I could almost feel my aunt’s hand on my cheek, telling me that black boys didn’t ogle rich white girls. In my mind’s eye, I saw Carole Lombard’s famous platinum hair against the gray Atlanta sky.
“Smokey?”
“Yes,” I said, then cleared my throat. “Um, yes. You’re right. It would be better if the check came from you.”
Laura rummaged in her crocheted bag, removed her checkbook, and then took my pen. As she leaned over the desk again, I turned my attention back to the window. I didn’t want to watch her. I didn’t want to be thinking the things I was thinking, and not just because of my aunt, whom I hadn’t seen in nearly thirty years.
There was no place for a woman like Laura in my life. Not now. Not ever.
“There,” she said. “Did you type up an envelope?”
“Under the letter.”
Papers rustled behind me.
“Where’s the nearest mailbox?” she asked.
“I’ll take care of it.” I turned, took my check off the desk and tore it up. Then I set the letter near my coat, and made myself take a deep breath. “Are those all the boxes?”
She nodded, biting her lower lip. Her small white teeth tugged a bit at the flesh. Her lips were chapped, something I hadn’t noticed before. Usually those lips were hidden under a thick layer of lipstick.
“I got the last ones from Chicago yesterday.” With the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, she swept her hair off her face. “I’d like to go through them with you, Smokey.”
She was asking permission. I had thought, when she hung up that hideous rabbit coat, that she would simply stay and I would have to work with her around.
I almost said no. I preferred to work alone. But rather than go through boxes that remained from two lives I knew nothing about, it would be better to have her there to answer questions as they came up, to explain documents, and to provide a second eye.
“As long as you don’t bury anything,” I said. “I see everything.”
She nodded.
“That sounds easy, but it might not be. Prepare to be embarrassed, Laura.”
She blinked, sighed, and shook her head slightly. “I’ve already been embarrassed a lot on this trip. What’s another few times?”
I studied her for a moment. She seemed subdued this morning. I wondered if she was afraid of what we would find.
“All right,” I said. “Have you looked through these?”
“Enough to know everything is out of order.”
I had expected that. I also expected the records to be incomplete. Some of the best ways to keep secrets was to make it hard to find them. Hiding them in plain sight, but in such a jumble as to make it time consuming to put them together was one method that I expected her parents to have used. Another was to destroy more incriminating records. I suspected they had used that one too.
I rounded the desk, grabbed a box, and pulled it toward me. Then I sank down on the floor and started digging.
Papers were littered haphazardly throughout the box, mixing with photographs, receipts, newspaper articles, and folders. Dust rose as I pulled everything out, and I resisted the urge to sneeze.
Laura watched me for a moment, then she sat down next to me and grabbed another box. “How do you want to do this?”
“Let’s see what we have first,” I said. “Then let’s sort by year, by month, and by date. Photographs, everything, go in the same piles. This stuff might be related.”
“All right,” she said. She pushed up her sleeves and dug her hands into her box, pulling papers out one at a time. She paused to look at each.
“Don’t read them yet,” I said. “Just look for dates.”
She nodded and kept digging.
We made piles that ran from 1945 to 1967. There didn’t seem to be much material that was dated before the war. What there was, we put in its own pile, which, I said, could be sorted out later.
It took us nearly two hours to go through the boxes before us. Finally, Laura wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing dirt and newspaper ink on her light skin. “I’m hungry.”
“All right.” I stood, brushed the dust and dirt off, and extended my hand. She ignored it as she got off the floor herself, brushing the dust off her jeans.
We bundled up and went outside. I hesitated just for a moment in front of the door. I debated taking her into West Memphis where blacks and whites mingled at the blues clubs, but most of those places weren’t open yet. I could have taken her to a few other businesses as well, but none of them were close.
Finally I turned left and headed to the Little Hot House. Part of me was hoping that Suzy was working, and part of me hoped I didn’t see anyone I knew. I could have taken Laura to any of my other haunts, but this one occasionally got white patrons because of its proximity to Schwab’s. To be fair, all of the black-owned businesses on Beale had white customers. It was simply that the restaurants here were as segregated as the ones in the ritzy white sections of town. The only difference was that here, the segregation was voluntary.
I opened the door for her and let the familiar smells of old beer and grease wash over me. Laura went in and headed toward a small table in the center of the restaurant. I took her elbow and led her to my booth near the narrow bar.
The movement felt proprietary, even though I hadn’t initially meant it that way. Laura didn’t even seem to notice, nor did she seem aware of how out of place she was. I was the one who was aware of it, just as I would be aware of how out of place I would be as her dinner guest in the Peabody.
Apparently I was more conscious of the eyes following us than she was.
Suzy was working. She watched us walk in, her face shadowed in the restaurant’s dim light. I usually didn’t like coming here for lunch—the place was as dark as it was at night, and I didn’t like the feeling that it was 3:00 A.M. instead of noon. Suzy crossed her arms when she saw me take Laura’s elbow. Suzy waited until we were seated before coming to the booth.
