Life might not be fair, but it sure as hell could be satisfying.
FOURTEEN
DAY THIRTEEN—TUESDAY
Taifa was moaning and whining about the state of her fried hair; Shaquita remembered a book report due today and was busy scribbling when she wasn’t throwing up. Malik mumbled something about women and slammed out the door with a piece of toast in one hand and two slices of bacon in the other. And there were women who actually wanted to stay home with their kids. Amazing!
Blanche waited until ten-thirty to call Donnie at work. She wanted to make sure he’d be there. Her mouth went dry at the sound of his voice. She was careful to keep rage out of her voice.
“Donnie? This is Blanche White. I got something I want you to see. Can you come by this evening, say about seven-thirty? I won’t have it before then.” She didn’t want him to surprise her by coming earlier.
“What is it? Something of Ray-Ray’s?”
Blanche didn’t answer him. “I’ll have it ready when you get here. My kids will be out.” She didn’t expect him to refuse—and he didn’t.
She walked around the room to calm herself, then called Othello and told him everything was set.
Blanche checked the Yellow Pages and made a couple of calls until she found what she was looking for. It was going to cost more than she expected, but her Brindle check came that morning. She’d been paid for an extra week. It seemed just right to use Brindle’s money to pay for his downfall. She fished the tape out from among the dirty clothes and put it in her bag.
The little girls’ faces rose up from it like mist from a lake. Blanche hoped it wasn’t too late for them. She was relieved to have the doorbell interrupt her thoughts—until she saw who was leaning on her bell.
“Hiya doin’, Blanche?” Karen the borrower blew a mouthful of cigarette smoke past Blanche into the house.
If I was inclined to lend her whatever it is she wants to borrow, she won’t get it now. Blanche waved the smoke back toward the door.
“I was wondering if you got any cornmeal I could…”
Something in Blanche snapped. She grinned at Karen.
“Now ain’t this a coincidence. I was just heading for your house to ask you if you had some cornmeal I could borrow. And what about mustard? You got any of that?”
Karen’s mouth fell open.
“And I could sure use a couple cups of rice and some flour.”
Karen backed off the stoop.
“What about a roll of toilet paper? I guess I could use paper towels if that’s all you got.”
Karen began walking backward toward her own house. She kept her eyes on Blanche.
“What size shoe do you wear, honey?” Blanche called after her. “I could use a sweater, too! Blue would be nice,” Blanche shouted.
She could hardly close the door for laughing. She was still chuckling when the phone rang.
“Hello. May I speak with Blanche White, please?”
Blanche sank into a chair. All laughter was gone now.
“I’m so sorry about your son, Felicia.”
“Yes, my son.” Felicia paused a few seconds.
In the long silence that followed, Blanche could feel Felicia’s pain leaping through the phone lines like static.
“I wanted to…you were here, you see, and I…”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Allister doesn’t talk about it, except to remind me that I’m responsible. Of course, he’s right. If I hadn’t been…Life is so, so…I don’t know.”
Blanche could hear the tightness in Felicia’s throat. She suddenly saw Felicia with Marc’s blood in her hair, screaming as though her voice had the power to turn back time. Now she sounded like a person hit too often to expect anything but pain. Felicia’s sorrow touched Blanche in that place all loving mothers shared, where death or danger to your child lived. It was not the kind of connection it was healthy for her to have with an employer. Even so, she couldn’t help but feel for the woman—and Felicia wasn’t her employer anymore.
“The funny thing is, I didn’t even care for Saxe,” Felicia said. “It was just a physical thing. Allister and I don’t…It was just sex. That’s all I wanted. If I’d had any idea, any idea that Saxe and Marc…that Marc would…”
Here it is again, Blanche thought: Felicia blamed herself for not knowing her lover was screwing her son and for Marc’s death. Aminata kicked herself for not having known the effects of lead paint. Pam blamed herself for not having been there to save Miz Barker. And she herself wondered whether Miz Barker and Ray-Ray might still be alive if she’d acted differently. She wondered if men thought they were responsible for things they couldn’t control, or was this a woman thing?
