Too Black for Heaven

by Keene, Day

  It was dark when she passed through Blairville. She was amused when she thought how frightened she’d been at first. Now it was just another town, a nice town with a courthouse square, a few statues erected to the past and a hotel.

  The moon was rising when she reached the cottage. She sat in her car a moment, watching the crescent of silver disentangle itself from the top branches of a tall pine. She would miss the lake. She would miss a number of things. For all its anomalies, the South was beautiful.

  She unlocked the cottage door and closed and locked it behind her. The wind was off the lake. A metal slat in one of the venetian blinds vibrated noisily. Dona laid her bag on the phone stand and took off her driving gloves. Then she crossed the room to light the lamp and, with the same uneasy feeling, stopped in the spot where she’d stood the night before. This time she wasn’t mistaken. She knew she was being watched.

  The wind off the lake felt less cool. Her throat felt constricted as she walked to the bed and felt under the pillow. The revolver wasn’t there. She opened the drawer in the table. The gun wasn’t in the drawer. She knelt on the bed and felt between it and the wall. The gun wasn’t there, either. Still kneeling, she turned and looked over her shoulder, as a slurred voice drawled, “Looking for something, Miss Santos?”

  Blair Sterling was sitting in the chair in which Beau had sat. His eyes were over-bright. His lips were slack. The harsh glare of the lamp faded his suntan to a sickly yellow and emphasized the deep lines in his face. His long legs stretched in front of him were encased in well-creased gray flannel. His matching gabardine shirt was spotted with perspiration. Small beads of moisture glistened on his sunken cheeks. The bottle from which he’d been drinking stood beside the chair. As Dona watched him, he lighted a cigarette, dropped the burned match on the floor, then felt his close-cropped mustache with one finger.

  Dona sat sideways on the bed. “How did you get in here?”

  “With a key,” Sterling said. “I own the cottage, remember?”

  He was drunk, very drunk. Dona had a feeling she’d lived through this scene before. It was an effort for her to force the words past the lump in her throat. “What do you want?”

  Her father fingered the scar on his cheek. His smile was enigmatic. “We’ll come to that.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE LOOSE slat continued to vibrate. Following his eyes, Dona looked down and saw that her skirt had slipped up over her knee, exposing a thin white line of flesh. She sat up straight on the bed and smoothed her skirt. “I asked you what you wanted.”

  Sterling was amused. “And I said we’d come to that.”

  They sat a moment with silence between them, the only sound in the cottage being made by the loose slat. Dona put one hand to her cheek. It felt hot and flushed. She forced herself to speak calmly. “Please say whatever you’ve come to say, Mr. Sterling. Then I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to pack.”

  “You’re going somewhere?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. Now. As soon as I finish packing.”

  “Where?”

  “Back to Chicago.”

  Sterling was even more amused. “What’s the matter? Lose your nerve?”

  Dona was afraid she was going to be sick on the floor. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No?”

  “No. Go away, please.”

  “When I’m ready. And that may be a long time.” Sterling waggled a finger at her. “Little Miss Prissy-pants in person.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sterling’s sunken eyes patted the taut bodice of Dona’s dress, then lifted to her flushed face. He was so drunk he was having trouble forming his words. “I mean you’re very pretty, my dear. The perfect example of the best in miscegenation. No wonder I was attracted to you.” His voice filled with self-pity. “It’s surprising but true. Once a man develops a taste for strong food and indulges it, pap is a very poor substitute. And you have just enough of the tar brush to excite me.”

  Dona sat very still with her hands folded in her lap.

  Sterling continued, “What was your original idea? You come down here to blackmail me? I thought your so-talented mother had all the money in the world.”

  “I want nothing from you.”

  “We don’t always get what we want.”

  “You know who I am?”

  “I do.”

  “You’ve known from the first afternoon?”

  “Let’s say I surmised.”

  “How?”

  “Santos isn’t a common name. And of course I recognized Beth, or Estrella, as she calls herself now, the first time I saw her on a television screen.” Sterling fingered the scar on his cheek. “How could I possibly forget her?”

  Dona’s head was beginning to ache. She wished the blind would stop making a noise.

  “Then imagine my pleased surprise when I read in this morning’s paper that you admitted being her daughter.”

  “And yours.”

  “I have no proof of that.”

  “She was a virgin when you raped her.”

  “That’s her story.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Can you prove it? Just how could you prove rape after a lapse of eighteen years.” Sterling laughed. “Besides, despite her fame, she’s been passing for the same length of time. She’s nothing but a bright skin and down South everyone knows a bright skin hasn’t any more morals than a mink. Anybody could be your father.”

  “That isn’t so about Estrella.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me.”

  Sterling waved the subject aside as immaterial. “Niggers are notorious liars. What I want to know is why you came south.”

  “That’s my business.”

  “I’m making it mine.” Sterling stood up. The whiskey hadn’t affected his equilibrium. He crossed the room and stood in front of her.

