Devil in a Blue Dress Read online

  “No reason t’see animals in cages far as I can see. They cain’t help me and I cain’t do nuthin’ fo’ them neither.”

  “But you can learn from them, Easy. The zoo animals can teach you.”

  “Teach what?”

  She sat back and looked into the smoke and steam raised by Mr. Ling’s stove. She was looking back into a dream.

  “The first time my father took me to the zoo, it was in New Orleans. I was born in New Orleans.” As she spoke she developed a light drawl. “We went to the monkey house and I remember thinking it smelled like death in there. A spider monkey was swinging from the nets that hung from the top of his cage; back and forth. Anyone with eyes could see that he was crazy from all those years of being locked away; but the children and adults were nudging each other and sniggering at the poor thing.

  “I felt just like that ape. Swinging wildly from one wall to another; pretending I had somewhere to go. But I was trapped in my life just like that monkey. I cried and my father took me out of there. He thought that I was just sensitive to that poor creature. But I didn’t care about a stupid animal.

  “From then on we only went to the cages where the animals were more free. We watched the birds mainly. Herons and cranes and pelicans and peacocks. The birds were all I was interested in. They were so beautiful in their fine plumes and feathers. The male peacocks would spread out their tail feathers and rattle them at the hens when they wanted to mate. My daddy lied and said that they were just playing a game. But I secretly knew what they were doing.

  “Then, at almost closing time, we passed the zebras. No one was around and Daddy was holding my hand. Two zebras were running back and forth. One was trying to avoid the other but the bully had cut off every escape. I yelled for my daddy to stop them because I worried that they were going to fight.”

  Daphne had grabbed on to my hand, she was so excited. I found myself worried; but I couldn’t really tell what bothered me.

  “They were right there next to us,” she said. “At the fence, when the male mounted the female. His long, leathery thing jabbing in and out of her. Twice he came out of her completely, and spurted jissum down her flank.

  “My daddy and I were holding hands so tight that it hurt me but I didn’t say anything about it. And when we got back to the car he kissed me. It was just on the cheek at first but then he kissed me on the lips, like lovers do.” Daphne had a faraway smile on her face. “But when he finished kissing me he started to cry. He put his head in my lap and I had to stroke his head for a long time and tell him that it was just fine before he’d even look up at me again.”

  The disgust must’ve shown on my face because she said, “You think that it was sick, what we did. But my daddy loved me. From then on, my whole fourteenth year, he’d take me to the zoo and the park. Always at first he’d kiss me like a father and his little girl but then we’d get alone someplace and act like real lovers. And always, always after he’d cry so sweet and beg me to forgive him. He bought me presents and gave me money, but I’d’ve loved him anyway.”

  I wanted to run away from her but I was too deep in trouble to act on my feelings, so I tried to change the subject. “What’s all that got to do with you goin’ t’see Carter?” I asked.

  “My daddy never took me anywhere again after that year. He left Momma and me in the spring and I never saw him again. Nobody ever knew about him and me and what had happened. But I knew. I knew that that was why he left. He just loved me so much that day at the zoo and he knew me, the real me, and whenever you know somebody that well you just have to leave.”

  “Why’s that?” I wanted to know. “Why you have t’leave someone just when you get close?”

  “It’s not just close, Easy. It’s something more.”

  “And that’s what you had with Carter?”

  “He knows me better than any other man.”

  I hated Carter then. I wanted to know Daphne like he did. I wanted her, even if knowing her meant that I couldn’t have her.

  DAPHNE AND I took the back path, through the bushes, to the little house. Everything was fine.

  I opened the door for her. She hadn’t had anything else to say after her story about the zoo. I don’t know why but I didn’t have anything else to say either. Maybe it was because I didn’t believe her. I mean, I believed that she believed the story, or, at least, she wanted to believe it, but there was something wrong with the whole thing.

  Somewhere between the foo yong and the check I decided to cut my losses. Daphne was too deep for me. Somehow I’d call Carter and tell him where she was. I’d wash my hands of the whole mess. I’m just in it for the money, I kept thinking.

