Little Scarlet

34

There came another knock on the door.

I wondered if Suggs had found another twenty-one dead women. Maybe there were children too and old people and ministers. Maybe there was a whole factory of death working twenty-four hours a day under the city. Black people being thrown down onto rolling spikes that chopped them into pieces and then dropped the pieces into vats of acid. Maybe they were selling our blood and using our teeth and bones for ivory.

“Mr. Rawlins,” Juanda said, peeking into the office from the half-open door. “Can I come in?”

I stood up as she entered, closing the door behind her.

She was wearing a pink dress that only came down to the middle of her thigh.

I walked toward her and she to me. I put my arms around her and held her as tight as I did my mother when I was six and she was still alive. We may have kissed—I really don’t remember.

“You’re crying,” she said.

I didn’t even know that.

Somehow I was sitting on my desk. Juanda was standing next to me, holding me like the young mother she dreamt of becoming. My tears stopped. But the rage was still singing inside me.

“How did you know where I was?” I asked her.

“Phone book,” she said simply. “I needed to see you.”

“Somebody after you?”

“Naw,” she said. “I’m after you.”

I took a deep breath. My heart was pounding and I had an erection that I was sure she could see through my pants. My mind was tuning in and out like a radio receiver ranging over all of the things I was feeling and the things I had to do.

I wanted sex with that gorgeous young woman. Right there on the table with no foreplay or pretense. I wanted to be as blunt as she was, grunting out the anger in my body.

But that brought my fine tuner back to Harold. That was Harold running my mind, making me just like him.

“I love my girlfriend, Juanda,” I said.

“That’s okay. I don’t mind.”

I pulled her arms from around my neck, standing up as I did so. I ran my hands down to her elbows and walked her toward the chair where Detective Suggs last sat.

“I’m just not that young anymore, baby,” I said. “If I was in the bed with you, then I’d have to give up something.”

“I ain’t askin’ for that.”

“But I would,” I said. “You know I would. That’s why you’re here. You can read me like a first-grade primer.”

She cracked a grin and pushed her shoulder in my direction.

“That’s why I like you,” she said. “’Cause you so smart. I bet you read all those books on that shelf over there.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just about.”

I moved back to my chair. She crossed her legs and my heart thrummed. I needed a woman so much right then that I would have probably gotten excited over her picking her nose.

“You know a guy used to live in a cardboard shelter in a vacant lot over there on Grape?” I asked her.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Harold.”

“He killed Nola Payne and a whole lotta other women.”

“What?”

“Killed her. Dead. He’s been killin’ black women for years. Any time one of them gets in with a man looks white to Harold, he kills ’em.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Juanda had learned from a long line of tough black women to show a hard face even when she was laughing. But the crime I suggested wiped all that away. She uncrossed her legs and sat forward.

“For real?”

“Can you tell me anything about him?” I replied.

“No. Not me. All he ever said was good mornin’ to me. He really killed Nola?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know? Nobody done said she dead.”

“Listen, Juanda. This is a serious thing here. Harold is a dangerous man. I don’t want you talkin’ about it because if he knows you and if he thinks you know about him he will kill you without thinking twice. You hear me?”

“Uh-huh. Yeah.”

“He’s a killer and I’m gonna take him down.”

“Nola’s dead?”

“Yeah. Her aunt Geneva found her and called the cops. They thought that it was a white guy did it, so they brought me in to help because they couldn’t work too well so soon after the riots. But it wasn’t that white man. It was Harold. He’s been killin’ black women around here for years.”

“He has? Why didn’t somebody stop him?”

“Because nobody cares about black women bein’ killed,” I said harshly. “Nobody cares about you, girl. A man could cut your throat and throw you in the river and if a cop see you floatin’ by he wouldn’t even drag you in because he might get his shoes wet.”

I experienced a vicious satisfaction hurting Juanda like that. It was wrong but I was angry.

“Can you drive me home, Mr. Rawlins?”

“Sure I can,” I said. “I’m going to give you my number here too. If you get scared or find out something you call me. I got an answering machine now and I’ll be sure to get the message.”

I walked her down to my car and then drove her home.

On the way she didn’t chatter about her relatives and the events of her life. She pulled close to me and put her head on my shoulder.

I don’t think I ever wanted to be with a woman more in all my life. I wanted to lick the tears from her face.