I didn’t know how to dance. I didn’t want anything to do with his biscuit.
“Well, now, it’s easy. Just move with me.” He pushed my groin to his and inhaled deeply at my neck. I tried to mirror his steps. He liked that. A lot. He danced me into the sideboard and moved himself harder against me. I trembled with nausea. I looked up at the ceiling and tried what Mother had described. Eating oysters. His hand moved up toward my chest. The beach. It wasn’t working. His grasp was hurting me. He slid his thumb into my mouth and told me to close my lips. I thought of the cool earth and the floorboards under the porch where I once carved my name and vowed that I would not become like my mother. He grabbed my hand and started to move it toward his waist.
I shook my head and pulled away.
“What’s wrong?” he said, following me toward the couch. “Are you scared?” He looked at me, perversion fully inflamed. “God, your mouth.”
“Stop it,” I said.
“Now, now. Don’t be a tease. Come here.” He tugged at his belt.
I reached for my purse, but he grabbed my arm. “Oh, no, you don’t. You don’t want me to call Smith and tell them not to accept you, do you?” His mouth was on my ear. “Come on, Josephine. Earn your money. Be a good little whore now.”
I heard his jaw pop as my fist connected to it. He overcame the initial shock and lunged at me with the fury of a bull, but my feet were already planted, pistol drawn. He jumped back, stunned.
“Put your hands on your head,” I told him. He didn’t move. I aimed over his shoulder and blew his hunting picture to pieces.
“Okay, okay!” he said, putting his hands up. I waved him into the corner.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I was moving too fast. Just put the gun down, Josephine,” he pleaded. “Please, put down the gun.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. Sit on the floor,” I commanded. “Now.”
He sat in the corner. “Jesus, what did you think this was? Just leave, and we’ll pretend this never happened. Go. I won’t tell anyone.”
I took off the black heels and hurled them at him in the corner. “Don’t ever call me a whore. Ever,” I said through gritted teeth. “Close your eyes.”
“Oh, God, no. Josephine, please.”
“I said, close your eyes!” He closed his eyes.
I ran from the apartment, my stocking feet pounding on the sidewalk. The sky was black with thunder. I opened my mouth.
A large moth flew out into the night.
FIFTY-THREE
I found it the next morning. I came downstairs from my apartment, and it was staring at me through the glass of the front door.
Wedged against the shutter. A white sheet of paper. A black hand.
Twenty-four hours. Tangle Eye would be back at the shop, demanding five thousand dollars I didn’t have and had no way of getting. I owed Cokie two thousand dollars, an explanation, and an apology. I owed Forrest Hearne’s wife a gold watch. But I owed Carlos Marcello, and if I didn’t pay, I’d be a lot worse off than with John Lockwell.
I’d concocted a story to tell Willie. I’d say the liquor distributor had a shipment waiting at Sal’s and needed payment. She’d tell me to go into the safe and get the money. I’d take the five thousand then. The thought of stealing from Willie upset my every fiber, but once I paid off Marcello, I would explain it to her, let her know that I was protecting everyone. I’d have to work it off over several years to pay the debt. She’d get what she wanted. I’d be stuck in New Orleans.
The morning was full of hiccups. The constant pressure of the police had Willie agitated. She asked me to take the black book home with me and keep it at my apartment.
“They came poking around at six last night. Six P.M.! Acted like it was some social call and stayed till one in the morning. I lost a whole night of business entertaining the chief and his cop friends. But what could I do? They played cards, and the girls stayed up in their rooms, bored as bats. The chief’s eyes were on everything—I had to follow him around. I was sure he’d find the hiding spots. Take the book. From now on, I’ll give you the receipt papers, and you’ll make the entries at your place.”
I nodded and took the book from her. She lit a cigarette and leaned back in bed.
“And you know what else? I’m too tired to play this game anymore. What do you say we cram the apple in the pig’s ass and roast it.”
“You’re tired of the business? The police?”
“Yeah, that too. But I’m tired of this game with you. I’ve waited, hoped that you would come to me. At first I was angry that you thought I was so stupid. You’re eighteen, for cripe’s sake. I guess I should be happy that there’s still a ridiculous innocent side to you. But sometimes it just plain pisses me off.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Willie.”
“Aw, can it. I know you’re upset about Charlie and Patrick, but that’s not what this is about. Your mother marked Forrest Hearne the moment she saw him, and you know it. You marked Hearne, too, just in a different way. Your mother told Cincinnati she found a target. Cinci paid the bartender to slip him a fat Mickey so Hearne would be out long enough to fleece him. Bartender slipped the Mick fat all right, and Hearne wound up dead. Even though it’s obvious to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that they’re guilty, they get off because they have an alibi. And who can afford to buy alibis in this town? Yeah, Carlos Marcello. So now your mother’s got the black hand on her back.”
I stood at the foot of Willie’s bed, clutching the book. Tears pooled in my eyes.
