by John Boyd
His best offense was no offense at all, Ward decided as he fumbled at the latch, smiling. “Why, I’ve seen you gentlemen on TV. Y’all come right in. Freddie will be home, directly. I’m just visiting.”
Returning his billfold to his coat pocket but keeping his hand inside his coat, the first man brushed past Ward, moving quickly into the living room, saying, “Front room clear, Culpepper.”
The second man entered more leisurely, saying, “This is mighty obliging of you, Uncle.”
He audibly inhaled as he entered, and Ward assumed he was sniffing for marijuana. Ward, too, inhaled, and caught the unmistakable under odor of delta mud. The second agent, Culpepper, was from Mississippi. Culpepper’s origins put an entirely new interpretation on his sniffing and explained the study he had made of Ward’s face.
“Mind if we look over the apartment, Uncle?” He spoke with Old South courtliness as the first agent was already down the hall, leaping past the darkened bedroom door and reaching in to switch on the light.
“Y’all go right ahead, sir,” Ward answered.
Ward walked slowly back to his chair, knowing now that fate had singled him out to put on the greatest Plantation Shuffle in the history of put-ons.
Culpepper was a Negro expert for the FBI.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mentally Ward followed the agents through the apartment. They would find no documents to question because there were no papers in the house and no garage key. Again it occurred to Ward that Freddie’s foresight was no spin-off from his sidewalk cunning. Unless Freddie had researched methods for hiding felons, this operation had been masterminded by an expert in concealment, probably someone in the nature of a financier who pretended to subsist on a widow’s mite.
But Ward had dirtied the immaculate plan by leaving his electrodes in the bathroom. All that could save him, now, was his own guile.
He was thinking hard.
Interservice rivalry was two-edged. Cabroni could have concealed the part that electrodes played in the rejuvenation process in hope of scoring a coup, himself, ahead of the FBI, LAPD and ONI. Ward had decided to bluff on that assumption when the Northerner came into the living room holding the electrodes.
“What are these for?”
“Them’s my de-magnetizers, sir.”
“How do they work?”
Culpepper had entered and was listening.
“You plug them in and hold one in one hand and one in the other, facing east. Chiropractor tells me that magnetism stuff comes from the north. Electricity coming from the south churns up your blood. They help tired blood, and I had tired blood since I been born.”
“Sickle cell anemia, Cabot,” Culpepper explained. “Lots of them have it.”
As Cabot returned the electrodes to the bathroom, Culpepper brought the three-way lamp closer to the chair, turning it higher, and pulled a picture of Freddie from his pocket.
“Is this Freddie?”
“Yes, sir. That’s old Freddie. He wanted by the FBI?”
“Only for questioning, Uncle, about this man.”
Culpepper flipped the picture and on the back was the Ethan Allen portrait of Ward. “Ever see him?”
“Yes, sir. I saw him around here, or somebody who looks a lot like him.”
As Ward studied the photograph, he knew Culpepper was studying him under the bright light.
“Does he pick up his mail here?”
So the post office had been the source of their information. They had traced Ester’s royalty checks back to the publisher or record company and gotten the address from there.
“Can’t say he does, sir. He shaves sometimes. Maybe takes a bath.”
“Does he have a blue streak down his back?”
“I don’t recollect looking.”
Cabot had returned, and Culpepper explained. “They can pass for white with their clothes on, but the blue streak down their spine is a dead giveaway.”
Culpepper took the photographs and replaced the floor lamp, saying, “You’ve been a help, Uncle. Now, we’ll just sit here and watch television with you until Freddie gets back.”
After they were seated on the divan Ward knew he was still undergoing an in-depth analysis by the Southerner, even though he had passed the physical.
“What kind of shows do you like best, Uncle?”
“I reckon I like them war pictures best, sir.”… With you whities killing each other.
“How about cowboys and Indians?”
“Can’t rightly say I likes them, sir.”… That’s too close to home, Mr. FBI.
“What about those sexy modern movies, Uncle?”… With all those white girls getting toosed into the hay?
“Whooeee!”
“Where do you hail from, Uncle?”
