Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors (21 page)

“Maybe not,” said C.J. “I was there at Nobby's,” he added, watching his uncle struggle to separate a stack of coffee filters from one another with aging, arthritic fingers. “There really wasn't a fight. What happened was Billy almost beaned Cordell with a pool cue after losing a thousand dollars to him at eight ball. He claimed Cordell was cheating.”

“Then he probably was,” Marguerite said indignantly.

Winning his battle with the filter paper, Unc slipped a new filter into the brew bin of his coffeemaker before glancing up. “A thousand dollars! Where'd Billy get that kinda money?”

Marguerite looked surprised. “I thought you knew, Ike. Last week Billy got lucky at Policy. He hit the numbers for eighteen thousand. It was all over Five Points.”

“Did the cops find any of the money on him?” asked C.J.

“No,” said Marguerite. “His wallet was missin', and according to Coletta, so were his watch and glasses. Don't matter. I still say it was Cordell lookin' for revenge.”

“Was Coletta the first person the cops called after they found Billy?” asked C.J.

“Yes.”

“Why'd they call her?”

“ 'Cause they couldn't get in touch with me, I guess. And she is kin. She and Jeffrey Watkins are the ones who identified Billy's body.”

“I see,” said C.J., trying to picture Jeffrey Watkins, Coletta's itinerant saxophone-playing boyfriend, a man he hadn't seen in three years. “What about that girlfriend of Billy's, Retha Ann? Has she talked to the cops?”

“I don't know. But I do know this. She's a real sweetie. She and Billy were plannin' on gettin' married next year.” Marguerite broke into a series of false starts and began to cry. Choking back tears, she said, “She's the best thing that ever happened to Billy. She's got money and class. And she's been in newspapers, you know.”

Ike Johnson shot C.J. a look that said,
check the girlfriend out,
just as the coffee began loudly gurgling its way into the coffeepot behind him. When the coffee finished brewing, Unc squeezed Marguerite's shoulders reassuringly and said, “How about a refill to warm you up, and then I'll take you back home.”

“And you'll find out who killed my Billy,” said Marguerite, choking back a new rush of tears.

“Guarantee it,” said Unc as a final orphaned gurgle erupted from the coffeemaker.

Rosie's Garage was a Five Points enterprise zone business success and automotive-repair-shop jewel. Once a rundown eyesore of a gas station, Rosie's now sported a spotless concrete drive, three service islands with six late-1940s-style pumps, and a garage with three service bays. The tall, stately antique pumps with their crowning white enamel globes had become late-1960s Denver landmarks, and whenever Denver politicians wanted to showcase black community business successes, they never failed to single out Rosie's, the place where most Five Points gossip got its legs.

Roosevelt Weaks, the garage's six-foot-five behemoth of an owner,
was counting out change from a twenty to a customer at the front-office cash register when C.J. walked in. After he finished, he said the same thing he did after every business transaction: “Come see us again, now, hear?” When he looked up and saw C.J., a smile that mirrored their long-term friendship spread across his face. “C.J., my man, hear you've been playin' referee,” he said, sliding the twenty under the till.

“Where'd you hear that?” said C.J., giving Rosie a quick high five before pulling up a nearby stool.

“Coletta Burns. She stopped in here 'bout an hour ago and filled up that little MG of hers. Said you kept Cordell Hopsen from gettin' brained by her stepbrother over at Nobby's last night.”

Looking chagrined, C.J. said, “I did, but Billy got himself killed a few hours later.”

“Heard that too. Terrible thing.”

“Any rumors about who might have punched Billy's ticket?”

Surprised by the question, Rosie said, “Hell, C.J., if I didn't know better, I'd swear you was a cop.”

“Just wondering. Unc asked me to nose around a little, you know, on account of his connection to Billy's mamma, Marguerite.”

“Oh,” said Rosie, nodding understandingly. “Ain't heard much, but I can pretty much tell you why Billy bought the farm.”

C.J. snapped a bag of corn nuts off a half-empty display rack on the counter. “Go ahead.”

