Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors (19 page)

“To cover it all up and send us on another path, you saw the fictitious woman. Then you realized somebody might try to identify the marks on the withered old thing and try to figure out what did it. So you invented the woman-putting-something-in-her-purse sighting. Nice touch; to throw us off further, by the way, you were being followed by the unknown murderer. Am I right so far?”

Hannah was crying. “Give her a kiss and take her away—in handcuffs, Cowboy.”

“I'm not kissing nobody but my girlfriend ever again,” Spenser said.

Later Spenser asked me, “I don't get it. How did you know because of the cut out Vagina?”

“You've got to think like a woman. If a man tries to rape you, what's he using? His hard-ass dick. Once you beat the shit out of that, you're pretty much done if you're a woman. See, it's the Vagina you want to protect; you ain't about to give this same low-life piece of shit the most sacred part of your body—the Vagina. No way. You save that for the man who deserves it.”

“Captain, can I see you?” I asked, pushing my bouquet of roses ahead of me in the door. God knows I want this woman back.

Harlem—1954

The mist had already emptied the streets when Rhino stepped off the bus, and he was alone on the corner of 8th Avenue and 148th Street. He narrowed his eyes behind his thick lenses and strained to see how long it took before the outline of the vehicle dissolved, not so much into the hot August darkness as into the well of his own defective vision.

The bus lumbered uptown and out of sight, yet he lingered, caught now by the on-off neon flash from the Peacock Bar and Grill. He stared at the brightly lit bird above the entrance and watched the huge neon plume shower a brilliant array of light across the sidewalk. Except now, one of the tail feathers in the bird's plume lit out of sequence, stayed brighter longer, and seemed to turn off when it felt like it.

The bar appeared to be crowded, full of weekend noise, but he wanted to rush in anyway and demand to know what was happening with the
bird's feathers. He did not move. Instead, he stared harder, expecting at any minute to see a familiar name flash on the sign and light up the corner in some strange orange-and-yellow warning.

He spun around and glanced quickly over his shoulder. Still alone. Sound had come only from the wet tires of a bus headed downtown, its high beams pushing aside the wavery shadows as it passed.

Finally, he moved across the slick pavement and made his way into number 1048, a small, nondescript four-story tenement that seven families called home. He paused in the faded marble lobby and looked around. Finally, he was also home.

The door leading to the rear courtyard was ajar, and familiar sounds drifted toward him, muted by the rainwater trickling through the drainpipe. They were blues notes, deliberate and disjointed, as if someone were practicing. The pause between the beat was filled with echoes of laughter.

. . .
So. The Alley's still goin' strong. How 'bout that . . .

He sat on the steps, listening, with his small suitcase resting on his knees.

Maybe. Maybe she's there . . .

In one motion, he rose to his feet, unfolding his gaunt frame and pushing the shabby suitcase into the recess under the stairs.

. . . Fuckin' bitch. If it wasn't for her, none a this wouldna happened. None a this . . .

He moved from habit, like a cat, down the narrow steps and into the surrounding darkness toward the music, his pink fingers fanning against the rain-slick walls. In the courtyard, the rain hung like a dark curtain, obscuring the passageway leading to the Alley, but he did not pause.

Two years is damn long to be away, but I'm back now, not stayin' but gotta let these sombitches know what they done was wrong. And somebody—Matthew, Cryus, and specially that bitch, Rose—somebody gonna make it right.

Matthew Paige

Matthew Paige, sax player and lead man in the tight combo that kept the Blind Alley jammed on the weekends, hadn't intended to fall asleep on the sofa, but the heat had drawn away what little energy he had. The curtains hung limp in the living room window, and what breeze there was, wafted in hot and steamy. He had closed his eyes, intending to just take five, then rise again refreshed enough to do something useful around the apartment.

Instead, he had fallen asleep and dreamed he was being stabbed in the throat. He saw the knife, gripped in a disembodied hand. It descended and severed his windpipe and his cords and splattered blood over the sofa where he lay. He wanted to scream out to his wife, but sound was frozen somewhere in his chest. He was going to die.

