Devil in a Blue Dress

Chapter 12

I put away a pint and a half of bourbon before I could get to sleep. The sheets were crisp and dry and the fear was far enough away in the alcohol, but whenever I closed my eyes Coretta was there, hunching over me and kissing my chest.

I was still young enough that I couldn’t imagine death really happening to someone I knew. Even in the war I expected to see friends again, though I knew they were dead.

The night carried on like that. I’d fall asleep for a few minutes only to wake up calling Coretta’s name or to answer her calling me. If I couldn’t fall back to sleep I’d reach for the bottle of whiskey next to the bed.

Later that night the phone rang.

“Huh?” I mumbled.

“Easy? Easy, that you?” came a rough voice.

“Yeah. What time is it?”

“ ’Bout three. You ’sleep, man?”

“What you think? Who is this?”

“Junior. Don’t you know me?”

It took me a while to remember who he was. Junior and I had never been friends and I couldn’t even think of where he might have found my phone number.

“Easy? Easy! You fallin’ back asleep?”

“What you want this time’a mornin’, Junior?”

“Ain’t nuthin’. Nuthin’.”

“Nuthin’? You gonna get me outta my bed at three fo’ nuthin’?”

“Don’t go soundin’ off on me now, man. I just wanted to tell you what you wanted t’know.”

“What you want, Junior?”

“ ’Bout that girl, thas all.” He sounded nervous. He was talking fast and I had the feeling that he kept looking over his shoulder. “Why was you lookin’ fo’ her anyway?”

“You mean the white girl?”

“Yeah. I just remembered that I saw her last week. She come in with Frank Green.”

“What’s her name?”

“I think he called her Daphne. I think.”

“So how come you just tellin’ me now? How come you callin’ me this late anyway?”

“I’ont get off till two-thirty, Easy. I thought you wanted to know, so I called ya.”

“You jus’ figgered you’d call me in the middle’a the night an’ tell me ’bout some girl? Man, you fulla shit! What the hell do you want?”

Junior let out a couple of curses and hung the phone in my ear.

I got the bottle and poured myself a tall drink. Then I lit up a cigarette and pondered Junior’s call. It didn’t make any sense, him calling me in the night just to tell me about some girl I wanted to play with. He had to know something. But what could a thick-headed field hand like Junior know about my business? I finished the drink and the cigarette but it still didn’t make sense.

The whiskey calmed my nerves, though, and I was able to fall into a half sleep. I dreamed about casting for catfish down south of Houston when I was just a boy. There were giant catfish in the Gatlin River. My mother told me that some of them were so big that the alligators left them alone.

I had caught on to one of those giants and I could just make out its big head below the surface of the water. Its snout was the size of a man’s torso.

Then the phone rang.

I couldn’t answer it without losing my fish so I shouted for my mother to get it, but she must not have heard because the phone kept on ringing and that catfish kept trying to dive. I finally had to let it go and I was almost crying when I picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“ ’Allo? Thees is Mr. Rawlins? Yes?” The accent was mild, like French, but it wasn’t French exactly.

“Yeah,” I exhaled. “Who’s that?”

“I am calling you about a problem with a friend of yours.”

“Who’s that?”

“Coretta James,” she said, enunciating each syllable.

That set me up straight. “Who is this?”

“My name is Daphne. Daphne Monet,” she said. “Your friend, Coretta, no? She came to see me and asked for money. She said that you were looking for me and if I don’t give it to her she goes to tell you. Easy, no?”

“When she say that?”

“Not yesterday but the day before that.”

“So what’d you do?”

“I give to her my last twenty dollars. I don’t know you, do I, Mr. Rawlins?”

“What she do then?”

“She goes away and I worry about it and my friend is away and doesn’t come back home so then I think maybe I find you and you tell me, yes? Why you want to find me?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “But your friend, who’s that?”

“Frank. Frank Green.”

I reached for my pants out of reflex; they were on the floor, next to the bed.

“Why do you look for me, Mr. Rawlins? Do I know you?”

“You must’a made some kinda mistake, honey. I don’t know what she was talkin’ ’bout… Do you think Frank went lookin’ for her?”

“I don’t tell Frank about her coming ’ere. He was not ’ere but then he does not come home.”

“I don’t know a thing about where Frank is, and Coretta’s dead.”

“Dead?” She sounded as if she were really surprised.

“Yeah, they think it happened Thursday night.”

“This is terrible. Do you think maybe something ’as ’appened with Frank?”

“Listen, lady, I don’t know what’s goin’ on with Frank or anybody else. All I know is that it ain’t none’a my business and I hope you do okay but I have to go right now…”

“But you must help me.”

“No thanks, honey. This is too much fo’ me.”

“But if you do not help I will ’ave to go to the police to find my friend. I will ’ave to tell them about you and this woman, this Coretta.”

“Listen, it was prob’ly your friend that killed her.”

“She was stabbed?”

“No,” I said, realizing what she meant. “She was beaten to death.”

“That ees not Frank. He ’as the knife. He does not use his fists. You will help me?”

“Help you what?” I said. I put up my hands to show how helpless I was but no one could see me.

“I ’ave a friend, yes? He may know where to find Frank.”

“I don’t need to go lookin’ fo’ Frank Green but if you want’im why don’t you just call this friend?”

“I, I must go to him. He ’as something for me and…”

“So why do you need me? If he’s your friend just go to his house. Take a taxi.”

“I do not ’ave the money and Frank ’as my car. It is far away, my friend’s house, but I could tell you ’ow to go.”

“No thanks, lady.”

“Please help me. I do not want to call the police but I ’ave no other way if you do not help.”

I was afraid of the police too. Afraid that the next time I went down to the police station I wouldn’t be getting out. I was missing my catfish more and more. I could almost smell it frying; I could almost taste it.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At my house, on Dinker Street. Thirty-four fifty-one and a ’alf.”

“That’s not where Frank lives.”

“I ’ave my own place. Yes? He is not my lover.”

“I could bring you some money and put you in a cab over on Main. That’s all.”

“Oh yes, yes! That would be fine.”