A Red Death

28

The phone rang eight times before Zaree Bouchard answered. “Hello?”

She sounded bored or fed up.

I said, “Hey, Zaree, how you doin’?”

“Oh, it’s you, Easy.” She didn’t sound happy. “Which one of ’em you want?”

“Which one you wanna part wit’?”

“You could have ’em both fo’a dollar twenty-five.”

I could see that we weren’t going to play, so I said, “Let me have Dupree.”

I heard her yell his name and then I winced at the hard knock of the receiver as she dropped it.

After a minute of quiet the phone started banging around again until finally Dupree said, “Yeah?”

“Mr. Bouchard,” I exclaimed. “Easy here.”

“Well, well, well.” His voice reminded me of an alto sax going down the scale. “Mr. Rawlins. What can I do for you?”

“You heard about Towne?”

“Ain’t done nuthin’ but hear about it. That was a shame.”

“Yeah. I was the one found the body, at least the one after Winona.”

“I heard that, Easy. I heard that an’ it made me think all over again how you was the last one saw Coretta ’fore Joppy Shag did her in.”

Dupree always blamed me for his girlfriend’s death. I never got mad at him, though, because I always felt a little responsible for it myself.

“Cops brought me in and I’m scared they might try an’ pin it on me.”

“Uh-huh,” Dupree said. Maybe he wouldn’t have minded the police finding me dirty.

“Yeah. Anybody know who the girl was they found with’im?”

“Couple’a folks I heard said that her name was Tania, somethin’ like that. But nobody said where she come from, or where she been.”

Dupree was a good man. No matter how he felt about me we were still friends. He wouldn’t lie.

“What’s goin’ on with Zaree?” I asked.

“She mad on Raymond.”

“How come?”

“First he all wild over Etta. Then he start drinkin’ an’ get all slouchy an’ filthy. Then, just yestiday, he gets all dressed up an’ last night he come in wit’ two white girls.”

“Yeah?”

“I tell ya, Easy.” The old friendliness returned to Dupree’s voice. “I couldn’t sleep wit’ the kinda racket they was makin’. I mean he had’em beggin’ fo’it! An’ if they asted fo’ a little more in a soft voice he’d say, ‘What you say?’ and they had to scream.”

“That got to Zaree?”

“Well, yeah,” Dupree chuckled. “But what really got to’er was that I got hard up ev’ry time he got one of ’em, and then I’d go after her. I told’er that if she didn’t want it then one’a them girls out there would.”

Mouse was a bad influence on anything domestic.

“Lemme talk to’im, okay, Dupree?”

“Yeah.” Dupree was still laughing when he got off the phone.

“Whas happenin’, Ease?” Mouse asked in his cool tone.

“You gotta call Etta, Ray.”

“Yeah?” You could hear the satisfaction in his voice.

“Yeah. Call’er an’ take LaMarque out, to the park or somethin’.”

“When?”

“Soon as you can, man, but you gotta remember some-thin’.”

“What’s that?”

“LaMarque ain’t hardly more than a baby, Ray. Don’t go showin’ him yo’ business or takin’ him out wit’ one’a yo’ girl-friends.”

“What should I do?”

“Take him swimmin’, or fishin’. Take ’im to the park an’ play ball. What did you do when you was a boy?”

“Sometimes I’d sneak up on one’a them big river rats sunnin’ hisself on the pier. You know I’d grab’im by the tail and swing the mothahfuckah ’round till I smash his ass on the pilin’.”

“LaMarque is sensitive, Ray. He wanna play little kid games. All you gotta do is remember that an’ he ain’t gonna want you dead.”

Mouse was quiet for a few moments, and then he said, “Okay,” softly.

“So you gonna call?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“An’ you gonna play wit’ him?”

“Uh-huh, yeah, play.”

“Okay then,” I said.

“Easy?”

“Yeah?”

“You all right, man. You might got a nut or sumpin’ loose, but you all right.”

I didn’t know just what he meant but it sounded as if we had become friends again.