Prudence Couldn't Swim

by James Kilgore

  “I want to try one more thing,” I said. “Can you still pick locks?”

  “Can priests still stick it to little boys?”

  “I think Mandisa’s hiding something. We need to get into her place.”

  “Okay, but this is my sayonara, the swan song of Red Eye, the house breaker. I’m retiring. Let me stick to my gambling. There’s more money in it and it’s less risky.”

  “So you’re quitting the day job? Then you better learn something about those weird little sports of yours instead of just betting on red.”

  “Red is the best,” he said. “You can’t go wrong with red.”

  Who could argue with Red Eye? He’d never stop betting or picking locks. He thrived on the excitement, the buzz. Maybe when he hit sixty he’d slow down. But then I doubted he’d ever hit sixty. Guys like Red Eye weren’t built for the long haul. Neither was I.

  He took less than a minute to open Mandisa’s door.

  “Apartments are candy,” he said.

  The place looked different. The extra furniture was gone, there was only one lonely blender on the kitchen counter. Mandisa had been wheeling and dealing, but she’d kept her word about the clothes. The bags were still tied up in the closet. I guess she expected me to look through them under slightly different circumstances. Maybe I should have just asked.

  “Let’s dump this shit out and go through it,” I said.

  “Whatever.”

  Red Eye pulled out a massive black-handled hunting knife to slash open the plastic bags.

  “Hold on,” I said, “we’ve got to leave this place like we found it.”

  “We can find more bags.”

  By that time I’d undone the knot in the plastic. Red Eye tucked his knife back into his belt. The first bag was blouses and skirts, nothing solid. Most of the blouses didn’t even have pockets where something could be hidden.

  “What do you expect to find?” he asked.

  “Don’t know. You said to rely on gut feelings. My gut tells me there’s something here.”

  “I need a smoke,” he said.

  Red Eye liked the breaking in part of the job but he didn’t have the patience to sort through piles of clothes.

  “If you’re getting bored,” I said, “go and watch TV. Probably a beach volleyball tournament or something on now.”

  “Lumberjack contest from Idaho,” he said. “Got to see ‘em chainsaw the big ones.”

  “Just keep the volume low.”

  “Makes me nervous,” he grumbled. “I like to get in and get out.”

  The second bag was all underwear. I skipped that one. Feeling my way around her bras and undies was a little too twisted.

  The third bag held shoes, some still in their boxes. I dumped them out on the carpet. Two of the boxes were closed with rubber bands.

  Red Eye had decided against the lumberjacks. He grabbed the two boxes with the rubber bands on them. The first held five videotapes, the other contained four. Maxell C-120s. No one used these things any more but I still wanted to have a look.

  “Probably the family picnic,” I told Red Eye, “Little Johnny’s birthday party.”

  “Just leave it,” he said, “let’s went, amigo.”

  “A quick look, maybe Johnny had a stripper in the birthday cake.”

  The tapes had date labels in Prudence’s writing. The most recent was two months old. The first two cassettes were blank.

  “I told you,” he said, “let’s get out of here.”

  The beginning of the third tape had an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful, Prudence’s favorite.

  “I’ll go ahead and fast forward real quick,” I said, “if there’s nothing …”

  “Whatever, homeboy,” he said, “I’m gonna put on some coffee so the cops have something to keep them warm when they get here. Should I throw in a pizza? Domino’s can get here in ten minutes. Pepperoni okay?”

  The shot of the naked Prudence mounting Jeffcoat halted the flow of Red Eye’s pizza jokes. The film was shot in the bedroom where we found the tapes. No wonder Prudence was moving out of my house. She had a business going on here.

  “Jesus,” was all Red Eye could manage. The pepperoni could wait.

  I tried to play the detached detective, fast-forwarding deeper into the tape as if it was a talking head of a police investigator explaining the details of crime scene findings.

  The next tape was a virtual carbon copy only this time Newman was the costar. Things didn’t get better as we moved through tapes three, four, and five. There was licking, sucking and thrusting, punctuated by cries of ecstasy from all cast members. I hoped Prudence’s were fake.

  “Do you know these guys?” he asked.

  “It’s the two I interviewed. The white guy with the hairy back is Jeffcoat. His office is something out of Donald Trump. He said he and Prudence were ‘business associates,’ that he loaned her money.”

  “If those two distinguished gentlemen didn’t know they were porn stars,” said Red Eye, “these films could have kept money flowing into Prudence’s pockets forever, especially if these guys are married.”

  “They are,” I said. “Very respectably.”

  Tapes six, seven, and eight were different sessions with the same players. I ran through them as quickly as possible. Prudence’s beauty was lost on me.

  I’d spent all that time and money on her and never touched her boobs or even her lips until I tried to save her life by the pool. How did I let a girl from Africa outfox me? I deserved better. Here I was risking my ass trying to find out who killed her. What did I owe her? Not a goddamn thing. I could end up back in prison behind this. The only people lower than her were the assholes she was humping. I just didn’t think I could forgive her, as if forgiveness mattered to a dead woman.

