Daphne had grabbed on to my hand, she was so excited. I found myself worried; but I couldn't really tell what bothered me.
"They were right there next to us," she said. "At the fence, when the male mounted the female. His long, leathery thing jabbing in and out of her. Twice he came out of her completely, and spurted jissum down her flank.
"My daddy and I were holding hands so tight that it hurt me but I didn't say anything about it. And when we got back to the car he kissed me. It was just on the cheek at first but then he kissed me on the lips, like lovers do." Daphne had a faraway smile on her face. "But when he finished kissing me he started to cry. He put his head in my lap and I had to stroke his head for a long time and tell him that it was just fine before he'd even look up at me again."
The disgust must've shown on my face because she said, "You think that it was sick, what we did. But my daddy loved me. From then on, my whole fourteenth year, he'd take me to the zoo and the park. Always at first he'd kiss me like a father and his little girl but then we'd get alone someplace and act like real lovers. And always, always after he'd cry so sweet and beg me to forgive him. He bought me presents and gave me money, but I'd've loved him anyway."
I wanted to run away from her but I was too deep in trouble to act on my feelings so I tried to change the subject. "What's all that got to do with you goin' t'see Carter?" I asked.
"My daddy never took me anywhere again after that year. He left Momma and me in the spring and I never saw him again. Nobody ever knew about him and me and what had happened. But I knew. I knew that that was why he left. He just loved me so much that day at the zoo and he knew me, the real me, and whenever you know somebody that well you just have to leave."
"Why's that?" I wanted to know. "Why you have t'leave someone just when you get close?"
"It's not just close, Easy. It's something more."
"And that's what you had with Carter?"
"He knows me better than any other man."
I hated Carter then. I wanted to know Daphne like he did. I wanted her, even if knowing her meant that I couldn't have her.
Daphne and I took the back path, through the bushes, to the little house. Everything was fine.
I opened the door for her. She hadn't had anything else to say after her story about the zoo. I don't know why but I didn't have anything else to say either. Maybe it was because I didn't believe her. I mean, I believed that she believed the story, or, at least, she wanted to believe it, but there was something wrong with the whole thing.
Somewhere between the foo young and the check I decided to cut my losses. Daphne was too deep for me. Somehow I'd call Carter and tell him where she was. I'd wash my hands of the whole mess. I'm just in it for the money, I kept thinking to myself.
I was so busy having those thoughts that I didn't think to check the room. What was there to worry about anyway? So when Daphne gasped I was surprised to see DeWitt Albright standing at the stove.
"Evening, Easy," he drawled.
I reached for the pistol in my belt but before I could get to it an explosion went off in my head. I remember the floor coming up to my face and then there was nothing for a while.
28
I was on a great battleship in the middle of the largest fire fight in the history of war. The cannons were red hot and the crew and I were loading those shells. Airplanes strafed the deck with machine-gun fire that stung my arms and chest but I kept on hefting shells to the man in front of me. It was dusk or early dawn and I was exhilarated by the power of war.
Then Mouse came up to me and pulled me from the line. He said, "Easy! We gotta get outta here, man. Ain't no reason t'die in no white man's war!"
"But I'm fighting for freedom!" I yelled back.
"They ain't gonna let you go, Easy. You win the one and they have you back on the plantation 'fore Labor Day."
I believed him in an instant but before I could run a bomb rocked the ship and we started to sink. I was pitched from the deck into the cold cold sea. Water came into my mouth and nose and I tried to scream but I was underwater. Drowning.
When I came awake I was dripping from the bucket of water that Primo had dumped on me. Water was in my eyes and down my windpipe.
"What happened, amigo? You have a fight with your friends?"
"What friends?" I asked suspiciously. For all I knew at that minute it was Primo who suckered me.
"Joppy and the white man in the white suit."
"White man?" Primo helped me to a sitting position. I was on the ground right outside the door of our little house. My head started clearing.
"Yeah. You okay, Easy?"
"What about the white man? When did he and Joppy get here?"
"About two, three hours ago."
"Two, three hours?"
"Yeah. Joppy asked me where you were and when I told him he drove the car back around the house. Then they took off about a little bit after that."
"The girl with'em?"
"I don't see no girl."
I pulled myself up and went through the house, Primo at my heels.
No girl.
I went out back and looked around but she wasn't there either. Primo came up behind me. "You guys have a fight?"
"Not much'a one. Can I use your phone, man?"
"Yeah, sure. It's right inside."
I called Dupree's sister but she said that he and Mouse had left in the early morning. Without Mouse I didn't know what to do. So I went out to my car and drove toward Watts. The night was fully black with no moon and thick clouds that hid the stars. Every block or so there'd be a street lamp overhead, shining in darkness, illuminating nothing.
"Get out of it, Easy!"
I didn't say anything.
"You gotta find that girl, man. You gotta make this shit right."
"Fuck you!"
"Uh-uh, Easy. That don't make you brave. Brave is findin' that white man an' yo' friend. Brave is not lettin' them pull this shit on you."
"So what can I do?"
"You got that gun, don't ya? You think them men's gonna beat bullets?"
"They armed too, both of em."
"All you gotta do is make sure they don't see ya comin'. Just like in the war, man. Make believe you is the night."
"But how I even find'em t'sneak up on? What you want me t'do? Look in the phone book?"
"You know where Joppy live, right? Les go look. An' if he ain't there you know they gotta be with Albright."
Joppy's house was dark and his bar was padlocked from the outside. The night watchman on duty at Albright's building, a fat, florid-faced man, said that Albright had moved out.
So I made up my mind to call information for every town north of Santa Monica. I got lucky and found DeWitt Albright on my first try. He lived on Route 9, in the Malibu Hills.
29
I drove past Santa Monica into Malibu and found Route 9. It was just a graded dirt road. There I found three mailboxes that read: Miller, Korn, Albright. I passed the first two houses and drove a full fifteen minutes before getting to Albright's marker. It was far enough out that any death cry would go unheard.
It was a simple, ranch-style house, not large. There were no outside lights except on the front porch so I couldn't make out the color. I wanted to know what color the house was. I wanted to know what made jets fly and how long sharks lived. There was a lot I wanted to know before I died.
I could hear loud male voices and the woman's pleading before I got to the window.
Over the sill I saw a large room with a darkwood floor and a high ceiling. Before the blazing hearth sat a large couch covered with something like bear skin. Daphne was on the couch, naked, and the men, DeWitt and Joppy, stood over her. Albright was wearing his linen suit but Joppy was stripped to the waist. His big gut looked obscene hanging over her like that and it took everything I had not to shoot him right then.