The operator rang back to drawl politely that I owed another eighty-five cents. They were slipping down here; hadn't worked out any way for the operators to know if they were talking to coloured, so they could drop the politeness. I told her I'd have to get more change.
I put another buck on the counter and Fatty, who was leaning across the counter, asked, “How you know I got any more change, fancy boy?”
“Your phone. I can walk out and forget the whole thing,” I said calmly—I wasn't going to let this fat jerk bug me.
He finally got into motion, made change. As I dropped the coins in and hung up, he said, “Lot of money for just talk. A hot gal, worth—?”
“That was my mother,” I said, making for the door.
Lardy was comical as his fat face changed and he said, “Sorry, boy, I shouldn't have run my mouth like that. No hard feelings.”
I waved as I shut the door. Driving back to Bingston I couldn't make any sense out of what Sybil told me. Of course, if they were keeping it out of the papers, the police wouldn't tell Sybil they wanted me for murder. But from what she said they sounded so damn casual, like they wanted me for skipping a traffic ticket. Maybe they weren't after me for the murder? Nuts, they'd certainly want me for slugging the cop, probably want me worse for that than for a murder. And how could they know “a” Negro was me so damn fast? Who was masterminding all this, if it wasn't Kay? After all, I only had Bobby's word that she had picked me, not Kay.... Bobby would say anything to protect Kay. But even if it was Kay, what possible relationship could she have had with a punk like Thomas? And I didn't have time to check on her boss, this B. H.... That out-of-town alibi could be bunk. But again, what would a big TV executive be doing with a two-bit guy like Thomas?
I reached the Davis house before noon, washed and shaved. Frances knocked on my door. She looked very fresh in form-fitting slacks, a simple Italian-style striped blouse cut square across the shoulders—and she had real shoulders, not just bones. She was wearing red ballerina shoes and her hair was in a tight bun, with a kind of pearl necklace around it, the pearls in sharp contrast to her black hair.
Her lips were carefully painted a faint red. I watched the lips as she asked, “Did they make you a Kan-tuck colonel?”
“They gave me a citation for wearing out my gums saying 'sir.' We seeing this Tim Russell?”
“Soon as you're ready. I'll wait for you in the car.”
As I put on my tie and coat I heard Mrs. Davis downstairs asking why she was wearing her new outfit and Frances telling the old lady to please keep still. When I walked out, she was waiting behind the wheel of the Chevvy. As I got in beside her, Frances started the heap, asking, “Find out anything new?”
“No.”
“I spoke to Dad. No one has left town recently.”
As we came out of the driveway, a tall slim fellow in work pants, polished boots, and a plaid mackinaw waved at Frances. His hand seemed suspended in mid-air, and his light brown face with the carefully trimmed mustache showed shocked surprise. She waved back as we turned into the street. He shouted, “Say, Frances, I— Hey, wait!”
“No time now,” she called back, speeding down the street. “That's Willie.”
“The boy friend?”
“My, aren't we the detective. Well, he isn't. I go out with him sometimes—I have to go out with somebody. Matter of fact, because I play hard to get—I suppose—Willie's hinted he might consider marrying me.”
“Handsome fellow.”
“Willie is the big deal for coloured girls in Bingston; quite a catch, and he knows it. He was a paratrooper, the only one in Bingston, so that makes him something, and he has a steady job driving a coal truck, makes good money. He thinks all he has to do is ask and a girl will roll over and wag her tail like a dog begging. I don't think I could stand marrying him. But sometimes... When you're twenty-five Willie can look like all the excitement in the world... from here.”
I didn't want to get into her business so I asked, “What am I to tell this Tim? I mean, what am I supposed to be?”
“You don't have to tell him anything. He understands you're in a jam—without asking questions. He was one of the few whites who helped us in the fight to sit in the orchestra of the movie house. He's... I guess you'd call him the town radical. He's a very good guy. At one time I dreamt I was in love with him.”
I turned to stare at her. “Then what happened?”
“Nothing. I—we—never did anything about it. He's married now. I soon realized Tim was merely a girlish daydream, I had confused admiration for love.”
“This dawn come before or after he was married?”
“Before. Stop teasing me!” She snapped it out the way Kay had told me never to make fun of her.
“Sorry.”
We drove through the main street and after a few minutes turned into a muddy field that could have been a baseball diamond. There was a small weather-beaten grandstand we passed as she drove for a group of trees on the other side of the field and stopped next to a parked pickup truck. The guy behind the wheel was about twenty-three, crew-cut yellow hair that reminded me of Thomas', and a lean rugged face with sharp blue eyes. He looked like a middle-weight pug. He was wearing a work shirt and a dirty suede windbreaker. Frances said, “Hello, Tim. This is Mr. Jones.”
He said hello and reached out of the truck window, shook my hand. Maybe he was a pug; he had a dent in his short nose, and a scar over his left eyebrow. “What is it you want to know about my sister?” His voice was dry and plain.
“About the trouble she had with Porky Thomas.”
The eyes hardened. “I never called him that. He wasn't a— You're not one of these TV people that were here a month or two ago?”
“No.”
“I told them at the time I wouldn't rake up any mud for them. That still goes.”
“What was your sister May's reaction to the TV people?”
He ran a stubby hand through his short hair. “Look, Mister, I don't agree with May's ideas on most things, but I try to understand her. May—oh they buttered her up. Called her a promising young singer—she always wanted to be one. They made a recording of her doing a song, said she'd be on TV screens all over the country. She co-operated with them—I'm told.”
“You see May much?”
“No. It isn't that we're unfriendly. We're just not friendly any longer. There's a difference.”
“Did she leave town a few days ago?”
“No. She's never been out of Bingston, except to go shopping in Cincinnati.”
“But since you don't see her, she could have left—?”
“I know she didn't. I thought you wanted to ask about Bob Thomas?”
“I am. Do you know anybody here who might have reason to hate him?”
“Not enough to kill him. After all, he hasn't been around in years. He was forgotten more than hated.”
“What was your reaction when you read about his being killed?”
“Me? I don't know. I suppose most of all I felt sorry. We used to live in a shack at the end of town, place called the Hills. Bob lived there with his mother—I never saw or knew his father—and some other poor families. It's a garbage dump now, was then too, but unofficially. The junk heap gives it the name Hills. There was about seven or eight families lived there, white and coloured.” He looked across me at Frances. “Fran, you talk to Mrs. Simpson recently?”