Our Man in the Dark (32 page)

“Who's
they
?”

“Never mind.”

I take a long drag from my cigarette and hand it to her. “I'll talk to him, if you want me to. Maybe get some of your money back.”

She responds by folding a freshly ironed shirt. Smoke disappears into the fabric. “I know how to get it back if I need to. Well, look at you. You've sure come up in the world. Now you're his right-hand man.”

I take an envelope from my coat pocket and place it between her and some socks that need darning. “There's a thousand dollars inside.”

She looks at me, but I know she doesn't see me as before. “Whatever I need from a man, Lester can give me.”

“I'll just leave it. Cab driver's a tough racket. It don't pay as well as gangster.”

I drive home, but I don't get out of the car. I just lean back and listen to the radio. For so long she was the woman I wanted, but that dream girl is gone. This happens to a lot of men. In order to get over the heartbreakers, we have to imagine them dead in a strange way, only a ghostlike shell of her former self. Lester wasn't exposed to the full strength of her allure long enough to miss it, and Count is disturbingly indifferent to her absence. Even Mathis has a soft pretty thing. I've been good for a while, cautious of those Peeping Toms posing as agents, but seeing her reminds me of how much I need a woman.

I walk into Count's and see Joe Tex gyrating onstage in a gold lamé jumpsuit. The place is packed tonight. Everyone is drunk but exhilarated. Count holds court over in his usual corner booth. I spot him and make my way over. For the first time, I can say that he seems truly happy to see me. Pete remains, but financially the real estate scheme is working out.

“Hey, little man. How you doin'? Take a seat.”

I sit down in the booth, and Count casually drapes his arm around me. His breath and smile tell me how drunk he is. Claudel stands at the table with his hands clasped in front of him. He keeps his eyes on me as Count pulls me in closer.

“Where's the other one?” I ask Count while looking at Claudel.

“Early retirement. This life ain't for everybody,” Count says, then quickly changes the subject. “What can I do for you? Just ask me . . . anything,” he says.

“I've been thinking about what you said—about Martin—and I think you're right.”

His mood changes and his arm snakes off my shoulder. “Is that so?”

“Yeah, I got Gant to pay, so why not Martin? I've invited him over, but I need a couple of girls to come to my apartment.” He can tell that I am lying, but I don't care, and he doesn't seem to either.

“You need two girls, huh?”

“Yeah, obviously I can't have them here, so I thought it would be safer to have them come back to my place.” He just looks at me and I feel pitiful. He says whatever I want is mine, but that's his angle: whatever I want must have the potential to benefit him.

“Two, huh?” He looks over at two girls with two smiling men at the bar. One is petite with a very light complexion; the other is statuesque with dark skin like polished ebony. Count motions for them to come
over. They leave behind four unfinished drinks and two unhappy men.

“This here's one of my best customers,” Count says when they arrive at the table. “Forget customer—this here is one of my best friends.”

The two girls look at each other, and then they give me pained smiles.

“You two give him whatever he wants,” Count says. “I don't want no problems.”

The girls give each other a concerned look, then again they force their smiles at me. They introduce themselves. The tall dark one calls herself Ruby; the little light one goes by Gladys.

“My car's out front,” I tell them. They don't seem to care as they turn and head to the exit. I get up to follow them, but Claudel steps in front of me. He says something, but I can't make it out. “What's that you say, Claudel? I can't hear you . . . music's too loud.” His face is healing nicely, but even years from now some of the scars will still be visible—dark raised lines, like some sort of tribal markings.

He leans in close and puts his mouth to my ear. “I said I'm gonna do my best to kill you.”

I lift my head and look him in the eye. “Good luck with that,” I say as I step past him to walk out.

I put the girls in my car and drive home. They don't know what kind of show to expect, so I let them in on tonight's special guest and that seems to put them at ease. But when we arrive at my apartment, the girls look disappointed.

“I thought you said Dr. King was gonna be here,” says Ruby. I had a plan, raw and carnal, but I think it has already faded. Now I just want their company. “Ain't he in the hospital or somethin'?”

“He said he'd be here,” I tell them, “and if he doesn't come, then you won't have to do anything.”

“You got anything to drink in here?” asks Gladys.

“Just scotch whiskey,” I say.

Gladys makes a sour face.

“Don't worry about it, Gladys. I brought a little something.” Ruby reaches into her purse and pulls out a reefer. “You got matches, don't you?”

“Yes, I say.”

“Good. You want some?”

“Sure, why not . . .”