“It wasn’t your fault any more than it was mine, no matter what your husband says,” Blanche told her, and clamped her teeth shut on the desire to tell Felicia she’d soon be getting a package that would show how little right Allister had to point a finger at anyone for anything.
“I hear you’re going away,” she said.
“We’re leaving. But not together. I should have left him years ago. And if I know Allister, he’s going to make me wish I had. He’ll use Saxe and whatever else he can against me in the divorce.” Felicia paused, then went on. “It would help if I had…Did you ever hear any more about Allister’s tape?” Felicia paused again, but not long enough for Blanche to answer. “As I said, I’m prepared to be very generous.”
Blanche considered how to answer. She’d be happy to take Felicia’s money any day. Of course, she didn’t intend to admit to knowing anything about the tape, but she did want to make sure Felicia knew where to send the check.
“Lost things are found all the time,” she said. “Maybe the tape will be one of them.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” Felicia said.
“And your checkbook handy,” Blanche added. “And, of course, you have my address…”
After she hung up, Blanche sat by the phone for a couple seconds, thinking about the harm Allister and Donnie had done to so many people. The children in the video, Miz Barker, Ray-Ray, Marc Brindle, Saxe Winton, Felicia bent almost to broken, Donnie’s wife about to get one of the nastier surprises of her life, Pam, Miz Inez, and all the other mourners left to try to wade through their pain without drowning. Oh yes, she wanted to really fuck with both these boys!
She took the bus to Centre Street in Jamaica Plain. The two-story buildings on this main street made it look like a small town. Blanche gave the chubby young woman behind the counter of Rick’s TV & Stereo Shop a can-I-trust-you? look before reluctantly handing her the videotape to be copied. When Blanche had called the place earlier, she’d made sure the tape wouldn’t have to be viewed in order to be copied, so that was okay, but she still didn’t like letting the tape out of her hands. The copy setup was right behind the counter, surrounded by rebuilt TVs and car stereos, jam boxes, and clock radios, so at least she could keep her eye on it. She watched the young woman’s blue-and-red fingernails as she put the tape in the machine and pushed some buttons. Blanche waited with as much patience as she could muster for the copies to be made.
She immediately took the tapes up the street to the post office she’d passed on the bus. Unlike the Roxbury post office, this one didn’t have a thick Plexiglas partition between the workers and the patrons that let folks know they were so dangerous a barrier was needed to keep them from what? Touching? She took a couple of deep breaths and told herself to just fill out the postal forms: one for Felicia, one for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and one for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She figured that pretty much did it for Allister. She’d mail the original tape to herself at Ardell’s address when she was done with it. She handed the lot of them to the woman behind the post office counter and waved bye-bye to Allister Brindle.
“I n
eed you folks to do your homework at the library this evening,” she told the kids after dinner. “And stay there till I come get you,” she added.
“Is this about whatever was making you smile like that on Sunday?” Malik wanted to know.
Taifa came right to the point: “You got a boyfriend, Mama Blanche?”
“I wish!” Blanche told her. “This is about my needing this house for a couple of hours.”
Taifa and Malik exchanged one of those brother-sister looks Blanche could never read.
“I ain’t got much,” Taifa said.
“You what?”
“I don’t have much homework.”
“Then read a book. Library’s got plenty of them.”
She didn’t often refuse to give them a reason why they had to do something, so she’d expected a lot of questions and attitude. But something in her voice must have told them that resisting would be a waste of time.
Blanche was more nervous than she’d expected. Even Othello’s arrival didn’t calm her. He had another man with him: Elroy Banks—light skin and eyes, short, polite, and quick. Blanche was glad he was on her side. He and Othello looked around for a place to put their tape recorder, which for some reason made Blanche even more nervous. Othello explained that the tape was voice activated and would pick up everything they said, as long as she didn’t turn up the sound on the TV.
