Black Betty

by Mosley, Walter

  So I didn’t say anything for a while, just puffed on my cigarette and watched the air on Denker shimmer in the afternoon heat.

  After three Luckies she started talking again. “He sent Gwen away to school in Europe and when she was here she played the maid.

  “But I wouldn’t let him touch her. I told him that I’d kill him if he ever touched my girl.” There was passion in her threat. Even in her weakened state she wouldn’t take everything. She wouldn’t abandon her child.

  “Why did you stay so long, Betty?” I asked. “He couldn’t do anything to Marlon after this long.”

  “I couldn’t leave after Cassie died. There was Sarah and her baby. Gwen wouldn’ta understood if I took her. He didn’t want sex no more after Cassie passed, and I owed that woman somethin’.”

  “So you killed him?” It was the only question I really had.

  “I ain’t killed nobody.”

  “That policeman who caught Marlon, he says that Albert Cain was murdered.”

  “I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout that. In his older years Albert got feeble. I used to have to take him to the bathroom and feed him strained peas with a spoon. When Cassandra died, Sarah came back and started to blame Albert for everything. I kept her from hurtin’ him. I didn’t wanna see her mess up her life ’cause of him and his evil.”

  “Did Sarah kill him?”

  “I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout no killin’s. I didn’t do nuthin’ neither.”

  “Then why’d you run, Betty? Why are they after you?”

  She didn’t have any more to say. She took one step down the stair and stepped on the big beetle. He broke open, making the sound of a large nut being cracked.

  “Why’d they kill Marlon, Betty?” I asked, but all she did was turn her back on me and walk into the house.

  — 34 —

  BETTY DIDN’T WANT MY HELP. She didn’t want something simple like the truth or revenge.

  What could I do anyway? If the cops had killed Marlon there was no court that would hear his complaint. The only revenge we could get would be personal—a showdown. But I wasn’t willing to kill a cop.

  I couldn’t help Betty, so I traded one impossible task for another.

  THERE WAS A LITTLE cat tail of a street off of Crenshaw named Ozme Lane. It was a cul-de-sac of cluttered matchbook houses that would have been impressive if they grew to five times their present size.

  The mailbox in front of the puce ranch house with the fairy-tale castle facade read “Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Mix and Son,” in black block letters. I knocked on the pink door, and soon after a bronze slat that was situated at about the height of my gullet swung inward. It presented me with a lovely almond-shaped eye.

  “Who is it?” the eye asked, none too friendly.

  “Mr. Hall,” I replied.

  “What you want?”

  It was her. That voice was burned into my brain just as clearly as Bruno’s last stand.

  “Ted Mix live here?”

  “Ain’t that what it says?”

  “I need to talk to him.” Actually I had hoped that Ted would be out. It was Sooky that I wanted to talk to.

  “Well he ain’t here.”

  “Then maybe you can help me. You Sooky Freeman?”

  “I’m Mrs. Mix, but I ain’t got no time to listen to no pitch. The kids comin’ home soon,” she said. And then as an afterthought, “With their daddy.”

  “I ain’t sellin’ nuthin’, ma’am. It’s just that I got a letter from a friend’a mine, a fellah that we call Two-toes because of a birth defect he suffered. This friend, he’s in prison, but he’s comin’ out soon and he told me to tell your husband that he wanted to talk to him about a friend that they had in common.”

  “What friend?” Sooky didn’t know that Theodore consorted with criminals.

  “A man that he called…” I snapped my fingers twice to show that I could hardly remember. “Called Raymond.” I watched that eye double in size. “Raymond Alexander.”

  “What you want here, mistah?”

  “Nuthin’, ma’am. It’s just that Two-toes didn’t have Ted’s address and he couldn’t find a phone book up in jail. So he asked me to come on by to find out if Ted wanted to talk.” I smiled as pleasantly as I could.

  Sooky was shaking on the other side of the door.

  “Ted don’t know that man,” she said.

  “What man?”

  “The one you said!” she shouted.

  “Which one?”

