82 Desire (6 page)

At the end of the day, she went back to Allred’s office, where she found him having a drink and reading the paper, his feet up on his desk.

“You look like something out of an old movie. Real old.”

He gave her a half grin. “I try. Drink, Ms. Wallis?”

“No thanks.”

Allred took his feet off the desk and sat up in his chair, acting more businesslike. “What department they put you in?”

“Acquisitions and Property.”

“Ho!” It was an exclamation almost of disbelief. He struck the table as he said it. “Currie’s gone and outdone himself. Who you workin’ for?”

“With, Mr. Allred, with. I’m working with a brother and a white man who are in exceptionally crabby moods because they’re software designers who got pulled off their current fascinating assignments to do stupid tech work.”

“A brother. Well, well, well. Better and better. Were you nice to Mr. Brother?”

“Aka Mr. Robert Tyson, no relation to Mike.” Talba crossed her fingers. “We’re like that.” In fact, it had occurred to her that, once she found the Pill Man, she might want a cushy job designing software at United Oil, and Mr. Robert Tyson might be just the person to help her. She’d spent a good part of the day buddying up to him. He was nice, he was smart, he was pissed off because he couldn’t get no respect, and she was all sympathy. Allred said, “The guy we’re interested in is Russell Fortier. I think he might be in your department.”

“I’m not sure, but I might have heard the name. He’s a muck-a-muck, isn’t he?”

“I believe his title is manager of property. Think you can locate his office?”

“Sure.”

“Take a look at this.” He held up a tiny object. “Hold out your hand.”

He dropped the object into her palm.

“Know what it is?”

It didn’t look like anything much, but she had a hunch. “It must be a bug.”

“Excellent, Ms. Wallis. Go to the head of the class. It’s a little receiver. You need to get that in his office somewhere.”

“His office? I can get in his computer a lot easier than I can get in his office. How am I going to do that?”

“Well, now. Here’s where you learn to be a detective. That’s gon’ have to be your problem—you’re the operative on the scene.”

There was nothing to do but bull ahead. “Okay, I’ll figure it out.”

“Good. Do it tomorrow and report in. How long’s the job supposed to last—the installation thing?”

“Till the end of the week.”

“Okay. Work out the week. If they extend the job, I want you to keep working.”

“Is that all? Just install the bug? I thought I had to get into a computer.”

“Be patient, Ms. Wallis. One thing at a time.”

She searched out Fortier first thing the next day, finding, in fact, that his office was three or four doors from where she was working. Peeking in, she couldn’t see much, but the morning wasn’t half over before he was standing in front of her desk. “Hey there.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Russell Fortier.”

“Talba Wallis.”

He had a firm grip, as well he should. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with short brown hair like half the white men who worked in the building. His hair had golden glints in it, though, as if he spent time in the sun, and his skin was slightly weathered, in a pleasant sort of way. He wore a striped shirt, which was too stuffy for her taste, but otherwise she liked him. He didn’t seem the sort to take life too seriously.

He said, “Is Robert Tyson around here? I’ve got to ask him something.”

She was impressed that he had come for Tyson himself instead of sending his secretary.

When he had gone, she asked Tyson, “What’s the story on him? He seemed kind of—I don’t know—human.”

“Fortier?” he said. “Real good guy. One of the best.”

She felt a qualm or two about bugging his office, but what the hell, a job was a job. She could do it after work if no one was around.

When the time came, she left her sweater at her desk, took the elevator to another floor, went to the ladies’ room just to pass the time, went back, sneaked into Fortier’s office, and planted the bug, all in about ten minutes.

She reported in that night from home.

“Well, congratulations, Ms. Dick,” said Allred. “Good job.”

“What now?”

“Install those systems, baby. That’s all you have to do.”

At the end of the week, the job was extended. Through no fault of their own, she and Robert Tyson and company weren’t done yet—several more departments needed new systems. She was getting to know the United building pretty well.

At the end of the next, she still had a job. She’d been a United Oil employee about ten days—long enough to be joining in the office gossip—when Allred called her. “New assignment.”

