Too Black for Heaven (6 page)

Chapter Eleven

T
HE COTTAGE
was bright with morning. There was a twittering of birds and a scolding of squirrels in the trees. Everything was drenched with the fragrance of newly-washed fruitful earth. Dona spread two of the slats in the blinds apart and looked out. All that was left of the rain was a muddy puddle in the road.

Her watch told her it was twenty-five minutes after ten. Either the servant from the big house had come and gone or the coffee and breakfast Blair Sterling had promised would be along shortly. She walked, yawning, into the bathroom and examined the negligee she’d hung on the shower rail to dry. It was still damp but wearable. After brushing her teeth and bathing her face, she walked back into the living room. The soles of her feet hurt her. She could see traces of blood that hadn’t been wiped up.

The main room was cool, getting a breeze through the open windows. Dona opened the front door, making sure the screen door was locked, then stood looking up the road. If no one from the big house showed up by eleven o’clock, she would dress and drive into town for breakfast.

Feeling calmer and more secure than she had since she’d started south, Dona wished she could tell Jack the truth, but she rejected the idea immediately. Ames was falling in love with her. Given time, he would propose. With him she could have security and for a time, a certain amount of respect. But the basic problem remained the same.

Dona lifted her hands high and then pressed them to her forehead. “It’s a rotten squirrel cage,” she thought.

She looked up as a discreet knock sounded on the wood of the front door. There was a car in front of the cottage. The pretty girl who’d brought her the citronella candle was standing on the porch with a linen-covered basket on her arm.

“’Mornin’, Miss,” the girl said. “Mister Sterlin’ say I should bring you some breakfast an’ do what I kin fo’ you.”

Dona unhooked the screen. “Thank you. What’s your name?”

“Hattie,” the girl said.

She set the basket on a chair, got a card table from the closet and set it up. Then she lifted the cover of the basket.

Dona attempted to be pleasant. “Have you worked for Mr. Sterling long?”

“I was birthed on the place,” Hattie told her. “I ‘spects to die on it.” She spread the table with a linen cloth and silver service, then filled a cup with coffee from a thermos bottle. The main dish was ham and eggs and there were numerous small side dishes.

Dona smiled, “I can’t eat all that, Hattie.”

The girl’s sullen eyes flicked from the table to Dona’s face. “I s’posed you’d have a appetite this mo’nin’. Go ahaid. Make out your breakfast.”

Dona took the chair from the phone stand and sat at the table. Her brief feeling of uplift dissipated. She was back in the same mental slough.

“While you’re eatin’,” Hattie said, “I’ll make up your bed an’ rid up the room a little.”

In the small wall mirror beside the door, Dona watched Hattie making the bed. She was over-long about it. Dona felt herself blushing as she realized the reason for the girl’s sullen attitude. She knew that Sterling had come to the cottage but not how long he’d stayed. She was looking for evidence of his presence. What Dona had assumed at the party was fact. In Hattie’s eyes, she was a new and possibly dangerous rival.

As she fitted the custom-made cover to the studio bed and fluffed the pillows, Hattie asked, “You goin’ to be here long, Miss Santos?”

“I don’t know.”

“Jist on vacation?”

“I guess you could call it that.”

“What you think of Mister Sterlin’?”

“Why, I hardly know the man.”

“He plenty rich. He own most of Blairville County.”

“Is everything around here named Blairville?”

“Most everything.” Hattie was amused by something known only to her. “‘Cludin’ a few things that should be but ain’t.”

Dona didn’t bother to inquire what they were. She sat watching the girl in the mirror. Hattie was tall, with a lithe, animal grace. Her hair was straight enough to be cut in a close-cropped Italian hair-do. Long, tinkling silver earrings dangled from the lobes of her ears. Her breasts were high and full. Dona tried to guess her age. She asked, “How old are you, Hattie?”

“I’ll be fifteen, come August,” Hattie told her. “Why?”

“I just wondered.”

Hattie felt the other studio couch. “Both these beds get wet in the rain las’ night?”

“Yes. Before I could close the windows.”

“Why doan Mistah Sterlin’ he’p you?”

“He wasn’t here when the rain started. And when he did stop by, I had everything under control.”

The girl made a pretense of straightening the cover. “He doan stay long, then?”

Dona told her what she wanted to know. “He didn’t stay at all. He didn’t even come in.”

The sullen look left Hattie’s eyes. She insisted on refilling Dona’s cup. “Eat, Missy. You jist bird-pickin’ at your food. They’s nothin’ so good fo’ you as a big breakfast.”

“I’ll try,” Dona said, meekly.

