Part 4 (2/2)

I could even go back to the s.h.i.+pyard and work as a mechanic, I thought. As long as I knew I was going to kill him, nothing could bother me. They could beat my head to a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp and kick my guts through my spine. But they couldn't hurt me, no matter what they did. I had a p.e.c.k.e.rwood's life in the palm of my hand and that made all the difference.

CHAPTER VI.

I called the best hotel in town when I got home and made reservations for a deuce at nine o'clock. The head waiter's voice was very courteous: 'Thank you, Mr. Jones.' I grinned to myself; he'd fall out if he knew I was a Negro, I thought.

Then I called Alice. I'd decided to knock myself out and when I told her to wear evening clothes her voice became excited. 'Now I know we're going to the Last Word.' That was a new club out on Central she'd been trying to get me to take her to ever since it opened; I suppose she figured that the people in her cla.s.s didn't patronize such places and the only way she'd get there was for me to take her.

'Nope,' I said. 'The Avenue's out tonight.'

'You know I want to go to the Last Word,' she said. Her low, well-modulated voice was cajoling.

'That's not the mood,' I said. 'And anyway, n.o.body dresses for the Last Word.'

'Where, Bob, the Seven Nymphs?' That was a Hollywood joint where Negroes went sometimes.

'Nope, bigger and better,' I said.

'Don't tease me, Bob.' A thread of annoyance had come into her voice. 'I absolutely refuse to go unless you tell me now.'

'It's a secret,' I laughed. 'I'll call for you at eight.' I hung up before she had a chance to reply.

Ella Mae pa.s.sed through the living room with the baby wrapped in a blanket. She had just finished bathing it. 'You oughta be 'shamed of yourself, teasing Alice like that,' she said.

'Don't you worry about Alice,' I told her. 'Alice can take care of herself.'

She began pinning a diaper on the baby. 'You're going to mess up yet,' she said. 'Alice don't know you like I do.'

I grinned at her. 'n.o.body knows me like you do. You're my baby.' She snorted. I began peeling off my sport s.h.i.+rt. 'I'm just playing around with Alice until you and I figure out how to get rid of Henry,' I said. 'Then we're going to get married and I'll keep Alice as my Monday girl.'

She gave me a long peculiar look. Then suddenly she giggled. 'You'll have to raise Emerald.'

'Emerald what?' Then I laughed. 'I forgot her name was Emerald.' It always startled me. 'You sure did your baby a dirty trick,' I added.

'I think Emerald's a pretty name,' she defended. 'Prettier than Alice, anyway.'

'Emerald Brown,' I p.r.o.nounced, going into my room to finish undressing. 'You must think she's gonna grow up to be one of the green people.'

She didn't reply.

'Well, it's your baby,' I said.

I took another shower and began dressing. When Ella Mae came into the kitchen to heat the baby bottle she said, 'You oughta be clean enough even for Alice now--two baths in one day.' Her voice was ridiculing.

'I'm tryna turn white,' I laughed.

'I wouldn' be s'prised none, lil as it's said,' she cracked back.

'You know how much I love the white folks,' I said; I couldn't let it go.

'You just ain't saying it, either,' she kept on. 'All that talking you do 'bout 'em all the time. I see you got the whitest coloured girl you could find.

'd.a.m.n, you sound like a black gal,' I said, a little surprised. 'I thought you liked Alice.'

'Oh, Alice is fine,' she said. 'Rich and light and almost white. You better hang on to her.'

'Okay, baby, I quit,' I said. I wondered what was eating her.

She went into her room and closed the door. I put on dinner clothes, cloth pumps, midnight-blue trousers, white silk s.h.i.+rt with a soft turned-down collar, a pointed-tip dubonnet bow, and a white jacket. I'd bought the outfit a year ago, but the only chance I'd had to wear it was at the Alpha formal at the Elks Hall during the Christmas season, except when I wore it down on the Avenue late at night as if I'd just come from some affair or other. I felt sharp in it.

