Red Light Wives (38 page)

I
didn't know how Ester was going to react when I told her I was moving out, and I didn't care. She and I both knew that sooner or later our relationship would either end or change drastically. But Ester had her own agenda, and that was something I'd realized long before now. I'd never met this Manny dude she had told me about. From the way she smiled and the way her eyes lit up when she mentioned his name, I knew that she had already laid the groundwork of her own to break away from Clyde. I was glad she had decided to have her baby.

“And I hope it's a little girl,” Ester squealed, sounding more like a little girl herself. I had never seen her look so happy. Her beautiful cameo face was glowing, her eyes sparkling like jewels. I felt her. I had experienced the same jubilance when I was pregnant.

“If so, I hope she turns out a lot better than her mama and gets herself a real job, you worn-out ho, you,” I teased, trying to hide how nervous I was. Every time we heard a car outside, we both almost jumped off the couch. “Does Clyde know?” I asked, ignoring the margarita in my hand. I didn't enjoy drinking as much in front of Ester now, since she couldn't join me. I set my drink on the end table, planning to finish it when Ester left the room.

Ester nodded so hard her hair fell across her face. “I had to tell him. He got suspicious anyway when I barfed in front of him. He wasn't happy about it.”

“Well, I don't owe Clyde nothin',” I snapped. “It was good while it lasted, but I have to get away from all this shit now, before it's too late. I'm beginnin' to feel like a robot sex machine.”

Ester nodded, giving me a thoughtful look. “I hear you. So what you gonna do?”

I hadn't told Ester about my plan to move in with Richard. I didn't want to take a chance on her telling Clyde where to find me. Not after the way Clyde had reacted to Rosalee's disappearance. I had just decided that morning to take Richard up on his offer to move in with him, and I was still not sure I could go through with that. Sure, I had enough money to get a place of my own, but the truth was, I didn't want to be alone. I wanted to be with Richard. I felt that if I didn't do it now, I would probably never have another chance. I knew I was bringing a lot of baggage to this relationship, with him knowing about me fucking for money and all. But that was the thing. He already knew about that, and he'd already gotten beyond it. Besides, if everything he told me was true, he had just as many skeletons in his closet as I had in mine. We could release them together.

Clyde showed up ten minutes later wearing a white suit and a white hat. He looked like the Lone Ranger. The only thing missing was a black mask.

“Evenin' ladies. I ain't seen too much of y'all lately,” he greeted in a dry voice, strutting across the floor. “Ester, get me a beer.” He plopped down hard on the couch next to me. “Lula Mae, it sure is good to see you again, girl.” He put his arm around my shoulder, but I pulled away. Clyde smelled like he had bathed in a tub of alcohol.

“Clyde, there ain't no easy way to tell you this, but I want to get it over with,” I said as Ester handed Clyde the beer he'd requested.

I could already feel the tension filling the room like thick black smoke. Ester was standing in the middle of the floor, staring blankly from me to Clyde.

Clyde turned the bottle upside down and took a long drink. His Adam's apple bounced up and down like a rock tumbling down the side of a hill. “I'm listenin',” he said, his eyes on me. He let out a great belch and thumped his chest with his fist.

“Clyde, I'm gettin' out of the business. Me and you, we can still be friends, but I can't hang with you like that no more. I can't do no more tricks,” I said evenly, surprised that I was able to get it all out in one breath.

First, Clyde just looked at me and blinked stupidly. Then he rubbed the back of his neck and gave me a sharp look. “So that's why you been duckin' and hidin'?”

Ester cleared her throat and took a tentative step toward Clyde.

“Clyde, you been real good to all of us. But things are different now. I mean, look at us, man. We both tired,” Ester said, her voice shaking. This was the first time I'd seen fear in Ester's eyes. “Even if I wasn't pregnant, I'd be quittin', too,
papi
.”

“Uh-huh,” Clyde said, nodding. “I guess it bees that way sometime.”

“Clyde—I'm…me and Lula, we really tired now, man.”

“Tired of what?” he mumbled, glaring at Ester. Then he whipped his head back around so hard to face me, his hat fell off. He had the desperate look of a wounded beast. “Things was fine 'til I got caught up with your country ass, Lula Mae,” he boomed, giving me a mean look so extreme his eyes crossed. Just like Bo's. “I tried to help you out when you ain't had nobody else to turn to,” he declared, almost whispering. I thought about that scene in the
Wizard of Oz
where the wicked witch melted. Clyde seemed like he was melting away. I knew it was just my imagination, but everything on him was getting smaller and smaller.

“Clyde, it ain't like that,” Ester said, moving toward the couch waving her arms. The glow was gone from her face. She looked as desperate as a trapped mouse. “Lula met somebody, too.”

