Devil in a Blue Dress

Chapter 30

They found Dewitt Albright slumped over his steering wheel just north of Santa Barbara; it took him that long to bleed to death. I could hardly believe it. A man like DeWitt Albright didn’t die, couldn’t die. It frightened me even to think of a world that could kill a man like that; what could a world like that do to me?

Mouse and I heard it on the radio when I was driving him to the bus station the next morning. I was happy to see him off.

“I’m’a give all that money to Etta, Easy. Maybe she take me back now that I done saved yo’ ass and come up rich.” Mouse smiled at me and climbed on the bus. I knew I’d see him again and I didn’t know how I felt about that.

That same morning I went to Daphne’s apartment, where I found the little boy. He was filthy. His underwear hadn’t been changed in weeks and mucus was caked in his nose and on his face. He didn’t say anything. I found him eating from a bag of flour in the kitchen. When I walked up to him and held out my hand he just took it and followed me to the bathroom. After he was clean I brought him out to Primo’s place.

“I don’t think he understands English,” I said to Primo. “Maybe you could get something out of him.”

Primo was a father at heart. He had as many children as Ronald White and he loved them all.

“I could give some mamacita a few hundred bucks over the next year or two while she looked after him,” I said.

“I’ll see,” Primo said. He already had the boy in his lap. “Maybe I know someone.”

The next person I went to see was Mr. Carter. He gave me a cool eye when I told him that Daphne was gone. I told him that I’d heard from Albright about the killings Joppy and Frank had done. I told him about Frank’s death and that Joppy had disappeared.

But what really got to him was when I told him that I knew Daphne was colored. I told him that she wanted me to tell him that she loved him and wanted to be with him but that she would never know any kind of peace as long as she was with him. I laid it on kind of thick but he liked it that way.

I told him about her sundress, and while I talked I thought about making love to her when she was still a white woman. He had a look of ecstasy on his face; I had darker feeling, but just as strong, inside.

“But I’ve got a problem, Mr. Carter, and you do too.”

“Oh?” He was still savoring the last glimpse of her. “What is that?”

“I’m the only suspect that the police have,” I told him. “And unless sumpin’ happens I’m’a have to tell ’em ’bout Daphne. And you know she gonna hate you if you drag her through the papers. She might even kill herself,” I said. I didn’t think it was a lie.

“What can I do about that?”

“You the one braggin’ ’bout all your City Hall connections.”

“Yes?”

“Then get’em on the phone. I got a story t’tell’em but you gotta back me up in it. ’Cause if I go in there on my own you know they gonna sweat me till I tell about Daphne.”

“Why should I help you, Mr. Rawlins? I lost my money and my fiancée. You haven’t done a thing for me.”

“I saved her life, man. I let her get away with your money and her skin. Any one of the men involved with this would have seen her dead.”

That very afternoon we went to City Hall and met with the assistant to the chief of police and the deputy mayor, Lawrence Wrightsmith. The policeman was short and fat. He looked to the deputy mayor before saying anything, even hello. The deputy mayor was a distinguished man in a gray suit. He waved his arm through the air while he talked and he smoked Pall Malls. He had silver-gray hair and I thought for a moment that he looked the way I imagined the president to be when I was a child.

Officers Mason and Miller were called when I mentioned them.

We were all sitting in Mr. Wrightsmith’s office. He was behind his desk and the deputy police chief stood behind him. Carter and I sat before the desk and Carter’s lawyer was behind us. Mason and Miller sat off to the side, on a couch.

“Well, Mr. Rawlins,” Mr. Wrightsmith said. “You have something to tell us about all these murders going on?”

“Yessir.”

“Mr. Carter here says that you were working for him.”

“In a way, sir.”

“What way is that?”

“I was hired by DeWitt Albright, through a friend of ours, Joppy Shag. Mr. Albright hired Joppy to locate Frank and Howard Green. And later on Joppy got him to hire me.”

“Frank and Howard, eh? Brothers?”

“I’ve been told that they were distant cousins, but I couldn’t swear to that,” I said. “Mr. Albright wanted me to find Frank for Mr. Carter here. But he didn’t tell me why he wanted them, just that it was business.”

“It was for the money I told you about, Larry,” Carter said. “You know.”

Mr. Wrightsmith smiled and said to me, “Did you find them?”

“Joppy had already got to Howard Green; that’s when he found out about the money.”

“And what exactly was it that he found out, Mr. Rawlins?”

