“Yeah, but you cain’t talk to Uncle Willy ’bout that. He didn’t even get the message.”
“Okay,” I said. “All right. But listen, I told the cops I was out lookin’ at the apartments night before last. I said I was with Mofass. Could you get him to back me up on that?”
“Sure can. I’ll tell’im first thing when he get up.” She thought for a moment and then said, “At breakfast, I mean.”
“Do you wanna know why I’m askin’?” I wondered if she understood what she was getting into.
“It don’t matter, Mr. Rawlins. Uncle Willy owe you his life and I owe you too. It don’t matter what you want. Anything we got is yours.”
“Is that true?” I asked, no longer thinking that I was talking to a child.
“You could drink it,” she answered in a phrase formed in north Texas.
Never in my long years of knowing Mofass could I trust him completely. He was small-minded and cowardly. All he ever thought about was the money roll in his pocket. But when Jewelle came along he became as constant as the tide.
“Thanks, honey,” I said, ready to get on with the rest of my troubles.
“Mr. Rawlins?”
“Yeah?”
“Um, well…”
“Come on, JJ, spit it out. I got to go now.”
“Uncle Willy an’ me was just wonderin’ if maybe you wanna come work for him. I mean, you’d be making more money from us than they pay at the schools. You know all about how buildin’s work and stuff. Mr. Howell have people he trust to do work but you know they won’t even talk to a girl. I figure, I mean me an’ Uncle Willy, that you could show me how stuff works and then I could make better decisions on the spot.”
She was right. Men didn’t like women who wanted to be independent. I could have taught her everything she needed to know about real estate maintenance and value. But that’s not why she wanted me to work for them. She loved Mofass but she was lonely too. She needed somebody who read books to talk to sometimes. Buford Howell read the racing forms on Saturdays and the hymnal on Sundays — that was it.
Jewelle needed someone to talk to her about the paper and the big world out beyond a paycheck or a dirty joke.
“I can’t just up and quit my job, honey. It’s not so much the salary but the benefits and the future.”
Her silence told me how sad I’d made her.
“But maybe I could work with you on the weekends. Maybe every other one, you know, like a consultant.”
“That would be great,” she said. And I was happy because she sounded young again.
I cleaned up and put on my good brown woolen suit. My shirt was buff silk and the cuff links were yellow gold and onyx. My shoes were a soft, light brown leather, and the socks matched my shirt in fabric and in color.
I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled. Then I thought about the Gasteau brothers; they were dressed fine too. It hadn’t helped them.
I left a note on the kitchen table for Jesus. If Feather woke up he would take care of her.
I walked out of the house exhilarated that I could still get out, and scared that it felt so good.
17
Pharaoh didn’t want me picking him up and told me so. But when I bared my teeth and snarled the yellow dog backed down.
I drove toward Hoagland Street while he sat in the backseat planning guerrilla tactics that I couldn’t even imagine.
The wide boulevards shone brightly and black under a glassy sheen of rain and streetlights.
The address on Hoagland was another small house. There was another light on and another car parked on the side. There was no berry tree, no recessed porch in which to hide. The walkway was a series of cement disks that were laid out in a meandering trail up to the front door.
The rest of the street was empty. Nothing stirred except the splattering rain.
After five minutes I hadn’t seen anything. No matches struck in darkness; no black cats hissing at their own wet fur. Pharaoh gave out a little yelp and for the first time I agreed with him — it was time to go out and ring the doorbell.
The bell was disconnected or maybe it was broken. I knocked lightly but no one stirred. I was afraid to knock loudly or call out, so I tried the doorknob. If it was locked I would go to Primo’s the next morning and give him the dog; then I’d forget Idabell and her dead relations.
But the door was not locked.
“Hello?” I called into the dark entrance. “Idabell?”
I closed my umbrella and shook the loose water from it.
To the right was a dark doorway and to my left a turn into a lighted room. On the wall facing the door was a mirror that reflected my own shadowy silhouette and the blurry lamp from the street behind me.
I went toward the light thinking of how many times I’d called moths fools.
She was sprawled on her back in the center of the floor, one hand flung out over her head and her mouth agape.
“Naw,” I said in the smallest whisper.
At the sound of my voice her eyes opened and a soft smile came to her lips. She reached toward me with both arms like my daughter did almost every morning. Out of habit I extended my hands.
“What you doin’ on the floor?” I asked as she rose.
“My back hurt,” she said. “I must’ve fallen asleep like that.”
“But…”
“Hold me.” Her body thrust forward as if some invisible force were pulling her to my chest. “Hold me.”
I didn’t love her, I didn’t care about her — I didn’t even like her since she tricked me into taking her dog. But the warmth of her body through our clothes couldn’t be denied. All of those proper ideas and good women couldn’t hold my wild heart like she did.
“I’ve been so lonely,” she whispered.
It might have been a sweet lie but her words were true to my heart. I was lonely. I was cold inside. Idabell spoke to a deep hunger that grew in me back when there was only hunger and need. She’d pulled me out into the street and now I wanted to play.
Her hands moved down between us and showed me what magic they could do.
“Your suit’s going to get wrinkled,” she told me.
My pants fell down around my ankles again. She shoved me backwards into the chair using her shoulder to push because her hands were busy making me mumble. When I was seated I leaned forward to pull off my pants, but she grabbed both my hands by the fingers and pulled them away.
“Leave them,” she said. “You can’t run if your ankles are tied.”
I tried to push past her hands but when she took my erection into her mouth I faltered. And then, when she kissed my lips with that salty brew, I relented.
She moved her head half a foot back from mine and gave me a serious look as if she were searching for defects in my character. Then she kissed me again, moving her tongue deeply inside my mouth. She went back and forth between my hard-on and my lips a few times, each time stopping to gauge her effect.
When she saw that there was no fight left in me she stood up and opened her blouse, showing me with a coy smile that she had no bra on. She hiked her skirt way up on her waist.
When she moved to come astride me I put up my arms to steady her but she said, “Put your hands down,” just like she must have said every day in her classroom.
I was used to being in charge with women, at least I was used to playing that role in love. But Idabell ruled that night. I grabbed on to the wooden arms of the chair obeying her command and she rocked me further and further down into the cushion. When I tried to pull back up she told me to be still.
Every now and then she’d arch back telling me with her body, and a turn of her eye, to kiss her breast.
I was getting more and more excited, and so was she. We were going at it hard and loud when all of a sudden we both just stopped. We were very excited and neither one of us had come, but we had to stop and be still for a little while; like small birds who have risen too high on a hot breeze, we had to coast back down toward the earth.