Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors (28 page)

On the morning of January 2, the trio of detectives stood at the busy intersection of Clark and Diversey. B. J. Jackson, clad in a pastel gray derby with matching suit and overcoat, said, “First we'll split up and check the stores that the dead woman made her credit card purchases
from. Then we'll begin canvassing every store within a mile of this intersection in all directions. If we don't come up with anything then—”

“Who died and left you in charge?” Esmeralda bristled.

Before an argument could blossom, Hogan stepped between them. “We must stay together. It will take us longer to complete the canvass, but we will be able to maintain some degree of safety.”

“Now what are you talking about?” B. J. demanded.

“You way not yet believe in the werewolf, but it is aware of you. So as we hunt it, it will be hunting us.”

Their eyes locked for a moment, but finally B. J. relented. “Whatever you say, Detective Hogan. After all you are the consultant on this investigation.”

They began to canvass stores in the area.

That night the werewolf struck again. The victim was a homeless man, who died in the same fashion as the first three victims. However, this time there was a witness.

The homeless man had been collecting cans in the alley behind the 2400 block of North Lincoln Avenue when “something” attacked him. An elderly woman confined to a wheelchair had been sitting next to a window overlooking the alley and saw the entire thing. By the time Hogan, Montoya, and Jackson arrived, she was close to going into shock. She had a thick accent, which her daughter, who was sixty, explained to the detectives was due to her native tongue being Romanian. The old lady kept repeating one word, which the daughter translated. That word was “werewolf.”

On the morning of January 16, which dawned bright, sunny and cold, B. J. Jackson and Esmeralda Montoya arrived at Tom Hogan's apartment. The retired detective had set up a map of the near north side of the city in his cluttered living room. On it were nine red pins, each indicating the location where the werewolf had struck in the last two weeks. Now, after a
number of eyewitness accounts of what had caused the deaths of the previous nine victims, Esmeralda and B. J. had become believers.

“Look at this,” Hogan said, pointing to the red pins in the map.

B. J., who was clad in a bright blue derby with matching outfit, said, “That's the location where each of the bodies was found. We already know that, Tom.”

“Look closer,” the retired detective said, exercising the patience he was always forced to display when addressing the derby-wearing cop.

B. J. did look closer, but was unable to see anything but the pins. However, Esmeralda discovered what Hogan was getting at. Removing a black eyeliner from her purse, she began tracing lines between the pins on the map.

“It's a star,” she said, stepping back and admiring her handiwork. “Or at least almost a star. Part of it is missing.”

“Very good, my dear,” Hogan said. “It is a pentagram. And the last missing point is . . .” He took her pencil and completed the figure. “ . . . right here.”

B. J. stepped forward and squinted at the map. “That's a little side street off Halsted near Wrightwood. There's nothing there but a few old apartment buildings and a couple of secondhand shops.”

“What we have here, my dear fellow partners in crime solving,” Hogan said, “is a message from the werewolf. In its arrogance the monster is either telling us where the next murder will occur or where we can find it in human form. Shall we go?”

The short street looked like an alley. It was rundown, shabby, and wasn't well traveled. There were a few ragged tenement buildings, most of which were abandoned, a trash-strewn vacant lot and two storefronts. One of the stores was occupied by a used plumbing supply company and the other was the Pentacle Antique Shop. The Pentacle sign was written in white Old English script on a black background. Beneath the lettering was a pentagram.

“Are you sure we should go in there?” B. J. said, his voice trembling.

Hogan and Esmeralda turned to look at him, “Have you got a better idea?” the retired detective responded.

“Big fraidy cat,” Esmeralda goaded.

B. J. was the last one through the door.

The interior of the Pentacle Antique Shop was as cluttered and dusty as Tom Hogan's apartment. There were all types of antiques on display from handmade furniture to ancient weaponry. A glass case ran the length of the shop. Inside was an odd assortment of costume jewelry, most of which was no more than junk. However, one piece in particular drew their attention. It was a jewel-studded pentagram exactly like the one that the female victim had been wearing before she was murdered on New Year's Eve.

“I've got a bad feeling about this,” B. J. moaned.

The woman's voice came from behind them. “Good morning. I am Lucretia Talbot, the proprietress of this establishment. May I help you?”

The three detectives were so startled by her sudden appearance that they spun around and backed up so abruptly they almost knocked over the display case.

Lucretia Talbot was tall, thin, and dressed completely in black. She had black hair worn in a boyish cut and features that could only be described as sharp. Then there were the eyes. They were as black as a pit in hell, and when her gaze swept over them, they felt like prey being examined by a predator.

