Devil in a Blue Dress

Chapter 11

I left the station at a fast walk but I wanted to run. It was fifteen blocks to John’s speak and I had to keep telling myself to slow down. I knew that a patrol car would arrest any sprinting Negro they encountered.

The streets were especially dark and empty. Central Avenue was like a giant black alley and I felt like a small rat, hugging the corners and looking out for cats.

Every once in a while a car would shoot past. Maybe I’d catch a snatch of music or laughter and then they’d be gone. There wasn’t another soul out walking.

I was three blocks from the station when I heard, “Hey you! Easy Rawlins!”

A black Cadillac had pulled up beside me and matched my pace. It was a long automobile; long enough to be two cars. A white face in a black cap stuck out of the driver’s window. “Come on, Easy, over here,” the face said.

“Who are you?” I asked over my shoulder, then I turned to keep on walking.

“Come on, Easy,” the face said again. “Somebody in the back wants to talk to you.”

“I don’t have the time right now, man. I gotta go.” I had doubled my pace so that I was nearly running.

“Jump in. We’ll take you where you’re going,” he said, and then he said “What?” not to me but to whoever his passenger was.

“Easy,” he said again. I hate it when someone I don’t know knows me by name. “My boss wants to give you fifty dollars to take a ride.”

“Ride where?” I didn’t slow my stride.

“Wherever you want to go.”

I stopped talking and kept on walking.

The Cadillac sped on ahead and pulled onto the curb about thirty feet ahead of me. The driver’s door swung open and he came out. He had to unfold his long legs from his chest to climb out from the seat. When he stood up I could see that he was a tall man with a thin, almost crescent face and light hair that was either gray or blond — I couldn’t tell which by lamplight.

He held his hands out in front of him, about shoulder height. It was a strange gesture because it looked like he was asking for peace but I knew he could have grabbed me from that pose too.

“Listen here, man,” I said. I crouched back, thinking that it would be easiest to take a tall man down at the knee. “I’m goin’ home. That’s all I’m doin’. Your friend wanna talk, then you better tell’im to get me on the phone.”

The tall driver pointed behind with his thumb and said, “Man told me to tell you that he knows why the police took you in, Easy. He says he wants to talk about it.”

The driver had a grin on his face and a faraway look in his eye. While I looked at him I got tired. I felt that if I lunged at him I’d just fall on my face. Anyway, I wanted to find out why the police had taken me in.

“Just talk, right?” I asked.

“If he wanted to hurt you you’d already be dead.”

The driver opened the door to the backseat and I climbed in. The moment the door shut I gagged on the odors. The smells were sweet like perfume and sour, an odor of the body that I recognized but could put no name to.

The car took off in reverse and I was thrown into the seat with my back to the driver. Before me sat a fat white man. His round white face looked like a moon in the flashes of passing lamplight. He was smiling. Behind his seat was a shallow storage area. I thought I saw something moving around back there but before I could look closer he spoke to me.

“Where is she, Mr. Rawlins?”

“ ’Scuse me?”

“Daphne Monet. Where is she?”

“Who’s that?”

I never got used to big lips on white people, especially white men. This white man had lips that were fat and red. They looked like swollen wounds.

“I know why they took you in there, Mr. Rawlins.” He gestured with his head to say the police station behind. But when he did that I looked in the storage area again. He looked pleased and said, “Come on out, honey.”

A small boy climbed over the seat. He was wearing soiled briefs and dirty white socks. His skin was brown and his thick straight hair was black. The almond-shaped eyes spoke of China but this was a Mexican boy.

He climbed down to the floor and curled around the fat man’s leg.

“This is my little man,” the fat man said. “He’s the only reason I can keep on going.”

The sight of that poor child and the odors made me cringe. I tried not to think about what I was seeing because I couldn’t do anything about it — at least not right then.

“I don’t know what you want with me, Mr. Teran,” I said. “But I don’t know why the police arrested me and I don’t know no Daphne nobody. All I want is to get home and put this whole night behind me.”

“So you know who I am?”

“I read the paper. You were running for mayor.”

“Could be again,” he said. “Could be again. And maybe you could help.” He reached down to scratch the little boy behind the ear.

“I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know nuthin’.”

“The police wanted to know what you did after you had drinks with Coretta James and Dupree Bouchard.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t care about that, Easy. All I want to know is if somebody used the name Daphne Monet.”

