Did Montcrieff kill Elizabeth? I was certain he did. The ducks paddled their way across the pond. I followed their progress with my eyes. When you least expect it, the answer comes. A memo from nature—time to get my ducks in a row.
The sun stepped down from the last edge of sky, the streetlights blinked on, and I brushed twigs and leaves off me and stood.
Yeah, once again, I got back up, like I always did.
When I returned home it was a little after nine. I made a call, picked Catherine up from work, and drove her back to my place. We didn’t talk much. That was good. I ditched the lights and we fell into bed, my hands gripped her ample ass, and all my problems melted away, along with planet Earth, the cosmos, and the entire universe.
Each thrust and groan rocketed me closer to heaven. Catherine’s body arched beneath mine, her body convulsed, and she wrapped her legs tight around my waist. Sweet pain. I gasped, squeezed my eyes shut, and discovered the meaning of life—deep in Catherine’s womb.
Bliss spread through my body, rippled past sinews, on down to my toes, and, like snow melting on a mountain, I eased off of Catherine and fell, exhausted, into a deep and heavy sleep.
Throughout the night, the caress of gentle hands played melodies against my body as I slept the sleep of the dead. Come daylight, Catherine was gone.
Chapter 23
The next evening I gazed at the red, amber, and purple colors that stretched across a Fourth of July sky and it was still June. Dusk gentled down in Harlem-town. Streetlights snapped on, and residents poured into the muggy night and parked their rumps on porches and stoops.
At the end of the block, men and women camped on folding chairs, kitchen chairs, and wooden crates, clustered close around a rickety card table set smack in the middle of the sidewalk. A naked lightbulb dangled overhead from a makeshift contraption erected solely for the card players’ convenience. A bid whist game was in progress and it was intense. The slap of cards and protesting voices or hoots of laughter rang up and down the whole block.
Teenagers lolled against buildings and stoops. A miscreant child chased a ball into the street, and a she-wolf bellowed his name and threatened a blistering butt-whipping.
I held a cold bottle of beer next to my cheek for a long minute before I allowed its liquid foam to ease down my throat. Somebody had torn half of my FOR SALE sign off the oak tree in front that I had labored to put up this morning, and the FOR SALE sign I had put on the brownstone across the street had disappeared altogether. The rest of the day I had holed up with Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Depressing as hell.
Gloria had kept her distance since moving in, thank God. The woman was working on getting hooked up fast, and so far as I could tell, she was having some success. Gloria on the prowl was a sight to behold. She had “dates” every night. Not hooking, just looking, she told me. I wished her luck in the worst way. Anything to take the heat off me.
With no food in my belly—the bologna sandwich didn’t count—I was getting a tad light-headed. Oh well ... I gulped another swig of beer. Brewskies—that’s what white people called them, brewskies. What the hell, the “brewskies” dulled the pain and helped me chill. One by one I separated the events of the past two days, pigeonholed them, and took a deep think with each swallow.
I was finishing up my third brew when Miss Ellie came out of the brownstone across the street and waved. She wore a flowered print dress with spaghetti straps and yellow high-heeled shoes. From this distance and after three beers the old woman looked damned good. She fluffed her hair, set a cushion on the stoop, and held a paper bag high for me to see—I knew what it was—and called over to me.
“Hey you. Amos Brown. What you doing? Bring your fine brown self over here and keep an old lady company.”
Looking at the loveliness of Miss Ellie I thought, okay, being seduced by a seventy-year-old woman wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me. Catherine crossed my mind, but I reasoned this didn’t have nothing to do with her. It took all of maybe twenty seconds for me to join Miss Ellie on the stoop. She pulled a bottle out of the brown bag she held and poured Johnny Walker Red in generous amounts into two paper cups.
“Amos, a shame about your mother.” She downed her drink in one gulp. I blinked at the disappearing act, mumbled a response, and followed suit. The drink worked its magic immediately—I don’t know if it was the heat or what, but my whole body tilted suddenly to the right, and damned if I didn’t hear a bell clang somewhere. A warning? Or was it the beers I’d consumed? The world shifted back to center, but for a minute I lost my balance and sat down hard on the stoop.
