Bye-Bye, Black Sheep

by Ayelet Waldman

  “What was Violetta’s relationship with him? Had she worked for him for a while?”

  M&M shook her head. “Violetta used to work for a real sweet guy named Johnnie Brown. Johnnie was killed about a year ago.”

  “How?”

  “He was shot in a robbery. He got jumped by a couple of guys, and he pulled his gun out. They got it off of him and shot him, just like that. Right in front of everybody. How do you like that? Shot by his own gun.”

  “Did the police ever find out who did it?”

  She laughed. “We all knew who did it. They were just a couple of kids, you know? Looking for some money.”

  “Were they arrested?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, not for killing Johnnie. I think they got busted for something else.”

  “What were their names?”

  She compressed her lips, shrugged, and stared out the window.

  “Mary Margaret,” I said. “They might have had something to do with Violetta’s death.”

  “They couldn’t have,” she said. “By the time Violetta was killed they were both gone.”

  “Won’t you tell me their names, just to be sure?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know their names. I just saw them around, you know? I didn’t know them or nothing.”

  I sighed and changed my line of questioning. “So after Johnnie was killed, Violetta went with Sly?”

  “It’s right up there.” She pointed to a ramshackle apartment building, four stories, with a broken fire escape dangling from the roof. “That’s where I live.”

  I pulled to a stop in front of the building.

  M&M opened the door and then turned to me, holding it halfway open. “After Johnnie was killed, Violetta had this idea that she wouldn’t go with anyone, you know? That she’d be on her own, keep all her money herself. Well, they won’t allow that. If one girl did that then we all might, and where would they be then? They all got together, all of them, Sly and Baby Richard and a bunch of others, and they beat the hell out of her. They beat her really bad. She lost a couple of teeth, her face was real smashed up, and her side hurt, right here.” M&M pressed her ribcage. “I think they broke some ribs.”

  “Did she go to the hospital?”

  She shook her head. “No. She just holed up in her room for a week or so. I brought her food, because otherwise she wouldn’t have had the money to eat. I even brought her . . .” Here M&M’s voice trailed off.

  “What did you bring her?”

  “Nothing really. Just a little flea powder. It’s all I could get. But it worked for the pain, you know? She was aching all over.”

  Flea powder—weak heroin, cut with all sorts of nasty stuff. That couldn’t have helped Violetta heal.

  “After that, that was when she went with Sly. She knew she had to, or the next time they’d kill her. It’s not worth it. It’s good with a pimp. You get to keep some of your money, enough to live on. And the others leave you alone. Some of them can be real good to you. Baby Richard, he takes good care of his girls.”

  I frowned skeptically. I could not help glancing at the still-red bite mark on her bosom. Her hand fluttered up to cover it and she laughed nervously.

  “This was just silly, you know. He was mad at me. And the truth is, I could have got the guy to go for more. I was just being lazy and spending too much time worrying about Tiffany instead of my work. Baby Richard’s a good man, you know? He buys Tiffany presents all the time. Last week he bought her brand new sneakers. And not Payless. Adidas.”

  I left that alone. Whatever she needed to believe to get through her day. I turned the subject back to Violetta. “Could Sly have had anything to do with her murder?” I asked.

  M&M shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing him that night. He’s got a usual parking spot, and I don’t think his car was there, but I could be wrong. I wasn’t looking for him, you know?”

  “Baby Richard says he drives a white Chevy.”

  She twisted her mouth in disgust. “A real beater. All scratched up. I sat in it once, and there’s a hole in the floor, you can see right into the road. Baby Richard used to have a Mercedes, and he’s going to get a Navigator.”

  I wondered if the prostitutes on the street compared their pimps’ rides the way some of the children in Ruby’s school compared their parents’, turning up their noses at vehicles like my stinky minivan and casting appreciative eyes on the German-made luxury sedans.