  The ninth and final video of this excruciating series held a change of pace. Something was wrong with the film. The lighting was dim. By now I could recognize Prudence in any lighting at all, but the man was a new partner. Could have been black or white, but too rotund to be Jeffcoat or Newman. Maybe this was the infamous Peter Margolis.

  As I emptied the VCR, Red Eye summoned me into the closet.

  “Come here, Cal,” he said. I went and stood next to him. Just above the closet door someone had sloppily patched and painted over a hole in the wall. “That’s where the camera was mounted,” he said.

  We stepped inside the closet from where we could see screw holes and the outline of a metal bracket on the other side of the patched spot. We now had a motive and three suspects. My gut feeling was right. There was something in this apartment. A lot more than I bargained for.

  “What does this other African chick know?” Red Eye asked.

  “Mandisa?”

  “Yeah, the broad who lives here.”

  “I don’t know but we’re going to find out.”

  “If I was her I’d be scared shitless right now,” he said, “unless she was in on the murder.”

  “Or doesn’t know a thing,” I said.

  “Anyway,” he said, “we can use these tapes to flush out the killer.”

  I didn’t want to contemplate what Red Eye meant by “flush out,” but he was right. Those tapes gave us some leverage to get some answers.

  I took the tapes home and put them in my stash under the bedroom floorboards. Now the investigation would get interesting. Red Eye said he might be able to hang on for one or two more breakin jobs just to solve the case.

  “A personal favor for my homeboy,” he said. “These guys are dirt,” he added. “The respectable types always turn out the slimiest of all. Probably in church every Sunday, pumping the pastor’s hand and congratulating him for a wonderful sermon on the evils of lust.”

  “All right,” I said, “I got the point.”

  I didn’t need Red Eye’s philosophy. I wanted to indulge my desire to waste the two men I’d just watched fucking the hell out of my wife. I was debating whether to use a chainsaw or a machete. I’d had such urges before but they
always passed. This I time I wasn’t so sure they would.

  CHAPTER 17

  I gave up on the lottery scheme. We hadn’t really figured out where we were going with it anyway and now it was time to take it all to a higher level. I had everything I needed on Jeffcoat and Newman. I just had to figure out how to use the tapes.

  “We can put them on the Internet,” said Red Eye. “People will pay. Interracial is big.”

  “What the hell are you thinking, homeboy?” I asked.

  “It’d be big bucks,” he said, “and we can watch those fat cats sweat.”

  Red Eye assumed the tapes had shattered all my illusions and fantasies about Prudence. I wanted to hate her permanently but it wouldn’t come. My own hang-up. Putting her naked body out there for all the world to see? Never.

  Anyway, before I did anything with those tapes, I needed another round with Olga. Guilt-free this time.

  We did our expensive little sex and shopping number. She made me feel better. I don’t know why. Being a harelip I guess I’ve got issues with self-esteem. Kids used to tease me at school until I whacked Johnny Talbot with a baseball bat when he called me “hairy lips.” That shut them up.

  After I dropped Olga off with her bag of shopping from Nordstrom, I went back to Red Eye. He had this idea about tape number nine.

  “My friend Stretch can bring it back to life,” he said. “He’s a computer guy, knows all about this shit.”

  I didn’t understand what a computer had to do with a video but I could always count on Red Eye. I dug the tape out of my stash and handed it over. “I’m not saying he’ll do it in a hurry,” he said, “but he’ll get it done.”

  At least so far there was no indication that whoever killed Prudence was after me. But if word got out that we had the tapes, we’d end up on someone’s hit list. If they’d killed Prudence to protect their reputation and bank balance, they’d have no qualms about including me and Red Eye in the package. I wondered if Prudence had really sent these guys blackmail notes? Maybe she never got that far.

  Mandisa had to know more about this. I phoned her and she actually seemed pleased to hear from me. Maybe the stress was getting to her. No matter how rough the place was where she grew up, I don’t imagine she expected a friend of hers in Oakland to wind up dead. She and Prudence had survived all those wars and famines in Africa, now one of them gets killed in America. Doesn’t make much sense.

  I arranged to meet her at Lake Merritt, the centerpiece of Oakland’s natural beauty. It was once a sewage dump, a real black hole. Even the beautiful things in my city have a shady history.

  Mandisa was relaxed, once again in jeans. For a plump woman, she was actually attractive even though she had pockmarks on her cheeks and a few teenage pimples still hanging around on her forehead. I liked the shape of her hands and the way she hugged me when we met, even if she was a little hesitant. Prudence never hugged unless she’d had at least half a dozen drinks.

  I could see Jeffcoat’s office from the bench where we sat but we didn’t stay there long. We walked and talked. I’d forgotten how a white man and a black woman walking together attracted all kinds of judgmental stares. People assume that you’re doing something wrong.

  “Since we met last time I’ve found out a lot of things,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “Prudence met Jeffcoat and Newman at your house and had sex with them. More than once.”

  “And … ?”

  “It was taped and someone has copies of these sessions.”

  “That can’t be right,” she said. “It never happened like that.”

  “How did it happen then?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t imagine anyone making tapes. Prudence used my apartment a few times. I always worked nights. She was protecting you.”

  “Me?”

  “She didn’t want to bring men to your house.”

