Soul Circus (12 page)

The television sound faded down. He heard footsteps approaching from behind the door. He looked at the peephole and watched as it went dark.

“Open up, Olivia,” said Durham, and when he got nothing he repeated his instructions the same way.

“Go away, Mario,” was the reply.

They went back and forth for a while, but eventually she did open the door. Durham had known she would, after she’d thought it out. What else was she going to do?

OLIVIA Elliot turned down the television volume and went to see who was at the door. When she looked through the hole and saw Mario, she didn’t jump. She wasn’t scared, and her heart didn’t race inside her chest or nothin’ like that. Some people got paranoid when they burned smoke, but it had always evened her out, made her see things more clear.

She let him stand out there and call her name a couple of times, though, while she figured out what her next move ought to be.

“Go away, Mario,” she said.

“I ain’t goin’
no
goddamn where,” said Durham.

“You gonna need some of that Grecian stuff, then, ’cause you gonna go gray, standin’ out there, thinkin’ you’re comin’ inside.”

“Then I’ll go gray. And I’ll
go
get my brother, too.”

She leaned against the door. This was what she didn’t want to hear, but at least Dewayne Durham wasn’t out there on the landing with a couple of his boys now. She’d need to handle this with Mario alone, work it out and end it tonight.

Leaning against the door, she put the tip of her finger in her mouth while she let it all bounce around in her mind. Her mother had told her to take her finger out her mouth all the time when she was a kid, that it would buck her teeth. But the habit had never left her.

“Olivia! C’mon, girl.”

Finally she opened up the door. And when he stepped in, his fists all balled up at his sides like he was gonna get physical with her, she nearly laughed. Lookin’ like Lil’ Romeo or sumshit, wearin’ a Redskins jersey and a matching cap, like a kid would. Shoot, Lil’ Romeo had more heft on him that this little slip of nothin’ right here.

“Damn, Olivia, how you gonna let a man stand in the hall all night long?”

She motioned him inside, shutting the door behind him as he entered, one hand in his pocket, bobbing his head in that way he did, like it was mounted on a spring.

“So you found me.”

“Didn’t you think I would?”

“You want a drink or somethin’?”

“Nah, baby. I ain’t here to drink.”

Durham had forgotten how fine she was. She wasn’t tall, but she was put together right. And she liked to look clean, even just hanging inside her place. She had on a summer dress and some shoes, sandals with heels and no backs, on her feet. On her chest where the dress separated were a few black hairs. Girl had some hairs on her chest and around her nipples, too. But that was the only fault Durham had found in her. Other than that, she was all right.

Olivia walked over to a grouping of furniture and Durham followed. Music, that “Fiesta” joint by R Kelly and Jay Z, was up real loud, and Durham could smell blunt smoke mixed with her cigarette smoke in the room. The blunt smell was sweet, the good stuff, had to be his brother’s. Well, maybe she still had some of it left.

“Where your son at?” He moved toward her and she held her place. She was up against the arm of the couch.

“He’s stayin’ with my brother for a couple of days.”

“It’s good he’s not here. ’Cause you and me need to have a very serious conversation.”

“Ain’t no big drama to it, Mario.”

“Oh, yeah? Guess it wasn’t no thing to you. Including the thing we had together, right?”

“I was fixin’ to call you and straighten it all out.”

“When?”

“Look here, Mario, you gonna let me talk?”

He was nodding his head quickly and his eyes flared. It was comical to her, high as she was, watchin’ him act all overdramatic, like he was in one of those old silent movies. She bit down on her lip, but she guessed that her eyes showed that she was amused.

“Somethin’ funny?”

“Nah, it’s just . . . Look, I shouldn’t have left up on you like I did. I’m sorry for that. But it wasn’t workin’ between us, you know this. You
know
this, Mario.”

He was still nodding his head, trying to act hard, but Olivia noticed that the flame had gone out of him. She had wounded him now.

“Mark,” said Olivia, “he’s funny about having men around our house, and you got to understand, I put my son above everything else. I knew you wouldn’t understand. I didn’t know how to talk to you about it, so I just booked and came over here.”

