A Little Yellow Dog

37

Mouse was high on whiskey and so I drove him home. He let me take his car, saying that he could work out rides with Etta.

Bonnie and the kids were asleep when I got home. Pharaoh growled in the shadows.

I pulled out the drawer next to the kitchen sink and put it on the floor. I reached in under the ledge and came out with my .38 and a box of shells.

The gun needed cleaning but all I had was time. I wasn’t going to sleep. There were gangsters out there in the shadows whispering my name. There were cops hoping that my body broke before my spirit did. My life had gone to pieces and none of it was my fault.

It was the dog’s fault. That’s what I told myself.

But by then I knew that it wasn’t true. I’d dug this hole two years before. It was just a little unfinished business that I had to clean up.

“Easy.” Bonnie Shay was standing at the kitchen door. If she saw the gun on the table she didn’t act like it.

“What?”

“Was I telling the truth?”

“Huh?”

“Did you find the hot-water bottle?”

“Oh. Yeah.” I smiled. “Yeah, I did.”

“Did you leave it there?”

“No, Bonnie. I’ma need it to get them gangsters an’ cops offa us.”

Bonnie’s face smiled. It wasn’t just her mouth but also her eyes and cheeks and the angle of her head to her shoulder.

“Come to bed,” she said.

“Come again?”

Her smile was a long-ago memory of good things.

“Not that,” she said. “But you need some sleep. Come lie down with me. Let me hold you.”

“Bonnie,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Do you know a man called Bill Bartlett?”

“William. Yes. He used to work at Sojourner Truth. I met him after that, though, at a party that Idabell gave. By that time he was working on the supply truck that brought Holland his daily papers.”

“He still work a paper route?”

“No, I don’t think so. He quit about the same time that Holland did. Ida told me that he became a cook.”

She helped me off with my clothes and almost guided me into the bed. She pressed her warm body against me from behind and placed her hand on my bare chest — over my heart.

“Your heart’s beating,” she whispered.

“An’ yours isn’t?”

“Shh.”

The warmth of her body through that thin slip was what was missing in my life. A woman who took charge of herself and her needs. A woman who could hold my desire without fear or anger.

“You know,” I said.

“Hm?”

“I’d like to turn around here.”

“We’ve got time, Easy. Let’s just get some sleep tonight.”

I was running hard with wild dogs on my trail. I hit the forest under a moonlit, cloudless sky and ran deeper and deeper into the thickening gloom of branches. My progress was slowed by the trees but the hacking breath of dogs seemed to be further behind. Soon I was crawling through pitch black, pushing hard against the wall of snapping sticks. Finally I was flat on my stomach.

I heard a whisper, “Shh,” and then I was asleep.

I woke up alone in the bed, fully rested. It was early but Bonnie and the kids were already gone. I remembered Feather’s laugh, a growl too near my ear, and a “shush,” and then a kiss on my cheek.

The note, resting in hard sun on the kitchen table, said:

There was a big kiss at the bottom of the page. I looked at the note wondering at how wrong I could be and still survive.

Jewelle was happy with Jackson Blue.

“He knows so much,” she said to me over the phone.

“I don’t know about that, JJ,” I said.

“What you mean?” she asked. “He knows math and electronics and all about the history of the world.”

“But he don’t know how to survive, honey,” I said. “If you put him outta that house he’d be dead ’fore the sun went down.”

Jewelle didn’t have anything to say to that. She was a smart girl. Smart in every subject but men.

“What time is it?” Jackson asked me when he got on the line.

“’Bout eight-thirty.”

“Shit.”

“Jackson,” I said, “you remember what we talked about?”

“Bout Stetz?”

“Yeah.”

“Go on.”

“I want you to find out where he is and how I can get in touch with him.”

“What for?”

“I’m going to tell him that I know how to get my hands on the final shipment of aitch that Roman Gasteau was supposed to have for Joey Beam.”

“How much?”

“I already told you, three pounds,” I said.

“Naw, man,” Jackson complained. “How much we gonna charge?”

“Ain’t no how, Jackson. I’ma tell’im that you gonna quit bein’ his competition and that I’ll give him the drugs back for his friend.”

“But don’t you think we better ask for some money, man? I mean he ain’t gonna believe that you in it for your health.”

“You want money, Jackson?” I asked.

“I need it, man.”

“Well then,” I said. “Think about your life like it was a wad’a cash. An’ try not and spend it all in one place next time.”

“You passin’ up a golden opportunity right here, Easy.”

“All I want from you is to find out how I can get in touch with Philly Stetz.”

“Shit, man, I already know where that motherfucker is hid.” Jackson was beginning to sound like his old self. The presence of a woman will do that to a man — for better or worse.