“The blockhead had been flashin' the money he won at Policy around the Points for damn near a week. Even gave me a little taste of it. Paid me forty-five bucks the other day to wash, wax, and tune up that junker Plymouth of his.”

“Sounds to me like Billy was itching for a visit from Bonnie and Clyde.”

“Better than takin' another hit from Coletta. The girl was into him for ten grand, easy. I know for a fact that Billy put up a good slice of the money it took to set her up in that dance studio of hers that went south.” Noticing a look of confusion spreading across C.J.'s face, Rosie added, “Billy fronted her the money to start a dance studio down here on the Points while you was in Vietnam. It lasted a year or so. Folded four or five
months before you come home. Word is Billy was real mad about losin' his money, and folks say he was thinkin' about takin' Coletta to court. Don't know why, though. Wasn't no way in the world she could've paid him back. Every dime she makes sale clerkin' at the May D&F goes to keepin' that connivin' leech of a saxophone-playin' live-in of hers in whiskey and silks.”

“Jeffrey Watkins?”

Rosie nodded.

“That's the second time today his name's come up.”

“Here's a third. When Coletta stopped in here for gas, the whole front seat of her car was jammed packfull of Billy's clothes. I recognized 'em right off. Them flashy Hawaiian shirts and straw hats he was fond of wearin'. I think she was takin' the stuff to Watkins. You ask me, it's sorta sick.”

C.J. nodded, mulling over the information. “Anybody else who might've had it in for Billy?”

“Nobody I can think of 'sides Cordell. Ain't no one seen him, though, since he and Billy locked horns. Word on the street is the cops are dyin' to hear his story.”

C.J. stroked his chin. “Cordell's wired a little strange, but I'm not sure about him being a killer.”

Rosie eyed C.J. sternly. “Things around here have changed a lot since you went to Vietnam, C.J. Ain't no way of tellin' what folks is capable of no more. People been at each other's throats over that war. Choosin' up sides and pointin' fingers, if you get my drift. And not just white folks—black folks too. There's a bucketful of tension over that war, C.J., and tension makes for strange bedfellows, as they say.”

“What's that got to do with Cordell?” asked C.J., eyeing the foot-long keloid running down his left forearm, a scar left behind from a battlefield encounter with a flying piece of shrapnel.

Rosie looked around the room to make certain no one was listening. Lowering his voice, he said, “Cordell's got connections downtown. The high-rankin' political kind, if you know what I mean. Word makin' the rounds is he's an informant for the cops, fingerin' everything from war protesters to dope dealers down here on the Points.”

C.J. laughed. “There's no way in hell that little worm would have the kind of information worth killing for.”

“Maybe not. But I know for certain he's one of the reasons the cops been able to pretty much wipe out the dope traffic around here. Maybe the cops and the politicians were through usin' Cordell. Could be it was time to wipe the slate clean.”

“You've been watching too much television, Rosie, but I'll be sure to ask Cordell about his snitchin' ways when I see him.”

“Good luck findin' him. He's as slippery as an eel.”

“I'll find him,” C.J. said emphatically. “I know where eels like him hang out. One last question before I hit the bricks. What's with Billy's girlfriend, Retha Ann? Never saw her in my life before the other night.”

Rosie smiled. “Girl's slummin', my man. She lives in Cherry Hills with the white rights, and her father's a judge. Hear tell her daddy don't like her hangin' around us unwashed types down here in Five Points.”

“Things
are
changing,” said C.J. with a start. “Black folks in Cherry Hills! And without so much as a mop, an apron, or a broom.”

“Think she might've had reason to do Billy in?”

“No, but her father might've.”

“Yeah,” said Rosie, nodding and stoking his chin.

“Gotta go. Time's money,” said C.J., rising from the stool.

“Speakin' of money, you owe me fifteen cents for the corn nuts.”

C.J. reached into his pocket and flipped Rosie a quarter.

“Where you gonna start?”

“With the obvious, a bucketful of eels,” said C.J., heading toward the door and leaving Rosie looking dumbfounded.

