Too Black for Heaven (3 page)

Chapter Five

T
HE
L
OBBY
of the Yazoo Hotel smelled sweet and clean. The freshly-mopped tiles gave it an illusion of coolness, but beyond the metal marquee extending over the sidewalk, the noonday sun was bubbling the tar between the red Augusta bricks with which the main streets of Blairville were paved.

Dona stood a moment at the foot of the broad stairs, looking out into the heat. There were six or seven cars, her own included, parked in front of the hotel. Farther up the street, in front of a feed and implement store, there were two battered pick-up trucks. As she watched, four women carrying shopping bags or baskets walked by on the far side of the street. One of the women with three children paused to look in the windows of the Montgomery Ward retail store. In the green square of the courthouse lawn, the benches under the trees were sprinkled with gaunt faced men in blue shirts and dungarees or overalls, talking, whittling, spitting tobacco juice, or just sitting.

Nothing could be more peaceful. As she passed the mirror on the door of the closed cocktail lounge on her way to the desk, she repinned a lock of hair that escaped its mooring. Last night had been a mistake. She’d been terribly tired. She’d driven too far, too fast. Jack Ames, getting drunk, it was all a bad dream.

A deeply-tanned man, wearing a silver badge pinned to the breast pocket of his clean khaki shirt, was talking to the desk clerk. Dona recognized him as the deputy sheriff who had curbed her car a few miles out of Blairville and warned her that she was exceeding the speed limit. He smiled and touched the brim of his white Stetson.

“Mornin’, Miss.”

Dona’s half-smile faded as she waited for him to continue but the deputy was merely being pleasant. His name, as she recalled it, was Ransom.

He confided to the desk clerk. “I had the pleasure of meetin’ Miss Santos when she drove into town last night. ‘Miss,’ I sez to her, ‘
you
ain’t drivin’ too fast. What you’re doin’ is flyin’ too low.’”

Both he and the desk clerk, a faded man in his middle forties, laughed at the aged joke. Dona forced herself to smile, conscious that the clerk was admiring the snug fit of her white cotton dress.

As she laid her key on the counter, the clerk smiled, “A beautiful mornin’. I trust you had a good night, Miss Santos.”

Dona studied his face. The man wasn’t being sarcastic. Jack had been discreet. He’d used the back stairs. No one had seen him enter or leave her room.

“I over-slept,” she admitted. “I guess I must have been tired.”

The clerk bobbed his head in agreement. “Drivin’ ain’t what it used to be. Ain’t no fun no more. Too many danged fools on the road.”

“That’s for sure,” Ransom said.

“It is a strain,” Dona answered.

She turned to cross the lobby to the coffee shop and stopped as the clerk said, “Oh, just a minute, Miss Santos. I forgot. This came for you this mornin’.” He put her key in the rack and handed her an envelope.

“Thank you.”

Dona slit the envelope as she crossed the lobby. The note it contained was brief and written in a bold masculine hand.

Dona returned the note to the envelope and put it in her saddle-leather bag between her wallet and the revolver. The south was filled with anomalies. She roared into town at ninety miles an hour and because she was female and pretty and driving a Cadillac, a polite deputy sheriff merely cautioned her. Jack Ames talked like a field hand and wrote like the college man and attorney-at-law he was.

All of the tables in the coffee shop were occupied by local businessmen eating lunch, but most of the stools at the counter were vacant. She sat on one of the stools and a black-haired waitress set a glass of water in front of her.

“Breakfast or lunch, Miss?”

“Breakfast, please,” Dona smiled.

She looked over the menu and ordered the Number 4 Club breakfast; two eggs, buttered grits, one slice of bacon, beaten biscuits and coffee. The waitress called the order through the kitchen slot, then served her coffee.

“That’s a pretty dress, Miss. You didn’t buy that in Monkey Ward’s. I’ll bet you got that in Chicago.”

Dona spooned sugar into her coffee. “That’s right. How did you know I was from Chicago?”

The girl behind the counter smiled wryly. “Well, anyway, Illinois. I was sitting out front last night, fighting mosquitoes and a good-time-Charlie when you rolled up in that snazzy fish-tailed chariot you drive.”

“I see.”

The waitress hesitated, then asked, “If it isn’t being too personal, what does a boat like that cost?”

“Around eight thousand dollars.”

The black-haired girl said, “Sweet Jesus. Just once some good-time-Charlie should offer me a boat like that, instead of two rum colas and a seat in the back row of the Bijou.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Skip it,” the girl said. “I just mean if I don’t get out of this town pretty soon I’ll go nuts.”

“It’s that dull?”

“Honey,” the waitress confided, “except on Saturday nights, when the boll weevils come in from the plantations, they roll up the sidewalks at nine o’clock. The town’s still talking about the high old times they used to have B.G.”

“B.G.?”

“Before Grant.”

A bell rang and the waitress took Dona’s breakfast from the service slot. The food looked and smelled good and tasted even better. “You’re not local, I take it?” Dona said.