  Dona’s flesh crawled at the thought of his touching her. He did, but not in the manner she’d feared. He slapped her face, first with his palm, then with the back of his hand.

  “Why did you come south?”

  Dona met his eyes. “To kill you.”

  “At this late date?”

  “I didn’t know until a week ago.”

  “Know what?”

  “That I have colored blood. That you are my father.”

  “Estrella never told you she was passing?”

  “No.”

  “Why tell you now?”

  “Because I became engaged.”

  “To a white man?”

  “Of course.”

  “I see. And Estrella, the fond mother, felt it was only fair to warn you if you and the happy bridegroom-to-be had children — ” Sterling sucked in his breath.

  “That’s about the way it was.”

  “You were going to kill me with that gun I saw the other night?”

  “I was.”

  “You bought it for that express purpose?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it now?”

  Subconsciously, Dona slid one hand under the pillow. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “Just that. I left it under this pillow.”

  “It isn’t there now?”

  “No.”

  “A pity,” Sterling said dryly. “Now to get back to what you said when you first came in, your reason for asking me to leave.”

  “You mean about wanting to pack?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean it.”

  “You intend to leave without killing me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “A number of things.” Dona pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. “It wouldn’t solve or change anything. I was out of my mind to think it would. I think I’ve been out of my mind since Estrella told me.”

&n
bsp; Sterling sat in a chair close to the bed and Dona swung her knees the other way. “A normal reaction.” He took a package of cigarettes from the pocket of his shirt and offered it to Dona. “Smoke?”

  She shook her head. “No, thank you. I have some of my own.” Dona got her bag from the phone stand and found her cigarettes.

  Sterling laughed. “All you want from me is distance.”

  “That’s one way of phrasing it.”

  Sterling thumbed a cigarette into his mouth. “How about this man to whom you were engaged?”

  “I broke our engagement.”

  “You told him the truth?”

  Dona inhaled the cigarette she’d lighted. The harsh smoke irritated the tender membranes of her throat but eased some of the constriction. “No.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I don’t see that that concerns you.”

  Sterling shrugged. “Possibly not. All I was getting at is with Beth, or Estrella if you prefer, in California discussing a picture contract and you no longer engaged, there’s no particular reason for you to hurry back to Chicago.”

  Dona picked up the largest of her two bags, set it on a folding luggage rack, and began to pack it with clothes she took from the closet. “Nevertheless, I intend to. In about fifteen minutes.”

  Finished with the dresses, Dona crossed the room to the chest beside the bed and took out an armful of lingerie. She started to her case.

  Behind her, Sterling said, “Perhaps.”

  Dona looked at him over her shoulder. His voice was thick, as he repeated, “Perhaps.”

  Dona tried to ignore him and continue packing but she couldn’t. A small lump formed in her middle and ballooned rapidly. “What do you mean?”

  Sterling was annoyed with her. “Stop being so goddamned naive. You’re a big girl, Dona.”

  Dona moved slowly away from him, until her back was to the wall. Her flesh felt feverish and unclean. The roof of her mouth was dry. The constriction returned to her throat. She no longer cared about her clothes. All she wanted was to get out of the cottage. “No,” she said, “you wouldn’t dare.” She snatched up her purse and opened the screen door.

  Sterling made no attempt to stop her. “Good luck. But if I may make a suggestion, instead of returning to Chicago, perhaps you’d better drive out to Los Angeles.”

  Dona stood in the open doorway. “What do you mean by that?”

  “You can help Beth explain to the newspaper men and the producers with whom she is dickering.”

  “Explain what?”

  “Why she’s been passing as white for eighteen years.”

  “No one can prove she isn’t white.”

  “I can.”

  “How?”

  “Very easily. All I have to do is pick up the phone or drive into town and demand that Sheriff Early, acting on the information contained in a warrant charging Beth Wilbur, Negress, currently known as Estrella Santos, with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, wire Sheriff Biscailluiz in Los Angeles, asking her arrest and detention until the proper extradition papers arrive.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Wouldn’t I? Of course you can prevent that from happening.”

  Dona walked into the bathroom, closed the door behind her and was sick. What Sterling was suggesting was unthinkable. Still, she couldn’t let this thing happen to Estrella. The newspapers would crucify her, not because they were cruel, merely because Estrella was news. And she, Dona, would be responsible. She mustn’t let it happen.

  She walked back into the living room. Sterling was sitting on the studio bed. He said, “Now you’re being sensible. Come over and sit down and let’s talk this over.”

  Dona stayed where she was. “We’ve nothing to talk over.”

  Her father stood up and crossed the room. His lined face was beaded with perspiration. “That’s right. You’ve no choice.” Dona tried to make herself small as he took her in his arms. Her flesh crawled where he touched her. “You’re not going anywhere. Not for a long time.” As he tried to kiss her, she moved her head from side to side to avoid contact with his lips, then broke away from him.

  “But you’re my — ” she choked on the word.

  “I don’t choose to believe that. But the possibility does give you an added spice, I’ll admit.”

