Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors (20 page)

Matthew felt his throat tighten and remnants of the dream came back.

“Tommy was my friend, Rhino.”

Rhino shrugged, his face pale and expressionless in the dim light. He fumbled in his pocket and threw a dirty, crumpled bill on the counter. “Gordon's, straight up.”

Blue moved to the center of the bar, leaned against the back wall, and folded his arms across his chest. “Not in here. Not tonight. Not never . . .”

The music had stopped completely now, and Blue's voice, hoarse with anger, carried through the crowded room. “Not never, motha-fucka. Tommy was my ace.”

A scatter of murmurs rose from the dancers. “You tell 'im, Blue.”

“That's right. How he blow Tommy away and come back actin' like nuthin' happened.”

Rhino turned from the bar and faced into the darkness of the dance floor, his eyes darting like pinpoints behind his thick lenses. Then he turned again and placed his hands on the bar. Matthew stared at the thin, colorless fingers and the lost dream came into focus. He saw the knife coming down again.

“So that's the way it's gonna be?” Rhino asked no one in particular, scanning the crowd and the bandstand.

“That's the way it's gonna be 'cause that's the way it is,” Blue said. He stepped forward to lean on the bar and cross his arms. The overhead light accented the frown on his dark face.

Rhino picked up the bill from the counter and balled it in his fist. “Well. We gonna see about that. Tommy got what was comin', and I still got some shit to finish.”

“Well you ain't hardly finishin' it in here,” Blue said, reaching under the counter. “Git the fuck on out.”

Matthew stepped back out of range, as Blue came up with his .38 and took aim.

The dancers came to life and scattered, piling into the tiny rest room and the coat check room. The musicians stashed their instruments and ran for the narrow kitchen, nearly trampling the cook.

“See what I mean, Rhino. Your pasty pink ass ain't back on the scene a hot second and already your shit done hit the fan.” Blue then rested the gun loosely in the crook of his arm and motioned toward the door again. “So like I said, take your fuckin' face on out the place.”

Rhino backed away from the bar, his ears ringing from the nervous laughter. The crowd had emerged again now that Blue had everything under control.

At the door, Rhino turned and stared hard, causing a few of the patrons to shift uneasily and melt back into the shadows. Would he recognize them another day? Catch them unawares?

Matthew, against his will, had edged through the crowd, drawn by the expression on Rhino's face. Behind the thick lenses, Matthew read the history, and for a moment, something inside him paused. He remembered the day the boy's fifteen-year-old mother had stared at the colorless infant and then walked away. Didn't linger long enough to even give him a name. Devil, was all she had said. And the Sunday when Sister Marthie had baptised him in her storefront Temple of the Heavenly Light, because the priest had not seen a father's name on the birth certificate and had refused.

So we all chipped in for the baptism and for the party afterward. We even bought his outfit. But after that, it was one thing, then another. School lasted just long enough for him to find his way out the door and outrun the other names. Grandma's face stayed in a puff. Lids half-mast from all the cryin'. One thing after another. Damn!

Matthew was never quite certain when the rage crawled inside the boy, but he and everyone else knew when it began to creep out.

He remained silent now as Rhino opened his hand and let the crumpled bill fall to the floor. “Here you go, Blue. You gonna need this before I do . . .”

Then he turned in the silence and disappeared through the door held open for him.

Matthew followed through the corridor to overtake him, to ask just what he intended by the remark.

If he plannin' to toast the joint, least be man enough to say so. So we could be on the lookout and—

But Rhino had already approached the stairs and, as Matthew watched,
seemed to float through the dark, like a wraith, as if the steps did not exist for him.

Matthew reacted as if a sudden cold front had moved in, displacing the weight of the August heat. He returned to the bar where Blue had a double Cutty Sark waiting.

“What you think, Matt?” Blue said. He filled another glass for himself. He had not had to pull the piece in quite a while, and Rhino's sudden appearance had caused his hands to shake, bad news for a bartender.

Matthew sipped his drink through a thin straw to avoid aggravating his sore chops. He listened to the pianist glide through an Errol Garner riff, trying to recapture the mood, but the feeling had been lost, replaced now by a fine tension that held everyone's eyes toward the door.