Hogan managed to find his voice and made introductions. “We were, interested in this unusual pendant in the display case.”

Without moving, she said, “Do you want to purchase the pentagram?”

“Perhaps,” Hogan managed. “Do you know what it symbolizes?”

She smiled displaying perfect teeth. “In some cultures it is reputedly the sign of the werewolf, if you believe in such things.”

“Where did you get it?” Esmeralda asked.

“I really can't recall. I've had it for years, in fact, recently it was stolen from me and then mysteriously returned.”

“How was it stolen?” Hogan asked.

“Apparently a shoplifter made off with it. She was a well-dressed woman with a wallet full of credit cards. She came in on New Year's Eve,
saw the pentagram and said she had to have it. But I only deal in cash, which she didn't have enough of, so no sale. I thought she had left, but while I was in the storeroom in the back, she returned and took the pendant from the display case.”

Hogan handed her the photograph of the female murder victim, which had been taken at the New Years' Eve party. “Is that her?”

Lucretia Talbot took the picture, glanced at it, and replied, “As a matter of fact, it is. And she's wearing my pentagram. How interesting.”

Hogan took the photo back. “Did you report the theft to the police?”

She smiled again. “No, but since the three of you are here now, I won't pass up the opportunity.”

“We work homicide,” B. J. snapped.

“Then I can assume that the shoplifter is dead, Detective Jackson?” she said.

B. J. and Esmeralda tensed, but Hogan remained calm. “Thanks for your time, Ms. Talbot. We'll be going now. Have a nice day.”

She watched them walk to the door. “Do be careful, B. J. And remember, Detective Montoya and Detective Hogan, the streets out there are dangerous.”

They ran to the police car and locked the doors. Esmeralda and B. J. were shaking uncontrollably, but Hogan appeared as if nothing had happened.

“We should bust that broad, Tom,” B. J. said with false bravado.

“For what, B. J.?” Hogan retorted. “Scaring the red corpuscles out of three cops?”

“You were scared too, Tom?” Esmeralda asked.

“You're darn tootin'. And she was merely toying with us. Now we can anticipate the next murder being something a great deal more spectacular than the ones she's committed so far. It will also involve a body of water.”

“Why water?” B. J. and Esmeralda asked as one.

“Because female werewolves like to swim.”

On the night of Mr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, the murders aboard the
Viking Warrior
were discovered.

It was dawn when they got back to Hogan's apartment. Esmeralda sat down on a stack of books, and B. J., in his black and white pin-stripe ensemble, simply collapsed on the floor. Hogan shuffled into a bedroom in the rear of his apartment and returned with a small cardboard box. He sat down on the couch and opened the box.

“What's that?” Esmeralda asked.

His fingers shook noticeably as he held two objects in his hand. He held one up for her to see.

B. J.'s eyes went wide. “Is that a silver bullet?”

Hogan nodded “They are chambered for a .38 caliber revolver, and all I have left is these two.”

“But we carry nine-millimeter semi-automatics,” Esmeralda said.

“I don't see as good as I used to, so one of you will have to use my gun.” He removed a rusty four-inch barrel police special from his holster. “Which one of you is the best shot?”

B. J. pointed to his partner.

Lucretia Talbot, in her werewolf form, came for them fifteen minutes later.

The front window of Tom Hogan's living room was thirty-five feet above the ground, and the building facade a wall of solid brick, but she managed to climb it with ease. They were unaware that the she-wolf was there until her shadow blotted out the early morning light. B. J., still seated on the floor, saw her first. Shouting a warning, he leaped to his feet and pulled his Beretta pistol an instant before the werewolf smashed through the glass and bounded into the living room.

Esmeralda attempted to raise Hogan's revolver containing the silver bullets, but the sight of the monster froze the female cop in place.

The werewolf stood upright on her hind legs. She was covered with a thick coat of jet black hair, and canine ears rose on each side of her head. The menacing black eyes, which had frightened the cops back at the Pentacle Antique Shop, were now the blood red orbs of a beast gone mad. A muzzle extended from the center of the face, and the mouth,
spewing saliva, was open, exposing razor-sharp, flesh-rending teeth. Her arms and legs were muscular, and the hands tipped with inch-long talons. Then, with a roar that shook the very foundations of the building, she attacked.

