Stick (8 page)

And Moke said something that would stay with Bobbi for a long while after. He said, “It was dark time I seen him, but I'd know that sucker again, I betcha anything.” With an eager sound to his drawl.

She was glad she didn't tell them how much Rainy's friend had changed. She wondered if he'd come in again. She wondered what she'd say to him, if he did.

They were on the walkway of the bridge, crossing toward Chucky's condo, Lionel trailing behind. Moke said, “Girl says ask Rainy. That'd be some deal. Get one of them air tanks you put on your back for diving, pair of flippers . . .”

“I don't want to know anything about that,” Chucky said.

“Well, you better see about this fella. I tell Nestor he's gonna say find him and take him off the street.”

Chucky wiped at his face with the palm of his hand. He wanted to run. Run home, run up fifteen
flights of stairs, that elevator was so slow, and pop some caps; when he was wired he had to move right
now.
He said, “She must've made a mistake. The guy wouldn't be hanging around here, so don't worry about it.”

Moke took hold of Chucky's arm, bringing him to a stop in the middle of the bridge walkway, people giving them looks as they had to step off the curb to go around. Lionel came up but Moke didn't pay any attention to him or the people, saying to Chucky, “You're the one sent the fella with Rainy.
I
saw him run off. Avilanosa's standing there with his Mac-ten smoking, man,
he
saw him run off. Avilanosa goes, who was that? I tell him, beats a shit outta me. Some guy Chucky wanted taken out.”

Chucky, trying to keep his jaw tight, said, “The guy was with Rainy. I didn't even know him. Listen, I gotta go.”

“Yeah, you said to me on the phone, take the bozo with Rainy. You recall that?”

“I might've at the time,” Chucky said, moving, twisting his shoulders, wanting to snap his fingers. “It doesn't matter if I said it or not, right? I'll take care of the matter. The guy's around I'll find him.”

Moke said, “You fuck Nestor again, man, he'll send Avilanosa. And there won't be nothing in the world I can do about that or want to try—no matter how many goddamn hats you give me, partner . . . 
Hey, you hear me!”

Chucky was running with the appearance of jogging, just in time moving to hold back the panic beginning to seep through his nervous system. If Moke touched him now, if Moke tried to stop him . . .

He felt exactly the way he had felt when he was twelve years old and had killed the dog with his hands.

THE HOUSEMAN, CORNELL LEWIS, SAID
, “Does it please you?” Making it a point, maybe, to show Stick he had manners, but not putting him on.

Stick didn't expect a double bed with a view of palm trees out the window. He said, “I think I'll take it.”

“I bet you will,” Cornell said. “So, we got the bathroom between us, tub and shower. . . .” He moved off and Stick paused to take a look at the bathroom: the clean tile, the seat on the toilet. “We got us our rec room I like to call it, with the color TV . . .  refrigerator and stove over there . . .  if we don't want to eat in the kitchen with the help.”

“You cook?”

Cornell looked at him. “Yeah, I cook. Don't you?”

Stick said, “I cook probably better'n I fix cars—he's going to find out.”

“Nothing to fix on his,” Cornell said. “They break down he trade it in, get a new one . . .  Come on, I'm
suppose to show you the rest. The master want you to be acquainted where everything's at. He yell to you, ‘Hey, Stickley, bring me a phone out the morning room.' You know which one's the morning room no matter what time of day it is. You dig?”

“Yeah, but I don't work inside.”

“He like his driver to be versa-tile, do things around the house, help out when they have company. ‘Cept Cecil. Cecil broke things, generally fucked up and didn't give a shit. Beautiful human being. So Mr. Stam kept him out of the house. Shoulda put him on a chain.”

“I haven't heard anything good about Cecil,” Stick said. “You get along with him?”

“Get along with Cecil you need a whip and a chair, or one of those cattle prods? First place, he don't like black folks and in the second place he hates 'em. He should be back any time, pick up his mess.”

Stick said, “He doesn't even know he's fired, does he?”

Cornell made a face, an expression of pain. “Not yet.”

It seemed more like a museum than a place where people lived: all marble and glass or wide open, full of hanging plants and flower arrangements, potted palm trees. Looking across some of the rooms or
down a hall it was hard to tell what was outside and what was in.

The living room was like an art gallery: two steps down to a gray marble floor and a sectional piece in the middle, pure white, where about a dozen people could sit among the pillows and look at the paintings and pieces of sculpture that didn't make any sense at all. The room was pale gray and pink and white except for a black marble cocktail table. There were white flowers on it—no ashtrays—and several copies of a magazine, fanned out, called
Savvy.

Stick went down into the living room, stood before a canvas about ten feet by five, gray shapes that could be parts of the human body, organs, bones, scattered over a plain white background.

“What is it?”

Cornell said, “Whatever your imagination allows.”