“Matt!” Sandra leaned over the sofa, shaking him. “Matt. Wake up. What in the world is on your mind to make you grunt and groan like that?”

He woke, bathed in the sweat of fright and August heat. The television was still on, just as he had left it, still tuned to the McCarthy hearings. Sandra clicked the set off. “Why were you looking at television anyway, with your head hurting the way it is?”

Matthew rubbed his eyes, trying to remember. The room was so hot he could barely breathe. Earlier, he had taken off his shirt and pants. Now he looked at his arms and legs, red brown, tight muscled, and damp with sweat. He brushed his hands to his forehead.

“I don't know, I—”

Sandra handed him a B.C. headache powder and a glass of lemonade. “McCarthy.” She was careful to speak low. “Who needs to watch all that noise on TV? That communism stuff ain't none of black folks' business.”

Matthew frowned. “Try tellin' that to Paul Robeson when he was ambushed at that rally upstate. Even the cops joined in.”

He could have gone on, but it was too hot to argue. How long had he slept? Better to drain the glass before the ice melted. The tart sweet taste
on his tongue nearly loosened the constriction in his temples, but he knew that his pain, part heat but mostly champagne hangover, would take its time before subsiding, B.C. or no B.C.

And the nightmare didn't help.

He concentrated on the beat in his head, brought on by the all-night birthday party for Big Buster, the number banker, that had had the Blind Alley Social Club in the basement jammed and the drinks flowing like the Hudson.

Matthew dimly remembered playing the closing number, notes coming so cool and loose that the crowd stayed on its feet and the walls vibrated until 7
A
.
M
. Now, after too little sleep, his head felt hollow and like someone was tapping a large brick against it.

He remembered turning off the window fan in order to hear the television, but found that the whir of the fan held more substance than the droning of the pinched-faced politicians on the screen. Then he must have fallen asleep. And dreamt the dream, which he could not now recall.

“I must be gettin' old, Sandy. How come I can't even remember a dream, a bad dream. I hope it didn't have any good digits in it. We could use some extra change.”

“Forget the numbers, Matthew. How are you gonna play again tonight? You're in terrible shape.”

Matthew placed the glass on the table and looked at her. “Sandy, I haven't missed a weekend since the Alley opened, and I don't intend to miss tonight. Blue hired me to entertain, and that's just what I'm gonna do. Maybe I'll sit back and let Maxie or Gee take the lead, but I'll definitely be there.”

He was looking at the saxophone on the stand near the piano as if it were one more person in the room.

Sandra followed his gaze and decided that death was the only thing that would stop him and even after, he would probably ease back and sit in just to keep the boys on key.

“Have it your way,” she sighed, “but this burnin' the candle at both ends has got to stop sometime. You're thirty-five years old. You have a day job. You have a wife and son to think about.” She picked up the empty pitcher and left him to wrestle with his hangover.

The room was mercifully quiet, and Matthew lay on his back, this time intending to study the cracks in the ceiling.

When he woke again, the bright sunlight had given way to purpling shadows, and a cooler breeze blew though the open window.

In the kitchen, he read the note propped against the covered dinner plate.

“Theo needs new sneakers. We'll be back by 8.”

Matthew crumpled the paper. He had promised to take his son shopping and cursed himself for allowing a Saturday afternoon to slip by the way it had.

He moved through the empty rooms toward the bathroom, followed by the thread of dream he tried hard to remember.

Even the icy shower was not enough to recall the wraith-like image that floated just on the other side of memory.

. . . Dream probably didn't mean nuthin' except to tell me that champagne is too rich for my blood. Need to stick to my scotch, tasty, tried, and true.

He turned up the tiny radio on the bathroom hamper and caught the tail end of an Illinois Jacquet solo. The notes, smooth and mellow, managed to dislodge some of the hard knots inside his head.

Later, though Sandra and Theo had not yet returned, he dressed, picked up his horn, and headed downstairs. He knew that most of his guys were already in the Alley rehearsing, getting a jump on the evening.

But he needed to walk around the block, get some fresh air in his lungs before heading there.

The Blind Alley Social and Athletic Club, situated at the end of a dark corridor in the basement of Matthew's building, usually opened around nine, was crowded by midnight, and jammed to the walls around 3
A
.
M
. when the regular bars closed.