Matthew drank quickly and signaled for a refill.

“Can't figure how he's out so soon,” Blue said. “Zip to twenty and out in two don't make no sense unless he cut a deal, ratted out somebody in the joint. Yeah, that's it. Maybe—”

“It don't matter how or why,” Matthew said. “Point is, he's back and a lot madder than when he left . . .”

He glanced at his watch. “Hell, it's 1
A
.
M
. If it wasn't so late, I'd wake up every damn body in the building, just to pull their coat.”

Blue wiped the counter and glanced at the thinning crowd. Most people were heading toward the door.

“Don't think about the clock, man. Folks already got the wire. We been in 1048 long enough to know how the news seeps in though the bricks and plaster. Come in up the radiators if it's extra bad.”

Matthew nodded and placed his glass on the counter.
Blue's right. I woke up in that sweat, shoulda known bad news was 'round the corner. Old folks say “fish fry, birds fly, and one thing, baby, is dreams don't lie.” Tell you everything you need to know. Especially if you don't want to know it. Shoulda been on my P's and Q's from the jump.

The musicians had packed and now drew a faded quilt over the piano. “What's happenin' tomorrow?” the bassist asked, glancing at the chair Rhino had kicked over.

“Same time, same station,” Matthew said, before Blue could answer.

“Yeah, see y'all tomorrow,” Blue said absently.

Matthew looked around.
Hell with it. Why let Rhino upset things. The joint is cool, and not far to go if anybody got himself too drunk to navigate, which hardly happens.

Matthew removed the mouthpiece from his sax and placed the instrument in its case.

Blue watched him the whole time. “So what you think?” he asked again.

Matthew moved his shoulders slightly. “I don't know. Maybe he's just talkin' trash.” But as he snapped the case shut, his mind was racing.
What shit did Rhino have to finish? He was always strange, actin' like he only ate nails for breakfast, but no one figured he would actually ice somebody. And least of all, Tommy. Who is he after now? Could be anybody in the house. Maybe it's Rose. He was always starin' at her and breathin' hard. Could be Cyrus. Or Effie. Shit. In the dream, it was me!

He paused at the door to watch Blue sweep the paper cups from the table into a large carton. Next Blue would put up the chairs, clean the floor, then tally up for the night.

“Want me to hang around?”

“Naw, man. I got it covered. Betsy's here. On my hip with a full clip. She'll see me up two flights. If anything go down, we ready.”

Matthew opened the door and gazed into the corridor. He could see nothing. It was as if night had squeezed away all dimension. He could not tell if the passageway was long, short, narrow, or wide.

More than once, he had listened to some of the regulars, after a few drinks, debate whether the alley existed at all. They just seemed to float through it, they said, not feeling walls, ceiling, or floor.

But those were the hooch hounds, the wide-mouthed, two-drinks-a-minute boys, elbows up and heads to the side, throwin' down gin like they heard prohibition was comin' back.

And Matthew was usually sober when he stepped into the corridor leading to the alley. He moved blind, with faith tapping like a walking stick.

Once, he had asked Blue why he didn't put a light in the corridor, and Blue had looked at him impatiently.

“I'd have to change the name, man. Alley wouldn't be Blind no more.
Besides, people just kinda follow the music, you know. The sounds is they guide.”

Matthew glanced back into the club. There was no sound now. Only a thin crackling noise from the cellophane-covered ceiling globe, which was still revolving, scattering star-like chips of light across the empty dance floor and across Blue's face as he moved with the broom.

Matthew finally closed the door and tried to imagine this scene through Rhino's defective vision and his all-encompassing anger.

Hell with this. Gotta have a serious converse with everybody in the house. Sooner, the better.

He moved carefully, holding the horn in its case against his chest. The alley closed in. He heard the scratching sound and knew someone was waiting.