She set two torn, grease-stained menus in front of us, chosen, I suspected, because they were the worst in the place. “Today’s special,” she said, looking at me as if she didn’t know me, “is homemade chili with fried cornbread.” She snapped her gum, pulled out her notepad, and said, “You ready?”
“I’m afraid I need a minute,” Laura said. The Miss Prim voice. She did it unconsciously, but I had only just learned that. I knew how that voice grated.
“Could you bring us something to drink?” I asked and made sure I smiled. Suzy didn’t smile back.
“Sho’nuf,” Suzy said, exaggerating her accent, and waited.
“Coke-a-Cola,” Laura said without looking up.
Suzy looked at me. The flatness of her gaze made me shiver. “Well?”
“The usual,” I said, showing her that I recognized her disapproval. I tried to mitigate it. “Suzy, this is Laura.”
Laura looked up in surprise. She apparently hadn’t expected me to know the waitress. Maybe being on a first-name basis with waitresses wasn’t done in her world. Of course, sitting in a restaurant with newspaper ink smeared on her chin probably wasn’t done in her world either.
Then she smiled her widest smile, transforming her face from something attractive into something beautiful. No man, black, white, or blue, could have resisted that smile. But it was the wrong wattage for Suzy.
“Hello,” Laura said.
Suzy nodded, glared at me, and disappeared behind the bar.
Laura raised her eyebrows. I shrugged.
Suzy brought us our drinks and we both ordered the chili. We were the only patrons in the place. Normally when that happened to me, Suzy, the bartender, or the chef came over and talked. But no one did. The chili arrived and Laura and I ate in relative silence. She finished her Coke before I did—obviously she wasn’t used to the chili’s heat—and I had to go to the bar to get her another, since Suzy hadn’t come back to the table after serving our meal.
Laura seemed to eat with relish, but her
movements were dainty, filled with society polish that seemed out of place in this rundown room. She glowed—her white jacket, her hair, her skin. It felt as if she were wearing a neon sign, advertising that she was slumming.
Not that she did anything to make me feel that way. She tried to start a conversation once or twice, but I grunted my responses. I could feel Suzy’s gaze on me, the judgment in it, judgment that I usually had when I saw a black man with a white woman.
So I studied my food. The chili was thick, the cornbread fried perfectly. I concentrated on filling the spoon, eating slowly, not making a mess. I didn’t enjoy it, though, and I doubted that Laura enjoyed hers either.
When we were done, I paid at the bar and led Laura outside, placing one hand at the small of her back as I ushered her through the door. I was touching her too much. She didn’t seem to notice or mind, but I did. Although that didn’t make me stop.
The thin gray light on Beale street seemed bright as summer sunshine after the darkness of the Little Hot House. We walked down the sidewalk to the Gallina Building. Laura opened the door, went inside, and it wasn’t until she was on the stairs that she spoke.
“I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life,” she said.
“It wouldn’t have been that bad if you’d been on your own.” I smiled. “The freeze-out was for me.”
“Because of me.”
“Yes.”
I unlocked my office door and was vaguely relieved to see the boxes and piles as we had left them. We went in, removed our coats, and returned to our places without saying much.
I started a new box. So did she. We sorted in silence, searching for dates on the tiniest scraps of paper. She hadn’t asked any questions, although I expected her to. Maybe she understood more than I gave her credit for.
Or maybe she had vowed never to go through anything like that again.
After a few moments, she handed me a folder.
“I don’t want to look at anything until we’re done separating,” I said, handing the folder back to her.
“You need to look at this one,” she said.
I took the folder from her. It was officially bound in fake leather, with metal clips holding the pages together. Inside the window flap someone had taped a title and an address:
INVESTIGATION INTO THE WHEREABOUTS OF
BILLY (SMOKEY) DALTON
Report prepared by: Edward Levy
April 18, 1960
The William Kowolski Detective Agency
My hands were shaking. I smoothed the cover of the report with my left hand. Laura had stopped looking through her files.
“I guess there’s no doubt the money came from my folks, is there?” she said. “That initial payment, anyway.”
“Actually, there is.” My voice broke ever so slightly. She probably didn’t hear it, but I did. I cleared my throat, then continued. “Your mother looked for me after your father died. It seems to tie, but it might have been preliminary to doing her new will. I mean, why leave me money if I was already dead?”
“True.” Laura set the newspaper clippings down. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I had filed a number of reports like that myself. I had just never expected to see one about me. But I was on this case now, and this, whether I liked it or not, was part of it. I turned the cover to the front page, saw the same information typed on a fine bond, and turned to the next page which held a table of contents.
1. Overview
2. Education
3. Military Service
4. Employment
5. Financial History
6. Prospects
7. Local Contacts
8. Recommendations
I turned to the Overview section first. There this Edward Levy paraphrased his instructions. He was to find me and determine how I was living. He was to include an address and contacts so that Mrs. Hathaway could donate some money to me anonymously.