“Damn. I was just starting to feel at home.”

“Good, because it’s there. I want you to get into Fortier’s computer.”

“Piece of cake.”

“I’ve got something for you. Can you come to the office tonight?”

“I was going to paint my toenails.”

When she got there, he handed over a list of names, none of which Talba recognized.

“I want you to go into Fortier’s computer and see if you can find documents containing any of these names. Can you do that?”

“Probably in about five and a half minutes.”

“You’re pretty cocky.”

“Evidently you don’t have Windows 95.”

“Are you kidding? I still use a manual typewriter.”

“Windows 95 has a ‘Find’ command. Kind of takes the challenge out of it.”

“Okay, okay.” Allred sounded grumpy. “Can you copy the documents?”

“Will they fit on a disk or do I need my Zip drive?”

“Needless to say, Ms. Nerd Queen, I haven’t the least idea what a Zip drive is.”

“Never mind. How long might these documents be?”

“How should I know? I haven’t stolen them yet.”

“You mean I haven’t.”

“My guess is, they aren’t long. We’re probably talking about a hundred pages or less.”

“No problem. Disk it is.” But she made a mental note to take her Zip drive just in case.

“You sound pretty damn confident.”

“I told you. I’m good.” The only hard part would be getting into Fortier’s office, and she’d already done it once. All she really had to do was an instant replay. If most people went home on time, it shouldn’t be a problem.

And sure enough, it was the piece of cake she’d predicted. She sneaked back in, brought up the “Find” command, typed in one of the names, clicked the “Find Now” button, and kept doing it until she had nearly all the names—and all in a single file, called “Skinacat,” which she copied onto a disk.

She sneaked a peek before she copied it, but it was about as sexy as a sock drawer—just names and numbers, as far as she could see.

If it was something dishonest, or otherwise secret, it was odd, she thought, that Fortier had done nothing to hide it except give it a funny name. But on the other hand, she half expected that. It didn’t occur to the average office worker that his or her drive might be shared. This one wasn’t, but she could fix that. Easily.

She knew from having spent a couple of weeks installing software that United’s network system was set up with multiple protocols. That meant that, with only a few clicks of the mouse, she could arrange to search Fortier’s workstation from her own anytime she wanted.

She went into the control panel, and pretty soon read these kind and generous words: “I want to give others access to my files.” Ha! Four more clicks to “Access Type.” Triumphantly, she selected “Full.”

That was all. Next time Allred wanted something, she could get it by nine-fifteen without leaving her desk.

She caught the PI once again with his feet up and a glass in his hand. He didn’t even say hello—just nodded. “Let’s see what you got.”

Talba popped the disk into her laptop and showed him. Unabashedly, he hollered, “Whoopee!”

Talba made a face. She was about to lecture him on the merits of being cool when he turned to her and beamed. “You done good, girl. You done real good.” She didn’t have the heart after that.

But she did say, “How’s all this going to help me find the Pill Man?”

“You know what to do now, don’t you? Just put on your simple temp disguise, get the right job, and rifle the right computer.”

To her surprise, she really thought she could do it. It might take a while, but she had forever. As it was, she’d waited twenty-two years, which was how long she’d been alive.

“But come back,” Allred said. “Do some more work for me and I’ll teach you more secrets.”

“When?”

“I’ll call you.”

***

Langdon brought her back to the present. “So what was on the disk?”

“I told you. I don’t know. I wondered … when I saw the office was ransacked, I wondered if that was what the guy in the ski mask was looking for. I mean, with Fortier missing, and Gene dead—there’s got to be a connection.”

“You don’t remember a thing on that disk? Not even one name?”

“No. Nothing meant anything. Look, if I opened the phone book and picked out twenty names, do you think I’d remember a one of them in half an hour? Do you think you would?”

“When was all this?”

“A few days ago. I haven’t heard from Gene since.”

“Who was the client?”

“I don’t know. We never discussed it.”

For some reason, that sounded more professional than the truth. Talba had begged to know the client’s name—to know what it was all about, this thing she’d worked on for so long.