  “I better go in,” M&M said. “I don’t have much time and I want to make sure Tiffy’s okay. She had a runny nose when I put her to bed, and I’m a little worried she might have started running a fever.”

  She got out of the car, and slammed the door behind her. I pushed the button and rolled down the window.

  “M&M,” I called.

  She had her key out and was fighting with the lock on the building’s front door.

  “You’ve got my number,” I said. “You can always call me if you need anything, okay?”

  Her lips turned up, revealing a set of small teeth. I realized that I had never before seen her smile. Her whole face softened and she suddenly looked years younger. Like a girl. She waved and the door opened, shutting with a thud behind her.

  Twenty-three

  IT was too late to go back and look for Sly. And frankly, I just didn’t have it in me to talk to anyone else that night, especially the man who had beaten Violetta into turning over her money to him.

  When I got home I was suddenly so grateful for Peter’s odd hours, for the comfort of finding him awake and working when I walked through the door at one A.M.

  While I was in the shower standing under a burning hot stream, trying to cleanse myself of the imaginary grime of Baby Richard and his revolting laughter, Peter made me a cup of chamomile tea.

  “I was worried about you,” he said as he tucked me into bed.

  “You’re sweet, Peter,” I said, sipping my tea. “You’re sweet, and kind. I’m so grateful to you.” And then I burst into tears.

  Peter got in bed next to me, pulling me close. He didn’t say anything, just held me in his arms while I cried. I pressed my face against his soft T-shirt. Finally, when I was too tired to cry anymore, I sat up.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “My pleasure,” he replied, and kissed me softly on the lips.

  He didn’t go back to work. I needed him, and it turned out he needed me. Or wanted me, or both.

  Afterward we laid side-by-side, sweat cooling on our bodies.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Peter said. “On this case, I mean?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I think so. It’s no worse than any other, I guess. It’s just, you know. My life is so much better than those women’s. I feel . . . I don’t know.”

  “The guilt of the privileged class?”

  I smiled. “I guess you could put it like that.”

  “Life sure as hell isn’t fair, is it?” Peter said.

  “Nope. Life is definitely not fair.”

  * * *

  IN the morning, I made the kids French toast. I even cooked a special piece for Sadie, made with egg yolks and some defrosted breast milk, much to Ruby’s and Isaac’s horror.

  “She’s not supposed to have egg whites or milk yet,” I explained.

  “That is so gross, Mama,” Ruby said.

  “Gross,” Isaac affirmed. “Can I taste it?”

  I ruffled his hair. “No, you can’t taste it, you nut.” I minced Sadie’s French toast into little pieces, cut up some banana to go along with it, and placed her plate in front of her. I drowned the other kids’ pieces in maple syrup and watched them gorge themselves.

  “I love you guys,” I said.

  “I love you, too, Mama,” Isaac replied.

  Ruby said something unintelligible, her mouth full. Then she swallowed and said, “Is today a holiday?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” I looked at the calendar taped to the fridge. “Nope, no holiday.
Just a regular Saturday. Why?”

  “Because you’re being so nice to us.”

  “Eat your food, Ruby,” I said.

  Peter shuffled into the kitchen, his hair on end. He gave me a languid and satisfied smile and said, “Yummy, French toast.”

  Before I could stop him, he picked up a piece from Sadie’s plate and popped it in his mouth. “Delicious,” he announced.

  Ruby turned bright red, laughing so hard she nearly choked on her mouthful of food. Isaac yelped, but I silenced him with a wink.

  I smiled at Peter. “Let me give you your own, sweetie,” I said and hurriedly dumped the remaining slices on a plate and placed it on the table in front of him. “Have some syrup.”

  By now Ruby and Isaac were nearly hysterical, kicking each other under the table and laughing so hard that tears rolled down their faces.

  “What’s with them?” Peter said.

  “They’re just being silly,” I said as I poured him some coffee. “They’re just a couple of silly geese.”