  “Mighty white of her,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s just an expression we use. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Right. Like when black people call each other niggers.”

  I wasn’t going to put my foot in it again by responding to that one. We walked for a little while in silence. I hoped she’d realize it was just a slip of the tongue.

  “There was a camera mounted somewhere in your apartment,” I said. “These guys weren’t trying to perform on film. They wanted to keep this all under the table.”

  “Like good white gentlemen?” she said.

  “Luckily,” I said, “that doesn’t offend me. I’m not a gentleman.”

  I waited for a smartass reply but she just gazed off at some passing cars with what looked like a little smile on her face

  “Prudence paid me rent for the room,” she said. “I didn’t go in there. I’m at work every night. Whatever she did was none of my business. As long as it wasn’t illegal.”

  “So there’s a porn studio in your extra bedroom and you don’t want to know about it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Whoever is feeding you information better get it right.”

  “What happened to the camera that was mounted above the closet door in that bedroom?” I asked.

  “How would you know what was mounted above my closet door?”

  “I saw it when we were going through her things.”

  She stopped in her tracks.

  “You shit,” she said. “You broke into my apartment. I thought there were footprints on the carpet. I should have called the police.”

  “Go ahead,” I said, “call them. Your friend is dead and you want to worry about a little break-in.”

  “You don’t understand any of this. You’re just a pimp feeding off desperate young girls. And I’m not desperate. Too bad.”

  “At least I care enough to find out who murdered one of them,” I said. “If that makes me a pimp, bring it on.”

  She started walking again, only much faster. She was trying to get away from me.

  “Was she blackmailing these guys?” I asked. “Is that why she got killed?”

  “I don’t know if she was whitemailing them or not. I told you I don’t know. I gave you the names—Jeffcoat, Newman, Margolis. Now just stay out of my life. I should have known better than to meet you here. Since when did I start hanging around with ex-convicts? America does weird things to you.”

  She looked angry enough to hit me but she kept walking.

  “I’m leaving,” she said. “If you follow me I’ll phone the police and say you’re a stalker. You’re nothing but trouble. I told Prudence that but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “I’m a good pimp,” I said. “I look after my girls. A pimp with a heart.”

  She strode quickly, almost breaking into a run. I trailed behind.

  “Slow down,” I shouted.

  “I’ve got nothing else to say to you,” she said. “Nothing.”

  She kept up the pace for a while but after a couple hundred yards she was starting to wheeze. Apparently IHOP didn’t pay for gym membership, but then I was no triathlon master either. My chest was heaving, my throat on fire.

  “I’m not trying to bring misery into your life,” I shouted in between pants. “Don’t you realize whoever did this to Prudence can strike again? Who do you think are the likely next targets?”

  She stopped.

  “You think I haven’t thought of that?” she said. “That’s why I want you to back off. If you leave it alone …”

  “As long as that person thinks those tapes are out there, we’re in danger.”

  “She did come upon a lot of money about two weeks before she died. She sent it home. That’s what she always did. For her daughter, her family.”

  “Work with me on this,” I said. “It’s not just for Prudence. It’s for you, for our safety. Tell me what you know.”

  “I already have.”

  “I don’t think so. Who was Prudence? What was her real name?”

&nbs
p; “Tarisai Mukombachoto,” Mandisa said. “She was a mother trying to look after her child. The world is not kind to African mothers. Sometimes we end up ten thousand miles away from our children just so we can pay their school fees, buy them shoes.”

  “Is that your situation, too?”

  “This isn’t about me” she replied. “Prudence and I were different women from different countries. I have my problems. She had hers. Different from Americans who worry about what SUV to buy, where to fly for a vacation. That was my common point with Prudence. We never knew the details of each other’s lives. We just understood.”

  The sunglasses only partially hid Mandisa’s tears. She dug a tissue out of her pocket but kept talking as she wiped her cheeks.

  “She didn’t deserve to die for trying to help her child,” she said. “She wasn’t even buried at home.”

  “No one deserves that,” I said. I was tempted to tell her that Prudence wasn’t even buried, that her ashes sat somewhere in some urn. I decided this wasn’t the time.

  “I’m scared,” she said. “Those two men are rich, powerful. If another African woman dies in Oakland the police won’t care anymore than they did about Prudence. Do you know about Amadou Diallo?”

  “Who?”

  “This African guy the police in New York shot forty-one times. He was just walking down the street. They found the police innocent. We are nothing here. Completely nothing. They don’t care about an African woman.”

  “Or about a pimp,” I said.

  We stood for a long time on a patch of grass by the lakeshore. A middle-aged white couple were rowing a blue boat across the water. The kind you could rent by the hour. The man dropped an oar. Their cackles carried across the lake as he tried to fish the thing out of the water. Each failure brought a new round of laughter. With every lunge the boat rocked. The woman shifted her weight to try and restore their balance. Finally the man got the oar, put it though the ring on the rim of the boat and they started off again. A pleasant respite from whatever might have been the slings and arrows of their lives. Maybe they’d bought the wrong SUV. Derogatory comments from the neighbors can be debilitating. Row your worries away. Life is but a dream.