by M. P. Wright
“That’s fine by me, brother, I ain’t bothered what you git up to just as long as your beady eye ain’t watching me in my bathroom no more. You wanna hand me a towel befo’ you leave?” I heard the coat stand topple to the floor outside then the front door of my digs was slammed so hard that I swear I felt the walls around me shake.
11
Two straight shots of Mount Gay rum settled my nerves as I sat at Loretta Harris’s kitchen table before recounting my earlier encounter with Bristol’s boys in blue. Truth was in the sitting room playing with Carnell Jr, who was strapped into his high chair. I could hear him giggling back at the little girl as she made silly noises in front of him. Loretta had let the child sleep in and it was after eleven before she had wandered downstairs and had asked my friend where “Joseph” was. They were her first words since the harrowing events the night before. Loretta had made a fuss of the child, fed her breakfast, washed her, brushed her hair and dressed her in a blue cotton summer dress and decked her feet out in a pair of white ankle socks and sturdy-looking black patent-leather shoes.
While I’d been paying a visit to Ida Stephens at the Walter Wilkins and having my brush with the law, Loretta had seen fit to call in an old friend of hers, Prudence MacDonald. Everybody in St Pauls knew Pru Mac. Most people simply referred to her as “Cutpurse Pru” on account of her ability to walk into a store and pick up a handful of goods then walk out again without anyone seeing her do it. She was an accomplished shoplifter with magically light fingers who stole to order on occasions and had a reputation for being able to get you anything you desired, quick and for a price. Loretta had made a sizable list of clothes she needed for Truth, and Pru had gone out and got them for her there and then. The stolen clothing was sat stacked in a neat pile on the worktop by the draining board. I shook my head in amazement at the amount Cutpurse Pru had managed to pilfer and in such a short space of time.
“You can sit starin’ an’ shakin’ your head at those new duds all you want, JT, it ain’t gonna make ’em anyting other than what they are, brother, and that’s hot gear . . . Git used to it. That pickney back there needed kittin’ out quick; poor child was standin’ in rags. I didn’t tink you were gonna spring it down to Lewis department store any time soon an’ git the stuff fo’ her, so I sorted it. You owe me the better part o’ ten pounds for that lot.”
“Ten pounds, for a heap o’ nicked kid’s clothing? You gotta be kiddin’ me.” I rubbed frantically at my eyes with the flats my hands, my face flushed. I poured myself another nip of rum to help me get over the shock. Loretta snatched the liquor off me, stuck the stopper back into the top and held the bottle against her chest then began to rant at me.
“I ain’t kidding you shit, Joseph. Just stick your mealy-assed fuckin’ hand in your wallet and pay up. Those sneakers that child’s got on her feet didn’t just walk outta Clark’s damn shop window by themselves, you know. It took skill to thieve those shoes and them there clothes. I took to tinkin’ you wouldn’t much care to be seen shopping ’bout town with some honky pickney, so I got Pru to come up with the goods for you, and that, brother, that just cost you money whether you like it or not.” Loretta held out the palm of her hand in front of me.
I reached into my inside pocket of my jacket, pulled out the envelope that Theodore Fowler had given me and drew out two crisp five-pound notes. Loretta looked down at the envelope in my hand and the hefty wad of cash inside it. Her mouth was wide open in disbelief and the veins on her temples began to rise at the same time as her temper did.
“Oh you . . . Muthafucka . . . And there you are gripin’ at me at havin’ to hand over ten miserly pounds to put clothes on that poor child’s back when you got half o’ the Bank o’ England stashed in your coat pocket. I’m strugglin’ every day to make ends meet here. Damn well ought to be ashamed o’ yo’self, Joseph.”
I stuffed my hand back in the envelope and pulled out another fifty pounds and laid it out on the table in front of me.
“Fifty sheets . . . Is that it, you cheap bastard? I got my own pickney out there in need o’ new clothes. Fifty ain’t gonna cut it, brother. You think I’m gonna let Cutpurse Pru go get my child’s gear? Shit no . . . No child o’ mine’s wearing knocked-off duds. I pay my way. Now don’t you tink ’bout stiffin’ me again. Hand over another twenty and do right by me.”
I grunted to myself then pulled out another two tens from the envelope and placed them next to the five I’d already dished out.