“Yes, that was one beautiful woman,” Miss Ellie said.
“You knew my mother?”
“Of course I did. I was living here way before your father took over this building. She was—”
“I know ... wild.”
Miss Ellie drew back and looked at me as if I were crazy. “Who told you that?”
I tried to think. “Reba?”
Miss Ellie shook her curls and laughed, and without asking, poured us both another shot. “Well, I know Miss Reba, and all I can say is, consider the source. She’s putting something on your mama that looks better on herself.”
I didn’t stop her from pouring, though I should have. “You’re kidding. Tight-assed Reba?” I said.
“Honey, your aunt Reba’s ass wasn’t always tight, let me tell you.”
I sipped the Johnnie Walker this time.
“Fact is, Miss Reba had her some men now. Plenty Negroes drooled over her. Thought she was God’s gift to men. Plucked her feathers when ... Oh, never mind.”
Miss Ellie looked sideways at me and shook her head again. She said, “Yeah, I remember one time, Reba and me, honey, duked it out at Connie’s Inn, over Sweet Dick Wilson—”
“You fought?”
“Yeah, baby—sorry, Amos—had to kick her ass over Sweet Dick Wilson, a drummer I used to go with. Don’t let nobody tell you different, Miss Reba was a firecracker. Oh-me-oh-my, Sweet Dick—now that was a good man.”
“So what happened to Sweet Dick?”
“What you think? The man was a bumblebee, always looking for a flower. Sucked it dry, then the bumblebee moved on. Left a sting in my tail, swear to Jesus. Umph, Sweet Dick was something else.”
She hung in her reverie for a few minutes more while I entertained my own private thoughts, and then I asked her, “Miss Ellie, think Montcrieff killed my mother?”
“Lord, child, why you ask me something like that?”
“I know he beat her.””
“You do? How you know that? You were there?”
“I heard Montcrieff was carted off to jail a week before my mother showed up mis-s-sing.” Uh-oh. I was losing it—better lighten up on this alcohol.
Miss Ellie thought a minute and said, “You talking about the time Montcrieff went ape-shit and threw a chair out the window? Yes, Lord, that was something else. Yeah, I remember him being arrested, but it wasn’t for hurting nobody. It was for throwing furniture out the window.”
“Why in the hell did he frow—throw furniture out the window?”
“I ain’t a crystal ball, but the way I heard it, somebody had done something to Elizabeth and he was upset.”
“He never hit her?”
“Well now, Amos, you backing me up in a corner. Ain’t something I’d swear to, Montcrieff did have a temper and all, but I know he was head over heels in love with your mother.”
“Yeah, but you and I both know, some people have a strange way of showing love.”
Miss Ellie read the expression on my face, upended the last of her scotch, and disappeared into the house and returned with a full bottle of 151 rum and poured.
“Listen, Amos, all I know is, your father never hit me.”
Puzzled, I looked at her. “Why would he hit you?”
Miss Ellie averted her eyes and adjusted her dress. “Well ... Montcrieff needed a little comfort after your mother left—uh, that is ... disapp
eared—and well ...”
She didn’t have to say any more. But I looked at Miss Ellie in a new way. She had been capable of whipping Reba’s ass. Did she have a motive for murder? Was she capable of sealing a person into a wall—and into the same building she lived in?
A wave of horror came over me and I chased away the morbid and accusing thoughts with yet another slug of Miss Ellie’s liquor. This damn alcohol was making me paranoid. I set my cup down.
Some neighbors joined us on the stoop and we passed the rest of the night in idle chitchat. Miss Ellie could handle her liquor and left me in the dust. The old lady didn’t miss a beat, and kept up with the hardiest of the drinkers.
At one o’clock in the morning, six of us sat sprawled on the stoop, shooting the breeze and passing the bottle around. Miss Ellie waxed nostalgic and talked about Cotton Club days and the celebrities she knew. The Duke—Duke Ellington, that is—Lena Horne, Bricktop, the Astors, fighter Jack Johnson, and I don’t know who all. Then she performed a tap number in front of the stoop, and I noticed with uneasy awareness the muscles in her legs and arms. All of us applauded. She was damn good. But I wondered.
