Kiss of Noir (18 page)

“Now I’ve seen everything,” I said.

“I doubt that,” Cleo replied, his eyes sparkling. “You ain’t lived here long enough.”

“I know what my man needs,” Drew stated, setting his knitting on his chair and dashing to Tassie’s.

“I don’t need anything they have over there,” I snapped to Cleo, who ignored me.

Drew returned, carrying three large cups. He handed one to me and I took a huge gulp. Drew sat and he and Cleo watched as I began coughing and sputtering and choking and beating the table.

“Fool, why didn’t you just sip it?” Drew asked and he and Cleo laughed.

I sucked air, my eyes watering. Cleo shook his head and Drew still laughed.

“What the fuck?” I wheezed.

“Lime Drag,” Drew said. “It will cure what ails you.” He and Cleo both sipped theirs.

“Jesus!” I gasped. “What’s in it?”

“Crushed ice saturated with salt, then pure lime juice poured over it. Good, ain’t it?” Drew drank more, licking his lips.

I wiped my nose. I took a small mouthful. My eyes screwed closed and I shuddered. “Yeah, it is. Thanks.”

“No problem, my man.” Drew smiled.

The phone rang. Cleo didn’t move. I didn’t move, still studying my drink. “Could use some tequila.”

“Naw, naw, have it pure.”

“There’s something difficult to shift your boredom. The phone,” Cleo said.

I swaggered over to answer it. “Pawn.”

“Yeah, yeah, say, this is Lullabye Baxter, and I’m gonna need Ellis to give me an extension on my stuff.”

“You made a payment lately?”

“Naw, naw, ’cause I can’t. But tell him I’ll be there soon as I can. Cool?”

“No, we can’t give you an extension without payment,” I replied sourly. Didn’t people know business was business?

“Ah, listen, man. Ellis does this for me from time to time. It ain’t no big. You get me?” The man’s voice had an edge.

I was sick of being the ignorant newcomer and I wasn’t going to be pushed around. “Well, that’s the policy and that’s the agreement you signed.”

“Is Cleo there?” The man was exasperated.

“Yeah, but—”

“Put Cleo on the goddamn phone!”

I held out the telephone.

“Who is it?” Cleo asked without looking up.

“Lullabye Baxter.”

“Oh yeah, tell him it’s cool. We’ll hold it all. Just with the regular fee.”

I was angry and embarrassed but passed on the message. Lullabye was cordial again. “Thanks a lot, man. Y’all real good. I ’preciate ya.”

I hung up. “What the hell?”

Cleo lit up another cigarette. Blue smoke flew from his mouth like an arrow. “He’s good for it. He’s a pimp and he’s in prison.”

I nodded, incredulous, and walked back to stare out the window.

I handled the booklet carefully, whistling. The book had red printing on stiff ivory paper covers. “Ham, you do this right up, don’t you?”

Ellis smiled, flushing with pleasure. I read the front again, this time out loud: “Sixth Annual Dinner Dance and Auction, Saturday, September twenty-third, nine o’clock p.m., Delaney-Winthrop Liquidators, Incorporated, New Orleans.” Then I pinched my nose and read, “The Important Collection of English Silver belonging to The Notable Mrs. Huey Harwood, French Furniture, Bronze Dore and other Objets D’art, Gold and Silver Watches and Bibelots, Miniatures, Savonnerie and Other Rugs, Tapestries, Old Porcelains, and Queen Anne Furniture from the Estate of the Late William Harrison.” I released my nose and thumbed through the catalogue of photographs and descriptions. “Man, how do you do all this?”

Ellis shrugged, grinning. “Well, I started with just the other pawn, you know, here in the Bayou.”

I nodded. We were at the kitchen table, Sunday morning, after breakfast and before church. Sayan was dressing. When they left, I would go to the pawn.

“Then the rich white folks started coming in because I gave a better rate and they thought of me as being more confidential. You know, outside the city, small operation, sweet-talking black man who didn’t know no better; all it takes is just one good word-of-mouth recommendation. Once you’re in with one of those people, they all use you, so I started accumulating lots of high-dollar items and I needed a safer place to put it all. T-Bone, you would not believe how those damn fools burn through money. They have all these antiques and jewelry and cars and shit, but not two dimes to rub together because they’re careless and stupid with all of it.”