He stood on the marble steps taller than Stick: a light-skinned black man of no apparent age but with the body of a distance runner: as neat as the decor in pressed gray trousers, black suspenders over a white dress shirt open at the neck, polished black loafers with tassels: the houseman nearly ready for evening duty.

“You have to do any of the cleaning?”

“The maids,” Cornell said.

“Well, they do a job,” Stick said.

“No trash, no dust,” Cornell said, “or cold drafts coming in broken windows.” He paused. Stick was looking at him now. Cornell said, “You from the block, aren't you?”

Stick came back toward him, still looking around, pausing at a polished stone that could have been an owl if it had eyes. He said, “I think you're guessing.”

“I might have been,” Cornell said, “but you answered the question, didn't you?”

“Well, as they say . . .” Stick said.

“What do they say where you were?” Cornell seemed even more at ease, ready to smile. “I come out of Raiford, then some trusty time at Lake Butler four years ago and found my new career.”

“Jackson,” Stick said.

“Mmmm, that musta impressed him. Yeah, Jacktown, have riots and everything up there.”

“I think he liked it,” Stick said.

“What the man likes is to rub against danger without getting any on him,” Cornell said. “Make him feel like the macho man. You know what I'm saying?”

“He goes,” Stick said, “ ‘How'd you make it in the joint?' Like he's been there. He sounds like a probation officer.”

“I know it . . .  Come on.” Cornell turned and they moved off. “I know what you saying. He ask how you make it like he knows what it is you have to
make. I try and tell him, start with the doors clangin' shut. Every place you go the door slide open, the door clang shut. Go in the cell,
clang,
you in there, man. He act like he knows . . .  That man ever took a flop there people would pass him around, everybody have a piece.”

“Dress him up in doll clothes,” Stick said, “and play house. But he wants you to think he knows all that.”

“Wants you to think he's
baaad,
what he wants you to think. You understand what I'm saying to you? Yeah, like he's the one knows and he's testing to see if
you
know, ‘cept he don't know shit less you tell him.” Cornell was looser now, coming at Stick with that quick clipped black way of street talking. “You see by some of the rough trade he associates with what I mean. People he has in his
house,
man, you see their picture in the paper, some state attorney investigation, that kind of thing. It's why he hired you—why he hired me. See, he sits there at the club with his rich friends? Say, ‘Oh yeah, I go right in the cage with 'em. They wouldn't hurt me none. No, I know how to handle 'em, how to treat 'em.' He tells
every
body. You understand? So there happen to be a fugitive warrant out on you someplace—you know what I'm saying? You best fly your ass out of here.”

“I did it straight up,” Stick said. “I'm done. For good.”

“You hope to Jesus.”

Stick said, “He get you out of a halfway house or coming through the window?”

“Shit,” Cornell said. “You know how he found me? Man didn't know nothing about me, I was doorman at a place down the beach, this big private condominium. He comes driving up—place is full of cars on account of this reception somebody's having. See, I didn't park cars, I have to stay there by the door. But Mr. Stam, he slide his window down, his hand riding on it, he got this ten sticking out from between his fingers. He say to me, ‘You got room for one more, haven't you?' and shove the bill at me, like go on, take it. So I do, I tuck it in my shirt. I say to him, ‘No, sir, we full up,' and walk away. He gets out of the car and comes over to me, stands right here.” Cornell held the palm of his hand straight up in front of his face. Then lowered it to his chin. “No, more like here. Like he's the little manager and I'm the umpire. You know what I'm saying? Right here. He say, ‘What are you, some kind of smartass?'
I go, ‘You offer me the money, shove it at me to take it. Wouldn't I be a fool not to?' He turn and come back and he's got his lip like pressed against his teeth? He say, ‘You got nerve, kid. I like a kid with nerve.' Takes a c-note out of his pocket from a roll, hands it to me and says in his natural voice again but real loud, ‘Now park the fucking car!' I go, I scratch my
head, I go, ‘Oh, tha's what you wanted.' We doing this skit, see? He go in the party, come out a little later, I'm still there. He say, ‘What do you do, man, when you not impersonating a doorman?' See, I know the man's crazy, likes to fool, so I tell him the truth figure he'll think I'm giving him some shit. I go, ‘Well, I hustle, you know, I deal, I steal, sell TV sets and silverware out the back door.' Man love it. He say, ‘You polish the silverware ‘fore you fence it? You know how to do that?' Coming on to me
now. ‘You the cool cat with the hot goods?' All that kind of shit. Now it's part of his routine. They have company, I come in with a tray of canapés to serve the guests? He'll say to one of the ladies, ‘Watch your purse, Sharon, here comes Cornell.' Then what I do, I grin and chuckle.”

“Doesn't bother you?” Stick said.

“Bother me how? Put on the clown suit, man. Grin and chuckle. ‘Yessuh, Mr. Stam.' Say to the lady, big blond lady name of Sharon, ‘Oh, that Mr. Stam, he
ter
rible what he say.' Put on the clown suit and they don't see you. Then you can watch 'em. Learn something . . .”