“What about the hydro?”

“I didn’t steal it, that’s what you mean.”

“Explain what you
did
, then.”

“I gave it to this dude I knew, said he could sell it for a good price, only take a little off the top. He was a friend of a good friend, so I knew he wouldn’t do me dirt. And he didn’t. The herb got sold.”

“And you were gonna do what with the money?”

“Give half to you, the way we talked about.”

“Uh-huh. So you got the money now?”

“It’s coming,” said Olivia, folding her arms across her chest.

He knew it was a lie. She could see it in his eyes, the way they’d got hot again. ’Cause on top of what she’d done to him, stole from him and shamed him to his brother, now she was telling these stories to him, too.

“So the money’s comin’,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“
Bull
shit.”

And now what? she thought. More of these one-word sentences, prob’ly, and then he’d just flare his eyes some more and turn around and leave. Get his brother, but not tonight, which would give her time to book, gather up Mark and her personal shit and move on to something else. Wasn’t gonna be no fun, but then she’d known what she was getting into from the start. The important thing was, nothing was gonna happen tonight. You got down to it, what was this little man right here gonna do on his own, for real?

She looked down at his shoes and laughed. She didn’t mean to, but the chronic, it had fucked with her head. And this really was one sorry motherfucker right here. Couldn’t even afford no Jordans, had pair of “ordans” on his feet. And then he looked down and knew right away what she was laughing at. And he got this funny look on. Not
acting
mad anymore but mad for real.

He slapped her square across the face.

It stung her and surprised her. It surprised
him
. For a moment, Durham looked at his hand, the one that had slapped her. He had never hit a woman before. He had never hit a man. But when she had laughed, it was like it was all those people on the bus and everyone else who’d ever cracked on him was standing there before him, laughing.
All
of them, not just her. Well, he damn sure did have her attention now.

No one had ever looked at him before the way she was looking at him this minute. She was showing fear, and something else: respect.

She touched at the spot that had already reddened. Then, slowly, she stood straight and cocked up her chin. That look of fear, it had passed as quickly as it had come.

“That’s all you got?” said Olivia.

“I’ll give you more, you want it.”

“You dare take a hand to me?”

“Bitch, I will close my hand next time, you don’t mind your mouth.”

She chuckled and looked him over. “Oh, shit. Now Steve Urkel gonna act all rough and tough, huh?”

“Olivia, I’m warning you, you are fuckin’ with the wrong man.”

“Man?” She looked him over and moved in a step so that her face was close to his. “I don’t see no man. You see a man in this room, point him out.”

“I’m about to —”

“You about to
what
? Slap me again?” Her eyes caught fire. “Mother
fuck
you, punk.”

Spittle flew from her mouth as she spoke those words, and she raised her hand to strike him. Durham grabbed her wrist. She drew her free hand back and he grabbed that wrist, too. He pushed her away, releasing his hold on her, and she backpedaled and hit the couch. She charged him then.

He stepped in as she neared him. Her arms were spread and she was open in her middle, and he punched her in the stomach with all he had. He was trying to stop her, but he realized as his fist sank into her doughy flesh that he had caught her good. He felt a power then that he had never known before.

Olivia hinged forward at the waist. Her sour breath hit him as it was expelled. Her eyes bulged in pain and surprise. And as she jacked forward he drove his fist up into her jaw, putting everything into it. The uppercut lifted her off her feet. The noise it made was like a branch snapping off a tree.

Olivia staggered and found her feet. She lowered her head and put her hands on her knees. She retched and spit out blood. She spit out a tooth. A thread of mucus ran from her nose and hung in the air.

“Oh, sweet God,” she said.

The revolver from the pocket of his Tommys appeared in his hand. He gripped it by its barrel.

She looked up at him, at the gun, and her eyes went wide, humble and afraid. He liked the way it made him feel. He was strong, handsome, and tall, everything he had never been before. He wished Dewayne were here to see him now.

“Nah,” said Olivia, standing out of her crouch, unsteady on her feet. A glaze came to her eyes and she spread her hands. She wanted to plead to him but couldn’t get the words. She was thinking of her son.