  I was so busy having those thoughts that I didn’t think to check the room. What was there to worry about anyway? So when Daphne gasped I was surprised to see DeWitt Albright standing at the stove.

  “Evening, Easy,” he drawled.

  I reached for the pistol in my belt but before I could get to it an explosion went off in my head. I remember the floor coming up to my face and then there was nothing for a while.

  CHAPTER 28

  I WAS ON A GREAT BATTLESHIP in the middle of the largest firefight in the history of war. The cannons were red hot and the crew and I were loading those shells. Airplanes strafed the deck with machine-gun fire that stung my arms and chest but I kept on hefting shells to the man in front of me. It was dusk or early dawn and I was exhilarated by the power of war.

  Then Mouse came up to me and pulled me from the line. He said, “Easy! We gotta get outta here, man. Ain’t no reason t’die in no white man’s war!”

  “But I’m fighting for freedom!” I yelled back.

  “They ain’t gonna let you go, Easy. You win this one and they have you back on the plantation ’fore Labor Day.”

  I believed him in an instant but before I could run a bomb rocked the ship and we started to sink. I was pitched from the deck into the cold cold sea. Water came into my mouth and nose and I tried to scream but I was underwater. Drowning.

  ☼ ☼ ☼

  WHEN I CAME AWAKE I was dripping from the bucket of water that Primo had dumped on me. Water was in my eyes and down my windpipe.

  “What happened, amigo? You have a fight with your friends?”

  “What friends?” I asked suspiciously. For all I knew at that minute it was Primo who suckered me.

  “Joppy and the white man in the white suit.”

  “White man?” Primo helped me to a sitting position. I was on the ground right outside the door of our little house. My head started clearing.

  “Yeah. You okay, Easy?”

  “What about the white man? When did he and Joppy get here?”

  “About two, three hours ago.”

  “Two, three hours?”

  “Yeah. Joppy asked me where you were and when I told him he drove the car back around the house. Then they took off about a little bit after that.”

  “The girl with ’em?”

  “I don’t see no girl.”

  I pulled myself up and went through the house, Primo at my heels.

  No girl.

  I went out back and looked around but she wasn’t there either. Primo came up behind me. “You guys have a fight?”

  “Not much’a one. Can I use your phone, man?”

  “Yeah, sure. It’s right inside.”

  I called Dupree’s sister but she said that he and Mouse had left in the early morning. Without Mouse I didn’t know what to do. So I went out to my car and drove toward Watts.

  The night was fully black with no moon and thick clouds that hid the stars. Every block or so there’d be a streetlamp overhead, shining in darkness, illuminating nothing.

  “Get out of it, Easy!”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You gotta find that girl, man. You gotta make this shit right.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Uh-uh, Easy. That don’t make you brave. Brave is findin’ that white man an’ yo’ friend. Brave is not lettin�
�� them pull this shit on you.”

  “So what can I do?”

  “You got that gun, don’t ya? You think them men’s gonna beat bullets?”

  “They armed too, both of ’em.”

  “All you gotta do is make sure they don’t see ya comin’. Just like in the war, man. Make believe you is the night.”

  “But how I even find’em t’sneak up on? What you want me t’do? Look in the phone book?”

  “You know where Joppy live, right? Les go look. An’ if he ain’t there you know they gotta be with Albright.”

  Joppy’s house was dark and his bar was padlocked from the outside. The night watchman on duty at Albright’s building, a fat, florid-faced man, said that Albright had moved out.

  So I made up my mind to call information for every town north of Santa Monica. I got lucky and found DeWitt Albright on my first try. He lived on Route 9, in the Malibu Hills.

  CHAPTER 29

  I DROVE PAST SANTA MONICA into Malibu and found Route 9. It was just a graded dirt road. There I found three mailboxes that read: Miller, Korn, Albright. I passed the first two houses and drove a full fifteen minutes before getting to Albright’s marker. It was far enough out that any death cry would go unheard.