But Allred couldn’t be budged.

Six

RAY BOUDREAUX WASN’T much on poetry, his knowledge beginning and ending somewhere in “Purple Cow” territory, but he was always up for something new. And not only that, he wanted to see The Baroness face-to-face.

So here he was, sitting way the hell in the back at some hole-in-the-wall black-owned restaurant, looking around at a crowd that probably consisted mostly of the poet’s friends and family members. But his was by no means the only white face.

The cop was there, for one thing—he knew her from watching Bebe. He hadn’t been sure she’d come, but here she was with a couple of teenage kids, and a man. Ray had left her a very simple message: “Sunday night—don’t miss the poet called The Baroness. You could learn a lot.”

He’d left several of those messages.

To his amazement, all the recipients had taken the bait.

There were three poets on the program, and The Baroness was last. By the time they got to her, he was about ready to walk out. These poets were loud and they were dumb and they didn’t make any sense. None of that surprised him except the loud part—he hadn’t expected to become a poetry lover at this late date, but he hadn’t thought he’d be yelled at.

Yet, almost the minute The Baroness walked to the mike, he was glad he’d stayed. She had fabulous purple robes and that crazy wild hair—how did black people get it like that? A pretty face, of course, but big deal. That wasn’t it. Something about her was galvanizing, made him sit up in his chair and feel the bottom of his spine and the top of his head; made his fingers tingle.

It wasn’t a sexual thing—there wasn’t anything sexual about it, his wife was right there. But it was like sex. It was a sense of excitement, a feeling of something big about to happen.

Must be stage presence, he thought. Star quality, something like that.
Well, I knew this was no ordinary chickie-poo. Hoped not, anyway.

She had a voice like butterscotch sauce, and she sort of singsonged her lines, didn’t yell at all, made you feel instead like you were sitting in a warm bath.

At first she just started out talking. “There was a poet named Mr. T. S. Eliot, who you’d expect me to hate on grounds of political correctness, but who speaks to me, not only in the Four Quartets and shit like that, but also in a lesser work on which a famous Broadway show is based. Mr. Eliot wrote about cats.

“And Mr. Eliot wrote that every cat has three names—his formal name, like Buckaroo, say; the name the family calls him, like Bucky, maybe; and the secret name he calls himself, like King Ahmat the Nineteenth of Chichunga.”

While she talked, a man with dreads for days arranged a series of paintings behind her—one of cats, one that looked vaguely medical, a domestic scene, and the poet reclining, a crown on her head.

The Baroness produced a piece of paper and said, “I am like a cat.”

And then she repeated the phrase, reading this time, so you’d be sure it was the title:

I Am Like a Cat

When I was born, I was a little piece of toffee.

Brown toffee.

Soft and sweet and just as innocent as the baby Jesus. Just as innocent as my mama.

Or maybe I should say my sweet mama was just as innocent as her own sweet baby.

My sweet mama was so proud.

Here the poet’s voice rose. She said the word “proud” like three words. She repeated the line.

My sweet mama was so proud.

Even though her own sweet baby was born at

Charity Hospital—

(
Couldn’t have been worse—there ain’t really no St. James Infirmary
)

She was lyin’ there at Charity like Cleopatra in exile, and she says to the Pill Man, the one pulled her baby out of her womb and stopped that relentless screaming pain.

She says to that nice young man, “What you think I ought to name my baby?” My mama so proud of her little piece of toffee, She wants to name her somethin ‘fine. Somethin’ fancy.

Somethin’ so special ain’ no other little girl got the same name.

And the doctor say, “Name that girl Urethra.” And my mama, she just as pleased, and she so proud,

And she say, “That’s a beautiful name. Ain’ nobody in my neighborhood name Urethra. “We got Sallies and we got Janes and we got Melissas and Saras—we got LaTonyas, just startin’ to have Keishas—but ain’ nobody else name Urethra.

I’m gon’ name my baby Urethra for sure.”

And that’s my first name—the one they put on my birth certificate.

