“Scotch,” he said. She disappeared into the kitchen. There were some paintings on the wall, and some posters from her play Wrong-Headed Man that depicted the controversial scene where Mose, the lead character, stands at the top of the stairs, arms folded and a cigarette dangling from his lips, while at the bottom his missionary wife, whom he has pushed down the stairs, lies sprawled and sobbing, her dress up around her waist. Throughout Wrong-Headed Man, Mose goes on a spree of woman-bashing rape and incest. A pain shot through O’Reedy’s kidneys. He grimaced. “Is anything wrong?” Tremonisha asked, his drink in her hand. O’Reedy didn’t acknowledge the remark. “Could you give me a description of the man?” he asked.
Sometimes O’Reedy went for days without evacuating his wastes and when stools did show up, they were dark and pasty. His wrists were always in pain. Yet it seemed like only yesterday that he calmly drove through the car dealer’s showcase window to capture some niggers who were inside, holding a white woman as hostage. That was the day he became a legend. He had pulled his pet heat Nancy on the niggers, and before pasting their insides to the wall he said: “Give me something to write home to Mother about,” the line that became immortal, even quoted by politicians. Hey, he was even mentioned on one of the syndicated shows. “In the news recently, there was an incident involving three hoodlums and a New York City detective. What did the detective say before shooting all three?” The lady answered the question correctly and won fifteen thousand dollars. When O’Reedy had lifted the hysterical woman hostage to her feet and led her outside, the noonday crowd had applauded. That was the year the public, making its wishes known through the polls, had pleaded with him to run for mayor.
“He was a large man. He wore a raincoat, white scarf, and beret. He wore dark glasses. He had the cheekbones of a well-fed cat, and, and…” Tremonisha began to cry. O’Reedy looked up from his notepad. She was wearing silk pajama — type pants, white blouse, and a white turban to cover the damage that her assailant had wrought. She had big eyes and long, dark eyelashes.
“He said all sorts of political things. Said that I was giving the black man a bad name.” (O’Reedy offered her a handkerchief. She declined and took some fancy department store tissue that rested in a pink box on the table next to the chair. She blew her nose.) O’Reedy felt like taking her into his arms, comforting her, and saying things like, “Now, now.”
“Probably some psycho with wounded masculine pride,” O’Reedy said, writing down his observations in his notebook. A political nut. “Outside of the hair…did he harm you in any other way?”
“No, as a matter of fact he left me this.” She showed the detective a chrysanthemum. The detective took it from her and put a handkerchief about it.
“I’ll take it down to the lab. He must have some kind of obsession with hair. Why would he cut your hair?”
“He said that the hair was cut because that’s what the French did to the women who collaborated with the Nazis during the war.”
“Looks like we have a real lunatic here.” He leaned over and clasped her moist hand. He felt some nerves stirring in his left hand. The hand that had gone numb many years before.
“It’s a shame that he did this to you.” He looked up at the turban; he felt like patting her head, but he restrained himself. She smiled and blushed. “Don’t worry, Ms. Smarts. I’ll get the bastard if it’s the last thing that I do.” The phone rang. She walked over to pick it up. The detective glanced at her serendipitous buttocks moving beneath her silk pants. His eyes moved from left to right.
“I can’t talk to you now. Tomorrow, Towers. It’ll have to be a late flight. You’ll arrange it? Why do you keep asking that question? It’s fiction, I told you — you keep asking me did it really happen? No, I never had incest with my father. I’m becoming annoyed, Towers. Yes, I’ll have dinner with you tomorrow.” She hung up and nervously plucked a cigarette from a box on the table. O’Reedy lit the cigarette. “They’re doing a film of Wrong-Headed Man,” she said finally, blowing out smoke.
Ian Ball’s friends, the black male writers whom he referred to as the fellas, had observed that since the film version of Wrong-Headed Man was being produced, directed, and written by white males, that they, the fellas, could look forward to a good media head-whipping just about the time the film came out. They imagined that the white feminist critics were already lining up to review it, queuing up like those people who wait all night for the opportunity to buy a ticket to a Prince concert, even feuding about which one was going to be the first to drub old Mose. Skin Mose — the American black man — alive.
“My wife and I saw it,” O’Reedy said. “That scene — you know the one where the huge black brute throws this mulatress down the stairs, but not before — you know where she is lying there begging for mercy when he — I started to run up on the stage, it was so realistic. All I could think to do was rescue that woman — ever since I saw that, I was wondering, Ms. Smarts, did that really happen? I mean, did some black brute take you — I mean, how was it?”
“Mr. O’Reedy, I really have to be packing. I’m flying to Hollywood tomorrow. I still have to do revisions on the script. Will you be needing me?”
“I think I have enough information. Please call me when you return. We might have some additional clues. We’ll do everything we can to stop this creep.”
“Thank you, Detective O’Reedy.” He rose and wobbled to the door, placing the notebook into the pocket of his gray gabardine overcoat. He tipped his brown hat and smiled.
4
“Good grief, look at the tits on that one,” Jim said.
“Jesus. Would you look at that. I’d like to take that one for a horseback ride all night long. Yeeeeooowww.” Ball and Jim had just finished their work on the play and were looking at the photos of some of the women who had been cast.
“So as I was saying, the guy from the outer office, you know, Ickey, he comes rushing in — was he livid. He looked like he wanted to fight, but she told him it was all right. They had this big, beefy-looking guy with a crew cut there. Bluest eyes I ever saw. He’s the old broad’s chauffeur and bodyguard. His name is Otto. I thought he was going to jump into it, but he didn’t say anything. Anyway, I’m screaming at this broad and she’s just standing there.”
“Man. I would have loved to see the expression on Ickey’s face. He is one bigoted bastard. He called my stuff crude. I’d like to crude him.” Ian took another hit of the joint and passed it to Minsk. Ian did an imitation of Ickey that wasn’t too complimentary. They both laughed. Minsk leaned back and almost fell out of the kitchen chair.
“Imagine that twat. Thought she could get away with it. Do this Eva Braun play at the Mountbatten and give you the Queen Mother.”
“How did you hear that she was going to try it?”
“I was sitting in a café around the corner from the theater and I heard these two broads talking about it. They were excited about the Eva Braun thing. They said that you were…are you ready for this? A notorious sexist.”