B. J. reacted. Taking dead aim at the monster's chest, he fired nine rounds in rapid succession. He was certain that he hit her each time, but the lead bullets not only did no damage, they didn't even slow the werewolf down. It did cause the beast to make him the focal point of her attack.

With one immense, black hair-covered hand, the she-wolf knocked the smoking weapon from B. J.'s hand and grabbed him by the throat. He was lifted off the floor to dangle impotently from her grasp. In an instant it would have been over for the detective, but Esmeralda finally snapped out of her terror-induced trance. She raised the rusty .38, took aim, and fired. The bullet struck the she-wolf in the shoulder, and she howled in pain.

Releasing B. J., she turned on Esmeralda. Now blood was visible, flowing heavily from the wound made by the silver bullet. As she advanced, her red eyes flared with a fury that froze the blood in Esmeralda Montoya's veins.

Hogan had not moved since the attack began. Now he shouted, “You've got to hit her in a vital spot to kill her.”

The she-wolf ignored the old man and continued to advance.

The detective trembled, as she lined up the front and rear sights of the revolver. Esmeralda waited until the beast's terrible presence filled her entire field of vision before she squeezed the trigger. The gunshot echoed through the apartment.

Detectives Hogan, Jackson, and Montoya watched the ambulance crew remove the body of Lucretia Talbot from Hogan's apartment.

“How are we going to explain killing that woman?” B. J. moaned. “She looks like a normal human being again.”

Esmeralda, who had fired the last silver bullet and hit the she-wolf between the eyes, responded, “We'll simply tell the truth, B. J. That . . . thing came up here and attacked us. We should also be able to connect her to the other murders that have occurred since the first of the year.”

“We can't tell the truth,” Hogan said, solemnly. “No one will believe
us. The homicides in this case will have to be classified like all the others I have handled like this—mysterious deaths from undetermined causes.”

It was the day before Easter when the homicide commander called Esmeralda and B. J. into his office. On a beautiful spring morning, the pair of detectives, Jackson dressed in a chautreuse derby with matching outfit and Esmeralda made up like a Gypsy fortuneteller, drove to Tom Hogan's apartment.

When the retired detective opened the door he asked. “What is it now?”

“Would you believe a vampire?” B. J. said.

The only two jobs I've ever done in my entire life that meant a damn to me were bartending and writing. The first I did as a young man, the second when I got older. So, I always figured I'd end up in some alcoholic haze, strung out on Coors, writing stories, and giving death a run for its money. That's been my pattern, and I have no desire to change it. It suits me just fine. I sell enough stories to keep me housed, clothed, fed, and slightly under the influence. I have a car. I'm in damn good health, mental and physical, and I have access to all the sex I can manage.

I'm up by five-thirty, doesn't matter if it's cold, hot, wet, or foggy. I'm up. By six I've had my shower, drinking my first cup of coffee, reading the papers and half listening to the news. I'm at my computer at seven, staring at a blank screen, willing clever thoughts to form in my head. Damn way to make a living, I know, but I'm lucky. The words usually start flowing, mixed up at first, but slowly falling into place making sense, creating tales of woe.

That morning started like all the others, up at five-thirty, showered by six, drinking coffee, and half listening to the news when the phone rang.
Who the hell's calling at this ungodly hour?
I wondered, picking up the receiver.

“This better be damn good,” I said trying to sound civil.

“Billy?”

“Mary Ella!”

“Amazing, after all these years, you haven't forgotten my voice, Sugar.”

How the hell do you forget evil? I thought, feeling the old anger and desire welling up inside and trying to stop the images forming in my mind. My God, how long had it been? Years, more years than I cared to remember. It didn't matter. I could never quite forget that voice, and I tried, hard, but it stayed in my mind, occasionally haunting my thoughts. And it hadn't changed, still sounded soft, whispery, sexy.

I first heard it in the early fifties, when I was eighteen still living with my mama in a Midwest city that was really a town, just wanted to be a city. Kinda like me, a boy wanting to be a man. I was in The Rainbow Club drinking beer and trying to look older than I was. Mr. Johnson, the owner, hired me to help out around the place, washing glasses, mopping floors, and scrubbing down the toilets. He knew I was under age, but ignored it cause he knew I was a hard worker, needed the money, and was in a big hurry to be grown. Some days, he let me hang out like a paying customer and have a beer or two under the table, as long as I behaved and didn't draw attention to myself.