Cordell Hopsen was in a shitpot of trouble again. Not bad debt trouble this time, or woman trouble, or gambling trouble, or even trouble with the law. This time the trouble was more serious. This time he had beaten flashy-dressing, slow-thinking Billy Pinkey at five straight games of eight ball, taken him for a thousand dollars, and then, gloating, squeezing his testicles in typical 1971, in-your-face, baddest-brother-in-the-'hood fashion, he'd called Pinkey a jelly-headed, sissified, tit-sucking mamma's boy. Cordell was in trouble, all right. Trouble enough to threaten his life.

As Cordell stuffed the final game's winnings, two crumpled, damp, hundred-dollar bills, into his shirt pocket, Pinkey let out a deep-voiced rumble: “Don't cup your nuts at me, you slimy throwback. I'll give you a real reason to hug your jewels.” Pinkey cocked his arm and raised the fat end of his pool cue above his head, as his girlfriend, Retha Ann Stitt, and his half-sister, Coletta Burns, rushed toward him across the width of the stale-smelling barroom, pool hall, and eatery.

“Drop the cue, Billy,” Retha Ann shouted, grabbing for the pool cue. But the well-worn hardwood stick slammed down against the edge of the pool table with a loud snap, sending half the cue skittering across the floor
and a crowd of twelve onlookers, who'd been waiting to see Billy and Cordell tangle, scrambling.

Trapped between the pool table and a greasy cinder-block wall, Cordell, who was just under five foot seven, crouched down, ready to spring at the much larger Billy. When Billy cocked the broken half of the pool cue for a second swing, Retha Ann and Coletta screamed in unison. The head of the pool cue came to a dead halt with a loud midair thud, as it slammed into its outstretched lower half, which C.J. Floyd had retrieved from the floor. “You heard the lady, Billy. Drop the cue.” C.J.'s eyes darted back and forth between Billy and Cordell, men he'd known since kindergarten. Watching Billy recock his arm, C.J. shook his head in protest. “I wouldn't do it.” The words were delivered with a deadly earnestness. C.J. had been back home in Denver for only a month after spending two one-year tours as a machine-gunner aboard a 125-foot navy swift boat that had patrolled the twisted creeks, dense jungles, and humid swamps of Vietnam's Mekong River Delta.

“Ain't your fight, C.J.,” said Billy, contemplating whether or not to take on the six-foot-three, two-hundred-thirty-five-pound Floyd.

“Better listen to C.J.,” hollered Coletta, her voice escalating in terror.

Billy thought for a moment, pondering his next move. He'd won $18,000 three days earlier playing Policy, the numbers lottery game of chance that old black folks and all white people called “the numbers.” It was the most he'd ever won playing Policy, and the way he saw it, Cordell had just stolen a thousand dollars of his winnings. War hero or not, C.J. Floyd had no right to interfere.

Ignoring C.J.'s plea, he took another powerful cut at Cordell's head. In the seconds it took Cordell to dodge the blow and Billy to take aim again, C.J. tackled Billy at the knees, sending him crashing headfirst into the floor. Seconds later C.J. and Nobby Pittman, the bar and pool hall's owner, were on top of Billy.

“You ain't gonna get my liquor license lifted for killing nobody in my place,” barked Pittman, a fifty-five-year-old onetime semipro football player, with skin so dark that it seemed to have a sheen. “Hell, no!” he added as they pinned Billy, thrashing and cursing, to the floor.

“That little weasel was cheatin',” Billy coughed out.

“You lost!” Pittman shouted. “Be glad you didn't lose your whole damn wad.”

“I'll kill that little rodent,” mumbled Billy, arching his head skyward. “Where the shit did he go?”

“He's gone,” said Retha Ann, who was down on one knee, stroking Billy's head. “As soon as you hit the floor, he ran out the door.”

“Gone with my money,” said Billy, spent from struggling with Nobby and C.J.

“There's more where that came from, baby. You're still fat in the wallet,” Retha Ann said with a grin.

Billy gasped for air. “I'll kill the mother.”

“Let him up, mister, please,” said Retha Ann, looking pleadingly at C.J.

“Yeah, let him up,” Coletta chimed in.

“You gonna behave?” asked C.J.

When Billy didn't answer, Nobby kneed him in the ribs.