The waitress shook her head. “Not me. I was with an all-girl dance troupe and we got stuck here when our manager fell for one of the girls and took a powder, taking her and all the dough in the kitty with him. Right now, I’m just marking time and saving my tips. But about two weeks from next Saturday night, if you hear a train bound for Jacksonville, little Maizie will be in one of the chair cars.”

Dona laughed. “Good luck.” She went back to her breakfast. Buttered grits and beaten biscuits with guava jelly were new to her. She liked them. “Outside of being dull, just what sort of a town is Blairville?”

“Strictly you-all, with money. The rich have cotton running out of their ears. The poor have children and chiggers. Some tobacco. A little timber. The fellows tell me it’s good fishing country and there are quite a few nice small lakes. No local station but fair TV reception. One guy by the name of Sterling owns about half the county.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Once. That was enough. Judging from the car you drive, you two are in the same bracket. So if you know him, you can tell him for me he’s a heel.” The waitress went on, “I went out to his place to a party one night with a couple of girls from the act. And has he some ideas of fun! Then I found out a few nights later from a boy I dated that none of the respectable people in town or any of the local girls will have anything to do with him. The way I get it, he has a party going on all the time, but while some of the local bucks are glad to drink his liquor, he has to import his girls from Natchez and Mobile.”

“I see.”

Another customer claimed Maizie’s attention. Dona finished her breakfast, decided against a second cup of coffee and laid a half-dollar beside her plate. After paying her check to the cashier, she used the street door to leave the coffee shop.

Beyond the narrow strip of shade cast by the metal marquee, over-hanging the walk, the heat was a physical entity. Her car had been standing in the sun all morning with the top down. The wheel was too hot to grip. It was embarrassingly uncomfortable to sit on the red leather upholstery. Dona started the motor and raised the top. It would be a long while before the seat would cool sufficiently for her to drive in comfort.

To kill time, she walked around the square. Blairville was old. Half of the stores were housed in white-washed red brick buildings. The other store buildings were frame, termite-riddled, with sagging balconies and outside stairs leading up to their second floors. Only the bank, a Western Auto Store, and a two-storied square building topped by the sign, BLAIRVILLE COURIER, were new.

The bank was the tallest building in town. It was four-storied, stone and modern. The top three floors were occupied by professional men. By reading the legends on the windows, she counted five doctors, six dentists, one oral surgeon, two insurance companies, three real estate firms, a hearing-aid office and seven lawyers. The name Jack Ames, Attorney-at-Law, was printed in gold leaf on four front and five side windows on the second floor of the southeast corner of the building. Ames obviously had a lucrative practice. Now that she knew where his office was, she would return the money he’d given her. It wouldn’t change what had happened but it would make her feel a little less cheap.

The sun beat down on her bare head and blinded her. Perspiration beaded on her face. Her dress stuck to the small of her back. Her bra chafed her breasts. The strap of her bag cut into her shoulder because of the weight of the gun. She could taste the buttered grits. The slight head with which she’d awakened expanded into a dull headache.

The few people she met were pleasant. The women smiled. The white men touched the brims of their hats. Negroes, both men and women, stepped aside to let her pass. She came to the end of that side of the square and crossed Lee Street to pass in front of the bank.

On impulse, instead of continuing around the square, Dona turned down the next side street she came to. In the middle of the block, the tower of a small frame church raised a simple cross toward the sky. The grounds were green and well-kept. A pleasant, white-haired priest was setting out marigold seedlings. The windows of the church were open and unscreened. Inside the sanctuary, a novice pianist was practicing the Te Deum. Dona looked at a plaque supported by two iron stanchions.

The plaque read:

As Dona paused, the priest looked up and smiled. “She isn’t exactly Liberace, is she?”

“No, she isn’t, Father.”

The priest laid down his trowel and got to his feet. “New in Blairville, aren’t you, daughter?”

“Yes, Father.”

“I’m Father Miller.”

“I’m Dona Santos.”

“Going to be with us long, Miss Santos?”

“I don’t know.”

The priest studied her with shrewd eyes. “Is something bothering you, daughter? If so, my hours for confession are elastic. Like to have a little talk with me?”

“Not this morning, Father.”

The aged priest continued to smile. “Well, you’re the best judge of that.”

The music inside the church stopped and a little colored girl, so clean she sparkled, appeared in the front door of the church. “I practiced Te Deum fo’ times, Father? What do I do now?”

Still looking at Dona, the priest said, “Play it again, Addie. Only practice makes us perfect.”

The little girl walked back into the sanctuary. Dona realized she was clutching her bag so hard that her fingers hurt. “You have colored parishioners, Father?”

“Some of my flock are darker than others,” the priest said. “I’ve read the sixteenth verse of the eighteenth chapter of Luke many times over a period of fifty years and I don’t recall anywhere in the verse which reads, ‘But Jesus called them unto Him and said, Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of God,’ that our Savior specified they be white children.”

