South Street (51 page)

“You know I ain’t gonna be comin’ for no John,” Doris whispered as he passed her.

“Sure, I know,” Leroy said, resuming his vigil at the window. “Whores never do.” He turned and looked at her. “That’s why I hates whores.”

Brown and Vanessa strolled along the sidewalk, holding hands, an equal-opportunity version of Barbie and Ken. They drifted past the open doors of taprooms, Christmas-tinseled watering holes, leaning away from the sounds and smoke that rolled out. They didn’t say much of anything. Brown hummed softly, a song that had once been blues, that might get back to being blues someday, striding along with his head up, his shoulders moving too much sometimes, sometimes not enough. Vanessa walked beside him, her head down, not looking where she was going. Her strides were a few inches shorter than Brown’s, and every few steps she took a little stumbling hop to catch up, throwing them either in or out of step. They paused at Nineteenth Street to wait for the light, then stepped off the curb and across the street. Brown slipped his arm around her, cupping her hip with his palm. Outside a bar on Seventeenth a covey of Saturday-night drinkers loitered, laughed, whistled at Brown and Vanessa—“Um, um, ma man has got hisself a live one! In-deed! That fox gonna be turnin’ him every damn way but a-loose!” Brown grinned. Vanessa lowered her head and smiled faintly.

They climbed the stairs out of heat and darkness into hotter heat and darker darkness. The walls of the stairway enclosed them. Vanessa’s knees sagged; she held onto Brown’s belt as they climbed. Brown half carried her inside, not bothering to bolt the door. “You okay?” Brown said.

Vanessa pulled his head down into the powder-sweet valley between her breasts. His tongue tasted talcum and salt. Vanessa dropped her arms and moved away from him. “You want a beer?”

“Later.”

“I want one.”

“
Now
?”

Vanessa grinned, leaned in and kissed his nose, danced away from his grasping arms like a picador toying with a bull. She went to the refrigerator, took out the beer, poured it into the jelly jars, gave one to Brown. “Anybody ever tell you you’re a weird broad?” Brown asked conversationally.

“I ain’t never met nobody who didn’t tell me I was a weird broad,” Vanessa told him.

“I can see why,” Brown said. “Who ever heard a drinkin’ beer after a Singapore Sling.”

“It’s a new drink. It’s called a Singapore Screw.” She went over to the window, leaned back against the sill, her face outlined against the skyglow. Brown kicked around until he found a chair, sat down, and sipped his beer. “When we was kids we useta play this here game,” Vanessa said. “We’d go up to Pine Street an’ get us some empty pop bottles, an’ then we’d go down to the store an’ get us some candy. I ’member these coconut candy things, sometimes they was yellow an’ pink an’ brown stripes, but mostly they was made to look like slices a watermelon. Three of ’em for two cent. One pop bottle. We’d get us some a that candy an’ go set on the doorstep an’ see how long we could look at that candy ’fore we just
had
to eat it. Then we’d set around an’ wait some more ’fore we ate the second one. Ma one sister, Lindalee, she useta start talkin’ an’ forget what she was doin’ an’ have hers gone. Les, she couldn’t hardly play. She spent all her time waitin’ to see who was gonna come in second. I almost always won. Same thing with Christmas. ’fore Daddy went to hell he useta tell us he could make it any day we wanted. Les, she’d say make it her birthday so she could get a present. Lindalee’d say she wanted it to be Christmas, so everybody could get a present. That simple fool had us believin’ he could change the world.”

“What day did you want it to be?” Brown said gently.

“Me? I wanted it to be Christmas Eve, ’cause then no matter what happened, the next day was gonna be Christmas. If it already was Christmas, the next day was December twenty-sixth. Who gives a damn about December twenty-sixth?”

“The British,” Brown murmured. He put his beer down, stumbled through the darkness, and put his hands on her bare shoulders. Vanessa shivered. “Maybe you ain’t so weird after all,” Brown said. He brushed her lips lightly with his. Vanessa closed her eyes. Then she pushed him away and almost ran into the bedroom.

“Ho, ho, ho,” Brown said as he drained his beer and followed her.

Cotton and Willie T. dragged despondently into the Elysium and came to rest against the bar. Cotton waved vaguely in the direction of the bartender before joining Willie T. in a slump of utter defeat. “What you havin’?” the bartender asked.

“Poison,” Willie T. said.

The bartender looked at him and sniffed. “Straight up or on the rocks?”

“Nemo,” Cotton said, “remind me to put you up for the Emmy Award.”

“Yeah,” Willie T. said, “posthumous.”

“Past what?” Nemo demanded suspiciously. “Don’t you be comin’ around here with none a them fifty-cent words from the Temple night school. I done had me a hard day.”