When I saw Zeke come home, that put an end to the evening. I sprang to my feet, a top spun out of control, and fell over myself. Slurring good-bye to Miss Ellie and the others, I lurched with purpose across the street.
Not my business, but where the hell was Zeke coming from this time of night? The old man must be a bat—he kept bat hours. And he was old enough to be my father. What was with him? A girlfriend somewhere? I caught Zeke before he entered the building. I grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him against the front door so hard his false teeth rattled in his head.
“Pay me my rent, man. Don’t make me box you up.”
“You’re drunk.”
“If that’s what it takes to collect from you.” At that point I didn’t give a rat’s ass if what I said made sense or not. Zeke and his arrogant ass pissed me off. I focused real hard on his nose, and it helped steady me.
“Let’s take this inside,” Zeke said.
“No, outside, let’s take it outside.” I hung from his shirt like a clothespin turned upside down. The man was overdue for a knuckle sandwich and I sure felt like giving it to him.
People passing on the sidewalk gawked, and the bunch with Miss Ellie stood and stared at us. An embarrassment I couldn’t seem to help. I let go of his shirt, swayed, and leaned sideways, my balance unsteady. Zeke caught me by my arm and half carried me inside.
“Tomorrow I’ll bring you the papers,” he said.
I said again, “About my rent, Zeke.”
“I don’t pay rent.”
The conversation went round in a rhythmic circle, in time with the swirling ceiling and the undulating stair well. It was too much. My eyes crossed.
“ ’Zactly what I’m saying. That’s why I got a problem with you, Zeke. You ain’t paid rent since I’ve been here.”
“Montcrieff made an agreement with me. I don’t pay rent. I have the papers,” he repeated.
What was it about Zeke that made me so angry? I pushed him up against the wall, jammed one arm against his chest, and leaned on him, hard. His eyes bucked.
“You lying sack of shit. Show me.”
“In my room. I have to get them.”
“Get ’em. I ain’t going nowhere.”
Zeke gasped for breath. I let up on him. He shook me off angrily and climbed the stairs to his apartment. I watched him go, saw the ceiling spin, and slid like sorghum molasses down the wall.
Chapter 24
Damn sun again. Somebody should shoot it. I inched my eyelids open, and the full force of daylight attacked. I wrenched the bedroom blinds shut and fell back on the bed.
Counting to ten, I lay there. It didn’t help. Yesterday’s clothes stuck to my body. I filled my lungs and counted to ten again. That same bird cheeped outside my window. My mouth tasted scummy, and I needed about a gallon of water to stem the awful thirst.
I rolled on my side, and a paper rustled underneath me. I counted to ten one more time, pushed myself to a sitting position, and uncrumpled the paper.
Through bleary eyes I saw that it was a copy of a signed and notarized document, Parts I and II. A serious bit of legalese. I read on. “For Services Rendered,” it said, dated November 15, 1937. A long-ass time ago. At the bottom of the page, whatever had been Part II of the document was ripped from the page.
I tossed the paper on the floor and stood up. A mistake. The room spun, I let out a groan, and fell back on the bed.
Elbows on knees, hands steadying my head, I tried to stop the spinning and get my brain to work. Why the pussyfooting around—why didn’t Zeke tell me about this straight off? Why keep avoiding me? Zeke was a strange bird, and one I wasn’t about to take time to figure out—especially this morning with my A-1 hangover.
I rose slowly this time. “For Services Rendered.” What could that mean? He and Montcrieff were ace-boon-coons. Did this agreement buy Zeke’s silence? For what? Murder? Maybe. The agreement probably wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. I retrieved the document from the floor. Better have an attorney check it out. Aw, shit, what the hell did I care?
I went to the kitchen and sucked on ice cubes, then stuck my head in the refrigerator and left it there for a few minutes. The weather was going to be a bitch today. It was ten o’clock and it was already hotter than hell. Somebody leaned on the front doorbell, but I didn’t care. Didn’t care at all. Wasn’t going to answer it. Ever. Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em all.