  “None of ’em. You go and tell that man that ain’t nobody here name of Ted Mix.”

  “Why should I do that if Ted don’t know my friend?”

  The door came open. Sooky Freeman was a sight to behold. She was that sloppy kind of beautiful. Full brown skin with the sort of wide ample lips that could wrap themselves into a kiss. She had on a ratty housecoat and floppy slippers. She knew she was beautiful; so beautiful that here it was two in the afternoon and she still wasn’t dressed or made up.

  “Come on in here,” she said.

  I went through the entrance hall, which was about the size of a broom closet, into the living room—a closet with windows. When I sat down I had the feeling that I’d followed some little girl into her dollhouse for tea.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  The fabric of her housecoat was worn and soft. Her figure stood out from under it almost as if she were naked. I thought for a second that I could take everything in that room. I could get Ted’s wife and his house for just a promise. A promise tangled up in those lips.

  But I didn’t want any of it.

  “Toes said something about a man named Alfred too. You know where he live?”

  Sooky folded her arms underneath her breasts and then, when she saw how I admired the framing, she brought her arms higher to be more modest.

  “It was Alfred,” she told me.

  “What you talkin’ ’bout, girl?” I didn’t enjoy what I was doing. I didn’t enjoy it but it was easier than interring a murdered man or facing Commander Styles; it was easier than letting Mouse kill me for keeping him from killing three innocent men.

  “It don’t matter if you understand me. You just tell your friend that it was Alfred who did what he thinks I did. Tell’im that it was Alfred Broadhawk told.”

  “Told what?”

  “That ain’t none’a your business, mistah. You just tell yo’ friend—”

  “Hold up on that, honey. I’m right here.” I pointed at my foot, which I then crossed over my left knee. “You got to deal with me. If you want me to be your delivery boy then you got to pay my fee.”

  “Pay you?”

  I nodded.

  “How much you want?”

  “First you got to tell me what I’m gettin’ into, then I’ll give you the price tag.”

  “You don’t know nuthin’?”

  “I know the names and I know it’s somethin’ serious.”

  Sooky licked her lips and glanced over at the door. “Ted gonna be home soon, Mr. Hall. Why’ont you meet me tomorrow… someplace else.”

  “’Cause by tomorrah you have a lie all sewed up. ’Cause by tomorrah you could have three brothers come knockin’ on my head. I’ll deal with Theodore if he comes.”

  Sooky looked at the door one more time before she started to talk. “Me’n Alfred used to go together—kinda. He was in my uncle’s church. He never even really liked me but I was a minister’s niece and he wanted to be part’a that. He wanted to be a minister himself. And so he went out wit’ me.”

  “So? That ain’t nuthin’,” I said.

  “Yeah, but we was always fightin’. He didn’t wanna do nuthin’. A kiss was a big thing for him.”

  I shook my head, thinking, poor fool. Sooky couldn’t help but smile a little at the compliment.

  “So it took me a whole week to get him to take me to hear T-Bone Walker over at the Ace Club. He didn’t wanna be where there was drinkin’ an’ loose women. He was afraid of it.

  �
�So he didn’t wanna take me an’ then he wanted to leave after just the first set. It was hardly even eleven but he start yammerin’ ’bout Sunday school and how he couldn’t even look them kids in the face if he didn’t leave.”

  “Go on,” I prompted. I stifled a yawn too. I really was tired. Tired down into my bones.

  “Then he wanted to go through this alley and I didn’t want to. And then we heard shots.” Tears started from her eyes. “And Alfred run to see even though I tried to stop him. He came back and said that he saw Mr. Alexander with his gun standing over Bruno Ingram.”

  Sooky was crying. I understood. All she wanted was a good time, a good life, but the world wouldn’t leave her alone.

  “I told him to fo’get it,” she said. “I told him that it was the Lord’s worry, not his. But he didn’t listen. He didn’t listen. He drug me off to a phone booth and stoled the dime right outta my purse.”

  “What’d he say?” I asked. “What did Alfred say to the cops?”

