Butterflies in Heat (36 page)

Now Ned's purpose was altogether clear. Ned was enjoying his little moment of triumph.

"There was a time a honky dude like the commodore would have got it for almost free," Ned said. "Me, he'd get free. You, he'd slip about ten bucks to." He grinned. "Now there's a premium price on black meat. The finest choice sirloin is cheaper. Dinah and me are two colored children who'll continue to put out for white mothers like the
commodo—but
we want to hear the jangle of coins. You, on the other hand, your stock is nowhere, man." He slammed the beer down on the bar as if to emphasize his point.

Numie stood defiantly. He knew better than to meet Ned's challenge, yet he couldn't resist the bait. "We'll see about that."

"Gotta spell it out, huh, like in school?" Ned asked, swinging his feet over the bar and making for another beer. "You are retired, cat! As of last night, retired! Off the meatrack! Used up, man! There ain't no more free meal tickets coming your way."

"That right, huh? See that red sports car sitting out there?" Christ, now he was talking just like Lola, pointing to her Facel-Vega.

"Man, I don't have blinders on."

"That belongs to Ralph Douglas." Numie hiked up his pants. "For what I've got, he pays and pays plenty." He turned and walked from the bar.

Castor's cat had now dragged the rat onto the cobblestones outside. Another stray was showing interest in the dead prey. Castor's calico growled, staking her claim.

Tossing his duffel bag into the front seat, Numie felt he'd cheapened himself in front of Ned. But Ned had hurt, cut through right to the quick. How sad, Numie thought, the only rejoinder he had was to claim status as someone else's boy.

He was driving to Chino's Cafe where he'd met Anne yesterday afternoon. Only the bitter black coffee there could get rid of his disgust with himself. With that black coffee, he hoped to bum out his own self-loathing and cleanse his system. Maybe that was what Dinah was doing with that whiskey so early in the morning. Maybe that was what whores like himself had to do.

How long could he stay commercial? Even with Raiph, he had his doubts. For Ralph, a few weeks with Numie could be no more than a tryout, an experiment. In no time, Numie could be back on the streets.

How to become the buyer instead of the seller? He never could figure that one out. But even when he retired as the seller, he knew he'd never purchase sex off anybody.
If
it weren't given freely, he wasn't going to have any.

He meant that.

In the late of the afternoon, while everyone at Sacre-Coeur was in siesta, Numie brought Ralph's red sports car to a stop before the gingerbread Victorian bus terminal.

Tangerine ran through the Dr. Pepper screen door. "Thank God you're here to kiss me good-bye."

"I got your call," Numie said, slamming the car door. He looked her up and down. She was in her Easter parade finery, and it was causing her to perspire heavily in this August heat wave. In a loose-fitting pink dress, she had draped a too small black patent leather belt around her large waist. Her purse and open-toed pumps were also in black patent leather. The cracks had been smoothly coated with Vaseline. Over her arm she carried a foam-backed, silk-looking purple raincoat.

"Like it?" she asked, smiling. Some of her mascara had started to run in the intense heat.

"You look great!" he said, lying. He wound his arms around her, as she snaked in tight. "Where you going so sudden like and all dressed up?"

"I'm leaving Tortuga," she said, kissing his lips. Her breath smelled of gin. "Leonora, everything. I'm walking right out after all these years." Reaching into her purse, she held up a pink handkerchief. "My life savings. Three hundred and twenty dollars and seventeen cents. All tied up real neat."

The sky was growing hazy, the way
it
does when thunder clouds move over before a storm. "What's the rush?" he asked.

"I'm in love," she said, squeezing his arm. Then as if she didn't expect him to believe it, she repeated. "Really in love. Thought it would never happen. But
it
has." She sounded like a little girl.

He didn't trust her feeling. Her voice was too giddy, too desperate, as if she were trying to convince herself. "Who you in love with?"

Just then, the screen door opened again. "Come on, Tangerine,' a man yelled. He stood in the doorway, his lips tubing around the top of a gingerale bottle. The liquid wasn't gingerale, but gin. With dirty fingers, he patted away the drippings on his mouth.

"That's him," she said proudly, her eyes blazing. "Hayden." She ran toward him, snuggling into the cradle of his arm. He backed away. She covered the rejection by reaching for the gingerale bottle. Swigging down about two ounces, she handed it back. He took it and with the same dirty fingers elaborately cleaned the bottle top. That one action told Numie all he needed to know.

Hayden was like an old tough in a leather jacket and levis. His face was pockmarked, his complexion the color of beets.

"I want you to meet my best friend," Tangerine said.

Numie didn't want to shake the man's hand, but did so anyway.

Hayden would not look him straight in the eye. "Shit, gal," he said, turning away, "I ain't got no time for socializing with best friends or even enemies as far as that goes." He tossed the bottle into an open garbage pile caught by a wire fence. "Give me the money, and I'll buy the tickets."

Impulsively Numie also reached to rescue the life's savings Tangerine was so trustingly handing over.

The pink handkerchief stuffed quickly into his pocket, Hayden disappeared fast, slamming the Dr. Pepper door.

"You sure like them friendly," Numie said.

She took his hand, saying softly, "You wouldn't believe it to look at him. But last night—I met him in a bar—he was so loving and kind." She gave off a smell of rancid wetness. "That's why I asked him to go back home with me to Atlanta."

"Atlanta?"

Two boys waiting on a bench turned up their transistor radio.

"Yes, I come from there," she said. "Hayden's gonna find work up there in Georgia ... somewhere. I'll have to send for my things." She frowned. "He don't like none of my junk, so I'm leaving everything behind."

