“Not exactly,” the ex-wrestler said. He looked dumb and ugly but Rupert was not a stupid man. “Mr. Beam called me to come with him but I told him no.”
“What’d he say?”
“He said that he had the man that killed Roman and stole his drug. He said that he wanted me to throw in with ’im but I said that I worked for Mr. Stetz. He said that Mr. Stetz might not be on top forever but I told him that I had made up my mind and that was that.” Rupert’s resolve made him resemble a stone sculpture even more.
“But you worked for Beam before, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Him and Roman and Sallie all worked together, didn’t they?”
“Roman started comin’ ’round the Black Chantilly a couple’a year ago. He was lookin’ for a way in. He showed up with this girl, Grace Phillips, an’ then Sallie Monroe got in on it. Sallie and Roman went to Mr. Beam after Roman got this job at the schools through Grace’s boyfriend.”
“What did they want with Beam?”
“They wanted to have a meeting with Mr. Stetz, but Mr. Beam said that he could fence whatever they stole through some people he knew downtown. Then Mr. Beam asked me to go with’em so he’d have a finger in the soup.”
“And you went around stealin’ from school to school?”
Rupert actually smiled. “Yeah. We’d get us a truck from the Board of Education garage and go out ’bout once a month on the average. It wasn’t a lotta money, but it was somethin’. And then Roman hooked up this drug thing and the money got to be big.”
“Which one of you killed Holland Gasteau?” I already knew the answer but it didn’t hurt to ask.
“I don’t know who killed him, or Roman neither. Holland wasn’t in on the drugs. Sometimes we’d use his paper shack to hide what we took out the schools, but that was it.”
Rupert gave me a hard stare and I put my hand on my gun.
He said, “I wished I wasn’t never in it neither.”
“What were you doing at Bonnie Shay’s place?” I asked.
“Mr. Beam sent me. He said that he’d already killed somebody on that street and he didn’t want to be seen.”
“He tell you why he was after her?”
“Yeah. She stoled his drug. He wanted it back.”
“And were you going to kill her?”
I guess Rupert had told so much truth that he couldn’t switch over to lying too quickly; instead he just blinked and said, “She don’t have a thing to fear from me no more.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be sure to tell her that. So what’s that money all about?” Somewhere the only president I ever loved was lying dead. Somewhere my closest friend was dying because of me. I wanted to despair but as long as I could keep asking questions I could keep on going.
“It’s for you. Mr. Stetz told Mr. Beam to do right. He told him to make it up wit’ you. He said that he wanted to see Mr. Beam throw the drugs down the toilet. He was givin’ him a chance to do right. Mr. Beam was supposed to give you that money and then Mr. Stetz told me on the phone to bring it to you.”
“An’ how come the odd number?”
“I dunno, brother,” Rupert said. “That’s what he wanted me t’give you an’ that’s what I’m doin’.”
“What’s going to happen when they find those bodies in front of your boss’s warehouse?”
“They won’t find them.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“They’re right out there.”
We had left the door open. The briefcase that Rupert brought was sitting outside. Beyond that was a big ’57 Cadillac. I priced a car just like it when they were new; I remembered commenting on how roomy the trunk was.
“You can go on, Rupert,” I said.
He stood and looked down on me.
“Yeah?” I asked him.
“Mr. Stetz said to tell you that he respects a man that stands up.”
I considered telling him to take the money back to his boss. But sixty-seven hundred and thirty-five dollars was exactly one year’s salary for my grade. Stetz was telling me that he knew my price and that he could afford it. That cash could help to pay for Feather’s college. And besides, I had earned it. Paid for it with the most precious things in my life.
“You tell him that I still got his recorders. I’ll bring ’em up to the Chantilly in a couple’a days.”
I watched Rupert drive away in his makeshift hearse, then I went to the toilet and flushed away the drug.
42
Mouse was at Temple hospital. He was in a coma and fading out. Etta wouldn’t come to the phone.
“Momma said that you should stay away from here, Uncle Easy,” LaMarque told me over the phone.
“How are you, LaMarque?” I asked him.
“Is my daddy gonna die?” he cried.
I watched the news all evening. All about our president and his last days; his last moments. The whole world had turned on that tabletop with Idabell.
Bonnie called and I told her that she could come back in the morning.
“The kids need to be with you, Easy,” she said. Her voice was so soft and caring. It had the promise of daylight and love; it was like the lie of peace and brotherhood that had hoodwinked so many of my kind.
She brought them home at just past midnight. She was driving my car, which Primo had fixed. Jesus went right up to his bed and Feather fell asleep on Bonnie’s lap. She wanted to see the TV.
“I wanna see if he’s still alive,” she kept saying.
Somehow she didn’t hear it when we told her that he’d stay dead.
“Why’d you kill Holland?” It was past three. Bonnie and I were lying together in the bed, fully dressed.
She sat up and asked, “What?”
I didn’t have the strength to sit; I couldn’t even repeat the question.
“What?” she asked again.
“It’s okay, Bonnie. Nobody else knows. And I don’t plan to tell anyone.”
“Tell them about what? What are you saying?”
“It was when I saw that lipstick kiss you left on the note for me,” I said. “That’s when I knew for sure.”
She shook her head, and I got up on one elbow to face her. I was tired.
“Holland had a big kiss, that same dark color, on his face.”
If I wasn’t sure before, I was then. Bonnie’s look of dismay gave her away.
“That’s not enough, I know, but I was already half sure when I saw that broken green glass in your trash. You might have had the same kinda glasses as your friends, but probably not. All I wanna know is if you kissed Holland before or after you shot’im.”
Bonnie put her hand over her mouth.
“He… “ she said.
“Holland?”
“Yes. Yes. He called me after he got home. When he found Ida gone he called me looking for her. I told him that she was gone; that she had left the state. I thought that that would send him off looking for her. But instead he said that he wanted me to come over to his house right then.”
“Why?” I felt sorry for her in spite of myself.
“He said that he had the forms I’d filled out the night I went back to the airport, the night I forgot those damned carpet balls. Roman kept the copies that the customs official gave me. He said that he had the balls too. They had official seals glued to them. He said that if I didn’t come over right then he’d give it all to the police.”
“And you went?”
“He was excited when I got there. He told me that he wanted sex and for that he’d give me back the things he had.”
“Did you do it?”
She didn’t want to nod. “I didn’t… he raped me. He took me to the bedroom and made me…. He had this big black knife.”
I remembered the pillows piled high in the center of the bed, the blood on the sheets, and the cut that I thought was a pimple above her breast.