“Community College,” Cotton corrected, “an’ he means after you’re dead.”

“You startin’ trouble, Willie?”

“Hell, no,” said Willie T. “Pretty soon we gonna have so damn much trouble around here, they gonna be haulin’ it away in garbage trucks.”

“When was the last time you seen a garbage truck around here?” Cotton demanded. “They gonna use paddy wagons.”

“What kinda trouble?” Nemo asked.

“Chef Boy-ar-dee trouble,” Cotton told him.

“Yeah,” said Willie T. “Spaghetti an’ minced niggers.”

“Dry niggers,” Cotton corrected. “What about them drinks, Nemo?”

“I can’t give you no drink ’less you tell me what you want.”

“Somethin’ strong. Give us some a Leroy’s private.”

“Leroy’s private? I don’t know—”

“Shit,” Cotton said, “we gonna be dead so soon it ain’t gonna make no difference.”

“Huh?” Nemo said. “How come you gonna be dead?”

“Not just us. You, too. Give me that drink an’ I’ll tell you.”

Nemo brought up a sealed bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon and two glasses. Cotton broke the seal and poured two healthy slugs. “Now, what’s this shit about dyin’?” Nemo demanded.

Cotton leaned back against the bar and belched heavily. “Ma man, you see that door over there?”

“Yeah,” Nemo said.

“Well, when Leroy comes through that door you better lean over an’ grab ahold a your ankles an’ kiss your ass good-bye, ’cause about half an hour later they gonna declare World War Three, Little Italy against Little Africa, an’ the suckers got us outgunned.”

“Uh huh,” Nemo said. “Well in that case we been fightin’ for an hour an’ a half, ’cause Leroy come in about midnight.”

“Leroy’s
here
?” Willie T. gasped.

“Aw, shit,” Cotton said. “Here I coulda been enjoyin’ ma last few minutes a life—”

“Wait a minute,” said Willie T. excitedly. “Maybe he didn’t do it.”

“Do what?” asked Nemo.

“Course he did it,” Cotton said.

“He didn’t do it last night,” Willie T. argued.

“Do what?”

“That’s ’zactly why he done it tonight,” said Cotton.

“Done what?”

“You’re right,” Willie T. said morosely.

“I ain’t got time for you silly-ass niggers anyway,” Nemo said angrily, and stumped away.

Cotton poured another round and regarded the closed office door. “Maybe he didn’t do it.”

“Yeah,” said Willie T. “An’ maybe there really is a Santa Claus, an’ maybe Jefferson really was a nigger, an’ maybe—”

“All right, all right, I was just thinkin’.”

“Thinkin’, hell, you was prayin’.”

They drank a few shots in silence. “Hey,” said Willie T. suddenly. “There’s Les settin’ over there. If he’d a done it, he’d be fuckin’ her someplace, wouldn’t he? Guess that means he didn’t do it.”

“I don’t know,” Cotton said. “Maybe the last thing you want after killin’ somebody is a woman.”

“Oh,” said Willie T. “Guess that means he did do it, then.”

“Hell,” Cotton said, “I don’t know.”

“I wonder if I’d want me a woman after I done killed somebody,” Willie T. mused.

“I wonder if I’d want to kill somebody enough to do it,” Cotton said.

Willie T. stared at him. “You mean you ain’t never killed nobody?”

“Sure,” Cotton said, “but it ain’t like I ever hated anybody to go huntin’ ’em like they was an animal. Shoot ’em ’cause they’re tryin’ to shoot you, or ’cause they’re in your way, or ’cause they pissed you off right then an’ there, that’s one thing. Trackin’ a man down, that’s somethin’ else. Takes somethin’
strange
inside.” Cotton drained his glass, poured another slug.

“You think Leroy’s got somethin’ strange like that inside him?”

“Who the hell knows what somebody else got inside ’em? Got enough trouble with ma ownself. Maybe you got it inside a you.”

“Oh no,” said Willie T. “No, I couldn’t never kill nobody.”

“Y’ever done it?”

“Hell, no!”

“Then how you know you couldn’t?”

“What?” said Willie T. “That don’t make no sense.”

“Sure don’t,” Cotton agreed. He picked up the bottle, examined the label. “Good bourbon.”

“Yeah,” said Willie T. “Cotton?”

“Whahuh?”

“How long you think it’ll take ’fore Gino sends somebody down here?”

“Who the hell knows.”

“Maybe we could get outa town?”

Cotton slammed the bottle down. “I ain’t runnin’ from no goddamn white man.”

“Even if he’s comin’ to kill you?”

“’Specially if he’s comin’ to kill me,” Cotton snapped.

“Maybe he’ll only kill Leroy.”