He looked deeply into the trusting eyes of this tender, loving woman. "Even your slopjar?"

Her lips quivered. "Even that."

"You must love Hayden a lot to leave that behind." He glanced nervously through the plate-glass window into the terminal. No one was at the ticket counter.

"I'm gonna introduce him as my husband," Tangerine said. Her breath was coming in swift takes. "My other two sisters—younger than I am but a hell of a lot uglier, let me tell you—they both got husbands." She was squeezing his arm again, but applying more pressure than before. "Don't you think it's about time I caught one?"

"The time is ripe," Numie said. The announcer on the transistor radio was talking about nostalgia. Then the sounds of "Pink Carnations" drifted across the oil-streaked courtyard of the terminal. "But Hayden comes on strong. Sure you're doing the right thing?"

"You bet your left nipple I am," she said. He detected a tear in her eye, but reckoned it might be a speck of dust. "Now, don't you go putting him down, sweetie. You're just jealous 'cause you can't have me." She nudged him under the chin.

"That's true," he said, smiling. "But he strikes me funny—that's all." The screeching of brakes brought four Cubans in a 1957 baby-blue convertible to a halt near the entrance. All of them scrambled out a door painted with a three-foot snake.
It
was almost fluorescent. Turning to look back at Tangerine, Numie asked, "What did you tell Leonora?"

Tangerine dropped her eyes, saying, "Oh, I just couldn't bring myself to tell her anything. I know I should have. But Leonora gets hysterical at the idea of someone running out on her." Her hand reached up in the stale hot air as if a golden apple hung on a tree. "Leonora wouldn't see this as my last chance for happiness."

Numie was growing impatient: "Did you at least leave her a note?"

"Yes," she said sheepishly. "I've never had enough guts to stand up to her anyway."

"Don't worry," Numie said. "You'd better catch that bus---or else Hayden will be spending his honeymoon with his fist." He led her to the station, as three of the Cubans piled out the door, heading for the bus.

"Just a minute," she said, pausing in front of a dusty mirror in the waiting room. The mirror made her look like a slab of jelly. Puffy, dark circles under her eyes. Dirty face. Smears of old makeup. She did her best with repairs and topped it all off with a generous new coating of scarlet lipstick. Then she tried smoothing the wrinkles out of her wilted pink dress.

"EVERYBODY ABOARD."

"For Christ's sake!" Numie called, his eyes darting around the waiting room in search of Hayden.

"Wait a minute!" she cried, rushing up to the station master. "Seen my husband? The only man wearing leather on an August day." Her voice was hysterical. "He was in here buying the tickets." Her words were stabbing the hot air.

The man looked as if she were a crazy woman. "Nope," he said.

"What do you mean?" Numie asked. "He was just in here. He took the ..." Pausing in mid-sentence, he gave Tangerine a probing look.

She seemed to be reading his thoughts. "You're wrong." Her hand went to her mouth. "We're going to Atlanta. To see my folks." She grabbed Numie's shoulder and pushed him toward the men's room. "In there. Tell him he can potty on the bus."

Quickly Numie entered the toilet, the same one where he'd spotted Johnny Yellowwood. Empty. No, there were feet under the lone booth. "The bus is leaving," Numie shouted. No response. Pulling back the unlocked door, an annoyed Numie stared into the face of Castor Q. Combes.

''Violet eyes!" Castor yelled. "Get out of here, you queer. A guy can't take a shit without you fags getting off stealing a peek."

In panic, Numie slammed the door shut and rushed outside. "He's not in there," he said to Tangerine.

"The money," she said, reaching into her purse as if to confirm its loss. "Everything," she sighed, "everything tied up in that handkerchief."

"You going on this bus, lady?" the station master asked.

"No, I ain't going alone," she said softly, closing her purse.

"Where did he go? He didn't say nothing about going anywhere except with me."

"Didn't have to," the man said. "I know him."

"Then you did see him?" Numie accused.

"I saw a man named Gordon Boyd," the station master answered, smoking his pipe. "The lady asked me if I saw her husband." He smiled. "Now I'm not likely to see her husband, am I—considering she don't have a husband?"

Tangerine was shaking so badly Numie put his arm around her. "Look," he said impatiently, "did you see the guy she was with?"

"Yep," he said. "The sheriff wants him for beating his wife. Beat her nearly to death, then left her with three bawling kids and no money to feed 'em."

"Where do you think he went?" Numie asked, tightening his hold on Tangerine.

"He's probably hiding out on a shrimp boat. When he saw me, he ran. It's dangerous for him to be at the bus station anyway. Johnny Yellowwood comes here all the time."

"I
know,"
Numie said. Turning his back on the station master, Numie took Tangerine's hand and guided her out.

In the courtyard again, she blinked at the bright sun. Catching her reflection in the plate-glass window, she went over for a closer look. "Fat ... and old ... and ugly," she said out loud.

The bus was pulling out. One boy left on the bench was listening to
Tennessee Waltz.
"You're beautiful," Numie said, coming up behind Tangerine.

She backed away, putting her hand on her hip. "To think," she said, "I used to brag to my mama about returning to Atlanta like a grand movie queen. Even grander than Mae West. A real celebrity, riding on a white train with red upholstery." She tossed her head back, running her hands down her figure. "The school band there to meet me. The mayor and all the town brass."

Numie held on to her reassuringly. The boy with the transistor got up and walked away. The baby-blue convertible pulled out. The terminal yard was deserted now, except for a stumbling old drunk. But even he ducked behind a fruit market and faded from view. Not a sign of life.