Blue Belle (11 page)

46

I WAS stopped at a light at 43rd and Ninth when Belle's baby voice poked through the mist in my brain.

"Honey …"

"What?"

"We've been driving around for two hours. Around and around. You haven't said a word to me—you mad at me for something?"

I took a breath, glanced at my watch; it was past eleven. I was just going to make one quick sweep of the city, see if I could spot the Prof. I replayed the path in my head: both sides of the river, Christopher Street to Sheridan Square, across Sixth Avenue to 8th Street, back downtown to Houston, across to First, through the Lower East Side to Tompkins Square Park, outside the poolroom on 14th up to Union Square, across to Eighth Avenue and up into Times Square, working river to river into midtown. And back again. Driving through the marketplace, somebody selling something every time the Plymouth rolled to a stop. Crack, smoke, gravity knives, cheap handguns, watches with Rolex faces and Taiwan guts, little boys, girls, women, men dressed like women. Cheap promises—high prices. Murphy Men selling the New York version of safe sex—the hotel–room key they sold you wouldn't open the door, and they wouldn't be standing on the same corner when you went back to ask for better directions. Islands of light where flesh waited to take your money—pools of darkness where wolf packs waited to take your life. And vultures to pick your bones.

Something else out there too. Something that would make the wolves step aside when it walked.

I looked over at Belle. She was facing out the windshield as though she didn't want to see my face, twisting her hands together in her lap. It hurt my heart to watch her—it wasn't her fault. "You're a good, sweet girl," I told her. "It has nothing to do with you; I'm looking for my friend."

"The little black guy?"

"Yeah."

"I've been looking too," she said, her voice serious. "You think we should get out? Ask around?"

I patted her thigh. She was down for whatever it took—knew I had to do this. I couldn't explain how it worked to her. Asking around or the Prof could get him in deeper than he already was.

I drove back to the river, turned downtown until I saw a pay phone. Mama still had nothing for me. If the Prof had been swept up by the cops, he'd get a call out sooner or later. Nothing to do but wait.

I sat on the hood of the Plymouth, feeling the warmth of the engine through my clothes, watching the Jersey lights across the river. I felt compressed. Things were moving too fast—not like they were supposed to. Belle was inside my life without the preliminaries. We'd made some deals without talking them over—she'd been in my office, Michelle was showing her baby pictures and giving her makeup advice. I was going to help her hijack some hijackers. All too fast.

The Prof was lost somewhere in the freak pipeline under the city, and I couldn't go after him without spooking the shadows.

I got back into the car, started the engine.

"I'll take you home," I said.

"Will you stay with me?"

"I have to leave a phone number. Where I can be reached tonight."

"Why don't we go to your house?"

"There's no phone there," I told her. She hadn't put it together that I live in my office.

She lit a smoke, watching me, her voice soft. Not pushing. "What if I don't want my number given out?"

"It's okay. I'll drop you off. See you soon, all right?"

"No!" It sounded like she'd start crying in a minute. "You can leave my phone number. I know it's important, Burke. I'm sorry, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Can't we go to your house first?"

I looked a question at her.

"So you can pack a suitcase."

I tried to smile at her, not knowing if I pulled it off. "I can't stay with you, Belle. Not while this is going down."

"But when it's over…?"

"Let's see what happens."

She moved close to me, gave me a quick kiss. "Whatever happens," she said.

I pointed the Plymouth out of the city.

47

IT WAS past two when I called Mama from Belle's phone. I gave her the number where I'd be, told her I'd call when I went on the move again. She didn't tie up the phone lines telling me not to worry.

"Where's the nearest pay phone?" I asked Belle.

"About four blocks down. Outside the grocery store on the right."

"I'll be back in a few minutes," I told her.

"Honey, why don't you use this phone? If it's none of my business, I can step outside on the deck until you're finished."

"It's you I'll be calling. Make sure your phone works, okay?"

She watched my face. "Whatever you say."

I found the pay phone, called Belle's number, listened to her answer, hung up.

