The Stiff Upper Lip

by Peter Israel

  “Hey there,” said Roscoe when I came in. He gave me a wave. “Come on in out of the rain, stranger, dry your feets and tell us the news from down home.”

  “The news from down home,” I said, “is that they’ve started shooting at each other in the streets.”

  “In Paris? I’d’ve … But hey, man! You look like you been catching some of that shit yourself!”

  “So I did.” I said. “But that was before they started with live ammunition.”

  He whistled. puffing his cheeks.

  “Sounds to me like a good place to stay away from,” he said. Then he drooped the magazine and, reaching out both arms behind him, stretched like an elongated cat. He yawned deeply. “Must be getting warm in here. The fire makes me sleepy. Seems like all I done here is sleep. man. Shoot, if I wasn’t such a lazy nigger, I’d get up and have off this coat.” He chuckled. “Well, come on, man. Aren’t you going to tell me who’s after my ass today?”

  “Not so many people as you’d think.”

  “No? Well, that’s depressing news. I guess I must be losin’ my touch.”

  I started to tell him about the Law and Delatour, but then van den Luyken and Valérie came in. Our host busied himself at the bar. He didn’t have Glenfiddich, he told me, but if I fancied the pure malts, wouldn’t I sample his own brand? I would, and did, and we drank a toast of appreciation to the Highland distillers. Then he asked if there was anything else we needed. I wanted to see the day’s papers from Paris. He replied, a little ruefully, that it was too late for him to do anything about it then, but that we’d have them at breakfast. At which, glass in hand, he left us alone.

  “Did you tell him yet?” Valérie asked me.

  “Tell me what yet?” said Roscoe.

  “We were just getting there,” I answered. “But first off, Roscoe, let me ask you something. Your old friends in California, you know—Mr. Vee and his fellow sportsmen?—how was it you first found out they were onto you again?”

  “First found out?” He laughed at that, then, when I didn’t join him, stared at me big-eyed. “Man, they always been after my ass! I been shot at! When I was down in Mexico, some blood pulled a gun on me, tried to shoot my fucking head off. The bullet went right past my ear! You ever hear a bullet go right past your ear?”

  He made a flat, whistling sound.

  “I’m not talking about Mexico,” I said. “I’m talking about Paris.”

  “Paris, yeah. Mexico, Paris, what difference does it make? You name the place, man, I been there.”

  “But there was a long time in between, wasn’t there? Between Mexico and Paris?”

  “That’s right. Three, four years.”

  “During which things cooled down?”

  “I don’ know about that. There’s things that never cool down.”

  “But enough for you to start playing ball again?”

  “I took the chance, man.”

  “O.K. Now, who was it who told you in Paris that they were onto you again?”

  “Like nobody had to tell me, man. That was something knowed.”

  There was something in his speech I’d noticed before: when he felt the soueeze coming on, his talk went nigger, complete with leaning on the verbs.

  “But somebody did tell you, didn’t he? Didn’t Odessa tell you?”

  “Odessa knew ’bout it, sure. But so did the other bloods. You don’ understan’, man. We got the grapevine. Things like that get around.”

  “Sure they do. But they get around because somebody starts them. Didn’t Odessa start this one?”

  “You don’ understan’, man. Nobody started it. It …”

  “That’s not what you said,” Valérie cut in impatiently. “You said it was Odessa who told you about it. You said if it ever got out that he’d told you, his own head would be on the block. You even said that was what friends were all about.”

  “Did I say that?” His eyes were big again, with white and innocence.

  “You certainly did.”

  “Well, maybe I did. But so what? Odessa only got it from some place else.”

  “No,” I said, “that’s where you’re wrong. He didn’t get it from some place else. He’s where it started.”

  “Now what in hell would …?”

  His voice trailed off.

  “He lied,” Valérie said. “Nobody was out to get you, at least nobody from California. Cage has verified it. Without wanting to, he even got Dédé to verify it.”

  Roscoe looked at me.

  “That’s the way it checks out,” I said. “As far as Johnny Vee’s concerned, you’re ancient history. I’m not saying that if you went home, you’d get met at the airport with a brass band, but as long as you stay over here, they’re not going to hassle you.”

  I guess you don’t run scared for years and then shake the hand of the man who tells you there’s nothing to be afraid of. The more so if you’re black and the man who’s bringing you the news is white. In other words, I didn’t expect gratitude from him.

  He didn’t disappoint me either.

  “Why would Odessa have done that?” said Valérie.

  “I don’t know that he did,” Roscoe answered sharply. “It’s Cage’s word against his.”

  “He played you for a fool,” she went on. “You know it too. He was dealing in drugs, and he wasn’t the only one. They wanted you to join in. You told me about that too, remember? How they were after you all the time but you didn’t want to get messed up in it?”

  “That’s the truth. I sure didn’t want to get messed up with dope.”

  “Then why did you?” I asked.

  “I …”

  “Wait a minute,” Valérie interrupted. “It was Dédé’s business too, remember? But you said you didn’t owe him anything. He hadn’t brought you into the league, he hadn’t signed you up. Isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right. I didn’t owe Delatour nothin’.”