I shook my head, no.

“Did anybody,” he hesitated, “strange… want to talk to Coretta?”

“What you mean, strange?”

Matthew Teran smiled at me for a moment, then he said, “Daphne is a white girl, Easy. Young and pretty. It means an awful lot to me if I can find her.”

“I can’t help ya, man. I don’t even know why they pulled me in there. Do you know?”

Instead of answering me he asked, “Did you know Howard Green?”

“I met’im once or twice.”

“Did Coretta say anything about him that night?”

“Not a word.” It felt good to tell the truth.

“How about your friend Dupree? Did he say anything?”

“Dupree drinks. That’s what he does. And when he’s finished drinking, then he goes to sleep. That’s what he did. That’s all he did.”

“I’m a powerful man, Mr. Rawlins.” He didn’t need to tell me. “And I wouldn’t want to think that you were lying to me.”

“Do you know why the cops took me in?”

Matthew Teran picked up the little Mexican boy and hugged him to his chest.

“What do you think, honey?” he asked the boy.

Thick mucus threatened to flow from the boy’s nose. His mouth was open and he stared at me as if I were a strange animal. Not a dangerous animal, maybe the corpse of a dog or porcupine run over and bleeding on the highway.

Mr. Teran picked up an ivory horn that hung next to his head and spoke into it. “Norman, take Mr. Rawlins where he wants to go. We’re finished for the time being.” Then he handed the horn to me. It smelled strongly of sweet oils and sour bodies. I tried to ignore the smells as I gave Norman the address of John’s speak.

“Here’s your money, Mr. Rawlins,” Teran said. He was holding a few damp bills in his hand.

“No thanks.” I didn’t want to touch anything that that man had touched.

“My office is listed in the book, Mr. Rawlins. If you find something out I think you might find me helpful.”

When the car stopped in front of John’s I got out as fast as I could.

“Easy!” Hattie yelled. “What happened to you, baby?”

She came around the counter to put her hand on my shoulder.

“Cops,” I said.

“Oh, baby. Was it about Coretta?”

Everyone seemed to know about my life.

“What about Coretta?”

“Ain’t you heard?”

I just stared at her.

“Coretta been murdered,” she said. “I hear the police took Dupree outta his job ’cause he been out there with her. And I knowed you was with’em on Wednesday so I figured the police might’a s’pected you.”

“Murdered?”

“Just like Howard Green. Beat her so bad that it was her mother who had to tell’em.”

“Dead?”

“What they do to you, Easy?”

“Is Odell here, Hattie?”

“Come in ’bout seven.”

“What time is it?”

“Ten.”

“Could you get Odell for me?” I asked.

“Sure can, Easy. You just let me get Junior t’do it.”

She stuck her head in the door and then came back. In a few minutes Odell came out. I could see that I must’ve looked bad by the expression on Odell’s face. He rarely showed any emotion at all but right then he looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“Could you give me a ride home, Odell? I don’t have my car.”

“Sure thing, Easy.”

Odell was quiet for most of the ride but when we got close to my house he said, “You better get some rest, Easy.”

“I sure intend to try, Odell.”

“I don’t mean just sleep, now. I mean some real rest, like a vacation or somethin’.”

I laughed. “A woman once told me that poor people can’t afford no vacations. She said that we gotta keep workin’ or we end up dead.”

“You don’t have to stop workin’. I mean more like a change. Maybe you should go on down t’Houston or maybe even Galveston where they don’t know you too good.”

“Why you say that, Odell?”

We pulled up to my house. My Pontiac was a welcome sight, parked there and waiting for me. I could have driven across the nation with the money Albright had given me.

“First Howard Green gets killed, then Coretta goes the same way. Police do this to you and they say Dupree’s still in jail. Time to go.”

“I can’t go, Odell.”

“Why not?”

I looked at my house. My beautiful home.

“I just can’t,” I said. “But I do think you’re right.”

“If you don’t leave, Easy, then you better look for some help.”

“What kind’a help you mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should come on down to church on Sunday. Maybe you could talk to Reverend Towne.”

“Lord ain’t got no succor fo’ this mess. I’m’a have to look somewhere else.”

I got out of his car and waved him good-bye. But Odell was a good friend; he waited there until I had hobbled to my door and stumbled into the house.