  It was a simple, ranch-style house, not large. There were no outside lights except on the front porch so I couldn’t make out the color. I wanted to know what color the house was. I wanted to know what made jets fly and how long sharks lived. There was a lot I wanted to know before I died.

  I could hear loud male voices and the woman’s pleading before I got to the window.

  Over the sill I saw a large room with a darkwood floor and a high ceiling. Before the blazing hearth sat a large couch covered with something like bearskin. Daphne was on the couch, naked, and the men, DeWitt and Joppy, stood over her. Albright was wearing his linen suit but Joppy was stripped to the waist. His big gut looked obscene hanging over her like that and it took everything I had not to shoot him right then.

  “You don’t want any more of that now do you, honey?” Albright was saying. Daphne spat at him and he grabbed her by the throat. “If I don’t get that money you better believe I’ll get the satisfaction of killing you, girl!”

  I like to think of myself as an intelligent man but sometimes I just run on feelings. When I saw that white man choking Daphne I eased the window open and crawled into the room. I was standing there, pistol in hand—but DeWitt sensed me before I could draw a bead on him. He swung around with the girl in front of him. When he saw me he threw her one way and he leaped behind the couch! I moved to shoot but then Joppy bolted for the back door. That distracted me, and in my one moment of indecision the window behind me shattered and a shot, like a cannon roar, rang out. As I dove for cover behind a sofa chair I saw that DeWitt Albright had drawn his pistol.

  Two more shots ripped through the back of the fat chair. If I hadn’t moved to the side, down low, he would have gotten me then.

  I could hear Daphne crying but there was nothing I could do for her. My big fear was that Joppy would come around outside and get me from behind. So I moved into a corner, still hidden, I hoped, from Albright’s sight and in a position to see Joppy if he stuck his head in the window.

  “Easy?” DeWitt called.

  I didn’t say a word. Even the voice was silent.

  We waited two or three long minutes. Joppy didn’t appear at the window. That bothered me and I began to wonder what other way he might come. But just as I was looking around I heard a noise as if DeWitt had lurched up. There was a dull thud and the sofa chair came falling backward. He’d heaved a lamp at the top of its high back. The lamp shattered and, even as I pulled off a shot where I expected him to be, I saw DeWitt rise up a few feet farther on; he had that pistol leveled at me.

  I heard the shot, and something else, something that seemed almost impossible: DeWitt Albright grunted, “Wha?”

  Then I saw Mouse! The smoking pistol in his hand!

  He’d come into the room through the door Joppy had taken.

  More shots exploded. Daphne screamed. I jumped to cover her with my body. Splinters of wood jumped from the wall and I saw Albright hurl himself through a window at the other side of the room.

  Mouse took aim but his gun wouldn’t fire. He cursed, threw it down, and got a snub-nose from his pocket. He ran for the window but in that time I heard the Caddy’s engine turn over; tires were slithering in the dirt before Mouse could empty his second chamber.

  “Damn!” Mouse yelled. “Damn damn damn!”

  A cold draft, sucked in through the shattered window, washed over Daphne and me.

  “I hit him, Easy!” He was grinning down on me with all those golden teeth.

  “Mouse,” was all I could say.

  “Ain’t ya glad t’see me, Ease?”

  I got up and took the little man in my arms. I hugged him like I would hug a woman.

  “Mouse,” I said again.

  “Com’on man, we gotta get yo’ boy back here.” He jerked his head toward the door he’d come through.

  Joppy was on the floor in the kitchen. His arms and legs were behind him, hog-tied by an extension cord. There was thick blood coming from the top of his bald head.

  “Les get him to the other room,” Mouse said.

  We got him to the chair and Mouse strapped him down. Daphne wrapped herself in a blanket and shied to the end of the couch. She looked like a frightened kitten on her first Fourth of July.

  All of a sudden Joppy’s eyes shot open and he shouted, “Cut me loose, man!”

  Mouse just smiled.

  Joppy was sweating, bleeding, and staring at us. Daphne was staring at the floor.

  “Lemme go,” Joppy whimpered.

  “Shut up, man,” Mouse said and Joppy quieted down.