“White privilege,” I said.

“Yeah, so I rented a place on Canal in the city and made it secure, ’cause you know, I can’t keep diamonds and sapphires out here.” Ellis laughed. “Soon, I couldn’t house it all. It was too crowded with the riches of the glorious antebellum past. Which I was pretty happy about, you know. I thought of all those black hands that had cared for this shit over the years and here it was, all mine!” Ellis crowed. I nodded. “I didn’t want to have to rent a warehouse, insure it, and hire people to guard it. That’s nonsense. All that merchandise just sitting there, not earning its keep and costing me money to store it where nobody even uses it. So after I let Sayan have her pick…”

I looked around the house as if for the first time and smiled. “She’s the Winthrop,” I said.

“You know it. She picked that name out of a hat. A very white hat.” We laughed. “So after she was through, I had an auction.” Ellis whistled and shook his head. “I made so much money, it scared me. Really, no lie. Turned my skin pale and gave me goose bumps.” We laughed again and bumped fists. “And I got to noticing how everybody liked to stay afterward and talk. So I added some food. You cannot do anything in the South, especially down this deep, without food. And that worked well. And then liquor and that was slammin’. Then Sayan noticed how everybody dressed up and we changed it to a party. Then added the dance as a lagniappe.”

“Sayan loves to dance?”

“Oh, does that girl love to dance.” Ellis slapped his thigh. “So she gets to invite her family, dress up, dance, and play Queen Bee all night.”

“I play Queen Bee every night,” Sayan said, entering the kitchen and embracing Ellis from the back.

Ellis turned his head and looked at her, his eyes liquid and tender. “That you do, baby.”

I turned away as Sayan kissed him.

“Well, T, we got to go,” Ellis said, rising. “You sure you won’t come?”

“Yes, Nora, I’m going to get you to come sooner or later, you might as well give up,” Sayan said.

“Church? Nah, I’ve got to work. Repay your hospitality,” I said but thought, Thank God I have an excuse.

They walked out, arm in arm, Sayan giving me the stink eye as they left. I breathed a sigh of relief and opened the refrigerator. I carved off a large hunk of Sayan’s meat loaf, wrapped it in white bread and a napkin, and ate it as I drove to the pawn.

I shoved open the door to the tune of tinkling bells. Cleo was at the counter, examining a tuba that a woman with her back to me was trying to sell.

“You’re late!” he called.

“Traffic was terrible,” I joked. I had been the only one on the road. The knot of pleasant men was looking at drum sets. Drew wasn’t there.

“Check the books, see who’s overdue this month,” Cleo said.

I took the large heavy ledger to the table and rolled a cigarette. The woman at the counter took her cash and left. Cleo put the tuba in the back room to be cleaned and checked and priced.

When he returned to the table, he was shaking his head. “Tuba.” He chuckled. “What kind of a horn is that?”

I just watched him, listening.

“It’s something for a circus or the military, but nobody with any grace or finesse plays a
tuba
.” Cleo inflated his cheeks into balloons like a struggling blowfish. His skin stretched, thinned, and lightened with his effort. “We’ll never sell that thing unless Bozo comes in here.”

“I’ll keep a lookout. Red shoes, right?” I smiled.

“Roll me a cigarette, little brother,” Cleo said after he patted his pockets and found nothing. Even though I had perfected my technique with so much practice over the past few weeks, I still trembled at the request. I sealed it and he lit up with a smile. He poured his dominoes out of their scuffed box and stirred them thoughtfully.

Drew entered, carrying a sack lunch and his grocery bag of knitting.

“Do you work here?” I asked, wanting to have some jovial sparring.

“Do you?” he retorted. Cleo laughed. He and Drew bumped fists.

“I need a hat.” I swiped Cleo’s ever-present stained but elegant fedora and put it on. Drew gasped. Cleo just stared at me until I placed it back on his head.

