Devil in a Blue Dress er-1 Read online

  Ernest, the barber, let Zeppo stand out in front of his shop to beg because he knew that the neighborhood children wouldn't bother Zeppo as long as he stood in front of the barber's pane.

  "Hey, Zep, how you doin'?" I asked.

  "J-j-ju-j-just fi-f-f-fi-f-fine, Ease." Sometimes words would come easy to him and other times he couldn't even finish a sentence.

  "Nice day, huh?"

  "Y-y-y-yeah. G-go-g-g-go-good d-day," he stammered, holding his hands before his face, like claws.

  "Alright," I said, and then I walked into the barbershop.

  "Hey, Easy," Ernest said as he folded his newspaper and stood up from his barber's chair. I took his place and he blossomed the crisp white sheet over me, knotting the bib snug at my throat.

  "I thought you come in on Thursdays, Ease?"

  "Man can't always be the same, Ernest. Man gotta change with the days."

  "Hotcha! Lord, give me that seven!" someone shouted from the back of the narrow shop. There was always a game of craps at the back of Ernest's shop; a group of five men were on their knees back beyond the third barber chair.

  "So you looked in the mirror this mo'nin' and saw a haircut, huh?" Ernest asked me.

  "Grizzly as a bear."

  Ernest laughed and took a couple of practice snips with his scissors.

  Ernest always played Italian opera on the radio. If you asked him why he'd just say that Zeppo like it. But Zeppo couldn't hear that radio from the street and Ernest only had him in the shop once a month, for his free haircut.

  Ernest's father had been a drinking man. He beat poor little Ernest and Ernest's mother until the blood ran. So Ernest didn't have much patience with drinkers. And Zeppo was a drinker. I guess all that shaking didn't seem so bad if he had a snout full of cheap whiskey. So he'd beg until he had enough for a can of beans and a half-pint of scotch. Then Zeppo would get drunk.

  It was because Zeppo was almost always drunk, or on the way to being drunk, that Ernest wouldn't allow him in the shop.

  I once asked him why he'd let Zeppo hang out in front of the store if he hated drunks so much. And he told me, "The Lord might ask one day why I didn't look over my little brother."

  We shot the breeze while the men threw their bones and Zeppo twisted and jerked in the window; Don Giovanni whispered from the radio. I wanted to find out the whereabouts of Frank Green but it had to come up in normal conversation. Most barbers know all the important information in the community. That's why I was getting my hair cut.

  Ernest was brushing the hot lather around my ears when Jackson Blue came in the door.

  "Happenin', Ernest, Ease," he hailed.

  "Jackson," I said.

  "Lenny over there, Blue," Ernest warned.

  I glanced over at Lenny. He was a fat man, on his knees in a gardener's suit and a white painter's cap. He was biting a cigar butt and squinting at Jackson Blue.

  "You tell that skinny bastard t'get away from here, Ernie. I kill the mothahfuckah. I ain't foolin'," Lenny warned.

  "He ain't messin' wit' you, Lenny. Get back to your game or get outta my shop."

  One nice thing about barbers is that they have a dozen straight razors that they will use to keep order in their shops.

  "What's wrong with Lenny?" I asked.

  "Just a fool," Ernest said. "Thas all. Jackson here is too."

  "What happened?"

  Jackson was a small man and very dark. He was so black that his skin glinted blue in the full sun. He cowered and shone his big eyes at the door.

  "Lenny's girlfriend, you know Elba, left him again," Ernest said.

  "Yeah?" I was wondering how to turn the conversation to Frank Green.

  "And she come purrin' 'round Jackson just t'get Lenny riled."

  Jackson was looking at the floor. He wore a loose, striped blue suit and small-brimmed brown felt hat.

  "She did?"

  "Yeah, Easy. And you know Jackson stick his business in a meat grinder if it winked at him."

  "I'idn't mess wit' her. She jus' tole'im that." Jackson was pouting.

  "I guess my stepbrother be lyin' too?" Lenny was right there with us. It was like a comic scene in the movies because Jackson looked scared, like a cornered dog, and Lenny, with his fat gut hanging down, was like a bully dog bearing down on him.

  "Back off!" Ernest shouted, putting himself between the two men. "Any man can come in here wit'out fightin' if he wants."

