“But why would he care about me out of all the people come up there?” I asked.
“He knew you or sumpin’,” Hannah said. “ ’Cause the minute you walked away from me he was right there.”
“An’ then you told him about our date?”
“I really did like you,” was all Hannah had to say.
“Was it him hit me?” I asked.
“Naw,” she said and then she wavered. “Listen, Mr. Alexander, I don’t want no trouble. If you go back to Mr. Beam an’ tell’im I told you all this then he gonna get me.”
“Ain’t nobody gonna say nuthin’, sugar,” the new, beneficent Mouse said. “Easy just wanna know. Ain’t that right, Easy?”
“I won’t tell’im, Hannah. That is, if you don’t lie to me I won’t.”
“It was Rupert hit you. Rupert and Li’l Joe.”
“You with’em?”
“I didn’t know they was gonna hit you,” she cried. “They just said that they wanted to talk to you alone.”
I turned to Tony and his fat wadded friend. “Give us a minute, boys.”
“We ain’t goin’—” Tony started saying.
But he didn’t finish his sentence because I grabbed him by his throat and pulled him across the table.
“Move your ass or I’ll do it for you,” I said in a voice so hoarse and deep that it surprised me.
Mouse jumped up and put his hands between us, saying, “Hey, boys! Hold up! Stop it now!”
A few more people had come into the Hangar. They gawked while the bartender watched us closely.
Tony was trying to catch his breath. Puddin’ didn’t know what to do with his hands.
“Go on now, boys,” Mouse said. “We ain’t gonna hurt your girl. No no no no no no, Hannah. You stay here with us.”
It was almost funny. Me the one threatening violence and Mouse calmly trying to find solutions.
Tony and Puddin’ went to another table. Mattine came up to them and started asking questions, looking up at us now and then.
“Okay, Hannah,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”
“What?”
“You know Philly Stetz?”
“Uh-huh,” she mumbled. “I work for him when you get down to it.”
“What does Stetz have to do with Beam?”
“Nuthin’ really, not that I know of anyway. Beam gambles an’ stuff. He up at the Black Chantilly a lot.”
“Did Roman work with Beam?”
“I don’t know if he worked with’im. I don’t know that. But they talked a lot.”
“And how about Rupert?”
“What about’im?”
“Who Rupert work for?” I was discovering my destination by asking directions.
“He work for Mr. Stetz, just like me.”
I stared at her, wanting something more but not knowing what it was. Beam knew me. He knew me before I walked into the club. There was only one way I knew of that he could have known; it had to be him, not Rupert, walking down Bonnie’s street away from my car.
It had to be him.
“You got any more questions?” Hannah asked.
When I didn’t answer she got up and went over to Tony and Puddin’.
I sat there thinking for a while, I don’t know how long. But when I looked up again the room was full of people.
I got up and walked over to Hannah and her friends. Mouse was there with them. I guess he was holding them for me.
“Hey, Tony,” I said as if I had forgotten to say something before.
“What?”
“You wanna talk to me a minute?”
“Talk,” he said coolly.
“Why’ont you come over wit’ me to the bar? I’ll get’em to freshen up that whiskey.”
It was the promise of liquor that drew Tony. When the bartender asked him his pleasure he answered, “Manhattan.” It was a sophisticated drink at that time. Tony ordered with a sneer of superior satisfaction.
I waited for him to finish his drink before I said, “Sorry ’bout before, man, but you know Hannah’s boss liked to kill me.”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted, not really accepting the apology.
Mouse was across the room gesturing at Puddin’ and Hannah like a schoolteacher, or a cop.
“Hannah says that you knew Roman Gasteau pretty well,” I said in way of a question.
“Him’n Holly too. So what?”
“What could you tell me about them?”
“Why should I tell you anything?” Tony was still petulant. The whiskey had cooled him down some though.
“Twenty dollars for anything you got to say and another twenty if it sound good t’me.” It was a sentence that I’d said many times in my life.
“What you wanna know?” he asked.
I handed over the first twenty dollars. “What business was Roman into?”
Tony rubbed his hand over his mouth and mumbled something.
“What you said?” I asked.
“White pow-ter.”
“Holland in it with him?”
“He wanted t’be.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Holland come ’round an’ talk like he was workin’ wit’ Romny but it weren’t true. Roman used to just laugh when people would talk about it.”
“You worked wit’ Roman though, right?” I asked.
Tony winced and stuck a finger into his ear. He rubbed his nose and then pulled up his loose trousers by the front belt loops.
He glowered at my chest and I asked my question again.
“I did some little errands,” he whispered. “You know Romny liked people t’do things for’im. But I wasn’t in his business. I only ever saw’im when he’d be at the Black Chantilly an’ I happened t’be ’round. You know usually I’m out back washin’ or carryin’ or sumpin’.”
“What kinda things you do?”
“Just get cigarettes an’ shit. Nuthin’ heavy. Nuthin’ could put me in jail.”
“Anybody know more about his powder business?”
Tony glowered again.
I took two twenties from my pocket.
His eyes almost closed. “A guy named Billy B,” he mumbled. “Billy B and Sallie Monroe.”
“Oh,” I said. The last piece of the puzzle was a soft lead bullet aimed at my gut. I thought about the dapper little butcher and craved his blood.
“That enough to get you up offa that forty dollars?” Tony wanted to know.
“This Billy B,” I asked. “He a little dude with a big head, gold-colored kinda Negro?”
“Yeah,” Tony said. “All’a that. Light, little, an’ big-headed. That’s Billy B.”
37
Mouse was high on whiskey and so I drove him home. He let me take his car, saying that he could work out rides with Etta.
Bonnie and the kids were asleep when I got home. Pharaoh growled in the shadows.
I pulled out the drawer next to the kitchen sink and put it on the floor. I reached in under the ledge and came out with my .38 and a box of shells.
The gun needed cleaning but all I had was time. I wasn’t going to sleep. There were gangsters out there in the shadows whispering my name. There were cops hoping that my body broke before my spirit did. My life had gone to pieces and none of it was my fault.
It was the dog’s fault. That’s what I told myself.
But by then I knew that it wasn’t true. I’d dug this hole two years before. It was just a little unfinished business that I had to clean up.
“Easy.” Bonnie Shay was standing at the kitchen door. If she saw the gun on the table she didn’t act like it.
“What?”
“Was I telling the truth?”
“Huh?”
“Did you find the hot-water bottle?”
“Oh. Yeah.” I smiled. “Yeah, I did.”
“Did you leave it there?”
“No, Bonnie. I’ma need it to get them gangsters an’ cops offa us.”
Bonnie’s face smiled. It wasn’t just her mouth but also her eyes and cheeks and the angle of her head to her shoulder.