“I’ll scour out the bath nex’,” she beamed. “Then you kin take your bath an’ dress while I rids up in heah.”

She disappeared into the bathroom and Dona heard water running. She tried to eat but didn’t have much appetite. After finishing the coffee in the thermos, she took clean underthings and stockings from her case and walked into the bath to see how Hattie was progressing.

The girl was sniffing a small flagon of Coty’s
Emeraude
. When she saw Dona, she apologized. “Excusin’ I pry personal, but it sure smells purty. The five-and-dime store in Blairville doan have nothin’ but some ol’ orange blossom perfume an’ weak ol’ lilac water.”

“Take it,” Dona said. “I have another just like it.”

Hattie slipped the perfume into the pocket of her dress. “Thank you plenty, Miss Santos. I thought you was quality folk when I see you sittin’ there las’ night, nursin’ one drink till it got warm, lookin’ kinda disgusted-like with the carryin’ on.”

Dona hung her negligee on the hook of the bathroom door. “Are all of Mr. Sterling’s parties like that one?”

“Mostly,” Hattie said. “I doan mind the men too much. Men is made that way. They’s always drinkin’ an’ rough talkin’ an’ misplacin’ they hands. But some o’ them li’l ol’ gals is a caution. They doan care what they say or do or who they do it with or where they do it. They from one room to ‘nother all night.”

Dona turned on the water in the shower and pulled her nightgown over her head. “Where does Mr. Sterling find them?”

“Mobile an’ Natchez, mostly. Then they’s a few local white trash out fo’ some fun an’ a few dollars.” She explained, “You see, Mr. Sterling’s a big man in business an’ politics. An’ he likes the men he does business with to be pleased. It’s easier that way to make deals an’ git ‘em to sign all them papers.”

“I see.”

Hattie laughed. “You doan see nothin’. Not long aftuh you lef’, two o’ them li’l ol’ gals took off all they clo’es an’ dance mother-nekkid on top o’ the grand piano. Then you should see what they done.”

Dona stepped into the shower. “I’d rather not know. Mr. Sterling likes that type of girl?”

Hattie smoothed the cloth over her bosom. “No, ma’am. He doan nevuh have nothin’ to do with ‘em.” Her smile was sly. “But he sho do like his women.” She started for the living room and turned in the doorway. “My, you sure got a purty skin, jist lak fresh rich cream in a bowl.”

When she was gone, Dona pressed her cheek to the cool wall of tile. She felt tired and, suddenly, old.

Dona soaped her body thoroughly and still felt unclean. This, too, was Blair Sterling’s fault. Her life had never been completely normal. She’d matured too young. Instead of the memories of childhood she should have, a birthday party, a father helping her with her homework, a picnic in the park, going to church together, her memories recalled a drunk sleeping in a doorway, a pimp slapping his meal ticket, the forbidden books she’d read in snatches in Bernie’s back room when he’d been busy with customers. Only until now, she’d thought they were just stories. She hadn’t known there were people who actually lived like that.

Hattie reappeared in the bathroom doorway. “Excusin’ I bother you again, Miss Santos.”

Dona turned off the shower. “Yes — ”

“You got company.”

“Company?”

“Yes, ma’am. They’s two men want to see you.”

“Who are they?”

“I dunno. They doan give their names. But one’s got a camera. I think mebbe they’s reporters from the
Courier
.”

“The
Courier
?”

“Yes, ma’am. Tha’s a newspaper.”

Chapter Twelve

D
ONA EASED
the tight bodice of the sports dress Hattie had brought, then fluffed the still damp edges of her hair, as she looked at the two men waiting in the living room.

“Miss Santos?” one of them asked.

“Yes,” Dona answered, “That’s my name.”

The same man said, “My name is Kelly. Mike Kelly. Sorry to have gotten you out of your bath. If the Nigra girl had told us we’d have been proud to come back.”

“That’s quite all right,” Dona said. She sat on one of the beds and fastened the ankle straps of her shoes. “Who are you? What do you want of me?” She looked at the man carrying a camera. “You’re reporters?”

“Mike is,” the man with the camera drawled. Mike Kelly smiled, “We’re with the
Courier
. That’s the local paper. Maybe I’m off the track but if my hunch is correct, you’re news. You see this is the way it is, Miss Santos. Part of my job is to check the hotels for recent arrivals and when I checked the Yazoo last night I found your name but learned you’d moved out here.”

“Yes?”

Kelly explained, “The name Santos isn’t very common in these parts. And seeing as we printed a picture of another Miss Santos yesterday, I got to wondering if you two might be related. You saw yesterday’s
Courier
?”