“Yeah,” said Billy with a painful grunt as both men shifted their weight off him and stood.

Billy lay motionless for a moment, with Retha Ann still stroking his head and Coletta hovering over him, shaking hers. Struggling to his knees, rubbing his back, and dusting himself off, Billy shot Nobby and C.J. a look of defiance. “All that goes around, comes around,” he said, glancing toward the exit. “I'll get even with that little rodent sooner or later, in spite of the two of you. Come on, Retha Ann, let's get the hell out of here.” He locked his arm in hers and lumbered through the door and out into the star-filled night, with Coletta bringing up the rear.

The next morning C.J. was in the basement of the Victorian building across from the Denver city jail that housed his uncle's bailbonding business, carefully sifting through a coffee tin filled with cat's-eye marbles, looking for an eighty-year-old steely he had mistakenly dropped in two years earlier, just before leaving for Vietnam. Surrounded by earthen walls dotted with creeping mold and struggling to see in the dimly lit cellar, he
methodically extracted several marbles from their dimpled cardboard notches inside the tin and stared at them.

You could tell a lot about twenty-two-year-old former first army sergeant C.J. Floyd by taking inventory of the things he discarded and the things he saved. C.J. saved ticket stubs from movies and every manner of game. He had section 34, row 8, seats 11 and 12 ticket stubs from the Broncos' inaugural 1977 Super Bowl appearance in the New Orleans Superdome. He had two ticket stubs each from the Denver openings of
Bullet, Goldfinger,
and
Lady Sings the Blues.
His tiny apartment above his uncle's bail-bonding offices was cluttered with coffee cans full of cat's-eye marbles and hundreds of rare jumbos too. Over the years he'd amassed tomato crates full of mint-condition records, 78s and 45s, crates that filled one corner of the basement and sat blanketed in dust. During his youthful years of collecting, he had accumulated scores of tobacco tins and dozens of ink wells from all around the world. But C.J. Floyd was no hoarder of trinkets or warehouser of superfluous, gaudy, late-twentieth-century junk. He collected because he liked to, and because collecting things connected him to his past.

Conspicuously missing from C.J.'s collectibles were report cards and family-oriented board games that meant interacting with other people instead of going it alone. There were no albums filled with Little League pictures or photographs of grade-school field trips to the zoo. No yearbooks or kindergarten finger paintings. No team sports letter jackets or souvenirs from the prom. C.J.'s collectibles were the treasures of a loner, artifacts assembled by someone who had raised himself.

C.J.'s collection of antique license plates represented a collector's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. The license plates said more about him than any of his other collections. He had started the collection during his teenage years, when his uncle's drinking had reached its peak and street rods and low riders had taken the place of family in his life. The pride of his collection were a 1916 Alaska plate and his prized 1915 Denver municipal tag. Both had been fabricated using the long-abandoned process of overlaying porcelain onto iron. Although the collection was impressive, it remained incomplete, and his uncle, one of the few people who had
ever seen the entire collection, suspected that, like C.J., it would never be whole.

C.J. looked up from what he was doing toward the sound of footsteps on the cellar's creaky wooden stairs. “You down there, C.J.?” a voice echoed.

“Yeah,” C.J. called out, responding to the familiar tone of his uncle, Ike Johnson, a tough-as-nails former marine whom every Denver cop, street thug, dope dealer, prostitute, and politician knew simply as “Ike.”

“Figured it,” said the arthritis-ravaged Johnson as he waddled toward C.J. across the uneven dirt floor. “Got some news for you. It ain't pleasant, but I thought you'd wanta know.”

“Shoot,” said C.J., looking up into his uncle's face. At sixty-three, Unc, who'd once towered over C.J., was losing his battle with arthritis, diabetes, and alcohol. Stoop-shouldered and shrunken, he was a shell of the man he'd been just two years earlier when C.J. had left for Vietnam. “No need to hold back.”