C.J. slipped on his Stetson, buttoned his vest, and lit up a cheroot as he headed for his two-tone red-and-white 1957 drop-top Chevy Bel Air, a car Rosie had helped him restore before he left for Vietnam. As he slipped behind the wheel, he began mapping out a preliminary strategy for finding Billy Pinkey's killer. First he'd find Cordell; then he'd talk with Coletta and Retha Ann. That evening he'd do a little snooping, maybe scope out Billy's Five Points apartment. He was glad Unc had asked him to help find Billy's killer. Playing detective was turning out to be the adrenaline jolt he needed, he told himself as he nosed the Bel Air down Speer Boulevard toward the
hobo jungles of Denver's Platte River valley to look for Cordell. And on top of that, it was a hell of a lot safer than Vietnam.

“The cops say the motive for Billy's murder was robbery all right,” said Unc, looking up from the basket of fried chicken wings on his desktop and tossing the last of the bones onto a nearby paper plate. “Sure you don't want nothin' to eat? I can order more.” When C.J. didn't answer, Unc said, “Cops only found forty cents in change in Billy's pockets. And would you believe it,” Unc said with a chuckle, “when I pressed 'em for more information, SOBs told me to keep my nose and my crippled black ass outa police business.” Realizing that C.J., who'd been jotting notes on a legal pad, was only half listening, Unc picked up a chicken bone and tossed it at C.J.'s head. “You listenin', boy?”

C.J. nodded.

“Now that we're on the same wavelength, mind tellin' me what the hell you doin'?”

“Trying to figure out who killed Billy.”

Forcing back the urge to laugh, Unc said, “You spent the whole damn afternoon and a good part of the evenin' lookin', and you couldn't even find Cordell. Then you tried callin' the daughter of the only black district court judge in the state, hopin' she'd incriminate herself in a murder.” Unc shook his head. “You got a lot to learn, C.J. A hell of a lot.”

C.J. stopped writing, set his tablet aside, and looked up at his uncle sheepishly.

Unc patted C.J. on the shoulder reassuringly. “Don't take it so hard, C.J. Everybody gotta learn. Here's a few hints for you before you spring yourself on Coletta and go breakin' into Billy's apartment, like you said you gonna. Whoever killed Billy killed him over money, to get revenge, or outa spite. Eighteen grand's a powerful incentive, but revenge and spite are powerful motives for killin' too. When you go talk to Coletta, keep her on the defensive. That'll make her nervous. See if she sweats. People with nothin' to hide usually don't.”

C.J. nodded, taking his uncle's instructions to heart as he glanced out the window toward the fading light. “Got any other tips?”

“Take these with you,” said Unc, sliding a .38 and a slim jim door jimmy he'd taken out of his top drawer across the desk toward C.J. “The gun's registered. The slim jim's on me,” said Unc, watching C.J. eye the two objects tentatively. “Just remember when you jimmy the door latch, wait for a click before you push the door open.”

C.J. nodded and slipped the slim jim into his shirt pocket without touching the .38.

“What about the pistol?”

“Think I'll need it?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But let me ask you this. When you was in Vietnam, did that boat you was on ever go out on night patrol without its machine gun?”

C.J. thought for a second before reaching for the .38 and slipping it into the back pocket of his loose-fitting pants.

“Call me if you need me,” said Unc, picking up the remote and snapping on the TV. “I'll be watchin' the fights.”

C.J. nodded, stood, and headed for the front door, leaving Unc listening to a gravel-voiced TV announcer belt out the Friday night fight ticket.

C.J. didn't like spying on people. It made him feel guilty, but he'd spent the last five minutes peering through the first-floor window of Coletta Burns's small Five Points bungalow, watching as Coletta and a bare-chested Jeffrey Watkins played kissy-face on a red velvet couch in front of a flickering black-and-white TV. Running down the list of questions he planned to ask Coletta, he rose from behind a large mugho pine, strolled up the steps to the front door, and rang the doorbell.