It was a loaded question designed to lead to regional allusions about the South, and Ward, nodding sleepily, diverted Culpepper with a decoy in a rambling answer.
“Compton, sir. Got freewayed out when they put in that new freeway between the Harbor and the Santa Ana. Can’t find a new place. With ten cents family assistance and twenty-cent rent, man sleeps he can’t eat, eats he can’t sleep.”
Culpepper let him ramble on about the happy problems of happy people until Cabot interjected, “Have you been questioned by the Los Angeles police?”
“No, sir. Nobody talk to me but you gentlemen.”
Ward could hear the divan springs creak as the agent relaxed in relief.
But Culpepper was back, tugging, with Ward anticipating the direction of his pull.
“How are you related to Freddie, Uncle?”
“Now, lemme think… My mama’s youngest sister, that’s Aunt Delphi, she married Uncle Henry. He’s a good Christian when he’s sober. His sister, my Aunt Emaline by marriage…”
In the time-honored manner of the South, Ward traced the relationship through a labyrinth as Culpepper listened respectfully, but the Northerner, Cabot, grew impatient with Southern amenities.
“We’ve been here half an hour and you said he’d be back directly. When is ‘directly’?”
“Bout two o’clock in the morning. Sometimes three, when there’s a big turnout after the last show.”
“They have a careless sense of time,” Culpepper explained.
“I don’t have,” Cabot snapped. He was through with Culpepper’s explanations.
“Are you telling me Freddie’s at work?” He asked Ward.
“Yes, sir. He runs the parking lot at the Kitten Club.”
“I know where it is,” Cabot said. “We can be there in twenty minutes. Let’s go.”
Culpepper arose, asking, “Do you have a telephone, Uncle?”
“Yes, sir. Right there in the hall.”
“Don’t use it,” he said, and his voice was harsh and authoritative, the voice of the Man. “If Freddie’s gone when we get there, we’ll know you called him and that’s aiding and abetting. Then we’ll be back, and you won’t have any rent problem for a long time.”
“Yes, sir.”
As they went out the door, Ward heard Culpepper explain to Cabot, “He’s an old-time darky. He’ll do as he’s told.”
But Ward was already getting up to turn off the TV set when he heard the squeal of rubber going north; he dashed into the bathroom to turn on the water and rig his electrodes. While the water was running, he stepped into the hall and called Freddie.
A strangely composed Freddie listened as Ward explained what had happened. When he answered, his voice was reassuring.
“They can’t do anything to me if I don’t know where you are, and I won’t know by the time they get here… Listen, in ten minutes, call 696-9000. Don’t call sooner, for I’ll have the line tied up. You’ll get instructions from there. Good luck, old buddy. And remember to leave a check for my half of our bank account.”
Ten minutes were all Ward needed for the rejuvenation bath using his last ounce of sugar phosphate and adding the tanning and enzymes for a combined operation that left him young and black
er. The tanning seemed to speed up the rejuvenation.
On the evidence of the telephone number, Ward knew that Freddie was not a free-lance conductor on an underground railway. Perhaps a division superintendent would answer his call, but Ruth Gordon had switched him onto this side track, for only Ruth Gordon would have charged $449 for two weeks’ room, board, and expenses.
Naked in the hallway, he dialed the number Freddie had given and heard a tinkle of falling icicles in the answering “Hello.”
“Miss Frost! Freddie give me your private number.”
“Of course, Al. He tells me you’re in a little trouble with the law. Never fear. The Electric Daisy Chain provides for its key personnel. Have you pencil and paper?”
“Yes’m,” Ward lied, thinking it strange she didn’t know such articles were contraband around the apartment. But then her voice was as patronizing as ever. Miss Frost truly thought of him as a black, which meant she was merely a strand in the net of conspiracy.