The gun in his hand was electric, and he swung it like a hammer. The butt of it connected to her face. She turned her face and a sprinkle of blood jumped in the same direction, and while she tried to keep her feet he whipped her there again, harder this time. Her body spun. She tumbled over the couch. Her legs dangled off the arm of it and one of her sandals dropped to the floor.

Olivia wasn’t making any kind of noise now. The music was still playing, and so was the television. But it seemed real quiet in the room.

Durham walked around to the front of the couch and looked down at her. Her face was all fucked up. The socket was caved in around one of her eyes, where he guessed the gun had connected. It was a mess, but through the blood and bone he could see that the eye had popped out some and was layin’ down low. It seemed the way the eye was pointed that she was lookin’ off to the side. The eye was an inch or so lower than where it should have been, and it was exposed nearly all the way around. Nerves and muscles and shit was the only thing still holdin’ it on her face. Her jaw had turned color and was set off to the side kinda funny, and it had already swelled up, too. Her hands were bent at the wrists in the center of her chest, like she had arthritis or sumshit like that. If she was breathing, he couldn’t tell.

I guess I killed her, thought Durham. I just murdered the fuck out of that bitch.

He dropped the gun back in his pocket.

He walked around the apartment for a little while. How long, he didn’t know. He searched her room and took her keys off her nightstand. He searched the room where her son slept. He looked under the boy’s bed and through his drawers. The usual kid shit was thrown around the room: CD cases and game cases and wires and controllers coming from the PlayStation he had hooked up to a small TV. Ticket stubs from a Wizards game. He had a Rock poster and a magazine picture of Iverson taped up on his wall, too. But no chronic and no money. He went to the kitchen and then the bathroom and searched through the cabinets and all but found not one thing. In the bathroom mirror he saw his face and noticed the dirt tracks on it. His forehead had sweat bullets across it and his eyes were bright.

He sat down on the toilet seat and wrung his hands.

He couldn’t just leave her here, that much he knew. Take her somewhere else, dump her body, let her go missing for a while until he figured out what to do. When they did find her it would look like she got herself killed at random. She’d said her boy would be with his uncle for a couple days, and that would give him some time.

He took the shower curtain down off its rings. Out in the living room he spread the curtain on the floor and picked Olivia up off the couch. She hadn’t gone cold yet and she wasn’t stiff like he’d thought she’d be. Blood trailed on the wood floor as he carried her and dropped her roughly on the curtain’s edge. He rolled her up in it and looked at the mess she had left behind.

He couldn’t take her down the front stairs. He went to the back door that led to a rickety old porch overlooking the alley. It was quiet back there, except for the dogs. A light from down the way showed that below the porch was a narrow yard of dirt. He knew what he’d do, but he wasn’t ready yet.

He found some Comet or something like it in the kitchen, wet some paper towels, and shook some of the cleanser on the couch where most of the blood was. He rubbed at it and it got soapy and also turned the brown couch to beige. Must’ve had some bleach in it or somethin’, and anyway, didn’t look like the blood was coming out. He got up what she’d spit out and all and used more cleanser on the floor, and that came out all right. But the couch was going to be a problem. He couldn’t bring the color back to it, that was a fact. He had fucked that up good. But he rubbed at it some more as if he could. Then he flushed all the paper towels down the toilet, one by one so they wouldn’t clog it, and waited to make sure they had disappeared.

He started to talk to himself as he worked. “You all right, Mario,” and “You okay, boss,” like that. He noticed he was sweating right through his jersey. His hands were slick with sweat.

Durham found a rag under the sink and went around the apartment wiping off his fingerprints at the places he could remember he’d touched. He must have touched damn near everywhere, he knew. Still, he did the best he could. He put the rag in his pocket, then went back out to the living room. The shower curtain was red where Olivia had bled out. He bent down over what had been Olivia and picked her up, lifting mostly with his legs. He had no bulk on him and little muscle, so it was hard. He felt his back strain as he carried her out to the porch. He looked around but not too carefully, as he knew now that the rest of it would run on luck.