Dona shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I bought one but I didn’t read it.”

“That’s a normal reaction,” the cameraman said.

Kelly took a copy of the
Courier
from his pocket and handed it to Dona. “Right there on the front page.”

A lock of hastily pinned hair escaped its mooring. Dona repinned it as she scanned the A.P. wirephoto of Estrella standing in the doorway of a DC-7, smiling at her public over a huge sheaf of long-stemmed roses. The caption read:

Dona laid the paper on the bed and looked at Kelly. “Just what was it you wanted to ask me?”

“If you are related to Estrella Santos.”

“Of course. She’s my mother.”

Kelly was pleased. “I hoped that might be it. I checked with Chicago and learned she had a daughter. Just passing through, Miss Santos?”

“Yes and no. I’ve been to the coast so often I didn’t want to fly out with my mother. So I thought I’d take a little trip while she was gone. I’d never been south so I drove to Nashville, on to Memphis, then to Natchez. From Natchez I came here.”

Kelly scratched a few notes on a pad. “For any particular reason, Miss Santos?”

“N-no.”

“How come you happened to stop in Blairville?”

“It was late and I was tired. It seemed an attractive little town typical of the South. The next morning I was suddenly so tired of driving I never wanted to see the car again.”

The cameraman said, “If I had a boat like that one you have standing outside, I’d bring it in the house and take it to bed with me.”

Dona laughed. “It wasn’t the car. It was just that I’d driven so far. So that morning, that was yesterday morning, I inquired about renting a lake or river cottage and Judge Harris suggested this place. I like it very much. It’s lovely.”

Kelly made a few more notes. “Are you going to be with us long, Miss Santos?”

“I don’t know. Let’s say as long as the whim stays with me, as long as I’m happy here.”

“Two weeks. A month?”

“Possibly that long.”

“Now let me ask you his. Do you sing or dance? Are you planning a theatrical career?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Estrella has all the talent in the family.”

Kelly put his note pad in his pocket. “And what do you think of the deep South, Miss Santos?”

“I think it’s very charming and quaint.”

The cameraman grunted, “Quaint. I should be offered a job in Chicago, even in St. Louis. Come payday, you hear the 9:15 whistle its way out of town, there I am. See me on the platform of the observation car thumbing my nose.”

Kelly laughed. “Oh, Blairville’s not quite that bad. Now could we have a few pictures, Miss Santos?”

“Of course. If you think I’m news. But please let me re-comb my hair and change into something else.”

Kelly protested, “If you don’t mind, Miss Santos. Just as you are. Your hair is cute that way. You look very sweet and wholesome. And that dress will give the local girls a big bang. Has it any special name?”

“It’s a Trigere original. Most of my clothes are.”

Kelly added the information to the pad, then posed Dona sitting on the bed, once on the stairs of the cottage, and once standing on the beach.

It was all very pleasant and informal. Dona walked with the two men to their mud-splattered car and waved as they started away.

Dona was very pleased with herself. Having her picture in the paper, being treated as a celebrity, would further stimulate Blair Sterling’s interest in her. And the greater his interest, the more vulnerable he would be.

As she climbed the stairs, she saw Hattie, her basket on her arm, standing on the porch.

“Why are you staring at me that way?” Dona asked her.

“I dunno,” Hattie admitted. “It’s jist you look different somehow than you did this mo’nin’.”

“In what way, Hattie?”

“Sorta lak you mighty pleased ‘bout somethin’. I most kin see the dickey-bird’s tail a-stickin’ right outa your mouth.”

Chapter Thirteen

T
HE WALKS
and stores on all four sides of the courthouse square were crowded with perspiring men and women. The men were dressed in overalls and blue shirts, the women in clean, stiffly-starched cotton dresses. It was difficult to find a parking space. Dona drove around the square three times, then was fortunate enough to be first in line when a farm truck vacated a space a few doors from the hotel. Dona backed the big car deftly into place and dropped a coin in the parking meter.

A passing man paused to drawl, “Pardon me, Miss, but you handle that car real good.”

“Thank you,” she said.

He added, “Fo’ a woman,” and walked on.

There was a dress shop a short way down the street. No swimsuits were shown in the window but the dresses were smartly styled.

Dona opened the door and walked in. The shop was poorly air-conditioned. The building that housed it was old. A blonde came forward to greet her.

“I’m Mrs. Morgan. Belle Morgan. What can I do fo’ you, dearie?”

“I’d like to see a swimsuit.”

“Of course.”

“And I wonder if you could tell me the reason for the crowd?”

“It’s court day,” Mrs. Morgan told her. “Today, tomorrow an’ Saturday.”