  Twenty-four

  BY now I knew the way to the corner on Figueroa so well I’d even figured out a shortcut, longer in actual mileage, but one that cut down on traffic lights and busy main roads. I left my house at 8:30 at night and was pulling my car into a space by 9:00. Violetta’s pimp was right where they said he’d be, sitting in the front seat of his old white Chevy Impala, pulled up right at the corner, where he could keep an eye on the women as they stood in the street, their hips cocked to one side, their pelvises pushed forward, their eyes on the cars that crawled slowly past.

  I walked over to the car, took a breath, and bent down to look in the open passenger-side window. I was conscious at that moment of looking like the hookers did when they leaned into the cars and offered themselves, and I felt a flush creep across my cheeks.

  “Sylvester?” I said.

  “My name is Sly!” he snarled, but there was something almost perfunctory about his anger, as if he’d been correcting people about his name for a good long time.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Sly. I’m a private investigator working for Violetta Spees’s family, and I was hoping you might give me a few minutes of your time.”

  “Who you working for?”

  “Violetta Spees’s sister.”

  “I don’t know no Violetta Spees.” He stared straight ahead, looking up the street through the windshield, ignoring me.

  “Really? How curious. My understanding is that she worked for you.”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Don’t know nobody by that name.”

  “Look, I’m not a cop; I can’t arrest you. I’m just trying to find out a little more about Violetta’s last days, so that her mother can rest easy about what her daughter was doing. The poor woman is distraught now, worrying that Violetta might have been sick or in pain. So if you could just tell me a little about what you know, it would go a long way toward reassuring them.”

  This had to be the lamest thing I’d ever come up with. But getting Sly to admit that Violetta worked for him might be enough to convince Detective Jarin to take a look at him. Maybe even pull him in for questioning, get a warrant for a DNA sample. Not that I had high hopes for the latter. If Sly was responsible for Violetta’s death, it would likely have had nothing to do with sex. She might have worked the whole night, turning tricks, before Sly gave her the last beating of her short life.

  “Come on in here,” Sly said. He leaned over and opened the door. When he turned to me I could see that his left eye was larger than his right. It was unfocused, not fixed on me as the other one was, but rolled ever so slightly to the side. I backed away from the door. “Come on,” he said. “I don’t want to shout. Just come on inside where we can talk.”

  The driver’s seat was pushed way back, to accommodate his long legs. He’d reclined it as far as it could go, so that despite the length of his arms, he had to lean far forward to reach the door. He was light skinned, the honey-yellow color of cheap maple wood. His hair was cut close to his scalp and his eyes narrowed as he stared at me. He plastered a false smile on his face. “Come on in and we can talk.”

  “I can hear you just fine,” I said. “How long had Violetta been working for you before she died?”

  Suddenly, before I realized what was happening, he sprang across the seat and grabbed my arm. His hands were so big that they wrapped easily around my whole arm. He jerked me toward the open door and I stumbled, falling half in and half out of the car. I batted at him with my hands, trying to pull his fingers off my arm. He grabbed the back of my neck with his other hand and pulled me farther into the car. By now I was screaming, kicking against the doorway, trying to get purchase with my feet so I could pull myself out of the car. I jammed one knee against the doorframe and yanked my head back. His fingers dug into my neck from the back, reaching around almost to the front. I knew if he got his hand entirely around my throat he could kill me.

  “What you doing to this girl?” a woman’s voice shouted from the other side of the car. “Don’t you know Baby Richard likes this girl? He gave her permission to be out here asking questions. What the hell you doing, fool? Baby Richard going to kill you if you hurt this girl.”

  The fingers around my neck loosened for a moment, and I reared back, jerking myself free and out of the car. He still held my arm in his viselike grip. On the other side of the car, her face framed by the driver’s side window, was the woman in the purple dress, the woman who had hugged me and thanked me for saving them all from the murderer who had been killing them for so long.

  “Let her go, Sylvester, or I’m a tell Baby Richard what you doin’.”

  He dropped my arm and I leapt back onto the curb.

