Devil in a Blue Dress

Chapter 18

I had to find Frank Green. Knifehand held the answer to my problems. He knew where the girl was, if anybody did, and he knew who killed Coretta; I was sure of that. Richard McGee was dead too, but I didn’t care about that death because the police couldn’t connect me to it.

It’s not that I had no feelings for the murdered man; I thought it was wrong for a man to be murdered and, in a more perfect world, I felt that the killer should be brought to justice.

But I didn’t believe that there was justice for Negroes. I thought that there might be some justice for a black man if he had the money to grease it. Money isn’t a sure bet but it’s the closest to God that I’ve ever seen in this world.

But I didn’t have any money. I was poor and black and a likely candidate for the penitentiary unless I could get Frank to stand between me and the forces of DeWitt Albright and the law.

So I went out looking.

The first place I went was Ricardo’s Pool Room on Slauson. Ricardo’s was just a hole-in-the-wall with no windows and only one door. There was no name out front because either you knew where Ricardo’s was or you didn’t belong there at all.

Joppy had taken me to Ricardo’s a few times after we locked up his bar. It was a serious kind of place peopled with jaundice-eyed bad men who smoked and drank heavily while they waited for a crime they could commit.

It was the kind of place you could get killed in but I was safe as long as I was with a tough man like Joppy Shag. Still, when Joppy would leave the pool table to go to the toilet I could almost feel the violence pulsing in the dark.

But I had to go to places like Ricardo’s to look for Frank Green. Because Frank was in the hurting trade. Maybe there was somebody who had taken his money, or messed with his girl, and Frank needed a gunman to back him up in the kill — Ricardo’s was where he’d go. Maybe he just needed an extra hand in taking down a cigarette shipment. The men in Ricardo’s were desperate; they lived for hurting.

It was a large room with four pool tables, a green lampshade hanging above each one. The walls were lined with straight-back chairs where most of the customers sat, drinking from brown paper bags and smoking in the dim light. Only one skinny youth was shooting pool. That was Mickey, Rosetta’s son.

Rosetta had run the place ever since Ricardo got diabetes and lost both his legs. He was upstairs someplace, in a single bed, drinking whiskey and staring at the walls.

When I’d heard about Ricardo’s illness I said to her, “I’m sorry t’hear it, Rose.”

Rosetta’s face was squat and wide. Her beady eyes pressed down into her chubby brown cheeks. She squinted at me and said, “He done enough ho’in ’round fo’ two men and then some. I guess he could rest now.” And that’s all she said.

She was sitting at the only card table at the far side of the room. I walked over to her and said, “Evenin’, Rosetta, how you doin’ t’nite.”

“Joppy here?” she asked, looking around me.

“Naw. He still workin’ at the bar.”

Rosetta looked at me as if I were a stray cat come in after her cheese.

The room was so dark and smoky that I couldn’t make out what anyone was doing, except for Mickey, but I felt eyes on me from the haze. When I turned back to Rosetta I saw that she was staring too.

“Anybody been sellin’ some good whiskey lately, Rose?” I asked. I had hoped to have some light talk with her before asking my question but her stare unsettled me and the room was too quiet for just talk.

“This ain’t no bar, honey. You want whiskey you better go see yo’ friend Joppy.” She glanced at the door, telling me to leave, I suppose.

“I don’t want a drink, Rose. I’m lookin’ t’buy a case or two. Thought maybe you might know how I could get some.”

“Why’ont you ast yo’ friend anyway? He know where the whiskey grow.”

“Joppy send me here, Rose. He say you the one t’know.”

She was still suspicious but I could see that she wasn’t afraid. “You could try Frank Green if you want t’buy by the box.”

“Yeah? Where can I get a’hold of’im?”

“I ain’t seen’im in a few days now. Either he shacked up or he out earnin’ his trade.”

That was all Rosetta had to say on the subject. She lit up a cigarette and turned away. I thanked her back and wandered over to Mickey.

“Eight ball?” asked Mickey.

It really didn’t matter what we played. I put a five down and lost it, then I lost five more. That took me about a half an hour. When I figured I’d paid enough for my information I saluted the hustler and walked out into the sun.

I had a feeling of great joy as I walked away from Ricardo’s. I don’t know how to say it, exactly. It was as if for the first time in my life I was doing something on my own terms. Nobody was telling me what to do. I was acting on my own. Maybe I hadn’t found Frank but I had gotten Rosetta to bring up his name. If she had known where he was I would have gotten to him that day.

There was a big house on Isabella Street, at the end of a cul-de-sac. That was Vernie’s place. Lots of workingmen would drop by there now and then, to visit one of Vernie’s girls. It was a friendly place. The second and third floors had three bedrooms each and the first floor was a kitchen and living room where the guests could be entertained.

Vernie was a light-skinned woman whose hair was frosted gold. She weighed about three hundred pounds. Vernie would stay in the kitchen cooking all day and all night. Her daughter, Darcel, who was the same size as her mother, would welcome the men into the parlor and collect a few dollars for their food and drinks.

Some men, like Odell, would be happy to sit around and drink and listen to music on the phonograph. Vernie would come out now and then to shout hello at old friends and introduce herself to newcomers.

