Kiss of Noir (5 page)

Here I was with family and allowed a long time-out. A period to take stock, to get my constitution together, to rejuvenate and discover my next direction.

I hummed while I worked. I heard the door bells and turned to look.

An old white man went to the counter and waited while Cleo finished rolling a cigarette.

“Stub, you back again!” Drew looked up from a
National Geographic.

Stub grinned, his few remaining teeth pearly white. “Yessir,” he told Drew. “I need to rely on you fellers once again.”

“All right, what you need this time?” Cleo leaned on the counter and squinted through his smoke.

I approached quietly from the side.

“Lessee…lessee…” Stub stroked his grizzly chin with his left hand. “I need smoke. I need food. I sure am hungry, Mr. Cleo, sir, and I need some shine. A man can’t live without a little fun, now can he?”

“Sure can’t!” Drew called.

“Here, Stub.” Cleo reached under the counter and held the half-finished bottle of whiskey they had used for toasting me earlier that day. “On the house. That will get you started.”

“Much obliged, much obliged, Mr. Cleo, sir. You have a kind and understanding heart.”

“Just walk on the side of the roads, in the ditches if you have to, all right, Stub? Don’t get hit again, hear?” Cleo opened the bottle and put it into Stub’s left hand.

“Yessir, I mean, nossir. I will stay to the sides.” Stub gulped the liquid, his Adam’s apple bobbling in his bristly, scrawny neck. My mouth watered in response. I still had the taste. I hoped it would let me be soon.

“Okay.” Cleo scribbled on a ticket. “Are you having any parties?”

“Ah!” Stub sighed, set the bottle down. and wiped his mouth with the sleeve on his left hand. “Mmm, lemme see…I might be overdue for a party or two, yessir.”

“My man, you rhymin’!” Drew said. Stub laughed until spit flew from his mouth. His greasy hair came unglued from his bald scalp and fell forward as he bent over, slapping his left knee.

“How’s this?” Cleo handed him a slip with a figure. I studied the man. Unless he had a ring in his pocket, he didn’t have anything to pawn. Stub frowned at the number. “Now, Mr. Cleo, you know I don’t have much learning, is that a three?” He poked at the paper with his left index finger.

“Yep. And it wouldn’t hurt you to get reading specs. Here, look at it now.” Cleo removed his own glasses from his shirt pocket, unfolded them, and helped slip them on Stub’s face.

Stub grimaced and pinched his eyes to slits. “Yessir! Yessir, I sure do see it now, good and clear.” He glanced at me, and Stub’s eyes were so magnified by the glasses, they looked like bloodshot blue ping-pong balls. Startled, I stepped back.

“That is more than generous, Mr. Cleo. That will do nicely. I sure do appreciate it.”

“I know, Stub,” Cleo said as he gently removed the glasses and replaced them.

“I can get the money,” I said. I set my dusting tools on the counter and banged on the register. I was desperate to know what Stub was pawning.

In horror, I watched as Cleo flipped up the right sleeve of Stub’s shirt, unfastened his artificial arm and removed it, putting the limb somewhere in the back. I stood at the open register, my mouth gaping.

“Look at him!” Stub pointed at me with his shoulder stump. “You sure shocked the shit out of him!”

“I’m a woman,” I replied, grinning. Stub quit smiling and looked me up and down. “Sure shocked the shit out of you too, huh?”

Stub laughed. “Gimme my money. I gotta go shopping.”

“How you going to pay it back this time, Stub?” Drew asked. “You’re a genius for finding and stretching a penny.”

“Like I always do. Sell my blood for some of it. What’s it to you, old fart?” Stub shrugged the shrug of people so overloaded with big problems that every detail of life seemed miniscule and inconsequential.

“Here you go, Stub. You take good care now and we’ll see you soon,” Cleo said.

“Thank you, sir.” Stub raised a limp salute. “Bye, y’all!” he said with a toothy smile.

“Bye,” we responded.

Drew shook his head. “That’s sad. That is so sad. Vietnam, you know.”

