by David Fulmer
Waving a hand in farewell, Willie walked off across the lobby and out the door with his usual perfect sense of direction. Joe sat for another few minutes, then pushed himself out of the chair and headed for the staircase.
As he passed the front desk, the night clerk looked up. “Got something for you,” he said, and handed over an envelope, expensive-looking, cream white.
Joe thought, Now what? and thought about giving it right back. Every message that had come his way lately had led to bad news and he wasn’t in the mood for more. Not this night. He tucked the envelope in a coat pocket and continued on.
When he got to his room, he hung his coat and hat on the back of the door, then took two aspirin and washed them down with a palmful of tepid water from the pitcher. He sat down on the bed and took off his shoes. A few minutes went by as he stared dully at the worn carpet and felt the throbbing in his head recede.
The envelope hovered at the edge of his vision as it peeked from his coat pocket. He didn’t need another problem or another anything to frazzle his brain this evening. At the same time, if he didn’t look, it would just drive him crazy. And who knew? Maybe the solution to all his problems was in there, printed out in neat letters. So with a resigned sigh, he got up and went about extracting the envelope and tearing it open to read the inscribed note.
Mr. Rose, Please contact me on a matter of immediate urgency.
Mrs. May Ida Jackson. 5-6799.
Joe slapped a hand on his forehead in exasperation. Of all the times for the crazy woman to decide she wanted his company! As if he didn’t have enough trouble. He threw the note aside and went to the dresser to get his bottle and a glass, then carried the drink to the bed and stretched out, his head propped on the pillow.
The whiskey relaxed him and he found himself laughing quietly. Poor little addle-brained, ravenous May Ida, popping up like that. She could not have picked a worse time, the very moment he happened to be locked in a grim battle with her husband. As he sipped his drink, he picked up the note and read it again, his thoughts rounding a corner.
The timing was simply too odd, and settling on the words immediate urgency didn’t sound like her at all. The notion crossed his mind that she could be up to something other than an afternoon’s dalliance. He wondered if she knew something or was mounting some crazy and devious plot of her own. One side of his mind told him to go downstairs and call her, while the other told him she was the last person in the world he needed to be talking to now.
He went around with it a few more times and then gave up. It was too much at the end of such a wearying day and the whiskey was knocking him out. He laid back and let the note drop from his fingers as he drowsed off. Time passed, and the characters in the story promenaded by in a dream parade, starting with Pearl, and followed by Little Jesse, Willie, Sweet, Albert Nichols, the Captain, Lieutenant Collins, Officer Logue, Daisy, Molly O’Connell, Mrs. Cotter, Robert Clark, a different Pearl, and finally May Ida. It ended with her.
He came awake and sat up, his head clearing. There was no way he could ignore May Ida. He had to find out why she had chosen this moment to send a message. If she was setting a trap or just looking for a lover boy, he’d sense that easily enough and make a quick escape. He’d only done it about a hundred times before.
Downstairs, he crossed the lobby and stepped into the telephone booth. He lifted the earphone, turned the crank, and waited. When the operator came on the line, he read off the number. A few seconds later, he heard a low muttering buzz.
On the third ring, the connection was made. “Good evening. Jackson residence.” The voice was breathy and florid.
“This is Joe Rose speaking.”
“Why, Mr. Rose!” May Ida twittered. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“It’s pleasant to talk to you again, too,” Joe said, thinking how foolish he must sound. “I got your note.”
“Oh, yes! My note. I was wondering if perhaps we could meet.” Now she was twittering like a canary.
It was all too familiar, and Joe figured he’d made a mistake calling her. She had nothing he wanted, and with his luck of late, if he did see her, she’d crack right before his eyes and bring the rest of Captain Jackson’s wrath down on his head.
He cleared his throat. “Well, that sounds swell,” he said. “But I don’t know when I could make an appointment. Right now I’m in—”
“You can stop that!” The sweet twitter turned brittle, and Joe stood there, his mouth dropping, startled at the sudden change of tone. “Now you listen to me.” She was biting off her words. “I’ve got something you need, and it might not be what you think. It will be worth your while to meet me.”