  He reached for her again, and she knew that she couldn’t go through with it. She screamed, “No, I won’t, I won’t,” and tore away from him. Without looking back, she raced out of the cottage.

  He caught up with her just as she reached the car. He pulled her around and pressed her against it with his body, muttering, “Don’t be a little fool.”

  Dona tried not to think, tried not to feel as his lips came down on her eyes, her mouth, her throat.

  She continued to struggle. “Please.”

  Sterling slapped her. “I warned you.”

  The shots came from the darkness behind them, so close to Sterling’s back that Dona felt she could reach out and touch the flashes. Running feet raced over the gravel drive and around the cottage and Dona thought she heard a faint splash in the lake.

  Sterling coughed and released her as he caught at the car. It was an effort for him to stand. His eyes were faintly luminous in the dark. “Who was it?”

  “You bitch. You bright-skin bitch,” he cursed her.

  He pushed himself away from the car and climbed the steps of the cottage. Her palms pressed to the cool metal behind her, Dona watched the lamp by the door come on. Sterling stood in the doorway a moment, weaving like a tall flag pole in the wind. Then he picked up the phone and coughed, “113. This is Blair Sterling calling. From my cottage on Loon Lake.”

  Chapter Twenty

  THE WINDOW was of normal size, screened with strong steel mesh. At two o’clock in the morning, the only traffic in the square was the swift passing of official cars. They swooped into the intersection like luminous-eyed owls, then slackened speed to light in the paved parking lot behind the red brick courthouse.

  The detention cell was small but clean. It contained a wash basin, a lidless toilet and a single bunk bed held by chains to a metal wall. A naked bulb burned in the ceiling. The bed was the only place to sit. Dona sat very still on the edge of the thin mattress, trying to hear what the muted voices in Sheriff Early’s office were saying.

  A disheveled Negress across the corridor peered at Dona through the bars of her cell. “What you do, white girl?” she asked. “What fo’ they got you in heah?”

  “A man was killed,” Dona told her.

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Sterling.”

  “Blaih Sterlin’?”

  “Yes.”

  “You one of the party girls he fetch down from Natchez?”

  “No.”

  “How he killed?”

  “With a gun.”

  “They think you killed him?”

  “At least, they’re holding me.”

  “You do it?”

  “No.”

  “Then why doan you git a lawyer?”

  “They say I can phone in the morning.”

  “Always somethin’. But you got no call to worry. Not so long you white. Me, I’m good for thirty days. Jist fo’ gittin’ drunk.” She brightened. “I had me a good time though.”

  Dona was embarrassed for the girl. She opened her purse and looked in it. The only four objects left in it were her compact, a comb, a partly-filled package of cigarettes and a box of matches with ERNIE’S BEER PARLOR printed on the cover.

  For want of something better to do she recombed her hair and repaired her make-up. As she looked at her face in her compact mirror, she wished she knew more about this business of having colored blood. If she was colored, why wasn’t she black?

  She sat pleating her skirt, trying not to be frightened. What she’d come to do had taken place but not as she’d planned it. Sterling had lived long enough to talk to one of the deputies. God knew what he’d told him.

  She return
ed her compact to her purse as Deputy Sheriff Ransom unlocked the door of the detention cell. “If you’ll come with me, please, Miss Santos.”

  Dona stood up. “Yes, sir.” For a frightening moment her knees refused to support her and she had to catch at one of the chains suspending the bed. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Just down the hall,” Ransom said. “The sheriff wants to talk to you again. You know Sterlin’s daid?”

  “Yes. One of the deputies told me.”

  Her chin tilted and she grasped the strap of the bag so hard her fingers ached as she walked down the narrow corridor toward the open steel door at the far end.

  “Good luck, honey,” the Negress called after her.

  Dona resolved whatever they charged her with, whatever they did to her, she wouldn’t admit the truth. She would not involve Estrella. She wouldn’t allow the newspapers and the radio and the television to make a holiday of this.

  Dona closed her eyes and said a Hail Mary, not for herself but for Estrella.

  Ransom was still her friend. “Feeling a little queasy, huh?”

  “A little,” Dona admitted.

  He patted her arm. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Then you jist hold tight. It may take a little time but it’ll come out all right. You’ll see.”

  There were a dozen men in Sheriff Early’s office, big men, deeply tanned. Dona recognized four of them as the two deputies first to arrive at the cottage, County Attorney Yarnell and Sheriff Early. They all took off their hats as she entered. Ransom guided her to a chair in front of Early’s desk. The sheriff stood up and motioned to the chair.

  “Please be seated, Miss Santos.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Feeling a little better?”

  “A lot better.”

  “Would you like a glass of water or perhaps something stronger?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The phone on Early’s desk rang. “Excuse me.”

  Dona sat looking around the office. A huge map covered one wall. There was a bank of green filing cases on whose top a rotating fan purred. As it oscillated, a ripple of warm air moved the cigar and cigarette smoke from one side of the office to the other. Through the unbarred window she could see a section of the night-filled square.