It was Saturday. The place was packed shoulder-to-shoulder. The jukebox blared, and the tiny dance floor was so crowded people were dancing between the tables. Her soft whispery voice cut right through all that damn noise. I laughed, it sounded so put-on and fake. Nobody talks like that, I thought, watching her work the room. She was a woman, wasn't no doubts about that, long and lean, with just enough meat on her bones to give her some eye-catching curves. Her black skin was smooth and velvety and flawless, her cheekbones so high they almost brushed up against her huge brown eyes. She was the prettiest lady I'd ever seen, and I wasn't into ebony ladies. I preferred coffee-with-cream or just cream-colored period, until I saw her.

“You like what you see, Sugar?”

I wasn't surprised she felt my eyes on her cause I was staring so hard. I opened my mouth but no words came out.

“What's wrong, cat got your tongue?” She laughed showing perfect teeth, flung her head back, causing her long black pressed hair to sway, and stared right back. “You sure a pretty boy,” she added in her fake voice and laughed again.

People were looking, beginning to get nosey. I tried to move away. I didn't want to piss off Mr. Johnson, and I sure in hell didn't want to lose my job. Besides she was embarrassing me.

“How old are you?” she asked sidling up to me.

“Eighteen,” I managed to mumble.

“You a man yet?” she asked, rubbing her fingers up and down my arm.

I didn't know what to say. I wasn't quite sure what she meant. I felt hot and sweaty, and my skin tingled.

“Leave the boy alone, Mary Ella.” Mr. Johnson's quiet voice said, lifting her fingers from my arm and moving her away from the bar.

Mary Ella! Strange name for a black-black woman I thought.

When I was nineteen, things turned serious. She was still black and still pretty, and her voice sounded exactly the same. I was still at The Rainbow Club, still the handyman, and still in a hurry to be grown.

“You must like hanging out around here,” she said, teasingly.

Obviously, I thought watching the bartender pour a shot of Johnny Walker Red from her personal bottle. It was like that back then. You purchased your liquor from a state-owned liquor store and brought it to the club or left it there. The bartender sold you a set up and poured your drinks.

She swallowed it neat, didn't even blink, sat her glass on the counter, and pushed it slowly toward him, again. He refilled it and pushed it back.

“How do you do that?” I asked, impressed in spite of myself.

“Takes a whole lot of practice, Sugar.”

“My name's not Sugar,” I managed to grumble, annoyed. That sounded childish and I was trying to be a . . . man.

She stared at me. “So what's your name?” she finally asked.

“William Sude Jr.,” I said, proud to be carrying my daddy's name. “But around here, they call me Billy.”

“Around here, I'll call you Sugar,” she responded, a smile on her full lips.

“My name is Billy.”

“Damn, Billy it is. I don't argue with no ‘man' about what he wants to be called.” She downed her drink.

We got on good after that. She became a regular, and I became her . . . puppet. All she had to do was sweet-talk me with that voice and look at me with those eyes, and I'd do practically whatever she wanted. I became the laughing stock of the place. Everybody but me knew I was no match for her, even though I suspected it.

“Boy, you need to leave Mary Ella alone,” Mr. Johnson told me more times than I cared to count. “She's way too much for you to even think about handling.”

“We're just acquaintances, Mr. Johnson,” I said unable to look him in the eyes. “She's educating me.”

“About what, stuff you too young to know?” he grumbled. “Hell, she's out of my league, and I'm old.” He chuckled, but I sensed the worry in his voice. “You be careful, you hear boy?”

“Careful about what, Mr. Johnson?”

“Careful she don't get you into something you can't get out of.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Cause she can.”

I ignored him. Just a silly old man, I thought, wishing she'd pay him some mind.

She was paying me plenty, flaunting her sex around like a second skin and whispering about what she was going to do to me making my pale face red with embarrassment. The patrons started keeping track, betting how long it would take her to seduce me. Actually, she already had with her voice, her eyes, and her body.

The first time she did me, I mean really did me, I was helpless. I'd never had sex-sex before. I was always kinda shy, awkward with girls, and nobody had told me shit about sex. The guys I hung out with bragged and scoffed amongst themselves, but the truth was, they didn't know any more
than I did, hadn't done much either, kissing mostly, and pressing up real close against girls when they danced. That was about the extent of it. So when Mary Ella made her move, I was beyond scared. But I wanted it, God, how I wanted it.

We did it at her place since I didn't have a place of my own. I paid my mama a little bit of rent to continue to live in the house she raised me in, not an ideal situation to carry on a sexual encounter. So we did it at Mary Ella's. She lived in a grand old house, which surprised me. I assumed she stayed in a boarding room or one of the hotels downtown. I wondered how she could afford all that luxury since she didn't seem to have a job and there was no talk of a husband. But that wasn't foremost on my mind, so I didn't dwell on it.

