stove.
Pinky’s eyes were set in a fixed stare; his spine stiffened, his legs jerked spasmodically, his arms flailed the air like runaway windmills.
Sister Heavenly stared at him in admiration. “If I had known you could throw wingdings like that I could have been using you all along as a sideline to faith healing,” she said.
Seeing that Pinky was stealing the show, Uncle Saint sat up. His eyes were popping and his jaw was working in awe.
“I’d have never thunk it,” he muttered to himself.
Sister Heavenly looked at him. “How’s your heart attack?”
He avoided her gaze. “It was just a twinge,” he said sheepishly. “It’s already let up.”
He thought it was a good time to get out and let Pinky carry on. “I’ll go start the car,” he said. “We might have to take him to the doctor.”
“Go ahead,” Sister Heavenly said. “I’ll nurse him.”
Uncle Saint hastened off toward the garage, still carrying his loaded shotgun. He raised the hood and detached the distributor head, then began to work the starter.
Sister Heavenly could hear the starter above the gritting sounds of Pinky’s teeth and realized immediately that Uncle Saint had disabled the car.
She waited patiently.
Pinky’s convulsions eased and his body turned slowly rigid. Sister Heavenly stepped over and looked into his staring eyes. The pupils were so distended his eyes looked like red-hot metal balls.
Uncle Saint came in and said the car wouldn’t start.
“You stay here and look after Pinky, I’ll take a taxi to the docks,” Sister Heavenly decided.
“I’ll put some ice on his head,” Uncle Saint said and began fiddling about in the refrigerator.
Sister Heavenly didn’t answer. She picked up her black beaded bag and black-and-white striped parasol and went out of the back door.
She didn’t have a telephone. She paid for police protection and protected herself from other hazards and her business was strictly cash and carry. So she had to walk to the nearest taxi stand.
Outside she opened the parasol, went around the house by the path through the weeds, and set out walking down the middle of the hot dusty road.
Crouching like an ancient Iroquois, still carrying the loaded shotgun in his right hand, Uncle Saint skulked from corner to corner of the house, watching her. She kept straight on down the street in the direction of White Plains Road without looking back.
Satisfied that she was not coming back, he returned to the kitchen and said to the rigid epileptic on the floor, “She’s gone.”
Pinky jumped to his feet. “I got to get out of here,” he whined.
“Go ahead. What’s stopping you?”
“Looking like I am. The first cop sees me gonna stop me, and I is wanted anyway.”
“Git your clothes off,” Uncle Saint said. “I’ll fix that.”
He seemed possessed with an urgency to be alone.
Sister Heavenly kept to the road until she knew she couldn’t be seen from the house, then she turned over to the next street and doubled back.
The house nearest to hers on the same side of the street was in the next block. It was owned by an old Italian couple who lived alone. They were good friends of Sister Heavenly. The man ran a provision house and was away from home during the day.
When Sister Heavenly called, his wife was in the kitchen, straining and bottling wine.
Sister Heavenly asked permission to sit in the attic. She often did this. There was a side window in the attic which offered a clear view of her own house, and whenever she found it necessary to check up on Uncle Saint she sat there watching for an hour or two. The old couple had even provided her with a rocking-chair.
Sister Heavenly climbed the stairs to the attic and, after opening the shutters, settled into her chair.
It was hot enough in the attic to roast a goose, but that didn’t bother Sister Heavenly. She liked heat and she never perspired. She sat rocking gently back and forth, watching the front and back of her own house at the end of the adjoining block.
An hour later Uncle Saint said to Pinky, “You is dry enough, put on some clothes and git.”
Pinky didn’t have a change of clothes in the house and he was more than twice the size of Uncle Saint. The black pants and T-shirt he had taken off were bloodstained and filthy.
“Where am I gonna git some clothes?” he asked.
“Look in the souvenir trunk,” Uncle Saint said.
The souvenir trunk sat beneath a small dormer window in the attic.
“Take a chisel, it’s locked,” Uncle Saint added as Pinky started ascending the stairs.
There wasn’t any chisel in the kitchen and Uncle Saint wouldn’t go to the garage to get one. Pinky couldn’t go because he was buck naked, so he took the poker for the stove.
It was an old-fashioned steamer trunk with a domed lid and was bound with wooden hoops. Sunshine slanted on the dust-covered top and when Pinky began prying at the old rusty lock, dust motes filled the air like glittering confetti. All of the windows had been closed after the night’s performance to keep out the heat and now the sweaty odor of the dancers lingered in the blazing heat. Pinky began to sweat. Sweat drops splattered in the dust like drops of ink.
“Hey, this stuff is coming off,” he called down to Uncle Saint in a panic.
“That’s just the excess,” Uncle Saint reassured him. “The main part ain’t coming off.”
With sudden haste, Pinky levered the poker and the lock flew apart. He raised the lid and looked into the trunk.
The souvenir trunk was where Sister Heavenly kept various garments left by her former lovers when they had lammed. Pinky rummaged about, holding up pants and shirts and cotton drawers with back flaps. Everything was too small. Evidently Sister Heavenly hadn’t counted any giants amongst her lovers. But finally Pinky came across a pair of peg-top Palm Beach pants which must have belonged to a very tall man at least. He squeezed into a pair of knee-length cotton drawers and pulled the peg-top trousers over them. They fitted like women’s jodhpurs. He looked about until he found a red jersey silk shirt worn by some sharp cat in the early 1930s. It stretched enough for him to get it on. None of the shoes were possible, so he closed the trunk and went down to the kitchen and put on his same old blue canvas sneakers.
“Why didn’t yer git a hat?” Uncle Saint said.
Pink turned around and went back up the stairs and rummaged in the trunk for a hat. The only hat which fitted was a white straw hat with a wide floppy brim and a peaked crown like the hats worn by Mexican peons. It had a black chin strap to keep it on.
“Look around asee if there’s some sunglasses,” Uncle Saint called.
There was a shoe box of nothing but sunglasses but the only pair that fitted Pinky had white celluloid frames and plain blue glass lenses. He put them on.
Uncle Saint surveyed his handiwork when Pinky stood before him.
“Not even you own mother would recognize you,” he said proudly, but he called a warning as Pinky started off. “Keep out the sun or that stuff’ll turn purple.”
Sister Heavenly’s eyes popped. She stopped rocking and leaned forward.
From out of her own front yard came the blackest man she had ever seen, and Sister Heavenly had specialized in black men. This man was so black he had blue-and-purple tints to his skin like wet bituminous coal glinting in the sunshine. Not only was he the blackest, but he was the sportiest man she had ever seen. She hadn’t seen anyone dressed that sporty since minstrel shows went out.
He was walking fast and there was something about him, especially down around the legs, which reminded her of one of her short-time lovers called Blackberry Slim, but his legs were thicker than Slim’s. And that red jersey silk shirt rising from those peg-top legs was identical with one that Dusty Canes used to wear. But that hat — that big white flopping hat with a chin strap, and those blue-tinted sunglasses with a white frame; she had never seen