She nodded, her hard-boiled voice lowering. “You think I don’t understand what’s going on, Jo? You think I don’t have eyes in this town? Frankie’s not my only pair of eyes. I had people pulling me aside on the street, telling me Marcello’s men were on you, cars were following you all over town. And then suddenly you’re acting like a lunatic. Jesse came to change Mariah’s oil, and the poor kid was a mess. Said you busted his window begging for shutters and then ran off. I don’t have to tell you that you’ve screwed that one up royal. And the whole time, I told them all that you’d come to me. I kept waiting for you to come to me.”
“I couldn’t,” I sobbed.
“Why the hell not?” demanded Willie.
“They said they’d kill you.”
“And you believed them? Jo, they want their money, and they’ll threaten to high heaven to get it. I know how to handle Marcello.”
“No, Willie, you can’t. I don’t want anything to happen to you or Cokie.”
“Quit your sniveling. I’m not a fool. How much is the mark?”
I could barely look at her. “Five thousand,” I said quietly.
Willie threw back the covers and started pacing, ash flying from the butt of her cigarette. A vein of anger pulsed at her temple. “Your mother should be strung up by her eyelids. Passing her daughter a mob debt? Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll give you the money for Marcello, but you’ll go to some banks and exchange it for all small notes and change. When you deliver the money to Tangle Eye, it has to look like you scrounged it up from the gutter. Pennies and nickels, even. Split it up in different bags and envelopes. If you have big bills, they’ll know you had a source and they’ll just keep coming back for more. Sonny will drive you out to Mosca’s this afternoon. You’ll go in and pay them. Make sure they tell you you’re square.”
“I’ll pay them? I have to take five thousand dollars to Marcello’s men? Won’t they come and get it?”
“You don’t want them to come and get it. If they have to pay a visit, then it’s overdue and you owe more. You want to pay them before they come calling.” The skin on Willie’s chest sagged and broken capillaries crisscrossed her neck. She went into the safe in the closet and started tossing packs of money out onto her bed.
“That’s four thousand.” She leaned out of the clo
set, against the door frame. “How much did you get for screwing Lockwell last night?”
I looked at her.
“How much?” she demanded.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing! What’s the matter with you? You could have gotten a couple hundred.”
“It was fifteen hundred.” I looked up at Willie. “But I couldn’t do it. He danced with me and touched me, and I couldn’t stand it. I pulled my gun on him. Then I ran.”
She took a long, slow drag off her cigarette and nodded. “Good girl. Good for you, Jo.” She threw another thousand onto the bed.
We drove to the West Bank. I sat in the passenger seat of Sonny’s car, flour sacks, paper bags, and envelopes full of small bills and coins at my feet. Five thousand dollars. Sonny rode with a shotgun between his legs. He said nothing, just smoked and listened intently to the radio soap opera Young Widder Brown crackling through his custom tube radio. His huge frame humped over the wheel, engrossed in the latest episode of widow Ellen Brown and her romance with Anthony Loring.
I wanted Sonny to hand over the money while I waited in the car, but Willie said that wasn’t the way it was done. I thought back to the black handprint on the door on Esplanade and how I had criticized people who were foolish enough to get caught up with the mob.
Sonny rolled down a deserted stretch of road and stopped in front of a white clapboard building. He put his hand up to silence me, listening to the end of the program and the love saga in Simpsonville. He then turned off the radio and reached for the shotgun.
“Make sure they count it,” he said.
I piled the bags and envelopes into my arms and shut the car door with my hip. I walked through the entrance and was instantly blinded by thick blackness, my eyes unable to adjust from the outdoors. I squinted like a watchmaker and made out a bar and a few tables. The room was nearly empty. The restaurant didn’t open until five thirty. Vic Damone sang from the jukebox, and a lone skinny bartender prepped the bar.
“Can I help you?” asked the bartender.
“I’m looking for Tangle Eye.”
“Against the wall in the back.”
I walked past the row of tables in the dark, clutching the money. My eyes began to focus, and the room came into view. In the very back of the restaurant, three men sat at a table. As I approached, two got up and disappeared into the kitchen. I walked up and stood at the table. He stared at me with his right eye while his left floated from side to side.
“What the hell is that?” He pointed to my arms.
“It’s the money.” I set the load on the table and dropped an envelope. Nickels and dimes spilled out onto the table. Willie would be proud.
The effect was noted. “What do you think I am, a vending machine?” said Tangle Eye.
“It’s all here. You can count it.”
“I’m not touching that filthy stuff. Who knows what hole you pulled it out of. You count it out.”
I sat and counted the money. He made marks on a napkin for each hundred, but quickly became impatient. He called the other two men from the kitchen to finish counting.
“You should have brought large bills,” he said when the counting was finished. I was two dollars over, Willie’s idea.
“I couldn’t get big bills. I was busy begging to get here on time.”
“Who said you were on time?” he countered.
“I am on time. And we’re square.”
He leaned over the table, his left eye bobbing furiously. “We’re not square until the little man says we’re square, understand? You better hope we don’t find your mother in California. No one jumps a debt like that, see.”
I stood up. “You’ll have to take that up with my mother and Cincinnati. It’s all here. You’ve noted five thousand dollars.”
A man appeared and placed a plate in front of Tangle Eye. Chicken, pan-fried in garlic, white wine, and oil. It smelled delicious.
“Is she eating?” asked the man.
