“Okay, twenty-five million,” the cigar-smoking Holly bigwig offered.
They talked until they ran out of conversation. The bigwigs would not accept a negative answer. Cigar Smoker said, “Who’re you kidding, Your Excellency? Every cockermamie person on this earth has his price.”
The bogus PM said, “Obviously you haven’t named it yet.”
They talked a little longer. Finally, Cigar Smoker said, “Obviously we haven’t. Perhaps it ain’t money. Whatever it is, we’ll find out. We always do. No man in this world is that principled. We’ve cracked tougher ones than you. We’ll make you another offer over breakfast.”
* * *
Later that night, he brought up the question with the Guanayan delegation.
The Foreign Minister said, abruptly, “What is there to discuss? Your agreement with us stands until we return to Bamakanougou.”
His Wife’s Bottom said, “Twenty-five million dollars is a lot of money.”
Jimmy Jay resented both of their attitudes. “I merely mentioned it, because I thought you should know of the latest development.”
Mamadou Tangi said, “And you hoped we could find a way for you to accept their offer.”
“I hoped nothing of the sort. I just wanted you to know.” Thinking to himself, why had he brought the question up?
Which was the Foreign Minister’s second thrust. “Why did you bring it before us then? We didn’t have to know about it.”
Really, why had he? What was his motive? Perhaps the Foreign Minister was right.
Maria Efwa came to his rescue. She knew him better than he knew himself. “He simply wanted us to know how loyal and committed he was to us and Africa.”
“Thank you so much,” Jimmy Jay said sincerely. He went toward Maria Efwa, like a man sleepwalking. He pulled her to her feet and took her in his arms and kissed her fully on her lips. And he thought surely that she kissed him back. Or was it his imagination? Wish fulfillment? Fantasizing? Hallucinating?
They came at him from all sides the next morning. Two others had flown in from Hollywood. They took turns at the Minister Primarily.
“Why don’t we cut out the bullshit? Every damn body has his price. Thirty million dollars and you can even have Her Excellency Maria Efwa, as your leading lady, or Raquel Welch or anybody. You can have some of the most beautiful women in the world, before, during, and after the movies have been produced. We can guarantee it. Put it in your contract.”
Another one asked him, “Why should you let all of your obvious irresistible sex appeal go to waste? You’re like Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Muhammad Ali put together and multiplied. The most beautiful women on earth are dying to get into bed with you.”
The thick-lensed cigar-smoking owl-eyed one giggled. “You could even make it with the President’s daughter.”
Jimmy Jay said, smilingly, “I thought we were discussing beautiful women.”
The cigar smoker shouted, “I love it! I love it!” Then he said, “Thirty-five million fat ones for three pictures to be made in one year, payments to be made over a five-year period, so that your taxes would be minimal.”
Jimmy Jay’s head was doing a somersault now, swimming around and around, or was it the little dinky dining room? His opportunistic mind had his conscience in a half nelson hold. Jimmy Jay Leander Johnson, a.k.a. His Excellency the Prime Minister of Guanaya, got shakily to his feet. “Gentlemen, this conversation has been very revealing, but I see no point in further discussion. You’ll excuse me, surely, for, as I said clearly to you in the beginning, I have a country to serve.” He turned and walked dignifiedly out of the dining room with his bodyguards in tow.
* * *
That night he felt like celebrating. He had learned some things about himself anew. He had come to grips with himself, and he felt victorious. He took Cool Horace aside and said, “Let’s sneak out of here tonight and find Miss Lottie. Perhaps she also has a foxy friend.”
“Oh?” Cool Horace signified. “What about Her Excellency?”
“I’m surprised at you Horace Frederick. You know Her Excellency has a husband.”
And so, Jimmy Jay Leander sans beard and Cool Horace Frederick Whitestick sneaked. They searched all over Lolliloppi for the mythical Miss Lottie. “She’s fine as elderberry wine!” He’d never seen the Cool One so excited since the phone booth time at Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica.