I prowled around the apartment for the rest of the day. The doorbell rang constantly; I could hear the phone in the office ringing too, but I wasn’t answering.
By evening-time I got antsy, and made a few phone calls to my boys—guys I had previously hung with. That old fever came back. I was looking for a game, and a way out.
Hooch Rawley, a friend and former inmate with me at West Coxsackie State Prison from years ago, turned me on to a high-roller’s game on the third floor of the Cecil Hotel, a place that catered to the entertainment set and other fly types as well as the criminal element.
Money was the equalizer and social leveler. Five hundred would let me sit at the table. Whether I stayed depended on the run of the cards.
I dressed for the part—put on a lightweight grey suit that I hadn’t sacrificed to Bunky’s, an emerald tie and a light green shirt. Scrounged through my office and found five bills tucked away in a locked box, and put paper in my inside jacket pocket. Cecil, I’m coming.
Stepchild was parked at the end of the block today. My usual space in front of the brownstone had been taken by one of the congregants of the Assembly of God Christ Church located at the opposite end of the block. In fact, most of the parking spaces on the street were gone, and cars were double-parked. Summer was revival time at a lot of churches in Harlem, and the church on our block was whooping it up with plenty of joyful noises and jubilation that carried down the length of the block.
As I approached the corner where the church was, four junior hoodlums, all under age ten, pitched pennies against the building’s wall, near where my car was parked. I asked, “You mind?” and took a coin from my pocket, put a little heat in the toss, and slammed it against the wall. It hit, held, slid, and puckered up and kissed the wall. I gathered up the pennies and told the little buggers that’s what they get for gambling. Since I was bigger than them, they didn’t attack—they settled for tight jaws all around.
Stepchild burped and hiccupped when I tried to start her. In spite of the kids’ jeers, I got her going and took off for the Hotel Cecil, adrenaline pumping.
Most of the players at the Cecil I knew, so it was no problem to join the game. T-Bone Thompson, a blues singer who teetered for years on the brink of real success; two warped lawyers, one a prosecuting attorney; and Toothpick Flynn, who owned a bar on Lenox Avenue plus a numbers operation, made up the assembled group. Harry the Monkey Chaser was there too, sitting smug in his chinchi
lla hat. Nobody reminded Harry it was summertime.
The usual hangers-on hung around the room, swilling booze and watching the action. No smoking was allowed because of Harry’s asthma, so nicotine fever had people coming and going, in and out of the room. Didn’t bother me, I didn’t smoke, but some of the players got real fidgety. Twelve hours in a box playing poker is not pleasant. If the smells don’t get you, the smoke usually will. Thank God for Hotel Cecil’s air-conditioning and Harry’s no-smoke rule.
A slit with her lungs falling out of her dress served drinks, sandwiches, and complied with requests. Part of her job, I guess, was to bump titties against every man that sat at the table, and those that lined the room. Each bump yielded her a five-spot. If you groped her ass you had to give up a twenty. Anything else you took it outside. She stuffed the money between her titties and it looked to me like she was having a hell of a night.
Cards fell loose and fast. I hit on the first hand and bumped my stake to two grand. After that I grew reckless and didn’t much care. The next five hours raced by. I was in my element. I fed my fever and let it burn white hot.
It burned all night. At two in the morning I began to lose. I was a thousand down when I, at last, pulled out my paper. Everyone around the table turned their faces to the off position and looked blankly at me. The bluesman spoke first.
“What the hell is that, man?”
“Deeds to two brownstones in Harlem.”
Silence. One of the lawyers with messed-up teeth spoke next. “What do you think this is? Monopoly? Are we playing Monopoly here? You can’t bet brownstones, Park Place, or the Reading Railroad. If you ain’t got the money, you got to get up.”
Toothpick chimed in, “Yeah, boy, what you think this is?”
I said in a reasonable tone, “Think about it. You could all use a tax write-off.”
The whole table laughed as if what I said were the funniest thing going. Harry the Monkey Chaser cackled the loudest and said, “Who pays taxes? Huh? Anyone here?” The table roared again.
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