But what if Donnie had a gun and just walked in the door and shot her without saying a word? He’d already killed Ray-Ray and Miz Barker to get this tape. He could do the same to her. What if he grabbed her by the throat but went on talking to her as though they were having a normal conversation so Othello and Elroy wouldn’t know anything was wrong? She was, she admitted to herself, afraid. She hoped she wasn’t too scared to play her part.
At seven-twenty, Othello stepped into the downstairs coat closet. Elroy went to stand in the shadows at the top of the stairs. Blanche put the Brindle tape in the VCR, lowered the blinds, and turned out the lights, except for a small lamp near the TV. The revolver Othello had given her laid in her lap. Her pepper spray was in her pocket.
The sound of glass breaking in the back announced Donnie’s arrival. The fact that he didn’t simply knock on the door was all the proof she needed that he meant to kill her and make her death look like part of a break-in, the nasty little shit. She started the tape, although she couldn’t look at it. She held the gun behind her and stood facing the doorway. Donnie soft-walked into the room. He wore a clear plastic raincoat and the kind of rubber gloves that doctors use. He looked from her to the VCR and back again.
“You planning to kill me for the tape the way you did Ray-Ray and Miz Barker?” She gripped the gun tighter. She hadn’t expected the sight of him to make her want to hit him.
“If Ray-Ray had been more cooperative, he’d be alive today. I hope you got more sense.” Donnie moved closer to the TV, watching Allister do his thing.
Blanche thought of all those crocodile tears Donnie had poured out over Ray-Ray, all the sympathy she’d wasted on his evil ass, and felt her dander rising like yeast rolls. Keep cool, girl, she cautioned herself. You can handle this. There’s things I need to know before the boys take over.
“What I don’t get is why you killed Ray-Ray and Miz Barker before you got the tape,” she said.
Donnie reluctantly pulled his eyes away from the TV. “My one big mistake. I was sure I knew where the fucking thing was! I saw the old lady lock it in the drawer under the cash register. Who’d have thought that old bitch would move it and then have the nerve not to tell me where it was?”
Blanche held her breath to keep from screaming. It was one thing to think Donnie had killed Ray-Ray and her old friend, but hearing him admit it as if he were talking about the weather made her want to give him back some of his own. She clenched the handgrip of the gun and willed her finger away from the trigger.
“Is that why you hit her?” she asked him. “Because she wouldn’t tell you where she’d put the tape?”
Donnie looked at her. Blanche shivered but didn’t drop her eyes.
“Who knew the old bitch had a bad heart? She had so much mouth, I thought she was made of steel.”
Something about his eyes made Blanche sure he’d have killed Miz Barker even if she had given him the tape.
“I hope you’re not planning to put up a fight.” He turned from the TV and stood directly in front of her.
“How’d you find out about the tape?” she asked him as if she hadn’t heard his last remark.
Donnie turned his head toward the TV, where Allister’s upturned ass glistened like Siamese moons.
“Ray-Ray was fucked up the night he heard about the tape. He came in the bar screeching at the top of his bitch lungs about Brindle being a hypocrite. The second he saw me, he headed for me like he always did. Only this time, he had more to say than how much he wanted to suck my dick.” He looked at her now with a grin, clearly hoping she’d be shocked. “And for once, I was glad to see his switchy ass. I could smell money before he finished telling me the whole story.”
“So you made it all up, about the two of you loving each other and getting a place together, all those tears, and being scared the goons who killed him were after you.”
Donnie grinned. “Good, huh? I was in the drama club in high school. Always could get right into a part.”
“Yeah, well you may have been lying about loving Ray-Ray, but you sure did appreciate fucking him, and don’t even bother to say you didn’t, you rotten hypocrite! You ain’t even man enough to walk with your shit.”
He moved closer to Blanche. She stood up.
He made a noise that was supposed to be a chuckle. “Yeah, I knew you was mouth from the minute I met you. But I got something that’ll fix that.” He slipped out a knife from somewhere in his clothes. The blade was wide and curved. “I wish there was another way,” he said with what sounded like sincere regret—another bit of acting on his part. But she had some reality for his ass.