  “Whereas you did Odessa?”

  “Odessa was my friend, sure, but …”

  “We know who killed him, Roscoe,” she said. “It was one of Delatour’s hoodlums. We know why too. They’d have killed you too, for the same reason, if they hadn’t thought that was Cage’s job.”

  “Cage’s job? Now, what the hell you talkin’ about?”

  She laid it on him, how she’d told Delatour I was the hired gun from California, and why. He whistled again, blowing hard through his cheeks.

  “Honey,” he said, “you were takin’ some hell of a chance.”

  “That’s not the point,” she said flatly. “The point is that you and Odessa were dealing together.”

  “Now, hold it there! Hold it! I …”

  “Delatour’s not the only one who knows,” I said. “The Law does too.”

  “What Law?”

  It was my turn to explain, about Bobet and the conversation we’d had, and the file the narks already had going on him. I watched him squirm with it. He squirmed all right, all six-feet-seven of him, and grabbed his hair, and blew wind through his cheeks, and he said that, between me and Val and Delatour and the Law, it was the same old story, the white folks ganging up on the niggers again. But in the end, that phony air of injury and disbelief went out of him like the wind from a balloon and there was no place left for him to squirm to.

  So we got it out of him.

  It was like I’d figured, more or less. Odessa had had to lean on him hard, but Odessa had been good at that. Roscoe’s ass was in a sling, Odessa had said, and since he, Odessa, was doing everything he could to help him, all he wanted was a favor in return. According to Roscoe, he’d only done Odessa a couple of such favors, though later on the “couple” became “several.” All he’d done, in any case, was carry stuff back and forth between Paris and Amsterdam. He hadn’t even known what he was carrying. Well, like he’d known, but he hadn’t ever looked. What Odessa did was stuff his bag at the Paris end, and when they got home, Odessa took it from him and gave it back to him empty. The same t
hing in Amsterdam. Odessa’s contact in Amsterdam was this blood called Wallace Edner. Odessa gave the money, or whatever it was, to Wallace, and Wallace came back with the stuff. And that was all there was to it.

  “This Wallace Edner?” I said to Valérie. “Wasn’t he the one you were trying to find the other night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why’d you go looking for him?”

  She looked at Roscoe, and Roscoe said: “Wallace is a good blood. I figured he could put us up at least.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He said he couldn’t. Said the word was out that ole Roscoe was bad news.”

  “Who’d put out the word?”

  “I don’ know. Mr. Lee maybe.”

  “Who’s Mr. Lee?”

  “I don’ know. Some Dutch Chinaman. I used to hear him an’ Odessa talkin’ about Mr. Lee.”

  “Was he Wallace’s boss?”

  “I don’ know. Maybe.”

  That made three I-don’t-knows in a row, and two maybes.

  “All right,” I said, “let’s take it back to the Paris end. Do you know who was bankrolling Odessa in Paris?”

  “What do you mean, bankrollin’?”

  “Just what I said. Odessa couldn’t have had that kind of money, at least not in the beginning.”

  “He always carried a lot of cash.”

  “Not that kind of cash.”

  I was thinking of the figure Bobet had read out of his notebook. I was thinking of gang wars too, and the timing, and of something else Bobet had said: The drug traffic in France isn’t organized by any one person, Monsieur.

  “I don’ know,” repeated Roscoe, pulling at his hair. “Like I said, I was jus’ doin’ him a favor.”

  “So you said. But now, who else among the brothers was doing him favors?”

  “Nobody, man. Leas’ not at the start. It was too dangerous. Them that was in it Was already doin’ it for Delatour.”

  “You said not at the start. What about at the end?”

  “I don’ know, man. Odessa could put a lot of pressure on people.”

  “So some of the brothers ended up working for him too?”

  “A couple, yeah.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “I don’ know exackly.”

  “But it was recent?”

  “Yeah, recent.”

  I had, I thought, the makings of a fit.

  “Was Atherton one of them?”

  “Ath’ton? No, he was one of Delatour’s.”

  That fit too.

  There was no way, however, that I could get him to name names, not then, although next morning, when one of the Paris papers ran photos of every black American playing pro ball in France, he did better. Right then, though, it didn’t matter that Odessa had lied to him, or that Odessa was dead, or that the rest of the brothers had stood by during the police investigation and let the murder accusation stand against him. It was black solidarity. Either it was black solidarity or else Roscoe Hadley, né Jimmie Cleever, was much naïver than I could credit him with.

  He bounced back at dinner. All it took was a good meal, a bottle of wine, and an audience. Nico provided all three, and Roscoe, you could say, sang for more than his supper. He was king and jester rolled into one, talking about America, about Europe, about Parisians and Parisiennes, and his life and times on and off the hardwood, and all with that weird comical sophistication that made you forget he was a ghetto spade still on the underside of thirty. Long before we got to the coffee and cognac, he had Nico roaring with laughter and, strange to say, me as well. Only Valérie didn’t join in. I caught her staring at me more than once across the dinner table. I tried to read her thoughts, without success. It was only after dinner, when we resumed our council of war, that she found her tongue again.