The walk back didn't help—I could work it out in my head easy enough, but the answers were no good. The Prof was dead reliable. If he hadn't called in, he was in trouble, or he was dead. Either way, I had a debt.

Belle let me back in. I checked the phone; the cord was long enough to reach anyplace in the little cottage, even out onto the deck.I asked Belle for a fingernail file. Then I flipped the phone over, opened it up, checked the contact points, making sure the bell would work. I closed it back up, turned the dial on the underside to the loudest setting. I put the phone back on the end table near the couch, watched it.

Belle's voice came through the fog. "You can do everything to phones but make them ring, huh?"

The room came back into focus. Her face was scrubbed clean, but the glow was gone. "What is it, Belle? You look like you're afraid of me."

"I'm afraid of you shutting me out."

"This isn't yours," I told her, my voice flat.

Belle's hands went to her hips. Her little chin tilted up, eyes glistening. "What kind of a woman do you think I am?" she demanded.

I shrugged, knowing it was cruel, locked into my own course.

She moved closer, taking up all the space between us. "I said I was going to love you, Burke. You think I'd make you tell the truth and not do it myself?"

"No."

"You think I told you the truth?"

"Yes."

"You know what I want?"

"Sure."

She bent down to where I was sitting, pulled the cigarette out of my mouth, pressed her nose against mine.

"Tell me what I want."

I didn't move, didn't change expression. "The back of the joint where you work—it's like a suitcase with a false bottom. Plenty of room back there. Armored car gets hit at the airport—the hijackers take off running. But they don't go far, right? They pull in the back of the joint, stash the getaway car, and walk into the club. When the cops come looking, they've been there for hours. An alibi and a hideout all in one. Easy to come back in a few weeks. Move the cash out." I took the cigarette out of her hand, leaned back, took a deep drag. "How do they get rid of the getaway car—chop it down? repaint it back there? drive it into the back of a moving van, dump it in the swamp one night?"

She didn't answer me. Just watched.

"All that money just sitting there. Clean, unmarked bills. Probably two or three good jobs stashed in one place. Couple of hundred grand, minimum. Wouldn't be the first time somebody turned around and hit the syndicate. Hijackers aren't like numbers runners—that's why they don't make good employees."

I took a last drag, stubbed out the butt. Feeling her eyes burn on my skin.

"Whoever set this up, it's a big operation. Costs a lot of cash to front. The syndicate probably takes a piece from every hijacking at the airport. That's the way they'd do it. I know how things work. All the young mob guys want to do today is move product. They leave the armored cars and the banks to the independents."

I lit another cigarette, thinking back to the way I used to be. Telling the truth, the way she wanted it.

"A good thief, he can't stand to see a big lump of cash sitting around. Just a matter of time before some crew takes a shot."

Belle took the cigarette away from me again, put it to her lips. A red dot glowed in front of my face. Two more in her eyes.

"You didn't answer me, Burke. Tell me what I want. Tell me the truth."

"You want me to hijack the cash."

I saw her right shoulder drop, but I kept my eyes on her face. Her hand came around in a blur, her little clenched fist catching me high on the cheekbone just under the eye. She drew back her fist again. "That's enough," I said.

Her mouth trembled. The firelights went out of her eyes. She pulled away from me, fell face–down on her big white bed. Cried softly to herself as I pulled some ice cubes from the refrigerator. I wrapped the ice cubes in a towel and held it to my face. Sat by the phone.

48

WHEN I woke up, it was past four o'clock in the morning. My jacket was soaking wet on the left side. I snatched the phone. Dial tone.

"It didn't ring." A soft voice from the bed. "I've been listening since you fell asleep."

"Thanks."

"I'll stay by the phone now. When you get where you're going, you can call me. If you don't get your call by then, you can switch the numbers, okay?"

"Yeah."

"I've got an electric heater: it gets cold by the water in the winter. You can dry your clothes first."

I pulled off my jacket, unbuttoned my shirt. Belle came off the bed. I handed them to her. "Your face is swollen," she said, her voice a breathy whisper, the way you tell a secret.