“Miss Lottie, she used to live here, but she moved over on Jefferson Davis Street over yonder in Bluebeard Bottom. Seven Fifty-Six, I think the address is.” Okay, over to the Bottom. “She’s fine as blackberry wine,” Cool Horace boasted. “I mean I’m turning on just thinking about her.”
In the dark backyard a dog was barking. “Yessir, she used to live here a few years ago, but now I b’lieve she’s over in Tybee on Tallyfarry Street.” They went from place to place, where Lottie used to live. Horace Frederick was breathing heavily now. “You’ll see, she’s really fine. She’ll be worth the trouble we took to find her.” Meanwhile they had stopped at a couple of joints and had several stiff ones. For after all, they were celebrating. Weren’t they? Also, they got the feeling that they were being followed by a car with its lights turned off.
Finally, the PM said, “It’s after midnight. This is our last stop. If she isn’t here, we’re going to sing ‘Lottie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.’” Cool Horace agreed, reluctantly. The car behind them had turned on its high beam lights. Suddenly the highly beamed car speeded up and came alongside the one Cool Horace was driving and began to bump up against it like they do in the “moom pitchers” and on the Tee Vee.
“Hey,” Jimmy Jay said. “What in the hell’s going on?”
Two white men got out of the high-beamed Cadillac and came toward them. “What’re you niggers up to riding around here in the dark?” Drawn guns were gleaming in the moonless night.
At which point Cool Horace gunned the motor and shot off down the unlighted street. When it’s darkness on the delta, it is black dark, truly. Now his own high beam lights were on, as he turned at the next intersection on two wheels, brakes squealing, into an even darker narrower alley. He remembered the Lolliloppi alleys. He’d lived in several of them. The darkness seemed to close in on them from both sides, and Jimmy could not help from mumbling, “Was this trip necessary?” He was leaking sweat now from all over.
“Don’t you worry ’bout the mule going blind,” Horace stated with assurance.
Just up ahead at the end of the narrowing block high beam lights from two Cadillacs lit up the darkness, effectively blocking off the narrowing intersection. “The mule is blind as a frigging bat” was Jimmy Jay’s contribution.
Crackers started climbing out of the two Cadillacs, endlessly, like circus clowns out of a Model T Ford in the Big damn Tent. But Jimmy understood they were not there for Horace’s and His Excellency’s entertainment. Else why would they have guns and shotguns? Repeat: “Was this trip necessary?”
One little biddy cracker came toward them, shotgun at the ready. He drawled, “Your time is come. Your race is run. Where’s that smart-assed nigger that knew all our names? It don’t matter nohow. You ain’t gon live long enough to say them xcept maybe to Saint Peter.”
Jimmy had often wondered how he would react faced with a situation like this. Would he fall upon his knees and plead for mercy? Would he put a puddle in his underwear? Would he start a liberation movement of his bowels in his trousers? He was proud that he did neither. But a frightening calm settled over him. He thought of the little children of Birmingham. He thought of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Mack Parker, Martin, Malcolm, Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner. He thought of Fannie Hamer. Nobody lived forever. Especially in Mississippi. He remembered Martin’s speech at the mountaintop. The calm in his voice scared even Himself. “What’s the problem, brother?”
The little biddy mousy cracker said, “I ain’t no brother of yourn, and you and that other nigger only ones got a problem, the way I sees it. Course y’all ain’t g
on have no problems very long.” He could hear the other crackers giggling. “Cause I hear tell dead folks they don’t got no problems. Not even niggers.”
One of the other crackers growled, “Aw to hell with all that who-shot-John, Gus. Let’s git the damn thing over with.”
They aimed all their guns at Jimmy and Horace. The Cool One’s hands went up to protect his face. Little Gus said, “All right, brothers, READY—AIM—FU—”
At which point the silence was broken with the blasting of sirens making enough noise to wake up the dead. The alley lit up like the middle of the day. All the policemen in Lolliloppi County seemed to be in the alley. Uniformed policemen piled out of four squad cars. The chief of police came running toward the gathered Klansmen. He was the one with big ears like Clark Gable but without Clark Gable’s sex appeal. “All right, boys, the picnic’s over.” Jimmy had never been so glad to see ’Sippi cracker policemen in all his born days. He’d never known there were so many in the county. He thought perhaps they’d gathered from adjoining counties. Sweat poured from him like he was raining from the inside outward.