As long as Matthew had been playing there, the only athletics he had witnessed occurred when Big Blue, the owner, had to bounce an occasional troublemaker, the “athletic” part was dropped when Blue acquired his .38 special and erected a sign that advised:

WELCOME TO THE BLIND ALLEY CHECK ALL HATS, COATS ARTILLERY AND ATTITUDES AT THE DOOR

And since that time, had maintained order on his reputation alone.

Most folks were regulars who drifted in after the Peacock Bar across 8th Avenue closed for the night. Matthew wondered what would happen if the Alley were ever raided. There was, as far as he knew, only one entrance and the thought made him nervous when he allowed himself to think about it, which was not too often.

He stood on the corner watching the strollers. The air was heavy, and he felt a small scatter of raindrops, yet 8th Avenue was a parade of Saturday night movie, dance, and flashing party colors. People were going places. Others were rushing home from hairdressers, cleaners, and barbershops to prepare to join them.

He watched the crowd in the bar and knew that in a few hours, the Alley would be jammed also, despite the rain. He returned to the building, moved through the lobby, and paused at the rear door. As usual, there was no light leading down the stairs to the courtyard, and, as usual, he counted the steps in the dark.

Midway through the corridor, a quick brush of movement behind him—too loud for a cat or the dry scratching of a rat—stopped him in his tracks.
Who's that?

He turned his back toward the mouth of the corridor, moving fast, not wanting to be caught where he had no room to maneuver. And not wanting to think of Sandra's warnings! Matthew, you make good money at the Post Office. Nine to five. Five days a week. Why hang out in an after-hours spot?

And he: assuring her that the Blind Alley was safe (compared to some of those joints where folks had to cut a way in and shoot a way out, but he never mentioned those clubs). Now here he was, moving down a dark corridor with neither a gun nor knife. Just his saxophone, for which he would rather die than use to defend himself.

He held the case under his arm and peered out, scanning the dark courtyard. The rain was hard now, drumming a staccato beat atop the garbage cans.

Nuthin' . . . Just this hangover still hangin' on. Got me jumpin' at nuthin'.

He tuned again and moved toward the club.

The place was large and dark, and the essence of last night's cigarette
smoke and whisky clotted the air, but Jimmy was there, leaning over the piano, concentrating hard, and Maxie stood to the side, picking up Jimmy's rhythm on the bass. The tables circling the dance area reflected the shimmer of small candles set in tin saucers. And when Blue called out from behind the bar “Man, everybody's here. Why you took so long?” Matthew smiled, ready for the night, ready to believe that the sound in the corridor had been a figment of his imagination, just like the dream that had earlier wakened him in a cold sweat.

At midnight, the Alley was jammed.

From the stage, Matthew peered out onto the crowd, waved to the dancers on the floor nearest him, then focused on the band again.

Jimmy, still hunched over the piano, ended his solo, and Maxie eased in. Matthew listened to the descending chromatic bassline and raised his horn, waiting to pick up the cue. He was feeling good, and the horn would deliver the feeling to the crowd.

But in the split-second pause between Maxie's note and his own, he heard a sudden slam that carried above the shading of the music and low buzz of the patrons. Someone had fallen over or knocked over a chair and did not bother to pick it up.

Several persons turned to look. The dancers stopped dancing. Small talk spun away into flat silence.

Blue, pouring a drink at the bar, paused and squinted toward the door. “Well ain't this some shit.”

On the bandstand, Matthew tried to look beyond the narrow glare of the spotlight but caught only a vague movement. Then the figure came into focus as it approached the bar. “Well, I'll be damned,” Matthew whispered.

He signaled the bassist to keep the beat, although the dancers appeared frozen in position. Then he stepped off the small stage.

“Well, well. Didn't expect to see you back so soon, Rhino.”

The man turned to scrutinize Matthew, then stared out at the crowded floor, his thick glasses already fogged with sweat.

“Things happen, Matthew. Things happen, and I'm out. I guess they
figured no point holdin' me for getting rid of a cat like Tommy. I probably did 'em a favor.”