They grinned. 'You got it, Papa.' They went off to find another one.
My people, I thought. I started to get a drink, then glanced at my watch. It was a quarter to four. I hurried over to the parking lot, got my car, circled into Central, and began digging. It was just four-thirty when I pulled up before the entrance to the parking lot at Atlas Ship.
I got out, walked over to the gate where the copper shop let out. My boy was one of the first ones through. I was thinking of him as 'my boy' now. I followed him, wondering how I could work it if he caught a P.E. train. But I got a break; he waited on one side of the street until a grey Ford sedan slowed for him and climbed in. I sprinted back across the street, got in my car, and dug off just as one of the yard cops was coming over to move me. I muscled in ahead of a woman driver three cars behind the grey Ford; kept the position until we came to Anaheim Road in Wilmington, then pulled up to one car behind and stayed there. I thought about my riders; they were burning, I knew.
The next instant I'd forgotten them. It felt good following the guy, knowing I was going to kill him. I wasn't at all nervous or apprehensive. I thought about it like you think about a date with a beautiful chick you've always wanted to make; I just had that feeling that it was going to be great.
The grey Ford had five riders besides the driver. At Alameda Street it turned north into Compton, and two of the riders in back got out, leaving my boy alone. When it stopped before a house in Huntington Park I rolled up and parked right behind it. My boy got out, said something to the fellows in the front seat, and the car moved off. He glanced idly at my car, took two steps towards the house, then wheeled about and stared into my eyes. His eyes stretched with a stark incredulity and his face went stiff white, like wrinkled paper. He stood rigid, half turned, as if frozen to the spot.
I reached into the glove compartment and got my gun, then I opened the door and got out into the street. I wasn't in any hurry. They'd probably hang me, I knew, but I'd already accepted that, already gotten past it. He turned quickly and started up the walk toward the house, walking stiff-jointed, his shoulders high and braced and his back flattened like a board. When he got to the steps a homely blonde woman opened the door from the inside and two small towheaded kids squeezed past her legs and ran toward him.
He pushed the children back through the door with a rough, savage motion, then whispered something sharply to the woman. She snapped a quick frightened look toward me and her mouth opened as if to scream. She let him in and slammed shut the door and I could hear it being bolted from the inside.
I stopped. I didn't have to kill him now, I thought. I could kill him any time; I could save him up for killing like the white folks had been saving me up for all these years.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw two old ladies coming down the sidewalk with loaded shopping bags, giving me frosty looks. It didn't occur to me that my boy might stick a gun out the front window and blow off the back of my head. I felt cool, untouchable, indifferent. I thought perhaps he might be calling the police, but it didn't worry me. When the two old ladies came opposite me I gave them a wide, bright smile and said in my best manner 'It's a beautiful day, isn't it?'
I left them standing dead still on the sidewalk, twisting their scrawny necks about to stare at me with outraged indignation as I climbed into my car and dug off.
I could even go back to the shipyard and work as a mechanic, I thought. As long as I knew I was going to kill him, nothing could bother me. They could beat my head to a bloody pulp and kick my guts through my spine. But they couldn't hurt me, no matter what they did. I had a peckerwood's life in the palm of my hand and that made all the difference.
CHAPTER VI
I called the best hotel in town when I got home and made reservations for a deuce at nine o'clock. The head waiter's voice was very courteous: 'Thank you, Mr. Jones.' I grinned to myself; he'd fall out if he knew I was a Negro, I thought.
Then I called Alice. I'd decided to knock myself out and when I told her to wear evening clothes her voice became excited. 'Now I know we're going to the Last Word.' That was a new club out on Central she'd been trying to get me to take her to ever since it opened; I suppose she figured that the people in her class didn't patronize such places and the only way she'd get there was for me to take her.
'Nope,' I said. 'The Avenue's out tonight.'
'You know I want to go to the Last Word,' she said. Her low, well-modulated voice was cajoling.
'That's not the mood,' I said. 'And anyway, nobody dresses for the Last Word.'
'Where, Bob, the Seven Nymphs?' That was a Hollywood joint where Negroes went sometimes.
'Nope, bigger and better,' I said.
'Don't tease me, Bob.' A thread of annoyance had come into her voice. 'I absolutely refuse to go unless you tell me now.'
'It's a secret,' I laughed. 'I'll call for you at eight.' I hung up before she had a chance to reply.
Ella Mae passed through the living room with the baby wrapped in a blanket. She had just finished bathing it. 'You oughta be 'shamed of yourself, teasing Alice like that,' she said.
'Don't you worry about Alice,' I told her. 'Alice can take care of herself.'
She began pinning a diaper on the baby. 'You're going to mess up yet,' she said. 'Alice don't know you like I do.'
I grinned at her. 'Nobody knows me like you do. You're my baby.' She snorted. I began peeling off my sport shirt. 'I'm just playing around with Alice until you and I figure out how to get rid of Henry,' I said. 'Then we're going to get married and I'll keep Alice as my Monday girl.'
She gave me a long peculiar look. Then suddenly she giggled. 'You'll have to raise Emerald.'
'Emerald what?' Then I laughed. 'I forgot her name was Emerald.' It always startled me. 'You sure did your baby a dirty trick,' I added.
'I think Emerald's a pretty name,' she defended. 'Prettier than Alice, anyway.'
'Emerald Brown,' I pronounced, going into my room to finish undressing. 'You must think she's gonna grow up to be one of the green people.'
She didn't reply.
'Well, it's your baby,' I said.
I took another shower and began dressing. When Ella Mae came into the kitchen to heat the baby bottle she said, 'You oughta be clean enough even for Alice now-two baths in one day.' Her voice was ridiculing.
'I'm tryna turn white,' I laughed.
'I wouldn' be s'prised none, lil as it's said,' she cracked back.
'You know how much I love the white folks,' I said; I couldn't let it go.
'You just ain't saying it, either,' she kept on. 'All that talking you do 'bout 'em all the time. I see you got the whitest coloured girl you could find.
'Damn, you sound like a black gal,' I said, a little surprised. 'I thought you liked Alice.'
'Oh, Alice is fine,' she said. 'Rich and light and almost white. You better hang on to her.'
'Okay, baby, I quit,' I said. I wondered what was eating her.
She went into her room and closed the door. I put on dinner clothes, cloth pumps, midnight-blue trousers, white silk shirt with a soft turned-down collar, a pointed-tip dubonnet bow, and a white jacket. I'd bought the outfit a year ago, but the only chance I'd had to wear it was at the Alpha formal at the Elks Hall during the Christmas season, except when I wore it down on the Avenue late at night as if I'd just come from some affair or other. I felt sharp in it.
I stepped out into the parlour and called Ella Mae. 'Come look at your sweet man, baby.'
She looked strictly evil when she stepped into the room. She gave me one look and said, 'All I hope is you don't come home mad and try to take it out on me.' Then she softened. 'You do look fine, sure 'nough.'
I grinned. 'Well, talk to me, baby.'
She stepped forward suddenly and pulled my face down and kissed me. She made her mouth wide so that her lips encircled mine completely, wet and soft; and her tongue came out and played across my lips, forcing itself between my teeth.
