“Mabel, this is Judy in accessories. Can you look up an account for me?” She tapped her fingers against the counter. Charlie saw her neatly trimmed nails. He wondered if the store made her keep them short. His wife had long fingernails. She had to be careful when she picked up things.
Whatever the store policies, Judy had managed to give herself some flair. Her dark green dress was accented by an emerald-encrusted brooch on her shoulder. The navy blue scarf wrapped around her hair should’ve clashed with the green, but she managed to carry it off.
“Sir?” Judy said.
She was holding out the phone to Charlie. He took the receiver. The nervousness was back. He’d eaten those chocolates. There was no way to return them. Would they call the police?
He cleared his throat. “This is Charles Lam.”
There was nothing on the line except music. Karen Carpenter’s version of “Ticket to Ride.” Jesus Christ on a Peep, Charlie was never gonna get away from that song.
Finally, the music stopped. “Hello?”
“Yes, this is Charles Lam.”
“I have your account information, but I need your wife’s confirmation that you are who you say you are.”
Charlie chuckled, letting her know this was all some sort of misunderstanding. “Of course. Call her at home.”
“We have the number on file. I already tried, but no one picked up.”
Charlie glanced over his shoulder at the waiting women. They looked even angrier than Judy. Charlie felt sweat running down his back and pooling into his underwear.
“Sir?”
Charlie breathed into the phone. “Could you try her again?”
The woman said nothing, but he heard the sharp clicks of a rotary being dialed. Charlie felt his shoulders hunch. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so out of place.
“Hello?”
“I’m here,” Charlie said, but he realized the woman was talking to someone else.
“This is Ms. Cooper at Davison’s department store. I was calling to speak to Mrs. Charles Lam?”
Charlie held his breath. He strained his ears to listen. All he heard was background noise: typewriters whirring and other women talking. He pictured them sitting at their desks making phone calls to husbands to verify that their wives were allowed to spend their money. This was ridiculous. Charlie had a job. Hell, he didn’t just have a job, he employed other people. What right did they have to treat him this way? This was all just a misunderstanding. He’d left his wallet at home. It’s not like he was a bank robber.
“Sir?” The woman came back on the line. “I’m sorry. Mrs. Lam wasn’t in.”
“Who did you talk to?”
“The maid, I believe. Can you hand the phone back to Ms. McGuire?”
Charlie did as he was told. He felt hollow inside, like the time he’d shown up to school and all the other kids were gone because their parents had paid for them to take a field trip.
The phone slammed down. Judy glared at him.
Charlie mumbled, “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say. He walked away from the counter. His shoulders were up around his ears by the time he reached the door. He half expected a security guard to snatch him up by the collar and drag him to the police station. Shit, what would that be like? Waiting in jail with a bunch of other bums, hoping to God his wife would come bail him out?
Speaking of his wife, where the hell was she? Sue was always home. She didn’t trust the maid. She was sure the woman was stealing the change off Charlie’s bureau. He kept it in a jar. Every Christmas, he would count it out and they’d use the money to buy presents for his daughter.
“Shit,” Charlie muttered. He had a strange image pop into his head: Sue banging some guy. Charlie couldn’t see the man’s face, but for the life of him, he couldn’t get the idea out of his head.
Charlie pushed on the door just as a woman was opening it. “I’m sorry, I—”
The woman smiled at him. “Please.” She held open the door.
It was an awkward situation, but Charlie went first. Outside, the sun was even more brutal than before. His head started to pound as he walked through the outdoor eating area. The entire mall was packed with women. What had he been thinking, coming here? He didn’t belong in a place like this.
Charlie picked up the pace. He held up his hand to try to keep the sun from burning his eyeballs. There were footsteps behind him. Charlie turned. He had to blink several times to clear his vision. It was another woman. She was carrying two bags in one hand.
Christ, he was never going to get away from these broads.
