where he might have found my phone number.
'Easy? Easy! You fallin' back asleep?'
'What you want this time'a mornin', Junior?'
'Ain't nuthin'. Nuthin'.'
'Nuthin'? You gonna get me outta my bed at three fo' nuthin'?'
'Don't go soundin' off on me now, man. I just wanted to tell you what you wanted t'know.'
'What you want, Junior?'
''Bout that girl, thas all.' He sounded nervous. He was talking fast and I had the feeling that he kept looking over his shoulder. 'Why was you lookin' fo' her anyway?'
'You mean the white girl?'
'Yeah. I just remembered that I saw her last week. She come in with Frank Green.'
'What's her name?'
'I think he called her Daphne. I think.'
'So how come you just tellin' me now? How come you callin' me this late anyway?'
'I'ont get off till two-thirty, Easy. I thought you wanted to know, so I called ya.'
'You jus' figgered you'd call me in the middle'a the night an' tell me 'bout some girl? Man, you fulla shit! What the hell do you want?'
Junior let out a couple of curses and hung the phone in my ear.
I got the bottle and poured myself a tall drink. Then I lit up a cigarette and pondered Junior's call. It didn't make any sense, him calling me in the night just to tell me about some girl I wanted to play with. He had to know something. But what could a thick-headed field hand like Junior know about my business? I finished the drink and the cigarette but it still didn't make sense.
The whiskey calmed my nerves, though, and I was able to fall into a half sleep. I dreamed about casting for catfish down south of Houston when I was just a boy. There were giant catfish in the Gatlin River. My mother told me that some of them were so big that the alligators left them alone.
I had caught on to one of those giants and I could just make out its big head below the surface of the water. Its snout was the size of a man's torso.
Then the phone rang.
I couldn't answer it without losing my fish so I shouted for my mother to get it but she must not have heard because the phone kept on ringing and that catfish kept trying to dive. I finally had to let it go and I was almost crying when I picked up the receiver. 'Hello.'
''Allo? Thees is Mr. Rawlins? Yes?' The accent was mild, like French, but it wasn't French exactly.
'Yeah,' I exhaled. 'Who's that?'
'I am calling you about a problem with a friend of yours.'
'Who's that?'
'Coretta James,' she said, enunciating each syllable.
That set me up straight. 'Who is this?'
'My name is Daphne. Daphne Monet,' she said. 'Your friend, Coretta, no? She came to see me and asked for money. She said that you were looking for me and if I don't give it to her she goes to tell you. Easy, no?'
'When she say that?'
'Not yesterday but the day before that.'
'So what'd you do?'
'I give to her my last twenty dollars. I don't know you, do I, Mr. Rawlins?'
'What she do then?'
'She goes away and I worry about it and my friend is away and doesn't come back home so then I think maybe I find you and you tell me, yes? Why you want to find me?'
'I don't know what you mean,' I said. 'But your friend, who's that?'
'Frank. Frank Green.'
I reached for my pants out of reflex; they were on the floor, next to the bed.
'Why do you look for me, Mr. Rawlins? Do I know you?'
'You must'a made some kinda mistake, honey. I don't know what she was talkin' 'bout… Do you think Frank went lookin' for her?'
'I don't tell Frank about her coming 'ere. He was not 'ere but then he does not come home.'
'I don't know a thing about where Frank is, and Coretta's dead.'
'Dead?' She sounded as if she was really surprised.
'Yeah, they think it happened Thursday night.'