But if you were there for companionship there were girls upstairs who sat out in front of their doors if they weren’t occupied with a customer. Huey Barnes sat in the hall on the second floor. He was a wide-hipped, heavy-boned man who had the face of an innocent child. But Huey was fast and vicious despite his looks, and his presence caused all business at Vernie’s to run smoothly.

I went there in the early afternoon.

“Easy Rawlins.” Darcel reached her fat hands out to me. “I did believe that you had died and left us for heaven.”

“Uh-uh, Darcie. You know I just been savin’ it up for ya.”

“Well bring it on in here, baby. Bring it on in.”

She led me by the hand to the living room. A few men were sitting around drinking and listening to jazz records. There was a big bowl of dirty rice on the coffee table and white porcelain plates too.

“Easy Rawlins!” The voice came from the door to the kitchen.

“How you, baby?” Vernie asked as she ran up to me.

“Just fine, Vernie, just fine.”

The big woman hugged me so that I felt I was being rolled up in a feather mattress.

“Uh,” she groaned, almost lifting me from the floor. “It’s been too long, honey. Too long!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. I hugged her back and then lowered onto the couch.

Vernie smiled on me. “You stay put now, Easy. I want you to tell me how things is goin’ before you go wand’rin’ upstairs.” And with that she went back to the kitchen.

“Hey, Ronald, what’s goin’ on?” I said to the man next to me.

“Not much, Ease,” Ronald White answered. He was a plumber for the city. Ronald always wore his plumber’s overalls no matter where he was. He said that a man’s work clothes are the only real clothes he has.

“Takin’ a break from all them boys?” I liked to kid Ronald about his family. His wife dropped a son every twelve or fourteen months. She was a religious woman and didn’t believe in taking precautions. At the age of thirty-four Ronald had nine sons, and one on the way.

“They like to tear the place down, Easy. I swear.” Ronald shook his head. “They’d be climbin’ ’cross the ceilin’ if they could get a good hold. You know they got me afraid to go home.”

“Oh com’on now, man. It can’t be that bad.”

Ronald’s forehead wrinkled up like a prune, and he had pain in his face when he said, “No lie, Easy. I come on in and there’s a whole army of ’em, runnin’ right at me. First the big ones come leapin’. Then the ones can hardly walk. And while the little ones come crawlin’ Mary walks in, so weak that she’s like death, and she’s got two babies in her arms.”

“I tell ya, Easy. I spend fifty dollars on food and just watch them chirren destroy it. They eat every minute that they ain’t yellin’.” There were actually tears in Ronald’s eyes. “I swear I can’t take it, man. I swear.”

“Darcel!” I yelled. “Come bring Ronald a drink, quick. You know he needs it too.”

Darcel brought in a bottle of I. W. Harpers and poured all three of us a drink. I handed her three dollars for the bottle.

“Yeah,” Curtis Cross said. He was sitting in front of a plate of rice at the dining table. “Chirren is the most dangerous creatures on the earth, with the exception of young girls between the ages of fifteen and forty-two.”

That even got Ronald to smile.

“I don’t know,” Ronald said. “I love Mary but I think I’m’a have to run soon. Them kids a’kill me if I don’t.”

“Have another drink, man. Darcie, just keep ’em comin’, huh? This man needs to forget.”

“You already paid for this bottle, Easy. You can waste it any way you want.” Like most black women, Darcel wasn’t happy to hear about a man who wanted to abandon his wife and kids.

“Just three dollars and you still make some money?” I acted like I was surprised.

“We buy bulk, Easy.” Darcie smiled at me.

“Could I buy it like that too?” I asked, as if it were the first time I had ever heard of buying hijack.

“I don’t know, honey. You know Momma and me let Huey take care of the shoppin’.”

That was it for me. Huey wasn’t the kind of man to ask about Frank Green. Huey was like Junior Fornay — mean and spiteful. He was no one to tell my business.

I drove Ronald home at about nine. He was crying on my shoulder when I let him out at his house.

“Please don’t make me go in there, Easy. Take me with you, brother.”

I was trying to keep from laughing. I could see Mary at the door. She was thin except for her belly and there was a baby boy in each of her arms. All their children crowded around her in the doorway pushing each other back to get a look at their father coming home.

“Come on now, Ron. You made all them babies, now you got to sleep in your bed.”

I remember thinking that if I lived through the troubles I had then, my life would be pretty good. But Ronald didn’t have any chance to be happy, unless he broke his poor family’s heart.

During the next day I went to the bars that Frank sold hijack to and to the alley crap games that he frequented. I never brought up Frank’s name though. Frank was skitterish, like all gangsters, and if he felt that people were talking about him he got nervous; if Frank was nervous he might have killed me before I had time to make my pitch.

It was those two days more than any other time that made me a detective.

I felt a secret glee when I went into a bar and ordered a beer with money someone else had paid me. I’d ask the bartender his name and talk about anything, but, really, behind my friendly talk, I was working to find something. Nobody knew what I was up to and that made me sort of invisible; people thought that they saw me but what they really saw was an illusion of me, something that wasn’t real.

I never got bored or frustrated. I wasn’t even afraid of DeWitt Albright during those days. I felt, foolishly, safe from even his crazy violence.