He knocked again. He heard more whispering, then footsteps walking toward the door. The doorknob rattled. Ray took a deep breath to steady his nerves. The door jerked open. Inside stood a black woman, early twenties, five foot five, a pretty face but chubby, as if from a recent pregnancy. Her long hair was shellacked into a pile on top of her head. She looked hard at Ray. “What you want?”
Ray peeked past her shoulder, but he didn’t see anyone else. The other whisperer had disappeared. “Is Cleo-”
Almost too late he remembered that you never ask a yes-orno question. Make people explain everything. Never give them a chance to simply say no. “I’m here to see Cleo Harris.”
She shook her head. “He don’t stay here.” Her answer was an admission that she knew him.
Behind her, in the small den, Ray saw a tattered sofa, two beat-up chairs, and a television perched on top of a rickety stand. “Who were you talking to?” he asked.
She made a show of looking around before answering. “I wasn’t talking to nobody.”
“I heard you talking to somebody.”
Working her jaw, she smacked a piece of gum a couple of times. “You must’ve heard the TV, ’cause there ain’t nobody here except me and my baby.”
“I need to talk to you about something. You mind if I come in?”
She put a hand up in front of his face. “I don’t know you, mister, and you are not coming into my house.”
Ray put one foot on the doorstop. “It’ll just take a minute.”
She tried to push the door closed, but he held it open with his hand. She stepped into the doorway and blocked it with her plump body. “You got to have a search warrant to come in my house.”
“I don’t need a search warrant,” Ray said as he tried to squeeze past her.
The woman dug her feet into the floor and wedged her arms into the door frame. “My lawyer told me the police need a search warrant to go inside somebody’s house.”
“He’s right, but I’m not a cop,” Ray said. He shoved her backward into the den.
She screamed out, “Help! Help! He in the house!”
Ray doubted she was calling for the baby. Someone was here.
From a hallway to Ray’s left a man rushed into the den. He was black, midtwenties. He came straight at Ray. Ray shot a glance at his hands. No weapon. The chubby girl hung on to Ray’s left arm while her boyfriend grabbed the front of Ray’s shirt with both hands and started shoving. Both were screaming at Ray to get out.
Ray had to get the door closed in a hurry. He didn’t need nosy neighbors calling the cops. He threw a right hook over the top of the guy’s arms that caught him on the chin.
He dropped like a stone.
“Sit down and shut up,” he shouted at the girl as he shoved her away. Then the back of her leg hit the coffee table and she spilled onto the sofa. The guy tried to get up, but Ray dropped a knee onto his neck and pinned his face to the thin carpet. Something he had learned as a cop: if you get control of a man’s head, you can control his entire body.
The girl scrambled to her feet. “I’m calling the police!”
Ray added weight to his knee. The man winced. Pointing a finger at the girl, Ray said, “If you don’t sit down and shut up, I’ll break his damn neck.”
“Do what he say,” the black man yelled at her.
She sat down. The baby started screaming in the back of the house.
Ray looked down at the man whose head he had pinned to the floor. “What’s your name?”
Through clenched teeth, the man said, “What the fuck you want?”
Ray put a little more weight onto his neck. “Wrong answer.”
“Okay, okay.”
He raised his knee just a little. “What’s your name?”
“Tyrone.”
“Tyrone what?”
“Washington. Tyrone Washington. If you’re some kind of bounty hunter, you got the wrong man.”
Ray put all of his weight down on the guy’s neck.
He screamed and kicked his feet.
“Stop it, stop it,” the girl cried. “You’re killing him.”
Ray eased up, then bent his face down next to the guy’s ear. “Try again.”
“My name Cleo Harris.” Saying it so quickly the words ran over each other.
“They call you Winky?”
“Sometimes. But I ain’t wanted for nothing. That charge been dropped.”
“I’m not here because you’re wanted,” Ray said. “I’m here about the gun.”
“About a gun,” the girl echoed.
Winky tried to turn and look up at Ray. “What gun you talking about?”
Ray pushed his knee harder down on Winky’s neck. “The Smith forty you shot the guy on Frenchman Street with.”
Winky tried to shake his head but couldn’t. “I ain’t had no gun and I didn’t shoot-”
A kidney punch shut him up. “I don’t care who you shot or why,” Ray said. “All I want to know is what you did with the gun.”
The girlfriend started to cry. “You’re hurting him, mister.”
Ray looked at her. “It’s up to you. When I find out what I want to know, I’ll leave.”
She wiped tears off her cheeks. “Who are you?”
Ray took some pressure off Winky’s neck. “The people I work for run a place in the Quarter called the Rising Sun. You know who I’m talking about?”
She shook her head.
“I know who you talking about,” Winky mumbled.
“Who?” the girl demanded.
“Them people,” Winky said. “Them Eye-talians.”
“Oh, Lordy Jesus,” she said.
Ray took off some more weight.
Winky kept talking. “I heard what happened over there, but I swear to Jesus I ain’t had nothing to do with that. I swear on my baby’s-”
“Then who’d you give the gun to?”
“I told you, I ain’t had no gun.”
Ray punched him in the face.
The girl jumped to her feet. “Stop beating on him.”
Ray pointed his finger at her again. “Sit your fat ass down or I’ll kill him.”
She sat back down.
Winky said, “Somebody get shot with that gun?”
“Why do you think I’m here?” Ray asked. “You gonna tell me who you gave it to or not?”
Winky sighed. “I’ll tell you.”
Ray waited.
“They had me wrong for that shooting,” Winky said. “I didn’t have nothing to do-”
“Where’s the gun?” Ray asked.
“I sold it to a white boy-kind of a white boy-named Scooby.”
Ray pressed down hard. “I bet he’s got a friend named Shaggy?”
“I swear to God I’m telling you the truth. Dude scores from me.”
“Heroin?”
Winky tried to nod. Ray could feel it under his knee.
“You got his phone number?”
“He ain’t got no phone.”
“Then how do you get in touch with him?”
“He usually comes by here.”
