'Listen, baby, all I want to know is how in the hell could that preacher make that up?'
'You always want to believe everybody but me,' she said.
'And how come he keep on saying it was you who did it?' he kept on, ignoring her remark.
'God damn it, do you think I did it?' she flared.
'That ain't what's bothering me,' he said, brushing that off. 'What's bothering me is why in the hell he thinks you did it? What reason has he got to think you had for doing it?'
'You keep talking about mysteries,' she said, showing signs of hysteria. 'How come it was you didn't see Val all last night. He told me for sure he was going by the club and coming with you to the wake. He ain't had no reason to tell me he was if he wasn't. That's a mystery to me.'
He looked at her long and thoughtfully. 'If you keep popping off on that idea, that will get us all into trouble,' he said.
'Then what you keep blowing off at me with all those crazy ideas you got about me, as if you think I kilt him,' she said defiantly.
'It don't bother me who kilt him,' he said, 'He's dead and that's it. What bother me is all these mother- raping mysteries about you. You're alive and you're my woman, and I want to know why in the goddam hell all these people keep thinking things about you that I ain't never even thought of, and I'm your man.'
Alamena came in from the hall and looked indifferently at the debris scattered about the room. She hadn't changed clothes but had put on a red plastic apron. The dog peeped out from behind her legs to see if the coast was clear, but decided that it wasn't.
'You all going to sit here and argue all night or do you want to come and get something to eat?' Alamena said indifferently, as though she didn't give a damn whether they ate or not.
For a moment both of them stared at her blankly, without replying. Then Johnny got to his feet.
Thinking Johnny didn't see her, with quick furtive motions Dulcy snatched up the glass the dog had stepped into and poured it half full of brandy from a bottle she had cached behind the television set.
Johnny was walking toward the hallway, but he turned suddenly without a break of motion and slapped the glass from her hand. Brandy splashed in her face as the glass sailed through the air and went spinning across the floor.
She hit him in the face with her balled right fist as fast as a cat catching fish. It was a solid pop with fury in it, and it knocked tears from his eyes.
He turned in blind rage and clutched her by the shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled.
'Woman!' he said, and for the first time she heard his voice change tone. It was deep, throaty and came out of his guts, and it worked on her like a aphrodisiac. 'Woman!'
She shuddered and went candy. Her eyes got limpid and her mouth suddenly wet, and her body just folded into his.
He went as soft as drugstore cotton and pulled her to his chest. He kissed her eyes, her nose and throat, and bent over and kissed her neck and the curve of her shoulder.
Alamena turned quickly and went back to the kitchen.
'Why don't you believe me,' Dulcy said against his biceps.
'I'm trying to, baby,' he said. 'But you got to admit it's hard.'
She dropped her arms to her sides and he took his arms from around her and put his hands in his pockets. They went down the hall to the kitchen.
The two bedrooms, separated by the bathroom, were on the left side of the hall which opened onto the outside corridor. The dining room and the kitchen were on the right side. There was a back door in the kitchen, and a small alcove opening to the service staircase at the end of the corridor.
The three of them sat on the plastic-covered, foamrubber cushioned chairs about an enamel topped table covered with a red-and-white checked cloth and helped themselves from a steaming dish of boiled collard greens, okra, and pigs feet, a warmed-over bowl of black-eyed peas and a platter of cornbread.
There was half a bottle of bourbon whisky on the table, but the two women avoided it and Johnny asked, 'Ain't there no lemonade left?'
Alamena got a gallon jar from the refrigerator and filled a glass pitcher without comment. They ate without talking.
Johnny doused his food with red-hot sauce from a bottle with a label depicting two bright red, long-horned devils dancing in knee-deep bright red flames, and ate two heaping platefuls, six pieces of cornbread, and drank a half pitcher of ice-cold lemonade.
'It's hot as hell in here,' he complained and got up and switched on a ten-inch revolving fan attached to the wall; then he sat down again and began picking his teeth with a wooden toothpick selected from the glass of toothpicks that remained on the table with the salt, pepper and other condiments.
'That fan ain't goin' to help you none with all that red devil sauce you've eaten,' Dulcy said. 'Some day your guts are going to catch on fire, and you ain't goin' to be able to get enough lemonade down inside of you to put it out.'
'Who's going to preach Val's funeral?' Alamena asked.
Johnny and Dulcy stared at her.
Then Johnny started again. 'If I hadn't just felt that mother-raper lowering the boom on me I'd be lying there right now blown half in two,' he said.
Alamena's eyes stretched. 'You mean Reverend Short?' she asked. 'He shoot at you?'
Johnny ignored her question and kept hammering at Dulcy. 'That don't bother me so much as why,' he said.
Dulcy continued to eat without replying. Johnny's veins began to swell again.
'Listen, girl,' he said. 'I'm telling you, all I want to know is why.'
'Well, for Christsake,' Dulcy flared. 'If I'm going to take the blame for what that opium-drinking lunatic does, I just may as well quit living.'
The doorbell rang. Spookie began to bark.
'Shut up, Spoolde,' Dulcy said.
Alamena got up and went to the door.
She came back and took her seat without saying anything.
Doll Baby stopped in the doorway and put one hand on her hip.
'Don't bother about me,' she said. 'I'm practically one of the family.'
'You've got the nerve of a brass monkey,' Dulcy cried, starting to her feet. 'And I'm going to shut your mouth right now.'
'No you ain't,' Johnny said without moving. 'Just set down and shut up.'
Dulcy hesitated for a moment, as though to defy him, but decided against it and sat down. if looks could kill, Doll Baby would have dropped stone-dead.
Johnny turned his head slightly and said to Doll Baby, 'What do you want, girlie?'
'I just want what's due me,' Doll Baby said. 'Me and Val was engaged, and I got a right to his inheritance.'
Johnny stared at her. Both Dulcy and Alamena stared at her, too.
'Come again?' Johnny said. 'I didn't get that.'
She waved her left hand about, flashing a brilliant stone set in a gold-colored band.
'He gave me this diamond engagement ring if you want proof,' she said.
Dulcy let loose with a shrill, scornful laugh. 'If you got that from Val it ain't nothing but glass,' she said.
'Shut up,' Johnny said to her, then to Doll Baby he said, 'I don't need no proof. I believe you. So what?'
'So I got a right as his fiance to anything he left,' she argued.
'He ain't left nothing but this world,' Johnny said.
Doll Baby's stupid expression gave way to a frown. 'He must have left some clothes,' she said.
Dulcy started to laugh again, but a look from Johnny silenced her. Alamena dropped her head to hide a smile.
'What about his jewelry? His watch and rings and things,' Doll Baby persisted.
'The police are the people for you to see,' Johnny said. 'They got all his jewelry. Go tell them your story.'
