very nicely for herself.

“So. You’re a detective?” The Crone asked.

“No. I just agreed to look for Jody.”

“What’s wrong with that fucking Toby?” Millie burst out. “He never does anything right. No offense, little girl, but you don’t look especially capable of going out to hunt someone’s stray wife. Particularly not this stray wife.”

“I can take care of myself,” Ruby shrugged.

“I don’t doubt that.” The Crone winked so violently Ruby wondered if she had an eye disorder. “But you’ll have to agree that Tobias should have hired someone who’s actually in the business of finding people who don’t want to be found.”

“I just want to know if you can point me in the right direction,” Ruby said, feeling very tired. “Tobias says you have keys to the brownstone. He’d like me to start by looking there.”

“She’s not there. I’m sure she’s in Pennsylvania,” The Crone said as if it ought to be obvious to anyone.

“Pennsylvania?”

“Trout Falls. She’s got a little cabin there. I guess she never told the husband about it just in case she needed an escape. She’s like that. Always keeping something secret. Part of why it didn’t work out with me and her.” The Crone’s voice had grown distant, coming at Ruby from a couple of decades earlier. “Though part of it was the woman just likes cock too much to make it as a dyke.”

Ruby winced.

“Sorry there, little girl.” The Crone winked again. “Definitely more information than you needed. But yeah. Trout Falls. Even money she’s there.”

“Is there a phone number there? She’s not answering her cell.”

“She probably threw it in the river. And no, no phone down there that I know of. The woman hates phones.”

“She does?”

“Sure does,” The Crone said.

“Oh,” Ruby said. She felt slightly cheated. She was pretty
sure she’d complained to Jody about her own hatred of telephones. But The Psychiatrist had never let on that she felt the same way. Of course, at this point it was clear that there was a whole lot Ruby didn’t know about Jody Ray. Hatred of telephones was definitely the least of it.

The Crone fished through the drawer of a writing desk, found an address book, and gave Ruby the address of Jody’s Trout Falls hideaway.

“Got no idea where in Pennsylvania the place is though, girl. You’re on your own. And here,” she added, producing a key ring from a pocket in her sweatpants, “here’s the key to Jody’s apartment. Be my guest—go on over. You ain’t gonna find her there though.”

“Thanks,” Ruby said, a little surprised. She’d expected a little more fight from Millie before surrendering the information and the key.

“I’d love to chat with you all day,” Millie said, “but I gotta go to work soon.”

“Of course.” Ruby got to her feet. “Thanks, Millie.”

“I guess this will be one more reason for Jody to be pissed at me.” Millie sighed. “I don’t like that creepy husband one bit, but Jody’s gotta stop running at some point. And she could be in trouble,” The Crone said a little ominously. “You seem like a nice enough girl. Go find her. Make her face reality.”