I am named Urethra. Now ain’t that a beautiful name?

But somebody knew. Somebody in our neighborhood.

Somebody told my sweet mama she named her little candy girl after some ol’ tube you piss through.

My name is Piss Tube.

My name is Pee Place.

My name is Exit for Excreta.

And my sweet mama so proud.

Every time she said “proud,” the poet went all out, so that it came out like “prowwwwwwwwwwwd.” She delivered the last four lines with her eyes closed, and started up again, snapping them open.

Now she call me “Sandra.” I never did find out why.

Must be for the sand got in her eyes when she listen to that white man.

Do I look like a Sandra to you?

My name is Urethra.

My name is Exit for Excreta.

The poet’s voice rose again—in fact, Ray had to admit she did yell, but even so, her voice was still like butterscotch
.

And I am a baroness.

Because a cat has three names,

And I am like a cat.

My sweet mama’s broken and weak now, After what that white man did to her—

She never did trust no one again, black or white. And I can never say again, “My mama’s proud.”

But I am a baroness.

And I’m so proud.

I didn’t want no African name,

‘Cause I am African American, love it or hate it, And I didn’t want no LaTonya, I didn’t want no LaKeisha

Latifah, Tanisha, Marquita, Shamika—

White asshole steal somethin’ from me,

I’m gon’ steal somethin’ right back—

I AM THE BARONESS DE PONTALBA,

And you can kiss my artistocratic black ass.

Having hollered out the last three words as if the entire state of Louisiana had suddenly gone deaf, the poet bowed her head demurely, a shy light in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, or so Ray surmised. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear for the applause, his own included. Without even thinking, he rose to his feet, as did the rest of the audience, some of them shouting, “Yeah,” and “Brava.”

The woman had something. Ray Boudreaux would not have described himself as a flaming liberal, yet tears had sprung to his eyes when she said the word “Urethra.” When she hollered, “prowwwwwwd.”

His wife touched his elbow. “Do you think it’s true?”

He was shocked. It never occurred to him that it wasn’t true. The woman’s name was Exit for Excret. “Don’t you?” he said, and she shrugged.

The room spun for a second as he felt a wave of disbelief in himself. Was he as innocent and easily gulled as the poet’s mother? Was that what his problem was?

The Baroness called for the man with dreads. “And this is Lamar,” she said. “My partner in crime.”

More applause, while Lamar set up a new group of canvases, abstract this time, very different from the first, which had been merely a backdrop for the poet. These seemed to come from the heart.

She was starting to read again.

They have little yellow heads and bright green legs
made out of silk

They have tiny little brains and tiny little bones
and zillion-dollar homes.

That they won’t leave.

They travel in a flock and

They never leave their block

And their husbands have no cocks—

Or then again they might. The parakeets don’t know

Because the parakeets don’t care

Because the parakeets don’t dare

Have any thoughts,

Feelings

Ideas

Sensations

Fun

Opinions or

Desires.

But the parakeets do scare.

See a brother comin’ down the street,

That little bird’s gonna vote with her feet.

They have tiny little bones and tiny little brains

And a whole shitload full of disdains.

Ray’s attention wandered. He didn’t think this poem was nearly as successful as the first; in fact, wasn’t even sure what it was about—a certain kind of woman, evidently. His wife poked him. “Now this one I like.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know those girls. Those parakeets.”

“What girls?”

“The ones with the tiny little bones. You know. They chirp.”

Ray guessed it was a woman thing. The Baroness finished the parakeet poem and sipped water, giving Lamar time to change the scenery. She continued reading for another twenty minutes, but, for Ray, none of the poems was as powerful as the one about her names. When she had taken her bow and started walking among her devoted fans, trailing yards of purple fabric, he listened to her banter with them.

This was the part of the evening he was looking forward to.

And the thing he was hoping for was happening. A group was forming around the cop.

A gorgeous black woman arrived with her date, who was no less attractive than she. The teenage girl got up and hugged the man. The boy slapped him a high five.

“Hey, Darryl. How’s it goin’, man?”

