Femme Noir (20 page)

I stared at her until we both burst out laughing. Max lifted herself onto a counter and sat, shrugging. “Why don’t you just rummage around and see what you can find? I’m not going to wait on you.”

I grabbed a bag of chips, removed the clip and ate a handful. “Shit,” I said, spraying crumbs, “these are stale.”

“Uh-huh.” Max shrugged. “It’s the weather. I can barely open my doors, and if I wanted the windows open, I’d have to use a hammer. What is easy the rest of the year now requires a kick and a curse. Sometimes I just turn off the air conditioner, open the windows, and soak a top sheet in cold water and go to sleep with it on top of me.”

I nodded and stepped to the gleaming stainless steel refrigerator and opened it. “What do you have in here?” I opened numerous containers.

“I don’t know. Leftover stuff. Ruby cooks for me.”

I looked her up and down. “You don’t cook, huh?”

“Not at
all,
so drop your sexist hopes, you pig.”

“You don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I can read you like a little black book.”

“Don’t you have any
meat?
” I was leaving containers all over the marble countertops.

“There should be something in there to satisfy you,” she said, laughter caught in her throat.

“You’ve got a couple of steaks. Why don’t you just grill those up for us real quick?” I smiled winningly and nudged her knee.

“You’ve got it all backwards, Leon. I don’t do for you. You do for me.” She vaulted herself gracefully off the counter, her soft robe parting and legs flashing.

The prospect made my mouth go dry, so I looked into dishes further. “Mmm, mmm, mmm, I like a woman who loves her meat,” I murmured into the cold refrigerator. At last, I found some brisket and took that to the table with bread. Max watched all of this, amused. As I settled in to eat, she retrieved the cold coffee from the deck and a fresh glass of ice, poured a cup, and came to sit with me.

“You are something else.” I grinned, my mouth full. Max said nothing, her eyes large. She sipped daintily from her cold mug. I did not want to appear too grateful, so I belched, put a toothpick in my mouth and my legs on the table.

“Ruby would appreciate you returning things to the way you found them,” Max said. I complied, feeling utterly pussy-whipped, but knowing that cleaning up after myself was the right thing to do. “So a story for your supper?” She smiled after I sat again.

“Yeah, okay. My experience here…my experience here…well, for one thing, Tulsa has got to be the most segregated place in the world. This is such a white town. Where are all my people?”

Max laughed. “Yeah, I know. It’s terrible. My neighbors think Sloane is my
help.
”

“Not at all surprised.” I glanced out the window where the tiny buttery lights from the guest cottage were barely visible through the trees.

Lightning flashed in the distance. “Maybe a storm on the way.” Distant thunder.

“Yeah?”

“Spring and fall are our rainy seasons. We have massive thunderboomers, but we almost never have rain in the summer. The clouds just burn up. But maybe you brought stormy air with you.” Max bent, unwound the towel, and sat up again, her hair hanging in tousled strings. “You were saying?”

“Can I have a cigarette?” My infernal lung/hand/mouth itch started again.

“Sure, but do let’s go outside. Ruby hates a smoky kitchen.”

“Who’s master, you or Ruby?”

“No question, it’s Ruby.” She laughed.

I put a hand on the small of her back, marveling at the fuzzy down of her robe. “What’s her secret?”

“You take care of my home and me, you can have certain preferences honored too,” Max replied tartly, edging away from my hand and giving me a cigarette.

“Not in it that deep,” I replied sternly.

“Yes, you are,” she said buttery as cream.

“Now I’m certain you want me to be.” I smiled. She turned away quickly and we walked outside into the moisture-drenched air. I started sweating immediately, just a prickle at the small of my back, the nape of my neck, and a melting in my armpits.

Crickets filled the night with peaceful song. Max and I sat in a glider that she kept in constant motion. I was convinced that was due to her pent-up desire. On the horizon, cloud banks were piled so high, they looked like the Rocky Mountains. It gave me pause to recognize them as clouds.