Charlie walked faster toward the car. He pulled his keys out of his pocket. He jammed them into the lock. They fell onto the ground.
“Sir?” the woman called. “Can I give you a hand?”
“No, thank you.”
“You’re sure?”
What was he, twelve? “No, thank you.”
He waited for her to leave before he opened the car door. After a moment’s scrambling, he found some change under the Buick’s floor mats. Charlie tucked his hands into his pockets as he headed toward the road. He pulled back the door to the phone booth. He dropped a dime into the slot. He dialed his home number. He waited through six rings before Mary Jane picked up.
“Lam residence.”
“It’s Charlie,” he told the maid. “Is Mrs. Lam home?”
“Nawsir, she’s usually out this time of day.”
“Usually?” he echoed, not liking the way the word sounded. “Usually” meant a routine. “Usually” meant always. “Where does she go?”
Mary Jane hesitated, and in that hesitation, Charlie saw his whole life flash before his eyes. Was she really out banging some guy? Could Sue do that to him? Shit, he’d done it to her, but that was different. Charlie was just letting off some steam. If Sue was fucking some other dude, it was because she felt something for him.
“Sir?” Mary Jane said.
Charlie was sick of being called “sir.” Every woman in his life lately was doing it. He had a fucking name. “Tell her I called,” he said, then, “No, tell her I’m looking for her.”
Charlie slammed down the receiver. Then he picked it up and slammed it down again.
And then he doubled over.
“Shit!” he hissed. The pain in his gut was unbearable. The knifing sensation was back, but this time it cut through his intestines. His knees buckled. He fell to the floor. The glass panes on either side pressed into him because he was so fucking fat he filled the phone booth.
Charlie tried to get his breathing under control. He was panting. His face was red hot. Sweat had glued his shirt to his back. He felt wet between his legs. Had he bled through? Charlie bent around so he could check the back of his pants. He looked like a dog chasing its tail. He put his hand back there, but he couldn’t tell if he was touching sweat or blood.
With excruciating slowness, the pain ebbed away. He pressed himself up to standing. He opened the door a crack and let the cold air come in. There were tears in his eyes.
What was happening to him? His guts were on fire. He felt like he’d been hit by a Mack truck. Charlie put his hand to his back. The muscles felt tight as a drum. He could almost feel them throbbing under his fingertips. Finkelmeyer had definitely got him. Maybe an elbow. Maybe a fist. Charlie couldn’t remember because it had all happened so fast. The guy must’ve punched him in the back. There was no other explanation.
This is how you end it.
Charlie put his hand in his jacket pocket. The knife was still there.
Five years, Jo had told him. Five years was how long it had taken for Finkelmeyer to go from being a successful slumlord to a bum living on the streets.
Melvin Finkelmeyer.
The name wasn’t the sort Charlie was used to hearing. He reached under the phone and pulled up the white pages. The chain was too short. He had to balance the book on his knee. He ran his finger down the page. There were more Finkelmeyers than he would’ve th
ought, but there was only one Melvin.
Charlie put another dime in the coin slot.
Chapter Five
“You sounded taller on the phone.” The widow Finkelmeyer was standing on her front porch with a broom in her hands. A cigarette dangled from her lips. She wore an apron like Shirley Booth in Hazel. Her hair was wildly corkscrewed under the little white cap. She was rail thin, probably in her fifties, but her heavy makeup gave her the look of a gal who’d been around the block a few times.
“Is this your house?” Charlie asked, because she looked like the maid.
She waved him inside. “Melvin liked it when I dressed up.”
Charlie didn’t think that was any kind of answer, but he went inside anyway. She lived in one of those ranch houses they’d built after the war. Despite her maid getup, the place was a mess. Boxes were piled high around the foyer. Papers spilled onto the floor. There were magazines stacked around the sunken living room. The couch was piled high with glossy photos. Charlie saw the images and blanched.
“Kiddie porn,” the widow said. “Oughta be illegal, but whattaya gonna do?”
