Mama Black Widow (23 page)

He croaked, “Maybe his girls are humping on ‘Four Trey.' ”

Railhead cruised up and down Forty-third Street from South Parkway to State Street for over an hour. We saw pimps and whores galore, but we didn't spot Grampy, Bessie or Sally. Railhead began cursing and threatening Kankakee.

We were passing Spiro's poolroom under the El tracks for the tenth time when Kankakee said, “Pally, pull over in front of the poolroom and hit your horn.”

Railhead did. A slender black guy lounging near the poolroom
doorway and chomping on a hot tamale came across the sidewalk to the car. He bent over and peered into the Buick.

Kankakee leaned across Junior and said, “How ya doing, Willy?”

Willy's face showed instant and dramatic suffering.

He moaned, “Kee, I ain't got no bitch, no wheels, and no scratch. I ain't forgot that I'm kin to you for a fin. I'm gonna' mash it on you next time you show.”

Kankakee said, “Pally, forget the fin. Where in the hell is Grampy Dick and his girls?”

Willy said, “Ain't you heard? Grampy's on his ass. He got trimmed in a blackjack game by a mob of slick niggers from New York. They swindled him for his bankroll, jewelry and wheels. He blew whoreless. All them whores got in the wind when they got hip how he chumped off. He hangs out on ‘Five One' greasy as Porky Pig.”

Railhead stuck his mouth close to Kankakee's ear and whispered.

Kankakee said, “Willy, you hip to where them two latest and youngest packages he copped before he blew whoreless are humping?”

Willy said, “Yeah, I'm hip. I dug them freak bitches on ‘Trey One' humping their asses off for the paddy pimp Toronto Tony. Oh yeah, that paddy shot at Grampy night before last and run him off ‘Trey One.' ”

Junior stiffened. Then he pushed his head and shoulders out of the car and jabbed his switchblade toward Willy's throat.

Junior snarled, “Git outta' mah face, niggah, crackin' 'bout mah sistah 'fo Ah stick mah shank en you goozul pipe.”

Willy threw his hands up and scuttled backward as Railhead jerked the Buick from the curb. Railhead put Kankakee out of the car at South Parkway and drove toward Thirty-first Street like a madman.

Railhead shook his head and said over and over, “A lousy peckerwood pimping on my woman, ain't that a sonuvabitch?”

Junior's hand trembled violently as he pulled heavily on a fat reefer. Thirty-first Street was uproarious from Prairie Avenue
to State Street. Railhead cruised slowly past myriad drunks, whores, hustlers and suckers laughing and cursing and clogging the sidewalks.

Several times Railhead and Junior went into noisy bars and searched for Bessie. Around three
A.M.
they bought a fifth of gin and parked on Thirty-first Street near Indiana Avenue.

They had emptied the bottle and Railhead was about to U-turn back toward State Street when Junior pointed and hollered, “Ain't thet Sally?”

Railhead eased the Buick toward the intersection. It was Sally! She was twisting her big rear end and hanging on the arm of a paunchy middle-aged white guy in work clothes.

They crossed Indiana Avenue and walked down Thirty-first Street toward Prairie Avenue. Railhead followed a half block behind them until they went into a basement apartment beneath a dilapidated house on Prairie Avenue near Thirty-second Street.

He parked three doors away and said, “Jack, we'll cool it. She's gonna' turn that old bastard in a flash and hit these streets.”

They sat fidgeting and cursing as time passed and Sally didn't show. They were talking about interrupting Sally's business when the white guy came out and walked past us.

A couple of minutes later Sally came down the sidewalk toward us. Railhead and Junior got out and stood on the sidewalk beside the Buick. When Sally was almost abreast of them Railhead stepped to the middle of the sidewalk and blocked her way.

She halted and backed up. Her thickly made-up face was a hateful mask in the dim glow of the street lamp. Her eyes glittered strangely as she quickly shifted her eyes from Railhead to Junior.

She smiled crookedly and said, “Well, I'll be damned. It's Junior Tilson and Railhead Cox. You studs want to do some business?”

Railhead said sneeringly, “Do business with a ‘come dump' for peckerwoods? My name is Charles. I don't let no funky bitches call me Railhead. Where's Bessie?”

Sally backed away another half step. Junior moved quickly to her side.

