Devil in a Blue Dress

John's place was a speakeasy before they repealed Prohibition. But by 1948 we had legitimate bars all over L.A. John liked the speakeasy business though, and he had been in so much trouble with the law that City Hall wouldn't have given him a license to drive, much less to sell liquor. So John kept paying off the police and running an illegal nightclub through the back door of a little market at the corner of Central Avenue and Eighty-ninth Place. You could walk into that store any evening up until three in the morning to find Hattie Parsons sitting behind the candy counter. They didn't have many groceries, and no fresh produce or dairy goods, but she'd sell you what was there and if you knew the right words, or were a regular, then she'd let you in the club through the back door. But if you thought that you should be able to get in on account of your name, or your clothes or maybe your bankbook, well, Hattie kept a straight razor in her apron pocket and her nephew, Junior Fornay, sat right behind the door.

When I pushed open the door to the market I ran into my third white man that day. This one was about my height with wheat-brown hair and an expensive dark blue suit. His clothes were disheveled, and he smelled of gin.

'Hey, colored brother,' he said as he waved at me. He walked straight toward me so that I had to back out of the store if I didn't want him to run me down.

'How'd ya like t'make twenty dollars fast?' he asked when the door swung shut behind him.

They were just throwing money at me that day.

'How's that?' I asked the drunk.

'I need to get in here … lookin' fer someone. Girl in there won't let me in.' He was teetering and I was afraid he'd fall down. 'Why'ont you tell'em I'm fine.'

'I'm sorry, but I can't do that,' I said.

'Why's that?'

'Once they tell you no at John's they stick to it.' I moved around him to get into the door again. He tried to turn and grab my arm but all he managed was to spin around twice and wind up sitting against the wall. He put up his hand as if he wanted me to bend down so he could whisper something but I didn't think that anything he had to offer could improve my life.

'Hey, Hattie,' I said. 'Looks like you got a boarder out on your doorstep.'

'Drunk ole white boy?'

'Yep.'

'I'll have Junior look out there later on. He can sweep'im up if he still there.'

With that I put the drunk out of my mind. 'Who you got playin' tonight?' I asked.

'Some'a your homefolks, Easy. Lips and his trio. But we had Holiday, Tuesday last.'

'You did?'

'She just come breezin' through.' Hattie's smile revealed teeth that were like flat gray pebbles. 'Must'a been 'bout, I don't know, midnight, but the birds was singin' wit'er 'fore we closed for the night.'

'Oh man! Sorry I missed that,' I said.

'That'a be six bits, baby.'

'What for?'

'John put on a cover. Cost goin' up an' he tryin' t'keep out the riff-raff.'

'And who's that?'

She leaned forward showing me her watery brown eyes. Hattie was the color of light sand and I doubt if she ever topped a hundred pounds in her sixty-some years.

'You heard about Howard?' she asked.

'What Howard?'

'Howard Green, the chauffeur.'

'No, uh-uh. I haven't seen Howard Green since last Christmas.'

'Well you ain't gonna see him no more—in this world.'

'What happened?'

'He walked outta here about three in the mo'nin' the night Lady Day was here and wham!' She slammed her bony fist into an open palm.

'Yeah?'

'They din't hardly even leave a face on'im. You know I tole'im that he was a fool t'be walkin' out on Holiday but he didn't care. Said he had business t'see to. Hmm! I tole him he hadn't oughtta left.'

'Killed him?'

'Right out there next to his car. Beat him so bad that his wife, Esther, said the only way she could identify the body was cuz of his ring. They must'a used a lead pipe. You know he had his nose in somebody's nevermind.'

'Howard liked to play hard,' I agreed. I handed her three quarters.

'Go right on in, honey,' she smiled.

When I opened the door I was slapped in the face by the force of Lips' alto horn. I had been hearing Lips and Willie and Flattop since I was a boy in Houston. All of them and John and half the people in that crowded room had migrated from Houston after the war, and some before that. California was like heaven for the southern Negro. People told stories of how you could eat fruit right off the trees and get enough work to retire one day. The stories were true for the most part but the truth wasn't like the dream. Life was still hard in L.A. and if you worked every