  As for me, I had a theory going, and if, the way it worked out, you could say I tripped over my modus operandi, right then, in the comfort of Nico’s living room, it looked worth pursuing. Sooner or later, I figured, we were going to have a choice to make; first off, though, I wanted to talk to Mr. Lee, the “Dutch Chinaman” Roscoe had mentioned. Furthermore, I wanted to do it without Roscoe. He was our trump card, and, as far as we knew, Nico’s was what the cloak-and-dagger boys call a “safe house.” Coming into Paris the night before. Valérie thought she might have been spotted. She’d ditched the car she’d rented and made the rendezvous with Billy Wheels on foot. But I was pretty sure we’d been clean all day, and in case we ran into trouble in Amsterdam, I wanted Roscoe out of it.

  So far so good.

  But then Valérie started to press me on what would happen after Mr. Lee.

  “That depends,” I said. “Sooner or later, we’ll have to make a choice. It may be Roscoe will have to end up talking to the Law after all.”

  “Talkin’ to what Law?” Roscoe said.

  I summarized what Bobet and Frèrejean had said. I didn’t like the idea of dealing with them any more than he did, but I thought there was at least a fair chance we could make the immunity stick.

  Roscoe threw his head back and laughed.

  “You must be out o’ your mind, man. I’m not talkin’ to no Law!”

  “It could be either that or Delatour,” I said.

  “I don’ see why it’s got to be one or the other.”

  I started to answer, but Valérie cut me off.

  “Then you’d better begin seeing it,” she said sharply.

  “There’s nothin’ to see, honey. They already ’xonerated me of Odessa’s killin’. If I jus’ tiptoe away, they’ll forget the res’.”

  “Tiptoe away! You already ran from trouble once in your life! You swore you’d never do it again!”

  “Who’s talkin’ about runnin’?” he said mildly. “I’m planning on stayin’ right here awhile.”

  His tone drove her out of her chair.

  “You’re what?”

  “Tha’s right. While you was gone today, I worked it out with Nico. Says he can always use an extra hand on the milk farm. Says they got all kinds o’ sportin’ clubs in the towns aroun’ here, kids ’n’ men both. I could even do a little coachin’ by ’n’ by, teachin’ ball. Shoot, honey,” he said, chuckling, “I always did want to try my hand milkin’ cows.…”

  “For God’s sake!” Valérie exploded at him. “They don’t even milk cows by hand any more!”

  “Well …” Roscoe began, but probably that was the last word he got in for a while.

  “Cage!” Valérie said, holding him in her glare. “Leave us alone!”

  I started to say something, but she cut me off too.

  “Do what I say!” she said, whirling at me. “Please! Please leave us alone!”

  Roscoe was staring at me, his big mouth ajar.

  I went out then. I found Nico van den Luyken in his library, a small but well-proportioned room where another fire was blazing in the tiled hearth. We had one of those awkward conversations men sometimes get into. Clearly he wanted to talk about Valérie. I didn’t. He seemed to assume we were both her ex-lovers, like privileged members of some exclusive club. Roscoe had beaten us out, it seemed, but that was all right with him. Anyway, Roscoe was really quite an extraordinary fellow, didn’t I agree? Of course he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted to stay. Then Nico wanted to know if there was really nothing he could do. Valérie, he said, had told him very little, she hadn’t wanted him to become involved more than necessary. That was well and good, but if Roscoe was really in trouble, and quite serious trouble apparently …”

  “There’s one thing,” I told him finally.

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t think it will come to it, but if anything should happen to us, or any one of us, there’s somebody you could call.”

  I dug out Frèrejean’s number in Paris and gave it to him. This seemed to please him no end.

  When I went back in, the living room was quiet as a morgue. Roscoe had hi
s head down and palmed between his big hands, like he was trying to shut out sound. Valérie was slumped in a chair, small-faced and tense. Clearly she hadn’t gotten what she wanted, and from my own experience I could guess this came as quite a shock to her.

  And that was that.

  I spent the night under an eiderdown, in a guest room big enough for a platoon of lovers. I spent it alone, though.

  As far as I know, we all did.

  12

  “Who’s Looie the Luke?” I said.

  “Leduc,” Valérie answered. “Jean-Louis Leduc.”

  We were in the Beetle, heading north, alone. The rain had stopped during the night, but there was a stiff wind blowing off the North Sea and it was whipping clouds in bunches over the flat, water-streaked land. The Beetle was doing better in the wind than we were. Neither of us had mentioned the night before, but it was there, between us, and conversation had become a sometime thing.

  The name—“Looie the Luke”—had come up at breakfast. It had been Roscoe’s contribution. “Looie the Luke,” he’d said, “or Flooie the Fluke, something like that. Odessa mentioned him.”

  In fact, he remembered, Odessa had gone looking for him once when they’d come back to Paris.

  Jean-Louis Leduc. Bobby H., it seemed to me, had mentioned him too, and so did the papers we saw at breakfast. According to the papers, Leduc was the registered owner of the Place Clichy brasserie that had been shot up. But not one of the wounded, or dead.

  That fit too.

  “What do you know about him?” I asked Valérie in the Beetle.