coughing down the hall to the right. I was about to follow her when a man’s voice called out from the other way.
“Send ’em on down.”
After about twelve feet the hallway veered off to the left depositing us into a room that had no one particular purpose. There was a green couch that doubled as a bed, and a card table used for dining. In one corner there was a sink set upon a small patch of tiles. The rest of the floor was wood so deeply rutted and splintered that a mop would have been torn to shreds in any attempt to wash it.
The big man stood up and extended his hand when we entered.
“Hey, Saul,” he said.
“Ross.”
Ross had orange-brown skin and a thick mustache that didn’t stop at the corners of his mouth but went straight back and up until it blended with the hair just above his ears. He had a receding hairline and shoulders inherited from his mother.
Behind him there was a youngish white woman still seated on the couch. Her short hair was brown and styled into a flip. Her nose slanted toward the right which made her seem as if she was standing in profile even when she was looking straight at you.
She had obviously just put on her sweater. I imagined that her bra was under the couch somewhere.
She noticed me noticing her nipples under the thin pink cotton and turned away, smiling slightly.
“And this is Ross Henry,” Saul was saying to me.
My heart was doing a kind of double-knocking throb in my chest.
“Mr. Henry,” I said.
“Mr. Rawlins. This is Amiee,” he said. “She come by to visit.”
“Hello,” she said. Even her words were sexy. She added, “I better be going, baby.”
“No.” Ross put out a hand. “No, don’t go. I just got to tell these men somethin’ and then we can, we can…you know, visit.”
“Um,” Saul said delicately.
“Naw, man,” I said. “This business is only between us three. Maybe your friend would wanna wait with your mother.”
“Oh no,” Amiee said holding up her hands in a defensive pose. She stood up from the couch with a sinuous, snakelike motion. “Some other time, baby.”
Getting up on tiptoes she kissed Ross’s cheek. At the same time however, she managed to meet my eye with a smile.
She was slight and in her thirties but young-looking, dressed better than a secretary or waitress. She wore no ring.
I had been looking at women lately. Ever since I found out about Bonnie’s royal holiday. I’d been looking but I didn’t have the spirit to follow up. When I lost the desire to kiss Bonnie it seemed to extend to all other women too.
That’s what bothered me about Amiee. Her crooked glances managed to get under my skin. It was hard for me to think about anything more than her sidelong smiles. For that reason I was happy to see her pass out of the door.
“Man, why you wanna go an’ threaten her with my mama?”
On cue the hacking cough sounded through the walls.
“Wasn’t no threat,” I said. “I just needed her out of here so we could talk about keepin’ your ass outta prison.”
“I’m not goin’ to jail, man,” he said. “Shit. I’ll have my ass down on some Alabama farm ’fore I go to no jail.”
Saul met my gaze. He shrugged slightly.
“Your mother put up her life savings against a fifteen-thousand-dollar nut,” I said. “What you gonna do, make her work the rest of her life ’cause you a coward?”
“Motherfucker!” Ross yelled.
He threw a long looping right hand but it was useless because I hit him on the side of the jaw with a left that also blocked his punch.
Ross went down hard on the desiccated floor.
Someone cackled behind me.
Mrs. Clara Henry was standing in the doorway gleefully clasping her hands.
“That’s right, mister,” she said encouragingly. “Hit him again, hit him again. Maybe you hit him hard enough you might knock some sense into his thick skull.”
She even did a little jig. But all that laughing and capering was too much for her condition. She fell into a bout of coughing that brought her elbows down to her knees.
Saul was crouched down next to Ross, who seemed stunned by the mere fact he’d been hit. He was rubbing his jaw and watching his mother’s show.
“Mama, what you doin’ back here?” the full grown man said. “This my room.”