  “Can I have my clothes now?” Daphne’s voice was thick.

  “Sure, honey,” Mouse said. “Right after we take care on some business.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Mouse leaned forward to put his hand on my knee. It felt good to be alive and to be able to feel another man’s touch. “I think you an’ me deserve a little sumpin’ fo’ all this mess, don’t you, Easy?”

  “I give you half of everything I made, Ray.”

  “Naw, man,” he said. “I don’t want your money. I wanna piece’a that big pie Ruby over here sittin’ on.”

  I didn’t know why he called her Ruby, but I let it pass.

  “Man, that’s stolen money.”

  “That’s the sweetest kind, Easy.” He turned to her and smiled. “What about it, honey?”

  “That’s all Frank and I have. I won’t give it up.” I would have believed her if she wasn’t talking to Mouse.

  “Frank’s dead.” Mouse’s face was completely deadpan.

  Daphne looked at him for a moment and then she crumpled, just like a tissue, and started shaking.

  Mouse went on, “Joppy the one did it, I figure. They found him beat to death in a alley just down from his bar.”

  When Daphne raised her head she had hate in her eyes, and there was hate in her voice when she said, “Is that the truth, Raymond?” She was a different woman.

  “Now am I gonna lie to you, Ruby? Your brother is dead.”

  I had only been in an earthquake once but the feeling was the same: The ground under me seemed to shift. I looked at her to see the truth. But it wasn’t there. Her nose, cheeks, her skin color—they were white. Daphne was a white woman. Even her pubic hair was barely bushy, almost flat.

  Mouse said, “You gotta hear me, Ruby, Joppy killed Frank.”

  “I ain’t kilt Frankie!” Joppy cried.

  “Why you keep callin’ her that?” I asked.

  “Me an’ Frank known each other way back, Ease, ’fore I even met you. I remember old Ruby here from her baby days. Half-sister. She more filled out now but I never forget a face.” Mouse pulled out a cigarette. “You know you a lucky man, Easy. I got it in mind to follah this mothafuckah wh
en I seen ’im comin’ outta yo’ house this afternoon. I’as lookin’ fo’ you when I seen’im. I had Dupree’s car so I follahed him downtown and he hooked up with whitey. Once I seed that you know I was on his ass for the duration.”

  I looked at Joppy. His eyes were big and he was sweating.

  Watery blood was dripping from his chin. “I ain’t killed Frank, man. I ain’t had no cause. Why I wanna kill Frank? Lissen, Ease, only reason I got you in this was so you could get some money—fo’ that house.”

  “Then why you wit’ Albright now?”

  “She lied, man. Albright come t’me and he told me ’bout that money she got. She lied! She said she ain’t hardly had no money!”

  “Alright, thas enough talk,” Mouse said. “Now, Ruby, I don’t wanna scare ya but I will have that money.”

  “You don’t scare me, Ray,” she said simply.

  Mouse frowned for just a second. It was like a small cloud passing quickly on a sunny day. Then he smiled.

  “Ruby, you gotta worry ’bout yourself now, honey. You know men can get desperate when it comes to money …” Mouse let his words trail off while he took the pistol from his waistband.

  He turned casually to his right and shot Joppy in the groin. Joppy’s eyes opened wide and he started honking like a seal. He rocked back and forth trying to grab his wound but the wires held him to the chair. After a few seconds Mouse leveled his pistol and shot Joppy in the head. One moment Joppy had two bulging eyes, then his left eye was just a bloody, ragged hole. The force of the second shot threw him to the floor; spasms went through his legs and feet for minutes afterward. I felt cold then. Joppy had been my friend but I’d seen many men die and I cared for Coretta too.

  Mouse stood up and said, “So let’s go get that money, honey.” He picked up her clothes from behind the couch and dropped the heap into her lap. Then he went out the front door.

  “HELP ME, EASY.” Her eyes were full of fear and promise. “He’s crazy. You still have your gun.”

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Then give it to me. I’ll do it.”

  That was probably the closest Mouse had ever come to a violent death.