She looked up at his hard face and said shakily, “You niggers better stop fucking over me and split back to the Westside. My old man greases the heat down here, and I don't have to take no shit.”

Railhead grinned and moved close to her.

He said harshly, “You silly bitch. I'm gonna' cave your face in. Where's Bessie?”

Sally backed against Junior and said shrilly, “Ain't this a bitch? How am I supposed to know where some whore is. Chicago is a—”

Railhead's fist made a crunching sound when he punched her in the eye. She fell to the sidewalk on her knees. She moaned and pressed her hands against her face. Railhead stooped over and grabbed a fist full of her hair.

He jerked her head back and said, “I'm gonna' do something bad to you. Where's Bessie?”

Sally said, “She got a bad break last night.”

Junior said, “She en jail?”

Sally waggled her head no.

Railhead said, “You just ain't gonna' tell us where Bessie is.”

He slipped the butcher knife from his waistband and pressed the blade against her throat.

He looked at Junior and said, “Jack, this bitch ain't gonna' hip us where Bessie is. I'm gonna' put her light out.”

Sally yelped, “I'll hip you! I'll show you where she is.”

Railhead and Junior picked her up and hurled her onto the front seat. They got in.

Sally said, “Turn right at the corner.”

Railhead roared the Buick away and said, “What the hell did that peckerwood you hump for do to her?”

Sally blurted hysterically, “Tony didn't do it! A paddy trick did it. I warned her about him. I told her he didn't look right. But she wouldn't listen. She thought I was jiving her because I was afraid
she'd make more money for Tony than me last night. The fool thought Tony would cut all his girls loose and marry her. She was my best friend, but after she fell in love she . . .”

Railhead said, “Shut up! Where now?” as he turned off Prairie into Thirty-second Street.

Sally pointed and mumbled, “Go down that alley over there.”

Junior seized her and shook her violently.

He screamed, “Whut happuned tu mah sistah?”

Sally gasped. “The trick was a maniac . . . He killed Bessie.”

Junior slumped back on the seat as Railhead turned into the alley. I was numb with shock. It seemed that the Buick had crawled through the narrow filthy tunnel for hours before Sally said, “There it is! She's in that burned building.”

Railhead drove another fifty feet and stopped beside the fire-blackened shell of a garage. Junior got out and stood at the side of the car. Sally started bawling.

Railhead took a flashlight from the glove compartment and got out of the car. He stood at the open door for a moment, and watched Sally cry. Then he reached inside and grabbed her wrist. He pulled her out of the car and pushed her around the front of the Buick.

I got out and followed them into the burned out garage. Railhead's flashlight played across the gutted skeleton of an old car.

Sally said weakly, “She's under there.”

Railhead and Junior got on their knees and peered beneath the hulk. They pulled out a dark shapeless thing. The flashlight shone on the bloodstained gray of the army blanket shroud.

My legs started to give way. I sat on the wreck's running board. Junior knelt beside her. His face looked older than Mama's and his hands shook so terribly the blanket flapped eerily as he struggled to unwrap her.

Railhead said hoarsely, “Helly! Stop assing around, Jack.”

He reached and snatched the blanket from Junior's hands and
bared the butchered horror to the waist. Her bucked eyes were frozen in hideous terror as they stared up at Junior.

The fiend had hacked off her nose to the whitish bone of the bridge, and her lips had been raggedly slashed away to give the awful visage a grisly bloodstained grin. Where her breasts had thrust, there were blackened stumps.

I closed my eyes tightly, but I couldn't shut out the heartbreaking sight. I wanted to run. But all I could do was sit on the running board rocking and crying. Then like in a dream, I followed as Railhead and Junior carried her down the alley and put her in the car trunk.

As Railhead drove down the alley, he said, “Who dumped her up here?”

Sally said, “Tony had to move her out of the joint so I could work. He just stashed her until he could figure out all the angles.”

Railhead said coldly, “You a dirty nigger bitch to let that peckerwood throw Bessie away like a dead dog.”

Junior muttered, “One peckuhwood kilt her, an' anuthah one throwed her en th' alley.”

Railhead stopped the car and cut the lights. I saw headlights moving on Thirty-third Street a hundred yards away. Railhead turned on the seat so his back was against the door as he faced Sally. His arm came up, and his pistol was pointed at the side of Sally's head.