She gave him a big smile. “Oh, there is another way.” She pointed the gun at his chest.
Donnie shook his head. “You’re not the type, Mama.”
Blanche used her left hand to release the safety. Donnie blinked. His smile did an instant fade.
“You’re right,” Blanche told him. “I’m not the type, but why don’t you jump at me with that knife and see what happens?” She really wanted him to do it, wanted him to give her a reason to shoot him, one that wouldn’t keep her awake at night, a way that would avenge Miz Barker and Ray-Ray and rid her of the rage at having been fooled by him.
“Take it easy, Blanche, take it easy,” Othello said.
Donnie spun in his direction. Othello and Elroy landed on either side of Donnie and twisted the knife away from him before Blanche could see how it was done.
“Black bitch!” Donnie twisted and turned until Othello got an arm around his neck. Elroy stuffed a gag in Donnie’s mouth and handcuffed his hands behind him. Blanche kept the gun trained on Donnie—not out of fear but because she wanted to see his face collapse in pain, his blood create a new pattern on his clothes. Despite the horror of having watched Marc Brindle blow his brains out, the desire to shoot Donnie was like hunger gnawing at her belly. And that shocked her.
Donnie continued to struggle as the two men hustled him toward the door. He gave Blanche a final look so hateful it might have made her step back if she hadn’t fortified herself with the possibility of killing him. She raised the gun as if to strike him and thoroughly enjoyed the way he flinched. She lowered the gun and spit directly into his face. “A little present from Miz Barker,” she said. It was an act so out of character, it made her feel peculiar.
Othello left Elroy and Donnie in the car and came back into the house. He fished the tape recorder out from under Blanche’s chair, rewound a little, and listened. “Sounds like we got it all,”
he said.
Blanche was sitting on the sofa staring down at the gun.
“You okay?”
“I will be.” She held the gun out to him.
Othello took it and her hand. “You did good, sister.” He held up the small tape recorder. “And we got proof.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “You want me to take that video off your hands?”
Blanche told him she’d take care of it. When he left, she went to the kitchen and fixed herself a drink. Lord, she needed Ardell! She drank the gin-and-tonic slowly, trying to see around the memory of her desire to commit murder and what it meant, then went to fetch her kids before the library closed.
FIFTEEN
DAY FOURTEEN—WEDNESDAY
Blanche woke feeling too heavy to move. The events of last night weighed her down like ten extra blankets. She could still feel the trigger of that gun against her finger, feel the surge of power, like a shot of pure caffeine, knowing she could end Donnie’s life as easily as not. She had been in a rage before, wanted to hurt somebody bad before, but always with heat, with anger pouring off her like sweat, with the need to defend herself. It hadn’t been that way last night. Last night, when she’d held that gun on Donnie, a part of her had been as cool and calm as if all she’d been thinking about doing was putting out the trash.
She spent the morning tearing her kitchen apart and cleaning—not because it was dirty, but because she needed to keep busy. It didn’t help much. It didn’t get rid of or answer the question of how she was different from some kid with a gun and a grudge. Violence was the national measles, and she’d been infected. Now she had to find a cure.
She took a large plastic container of her version of her friend Vanessa’s special International Negro Spaghetti Sauce from the freezer. She had no energy to be creative about food. The sauce was a deep, deep red and so thick and rich with ground turkey and kielbasa, it completely coated the noodles and the garlic lit up the house.
After school, Blanche and Shaquita went to Cousin Charlotte’s. She and Miz Inez were due back in a couple of hours. They dusted and vacuumed and aired out the downstairs and Charlotte’s and Shaquita’s bedrooms. Blanche even bought a bunch of flowers for the dining room table. Anything to soften the blow. When they heard a car stop out front, they gave each other a nervous look. They hadn’t talked about how to tell Cousin Charlotte about Shaquita’s pregnancy, and now it was too late. They went to the door together.
Blanche Cleans Up: A Blanche White Mystery (Blanche White Mystery Series Book 3) Page 29