“I see.”

Mrs. Morgan led the way toward the rear of the shop. The laboring motor of the air-conditioner made it difficult to hear the other woman.

“Just what did you have in mind? Somethin’ in lastex or wool? Or perhaps a dressmaker’s suit?”

“Dressmaker, I believe.”

“They’re smarter. But with that pretty little body of yours, you’d look sweet in anythin’. Might I ask what you weigh, dearie?”

“Ninety-eight pounds.”

“An’ very well distributed. Now me, I have to wear a girdle and live in this heat besides. A size eight?”

“In most models.”

“You’re lucky. But then you’re also very young.” Mrs. Morgan laid a box on the counter and removed the cover. “Now here’s a cute little number I just got in the other day. Black-and-white check with a built-in bra an’ a cute li’l flared skirt. You can wear it with or without the straps.”

Dona held the suit against her dress and looked in a floor mirror. “It’s very pretty. I’ll take it.”

Mrs. Morgan laughed. “Just like that. Without even inquirin’ the price.”

“I don’t imagine it’s too expensive.”

Mrs. Morgan looked at the code number on the tag. “No. Only eighteen-fifty. But I wish all my sales were like this one. Runnin’ a smart shop in Blairville is a problem. We have so many more of the have-nots than the haves.”

“I see,” Dona said. She gave her a bill from her purse.

“Out of twenty dollars,” Mrs. Morgan said. She wrapped the suit in tissue and put it in a green bag with the name Bon Ton printed on it, then led the way to the front of the shop and the cash register. “On a vacation, Miss — ”

“Miss Santos,” Dona supplied her name. “Yes, I guess you could call it that. At least I’ll be in town for a few weeks.”

Mrs. Morgan rang up the sale. “Are you staying at the hotel or at one of the lakes?”

“One of the lakes.”

Mrs. Morgan gave her her change. “With your husband, I presume?” She laughed. “No, of course not. You said
Miss
Santos. What lake are you stayin’ at, dearie?”

“I believe it’s called Loon Lake.”

Some of Mrs. Morgan’s friendliness dissipated. “Oh. Right on the lake?”

“Yes. In a charming little cottage. It’s owned by a Mr. Sterling.”

“Yes. I know. You know Blair?”

“No. I just drove into town the night before last.” Dona started for the door, turned back as if puzzled, “I wonder, Mrs. Morgan, if — ”

“You wonder what?” the blonde woman asked, coldly.

“You’re native to Blairville?”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps you can tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“What sort of man is Mr. Sterling?”

“Why should you ask that?”

Dona drove a small spike in the coffin she was building. “Well, I just rented the cottage yesterday afternoon and Mr. Sterling insisted I come to a party he was giving. And it wasn’t so hot. That is, it was too hot. Too hot for me, so I left. But when I met him yesterday afternoon, Mr. Sterling
seemed
such a gentleman.”

Mrs. Morgan’s smile returned. “Seemed is the correct word. I went to school with Blair. I know him.” She clucked like a mother hen. “An’ you listen to me, dearie.”

“Yes?”

“Keep your door locked. An’ if anyone knocks on it after dark, pick up your phone and call 113.”

“113?”

“The sheriff’s office. Blair only knows two pastimes, drinkin’ an’ pretty girls. An’ I’ve heard he’s developed ulcers.”

“I see,” Dona said, soberly. “Thank you for telling me, Mrs. Morgan.”

The blonde woman walked to the door with her. “Not at all. There was no way you could tell. Blair does
look
like a gentleman.”

Dona stood in the sun in front of the shop, debating walking around the square to Judge Harris’s office. She decided to cut across. Mrs. Morgan would make a good witness.

The square was two blocks long and two blocks wide, with the courthouse exactly in its center, the apex of four walks extending to the four outer corners.

Most of the activity was centered around it. All the benches in the shade and most of those in the sun were occupied by unshaven men, whittling, spitting, sitting. Dona recognized some of them, including the collarless, tieless, little man from the afternoon before.

Clusters of men and women, most of them farm folks, some white, some colored, stood around near the courthouse door, talking earnestly or just glancing at the door from time to time. There was a constant coming and going of deeply-bronzed men who looked like lawyers, deputies and court attaches.

Most of the crowd seemed to have brought their lunches. The lawn was littered with used waxed paper, grease-stained brown bags and crumpled paper cups. Two white men, barely screened by a flowing azalea bush, were taking turns drinking from a mason jar.