Charlie followed her into the kitchen. There were more magazines stacked on the table. Bondage mostly, but he saw some young kids, too.
“Give the people what they want.” The widow shrugged, like it was out of her hands. “People pay good money for that shit. The nastier it is, the more money they pay.” She shrugged again. “I got six kids to feed. One of ’em’s about to go to college. You know how expensive that is?”
Charlie didn’t know, because he’d always assumed Jenny would get married out of high school. Now that he was thinking about it, maybe he should put some money aside. He didn’t want his daughter to have to settle on the first cocksucker who winked her way. If she went to college, she’d be able to support herself. Charlie should be doing everything in his power to make sure she didn’t end up trapped like his mother.
The widow snapped her fingers in front of his face. “You in there, sugar?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Charlie looked around for a place to sit. There was nowhere. “Like I said on the phone, I wanted to talk to you about what happened to your husband.”
She snorted. “What didn’t happen to him?”
Charlie waited. And waited. Finally, he said, “The cops told me he’d changed over the last five years.”
She gave a heavy sigh. “My husband made a good living. And then he didn’t.”
“Why?”
She studied him. Smoke from her cigarette drifted into her eyes. “You knew Melvin?”
He shrugged.
“He owe you money? Because I don’t—”
“No.” Charlie didn’t know what to do except to come clean. “I was there yesterday. When it happened.”
“You kill him?”
“Of course not!” Charlie was shocked by the question. “He was trying to kill me.”
She smiled. “That sounds like my Mel. He was an asshole, but he was my asshole.”
Charlie leaned against the wall because there was nowhere to sit and he didn’t know how much longer he could go on standing. “Melvin said something to me before he killed himself. That we were the same. That fate brought us together.”
“That’s weird.” She used her foot to push a stack of magazines off a kitchen chair. “Sit down, honey. You don’t look so good.”
Charlie sat. “I think I’ve got a bladder infection.”
“Drink lots of cranberry juice.” She tapped her cigarette in the sink. “Melvin say anything else to you?”
Charlie thought about lying, but there was no point. “He said that I was going to end up like him.”
She nodded like it all made sense now. “He thought he could pass on the curse to you. He was always talking about how to get rid of it, move it on to somebody else.”
“What curse?”
“What curse?” She laughed at the question. “He just about lost everything except for the mail-order business, thank God for me. People weren’t scared of him anymore. They burned down all his buildings, the pimps rolled him every chance they got, and he ended up living on the street.” She gave one of her shrugs. “Sounds like a curse to me.”
“Why couldn’t he live here?”
“He was filthy.” She lit a new cigarette off the old one, then tossed the butt into the sink. Charlie waited as she ran water to wash it down the drain. “You seen what he looked like, at the end, right?”
Charlie said nothing.
“It started five years ago. Mel came home from work covered in blood. Said it wasn’t his, which I believed, but then I noticed he’s not interested in any bedroom business, if you get what I mean. That’s not my guy. He’s pounding it to me just about every night. Why do you think I stayed with him for so long?” She took a lungful of smoke and shot it back out. “So, I catch him in the shower one morning. His dinkle’s got teeth marks on it. Teeth marks.” She waved her hand at her lap. “Down there.”
Charlie tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. “Did he say what happened?”
“Like Mel’s gonna tell me anything? My guess is he tried to take out some rent with his cock and the fish weren’t biting. Or, at least one of them bit, which was the problem.” She pushed herself up onto the counter. “It happened fast. The next day, everything starts to get weird. I seen it with my own eyes. Overnight, Mel’s hair grew out. Damndest thing. He was going bald in the back, but not after that night. You saw it, right? Looked like an Afro.”
Charlie nodded. He had seen it all right.