She opened the door, that day, dressed in lace and satin and smelling of lavender. She kissed me lightly on the lips and led me up a curving staircase. If she noticed my body trembling she made no comment. In fact, she didn't speak at all, just pulled me into a softly lit room with a big bed and drawn blinds. She pushed me gently down on satin sheets and started undressing me, slowly, one piece at a time. She undid the small buttons down the front of my shirt and eased it off my shoulders, licking my fair skin with her tongue, sucking at the soft hollow space at my neck. I twisted and turned, moaned with pleasure, felt the hardening of my manhood. I reached out and grabbed her trying to draw her closer. She brushed my hand away, undid my pant button, slowly slid down the zipper, tugged them over my hips and down passed my ankles. She untied my shoes, pulled them off, then my socks, sucked at my toes before slipping the pants over my feet letting them fall to the floor. My erection filled my shorts. She pulled them down, freeing it, and took me in her mouth. I exploded. She ignored my embarrassment, continued teaching me slowly, exquisitely, about pleasure, leaving her imprint all over my body and soul, marking me for life.

From then on, I could hardly eat or sleep, kept a hard-on, swore I was in love. She was on my mind constantly. She owned me. And she knew it, but she continued to work the room, flirting, dancing, and talking in that soft whispery, sexy voice, making me crazy.

“Boy, I got something I want you to do,” Mr. Johnson said one Friday as I was focusing all my attention, as usual, on Mary Ella.

“Yes, Sir,” I said, still trying to watch her making a fool of me.

“Come on now.” His voice was stern. He led me to a back room full of boxes and closed the door. “Billy, you need to think about finding another job,” he said, staring at me.

“You're not satisfied with my work, Mr. Johnson?”

“Naw, it's not that, Son. It's Mary Ella. She seems to have gotten your nose in a joint. You're sniffing around her like some dog in heat. I'm afraid she's going to make you hurt somebody, and that would be real bad for business.”

“I ain't going to hurt nobody, Mr. Johnson, honest. I love her that's all.”

“Boy, you don't even know what love is. Don't let a little pussy, I don't care how good you think it is, fool you in to believing it's love.”

“She said she loves me too.”

“So, why she always sucking up to every man in here? You think that's what a woman in love does?”

“She's just having fun, Mr. Johnson, that's all. You know she likes being the life of the party.”

“I know what a fool she's making of you, that's what I know, and when you get tired of it, what you going to do then?”

I didn't answer, cause I knew he was too close to telling the truth.

“All I'm saying, Billy, if you can't concentrate on your work, I'll have to let you go. I don't want to do it, but I will. You understand?”

“Yes, Sir,” I said, knowing he wasn't playing. Mr. Johnson didn't threaten nobody. He told you what he was going to do and did it.

“You love me, Billy?”

We were in bed, together, at her place, our bodies still wrapped around each other, and our scent still engulfing the room.

“You know the answer to that.”

“I want to hear you say it,” she said, hugging me tighter.

“I love you,” I whispered, kissing her lips, her eyes, and behind her ears.

“Enough to kill a man?”

My breathing almost stopped, making my chest feel like it was bursting. I opened my mouth wide, gulping in air and moved out of her arms. Mr. Johnson's words flashed in my mind.

“Cat got your tongue, Sugar?”

“Don't call me Sugar,” I said. “I ain't killing nobody for you.”

“Guess that ‘love you, Mary Ella' is just bullshit, hum?”

“I love you more than anything . . .”

“Just not enough to kill . . .”

“I ain't killing nobody!” I shouted, jumping up and struggling into my clothes. I ran down the stairs, praying I didn't trip on my untied shoestrings, and kept going right out the front door.

“Don't bring your sorry ass back here no more, you hear me!” she screamed at my retreating back.

I didn't know what to do or where to turn, but I knew I wasn't going along with what she'd asked. I wanted to tell Mr. Johnson, that's what I wanted, but I was too embarrassed. He'd warned me about her. I could hear his I told you so. And Mama? What would Mama say? I didn't raise my son to be a killer for no black bitch. Telling Mama was definitely out.

But, I couldn't get her out of my mind. I was like an addict on some damn drug. She dominated my being. She continued to show up at the club, occasionally, flaunting herself. I went to the back room, trying to ignore her.

“Something bothering you, Billy,” Mr. Johnson finally started asking.