An old colored man with an oilcloth-covered basket on his arm was calling softly, “Git your peanuts, folks. Git your fresh goober peas.” From a white cart, a perspiring white man was handing out ice cream bars as fast as he could make change. Another man, standing under a tree, was selling soda-pop from a metal washtub filled with cracked ice.

In the roped-off street, directly opposite Harris’s office, an enterprising carnival man had apparently been given a permit to erect a battered carousel and several kiddie rides. They were all doing capacity business. Swarms of white and colored children raced across the lawn, their eyes bright with excitement, screaming, laughing, playing, pausing only long enough to beg their parents for another dime. The asthmatic organ of the carousel was wheezing a Strauss waltz.

Rather than attempt to force her way through the press of adults and children around the rides, Dona turned south toward the semi-deserted area around the band shell. It was quieter here. The grass was green and free from litter. Only an old man, so senile his head shook constantly, dozed in the sun.

A fly lit on the old man’s face. He brushed at it but didn’t awaken. Dona had to wait for a break in the stream of cars before she could cross the street. Judge Harris was standing in the doorway of his office, fanning his sagging jowls. The cardboard fan had a brightly colored picture of the Christus on one side and the legend ADLER’S FUNERAL PARLOR printed on the other. He looked fatter standing up than he did sitting in his chair.

“Afternoon, Miss Santos. Quite a doin’s, eh?”

“Yes, it is,” Dona agreed.

Judge Harris stepped aside to allow her to precede him into the office. “Thought you might drop by. Beau said you liked the Sterlin’ cottage.”

“I do, very much.”

Harris eased his bulk into his chair. “I never seen it myself but they say it’s quite nice. Sterlin’ tell you what the rent is?”

“One hundred dollars a month.” Dona laid five twenty dollar bills on his desk. “Now, if you’ll give me a receipt.”

“Proud to. Glad I had somethin’ you liked.” He wrote a receipt for the money. “Find it any cooler out there?”

“Much cooler.”

“Should be. Loon Lake is spring fed. Used to fish it a lot an’ I mind you could keep beer cold jist by tyin’ strings to the bottles an’ danglin’ ‘em over the sides of the boat.” Harris gave Dona the receipt. “Used to be a good lake fo’ fish. Catch all the brim you could tote, occasionally a bass. But I s’pose it’s fished out now. Nothin’s like it used to be. Jist standin’ in the doorway thinkin’ that.” He looked over the yellowed pictures in the window, over the revolving canopy of the carousel, at the second floor windows of the courthouse. “Glad I ain’t on the bench any more. You decide a case one way an’ the die-hards give you hob. You decide it the other way an’ the N.A.A.C.P. gets on your tail.”

Harris resumed fanning himself. “Well, like the poet or someone said, ‘The old order changeth, yieldin’ place to new.’ Let’s hope it’s fo’ the best.”

“I hope so.” Dona wanted to ask about Beau and didn’t know how to phrase the question. She put the receipt in her change purse. “Thank you for being so kind.”

Harris waved her out of the office with his free hand. “Thank you an’ come back.”

There were even more people on this side of the square than there were on the east side. The sun felt hotter here. As a colored family bunched together to give her room to pass on the walk, Dona’s feeling of being in flight returned. Still, in a strange way she liked this town. Despite its poverty and cruelties and contrasts, it was basic, fundamental, deep-rooted in the soil.

When she reached the cross street leading to St. Jude’s she was tempted to turn down it just to walk past the church again. But the Church, like Charles, was in her past. She was deliberately planning this thing she intended to do, covering every possible avenue of error, examining any angle that might trip her. And as far as she knew, unless it was included in the changing order that Judge Harris had mentioned, the Sixth Commandment was still in effect.

The bank building was modern and completely air-conditioned. The foyer was delightfully cool. The elevator starter was in a white uniform. Dona tried to remember if the signs she had seen were on the second or third floor windows. She asked the starter.

He held the door of an elevator for her. “On the second floor, Miss. The suite of offices in the front of the building.”

Jack Ames’ reception room was painted a light pastel and furnished in cool-looking green leather and rattan. Beyond it, through an open door, Dona could see a larger office, paneled in wood, of which one entire wall was lined with leather-bound books. The receptionist, a pleasant-faced woman with prematurely white hair, stood up as Dona entered.

“Is there something I can do for you, Miss?”

“I’d like to see Mr. Ames,” Dona told her.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “Mr. Ames is in court right now and will be for another hour. Would you care to wait?” As Dona debated waiting, she added, “If it’s urgent or important, you might catch him in Judge Moran’s chambers. I believe court is recessed at the moment.”

“It’s not that urgent,” Dona said. “I have some shopping to do. I’ll come back later.”