“What did you call her?”
“Little Scarlet. That was her nickname. After we got, uh, close she wanted me to call her that.”
I couldn’t see how a rapist-murderer could possibly learn his victim’s pet name.
“Well, why didn’t she tell her that the white man she saved was from her job?” I asked anyway.
“Because I’m married. She didn’t want to start any gossip about me.”
“And how did you get out of there?”
“Early . . . early on Wednesday morning Nola got her neighbor to take me home. I paid him fifty dollars.”
“Did he see you with Nola?”
“No. She just called him and told him to pick me up in front of the house at three.”
“And before all that you fell in love?” I didn’t mean to let my cynicism show but it was hard to hide.
“It’s true.”
And why not? A cute white boy was worth a second look, especially if he was willing to brave the riots to save a young damsel in her tenement tower. He might even be worth a third look. And if he told her that he’d leave his wife to marry her it could well have been too good to pass up. I mean, how many times are there in a young woman’s life when a man would give all that up for her? Imagine what kind of father a man like that would make.
“Who was the man who drove you?” I asked.
“Piedmont is what he called himself,” Rhone said. “I don’t even know if that’s a first or last name.”
“What did he look like?”
“Your height but not so filled out,” he said. “Same color as you are and he had very long fingers and arms. And . . . and he had a mole right in the center of his forehead. I remember because every once in a while he’d touch it.”
“Did you see anybody else while you were laid up at Nola’s?”
“No. Neither one of us left the apartment.”
“What about Theda?”
“What about her?”
“Didn’t she wonder where you were?”
“I called her at her relatives’ and said that I’d got caught in the riots and that a family took me in. I said that they didn’t have a phone and that I was using a phone booth to call.”
“And she believed that?”
“She was staying with people who believed there was a race war unfolding in the streets.”
I thought about Margie, a woman who was so afraid of the riots that she couldn’t even bring me my bill.
“I better call the police,” Peter said.
“No. No,” I said. “The last people in the world you wanna talk to right now are the cops. If one word gets out on the airwaves about Nola they’ll hang your butt out to dry.”
“Why?”
“You really don’t know, do you?” I asked.
“Know what?”
“That you crossed the line when you went down to Nola’s.”
“What should I do?” he asked. “I mean, I don’t want Nola’s killer to get away. Maybe I could help.”
If he was a liar he was good.
I had no idea of what happened in that neat little apartment. Maybe they went crazy after three days. Maybe they fell in love and then they began to hate each other.
All I had to do was give Rhone’s name over to Suggs or, better, to Deputy Commissioner Gerald Jordan, and I was free. I’d have a friend in a high place while the police tried to untangle the knots.
But I didn’t trust the police to do their job and I didn’t think that Rhone was guilty.
“If you’re lyin’ to me, man,” I said, “I will kill you myself.”
“I loved Nola,” he said with stiff conviction.
“Then wait twenty-four hours.”
“For what?”
“I’m gonna do what the cops asked me to do and look for the man killed Nola. If it’s you I’ll send the cops to your door. If you run I’ll find you. But if it ain’t you, well, then we’ll see.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“You don’t have to thank me, man,” I said. “This isn’t for you. I just don’t want the police to let that woman’s death slide by because they’re worried about somethin’ else.”