He seemed thoughtful. Stick said, “Learn what?”

“I don't know.
Some
thing,” Cornell said. “There must be
some
thing you hear listening to all these rich people can do some good.”

“Something they don't know they're telling you,” Stick said.

“Yeah,” Cornell said, dragging the word. “You got it.”

“Only you don't know what you're listening for.”

“Not till I hear it,” Cornell said. “But when I hear it—you understand me?—then I'll know it.”

“You been listening for four years?”

“What's the hurry?” Cornell said.

Right, and if he never heard magic words of opportunity what was he out? Cornell was playing his grin-and-chuckle game with himself, Stick decided. Which was all right: he'd probably admit it if you held him down. On the other hand listening and being ready, not sitting back on your heels, there could be something to it.

He wondered where the man was.

“Phoning,” Cornell said. “When you don't see him he's phoning. When you
do
see him he's phoning.”

“People with money like phones,” Stick said.

“Love 'em,” Cornell said. “It's a truth you can write down, memorize.”

“I met a guy has twelve phones,” Stick said.

“Twelve's nothing,” Cornell said. “Mr. Stam's got seven in the garage part counting the ones in the cars. Must be fifteen in this house and the guest house and four, five outside.” He said, “Here, look in as we go by the den.”

Sure enough, there he was on the phone, sitting at a black desk in a room painted black, sitting in a cone of light from the ceiling, holding a red phone. Stick caught glimpses of gold and red. What stopped him was the blown-up black and white photo of Barry, about six feet of him from cutoffs to yachting cap, eyebrows raised in innocence, his expression saying
who, me?
The black and white Barry behind and above the real Barry on the phone.

Why was it familiar? The expression.

Cornell said, “Hey,” in a whisper and they moved on. Now Cornell was saying the man liked black 'cause it was restful, kept him calm swinging the big deals. Loved a red phone with the black.

Stick, listening, kept seeing that
who, me?
expression in his mind. The man had not looked familiar in the car, not someone he'd seen before . . .  until he thought of another photo in a group of photos on the paneled wall of a den . . .  all the guys in their Easter-egg colors and the two girls on the aft end of the yacht . . .  the exact same
who, me?
expression on the guy next to the girl with the gold chain digging into her tan belly,
yes,
the guy next to her. Who, me? I'm not doing anything.

Jesus. Barry and Chucky . . .

He could be wrong. The same expression, but two different guys that looked somewhat alike, the same type.

“Now the man's wife, Miz Diane Stam,” Cornell was saying, “she something else. You see her here, you see her there. What the man says she does, she putzes. Putzes around the house trying to think up things to be done. Then she give you a list. Man loves phones, the woman gets off on lists. List say put all the books in the library in alphabet order by the author's names. List say put red licorice Jelly Bellies in the black den, put mango and marzipan Jelly Bellies in the morning room . . .  There she is. Grape ones in the living room.”

They were coming through a pantry into the kitchen.

The woman still had on the green robe, a thin, silky material. She was talking to the cook. Cornell waited. Stick would bet, judging from the way the robe hung, she had those round white breasts that looked full of milk and showed little blue veins. She was about thirty, a good age. When she turned to them Cornell said, “Miz Stam, I like you to meet your new driver. Stickley.”

She was looking at him but could have been thinking of something else. Vague brown eyes, pale complexion, thick brown hair pulled back and tied with a piece of yarn.

“Stickley?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

The kind he thought of as a soft, comfortable
woman, slow moving, passive—they always had that pale white skin.

“Stickley . . .  is that English?”

The kind if he saw her alone in a bar he'd feel his crotch come alive and then he'd be anxious, nervous, going through the opening remarks and was sure he sounded dumb.

“Yes, ma'am, it's English,” Stick said. Though he had never considered himself or his people from anywhere but the Midwest.

“That's nice,” Mrs. Stam said. “Well then . . .” Stick waited, but that was it. She walked out of the kitchen.

He met the cook, Mrs. Hoffer, a bowlegged old lady in a white uniform: strong-looking woman, she swiped at Cornell with her neck towel when he patted her behind, but Stick could see she liked it. He told her he was glad to meet her and she said, “You too, kiddo.”

Cornell put an arm around her shoulders. “This lady makes super blintzes, don't you, mama? Makes knedlachs, piroshkis, what else, kugel, all that good stuff. I'm showing her some gourmet tricks, like how to save her bacon grease and pour it in with the collards.”

The kitchen was a pretty friendly place. Stick met Luisa Rosa and Mariana, the maids that Cornell called the Marielita Twins from Cooba. They smiled
and stayed fairly close to one another, both in yellow uniforms with white aprons. Cornell said he was teaching them to speak American, how to say, “I'm feeling depressed because of my anxieties,” and “Have a nice day.”