Cleo dropped his eyes. “Yep. Served well and turned into a poverty-stricken, drug-addled, drunken swamp rat with more medical problems than all three of us together.” Cleo snorted. “The government.”

“My man,” Drew sang softly, mournfully.

“That’s some shit,” I said, watching Stub limp down the block.

“Well, we do what we can.” Cleo sighed, sitting again. “Smoke?” He held a hand-rolled cigarette to me and I accepted with relief. “Let’s play.” Cleo stirred the bones.

“I ain’t got no scratch left!” I exclaimed, having been skillfully distracted from Stub. “You took it all.”

“We’ll play for nothing. Just practice,” Cleo purred.

I laughed. “All right, you crafty old fart.”

The rain was falling in heavy sheets. The store was empty. Ellis was at the other shop with an appointment.

I sat at the table with Cleo and Drew, playing dominoes. I was fussy and bored. I never won this game and the rain made me restless.

“C’mon, what you got, N?” Drew nudged me out of my petulant reverie.

“Play ’em if you got ’em, my sister, but don’t show your panties all at once,” Cleo muttered.

“Sweet, why you talk that smack all the time? All these years I never know what you’re saying. Some voodoo?” Drew asked.

Cleo just smiled wide, his gold tooth glittering. I slapped a domino onto the end of the crooked black avenue they had already created.

“Oh, too slow, too slow.” Cleo grinned. “I bump.”

“My man! You won again!” Drew shook his head.

“Play without me this time,” I snapped.

“How you ever going to learn if you don’t play?” Cleo asked.

“I ain’t learning shit but how to lose my money to you, and I could have done that without these lousy dominoes,” I said.

Cleo laughed, air hissing out between his teeth. “You got that right.”

“Cleo been playing forever, ain’t you? Thirty years?” Drew asked.

“More than forty years. Tried poker but that ain’t for me. Bones is my game and she is a hard mama.”

I stretched, my spine popping. “I need a break!” I felt for my cigarettes and put one in my mouth. Good thing about Ellis, he permitted smoking in the shop. I got a wooden match and rested my thumbnail on it as I watched Cleo for the thousandth time roll his own. I never tired of seeing him take out his ancient leather tobacco pouch, remove papers, sprinkle some tobacco into the crease of a tissue-thin rolling paper, roll, and seal it quick and fluid like a magic trick.

I slammed my match and cigarette on the table as I stood. “Be right back,” I said.

“Hey, Nora, where you going in this hurricane weather?” Drew called as I left.

When I returned with a paper sack, I went to the back to remove my wet shoes and shirt and to dry my head. I walked back to the table barefoot, wearing my wife-beater and jeans. I placed a pouch of tobacco and a package of papers in front of Cleo.

“Teach me something I can use,” I said.

“My man!” Drew said.

Cleo laughed and nodded. “All right, all right, all right.” His voice was always soft and gravelly as if he were casting spells or suspended between worlds and half his voice addressed the living and half the dead. “Sit down, girl, I’ll get you going. First, that is wrong.” He pointed to the tobacco. “But it’ll do.”

Cleo told me to watch him and he showed me over and over and I tried until we had a pile of cigarettes, his perfect, mine wilted, leaky, and lumpy. Drew witnessed all this with an amused smile.

We practiced rolling for over an hour.

“Now you’re getting it,” Cleo rasped. It was a companionable silence, occasionally one or the other of them murmuring whatever occurred. The rain drummed for entry. All was quiet and sleepy.

“Here comes trouble,” Drew said suddenly, his voice loud with tension and disturbing the peace.

Cleo and I followed Drew’s gaze. Cleo groaned.

“Who else would come out on a day like today except that fool?” he said.

I looked at the approaching man. Tall, pale, reed-thin, with lots of dark curly hair water-matted to his skull.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

“Nothing, nothing.” Drew laughed, shaking his head and waving his hand in dismissal.

The door opened and the overhead bells rang.

“’Sup?” the man said, shaking his slicker like a dog.

“Aw, man!” Drew said, shielding his face. “Take that shit somewhere else.”

“Where’s Mr. El? I got something to talk over with him.”

“Out,” I answered. “Can I help you?”

