A Little Yellow Dog

27

Half an hour later John drove by with the door already open. I ducked in and he handed me a half pint of bourbon. I took a hit of it before I remembered that I’d quit drinking. I held the bottle away from my face and thought about tossing it out of the window.

Instead I took another long draft.

Then I threw it.

“What you do that for?” John asked.

“Taste too good to me, man. Too good.” I felt the heat of the whiskey doing its work on my body. So many things I had missed.

While John drove I couldn’t bring myself to talk. He didn’t press me.

We drove to his house and pulled up into the driveway. There was another car parked further up but I didn’t give it a thought.

Even in the dark I noticed that the lawn was trim and healthy. There were large ferns on either side of his front door.

“You fixin’ up around here, man?” I asked.

“Shh.” He brought a finger to his lips as he turned the lock on the door.

When we came in I expected him to turn on a light but instead he whispered, “We got to go down to the back.”

We went through the sitting room up front and then down the long hall that led to his “recreation room” toward the back of the house. We were halfway there when a light snapped on and a woman’s voice called out, “Johnny?”

Johnny?

“It’s okay, Alva. It’s just a friend’a mines come by.”

“At four in the morning?”

John and I both turned.

From first glance I knew that Alva was John’s perfect mate.

John was an intense man. He was good-looking as looks go but if somebody asked you was he handsome you might say no because his hard stare made him seem intimidating and remote.

Alva was his complement. Tall and striking, her lips would have left their impression on bone. Even in that chiffon robe she seemed to be an ebony statue striding toward us down that hall.

“He got some trouble, Alva,” John explained.

“Who?”

“Easy Rawlins, ma’am. Pleased to meet ya.”

“Easy,” she said, looking me up and down. “I think they named you wrong, honey.”

All three of us grinned.

“Easy an’ I gotta talk, Alva,” John said.

“You hungry, Mr. Rawlins?” she asked me.

“Well, I better eat anyway.”

“You two go on down there an’ I’ll come in a while.”

John’s recreation room was where he had friends come. There were six chairs that he’d made himself from old-time beer barrels, a bar, and a Navajo rug on the cement floor. He offered me another drink but I refused it. (But I wanted it too.) I told him the whole story from back to front; everything except for Grace and Bill Bartlett. I hadn’t seen John in a while and so he was surprised to hear that EttaMae worked for me. He was shocked to hear that Mouse had a job.

“I heard about him killin’ Sweet William,” John said. “You know back where I come from we woulda put that boy down.”

“That’s why he left outta where you come from, John. But you know he’s changed. Few days ago he was talkin’ about church.”

“Church?”

“You know the Gasteaus?” I asked, suddenly needing to get back to my problems.

“Met’em.”

“Met’em where?”

“It was Holland mostly. You know, he was tryin’ t’act all flashy and cool. Come in with a tramp on each arm and spendin’ all kindsa money. Big mouth too. One time he come in wit’ his brother. Made a big deal over him at first but then he started tearin’ him down. You get some people like that, Easy. They get a couple’a drinks in’em an’ some kinda shit come out. Holland wanted to arm wrestle, that kinda shit.

“But you know Roman was cool. He just laughed it off. That niggah had some cold in him. Cold.”

“You mean Roman?” I asked.

John nodded.

“I heard that Roman was sellin’ heroin.”

“Could be. That niggah’d do anything. Anything.”

“But you don’t know nuthin’ else?”

“Naw, Easy. I don’t wanna know. I don’t like the life no mo’. That’s why I’ma sell the bar.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. I bought these three lots over on Rice. I’ma build me some houses over there.”

“No jive?”

“I hope you like eggs, Mr. Rawlins.” Alva was coming in the door. On a cork-inlaid tray she had a plate with scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, and dark buttered toast. There was a cup of coffee too.

Alva knew how to cook but that was only window dressing on a woman like her. If she had the strength of mind and spirit to pull John out of the sour funk of his life; if she could get him out of the bar business and into gardens and building houses — then she was Helen and Cleopatra in one.

I was hungrier than I knew. John and Alva sat patiently while I devoured her meal.

When I was finished John asked, “What do you need, Easy?”

“A car and five hundred dollars.”

Alva cut her eyes at John. She knew that he never lent money to anyone.

Maybe that’s why she looked surprised when he handed his keys over to me and said, “You can take my Ford. I got the money in the room. Come on. I think I got somethin’ fit you too.”

Upstairs in John’s room I tried on a woolen sports coat and a pair of heavy wool slacks. The jacket was loose and I needed to punch another hole in John’s leather belt to keep the pants up around my waist.

I looked like a hipster from the forties in my baggy clothes.

“Where’d you meet Alva?” I asked him after I finished with my wardrobe.

“At Omar’s wedding.”

Omar’s father, Odell Jones, was one of my best friends. It hurt to hear that he had thrown a wedding for his son without inviting me. But I understood why. Odell was a good friend but we both knew that when he called on me it would be because of trouble. He probably thought that it would have been a bad omen for me to show up at the service.

He might have been right.

“Yeah,” John was saying. “Omar met his girl down in Arkansas. He was doin’ riggin’ work for a oil company an’ then he met Cordelia. He knew right away that he was going to get married and brought her back up here. Cordelia had Alva come to be her maid of honor.

“Odell asked me to cater an’ bartend. I seen Alva once an’ that was it.”

John’s words were so heartfelt that I hesitated to ask my next question.

I hesitated but I did not fail.

“You heard from Grace lately, John?”

All of the dark reserve flowed back into John’s face. He didn’t have to utter a threat for me to choose my next words with care.

“I got to know, man. Listen, you remember that man she was in trouble with? That Bill Bartlett? He’s connected to this trouble I’m in. Somehow he’s in it.”

“How?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

John trusted my judgment. He knew I wasn’t trying to fool him.

“I heard she was doin’ smack,” he said. “That she got mixed up with some bad folks after that white man put her down.”

“The Gasteau brothers?”

“I don’t know, Easy. And like I said, I don’t wanna know.”

“I might have to call on you again, John.”

“You can call, brother,” he said. “But we’ll have to see if I come.”