  "This skinny lil booze hound gonna have to answer on Elba, Ernie."

  "He ain't gonna do it here. I swear you gonna have t'come through me t'get Jackson and you know he ain't worth that kinda pain."

  I remembered then how Jackson sometimes made his money.

  Lenny reached out at Jackson but the little man got behind Ernest and Ernest stood there, like a rock. He said, "Go back to your game while the blood still in your veins, man," then he pulled a straight razor from the pocket of his blue smock.

  "You ain't got no cause to threaten me, Ernie. I ain't shit on no man's doorstep." He was moving his head back and forth trying to see Jackson behind the barber's back.

  I started to get nervous sitting there between them and took off the bib. I used it to wipe the lather from my neck.

  "See that, Lenny. You botherin' my customer, brother." Ernest pointed a finger thick as a railroad tie at Lenny's belly. "Either you get back in the back or I'm'a skin ya. No lie."

  Anybody who knew Ernest knew that that was his last warning. You had to be tough to be a barber because your place was the center of business for a certain element in the community. Gamblers, numbers runners, and all sorts of other private businessmen met in the barbershop. The barbershop was like a social club. And any social club had to have order to run smoothly.

  Lenny tucked in his chin and shifted his shoulders this way and that, then he shuffled backwards a few steps.

  I got out of the chair and slapped six bits down on the counter. "There you go, Ernie," I said.

  Ernie nodded in my direction but he was too busy staring Lenny down to look at me.

  "Why don't we split," I said to the cowering Jackson. Whenever Jackson was nervous he'd have to touch his thing; he was holding on to it right then.

  "Sure, Easy, I think Ernie got it covered here."

  We turned down the first corner we came to and then down an alley, half a block away. If Lenny was to come after us he'd have to want us bad enough to hunt.

  He didn't find us, but as we were walking down Merriweather Lane someone shouted, "Blue!"

  It was Zeppo. He hobbled after us like a man on invisible crutches. At every step he teetered on the edge of falling over but then he'd take another step, saving himself, just barely.

  "Hey, Zep," Jackson said. He was looking over Zeppo's shoulder to see if Lenny was coming.

  "J-Jackson."

  "What you want, Zeppo?" I wanted something from Jackson myself and I didn't need an audience.

  Zeppo craned his head back further than I thought was possible, then he brought his wrists to his shoulder. He looked like a bird in agony. His smile was like death itself. "L-L-Lenny show i-is m-m-m-m-ad." Then he started coughing, which for Zeppo was a laugh. "Y-y-you-ou s-sellin', B-Blue?"

  I could have kissed the cripple.

  "Naw, man," Jackson said. "Frank gone big time now. He only sell by the crate to the stores. He say he don't want no nickels and dimes."

  "You don't sell fo' Frank any more?" I asked.

  "Uh-uh. He too big fo'a niggah like me."

  "Shit! An' I was lookin' fo' some whiskey too. I gotta party in mind that need some booze."

  "Well maybe I could set a deal, Ease." Jackson's eyes lit up. He was still turning now and then to see if Lenny was coming.

  "Like what?"

  "Maybe if you buy enough Frank'a cut us a deal."

  "Like how much?"

  "How much you need?"

  "Case or two of Jim Beam be fine."

  Jackson scratched his chin. "Frank'a sell by the case t'me.
I could buy three an' sell one by the bottle."

  "When you gonna see'im?" I must've sounded too eager because a caution light went on in Jackson's eye. He waited a long moment then said, "Whas up, Easy?"

  "What you mean?"

  "I mean," he said, "why is you lookin' fo' Frank?"

  "Man, I don't know what you mean. All I know is I got people comin' to the house on Saturday and the cupboard is bare. I got a couple'a bucks but I was laid off last Monday and I can't spend it all on whiskey."

  All this time Zeppo was shimmying there next to us. He was waiting to see if a bottle would materialize out of our talk.

  "Yeah, well, if you need it fast," Jackson said, still suspicious, "what if I get you a deal somewhere's else?"

  "I don't care. All I want is some cheap whiskey and I thought that was the business you did."

  "It is, Easy. You know I usually buy from Frank but maybe I could go someplace he sells ta. Cost a little more but you still save some money."

  "Anything you say, Jackson. Just lead me to the well."