“There, that’s more like it. Thank you kindly.” Loretta dropped the bottle of rum back on the table in front of me and snatched up the dough. “Put a damn smile on that sour-assed face o’ yours. Here, you can take the rest o’ that hooch into the sittin’ room and have a good cry while I make those kids someting to eat.”
As I got up and headed out, Loretta called back to me as she took out a white loaf from the bread bin.
“Thanks, JT.”
I turned to face her and smiled. “For what? You don’t need to thank me fo’ handin’ over no money, Loretta. You were right, it’s the least I can do to help you out some.” I went to walk back into the sitting room to join Truth and Carnell Jr but Mrs Harris’ parting words stopped me in my tracks.
“I ain’t thankin’ for the money, fool, its fo’ lettin’ me bellow at you like I’d got old Carnell sittin’ back there on his fat ass in front o’ me . . . I miss my man, JT, I surely do miss him.”
I watched in silence as she began to cry, her shoulders rising and falling to the rhythm of her quiet sobs. The tears that fell from her eyes gathered in tiny pools in front of her. I went to walk back towards her and take my friend in my arms. I wanted to absorb all of the pain and grief she felt, but my feet refused to move and my legs weighed heavy on me as if lead had been tied to each ankle. So there I remained, rooted to the spot as Loretta helplessly wept. The unseen presence of her late husband, Carnell, stood beside me, his spirit as incapable of offering her solace for the heartache she felt as I was.
About twenty minutes later Loretta returned to her sitting room as if her earlier outpouring of sorrow had never happened. She’d carried in with her a tray laden down with individual plates of cheese and onion sandwiches, as well as crisps, biscuits and glasses of ice-cold lemonade. She smiled as she lifted Carnell Jr out of his high chair and sat with him on her lap while she fed him. Truth sat at my feet on the floor, tucking into her sandwich. I watched as she munched away at every mouthful, chewing the food over and over, her little fingers tucking the crumbs that sat on the edges of her lips back into her mouth so as not to waste a morsel. Apart from asking where I was, she had not uttered another solitary word all day.
After we’d all eaten, Loretta got up and cleared away the dishes then returned with a box of toys and a cream-coloured baby blanket tucked under her arm. On the far side of the room she cleared a space on the floor and laid out the blanket then took her son back out of his high chair and sat him in the centre of it, surrounding the child with the toys. As she knelt next to her boy, she called over to Truth.
“Why don’t you come over here and mind my boy for me for a while? See if you can git him to play nice with you. Me and Joseph, we just gonna have ourselves a chat over on the couch.”
Truth did as she was asked and joined Carnell on the blanket. Loretta stroked the top of the little girl’s head and smiled sweetly at her before getting up and walking across the room to her bright-red Dansette record player. She switched it on then rifled through a selection of LPs in the rack below until she found Sam Cooke’s Ain’t That Good News album. She pulled the black vinyl out of its sleeve and placed it on the turntable, dropped the stylus on to the revolving disc then came to join me on the sofa as “A Change Is Gonna Come” began to play.
“So what now?” She spoke in a hushed tone. There was a look on Loretta’s face that I was rarely privy to seeing: she was scared.
“I ain’t sure . . . but she’s a kid. I’ll be damned if I’m sendin’ her back to that bitch Ida S
tephens. Everyting ’bout that old hag and the place she works in stinks to high heaven. I need to find out why a man like Fowler hid her away, why we were chased and why the hell he would kill himself first rather than give her whereabouts away to the heavy who shot him.”
Loretta sat listening to me, slowly shaking her head from side to side.
“Don’t you ever learn, JT, you ain’t the police no more, ain’t gonna do you no good gittin’ involved in other people’s shit. Hell, you got no bidness keepin’ that child like you tinkin’ o’ doing, but you know that.”
I held her gaze for a moment and she shook her head.
“Makes no difference what I say. You gonna go your own way, no matter how much I yatter on. So you need to start gittin’ yo’self right with some kinda plan, either that or you gonna have to face the music right here in St Pauls. You know, the law, they already got your cards marked for the doc’s death. I suppose it ain’t gonna be too long befo’ they come sniffin’ round here.”