“Oh, so that's it.” Clyde was blinking so hard, his eyes looked like balls of black fire. “Y'all done both found you some more suckers to play, like y'all done me. Well, I don't appreciate that shit!” He stood, pulling me up by the arm. “You black-ass bitch.” I don't know why he laughed; he looked mad as hell. “You had it good with me, now you think you can just walk out on me? And I bet it was you who talked Ester into gettin' pregnant.” Clyde pointed his beer bottle at Ester and waved it. Then he turned back to me. “Ester was in my corner all the way before you got in the picture, Lula.”

I didn't like the way he was squeezing my arm. And as hard as I tried to pry him loose, I couldn't. “Clyde, get your hand off me, and if you know what's good for you, you'll get the hell up out of here or—”

“Or what?” With his other hand, he snatched his gun from its clumsy hiding place. He did it so fast and rough, he popped the button on the waistband of his pants.

Ester and I were used to Clyde pulling that Glock out and waving it at us. One night after we'd all been drinking, it went off accidentally and blew a hole the size of a grapefruit in the base of one of Ester's lamps.

“Put that gun away, Clyde,” Ester said, stumbling across the floor until she was backed up against the wall. “You put that thing away right now! Go sober up, and let's talk about this tomorrow. You want some coffee?”

“Oh, y'all scared now, ain't you?” He grinned, waving the gun high above his head. “Let me say somethin' right here and now. You bitches ain't gonna have nothin' but bad luck from now on!”

Clyde still had a grip on me. Each time he swayed, I swayed with him, trying as hard as I could to pry his fingers from around my arm. His breath was hot and sour. His eyes looked like they wanted to explode. He would grin one moment, scowl the next. Sweat was pouring off his face and neck. A dark ring had formed around the collar of his white jacket. With the wide black circles around his eyes, he looked like a panda.

All the other times that Clyde had played around with his gun, I hadn't been afraid. I wasn't really afraid now, but I was mad. I didn't like the way he was responding to our announcements.

If I had had time to think about it, I probably would have reacted some other way. Maybe I would have taken back what I'd said about leaving him or offered him all the money I had stashed away. But I was not thinking straight when I grabbed his hand.

Before I knew what was happening, I was wrestling with him, trying to shake that gun out of his hand. I didn't want Clyde to hurt himself, or us. We fell back to the couch, then to the floor in what felt like slow motion. My mind was a complete blank, but I still heard that damn gun go off. Just like it did the night Clyde accidentally blew a hole in Ester's lamp.

But this time the hole was in Clyde's head, and the gun was in my hand.

I
t was not easy for me to recall the events that occurred in the order that they happened, because it all seems like a bad dream now.

Robert and Clyde were both out of my life for good. I didn't feel good about it, but in a way I was glad that my nightmare was over. Well, the worst part of it was.

The minute I'd realized that it was my husband standing on the other side of the door at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in a white hotel robe, a drink in his hand, a smile that froze then immediately shifted to an ominous scowl, waiting for the woman he had arranged to sleep with him for money, I knew that my marriage was over.

Robert's words will ring in my ears until the day I die. “Megan! What the hell is this? How did you—”

“How did I find out what you were up to? I didn't!” I screamed. “I am your fucking date! The one you're willing to pay three thousand bucks for!”

“Oh my God!” Robert dropped his glass and moved back a few steps, a look of stunned disbelief now on his face. He grabbed me and snatched me into the room, kicking the door shut with his bare foot so hard a pitcher of water crashed from a nightstand to the floor. “How the hell did this happen?”

“Why don't you tell me,” I managed. Random thoughts raced through my mind, which included his lack of interest in sex with me, and his frequent, prolonged, mysterious absences. My teeth accidentally bit into my tongue, drawing warm, salty blood. Words could not describe how I was feeling at that moment, but I can still feel the sting of the slap of his hand across my face. “You bastard.” I kicked, bit, and punched him, but it was a fight I knew I could not win.

How long the fracas went on, I couldn't say. It seemed like an eternity. By the time it was over, we both looked like we'd been mauled by an army of pit bulls. I'd literally been beaten out of my shoes. One lay at my throbbing feet, with a heel broken clean in two. Robert had attempted to strangle me, so my throat felt like a noose had been around it. My teeth prints were on both sides of his rapidly reddening face. Both of his lips were busted and bleeding. I'd kneed his crotch so hard, we both crumbled to the floor, Robert landing on top of me. He was already writhing in agony and howling like the beast he was as he clutched his private parts, but I offered a few more punches against the side of his head.

Momentarily, we managed to wobble up off the floor, gasping for breath, stumbling from one side of the room to the other. With my eyes flooded with tears, I watched Robert struggle into his pants. “It's over, it's over,” I said, sniffing in between huffs. I didn't care how I looked as I retrieved my purse from the floor, snatched open the door, and fled.

Robert didn't come home that night.