Little Gus said, “We was just having a little fun, chief.”
The chief with the big ears said, “You know better than that, Little Gus. These niggers are with Olliemackey’s group. We can’t treat these niggers like niggers, or fucking heads will roll. Now y’all clear out of here and gone on home.”
The Klansmen backtracked, grumbling, protesting, got into their cars and drove away. By now Black folks were standing on front porches in the dark all up and down the alley. The chief walked over to Jimmy Jay.
“Whatchall doing out here this time of night anyhow?”
Cool Horace had finally found his voice and cool. “I’m from this neck of the woods, my own self, chief. We were looking for an old lady friend of mine, name of Lottie Mae Jefferson. She ain’t old at all, but—”
The chief said, “Lottie Mae Jefferson? Why one of her younguns keeps house for us and looks after our chilluns. De-beau-rah Jefferson. You jest git in your car and foller me.”
Cool Horace said, “Yassah. Thank you Sah.” Jimmy Jay understood it was the dialogue of survival. The chief got into his squad car and took off up the alley, sirens blasting, with Jimmy Jay and Cool Horace in pursuit. It was the strangest sight the inhabitants of Spareribs Alley had ever witnessed. His Excellency thinking, skeptically, what if they were being led somewhere out of town to a Klansman midnight picnic? And they would never be seen or heard of ever again. He thought, against his will again, of Chaney and Goodman and Schwerner.
* * *
In front of the three-room shack now, the proud chief floodlighted the front porch. “This is the place all right. Y’all be good boys now, and don’t forget to tell Mayor Rufe what I done for you.”
Cool Horace said, “Yassah.”
The chief raced his motor and took off down the road with the other squad cars following behind him.
They walked up the front steps to the porch and knocked on the door. They heard somebody walking from the inside. The hanging naked-one-bulbed porch light came on, dimly. A woman’s voice from inside demanded, mischievously, “Who dat?”
Cool Horace answered, “You dat.” An old southern game Jimmy Jay had clearly forgotten.
The woman’s inside voice said, “Who dat said you dat when I said who dat?”
A big fat woman opened the door and stood there filling the door with her space. She had to weigh three hundred and fifty pounds, at least.
Cool Horace took off his hat. “Sorry to bother you so late, lady, but we’re looking for Miss Lottie Mae Jefferson.”
The hefty soft-faced woman stared at Horace suspiciously. Then recognition lit her face. “Horace Frederick, you bring your butt on in this house. Who’s that pretty gentleman you got with you?”
Horace stood there transfixed, tongue-tied, and incredulous. “I’m looking for Miss Lottie Mae Jefferson.”
“Who you think you talking to? Come on in here, you trifling scound. Somebody told me they seed you in town.”
So this was the fabulous sweet petite little Lottie Mae. “A little piece of leather well put together.” Jimmy Jay and Horace came in sheepishly. “Have a sit-down and make yourself at home.” She called out toward what Jimmy imagined was the kitchen. “Debeau-rah, bring the gentlemen a couple of bottles of beer.” She turned back to her company. “De-beau-rah is one of my oldest daughters.” She sat down in a chair, and it gave way under her weight. Two of the legs collapsed. Suddenly the little room was crowded with children, all sizes and ages. There must’ve been ten or fifteen of them, underfoot and all around them. “Mama! Mama! What’s the matter?”
She tried, unsuccessfully, to raise herself as the chair cried out for mercy. “These chairs they sell you these days ain’t a bitter count. I deswear before the good Lord up on high.” Deborah and the older children and Jimmy and Horace were around her now, trying to help her to her feet. Even some of the little ones were there around her feet, pulling and puffing. Lottie broke out into laughter. “Lord, Jesus, have mercy! I do declare!” She was on her feet now and had settled cautiously into another chair. She stared at Jimmy Jay. “Frederick, where you get this pretty thing from? Look like a moom pitcher star. His face sure do look familiar.” She aimed her question at Jimmy Jay. “Ain’t I seed you on that television mess? Seem to me—”
Jimmy Jay said, “No ma’am I—”
Cool Horace said, “He’s an old buddy of mine from New York City. Name’s Roger Bakefield. Me and him work for that African Prime Minister.”