“They may come knockin’ later today. I told ’em that I was playing crib with you last night in your back kitchen. Said I got myself legless on your Mount Gay rum then crashed on this here sofa for the rest of the night until you chucked me out earlier this morning.”
Loretta glared back at me. “Great, so now I’ve gotta lie my ass off to the Babylon just so you can keep your hide outta a prison cell. You got some nerve, you know that, Ellington?” She laughed to herself then leant across, tapped her hand on my knee and grinned. “You still really know how to put a girl in a jam, don’t ya? Lord knows, only your Ellie, bless her, could keep you under the thumb and outta trouble. You know that, don’t ya?”
“Oh yeah . . . She . . . Ellie had a way o’ keeping me in check, that was for sure.” I laughed as I thought about my late wife and how she could cut me down to size whenever I got too big for my boots or was heading into a mess of my own making. “Loretta, whatever I do, it’s gotta be the right ting. I didn’t expect I’d end up with a kid on my hands when I took this job on. These are the cards I been dealt, I just gotta play ’em out. Main ting is, that child down there needs to be safe.”
“Well, it sure as hell ain’t safe for you or her to be hangin’ ’bout in these parts, if you ask me. You need to git the two of you some distance between whoever wants to put the pair o’ you in harm’s way. I know that this Stephens bitch is sure to send more o’ her thugs, like the one you went head to head with earlier this morning. You need to pack a bag and hightail it out o’ Bristol for a while, at least till you can make some sense o’ what’s going on.”
“You talkin’ ’bout me going on the run with a nine-year-old little girl in tow? You gotta be outta your mind.”
Loretta shot me a glare. “Who said anyting ’bout runnin’, fool? What I’m talkin’ ’bout is keeping a low profile and goin’ to ground. That ain’t runnin’.”
“Runnin’ or goin’ to ground, it all sounds like the same ting to me. I’m havin’ to scram with my tail between my legs while either the cops cook up some trumped-up charges ’bout me killin’ an old man and kidnappin’ a white kid or Ida’s mob take a potshot. Shit, they catch me and they might as well both lynch me up from the nearest casuarina tree.”
“Stop being so damn overdramatic and listen to me. I know a place the two of you can be safe. You can lay low with my uncle Benjamin: him and his wife run a garage ’bout seventy miles from here, place on the coast, called Porlock. It’s quiet and it’s outta the way. You can lay low there for a few days until you got your head together on what needs to be done next. At least down there you ain’t gonna be lookin’ over your back constantly, worryin’ ’bout gittin’ pinched.”
“I don’t know, Loretta, I don’t feel good ’bout puttin’ on people when I got this amount o’ heat on me. It don’t seem right, puttin’ your folk out at my expense.”
“Will you shut your hole and wise up? My uncle Benny, he’s more crooked than a ram’s horns. Won’t be the first time somebody on the run from the police has holed up at his place. Shit, the house is a regular meeting ground for poachers and thieves. You’ll be right at home. I’ll tell him straight why you gonna be knockin’ on his gate door. He ain’t gonna turn a brother away, specially one who was as good a friend to my Carnell as you were. Besides, when you git down there, just slip him a couple o’ those crinkly tenners you got stashed in your pocket. That’ll keep him real sweet.”
I thought about what Loretta was saying for a moment, weighing up the good and bad in her idea. I didn’t like the idea of having to travel with a child I barely knew hanging on to my coat-tails, especially if I was gonna get myself into a jam at some point. But beggars can’t be choosers, so I took the only deal that was laid out on the table.
“OK, but only if it ain’t gonna be a problem for your kin.”
“Ain’t gonna be no problem. Now shift your butt. You go back to your digs and pack a bag. Don’t be hangin’ around none, you hear me. Then when you’re sorted, you drive round to that lock-up on Brook Lane, the one Vic owns. While you’re away, I’ll try an’ git word to him, let him know you got your back against the wall with the coppers and probably a lot worse too. I’ll meet you with the pickney by those garage doors at t’ree thirty.” I looked over towards Truth, who was pushing a toy car up and down the length of baby blanket to keep Carnell Jr amused.