“Who the fuck is she?” The man jerked his thumb at me.

Drew covered his eyes. Cleo shook his head. “Now, Johnny, don’t do this.”

I stood slowly, once again relishing my full six-foot height. “Who. The. Hell. Are. You?”

“Say, say, say, I didn’t mean nothing. I’m Jonathan Fallana, but you can call me Johnny. I just need to see El real bad and I wondered where he was, that’s all. He has something I
need
in the back, if you know what I mean.”

“He’s out.” I looked down from my Amazon height into Johnny’s melty green eyes. “If you got something to sell, I can help you.”

“No, no, not today. Say, why don’t we just chill and play some bones?”

“Sounds good to me,” Cleo said, setting aside the rolled cigarettes and stirring the dominoes. “You in trouble again, Johnny?”

“Fine,” I said, “you’ll have to find your own chair.”

“Sure, I get you. I’ll just pull up this”—Johnny grunted and slid over a large black box—“speaker and sit on it. Cleo, man, you know they got me hooked on a murder? And I got the proof. I mean, Ellis has the proof, but I got to get it from him before they arrest me. But I’ll catch him later. Let’s have some action. What are we betting?”

“Nothing,” I answered sharply.

“Just a gentleman’s game,” Cleo said, smiling. He winked at me.

“Skip me, I got to book,” Drew said, checking his watch. The rain had not abated. The shop’s windows were beginning to fog. “I got to do a little something, something.”

“Don’t go, Drew.” I pleaded with my eyes.

“Well.” Drew checked his pager. “Let me make a call.” He stepped into the back.

“Say, man, sure. We’ll be here,” Johnny said.

“Why don’t we play for lunch?” I said.

“I’d love a free lunch.” Cleo grinned.

“I’m all about that,” Johnny answered.

Drew sat down. “What did I miss?”

“Johnny is buying us lunch. Either him or Nora,” Cleo said.

“Got her taken care of?” I asked Drew.

“You know it,” Drew stretched out his palm to me and I slid my hand across his.

“I never understand how an old man like you gets all those PYTs. What are you, double Cleo’s age?” Johnny said.

“I am old enough to know what women want,” Drew answered pointedly.

“Drew got to keep the females happy,” Cleo said.

“Ladies?” Johnny wolf-whistled. “They better keep me happy is all I got to say.”

“That right?” Cleo said, watching the dominoes reveal themselves. “Mild and careful, that’s what she says.”

“Hell, yeah, I’m the one with the dinero.” He rubbed his fingers together.

“Quit woolgathering, your turn,” Cleo snapped.

The dominoes’ clicking voices were the only sound for a while. I knocked. Then to Johnny, “You have money?” I was incredulous.

“I got a little income.” Johnny smiled.

“Nickel for Drew, two dimes for Cleo,” Cleo said, recording the points in the curious hieroglyphics of dominoes.

“We did agree that the winner buys lunch, right?” I asked.

Cleo glanced up, his brows thunderous. “Hell no, we agreed that the woman buys lunch.”

“No, loser buys lunch.” Drew looked hard at Johnny, who was studying his hand.

“Oh, right.” I smiled.

“That ain’t me,” Johnny said, laying down a tile.

“Dime for Johnny,” Cleo said.

“So what gives you this income?” I couldn’t let it go. I slid a domino to one end.

“Hmm?” Johnny was observing the game.

“Zip for Nora, zip for Drew,” Cleo said.

“She wants to know how you get your lucre, man,” Drew said.

“My money makes money, that’s all,” Johnny answered.

“Oh! You’re a trust fund baby, then,” I said, full of contempt.

“Naw, I wouldn’t put it that way,” Johnny said.

“Meemaw and Peepaw still pay your bills, that’s cool,” Drew said with a nod.

“Are we gonna play or not?” Johnny was flushed, his eyes flashing.

“Play then, it’s your move,” Cleo said, perching a cigarette on his lip. Johnny clacked a domino onto the table and watched Cleo record no points earned. “Lotta money out there,” he whispered, “lotta money out there. Give me some of that, sweetheart.”