“I want a beer.”
“But, honey...”
“Will you please get me a beer right now, Atwater?” Kiki ordered.
When the beer was finished she was in a better mood.
“Where were you last night?” she asked in a friendly tone.
“I went out wit’ some friends.”
“You get some pussy out there?” She sounded sober but Soupspoon could tell by her language that she was leaning toward drunk.
“Kiki, we gotta talk.”
“About what?”
“Bout this thing wit’ yo’ job an’ the money we stole.”
“Don’t worry about that, Soupspoon. They can’t prove I did it.”
“But they could find me. I mean, I signed them forms. All they gotta do is ask around and they could find where I am.”
“But not for a while, honey. Insurance companies have to do an investigation first. They have to prove that it was a forgery or fraud or whatever first and then they have to prove who did it. We still have time.”
“But time for what? What could we do?”
“Go somewhere.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know... down south.”
“What?”
“I been thinkin’ about goin’ back down home anyway, daddy. You know, to Arkansas.”
“How a black man and white woman gonna hide down there? Are you crazy?”
“Crazy enough to help you, Mr. Wise,” she said.
And Soupspoon knew it was true. As true as the music playing even then in his mind.
He wasn’t worried about the law. He was way past the law now. It was time again to move on, but he couldn’t do that until he made sure that Kiki was safe. But that was like trying to carry a frightened cat from a burning house. All she knew how to do was hack and scratch. It came naturally, like breathing and death.
In the early afternoon Kiki was only on her third beer. Soupspoon was playing chords out of the broken window. A knock came at the door and she went to answer it. Randy and a black man with a battered face and dressed in a pink suit stood at the door.
“Hi?” she said with the question in her eye for the stranger.
“I’m Billy. Remember? We met yesterday — at the street fair.”
“Yeah.” Kiki smiled. “It was about some kind of job, right?”
Billy smiled back. Kiki’s hand moved to her purse before she realized that she wasn’t carrying it.
“Hey, Kiki,” Randy interrupted. “Spoon here?”
“Huh? What? Randy, did you bring me home last night?”
“Uh-huh. Don’t you remember?”
“Why’d you leave me on the floor?” The question was sweet, like the smell of bug spray.
“You told me to go home. Don’t you remember?”
Kiki remembered wanting something, needing something — her desires slipping away. She felt as if she were falling sideways. All she could see was objects and people against a pitch-black background. The gun she got from Hattie; Soupspoon; the pitiful brown flowers her father bought leftover to put on Katherine’s grave; and this black brute who smiled and smelled like the devil. Everything she saw was in bold detail against the night, as if they generated their own light. And there was that smell, a smell like her father that still turned her stomach even after all these years.
“Billy got an offer for Soup,” Randy said when Kiki didn’t answer.
“How much?” Soupspoon asked.
Randy led Billy into the room around Kiki. She watched them go over to the window.
“Rudy says one hundred dollars plus tips,’ Billy said. He kept turning his head to regard Kiki as she came over to them.
“A hundred dollars a night?” Kiki put her hand on Billy’s shoulder to punctuate the question.
“Well, at least tomorrow night,” Billy said.
Kiki squeezed his arm.
“Uh,” Billy continued. “We have to see how he do after that.”
Kiki’s heart skipped. She couldn’t inhale. In her mind she traveled back to the woods where Hector was holding her down, keeping her from even a wrong breath. She smiled and could see that same smile come into Billy’s face.
“Tomorrow night?” Kiki asked.
“Yeah.”
Kiki forgot about Randy and Soupspoon. Every particle of her mind was on Hector or Billy or whatever he was called. Her hand clutched his arm, the fingernails would have drawn blood if not for his jacket.
“That’s good,” she said.
“What time?” Soupspoon asked.
Kiki was surprised to hear his voice. She turned toward the window; he was still there, still holding his guitar.
“Eight o’clock, Spoon.” Billy pulled away from Kiki’s grasp but then he touched her chin with his knuckle. “Later if you want it. But not after nine.”
“I’ll be there,” Soupspoon said.
“Me too.” Kiki was looking at Billy’s profile. She started to laugh.
“What’s funny?” Randy wanted to know.
“Nuthin’.” Kiki shrugged. “You all boys want some whiskey?”
They drank a celebratory toast to their new business. Then they drank to Soupspoon. Kiki took a drink all on her own. Billy toasted her full glass with his empty one.
“I got to go out,” Soupspoon said to Kiki after he’d downed the drink.
“Out where?”
“Just t’see some friends. Might be pretty late. But I want you t’take care’a yourself. Okay?”
The redhead poured herself another drink and toasted Billy’s empty glass.
“Okay, hon,” she said to Soupspoon while gazing into Billy’s eyes. “I’ll be here all night. I need the rest.”
“We could have dinner, babe,” Randy said. He went up close to her, touched her arm lightly.
“No, Randy. I got to rest. You know I had too much to drink last night. Mm. I’m gonna be all right. Buck naked in the bed.”
“I could come over...”
“Tomorrow, baby. We’ll go over to this man’s club and hear Soup.”
The men left after a while. Each of them went his own separate way. Randy went to his tiny room of old magazines and T-shirts. Billy went to the bar. And Soupspoon went to a little café near St. Mark’s to meet Chevette.
“Bye,” Kiki said to Billy at the door. She pinched his forearm hard and showed him her teeth in what might have been a grin.
She was napping in her chair, with a half-full glass of sour mash in her hand, when her eyes snapped open. She didn’t know what happened so she took a sip. The tapping, which she remembered now, came again at the front door.
“Yeah?” Kiki called out.
The tapping came again. Suddenly Kiki was completely sober and straight. She stepped out of her shoes and went lightly toward her purse. She removed the revolver, threw the safety, and went to the door.
“Who is it?” she asked in a hoarse alcoholic voice.
Tapping again.
It was a light sound, quick and feminine. But it still could have been Fez. He could have gotten her address from the company database before they suspended him.
“Who is it?” she asked again. She leveled the barrel at the height of a big man’s chest and held her breath.
The hammer made very little noise as she cocked it into place. One, two, thr—
“Does a Mr. Atwater Wise live here?” A woman’s voice. A black woman. A southern black woman.
Kiki ran to put the pistol on the top shelf in the closet. “Just a minute!” she shouted. Then she ran back to the door and opened it, fixing her hair and shaking from the desire to kill somebody.
Mavis wore a plain blue dress with dark seams and a white collar. The dress was in an old style, maybe as far back as the sixties, and a little too short, Kiki thought, for an older woman. She was hatless. Her hair was straightened and tied back into two inter-woven braids. She held a blue pocketbook before her like a Roman shield.