  "M-m-m-m-me too," Zeppo added.

  20

  When we got to my car I drove down Central to Seventy-sixth Place. I was nervous being so close to the police station but I had to find Frank Green.

  Jackson took Zeppo and me down to Abe's liquor store. I was glad that Zeppo had come along with us because people who didn't know Zeppo kept their eyes and attention on him. I was banking on that to hide any questions I asked about Frank.

  On the way down to the liquor store Jackson told me the story of the men that owned it.

  Abe and Johnny were brothers-in-law. They came from Poland, most recently from the town of Auschwitz; Jews who survived the Nazi camps. They were barbers in Poland and they were barbers in Auschwitz, too.

  Abe was part of the underground in the camp and he saved Johnny from the gas chamber when Johnny was so sick that the Nazi guard had selected him to die. Abe dug a hole in the wall next to his bed and he put Johnny there, telling the guard that Johnny had died and was picked up, by the evening patrol, for cremation. Abe collected food from his friends in the resistance and fed his ailing brother-in-law through a hole in the wall. That went on for three months before the camp was liberated by the Russians.

  Abe's wife and sister, Johnny's wife, were dead. Their parents and cousins and everyone else they had ever known or had ever been related to had died in the Nazi camps. Abe took Johnny on a stretcher and dragged him to the GI station where they applied to immigrate.

  Jackson wanted to tell me more stories he'd heard about the camps but I didn't need to hear them. I remembered the Jews. Nothing more than skeletons, bleeding from their rectums and begging for food. I remembered them waving their weak hands in front of themselves, trying to keep modest; then dropping dead right there before my eyes.

  Sergeant Vincent LeRoy found a twelve-year-old boy who was bald and weighed forty-six pounds. The boy ran to Vincent and hugged his leg, like the little Mexican boy clung to Matthew Teran. Vincent was a hard man, a gunner, but he melted for that little boy. He called him Tree Rat because of the way the boy crawled up on him and wouldn't let go.

  The first day Vincent carried Tree Rat on his back while we evacuated the concentration camp survivors. That night he made Tree Rat go with the nurses to the evacuation center, but the little boy got away from them and made it back to our bivouac.

  Vincent decided to keep him after that. Not the way Matthew Teran kept the Mexican boy, but like any man whose heart goes out to children.

  Little Tree, as I called him, rode on Vincent's back all the next day. He ate a giant chocolate bar that Vincent had in his pack and other sweets the men gave him.

  That night we were awakened by Tree's moaning. His little stomach had distended even more and he couldn't even hear us trying to soothe him.

  The camp doctor said that he died from the richness of the food he'd been eating.

  Vincent cried for a whole day after Tree Rat died. He blamed himself, and I suppose he had a share of the blame. But I'll never forget thinking how those Germans had hurt that poor boy so terribly that he couldn't even take in anything good. That was why so many Jews back then understood the American Negro; in Europe the Jew had been a Negro for more than a thousand years.

  Abe and Johnny came to America and had a liquor store in less than two years. They worked hard for what they got but there was just one thing wrong: Johnny was wild.

  Jackson said, "I don't know if he got like that in that hole in the wall or he was always like that. He said that he went crazy for a night, once, because him an' Abe had to cut the hair from they own wives' heads fo' they went to the gas chambers. Imagine that? Cuttin' yo' own wive's hair an' then sendin' her ta die? … Anyway, maybe he went crazy for the night an' now that's why he's so wild."

  "What you mean, wild?" I asked him.

  "Just wild, Easy. One night I goes down there with this high school girl, Donna Frank, an' I'm lookin' to impress her wit' some liquor and Abe is already gone. So Johnny acts like I'm not even there an' he start tellin' her how pretty she is an' how he'd like t'give her sumpin'."

  "Yeah?"

  "He give her five dollars an' had me stand at the register while he fuckin' her right there behind the counter!"

  "You lyin'!"

  "Naw, Easy, that boy gotta screw loose, couple of em."

  "So you go inta business then?"

  "Shit no, that dude scared me. But I told Frank about it and he made the connection. You see, Frank had gone to Abe one time but Abe didn't want nuthin' t'do wit' no hijack. But Johnny love it, all he sells is hijack after Abe go home at night."