Tangle Eye stuffed his napkin in his collar and looked at me. “Are you eating?”
FIFTY-FOUR
My cousin Betty sent me a note with the most ludicrous tales about you.
That’s what the letter from Charlotte said.
Having a swell time. Any news from Smith? Missing Charlie. Missing you.
That’s what the postcard from Patrick said.
I am hopeful for a favorable reply within the month.
That’s what the letter from Ms. Mona Wright had said. I still had no idea what “Ms.” meant. I’d have to look it up in the practical business-writing handbook. It was obviously a title of some sort.
Sadie helped me prepare Willie’s morning tray. Before going to sleep, I had resolved to tell her about Forrest Hearne’s watch and also that Mother had stolen the watch she gave me from Adler’s. I knew she’d be livid and call me all sorts of stupid, but I had to do it. And then I had to tell Cokie about his money being stolen. It was going to be a challenging day, to say the least.
Willie was awake, wrapped in a red satin kimono, peering out her shuttered window.
“Red, that’s different. Is it new?” I asked.
“Unbelievable. It’s barely breakfast, and they’ve already got a cop out there, sitting in his car. I’m tempted to have you take him coffee. Those cops are about as sharp as marbles, I tell ya.”
“Was the chief of police by again last night?” I asked.
“No, but he sent three men around midnight. Sadie threw the buzzer, and I stalled them at the side door while everyone got out. An old attorney from Georgia didn’t make it. I found the poor guy buck naked, shivering behind a banana palm in the courtyard. Had to give him all his money back. This is killing my business.” She turned toward me. “What are the papers saying this morning?”
I didn’t want to give them to her. The articles said the pressure on the Quarter was increasing and that more incidents of holdups and robberies were being reported. Holdups. I thought of myself, cornering Lockwell with my pistol. “Don’t bother with the news, Willie.”
She snapped the papers off the tray herself. I saw the heat rising in her face.
“Willie, I want to thank you again for helping me with the debt yesterday. I can’t tell you what a relief it is. Last night was the first time I really slept.”
“You’ll work it off. Every dime of it. Thankfully, you’re not an ingrate like your mother, even if you don’t wear the watch I gave you.”
I started to lie about the watch. That’s how easy the lies had become. But I stopped myself. I had to tell Willie about her watch and also Forrest Hearne’s watch. She stood next to the bed, still reading the headlines.
“I don’t wear the watch, Willie, because Mother and Cincinnati stole it.”
Willie slowly looked at me over the paper.
I nodded. “They broke into my room and stole the watch and my pistol. And . . . I hadn’t told you about this, but Cokie gave me two thousand dollars out of his gambling winnings so I could go to college. They took that too.”
I wished I hadn’t told her, that I could take it all back. Livid was an understatement. The look on her face defied description. Expressions of fury and pain blazed across her face simultaneously. Her eyes blinked rapidly.
“Willie?”
She reached out for the bed to steady herself and slid down, knocking a vase off the bedside table on the way. Her knees hit the floor.
“Willie!” I ran to grab her. Her eyes were round and protruding, and a stuttering sound came from her windpipe. She reached up and grabbed my shoulder. I screamed for Sadie.
“I’m going to call Dr. Sully. Okay, Willie?”
She motioned to the shuttered window. I understood.
“I won’t let the cop in here, Willie. I promise.” I screamed again for Sadie, this time lo
uder. She came running and threw her hands to her face when she saw Willie.
“I don’t know what happened. She just fell over. Let’s lift her up onto the bed. Hurry, Sadie, I have to call Dr. Sully.”
Willie’s body was too heavy. We couldn’t lift her by ourselves. Evangeline peered around the bedroom door.
“Evangeline, help us!” I shrieked. She shook her head and backed away in fear.
I wanted to beat her. “You selfish witch. Get over here and help us, or I swear I will shoot you myself. Now!”
Evangeline obeyed. She took Willie’s feet, and together the three of us were able to lift her onto the bed.
“Prop her head up,” I told Sadie. “She’s barely breathing.” I ran to the hall phone. Sweety was on the landing. Evangeline pushed by her, ran up the stairs, and slammed her door.
“Jo, what is it?” asked Sweety.
“It’s Willie. I’m calling Dr. Sully. Lock all the doors. There’s a cop outside in a black car.”
I sat with Willie, propped up between the pillows. She was sweating and got sick over the side of the bed.
“The vultures will come. Don’t let them in,” she wheezed.
“Stop it, Willie. You’re going to be okay. Do you hear me?”
“Don’t let them in. Never let them in,” she breathed.
Willie was indestructible, steel tough. Seeing her like this terrified me.
She had helped me, protected me for so much of my life, and I was useless, unable to do anything for her. I held her in my arms. Her tremors calmed. She laid her head on my chest. I hummed “Buttons and Bows” and stroked her hair. The strewn newspapers on the floor and the untouched coffee tray at the foot of her bed stared at me, commanding me to do something more.
Willie gripped my hand. “Salted peanuts,” she whispered.
Dr. Sully finally arrived and ran into the room. I looked up, tears streaming down my face.
It was too late.
FIFTY-FIVE