Apparently this idea so offended Mr. Levy that he included more than Mrs. Hathaway had asked for. He did so, he wrote fatuously, at no extra charge. My educational history, military service record, life after the military, and my financial history were all included courtesy of Mr. Levy. He felt it incumbent upon him to determine whether or not I would spend that money wisely. Of course, looking at my financial history, my haphazard employment, and my race, Edward Levy decided that I was a bad risk and Mrs. Hathaway should give her money elsewhere.
I was holding the folder too tightly. All my life, I had been judged by white people and found wanting.
All my life.
“What is it?” Laura asked.
“A private detective’s report.”
“I gathered that much,” she said.
“How much did you read?”
“Enough to wonder how my mother had known you.”
My heart was pounding harder than it should have been. I hadn’t wanted Laura to have read any of this.
“There’s no clue from the overview,” I said. “I’ll look through the rest. Maybe this is the break we’ve been looking for.”
“Do you think so?”
No, I didn’t, but I didn’t say that to her. Levy was using my background to show Laura’s mother how unworthy I was. He wouldn’t detail how she had met me, if he even knew.
I flipped through the report, pulling out the bits of paper that had gotten stuck inside of it so that I could look at each page. I didn’t like what I saw.
When Levy relayed the facts, the report was accurate, although the information was sketchy. The report’s bias showed in his commentary, so I skipped as much of that as I could.
It was strange to see my meager finances from eight years before outlined on a page for someone else to see. I had often done the same thing, calling banks, verifying credit with lenders, investigating a man’s life through the details, but it felt very different to see my financial history delineated so coldly. Coldly, and given to a woman I hadn’t met or didn’t remember meeting, and then analyzed by a man who had no idea of what my life was really like.
I wasn’t sure I liked the fact that Mrs. Hathaway hadn’t taken his advice. If she had hidden this report, it would have been a curiosity when Laura went through her parents’ records. A curiosity and nothing more.
I closed the folder and set the report on top of the 1960 pile.
Laura hadn’t moved. “Are you all right?”
I made myself smile. “I’ve written a lot of those reports. I know what they’re like.”
“Is it accurate?”
I shrugged. “As accurate as something like that can be.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Would you like to stop?”
“Why?” I asked. “Your mother had to find me somehow.”
Laura nodded.
“It’s only a small piece of the puzzle,” I said. “There might be more in here.” And more for show than anything else, I reached into my box and removed more papers. I separated them, glancing only at the dates. After a moment, Laura did the same.
It took an effort to make sure that my hands weren’t shaking. But I didn’t want Laura to know that the report had unsettled me.
I should have known someone was investigating me. I should have caught it. It was my business, after all, to notice such things—especially when they pertained to me.
After a few moments, Laura seemed focused on the task before her. I must have seemed the same way. But all the while I shuffled papers, I was reviewing my life, trying to remember the Hathaways—and failing.
NINE
AT FOUR-THIRTY, Laura put a hand on her back and moaned. “Who would have thought that sorting papers would make me sore?”
I smiled. “Tedious but difficult, that’s my business for you.”
She had arranged most of the papers into neat piles. At some point in the afternoon, she had written dates on pages from my legal pad, and placed the yellow sheets on top of each pile. She surveyed them now, her expres
sion dissatisfied.
“Why don’t you get some rest?” I said. “We can finish this later.”
“If I stay—“
“Then I’d have to, and I have a few things I need to do for other clients before close of business today.”
“Oh.” She bit her lower lip as she often did when she was confronted with a fact she hadn’t thought of. She apparently hadn’t realized that I was doing other work besides hers. “I can work tomorrow.”
“I can’t,” I said, even though that wasn’t true. I could. I just wanted to sort out the feelings I had uncovered this day. The unwelcome feelings for Laura, and the feelings that got uncovered when I held that report. “I need the weekend. How’s Monday?”
“Fine,” she said, but she sounded a bit lost. She stood. Her knees cracked as she did so. She went to the coat rack and got the rabbit fur, slipping it on, and then grabbing her purse. “Call me if you change your mind.”
“I will,” I said.
I waited until her footsteps had receded and the door closed on the street level before I stood. Laura was right, sitting that long was hard work.
I picked the report out of the 1960 pile, rolled the folder, and carried it to my desk. I turned on the metal desk lamp—it was getting dark and the fluorescent overhead, put in over a decade before, did not cast good reading light.
Then I spread the report open on my desk and leaned over it. The Education section simply listed my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, along with my G.P.A. and a few comments from professors who remembered me. The Military Service section read like it had been taken from the War Department’s records. Although it mentioned my rank and my service in Korea, it really said nothing else about my time there.
The Employment section covered my work with Loyce and my own business here, although Levy didn’t really look beyond the “odd jobs” description I gave white people. That made me wonder if I had ever spoken to him and if I had dismissed him as unimportant, just as he had dismissed me.
The Financial History was depressingly thorough. The debt load I had carried eight years ago had been high and Levy, for all his snide comments, had been right; I never would have repaid those debts working for myself. The windfall had been a godsend, even if I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself.
A Dangerous Road: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 10