Cotton sighed. “Willie, sometimes you’re so damn dumb there ain’t no words for it. I don’t know why I’ma spend some a ma precious last minutes explainin’ this to you, but I guess you got a right to know why you’re gonna die. Gino gonna send somebody to get Leroy. We gotta stop ’em. Gino’s gonna keep sendin’ people until they get us. It’s that simple.”

“Oh,” said Willie T. He took the bottle and poured himself a drink, downed it. “Well, how come we don’t just let ’em
have
Leroy?”

Cotton sighed. “We gotta protect Leroy ’cause soon as he’s gone every two-bit hustler on South Street is gonna be takin’ pot shots at us, all at the same time. It’s just like when they shot Kennedy. Five minutes later them Russians an’ everybody else was pushin’ us around.”

“I still don’t see why I got to die,” Willie T. said.

“It’s the rules,” Cotton said. He picked up the bottle and took a long drink.

“Maybe he didn’t do it,” Willie T. said, without much hope.

“Well,” Cotton said, “there ain’t but one way to find out.”

“Go in an ast him?”

“You got it, brother.”

“I don’t wanna know,” Willie T. said.

“I do,” Cotton said. “I wanna know it if he didn’t do it, an’ I don’t wanna know it if he did.”

Willie T. took the bottle away and sucked at it. “I know. We’ll get Nemo to go in an’ ask him, an’ only tell us if he didn’t do it.”

“Hey,” Cotton said. “You are pretty smart. You ma main man from now on.”

“That there was easy,” Willie T. said modestly. “I can figure all kinds a shit out, you give me a minute.”

“Yeah,” Cotton said. “That was pretty good thinkin’, Willie. Onliest thing that bothers me is, when Nemo comes back an’ don’t be tellin’ us nothin’, how we gonna not know that what he ain’t tellin’ us is what we don’t want to know?”

“Um,” said Willie T. “That’s right. If he didn’t tell us what we told him not to tell us, that’d be the same as him tellin’ us. That’s no good. Lemme think a little more. Gimme the bottle.”

“I got it,” Cotton said, trying to snap his fingers and missing. “What we do is we get Nemo t’only tell us the truth if it’s good news an’ lie if it ain’t. He goes in an’ asts Leroy, but no matter what Leroy says to Nemo, Nemo tells
us
that Leroy didn’t do it.”

“Hey,” said Willie T., “that there’s great. Slap me five.” Cotton slapped him five. “You pretty smart, Cotton. Even if you can’t read, you oughta be in the State Department or somethin’.”

“Well, yeah,” Cotton said modestly, “I coulda had that Vietnam thing over months ago.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure,” Cotton said.

“Only thing,” Willie T. said, “only thing is, ’bout your plan, now, only thing is how we gonna know if Nemo’s lyin’ when he tells us Leroy didn’t do it?”

“We don’t
want
to know if he’s lyin’, Willie, we wants to know if he’s tellin’ the truth.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s right. Well how we gonna know if he’s tellin’ the truth?”

“Damn, Willie, how you think? We gonna ast him.”

“Wait a minute,” said Willie T. “We gonna tell him to lie so we don’t know an’ then we gonna ast him if he’s lyin’ or not so we do know? Why we goin’ through all that?”

“Because,” Cotton told him, “we already do know.”

“Oh,” Willie T. said. “Yeah. I guess we do.” He picked up the bottle and took several healthy swallows. “Well, then,” he said finally, “I guess one a you has got to go ast him.”

“I guess I will.”

“You gonna tell me afterwards?”

“You want me to?”

“No.”

“I’ll tell you.”

“Thanks.”

Cotton pushed himself away from the bar. He looked around. He hitched up his pants. He coughed.

“Will you go on?” Willie T. said.

“I’m goin’. I’m goin’.” Cotton stumped across the room, slow and bandy-legged. He paused before the door to the office, knocked. There was no answer. Cotton pushed the door open and went inside. The room was dark, the only light the Band-Aid shaped block with Cotton-shaped shadow that came in through the door. Cotton stepped into the darkness, sniffing like a bloodhound—whiskey and cigar smoke. He saw a sudden red glow near Leroy’s desk. “Leroy?”

“Close the door, Cotton,” Leroy said tiredly. “The light bothers me.” Cotton closed the door. He waited until his eyes adjusted a little, then made his way to the pool table and half sat, half leaned on the edge of it. He looked toward the slumped shadow in the midst of shadows that was Leroy, seeing the slow blooming of tobacco embers, hearing the harsh crackle of burning leaves, smelling the smoke. In a few minutes there was a grating sound as Leroy ground out the cigar. “You want a drink?” Leroy asked.

“No thanks. I had enough.”

“Me too,” Leroy said.