“You were saying?” she prompted politely. On the side table, I noticed magazines puffed and curled from moisture, and books swelled and warped by humidity. Max stared straight ahead. I told her all about Michelle and the secret Jack shared. About the McKerrs and Greenwood and Michelle’s blackmail attempt. She listened intently.

“So I know it’s the family. Some power-hungry asshole offed her and got away with it.”

“Could be. What are you going to do?” Max asked.

“What do you mean? I ain’t gonna tell if that’s what you’re asking. I have the information thirdhand, no proof, no suspects, just gossip, a peek at an unsubstantiated letter, and an alleged motive. And I’m
black.
I’m nobody here. Just ask the KKK and all your neighbors and the people of Greenwood.”

“You
are
somebody.” Without looking at me, Max slipped her hand into mine. It was such a tender, innocent gesture, it almost undid me. My throat tightened around a lump. Lightning flashed closer. Thunder rumbled. The air was thick as treacle. I struggled to breathe, my lungs unaccustomed to percolating in all this wet.

“Well, I guess that’s your story for tonight,” she said, stretching as she stood. “I can keep you no longer. I’m sure you need your rest.”

“Yes, I do. I’m going to the library tomorrow to research this thing.”

“What thing?”

“The race riot on Greenwood in ’21. I need to know more.” I shrugged and added uselessly, “I need to.”

“Okay.” She walked me to the back door. I stared at her until she met my gaze.

“I’m checking out of my hotel. I’ll get my things and come back here. Leave the door unlocked.”

Her gaze softened and she nodded, seeming more and more like a demure Southern belle.

“I know there’s no lock on your bedroom door either.” I grinned.

Max raised her chin defiantly. “The lock is my intention and your obedience.”

I ran my tongue over my lips, considering this. I nodded and ignored her ripe, upturned mouth. I grabbed my keys and went to my car, still clad only in the borrowed robe and not caring.

Chapter Eighteen

When I returned, I found, to my suppressed triumph, the door unlocked and the house dark except for one light that led me to the guest bedroom. I locked the front door, dropped my suitcase on the bed, and tiptoed to Max’s room. Works every time, I thought. You top ’em right and before you know it, you got a beautiful bottom on your hands.

The door was closed, so I just stroked it and returned to my room. The thunderstorm was growling its way over the city, the rain just beginning. I closed my bedroom door, turned off the light, and collapsed into sleep.

I was awakened by a crack of thunder. Lightning flashed, rain was pelting the windows. Without moving, I opened my eyes a millimeter and saw Max’s outline in the doorway. I smiled, closed my eyes, and fell asleep again.

The next morning, food smells awoke me to a sweet sunny day loud with birdsong and rasping locusts. I ambled groggily to the kitchen where Max and Sloane sat with another woman at the table.

“Well, well, well, N. You finally got it together.” Sloane grinned.

“Nah, nah, I’m only a
guest,
” I replied more bitterly than necessary.

Max and Sloane looked at each other. Max continued eating eggs silently.

“Closer, my man, closer. Closer than anyone’s been since—”

“Sloane!” Max barked. “Your burned muffins are stinking up this whole house.”

“I know, I’m sorry, Max. I’m just playing. You know me, I play too much. Nora, this is DeAndretta. DeAndretta, this is Nora, just passing through from LA solving mysteries on the PI tip.”

DeAndretta smiled shyly, the glow on her walnut skin unmistakable. I nodded to her, feeling jealous and miserable. Somehow, being in Max’s house was worse than yearning to be here from the hotel. I had not gone this long without sex since…since I was a teenager. I glared at Max, who was oblivious.

“Nora, Ruby left quite a lot of breakfast. There are scrambled eggs, toast, juice, bacon, cereal—whatever you like. Help yourself. I’ve got to go get dressed. And did you hear? Electricity is out all over town from snapped tree limbs and severe winds. I bet the roads will be impassable from all the branches.”