Chapter Six

D
ONA
W
ALKED
on slowly back toward the court house square. She couldn’t stand much more of this heat. Blairville was on a river. The waitress in the coffee shop had said it was good fishing country and there were innumerable small lakes near by. It might be cooler in the country. Perhaps she could rent a cottage on the river or on one of the lakes until she made up her mind just how to go about what she intended to do.

She walked down the side of the square opposite the hotel and paused in front of a grimy window with the legend:

She walked through the open door. Sitting in back of a paper-littered desk, a fat man in a rumpled linen suit filled a battered swivel-chair to over-flowing. His smile was infectious. “Pardon me fo’ not gittin’ up, Miss. But once I git this heft o’ mine in a chair, it’s a powerful effort to move it.”

Dona sat in the chair he indicated. “That’s perfectly all right.”

The office was on the shady side of the square. Boldly painted legends and yellowed pictures of properties for sale blocked out most of the light and gave it an illusion of coolness. The only difference was that here the heat was still and dead. A noisy oscillating fan on a wall shelf stirred up more dust than air.

The fat man ran a soiled handkerchief over his bald spot. “Now what can I do for you, Miss — ”

“Santos. Dona Santos.”

“I’m Joel Harris, former judge of the circuit court.” He adjusted a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles on his nose. “Jist passin’ through, Miss Santos?”

“Well, you might say I’m on a vacation. I’m stopping at the hotel. I just drove in last night.”

Harris looked at her over his glasses. “Of course. You’re the pretty girl all the boys have been talkin’ about. The one who drives the cream-colored Cadillac convertible.”

“I didn’t realize I’d attracted so much attention.”

Harris laughed. “Be charitable, honey. Any girl as pretty as you is bound to attract attention. Now what can I do for you?”

“You handle rental properties?”

“I do. Caterin’ to tourists is one of our main sources of income. What have you in mind?”

“I’m interested in a furnished cottage, preferably on a lake or on the river.”

“For how long?”

“At least two weeks. Possibly longer.”

“You don’t like the hotel?”

“I would prefer more privacy. Besides, I thought it might be cooler near the water.”

“I see,” Harris said. He fingered through the pages of a loose-leaf note book. “How high you willin’ to go?”

Dona mentally counted her money. She had less than five hundred dollars. “Not more than two hundred a month.”

Harris beamed. “Well, that gives us a wide latitude. This bein’ the off season, I should be able to find somethin’ for you, somethin’ pretty nice.” He peered at her over his glasses. “You ever been through here before?”

“No.”

“Then you wouldn’t be acquainted with the back roads heah-’bouts. No matter. I got a boy I can send with you. He’s a local boy tryin’ to familiarize hisse’f with the basic fundamentals of the law afore he goes to law school in the Fall under the G.I. Bill.” Harris lowered his voice. “He lost a leg in Korea but there’s nothin’ the matter with his mind. Right now he’s workin’ at the hotel to pad out his disability pay, but he spends all his spare time here.”

Dona wasn’t interested.

“You any objection to ridin’ with a colored boy?”

“Of course not.”

“Some has. I jist thought I’d ask.” Harris raised his voice. “Beau!”

The big bellboy from the hotel limped around the beaverboard partition that divided the office. “Yes, sir?” He looked at Dona, then away.

Dona wished she hadn’t walked around the square. She wished she’d gone to some other real estate firm. She wanted to walk out of the office but didn’t have the physical strength to leave her chair, for the moment.

“You an’ Beau kin use your car,” Harris said. “Miss Santos wants to look at some rental properties, Beau. So bring her out to those cottages on the river, then show her that new place on Loon Lake, the one Sterlin’ jist listed for rent or sale. The one I advertised.”

“Yes, sir.”

With difficulty, Dona got to her feet. The purse in her lap fell, and as it struck the floor its clasp opened and the waffled butt of the revolver showed.

Harris said, “Well, don’t jist stand there, Beau. Pick up the lady’s purse.”

Beau knelt awkwardly, picked the purse from the floor and handed it to Dona. She gave him her car keys. “You drive.”

“As you say, Miss Santos.”

With Beau limping a few steps behind her, Dona crossed the courthouse lawn toward the hotel. As she passed one of the benches in the shade of the statue, a dried-up little man, a tieless, collarless little man whose dangling feet would barely touch the ground, undressed her with maggoty eyes, then vented his impotency by spitting a stream of tobacco juice that missed Beau’s white, canvas shoes by a practiced fraction of an inch.

“Biggety nigger,” the little man said. His voice was thin and clear in the silence of the courthouse square. “A-readin’ law. I declare. I do declare. We gotta let ‘em vote. We gotta send our kids to school with ‘em. Now we gonna have a nigger lawyer.”

Dona stopped as if to turn back.

“Please, Miss Santos,” Beau said, “I’m used to it.”