“Then, Mel starts dressing like he’s some kind of J. J. Walker or something. Leaves a pick in his hair. Starts doing this jive-talk bullshit. ‘What it is, mama.’ Like he’s never talked to me before. Turned kinky as a garden hose.” She twisted her lips to the side. “I gotta admit, at first it kind of turned me on. I was always into black guys, even though ain’t a none of ’em knows how to go down on a woman. Ha!” She barked a laugh, like that was funny. “Too bad the fucker didn’t turn black below the belt, if you know what I mean.”
“No,” Charlie said, suddenly prudish. “I don’t.”
She stared at him like he was an idiot. “Do you hate stupid people? Because, if you got the curse, then you’re gonna turn into a stupid person.”
Charlie had to swallow all the saliva in his mouth. He didn’t believe in curses. At least, he didn’t want to. “What happened in between? How did your husband lose everything?”
“I told you, people stopped being scared of him. Nobody wanted to do business with him because of …” Her voice trailed off.
“Because of what?”
“Ain’t you been listening to me, mister? He turned into a darkie. A colored. A coon. A Negro. A nigger.”
Charlie felt his jaw drop.
She said, “You seen him yourself. You thought he was black, too, right?”
Charlie didn’t know what to say. He’d been listening to her story. Somewhere in his brain, he had put the pieces together, but it wasn’t possible. It didn’t make sense.
She inhaled deeply on her cigarette. “I mean, he wasn’t really black down deep. He was my Melvin and all, but his skin turned dark. The hair—I done told you about that. The way he walked. Had kind of a hitch to his step. People just took him for black. And worse, they treated him like he was black, which was the part he couldn’t stomach. White men making him walk on the other side of the street. Cops giving him shit for no reason. White women clutching their purses like he was gonna rob ’em. Hell, even I made him use the back door. At least until I told him to stop coming around.”
Charlie finally found his voice. “You kicked him out of his own house?”
“I couldn’t have him living here. Sleeping here. How would that look, me living with a black man?” She straightened her maid’s uniform. “I’m a respectable white woman. This ain’t the kind of neighborhood for that.”
Charlie went back to not talking.
“This is what I figger
the curse is all about. Think about who you hate. My Mel, he hated colored people. Always did. Said they were shiftless and lazy, didn’t take care of their families. And that’s just the kind of colored man he turned out to be. Slept all day. Gambled away what little money he got. Drank too much. ’Course, it didn’t start like that. He tried to get work, but no one would give him a job. Didn’t have any references. No education to speak of. That didn’t matter so much when he was white. I mean, he was a Jew, he could pass for smart.” She stared out the window over the sink. Her voice turned wistful. “I let him rake the yard sometimes, but being honest, he made me uncomfortable. He always asked for more, you know? Like the world owed him something. Then again, that was exactly what Mel said about them. Always looking for a handout.”
Charlie pulled at his collar. The kitchen was stifling. He couldn’t breathe.
“It’s almost biblical, right? You become what you hate. I don’t know.” She waved her cigarette in the air. “Sounds like New Testament shit to me.”
All Charlie could say was, “I don’t understand.”
“Jesus, you’re slow, mister. What I’m saying is, that’s how it works. Mel hated coloreds more than anything else on earth, and then one day he wakes up and he’s turned into one.” She gave a raspy laugh. “No wonder the dumbass killed himself.”
Chapter Six
Charlie sat at the kitchen table in his house on his own. Sue was upstairs in bed watching Carson. Burt Reynolds was on. He could hear her laughing at everything he said. Normally, Charlie would be in there laughing with her, but right now he was on his sixth scotch and wishing to God he had the strength to take the knife out of his jacket pocket and jam it into his heart.
You’re gonna end up just like me.
“Daddy?” Jenny stood in the doorway. She had her hair up in a ponytail. Her bathrobe was pink terry cloth. Like her mother, she wore pink foam rollers in her hair.
He asked, “Are you too old to get an Easter basket?”
She gave him a funny smile as she crossed the room. “Aunt Stella called looking for you.”
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