“Guess not. Sure won't bring the man back.” Unc looked C.J. squarely in the eye. “Couple of hours ago the cops found Billy Pinkey sprawled out dead as a dewdrop in the middle of a Five Points alley. His head had been split open like a ripe summer melon. Cops told his mamma and that half-sister of his, Coletta, that it was probably a meat cleaver that brought Billy to his end. His mamma's upstairs cryin' her eyes out right this minute. Looks like Five Points's got another killin' on its hands.”

“Damn,” said C.J., thinking about Billy and pondering what was happening to the black community that had been his home away from home as a child. He methodically replaced the marbles he'd been holding in their slots and wrapped an arm around his uncle's shoulders, aware that Billy Pinkey's mother, Marguerite, and Unc had enjoyed an on-again off-again romance that spanned more than twenty years. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Find out who killed Billy,” said Unc, patting C.J.'s hand.

“What?”

“You heard me. Find out who killed the boy. I've gotten too old and too slow to handle that kinda work. Besides, Marguerite would never forgive me if I tried and failed.”

C.J. eyed his uncle with dismay. “I wouldn't know where to start.
Finding folks has always been your thing, Unc,” said C.J., acknowledging the fact that Ike Johnson had spent a lifetime being not simply a bail bondsman but a bounty hunter as well.

Ikeen eyed C.J. with an earnestness his nephew hadn't seen in years. “You just finished two years trackin' down them Vietcongs, and they was shootin' at you. Think of this as the same thing without the shootin'. It'll be a piece of cake.”

C.J. set his tin aside and stared at his uncle. C.J. had never once disappointed the man who had raised him; not since the day Ike's rolling stone of a brother and C.J.'s mentally unstable mother had dropped C.J. on Ike's doorstep at the age of four. Even during his tumultuous teenage years, when his uncle's drinking had been at its zenith, C.J. had never been able to say no to the old man. C.J. suddenly found himself thinking about how over the years, and against all odds, Unc, the only black bail bondsman on Denver's otherwise all-white Bail Bondsman's Row, had carved out a name and reputation for himself.

“I'll help you,” said Unc, noting C.J.'s look of confusion. “I may not be able to wrestle with your new-age roughnecks, but when it comes to logistics, sortin' things through, and finessin' the cops, I can still hold my own.”

C.J. rolled his tongue nervously around his mouth, recalling how his uncle had once chased bond skippers across most of the West, sometimes hog-tying the worst of them for delivery to city and county jails in ropes, barbed wire, and chains. “Why don't you let the cops handle it, Unc?”

Ike Johnson glanced up toward the first floor, where Marguerite Pinkey was waiting, and shook his head. “First off, there's Billy's mamma. Got a duty to find out what happened to her child. Second, in case you forgot, this here's still America. Ain't no white man with a badge really gonna care much about findin' out who split another black Five Points gangster's head in half. 'Case you missed it, C.J., this ain't Vietnam. You back home now.”

C.J. thought about the friends he'd left on the battlefields of Vietnam: country white boys from Iowa, brothers out of Harlem, San Antonio Latinos, and South Florida Jews. Gritting his teeth, he stepped over to a tobacco tin sitting on a dusty end tale, opened the tin, and eyed the cellophane-wrapped Purple Heart and Bronze Star that rested on the bed of cotton
inside. He stared at the medals for more than a minute before snapping the lid shut. Looking up at his uncle, he said, “Where do I start?”

Marguerite Pinkey was an aging, fair-skinned, large-boned, onetime knockout of a black woman with thinning, too-often-dyed reddish-brown hair. Her face was puffy, and her eyes were bloodshot from a night and morning of crying. The coffee she was nursing had turned cold by the time she'd repeated the story of how the police had found Billy. How she'd thrown up when she'd be forced to identify Billy's body, and how she had wandered Five Points aimlessly for more than an hour afterward until Coletta Burns had found her sitting at the bus stop across from Mae's Louisiana Kitchen and taken her home.

“Cordell Hopsen's the one who killed my Billy,” said Marguerite, staring zombie-like at C.J. “Coletta's sure of it,” she added, spinning her coffee cup around in circles. “She said Cordell and Billy had a fight over at Nobby's place last evenin'. After the fight, Cordell came after my Billy and killed him. That's what happened. I know it.”