“Hey, Kenny. Whereyat? Does anyone say that anymore?”

Darryl. Ray wrote it down.

“Hey, Lou-Lou.”

“What are you kids doin’ up?”

“Auntie’s exposing us to culture.”

Lou-Lou. Cindy Lou Wootten, the police shrink.

“Lou-Lou, what are you doing here?” The cop was talking.

The shrink rolled her eyes. “Now that’s a story. Later for that.”

The girl said, “Are you guys dating?”

“Dating? Naaah, we practically hate each other. We made a deal—I escort her to this and she talks to one of my classes.”

“Good, ‘cause I might want to marry you.”

The Baroness had come up behind him: “You and me both, honey. My name’s Your Excellency, what’s yours?”

The man bowed nearly to the waist. “Your Humble Servant. Humble for short.”

Cindy Lou snorted. “Dear God.”

The Baroness bristled. “What’s the matter? You didn’t like the reading?”

“Oh, I did like it. I liked it very much. I’m Cindy Lou Wootten. And this is Darryl Boucree. You’re welcome to him, Baroness.” And she leaned over to whisper to the cop.

Next the reporter came over. Ray was nearly beside himself.

“Baroness? I’m Jane Storey. Fine reading! Lovely reading. Is it really true about your name?”

“Oh, Lord, did Chaucer have this problem? Did people come up and say, ‘Is the Wife of Bath a real person? And if she is, could you get me a date with her?’ “

“No, really. I’m a reporter and—”

“You’re a reporter? Why didn’t you say so? Are you doing a story on me?”

“Actually—uh—that isn’t why I’m here, but—”

“You’re a fan! Is that why you’re here?”

“I think we need to talk.”

Jane Storey glanced at the cop and then disappeared with The Baroness.

The man with Langdon, probably Steve Steinman, spoke for the first time. “That name thing didn’t ring true for me. I’m sorry, but nobody would name their kid Urethra. Even as metaphor—”

The teenage boy interrupted. “It is true! I know a kid whose dad did his internship at Charity and he tells stories about that.”

“What kind of stories?”

“Revolting stories. Disgusting stories. About how black women used to come in and they’d have so many children they couldn’t think of any new names and so they’d ask the interns. Just like in the poem. And then the interns would always say something like Urethra or Gonorrhea.” He pronounced it
Go-nore-ia.
“Or Phyllis and Syphilis for twins.”

“Good God!”

But Langdon laughed. “I’ll bet everybody in New Orleans has heard at least some version of the story. I’ve always wondered if it was urban myth or not. It’s hard to believe people could be that mean, but they always tell it with pride in their meanness. Like it’s the most hilarious thing in the world.”

The girl looked down at her lap. “Kind of makes you ashamed to be white.”

Darryl Boucree tousled her hair. “Take it easy, kid. White’s okay.”

Steve Steinman gestured at an empty chair. “Why don’t you two sit down? What are you doing here, anyway?”

The man spoke quietly, but Ray could just make out the words: “Lou-Lou got some kind of threat; I’m not sure what it was but when I called her about the speaking thing, she was practically crying. So I offered to bring her.” He glanced briefly at the psychologist, who was deep in conversation with Langdon, and then back at Steinman. “You think the dude in dreads is her boyfriend?”

“Cindy Lou’s?”

“No, man. The Baroness’s.”

Steinman laughed. “Now don’t you be getting above your station.”

“Would a Baroness date a common man?”

“You can’t date her, man. I forbid it.”

“Why?”

“ ‘Cause you’d lose your dignity, that’s why. Say you got lucky and that magic moment came along. Are you gonna holler, ‘Urethra, Urethra!’?”

The shrink turned toward them and spoke with disdain: “Are you two ever going to grow up?”

Ray didn’t know what to make of it. He hadn’t known they were all friends. He wondered if that would help or hurt him.

The reporter came back with The Baroness. Jane was frowning. “Skip, can I talk to you?”

Darryl Boucree bowed again to the poet. “Your Excellency. May I have an audience?”

“Speak, serf.”