"It's no big deal. Nothing's broken."

"My heart is broken," she said. Like she was saying it was Wednesday morning.

"Belle…"

"Don't say anything. It's my fault. I made a mistake. I wanted a hard man. A hard man, not a cold man."

I lit a smoke. She came back over to me, her voice sad now. Sad for all of us. "Not a cold man, Burke. Not a man who wouldn't take my love."

"I just…"

"Yeah, I know. You think telling the truth's not a game for a woman to play."

"That's not it."

"No?" she challenged, her little–girl's voice laced with acid. "You think I couldn't find a cowboy to stick up a liquor store for me? You don't think I could pussy–whip some guido into picking up a gun? Sweet–talk some cockhound into showing me what a big man he is?"

"I know you could."

Belle stalked the room, unsnapping the suspender straps, pulling the T–shirt over her head, unhooking the bra. She worked the zipper, pulled the white pants over her hips. She sat down on the bed. Unlaced her sneakers, threw them into a corner. She went over to the kitchen corner, where my shirt and jacket were stretched on coat hangers, baking in the glow from the electric heater. She picked up my shirt. "It'll dry better this way," she said, slipping into it. She tried to button it; it wouldn't close over her breasts.

She fell to her knees beside me, hands on my thigh, looking up at my face.

"Can we have another chance?"

"Who's 'we'?"

"You and me."

"To do what?"

"To tell the truth. Let me tell you the truth. The real truth. I swear on my mother," she whispered, one hand making an X on her breast. "That's my sacred oath."

"Belle…"

"Don't hurt me like this, Burke. I'd never hurt you. You don't know what I want. You don't have any idea. Let me say what I have to say."

She got to her feet, held out her hand.

I took it.

She pulled me to her bed. "Sit down," she said. She took a fat black candle, grounded it in a glass ashtray, positioned it on top of the headboard of the bed. "Light it," she said.

I fired a wooden match. I heard a click—the electric heater snapping off. Belle laid back on the bed, her hands behind her head. I sat next to her, watching the tiny candle flame.

"This is the truth," she began. "I grew up in a little place you never heard of. In South Florida. Just me, my father, and my big sister. Sissy. We lived on the edge of the swamp in a tiny house. Not much bigger than this one. My father did a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Like everyone there. Grew some vegetables out back. Made some liquor. There was a mill nearby—he'd work when they had work. Shoot him some gator for the hides. Fix boats. We lived poor, but nice. When my father would make a good score, he'd always buy something for the house. Had a big old freezer, nice color TV. Good boat too. Mercury outboard." Her voice trailed off, remembering. I lit a cigarette, handed it to her.

"I was always told my mother died giving birth to me. Sissy really raised me—took care of me—my father never paid me any attention."

She took a drag on the cigarette, looking at the dark ceiling.

"I was a big, tall girl, even when I was real young. And skinny too—you believe that?"

"Sure."

"I was. Like a board. Ugly old skinny girl with no kind of face at all. Sissy was pretty once. You could tell by looking at her in the morning light. Sissy was hard on me. I had to do my chores sharp, or she'd let me know it. Homework too. We had a school, all the kids together in one class. Sissy made sure I did my homework. Always sent me to school clean, no matter how things were at home. She never had a new dress in all the time I knew her. Said it didn't matter to her. She had nice nightgowns, though. She caught me trying one on once and she took a switch to me so hard I didn't want to sit down for a couple of days. Anything she had, she'd give to me. Except those nightgowns. Or her perfume."

She took another drag.

"My father never much bothered with me. Once in a while, I'd do something to make him notice me. Pay some attention to me. He didn't care if I did my homework, but he had to have his coffee just so: dark coffee with a big dollop of cream across the top; he never mixed it.

"I talked back to him once. He grabbed my arm, pulled off his belt to give it to me. Sissy jumped in between us, kitchen knife in her hand. The devil was in her face—you could see it. You never put a hand on that child, she told him.