  The woman lifted her head out of the window and looked across the roof of the car. “You come with me,” she said firmly. She started walking briskly, moving faster than I ever could have on such high heels. “Just keep walking,” she whispered when I caught up to her. “Don’t run. Where’s your car at?”

  I pointed to the side street where I’d parked my minivan. I didn’t trust my voice.

  “Get your keys ready.”

  I took them out of my jacket pocket and we broke into a run. I heard tires screech behind us as we turned the corner. We bolted as fast as we could, and for the first time I realized what automatic door locks were made for. I pointed the control at the car, and we flung ourselves inside just as Sly was turning the corner. I slammed the car into drive and pounded the accelerator to the floor, pulling out of the parking space with a scream of metal as I scratched my bumper along the car in front of us. Who would have thought a minivan could handle so well? I spun us around a corner, never lifting my foot off the gas for even a moment, and tore away down Figueroa.

  “Is he still behind us?” I asked, breathlessly.

  My savior turned and looked through the rear window. “I don’t think so.”

  I kept driving, glancing back into the rearview mirror. When I was finally reassured that he wasn’t there, I eased up a little. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I honestly thought he was going to kill me.”

  She shook her head. “I’m a have some explaining to do when Baby Richard hears I been throwing his name around like that.”

  “Are you going to be okay? Is he going to hurt you?”

  She shook her head again. “He’d never hurt me. He knows I’d tell his mother, and then he be in worse trouble than he can stand.”

  “His mother?”

  “My sister, Patrice. I’m Baby Richard’s auntie. Auntie Jacqueline. Although out on the street, he don’t call me that. When I’m working, he calls me Jackie, like everyone else.”

  “He’s your nephew?” I said. “Your nephew is your pimp?”

  She sighed. “Don’t let’s talk about that, now, okay? You hungry? Let’s stop at that IHOP up there and get us some pancakes.”

  Twenty-five

  BLUEBERRY pancakes and bacon sitting in a pool of syrup and melted butter are the perfect comfort food. I hadn�
��t planned on ordering anything, but Jackie wouldn’t let me sit and watch her eat. It made her self-conscious, she said. Purely to keep her company I told the waitress to bring me what she was having, but when the plate was set before me I dug in with enthusiasm.

  With my mouth full, I said, “I don’t know how to thank you, Jackie. You saved my life.”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, he wouldn’t a killed you. He would a roughed you up a little, but he wouldn’t kill a white woman in front of a block full of witnesses. Not even Sylvester’s that much of a fool.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “Well, whatever he would have done wouldn’t have felt good, that much I know.” I tenderly felt at what I knew would soon be purpling bruises. “He just moved himself up to suspect number one in Violetta’s murder.”

  Jackie took a huge bite of pancake and folded half a strip of bacon into her mouth. Once she was done chewing she said, “I don’t know about Violetta, but I do know he killed a woman once. I know that for sure.”

  I put down my fork. “Sylvester killed someone?”

  “One a his hos. She went behind his back with some other guy, I don’t know who. She was even giving her money to this other man. Sly heard about it, and he pulled her right off the street. He beat her up and then he kicked her so hard and so many times that she died. Right there, right in the alley behind the Dunkin’ Donuts.”

  The pancakes lay in a clotted indigestible mass in the pit of my stomach. “He kicked her to death?” I said, my voice thick with nausea.

  “Kicked her right to death. He evil, that Sylvester. And he a coward, too. Would never a fight a man, but he happy to kill a woman.”

  “What was her name?”

  Jackie shook her head. “It was before I turned out, so I didn’t know her. I heard about it from someone who saw it, though.”

  “Who told you?”

  She frowned, trying to remember. “I don’t know. Teeny, maybe?”

  “Teeny who was killed by Charles Towne?”

  “Yeah.” She took a last bite of pancake, scraped her fork through a puddle of syrup, and licked the tines with her small pink tongue, like a cat.