“You never take a man’s
hat
,” Cleo said.

“That’s right. Don’t you know that?” Drew asked.

“Well, while you ladies crochet and play mah-jongg, I’ve got to run this business.” I stood and ambled over to the pleasant men who had moved to chain saws. They glanced at my approach, sidling uneasily away like a fleet of gazelles in the path of a lion.

“What can I help you with today, boys?” I boomed.

They shrugged and smiled and mumbled, shuffling toward air compressors.

“Deep discount? Just today, just for you, boys, I can do something very special!”

Their eyes downcast, they nodded, not tempted. “We’ll let you know,” one said.

I returned to the card table and opened the ledger. I made notes on the new items that needed to be reported to the police. I also made notes on the delinquent accounts and wrote a list of names on a tablet. Ellis would decide whether to contact them, give an extension, or sell their belongings.

“Never take a man’s hat,” Drew whispered.

I threw down the pen to chew his ass and saw both he and Cleo were laughing. “All right, all right.” I waved at them.

“Say, little brother.” Cleo held a domino close to his face and squinted at it. “Ain’t you got a birthday coming up?”

“Or just passed?” Drew added.

I stared from one to the other, frowning as I rolled another smoke. “No, I—”

“’Cause I been thinking about the perfect gift for you,” Cleo went on. “Your very own set a bones.” His arm formed an arc and he slid the whole set slowly to rest in front of me in a pool.

I looked down in amazement. My throat was dry, my tongue confused. My cigarette remained unlit. The domino dots swam in my eyes until I blinked and coughed. “You can’t be serious?”

“Happy birthday!” Drew said.

Cleo’s steady eyes met mine. “You go on and take ’em. I need me a new set and I’ve been wondering what to do with these old things.” Cleo caressed one with the tip of his finger. It was silky with wear and stories.

“But I can’t.” I tried to push them back.

“No,” Cleo said, his voice iron. “It’s right.”

“It is right,” Drew echoed.

Cleo cleared his throat and stood, making his voice cheerful. “I never saw anybody try so hard.”

Drew laughed, re-rolling a yarn ball. “You right about that. Nora wanted to beat your black ass at bones.”

Cleo laughed while I protested.

“Listen, I’m a go get a Crush. Anybody want one?” Cleo jingled coins in his pocket. He studied the sky above Tassie’s. “Hurricane’s comin’.”

“Cleo, let me.” I tried to stand but Cleo pushed down on my smooth skull.

“Lemme go.”

I nodded, wondering if he meant more with that sentence, feeling my heart pause with fear.

“Yeah, I’ll take a cream soda,” Drew said, his needles clicking in the complicated weave of bright red yarn.

“I’ll uh, I’ll have a grape,” I said. After Cleo left, his fedora jaunty on his head, I asked Drew, “Is he sick?”

Drew didn’t even look at me as he sped up his knitting. “Naw, uh-uh. The man just knows the life of things.”

“Huh?”

“You know, the proper way. The expiration. Those dominoes are dead for him but alive for you. Can’t you see that?”

I picked up a polished domino. “No. So what…how does—”

Drew set down his knitting, his brows clenched. “Can’t you be peaceful for a second? Why don’t you get a hobby and quit talking so much? Lord!”

I lit my cigarette at last and sat back with a sigh. Me, a hobby. So I could retire here and be a kook like this crowd, collecting stamps or whittling. Bullshit. But the idea sounded good, too. Rest at last. Somewhere to belong and relax.

“We want to talk to you about this turntable,” one of the pleasant men said.

I slammed out my cigarette, grinding it into the ashtray. “Coming, boys.”

“You don’t take a man’s hat,” Drew muttered.

The front door burst open and a man stood there, pointing a rifle at Ellis. “You sold my granddaddy’s watch, you son of a bitch!” Ellis was with me behind the counter, collecting a bank deposit. I dropped to the floor and tore at Ellis’s pants, grappling with his legs to try to bring him down with me. The pleasant men scattered, spying on the scene, their eyes insectile with curiosity. Cleo and Drew just watched, never moving. Drew never dropped a stitch.