Joe thought for a second. “All right,” Joe said. “When?”
May Ida’s sweet side resurfaced as quickly as it had departed. “I think tomorrow would be fine. I’m going to do some Christmas shopping. I’ll be at the back entrance of the Rich’s Store at exactly noon.”
“All right,” he said.
“I’ll hope you’ll be there,” she went on. “So we can talk.”
“What do—”
“I look forward to seeing you.” The line went dead. Joe stared at the telephone, then stepped out of the booth. He climbed the stairs back to his room and went to work on the drink he hadn’t finished.
Earlier that evening, May Ida had been sitting on the couch, her mind miles away as she fell under the spell of the sweet croon of Mr. Russ Colombo, when she was snapped out of her swoon at the sound of the key in the lock. The rosy mist evaporated as she blinked in confusion and then sighed with dismay to find herself in that little room in that little house in that dull corner of the city. She laid the afghan aside as the door swung open and Grayton came stalking in. A glance at the clock on the mantel told her he was even later than his usual late self. She reached over to lift the arm on the Victrola (her husband didn’t care for music at all) and stood up to welcome him home.
He barely greeted her and as usual displayed no affection. In fact, he never came home hungry for her. She considered this a blessing.
For the first few months after their marriage, he had done his duty and went about mounting her, though so clumsily it almost brought her to laughter. That a grown man could be so inept! He reminded her of one of the country boys she used to lure into haylofts back in Scottsdale—worse, even. He didn’t seem to get the idea, other than as a way to relieve an urge.
In any case, he soon tired of that and let her know that from then on he wanted French by shoving her to her knees and unbuttoning his trousers. She complied dutifully, though without any pleasure. After a few dozen times, even that failed to move him and he stopped demanding anything, other than that she keep the house clean and cook the meals.
He did not touch or kiss her and did not look at her ripe figure when she undressed. He had not tried to love her in any manner for almost two years. She didn’t know if someone else was servicing his needs and didn’t care. They’d been sleeping in separate beds since their first night together because he couldn’t stand another body that close to him.
It was just as well he didn’t try to take her or she might have some explaining to do. If the Captain paid any attention at all, he would by now have caught the scent left over from an afternoon’s interlude. A prudent woman who was deceiving her husband would bathe and employ a douche the moment her paramour left the house. May Ida never bothered. That a police officer of his stature couldn’t put such a simple two and two together amused, saddened, or angered her, depending on her mood at the moment. As time went by, the only thing she felt for him was a grim revulsion.
On this night, like every other one, all he wanted was his supper and his bottles, and she stepped into the kitchen to warm a plate of pork chops, parsleyed potatoes, and lima beans. He took off his coat and loosened his tie, picked up the evening newspaper, and carried it to the kitchen table, where he made a noisy show of sitting down and fussing like an impatient diner in a restaurant where the service was slo
w. She went to the ice locker to fetch him a bottle of beer without being told. She hoped he was thirsty.
“There you are, dear,” she murmured, and placed the bottle at his elbow. She wanted him good and drunk, and the strong home brew would be a start. He’d get to the hard liquor soon enough.
The Captain snatched up the bottle and drank it halfway empty in one long swallow. Banging it down on the table, he wiped his mouth and belched loudly. Then he snapped open the newspaper. May Ida went about playing a private joke as she prepared his meal, bending down to present her round bottom, then bending forward so he could view her bosomy cleavage. As usual, he took no notice.
By the time he had reached the fold, the first bottle was empty and she was there with a fresh one. She returned to her stove, casting the occasional glance over her shoulder to check on his progress. Had he looked up, he would have seen eyes that gleamed with venom that would have startled him. Though he was far too oblivious for that.
He read down the rest of the front page, making angry little sounds, as if every word inflamed him. She knew that what he took from his reading was that the whole world was a mess peopled by fools—not counting himself, of course. He punctuated his point by rustling noisily through the remainder of the pages.