  "Frank delivers here regular?" I asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Just like a delivery truck, huh?" I laughed. "He drive up on Wednesday afternoon an' unload."

  "Us'ly it's Thursday," Jackson said, but then he frowned.

  It was just a hole-in-the-wall liquor store. They had one rack for cakes, potato chips, and bagged pork rinds in the middle of the floor. There was a long candy counter and behind that were the shelves of liquor and the cash register. At the back wall was a glass-door refrigerator where they had mixers and soda pop.

  Johnny was a tall man with sandy hair and glassy brown eyes. There was a look on his face halfway between a smile and wonderment. He looked like a young boy who had already gone bad.

  "Hiya, Johnny," Jackson said. "This here's my friends Easy an' Zeppo."

  Zeppo came twisting in behind us. Johnny's smile hardened a little when he saw Zeppo. Some people are afraid of palsy, maybe they're afraid they'll catch it.

  "Good day, sirs," he said to us.

  "You gonna have to start givin' me a percent, Johnny, much business as I bring you. Easy gettin' ready fo'a party an' Zeppo need his milk ev'ry day."

  Johnny laughed, keeping his eyes on Zeppo. He asked, "What do you need, Easy?"

  "I need a case'a Jim Beam an' Jackson say you could get it a little cheaper than normal."

  "I can give it discount if you buy by the box." His accent was heavy but he understood English well enough.

  "What can you do for two cases?"

  "Three dollars the bottle, anywhere else you pay four."

  "Yeah, that's good, but just a touch over my budget. You know I lost my job last week."

  "Oh, that's too bad," Johnny said, and turned to me. "Here it is your birthday and they throw you out."

  "Just a party. How 'bout two-seventy-five?"

  He brought up his right hand rubbing the fingers. "I'd be giving it to you for that, my friend. But I tell you what," he said. "Two cases at three dollars is fifty-four. I let you have them for fifty."

  I should have haggled for more but I was impatient to get out of there. I could tell Albright that Frank would be there Friday and on Thursday Frank and I would make a deal.

  "Deal," I said. "Can I pick it up tomorrow?"

  "Why can't we do business now?" he asked suspiciously.

  "I ain't got no fifty do
llars on me, man. I could get it by tomorrow."

  "I can't do it until Friday. I have another delivery Friday."

  "Why not tomorrow?" I asked just to throw him off.

  "I can't sell all my whiskey to one man, Easy. Tomorrow I will get two cases but what if a customer comes in and wants Jim Beam? If I don't have it he goes to another store. Not good for business."

  We settled the deal with a ten-dollar deposit. I bought Zeppo a half-pint of Harpers and I gave Jackson a five.

  "Whas happenin', Easy?" Jackson said to me after Zeppo had gone off.

  "Nuthin'. What you talkin' 'bout?"

  "I mean you ain't givin' no party. An' you ain't usually gettin' no haircut on'a Wednesday neither. Sumpin's up."

  "You dreamin', man. Party gonna be Saturday night an' you welcome t'come."

  "Uh-huh." He eyed me warily. "Whas all this got to do with Frank?"

  My stomach filled with ice water but I didn't let it show. "This ain't got nuthin' t'do with Frank Green, man. I just want some liquor."

  "Alright. Sounds good. You know I be around if they's a party t'be had."

  "See ya then," I said. I was hoping that I'd still be alive.

  All I had to do was live for twenty-four hours, until Frank made his weekly rounds.

  21

  I stopped by Joppy's on the way back from the liquor store.

  It felt like home to see him buffing that marble top. But I was uncomfortable. I had always respected Joppy as a friend. I was also a little wary of him because you had to be careful around a fighter.

  When I got to the bar I dug both hands into the pockets of my cotton jacket. I had so much to say that, for a moment, I couldn't say anything.

  "What you starin' at, Ease?"

  "I don't know, Jop."

  Joppy laughed and ran his hand over his bald head. "What you mean?"

  "That girl called me the other night."

  "What girl is that?"

  "The one your friend's lookin' for."

  "Uh-huh." Joppy put down his rag and placed his hands on the bar. "That's pretty lucky, I guess."

  "I guess so."

  The bar was empty. Joppy and I were studying each other's eyes.

  "But I don't think it was luck, really," I said.