“How you know that?”

“Well, you know.”

“No. I don’t know at all, Jackson.”

“Ortiz. Ortiz found out but… but well, you know.”

“Ortiz was going to shoot Stetz,” I declared.

“It was just insurance, Easy. Best to be prepared.”

“Prepared,” I repeated. “Jackson, you ain’t prepared for shit.”

When he didn’t say anything I added, “One mo’ thing, Jackson.”

“Yeah?”

“JJ got enough trouble wit’ her fam’ly an’ Mofass. Keep yo’ fingers outta the pie. You hear me?”

“I hear ya, man.”

He gave me the address of the gangster and I wrote it down. I felt good taking steps that would lead me somewhere. I wasn’t thinking of what might happen when I arrived.

The information i needed wasn’t in the phone book this time.

“Bertrand Stowe’s office,” Stephanie Cordero said in my ear.

“May I speak to him, please? This is Mr. Rawlins.”

I was put on hold for about ten seconds and then the phone rang again.

Stowe answered on the half ring. “Easy?”

“Yeah.” I was about to say more when he cut in.

“Where is she? Have you talked to her? I called but nobody answered. I went by there this morning but there was nobody there. Mrs. Grant said that she’d left but she didn’t even ask them where they were going.” It all came out at once.

“What you talkin’ ’bout, Bert?”

“Gracie, man. Gracie. She’s gone.”

“John an’ Alva prob’ly took her over to their place. You know they got lives and there’s no space for three full-grown adults and a baby at Gracie’s.”

“Give me his number.” I heard sounds over the phone of him searching for something to write on or with.

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“John don’t want no junkie’s boyfriend callin’ at all hours. I’ll call him and find out what’s happenin’ with Grace.”

“What’s John’s last name?” Stowe asked with every ounce of authority he could muster.

“Naw, Bert. You gotta trust me on this one.”

“I need that number, Easy.”

“No.” I let that hang in the air and then said, “But you got to do somethin’ for me. I want William Bartlett’s address. Gimme that and I’ll call you about Grace tonight.”

The Little Butcher had been living on Rondolet Street while he worked for the Board of Education. He’d moved but the landlord, who also lived in that building, knew his forwarding address. That was on Courlene, a residential street not far from downtown. It was a small house with peeling white paint and bare brown dirt for a lawn. There was an overflowing trash can right there on the porch. The front door didn’t belong to that house. It was an unfinished plyboard door meant for a temporary bungalow out on some construction site.

I hated that house.

I hated the disrespect it showed for the neighborhood and for itself.

I played the front door like a kettledrum.

“Bartlett!”

When I’d pounded a dent in the cheap wood I remembered Rupert. The next thing I knew my shoulder was making kindling from the door. I stumbled into the house stunned by my own violence.

Billy Bartlett was stunned too. He stood toward the back of the surprisingly neat and sunny room wearing boxer shorts. He had a long and slender knife in his fist.

Remembering the little butcher’s speed I took a large piece of the door and threw it hard; I came right behind it. I hit the confused cook in the nose and he went down.

No one was shouting from outside so I disarmed him and dragged him through the doorway he’d been standing in.

It was a neat little bedroom. Bartlett struggled to his feet and staggered around to get his balance. Blood was coming from his nose and front lip.

I unplugged a long extension cord from the wall and disconnected it from a lamp and an electric clock.

“Com’ere!” I grabbed Bartlett and made him put his hands behind his back. After I’d tied his hands I kicked the crook of his knees to make him fall on the bed. I tied his hands together with his feet, making him a bony bow on the trim single mattress.

It was then that I noticed that my vision was cloudy, dark. My fingers were numb and restless. That was murder in my blood.

I realized suddenly that I had to relieve myself.

I collided with the doorjamb going into the toilet off Bartlett’s room.

The crash of water as I urinated jangled my nerves.

“Hey!” the butcher called out.

“Shut up,” I said. “Or I’ma come in there and shut you up.”

Silence saved his life.

I washed my hands in cold water and then doused my face.

“What you want, man?” Bartlett asked me. I was sitting in a chair next to his bed.

“My hands hurt,” he said. “I cain’t breathe through my nose.”

“You ain’t gonna be breathin’ at all you don’t talk to me,” I said softly.

“Talk about what?”

“You know who I am?” I asked. “My name is Easy Rawlins.”

“I thought you said your name was Koogan?”

“You know who I am?” I asked again.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Then talk to me.”

“What you wanna know?”

I just slapped him — that’s all. Knocking him around, tying him up. That wasn’t much considering what he had done to me.

“Hey, man!” he cried. “Lemme up.”