I stepped out into the parlour and called Ella Mae. 'Come look at your sweet man, baby.'

She looked strictly evil when she stepped into the room. She gave me one look and said, 'All I hope is you don't come home mad and try to take it out on me.' Then she softened. 'You do look fine, sure 'nough.'

I grinned. 'Well, talk to me, baby.'

She stepped forward suddenly and pulled my face down and kissed me. She made her mouth wide so that her lips encircled mine completely, wet and soft; and her tongue came out and played across my lips, forcing itself between my teeth.

I pushed her away roughly, almost knocking her down. 'G.o.dd.a.m.nit, quit teasing me!' I snarled.

'Just like a n.i.g.g.e.r,' she said angrily, blood reddening in her face. 'Get dressed up and can't n.o.body touch you. Shows you ain't used to nothing.'

'h.e.l.l, I wasn't even thinking about my clothes,' I said, stalking out.

Outside the setting sun slanted from the south with a yellowish, old-gold glow, and the air was warm and fragrant. It was the best part of the day in Los Angeles; the colours of flowers were more vivid, while the houses were less starkly white and the red-tiled roofs were weathered maroon. The irritation ironed quickly out of me and I got that bubbly, wonderful feeling a*ain.

I glanced at my watch, saw that it was a quarter to, and hurried to the car. At Vernon I turned west to Normandie, driving straight into the sun; north on Normandie to Twentyeighth Street, then west past Western. This was the West Side, When you asked a Negro where he lived, and he said on the West Side, that was supposed to mean he was better than the Negroes who lived on the South Side; it was like the white folks giving a Beverly Hills address.

The houses were well kept, mostly white stucco or frame, typical one-storey California bungalows, averaging from six to ten rooms; here and there was a three- or four-storey apartment building. The lawns were green and well trimmed, bordered with various jocal plants and flowers. It was a pleasant neighbourhood, clean, quiet, well bred.

Alice's folks lived in a modern two-storey house in the middle of the block. I parked in front, strolled across the wet sidewalk to the little stone porch, and pushed the bell. Chimes sounded inside. The air smelled of freshly cut gra.s.s and gardenias in bloom. A car pa.s.sed, leaving the smell of burnt gasoline. Some children were playing in the yard a couple of houses down, and all up and down the street people were working in their yards. I felt like an intruder and it made me slightly resentful.

The door opened noiselessly, and Mrs. Harrison said, 'Oh, it's you, Bob. Come right in, Alice will be ready shortly.'

I had to get my thoughts straightened out in a hurry. 'How are you today, Mrs. Harrison?' I said, following her into the small square hallway. 'How is Dr. Harrison?'

She was a very light-complexioned woman with sharp Caucasian features and glinting grey eyes. Her face was wrinkled with countless tiny lines and sagged about the jowls. She wore lipstick but no other make-up, and her fine grey hair was bobbed and carefully marcelled. She was aristocraticlooking enough, if that was what she wanted, but she had that look of withered soul and body that you see on the faces of many old white ladies in the South.

'Oh, the doctor is busy as usual,' she said in a cordial voice, turning left down three carpeted steps into the sunken living room. 'I've told the doctor a dozen times that he's just working himself to death, but there's nothing to do with him. He says there's a shortage of experienced physicians now and he's such a humanitarian at heart.'

I could picture the doctor, a little cheap, small-hearted, lecherous, cushy-mouthed, bald-headed, dried-up, parchmentcoloured man in his late sixties, who figured he was a killer with the women. He was probably out chasing some chippy chick right then and I caught myself about to say, 'Strictly a humanitarian.'

Instead I said, 'Yes, he is,' lifting my feet high to keep from stumbling over the .thick nap of the Orientals. Their house reminded me of a country club in Cleveland where I worked summers when I was in high school; you knew they had dough, you saw it, it was there, you didn't have to guess about it. 'Of course the money he's making ought to compensate in part,' I added evenly.

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