“Hop on your bike and take the Santa Monica Freeway west to the very end. Keep on 101, past Malibu Village, and turn right at Vertigo Canyon Drive. Don’t turn left. There’s an ocean out there. Follow Vertigo to Rattlesnake Junction, then make a sharp left on Canyon Diablo. Follow Diablo until you reach Paseo de la Muerte and follow it north until it dead-ends on Fiend’s Crest Road. Follow Fiend’s Crest left until you reach a barrier, with reflectors. Don’t drive through it. There’s a three-hundred-foot drop beyond into Lost Indian Canyon. To the right you’ll see a private gravel road skirting the face of a cliff. Follow the road over Dead Prospector’s Saddleback as it winds around a pasture atop the plateau, curving toward Satan’s Summit. Atop the crag you’ll see a ranch house that’s headquarters for the Adorable U Beauty Ranch. The porch light will be on. Go right up to the front door, knock, and don’t gape at whoever answers… Got that?”
“Yes’m.”
“And, Al, I do wish to thank you for that lovely dedication. Your song was so… sensual.”
Her bells were twanging deeper notes, but Ward had no time for romance.
“Who do I ask for, ma’am, when I get there?”
“Miss Diana… Miss Diana Aphrodite.”
He thanked her and hung up.
Despite the energy Ward put into dressing for the road, a pall was hanging over his mind which lingered as he dashed to the garage to get his checkbook from the spare tire. Miss Frost’s directions had been a verbal chamber of horrors over-draped with the black anapest, Malibu; “Mal,” Latin for evil, “ibu,” Javanese for “place of spirits.” Malibu, the place of evil spirits.
Extrapolating from his last two bank statements, Ward wrote out a check for $121,287.44, Freddie’s half of all he had earned while under Freddie’s care, and laid the check on the kitchen sink. Then he headed for the garage and his motorcycle.
Heading west at 11:15 on a Saturday night before the bars let out, Ward had the Santa Monica Freeway to himself.
At eighty miles an hour, slowing for 101, he took only twenty minutes to reach the Vertigo Canyon turn-off and headed north into the Santa Monica Mountains. At Rattlesnake Junction, Canyon Diablo demanded careful driving to negotiate its curves, but it was just a warm-up for Paseo de la Muerte. The latter road twisted through a narrow canyon, uphill all the way, with only a streak of stars above to remind Ward that a universe existed. He was genuinely relieved to break out onto Fiend’s Crest into the full light of the stars and a half moon low in the west.
Turning west on a road without habitations, he drove carefully along rock-imbedded asphalt. Yellow eyes of wild things glared from scrub lining the road, and once a deer bounded across ahead of him. Finally he reached the barrier. Off to the right he found the gravel-paved shelf that wound above Lost Indian Canyon. To negotiate the abyss in the dark, he pushed the motorcycle the quarter-mile to Dead Prospector’s Saddleback before remounting to putt-putt slowly down across the meadow.
Off to the west, outlined by the gibbous moon, he saw a ranch house atop a rocky knoll. Huge, dark, and forbidding, the building loomed above Satan’s Summit, and the road made a wide half-circle below, the bight of its U traversing a stand of eucalyptus, as if the road were wary of the house. Breaking from the trees to approach from the north, Ward saw a faint light marking the entrance. It was well that Miss Frost had not requested that he enter by the rear door. Built in the form of a T, the two-storied structure’s rear wing extended so far south the journey to its back door would have challenged a goat in daylight.
Drawing closer, he saw the west façade was cantilevered from the knoll to form a carport with a sub-level apartment, possibly a bunkhouse or chauffeur’s quarters, adjoining a freight elevator and loading platform. One automobile, a white Porsche, was parked in the garage adjoining the stairway to the entrance.
Not only the car was Diana’s, but the entire ranch house, Ward realized, after he had parked and was mounting the stairs. The lower veranda, extending the width of the fifty-yard structure, was lighted by a single entrance light, a forty-watt bulb.
So, inside the house the girl of some of his dreams awaited, and he was not happy. With such resources, Ruth Gordon, alias Diana Aphrodite, had kept him waiting in poverty, hounded by police, while she plotted to halt evolution before human beings had evolved from savagery.
Mindful of Miss Frost’s warning not to gape at who opened the door, Ward pushed the doorbell and waited, bracing when he heard the doorknob turn. Framed in the lighted hallway was a diminutive competitor of Ester, dressed in a black, miniskirted maid’s uniform cut low above a lacy white apron. A heart-shaped doily topped her mass of chestnut curls.