He said, “Bitch, look at this.”

She turned her head and squinted her left eye that Railhead had lumped nearly shut.

He shoved the pistol's muzzle against her forehead and said, “I'm gonna' pull this trigger if you try to play any stuff on me. Where is your old man?”

Sally said, “I don't know. Honest, I don't!”

Railhead said, “He's gonna cop your scratch. Where? When?”

Sally didn't answer. The pistol made a clicking sound like the cylinder was in motion.

Sally blurted, “He picks me up at the joint after the bars close. What are you going to do?”

Railhead ignored her and drove in silence to Prairie Avenue. He parked several doors from the basement apartment. The street was still except for an occasional passing car and a few drunks staggering from Thirty-first Street.

It was scary the pitiful way Sally begged Railhead and Junior not to hurt Tony and the rigid way they sat like under a hellish spell until daybreak.

A white Caddie convertible with the top down swept by and double-parked in front of the basement joint. It was Tony. He glanced toward the basement and hit three short blasts on the Caddie's horn. Then he leaned back and lit a cigarette.

Junior croaked, “Whut we gonna do, Rail?”

Railhead said, “He's gotta' heater. We gonna' tee roll him. Take your kicks off and come behind the bastard while I'm talking shit to him.”

Junior took off his shoes and eased from the car. He crept on hands and knees to the side of a car parked just ahead of the Buick and crouched tensely on the curb. Railhead leaned forward and looked intently into Sally's face. She opened her mouth to say something.

He tapped the barrel of the pistol against her cheekbone and said, “Chump bitch, you don't wanta die for the peckerwood.”

She shook her head.

He said, “Climb across me and stand by the door. Call that motherfucker down here and cut me into him as a vine connection. You get slick out there or try to split and I'll put another hole in your ass.”

Sally climbed out and stood facing Tony's Caddie.

She shouted, “Daddy! Here I am, back here.”

Tony looked back, and the Caddie came roaring toward us in reverse. It screeched to a stop abreast of the Buick. Junior darted out of sight toward the front of the car ahead. Tony, hatless and
immaculate in a cream-colored suit, leaned across the seat and flung open the car door.

Sally said, “Daddy, this Westside stud wants to rap to you about copping some vines.”

A look of annoyance creased Tony's handsome face.

He said, “Forget it, baby. Get in the car.”

Sally turned away and looked at Railhead. Railhead stuck his head out with a big grin on his face and said, “Man, I'm hip you pretty and pimping a zillion. But helly, you don't have to go ninety on ugly-ass Railhead. I been knowing Sally and Bessie way before they was whores. I got Hickey Freemans your size in that trunk that you ain't gonna believe at a double dime.”

Tony smiled thinly and slid across the seat to the street. He took a cigarette from a gold lighter case and stepped to the Buick's front door that Railhead had half opened. He lit the cigarette and held out the case to Railhead. Railhead shook his head and started out of the car.

Sally screamed, “Look out, Daddy! He's got a gun!”

Tony backpedaled and pawed desperately at his breast pocket. Railhead was aiming his pistol at Tony's chest when Tony's leg shot out and kicked the pistol from Railhead's hand.

I heard it clatter beneath the car. Junior was a blur as he streaked toward Tony's back who had finally freed a small black automatic.

Sally screamed, “Behind you!” just as Junior brutally smashed the blackjack down on the top of Tony's head and pinned his arms to his sides in a bear hug.

The automatic bounced to the pavement. Railhead got the butcher knife off the Buick's front seat. He grinned at Sally cringing against the side of the Caddie.

He pranced over and stared at Tony struggling feebly in Junior's bear hug. Then in a sudden terrible backhand he stabbed the heavy blade in and jerked it across Tony's belly.

Tony belched a gout of blood over Junior's hands, locked across his chest. Junior dropped his arms away and walked dazedly toward
a wide-eyed knot of black people in pajamas and robes huddled on the sidewalk.

Tony stood reeling and looking down at his ripped belly. His entrails were oozing from the long slash in his trousers front like curly red eels from a ragged fishnet. He had a puzzled look on his chalk white face like perhaps he wasn't convinced they were his own guts. He shuddered and scooped his palms underneath the glistening nest. He was trying to stuff it back inside himself when he collapsed and fell flat on his back.