“Talk to me, Billy,” I said. “Talk to me.”

“You wanna know ’bout the schools? Is that what you want?”

I didn’t reply.

“It was Sallie Monroe, not me. It was Sallie. I met Roman at Idabell’s house, at a party they had. We got friendly and I introduced him to Sallie. Next thing I know Roman’s with Grace an’ she’s on junk. Roman got the job and then Sallie got me to go in to help him ’cause I knew the school setups and how things worked. You know, alarms and electric systems, where stuff might be stored.”

“What about Holland?”

“What about him?”

“How was he in it?”

“Roman cut him in ’cause we could use his paper shack to hold stuff sometimes.”

“What did Idabell want wit’ you that night she came to Whitehead’s?”

“She wanted some money. She knew I was in it with Holly and she wanted three hunnert dollars.”

“What did she say to you?”

“Nuthin’. Just that she was goin’ outta town.”

“Is that all?”

“No. I mean I asked if she needed a place to stay but she said that she was going to stay with a girlfriend.”

“Who’d you tell?” I asked the flesh and bones.

He saw my face and realized what Joey Beam must have done.

“I didn’t know, man,” he pleaded. “I swear I didn’t know.”

“That ain’t gonna save your life, Billy.” I didn’t even know if I intended to kill him, but I certainly was on the edge.

“I’ll turn myself in, man. It was Sallie wanted to call cop on you. Roman was dead and he thought you could take the fall. It was Sallie.”

“No,” I said.

“What you mean — no!”

“I mean no, Billy. I mean whoever called knew Roman was dead before the cops or anybody else did. The man who called the cops called the principal at Sojourner Truth first. That man already knew that Roman was dead and he wanted them to be lookin’ at me for his killer. You sayin’ that Sallie killed Roman?”

For a moment there I thought that Billy had died. His eyes were opened wide and his mouth was too. Then I heard the high-pitched whine of his breathing.

“I don’t know nuthin’ about that,” he said. “I don’t know a thing.”

“Who killed’im, Billy? I ain’t gonna ask you twice.”

At first I thought he was coughing; that the blood from his nose had gone down his throat. But then I saw the tears. His lips were pushing in and out and his head bobbed in a steady beat with the barks.

“That does it!” I shouted.

I ran into the living room and looked around until I found the long knife on the floor. Then I stalked back to the coffin-shaped bed. I’d run out intending to kill Billy. But standing up and going from one room to the other, bending down to get the knife, made me remember the jailhouse bully whose name wasn’t Jones and Felix Wren. By the time I got back to Bartlett I had lost my desire for his blood.

But Billy didn’t know that.

“It was his brother, man. His brother. His brother. His brother…” He kept saying that with his big eyes on the knife in my hand. He was a butcher, after all; he knew what that knife could do to his meat.

“Holland?” I asked.

“Yeah. It was Holland. Roman come an’ got me to go out to the garden. He wanted to cut his drug for Joey Beam. Beam was gonna kill’im if he didn’t get his aitch. Roman was gonna cut it down at the garden class.”

“You dealin’ wit’im?”

“Uh-uh. No. I only ever helped stealin’ stuff. But Roman was in trouble wit’ Sallie an’ Beam. He wanted to turn the drug over an’ call it square.”

“But?”

“It was Holland. He come right outta the dark wit’ a shovel in his hand. He was shoutin’ an’ I run. I went right up to the fence an’ over.”

“An’ so how you know Holland killed his brother?” I asked.

“He killed him, man. Who else coulda killed’im?”

“Roman had keys to my school?”

“Yeah.”

“They didn’t find no keys on him. That’s why they was lookin’ at me.”

“I got the keys. They in that top drawer, in the dresser. I was carryin’ the keys for Roman and I still had ’em when I ran.” He looked at my knife. “Look in the drawer if you don’t believe me.”

I looked. There was a giant key ring with over thirty master keys on it. I pocketed the keys and went back to the butcher.

“And then you called the principal about me?”

“That was Sallie. I went to him to tell’im what happened. I didn’t tell’im nuthin’ ’bout no drug though. I just told’im that he was outta the school-robbin’ business.”

A feeling of calm came over me. The story sounded right. Yes. Holland killed Roman. Now at least I knew the truth.

I was half the way through the living room when Billy cried out, “Hey! You ain’t gonna leave me tied up!”

I dropped the knife and walked out the front door. Outside there was a man standing on the dirt lawn. He wore green work pants and a blue shirt, I remember. His face was shaped like a crescent and his eyes were small. His eyes darted from me to the front door.

Maybe he freed Billy after I’d gone. Maybe he robbed him.