My head was full of doubts and if I was honest I was more than a little scared to be travelling away from the only place I felt truly safe. Leaving for the Somerset wilds didn’t fill me with joy, but I knew I couldn’t hang about in Bristol for much longer, not unless I wanted to spend the next few weeks or longer in Bridewell nick at Her Majesty’s pleasure. I thought about the last time I’d ventured away from the city, to a village called Cricket Malherbie. There I’d encountered cruelty and death in a way that I’d never imagined. I’d promised myself I’d never be touched by such evils again. Something told me that I was about to break that promise to myself and I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. I stared out across the room for a moment, in a world of my own pessimistic thoughts. Loretta jabbed at my arm with her finger and snapped at me again.
“Hey fool, I told you, you need to put a light to your ass and git yo’self movin’. What the hell you daydreamin’ ’bout anyhow?”
“I was just thinking ’bout Vic . . . I really coulda done with him here right now.”
“Yeah, well, he ain’t here. Far as you’re concerned, for now all you got to rely on is your wits and a fresh set o’ wheels that I got stashed up in that hidey-hole that belongs to that no-good cousin o’ yours.
“Wheels, what damn wheels are you going on ’bout?” Loretta had lost me.
“It don’t matter now, but brother, one day you gonna thank me for what I got stashed away for you. JT, if tings git rough on the road I’d be tinkin’ ’bout packin’ that service pistol you got stored outta sight in that pokey old dosshouse you call a home. It may come in a lot handier than them ragged-assed wits o’ yours.”
Sometimes the truth hurts, especially when it’s spoken by someone you care about. I stood up, took Loretta’s face into the palms of my hands, drew her towards me and gently kissed her on the forehead. I walked out of her home knowing how blessed I was to have her as a friend and headed back to my digs to pack that bag and blow the dust off my old Smith & Wesson revolver.
12
It was just after four in the afternoon by the time I pulled up outside the row of garages at the back of Brook Lane. I knew Vic owned all four of the red-brick lock-ups but I didn’t know what he kept in them, nor did I want to. Loretta was already waiting for me; she stood with one hand holding Truth’s and the other rocking a Victorian-style pram that I could hear baby Carnell bawling out of. I was late and she had a mean impatience. I smiled at her through the glass of my windshield and in return she mouthed a string of obscenities back at me. When I got out of my car, her vulgar language became audible.
“Where the fuck you bin to, Joseph? I told you
to be ’ere at t’ree thirty, not damn four o’clock. You had me waiting here standing in all this heat, sweatin’ my tits off, and I got this little bastard drivin’ me half mad while he’s screamin’ his lungs out for the rest o’ the world to hear. Git your sorry ass over here and gimme a hand with this pickney while I git this gate door open.”
Loretta swung the pram towards me. I took the handle then held my hand out for Truth to take it. She hesitated for a moment, then grasped at my fingers and came to stand nervously by my side while Loretta knelt at the foot of the garage door in front of us. She stuck a key into a large brass padlock and released it from a metal ring then slung open the two wood-panel doors. Inside was a vehicle that had been covered with a large tarpaulin. She walked into the garage and grabbed at the corner of the sheet.
“Wait till you two git a load o’ this little beauty.”
Loretta stood back and beamed at me, then pulled at the tarp. It made a swishing sound as it glided over the paintwork of the vehicle and fell to the ground. Underneath was a flash 1962 Mini Cooper with buffed-up chrome and pristine, dark racing-green paintwork.
“Hell, Loretta, did Vic buy this or win it in a goddamn bet? It’s hardly what you’d call inconspicuous.”
Loretta stood back and beamed at me. “Incon-what? Just shut ya overeducated shit, JT. This is a class set o’ wheels. Ain’t she a dazzler? This honey ain’t Vic’s; my Carnell won her in a craps game six weeks befo’ he passed away. Said he was gonna teach me to drive it. Damn fool knew I had no interest in gittin’ behind a wheel. I told him to git rid of it, but he never got the chance. Vic’s bin storin’ it fo’ me until I found a buyer. I just ain’t had the heart to deal with it. The way I see it, the law is gonna be looking out for that shitbox Cortina you crawl ’bout in. May as well store your motor in this here lock-up while you’re gone. I’ll give it a clean up inside when you leave, make sure there ain’t any o’ old Doc Fowler’s blood on the upholstery. You can take this little runabout down to the seaside. Far as I know, the fuel tank’s filled with gas. Vic says it’s running like a dream. Just try an’ bring it back without any dents in it.”