Hours later, I tell them about my unrequited love for Candy. Gladys is curled up on my sofa like a sleeping kitten, while Ruby and I lie together on the floor. She strokes my brace with her free hand, a joint in the other. She asks me if she can take it off and try it on. There's a pungent sweetness in the air that I like. She passes me the reefer. The smoke twists and turns, giving the illusion of clouds moving against a nighttime sky. It's beautiful. She sighs. She sees it too. She strokes my hair tenderly, and I turn to look at her. Something glimmers: a star twinkling in the darkness under the sofa. I reach over her and into the pitch. I can feel it in my hand. I'm stunned by my find as I bring it to my face for closer inspection: a small microphone about the size of a nickel.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Nothing. Just something I lost.”

She tilts her head and shrugs her shoulders until one of them touches her ear. “Guess Dr. King ain't coming,” she says with a laugh.

No, Martin isn't coming. And I couldn't be more relieved.

Morning. The sun sneaks through the curtains, casting its shaming light on all that has transpired. We yawn and stretch and look at each other with foggy, bleary-eyed regret. I still feel a bit out of it myself, and I am anxious to see them leave. The knock on my door makes us sharp and sober.

It's my mother. I am embarrassed to have her see me like this. So much has gone on here. But when I dare to look her in the eye, to my surprise, I see a glimpse of that woman my father knew before. The kind of woman that's used to seeing a man at his worst.

The ladies push past my mother. Her eyes follow them as they rush into the street, struggling with their shoes and grappling with their sweaters.

“Hello, Mama,” I say. She's dressed for church, even though it's not Sunday. She has food with her. I know just by the smell that it's pork chops smothered in gravy. She walks in and looks around my place as if her gaze were a white-gloved finger inspecting the place for dirt. Then her gaze falls on me.

“I'd be dishonest,” she says, “if I said I wasn't disappointed, son.”

“I know, Mama, I'm sorry.”

“And I'd be a goddamn liar if I said I didn't want to smack you in the face.”

I'm hurt and offended by that, but I recover quickly, and it immediately toughens me up. “I'm a grown man, Mama. I can do what I damn well please in my own house.”

She only squints in response. “I'm mad, son—really mad. I'm mad because this means he was right about you. When you got sick, I blamed myself—any mother would—but he begged me not to. He said blaming myself would only make you weak. And the whole point of having a
child, sick or healthy, was to make him strong, and dammit, he was right. But I blamed myself anyway. You've known that for a while, haven't you?”

I don't say anything. I notice that my pants are undone, and I zip my fly.

“You don't know how I fought in that house to protect you. A man doesn't look at his wife in the same way when she's the mother of a crippled child. He pities her or resents her, and for him that ruins her. I guess I ruined you too. You're father was right. You don't know how much that angers me to say, but I look around and you got whores in here—in your own home. I realize you are not much of a man at all. You never learned how to be a man. You never learned how to take care of yourself—how to take care of a woman. You're lying with whores in here. You're still a boy. Still a child. You expect to be coddled. And you talk about that girl Candice not wanting you. I used to think it was her loss, but now I see just how smart she really is. I've said what I had to. But now I don't know who to be more mad at—your father, me, you, or God.”

She leaves and doesn't bother closing the door behind her.

Maybe the old man is right. Maybe she did more harm than good. Yeah, she blamed herself for the polio, but wasn't all the coddling for her benefit and not mine? Aren't I the victim in all of this?

There's no time to deal with my mother—she'll come around eventually. I head to work, but I don't even stop when I approach the office, I just keep driving. I don't feel like being there right now. I need a place to clear my mind, and Candy's not an option, especially after being verbally castrated, so I settle on the Royal.

I watch a couple of movies and pass the time, and then I head home. It's night by now. A whole day lost to the darkness of the theater.

There's a knock at my door. I answer it and see her there looking beautiful in that red dress. Her sunglasses make her look like a melancholy heiress or a rich man's trophy. We don't greet each other, I just step aside so that she can enter. I stay silent, only listening to the whisper of the fabric as she walks. She places her pocketbook down with a sigh and removes her big sunglasses. There's a bruise on her right cheek.

“Candy, what happened?”

“Lester found the envelope of money.”

A pang of guilt hits me in my stomach. I reach out to her. I want to pull her close, but she just waves me away. She wants to continue her story without me touching her.

“He doesn't think it's you, though,” she says. “Thought it was Count. He thought that money meant that I was leaving him. That Count still had control of me. He said I was still Count's whore.”

Lester has done a lot for me up to this point. Maybe in some way I owe him, but I've never wished harm on a person more than I do now. Despite his size, his training as a professional fighter, if Lester were in front of me right now I'd try my best to kill him.

“Just sit down. Let's talk about it.” I lead her to my bed and sit next to her.

“I don't have any place to go, John. I can't go back to Count.”

“Well, you can stay here,” I say. “You'll stay here and I'll take care of you.” Our eyes tangle in shared gaze. For the first time, I think she understands what I mean. She smiles, wipes away a tear, and nods, “Okay.”