  “He told about Mr. Alexander and Bruno Ingram.”

  “But what were the words he said? What did he say exactly?”

  “I don’t know. Somethin’ about the Lord wouldn’t let him be quiet or somethin’ like that.”

  That was all I needed. I didn’t feel good about it. Sooky had told me what my friend needed to know. She’d put her mark on Alfred’s grave.

  “Fifty dollars,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Fifty dollars to deliver the message and to leave out your name.”

  She went through every drawer and pocket in the house. Then she took out the change jar. She came up with thirty-four dollars and twenty-seven cents. I took it. I told her that I’d be back for the balance but I never went. I took her money because that cost would give her the hope that maybe I’d be an honest crook and do what I promised.

  Who knows? Maybe I would.

  SHE EVEN GAVE ME Broadhawk’s address. He was living in a little shack of a house on Ninety-sixth Place. Using beach stones, dry grasses, and three made-up dolls he’d created a Nativity scene on the left side of his weedy brown front lawn. On the right side he’d constructed a ten-foot cross from weathered fence boards. The cross lay on its side leaning against the front of the house.

  When I walked up near the reclining crucifix I noted that there was red paint splattered where the hands, head, and feet of Christ were supposed to be.

  Plastered all over the front door were poor-quality color prints clipped from a cheap illustrated Bible. Calvary and its victims, Mary by the Cross, John the Baptist plying his trade, Jonah kneeling by the sea.

  A nearly toothless old woman answered the front door. “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Broadhawk?”

  “Elma Jackson, mister.” She smiled. “But Alfred Broadhawk do live here. He’s my nephew. He live wit’ us.”

  “Is Alfred home?”

  “No, sir. Alfred out at church. He goes out every afternoon to help the Lord.” The old woman pointed out at the yard. “Alfred made all’a that out there. He wants the Lord to be in every minute of everybody’s day. Bobo don’t like it too much. He says that the manger is for Christmas and that the Cross is for Easter and that in the middle Alfred should take that stuff down. But Alfred says that we got to remember the joy and the sorrow every day.”

  “Bobo’s Alfred’s uncle?”

  “Not by blood,” she said. “I’m Alfred’s only blood in this world. Bobo’s my common-law hus’bun. He work at the junkyard down on Redondo. Bobo could take anything you got apart and then put it back together better’n it was in the first place. He’s kinda like a genius about machines I guess.

  “You want me to tell Alfred somethin’, mister?”

  “No, honey. No. Just say that Mr. Hall was here. I heard about his Christian art and just wanted to take a look. You tell him that it’s beautiful.”

  Elma’s grateful smile shamed me. She took my hand and actually kissed it.

  Maybe they would put a little statue of Judas out there to commemorate my visit.

  — 35 —

  I WAS A FREE MAN, more or less. I had done my errand. I’d found Betty and told her what they wanted. If she ever called them I’d ask for my money. If not, well, that part of my life, life in the street, was over. Betty was with her friend. Odell and Maudria were as good as they could be, considering.

  I was going to lay low while the cops sorted out the murders.

  Marlon was in the ground.

  And Mouse… well, I didn’t know about Mouse. But at least I knew the answer to the question. I knew that the men he suspected were innocent. The truth has to mean something.

  Truth and Freedom; two great things for a poor man, a son of slaves and ex-slaves.

  My arm ached. I could feel the deep reach of infection in my veins. One thing was certain—there was no escaping Fate. Fate hauls back and laughs his ass off at Truth and Freedom. Those are minor deities compared to Fate and Death.

  But I wasn’t dead yet. Marlon was dead. I didn’t know why but I was sure that it had something to do with Albert Cain and his demise. Everything about Cain stunk. He was a foul man and surrounded himself with his own stench. But that wasn’t my business.

  SAUL LYNX WAS STANDING out on the curb in front of my house. He was leaning against the thirty-foot carob tree that had grown there, staring at the ground with his big nose hanging down. When I parked he looked up at me and smiled. It was a real smile this time.

  “What the fuck you doin’ here, man?”