She laughed her hearty laugh again. “That’s where I seed him. On that television mess. Honey you look just like that pretty Prime Min’ster. All you need is to get you a beard.” She laughed again. “Lord Jesus, have mercy!” The children were all between her legs, climbing up into her lap. “Go ’way. Shoo! Scat!” she said to them good-naturedly. “Can’t you see I’m entertaining high-tone company?”
The Cool One was overwhelmed by the heft of the formerly petite woman of his fondest memory, his “little piece of leather so well put together,” and the children running hither and thither all over the place.
Uncool Cool Horace could not avoid exclaiming, “Lottie Mae, what in the world have you been doing with yourself?”
“Keeping busy,” she answered, as she shuffled toward the kitchen.
Likewise, Jimmy could not avoid commenting, “With all these younguns running around here, what in the hell you think she’s been doing? She ain’t hardly had time to get out of bed.”
* * *
When they arrived back at the hotel, they were faced with the outrage of his delegation.
“We had no idea where you’d taken off to.”
“Something could have happened to you,” Maria Efwa declared, vehemently, “down here in Mississippi with the Klu Klus Klan.”
Mamadou Tangi said, “A totally irresponsible thing to do. It is clear that you do not take our mission seriously.”
Even Barra Abingiba agreed. “Hey, man, that wasn’t cool at all.”
What could he tell them? “You’re absolutely right. It was a foolish caper, and certainly unworthy of the Prime Minister of Guanaya.”
“You still think the whole thing is a joke, don’t you?” Maria Efwa stated angrily.
The bogus PM said, “Well, isn’t it? I mean, what else is it? I mean, after all—”
“And you’re simply incapable of taking us seriously? Is that it? A little African country like Guanaya.”
“That simply is not true, and you know damn well it isn’t.”
She said, “In any event, Your Excellency, Mister Casanova, your New York lady friend called you. You’re to call her back as soon as you return, no matter how late the hour. She sounded rather desperate.” Maria sounded rather sarcastic.
He went straight off to his bedroom. “I’d better call her right away then.” He was relieved to escape the heat of their wrath. At the same time, he was apprehensive.
He said, “What’s happening up there? Her Excellency said you sounded desperate.”
Debby retaliated with, “Her Excellency is aware of your existence all right, you flaky bastard. Believe me when I tell you. She’s got the hots for you. I could feel the heat wave all the way to New York City.”
He said, “Come on, already. Tell me now, what’s happening?”
“Thos sons of bitches broke into my apartment while I was at work. All of my papers scattered all over the place. Dresser drawers pulled out. Desk drawers on the floor. The whole damn place plundered and ransacked.”
“What?!”
“Nothing stolen. Bastards wrote with crayon on my mirror in my bedroom, ‘DID HIS EXCELLENCY GIVE YOU A GOOD FUCKING?’!”
“Are you sure they didn’t take anything?”
She demanded, “Is that all you can say to me? Am I sure they didn’t take anything? They took me. I feel like I’ve been raped, violated . . . I feel unclean.”
“Who do you think they could have been?”
“Think. Who else could it be except the FBI or the CIA or some lower species of the animal kingdom? Who else could have known that you visited with me? Who taps the goddamn phone?”
He thought he heard her weeping, blowing her nostrils. He said, “Keep cool, baby. We’ll be coming back to town tomorrow.”
“What the hell good is that going to do me? Will you be moving in with me as soon as you get back?” He could hear her crying, unrestrainedly now.
Against his will he could not keep himself from thinking, Perhaps she’s putting on an act to get me involved with her more deeply. From his experience with her at the Lenox Terrace apartments he had to conclude she was a devious woman. Or even perhaps she was working for the State Department. Perhaps she’d written the letter in the New York Times. He hated himself for being so distrustful of her. They had been through so very much together.
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