"He backed off. Told her I had it coming, but he wouldn't look her in the face. Sissy said if I had something coming
she'd
be the one to give it to me. Go ahead, my father said, give it to her.

"Sissy ripped the belt out of his hands, dragged me outside to the back. You better yell now, she told me.
Loud!
She whipped me something fierce that time. Brought me back inside by the hand, told me to get to work on my chores and keep my mouth shut. My father was watching us when we came in. Sissy went back in the bedroom. I saw her taking one of her nightgowns out of her drawer. My father went back there too."

She drew on the cigarette again, the flame close to her hand.

"My father was real drunk one day. Late in the afternoon, swamp shadows across the back of the house. I heard him fighting with Sissy when I came back home. I swear I'll kill you, Sissy told him. He just laughed at her. Slapped her hard across the face. I went after him. He threw me off, but I got up again. Sissy and me fought him until he was out of wind. He just lay there on the floor, looking up at us. I'll be back tonight, he told Sissy, I'll be back, and I'll take what's mine.

"He staggered out the door. Sissy grabbed me, took me to the back of the house. Your time has come, she told me. She took out a suitcase. I didn't even know she had one. Put all your clothes in this, she told me. Don't argue. I helped her fill it up. I thought we were going to run away together. We snuck out the back, into the swamp. Sissy showed me a marker on a cypress tree, where she'd cut it with her knife. She gave me a shovel and told me to dig. Deep. I found an old mason jar, wax–sealed. Found two more. Sissy broke the jars open. There was near a thousand dollars in the jars."

Belle yelped—the cigarette had burned into her fingers. I held out the ashtray and she dropped it in, put her fingers in her mouth for a second to suck on them.

"Sissy sat me down at the table. He'll be back in a couple of hours, she said. You take that suitcase and get into the swamp. I'll fix the boat so he can't go after you. You take the back trail all the way through, to where it catches the highway. The late bus to town comes past there about nine—you got plenty of time to make it."

Belle's face was wet with tears, but her voice was the same quiet whisper.

"Where am I going? I asked her.

"You go to the bus station. Take a Greyhound north, and don't stop until you're out of this state. Go north and keep going, Belle, she told me. You're going to be on your own.

"I didn't want to go—I didn't understand. Sissy wouldn't listen to me. You're grown now, she said. Almost fifteen years old. I held him back as long as I could, baby, but now your time has come. You got to mind me, Belle, she said. This one last time. You got to mind me—do what I say. She took her nightgowns out of the drawer, threw them in the suitcase too. Your nightgowns …I said. I won't be needing them anymore, she told me. I think I knew then. For the first time."

Belle was crying now, working hard to keep her voice steady.

"I grabbed on to her. Hugged her tight. Don't make me go, Sissy, I begged her. She pushed me away. Looked at me like she was memorizing me. Then she slapped me across the face. Hard.

"Why'd you slap me, Sissy? I asked her. Why'd you slap me? You never slapped me in the face in all my life."

Belle took a deep breath, looking straight at me in the dark.

"I slapped you so you'll never forget my name, baby. Don't you ever call me Sissy again, not even in your dreams.

"I was standing there, crying. Sissy rubbed my face where she'd slapped me. So tender and sweet. She kissed me to take away the pain, like she used to do when I was little.

"We heard my father's car pull in. Sissy was calm. I'm not just your sister, Belle. I'm not Sissy. I'm your mother.

"I couldn't move. Go! Sissy said. Go, little girl. I'm your mother. I kept you safe. Now run!

"I ran into the swamp, but I didn't go far. I hid down in a grove, so scared I couldn't make my legs work. I heard my father yell something at Sissy. Then I heard this explosion; flames shot up. The boat. You stay right there, bitch! I heard my father yell. Then I heard his gator–gun blast off. Once. Twice. He yelled my name. Screamed it out into the night. I ran through that swamp. My mother wasn't lying there dead by the boat—she was inside me—running with me—keeping me strong. She's always inside me."

Belle grabbed me, holding me tight, her arms locked around my back.

Crying the truth.