It got quiet, except for the ticking of the clock on the wall over the sink. A silent minute passed, and May Ida turned her head to see him staring dazedly at the newspaper, his face blank and bloodless, wearing a kind of ghastly smile as he held the edges of the page crumpled in his fingers. She had seen that look a lot lately. It was her first sign that told her that something strange was going on.
Quietly, so as not to break his mood, she put his dinner before him, along with a third bottle of beer. She didn’t know where it came from, only that once a week a fresh case turned up on the back porch. She set his place the way he liked it, then took the opposite chair, put on her best innocent face, and said, “How was your day today?”
He came out of his funk to glare at her as if she was to blame for the woes that had befallen him. She was used to that, too.
He went about attacking his dinner with a wolfish vengeance, plainly not tasting what he was eating. Halfway through, he stopped and sat sulking for a few dark seconds, staring at nothing, his mouth an inverted U. He picked up the bottle to swill some more beer, took up his fork, put it down again, and pushed his plate aside. The remainder in the bottle was gone in one long draft.
May Ida’s face remained blank as she picked up the plate and carried it to the sink. Always the dutiful wife, she went under the sideboard for the fifth of whiskey that was stashed there.
The Captain kept the good stuff, real Canadian that he had taken from a runner caught coming through the city on his way to Florida. There were four cases stacked in the basement. He had laughed darkly about the incident, opining that the runner had probably ended up dead for losing the load. Too bad; the fool should have gone around.
She now poured a tumblerful, knowing he would switch from the beer without a pause, and that’s when his tongue would get really loose.
She knew he held her in such little regard that he didn’t care what he said in front of her. She didn’t care to hear it much, either. He was mostly just crabbing about police department politics. But over the past several weeks, she had begun to discern something in his blather that took on a certain life and shape that even her addled mind couldn’t ignore. She listened more closely, picked up more pieces to add to the ones she’d already collected. A delicious thrill traveled from her brain and spread to her chest, stomach, and loins that he couldn’t detect this trickery. It was better than slipping around with paramours, and when she realized that what she had learned could ruin him, she decided to do just that. He’d never know what hit him.
Most nights, she would have a glass or two of whiskey to ease her loneliness, dull her anger, and help her sleep. The Captain didn’t notice that she hadn’t taken an evening drink in two weeks. She made sure his glass was always full and hers was always empty, so that her mind was as clear as the winter’s first ice.
It worked. He held so much anger beneath his hard crust that once the liquor cracked it, all sorts of secrets seeped out. This was how she learned about a number of the ne’er-do-wells she later arranged to meet. She also picked up all sorts of luscious gossip. Such as the high-ranking and pious city official who regularly had light-skinned Negro girls released from jail to do domestic chores at his home, though not one of them ever spent a minute cleaning house. Or the cabal of upper-level officers who—until Mayor Sampson got elected—made a nice living diverting stolen goods from the property room to family, friends, mistresses, and fences. Or one of the former mayor’s closest advisers who was having illicit trysts with the sixteen-year-old (and presumably virginal) daughter of the president of the city’s largest bank, livening their interludes with an opium pipe. Or the well-regarded Baptist minister who was reputed to enjoy giving long baths to boys still in knee pants. And so on.
If May Ida had managed to keep track of these scandals, she might have made herself rich as a blackmailer. But she was forever getting things mixed up and just forgetting. This time, she was determined to fix her skittish mind on something and keep it there.
The Captain picked up the whiskey glass for a fast swig. He brooded for a moment, his mouth drooping into a jagged gash. Another long sip of liquor and he growled something, the kind of gruff mutter that told May Ida that his ire was bubbling like a pot coming to boil. She produced her best face of simpleminded interest.
Among the staccato fragments he spewed out over the next minutes were the usual “sons of bitches,” “fucks,” and “bastards.” She waited, making sympathetic sounds, and gradually he began mouthing complete thoughts, speaking as if she—or some other invisible party—had been engaged all along in the dialogue that was going on inside his head.