“Entrez, s’il vous plait.”
Entering, Ward bent low in his plantation bow and in response she curtsied. Her torso had the shape of a champagne glass, and at the bottom of his bow he sniffed her bouquet. When she straightened from her curtsy, her bowl almost bubbled over, and Ward felt that in another era she would have been from Louis XIV’s private vintage at the Petit Trianon.
“Vous être senegalese.” She spoke from astonishment.
If she wanted a Senegalese, his duty and his desire were clear.
“Oui’m, j’est senegalese,” he answered in plantation French.
“Was madame expecting…” she started to say, and remembered her manners. “Please, come with me to the library.”
Prancing, Ward followed her behind, catching in his side vision lithographs of Picassos and Modiglianis in plastic frames on plywood walls stained to resemble oak panels. The reception hall’s Woolworth-Sunset Boulevard opulence oppressed him with the parsimony he had once admired as thrift. Even Ruth’s French maid was not an import. In the dip of his bow Ward had detected, subtly blended into the French smell, the tannic tang of Louisiana swamp water.
The maid was less a domestic than a trick to set him prancing. Ruth planned to put him down for his breast obsession, and all she needed for the put-down, to establish her moral superiority, was a prance. But the new Ward was hip.
At the intersection of the corridors, the maid stopped before a white double door marked “Library” in gold letters and knocked. Ward glanced about. East and south, the corridors stretched interminably, but the west hallway was closed near at hand by a temporary partition and a door marked “DO NOT ENTER.”
As they waited, Ward glanced at a bulletin board to the right of the library doors.
MONDAY 3 P.M. LOWER EAST DINING HALL
E-41, former professor of English, will lecture on “Trends in Modern Literature.” Following the lecture, S-37, formerly tragedienne with Fanchon and Marco, will give selected readings from The Story of O and The Voyeur.
Those readings should be interesting, Ward thought, but he wondered about the tragedienne. Fanchon and Marco had been a vaudeville circuit, closed these many years. And security must be tight when a vaudeville tragedienne was not called by her name.
Suddenly both doors began to open slowly, inward.
The opening had been done fo
r dramatic effect, and it was effective. Halfway the length of an office the size of a squash court, Diana was revealed, seated behind a desk of silver on a carpet of gold. In front of her desk was a golden chair. All around, the walls were shelved to the ceiling with books bound in white with gold lettering on their spines. Above her down-bent head, a silver chandelier cast reflections in her hair as if the very light were amorous of her curls. On her left, two golden princess telephones were placed. Before her lay a pad containing figures.
Without looking up, Diana—Ward could not think of this glory as Ruth—said, “That will be all, E-24. And you may enter, Al.”
Her voice rustled as softly as wind in willows.
As the maid turned and departed down the east corridor, Ward entered slowly to a cadence counted in his mind. Giving him the busy executive ploy at midnight, Diana kept her head to a list of figures on the pad, but he knew she was peeking at his feet, waiting to see him prance.
Suddenly, she looked up at his dark skin, his Afro, and his brown eyes. “Who are you?”
“Alfred Atascadero, ma’am.”
All the sounds of summer were gone from her voice.
“Would you stand there, one moment?”
She was reaching for a telephone, and he translated her request as “Don’t sit on my golden chair.”
Apparently the phone was direct to the Daisy Chain, for she didn’t dial. “Miss Frost, Miss Aphrodite. You’ve sent me the wrong Negro. This one doesn’t speak in iambs, and he has no prance… Cute little shuffle! What do I care about cute little shuffles? No, I can’t use this man… Get that black scatologist on the conference line… Big John, what’s this all about? This man isn’t Alexander Ward… Freddie said! I don’t care what Freddie said. He lied. I paid him three hundred forty dollars for harboring one of his criminal friends. Quit rhyming at me…”
She was fighting to control herself, and Ward underwent a similar struggle at her remark about the $340. Ward could appreciate Freddie bilking a whitey, but his black brother had charged him $449 for the same service.