  “Turnabout is fair play, Mr. Rawlins. At least you didn’t find me inside your house.” His breath was fragrant with gin.

  “We done already turned this around once, man. Now I’ma walk on into my house and you gonna climb into that brown piece’a shit you drivin’ and that’s gonna be it.”

  “You got my pistol?” he asked.

  “You want it?” I threatened.

  “They’re ready to kill your girl, Mr. Rawlins.”

  I didn’t want to hear it. I turned away from him and went toward my house. But he was right there behind me.

  “It’s the will,” he said in a whisper.

  I spun around quickly, making him slip in the grass.

  “Don’t you be fuckin’ wit’ me, man.”

  Mr. Lynx was a master of mildness. He hoisted his pathetic nose up at me, his eyes glistening like two cicadas. “Five minutes,” he said, pointing at my front door.

  “Come on then. Let’s make it quick.”

  * * *

  IT GAVE ME A THRILL to pour the little detective a juice glass full of whiskey.

  “Aren’t you going to join me?” he asked.

  “Not right yet. What you got to say?”

  He leaned forward on the kitchen chair, massaging his knee with a cupped palm. “The cops dropped by a couple of days after you did. They wanted to know about Hodge and some guy called Terry Tyler, a boxer they said. They mentioned Elizabeth Eady, so I knew that it had something to do with you.”

  “You knew that when they said about Hodge,” I said.

  “No. I’ve done a lot of work for Mr. Hodge. It could have been anything.”

  “Uh-huh. So? What about the will?”

  Lynx slugged back the whole shot. I was there, ready with number two. He ran his hands over his eyes and then gripped the glass hard enough that I thought it might break. “I’m four hundred dollars in the hole over this one, Mr. Rawlins.”

  That would have been a lot of money to Lynx. He wasn’t the kind of man to have property or money in the bank. Saul Lynx was one of those men who always drive their car a hair above empty and two quarts low.

  “I know a woman who works in records down in San Diego,” he told me. “And she’s got a friend who does the same thing in Beverly Hills.”

  I watched the whiskey slip down between his thin pink lips, imagining the burn in his throat.

  He looked to the side as if to make sure that nobody had sneaked into the house and then said, “Mrs. Hawkes f
iled an injunction against the will through Hodge. The lawyer representing the will is a guy named Fresco. He’s an old-time friend of Cain. Cain left all his money to Elizabeth Eady. Everything. House, suits of armor from the sixteenth century, everything. Seems like Cain started feeling guilty toward the end of his life. He’d done some pretty bad things to Miss Eady and he wanted to make amends.”

  “And so they wanna kill her.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Not only her. I found out that this man, this Terry Tyler, is really Eady’s son, and there’s a brother out in the desert somewhere. For Christ’s sake, the maid is Eady’s daughter. If Elizabeth dies they’re next in line.”

  “Nobody’s gonna do all that…” I started to say “just for money,” but I knew that was wrong.

  “Terry Tyler’s already dead.” Lynx held out his glass for another drink.

  I didn’t say anything about Marlon.

  “So you figure Hodge knew about the will and he’s workin’ for the family?” I asked, gazing at the dregs in the bottom of his glass.

  “Hodge isn’t the estate lawyer. The lawyer is an old business partner of Cain’s. Like I said, a man named Fresco.” The little man blinked and shook his head, the first sign of inebriation. “But we’re talkin’ fifty million here, at least. The money Hodge could get from that fortune would set him up for life. That’s why he had me looking for the girl.”

  “Woman,” I said.

  “What?”

  “She’s almost fifty years old, man. She’s a woman.”

  Lynx stared at me. He couldn’t quite figure out what I meant. When he gave up he reached for the bottle.

  But I took it away.

  “We gonna do somethin’?” I asked him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you didn’t come here just to tell me some stories. You must got some reason other than gettin’ pie-eyed for bein’ here.”

  Lynx sat back in the kitchen chair. The way he looked around the room said that he was just realizing that he’d drunk too much. He brought his hands to his face and squinted.