Devil in a Blue Dress

Chapter 16

I slept all that day and into the evening. Maybe I should have been looking for Frank Green but all I wanted was to sleep.

I woke up sweating in the middle of the night. Every sound I heard was someone coming after me. Either it was the police or DeWitt Albright or Frank Green. I couldn’t throw off the smell of blood that I’d picked up in Richard’s room. There was the hum of a million flies at the window, flies that I’d seen swarming on our boys’ corpses in North Africa, in Oran.

I was shivering but I wasn’t cold. And I wanted to run to my mother or someone to love me, but then I imagined Frank Green pulling me from a loving woman’s arms; he had his knife poised to press into my heart.

Finally I jumped up from my bed and ran to the telephone. I didn’t know what I was doing. I couldn’t call Joppy because he wouldn’t understand that kind of fear. I couldn’t call Odell because he’d understand it too well and just tell me to run. I couldn’t call Dupree because he was still locked up. But I couldn’t have talked to him anyway because I would have had to lie to him about Coretta and I was too upset to lie.

So I dialed the operator. And when she came on the line I asked her for long distance, and then I asked for Mrs. E. Alexander on Claxton Street in Houston’s Fifth Ward.

When she answered the phone I closed my eyes and remembered her: big woman with deep brown skin and topaz eyes. I imagined her frown when she said “Hello?” because EttaMae never liked the telephone. She always said, “I like to see my bad news comin’; not get it like a sneak through no phones.”

“Hello,” she said.

“Etta?”

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Easy, Etta.”

“Easy Rawlins?” And then a big laugh. The kind of laugh that makes you want to laugh along with it. “Easy, where are you, honey? You come home?”

“I’m in L.A., Etta.” My voice was quavering; my chest vibrated with feeling.

“Sumpin’ wrong, honey? You sound funny.”

“Uh… Naw, ain’t nuthin’, Etta. Sure is good to hear you. Yeah, I can’t think of nuthin’ better.”

“What’s wrong, Easy?”

“You know how I can reach Mouse, Etta?”

There was silence then. I thought of how they said in science class that outer space was empty, black and cold. I felt it then and I sure didn’t want to.

“You know Raymond and me broke up, Easy. He don’t live here no more.”

The idea that I made Etta sad was almost more than I could take.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I said. “I just thought you might know how I could get to him.”

“What’s wrong, Easy?”

“It’s just that maybe Sophie was right.”

“Sophie Anderson?”

“Yeah, well, you know that she’s always sayin’ that L.A. is too much?”

Etta laughed in her chest. “I sure do.”

“She might just be right.” I laughed too.

“Easy…”

“Just tell Mouse that I called, Etta. Tell him that Sophie might have been right about California and maybe it is a place for him.”

She started to say something else but I made like I didn’t hear her and said, “Good-bye.” I pushed down the button of the receiver.

I put my chair in front of the window so I could look out into my yard. I sat there for a long time, balling my hands together and taking deep breaths when I could remember to. Finally the fear passed and I fell asleep. The last thing I remember was looking at my apple tree in the predawn.