“Guess we’ll go too.” Sloane stood, wiping her mouth. “I’ve gotta get this one home before her husband notices her missing.”

DeAndretta slapped Sloane’s arm. “She’s just playing again.” They laughed together. “Nice to meet you all.”

“See ya, N. Later, Max,” Sloane called.

“So…just us.” I looked at Max, who had the gall to look fresh and beautiful.

“Yes, and now, just you.” Max rose. “Enjoy your breakfast. Here’s a spare key; use it wisely.”

“For good and not for evil,” I promised, clasping it. Max smiled.

After breakfast, I sat on my bed, contemplating the map. The closest library was downtown so I decided on that one.

I got a cup of ice and crunched it viciously as I dressed. I popped more allergy meds. I left without seeing Max. I drove downtown. I couldn’t find a parking space close so I walked three blocks, simmering the whole way. By the time I arrived, I was angry and slimy wet and sunburned.

Chapter Nineteen

The library was four floors, and a kind librarian helped me find the right section.

“You may want to look at the old newspapers too. That’s on the third floor.”

“Okay, thanks.” I settled in with avid curiosity. I randomly picked two books. One entitled
Greenwood: America’s Tragedy
and another called
Broken Dreams: The Undeclared War on African-Americans.

The story pulled me in. Due to segregation, there was a thriving black economy in north Tulsa, the center of which was the street called Greenwood. The blacks were entirely self-sufficient: their own doctors, lawyers, and bankers as well as craftsmen, entrepreneurs, skilled and unskilled labor, grocery stores, a movie theater, restaurants, barbers, retail shops, everything. It was a place booming with success and expanding. Racial tensions had been simmering for years before the riot and there had been beatings and lynchings. But because blacks had served in World War I, they had returned with an intolerance for abuse and there was much more anger and mobilization to fight back.

“We just mind our business and try to get on with life and Whitey just won’t have it,” I muttered. I was beginning to feel anxious reading this terrible tale.

Then, on May 31, 1921, after a silly, hysterical white woman falsely accused a black male elevator operator of assault, it was gasoline on the smoldering coals of racist hatred.

First, the accused man was put into jail “for his own protection” as there was already a white mob gathered to lynch him. Next, the honorable black veterans and other movers and shakers in Greenwood went to meet the mob downtown at the jail to prevent the lynching. Then every white man that cared to be was deputized, including many members of the Ku Klux Klan, of which the police chief and fire chief were rumored to have been members. That entitled them to be armed against a peaceful, unarmed black population. The majority of black men were systematically rounded up and jailed, also “for their own protection.” Included in the sweep were also some women and children carted off to prison when no one had committed any crime. Next, whatever arms the police could find were confiscated, so the remaining residents were unable to defend themselves against the building assault. Then, several hours after many incendiary editorials published in the
Tulsa Tribune
and
Extras,
including one infamous headline that read:
to lynch a nigger tonight
(the original of which has mysteriously disappeared, no trace having been found of it even in the archives), the looting, bombing, and murdering began. Most of the black men were unarmed and helpless in jail while the rest of the families battled it out the best they could, often just hiding until the whites had stolen what they wanted and set fire to the house before leaving. The atrocities were inconceivable. A black man was tied to the bumper of a car and dragged down the street until dead. His head exploded like a melon, witnesses reported. Children watched as their parents were shot in front of them; businesses and shops were looted and destroyed; a whole world, carefully, lovingly built, was annihilated.

Jack was right. Tulsa never asked for help to contain the conflagration or to manage the mob of white people. Tulsa never applied for aid for the remaining black citizens after the massacre. And it hadn’t admitted any fault or parted with one thin dime since. Even the graves remained unmarked.

I slammed the book down, and ran to the bathroom, shaking. Luckily, it was empty, so I was able to lock myself in a stall and tremble and coach myself into calming down.