“—should have seen the look on that fuck Troutman’s face when the mayor lit into him,” he said.
“You saw the mayor?” She knew he was vain when it came to important people.
“Was in his office.” He smiled—to himself, of course. “Thought they had me, but I won that round.” Then he laughed shortly. “They think I’m some kind of goddamn fool. They don’t know what I know.”
May Ida widened her already wide eyes, appropriately impressed.
“And I know,” he pronounced with an ominous note in his voice.
May Ida saw the hard light flashing in his eyes. He was looking at her as if he had just noticed her sitting there and didn’t like it.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“Something wrong . . . yeah, I’d say there’s something wrong . . .” He produced a cruel smile. “It’s gonna get fixed, though. Everything’s going to get fixed. Every damn thing.” He drank some more. “I had to lay down with some filthy goddamn dogs.” He stared at her, his green eyes swimming out of focus. Abruptly, he said, “But I know who has the goods.”
“The . . . what goods?”
“The goods!” He glowered at her like she was an imbecile. Then his gaze shifted again. “She thinks she’s going to get away with it,” he growled in slow syllables. “But she ain’t gonna get away with nothin’.”
“Who are you—”
“You wanna play games with me?” He glared at her suddenly, his eyes wild and his face going red. “You think you can cross Grayton Jackson?”
May Ida felt her heart jump into her throat. A terrifying moment went by before she saw that his fury wasn’t directed at her at all, but some other invisible presence that was bedeviling him.
“She’s gonna . . . they’re all gonna end up the same way if they cross me!” he snarled roughly. “Six feet in the ground. The pimp got his, all right, and that bitch’ll be next. And that fucking Rose, too.”
May Ida froze at the mention of the name, and held her gaze steady, lest he read something in her eyes. The clock on the wall ticked away. She stole a peek and saw that the Capta
in had fallen into a deeper funk. It lasted nearly a minute, and when his face arranged itself into a familiar self-pitying frown, she breathed again. She knew what was coming.
It began with his eyes blinking as if he was holding back tears. “This here’s a decent city to live,” he said. “And you know why? Because of men like me. And what thanks do we get for it?” He flapped a loose hand in the air. “None! Not a fucking word! And what happens when it’s time to fill a job? They don’t even look at me.” He emptied his glass, and when he set it down, it tumbled onto its side. “Goddamn them . . .”
May Ida quickly righted it and poured another two inches for him. He picked up the glass, drank off the whiskey, and then seemed to choke on it. His craggy jaw trembled, and for a bizarre moment, May Ida thought he was actually going to start weeping. Then he caught himself and flopped an arm on the table, grasping for the glass. With a gentle motion, she pushed it a few inches forward until he found it. He held it tight, steadying his shaking hand.
“Well, not anymore,” he muttered. “It’s my turn to be on top, goddamn it.” He looked blearily past May Ida, as if addressing a roomful of people. “You understand what I’m saying? I got both of ’em dancing to my tune. Troutman . . . the mayor . . .” He brought the glass to his lips, then put it down again without drinking. “This time, it’s going to come out my way! And we’ll see who the hell gets the last laugh.” His voice went up again. “I said, it’s gonna come out my way, or else! Some more people got to die, then some more people got to die. I ain’t goin’ out this way . . . I ain’t . . .” He was sputtering as he wound down. “Nobody’s gonna . . . I took care of it, all right . . . I fixed that business. It’s my turn, goddamnit. My turn. It’s . . .”
By now, he was too drunk to make his mouth work. He lifted the heavy glass to his lips, and when he found it empty, threw it across the room, missing May Ida’s head by inches. The glass bounced off the wall, cracking the plaster, and rolled across the floorboards. The Captain stared down at it with dull eyes. Abruptly, his gaze shifted to his wife, and he glared, his eyes piercing, as if he could see through her. She entertained another rush of fear that he knew what she was up to and with evil purpose was just waiting for the right moment to turn the tables.