The next day, I found out in a roundabout way that Clyde Brooks's death and my showdown with Robert had occurred around the same time. I normally perused the
San Francisco Chronicle
every morning, focusing mainly on the sales, the entertainment section, and the high-profile stories. Even if it had not been such a tense morning, I still wouldn't have read the six lines in a corner almost at the bottom of page A14. The headline read:
USED CAR DEALER SLAIN
. I glanced at the lead stories and ignored the rest of the newspaper, before I folded it and left it on the kitchen counter. Surprisingly, I had only two unanswered messages on the machine that Mom had left the night before. I glared at the telephone like it was a snake, wondering which call I feared the most: the one from Robert or the one I expected to receive from Clyde any minute.

After an hour had passed, I couldn't stand the silence any longer. I had no idea where Robert was, but I wondered what he was thinking and planning. He knew that I had been prepared to sleep with a stranger for money. But he was that stranger willing to pay for sex, so I considered us even in that respect. The worst was over. My sudden and desperate need for money had altered my future—money that I'd needed to keep the secrets of my past in the dark. But now that didn't seem so bad anymore.

A strange laugh filled my kitchen, and it took me a moment to realize that the cold, distant cackle was coming from me. The telephone rang, but I ignored it. When the caller hung up without leaving a message, I convinced myself it was Clyde. He had already confessed to a few other hang-ups a few days earlier.

I laughed again, a string of convoluted thoughts swimming through my mind. Surely, Clyde and Robert would have communicated. Then, a grim thought exploded in my brain:
Maybe Clyde had purposely set up my date with Robert
. I dismissed that theory immediately. It didn't make much sense. Clyde had no reason to pull such a stunt as long as he had me under control. And his desperation for money had been too intense. Besides, even though I had everything to lose, Clyde had nothing to gain by dispatching me to Robert's hotel room. If his plans had worked the first time, there was no telling how many more money-making schemes Clyde would have come up with that involved me.

When the suspense got to be too much for me, I dialed my parents' number. My “reunion” with Clyde had brought about a lot of changes in my otherwise regular routines. I didn't go out as much, I saw less of the few friends I had, and, I even avoided my mother as much as I could. Mom answered in a tired voice.

“Oh, Meg, it's just awful! It's just awful! Oh, why did Father O'Conner have to be out of town today when I need his comfort so desperately?” Mom began dramatically. My first thought was Robert had shared his version of the events that had occurred the night before. My heart start pounding. Beads of perspiration sprang up like mushrooms on my face. “Poor, poor, Effie. What will she do now? We must go to her. She was there for us when we suffered our losses.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, licking my dried, cracked lips. I had more than a few bruises from my fight with Robert. However, there were none on my face, or any other part of me I couldn't conceal with clothing.

Mom sighed. “Why, Effie Brooks, girl. It's just awful.”

Just hearing Clyde's grandmother's name made me see spots. “Effie…Brooks? Our former housekeeper? What about Effie?” The perspiration had soaked through my blouse, and a burning sensation had formed in my chest.

“Well, isn't that why you're calling? It was in the newspaper this morning.”

“Mom, you are not making much sense. What was in today's newspaper? What does it have to do with Effie Brooks?” I didn't know where this conversation was going, but I knew it couldn't be anything positive. Not if it involved Clyde's grandmother. “Mom, are you still there?”

Mom sniffed and blew her nose before answering. “Yes, dear.”

“Is…Effie…?” I couldn't even finish my sentence. Our former housekeeper had to be ninety if she was a day. Even when she worked for us, more than twenty years ago, she had complained about one health problem after another. In fact, it was her poor health that had forced her to retire. But she'd continued to communicate with my mother. I didn't know until I encountered Clyde that day that Effie had been helping him take care of Keisha. My heart, which had been beating like a drum, felt like it was bouncing off the walls of my chest. My relationship with Clyde didn't affect my feelings for his grandmother. She was a wonderful woman. She'd been totally devoted to my family. I would always respect and adore her. Despite my feelings for Effie, I had not attempted to communicate with her since the last time she cleaned our house. I was not surprised when she did not acknowledge the invitation to my wedding.

“She's lost her grandson, her only grandson. Uh, I'm sure
you
remember
that
boy. Clyde…”

“What's happened to Clyde?” I asked, the words dancing off my lips. “Where is he?”

“Well, the newspaper didn't say much. But then they never do when it's just a Black person, unless they're rich and famous. That Clyde. What a waste of life.” Mom sighed and sucked her teeth. “Lusting after women the way he did was a crime against nature. It's no wonder a woman is what killed him.” Mom's voice shrank to an eerie whisper. “You were one of the lucky ones. Thank God, you got away from him before he ruined your life completely.”

“Clyde Brooks is dead?” I asked, my voice so raspy I hardly recognized it myself.

“Yes, dear.” Mom's voice trembled. “It's just awful!”