“Howard worked for a rich man, Matthew Teran. And Mr. Teran was mad because Mr. Carter here messed him up on running for mayor.” I smiled. “I guess he was looking to be your boss.”

Mr. Wrightsmith smiled too.

“Anyway,” I continued, “he wanted Howard and Frank to kill Mr. Carter and make it look like a robbery. But when they got in the house and found that thirty thousand dollars they got so excited that they just ran without even doin’ the job.”

“What thirty thousand dollars?” Mason asked.

“Later,” Wrightsmith said. “Did Joppy kill Howard Green?”

“That’s what I think now. You see, I didn’t get in it until they were looking for Frank. You see, DeWitt was checking out Mr. Teran because Mr. Carter suspected him. Then DeWitt got interested in the Greens when he checked out Howard and came up with Frank’s name. He wanted somebody to look for Frank in the illegal bars down around Watts.”

“Why were they looking for Frank?”

“DeWitt wanted him because he was lookin’ for Mr. Carter’s money, and Joppy wanted him for that thirty thousand dollars, for himself.”

The sun was coming in on Mr. Wrightsmith’s green blotter. I was sweating as if it was coming in on me.

“How did you find all this out, Easy?” Miller asked.

“From Albright. He got suspicious when Howard turned up dead and then he was certain when Coretta James was killed.”

“Why’s that?” Wrightsmith said. Every man in the room was staring at me. I had never been on trial but I felt I was up against the jury right then.

“Because they were looking for Coretta too. You see, she spent a lot of time around the Greens.”

“Why didn’t you get suspicious, Easy?” Miller asked. “Why didn’t you tell us about this when we brought you in?”

“I didn’t know none’a this when you talked to me. Albright and Joppy had me looking for Frank Green. Howard Green was already dead and what did I know about Coretta?”

“Go on, Mr. Rawlins,” Mr. Wrightsmith said.

“I couldn’t find Frank. No one knew where he was. But I heard a story about him though. People were sayin’ that he was mad over the death of his cousin and that he was out for revenge. I think he went out after Teran. He didn’t know nuthin’ ’bout Joppy.”

“So you think that Frank Green killed Matthew Teran?” Miller couldn’t hide his disgust. “And Joppy got to Frank Green and DeWitt Albright?”

“All I know is what I just said,” I said as innocently as I could.

“What about Richard McGee? He stab himself?” Miller was out of his chair.

“I don’t know ’bout him,” I said.

They asked me questions for a couple of hours more. The story stayed the same though. Joppy did most of the killing. He did it out of greed. I went to Mr. Carter when I heard about DeWitt’s death and he decided to come to the police.

When I finished Wrightsmith said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Rawlins. Now if you’ll just excuse us.”

Mason and Miller, Jerome Duffy — Carter’s lawyer, and I all had to go.

Duffy shook my hand and smiled at me. “See you at the inquest, Mr. Rawlins.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Just a formality, sir. When a serious crime is committed they want to ask a few questions before closing the books.”

It didn’t sound any worse than a parking ticket if you listened to him.

He got into the elevator to leave and Mason and Miller went with him.

I took the stairs. I thought I might even walk all the way home. I had two years’ salary buried in the backyard and I was free. No one was after me; not a worry in my life. Some hard things had happened but life was hard back then and you just had to take the bad along with the worse if you wanted to survive.

Miller came up to me as I descended the granite stair of City Hall.

“Hi, Ezekiel.”

“Officer.”

“You got a mighty powerful friend up there.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, but I did know.

“You think Carter gonna come save your ass when we arrest you every other day for jaywalking, spitting, and creating a general nuisance? Think he’s gonna answer your calls?”

“Why I have to worry about that?”

“You have to worry, Ezekiel” — Miller pushed his thin face right up to mine; he smelled of bourbon, wintermint, and sweat — “because I have to worry.”

“What do you have to worry about?”

“I got a prosecutor, Ezekiel. He’s got a fingerprint that don’t belong to anybody we know.”

“Maybe it’s Joppy’s. Maybe when you find him you’ll have it.”

“Maybe. But Joppy’s a boxer. Why’d he stop boxing to use a knife?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Give it to me, son. Give it to me and I’ll let you off. I’ll forget about the coincidence of you being involved in all this and having drinks with Coretta the night before she died. Mess with me and I’ll see that you spend the rest of your life in jail.”

“You could try Junior Fornay against that print.”

“Who?”

“Bouncer at John’s. He might fit it.”

It might be that the last moment of my adult life, spent free, was in that walk down the City Hall stairwell. I still remember the stained-glass windows and the soft light.