White Butterfly (14 page)

Rivers pushed Mouse toward the chair. Once Raymond was seated the policeman padlocked his chains through two metal loops in the floor. Then he went to sit on a stool in the corner, giving us as little privacy as he could.

I could still hear the arguing, moaning, and fighting from behind the iron door, but the guard and Mouse seemed unconcerned.

“You got a piece, Easy?” he whispered.

“What?”

“You got a gun?”

“No, no. I ain’t comin’ in no jail with a gun.”

“I need to get out of here,” Mouse said slowly. “They want to change my address to Folsom Prison an’ that ain’t gonna happen.”

“Why they got you in here, Raymond?”

“They wanna frame me on them killin’s. They need somebody t’hang.”

“Why you?”

“I don’t know, man. They say I knowed a couple’a them girls. Maybe I did, you know I always be after that stuff. But that don’t mean I kilt no girls.”

“So you didn’t do it?”

“Do what?”

“What they said, man. Kill them girls.”

“What? You think I’m crazy?”

Yes, I thought. Crazy and a killer in everything he did. He was a slight man, not over five-seven, with gold-edged teeth and a pencil-thin mustache. The police hadn’t issued him jail clothes. He was decked out in green suede shoes, drab green pants, and a loose bright pink shirt that flopped around his wrists because they had taken his cufflinks.

He’d murdered his stepfather for a wedding dowry. He would have lied to God with his final breath.

“I just wanna know why they pulled you in here,” I said. “That’s all.”

“Please, no,” came a cry from behind the iron door.

I looked around at the guard but he was reading a paperback western.

“It don’t matter why I’m here, Easy,” Mouse said. “What matters is that you get me out.”

Every now and then there was a dull thud against the iron door.

“Gimme a few hours,” I said.

When the little guard led me back out of that hell I could have almost kissed the floor.

I WAS READING the morning paper at the sergeant’s desk when Quinten Naylor arrived. It was seven-sixteen in the morning.

He motioned me to follow him and we both walked back to his office.

We sat with our coffee and cigarettes. Quinten nodded and asked, “What can I do for you?”

“Why you got Mouse down here, man?”

“Mr. Alexander is suspected of having information about a homicide.” His face was wooden.

“You ain’t got a damn thing on him.”

“Do you know who did the killings?”

“What about that bearded guy I told you ’bout? He coulda done it.”

“No corroboration. The owners of Aretha’s denied the story.”

“What about Gregory Jewel?”

“He says that he never saw the man that hit him.”

“And you believe that?”

“Do you have something for me, Rawlins? Because if you don’t I have business to take care of.” He motioned his head toward the door, then he picked up a pencil and started writing on a white legal pad.

“What about Mouse?”

“He stays in jail until we have something better.”

“On what charges?”

Naylor put down his pencil and looked at me. “No charge. He stays here two more days, then he gets transferred to the Hollywood station. After that we send him downtown. We could keep him tied up for months and even the commissioner wouldn’t be able to find him.”

“You proud’a that?”

“Are you going to find our killer?”

“I thought Voss wanted me out.”

“He’s not the only one involved. Violette wants you in. He’s willing to kill your friend to make sure of it.”

“Let Mouse out,” I said.

“No can do.”

“Let’im out an’ we’ll find this killer together. I’ma need a helper if this thing gets full-time with me.”

“He’s a prime suspect, Easy. He’s been everywhere those girls were. Even your Cyndi Starr.”

“I don’t think he did it.”

“How would you know?”

“Raymond wouldn’t kill those girls like that. But if you leave him in jail people gonna die for sure. Anyway, he told me he didn’t have nuthin’ t’do with it. He ain’t got no reason t’lie t’me. Gimme a week with Raymond and we’ll turn up what you need.”

Quinten shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Call Violette. Ask him,” I said. “I’ll be out at the bench when you get an answer.”

I waited an hour and fifteen minutes for Naylor to come out. He had Mouse with him. Mouse was fastening his cufflinks and smiling at me. It was a killer’s smile that reminded all the ladies of a sweet loving child.

MOUSE WAS LIVING with Minnie Fry at that time. They had a one-room cottage on Vernon.

She was sleeping in the Murphy bed when we got there.

“Hey, Minnie! Yo’ boy is home,” Mouse called as we came crashing into the room.

The only thing I could see of Minnie was her head. The rest of her was just a lump under a thick pink quilt. But when Mouse announced himself she yelled (I swear), “Oh boy!” and threw the bedding aside. All she wore was a tiny pair of pink panties but she didn’t mind my eyes. She ran up to Mouse and hugged him to her large bosom as if he were the Lord called up from the dead.

“Baby!” she cried. She kissed him and hugged him some more. “Baby!”

Minnie was a head taller and fifty pounds heavier than Mouse. She swung him from side to side until he stopped holding on to her and started trying to push away.

“Stop it, Minnie. Stop it fo’ you send me to the hospital.”

She just kept crooning and swaying. I don’t think anybody ever missed me as much as that woman missed him. I was away from home for years in World War II and nobody waited at the shore to hold me like that.

“Put me down, girl,” Mouse pleaded. I could see that he was smiling, though. “Go get decent fo’ you shame ole Easy here.”

Minnie didn’t mind showing off her generous black figure as long as we didn’t mention it, but when he said that she folded her arms around her chest and ducked a little as she scooped some clothes from a chair. She held these in front of her and tiptoed into the bathroom.

Mouse smiled after her. “She sumpin’, huh, Easy?”

Minnie was out of the bathroom in two minutes. She wore a plain blue dress that she’d probably sewn from a pattern in home economics when she was still in high school. You could see the uneven seams along the blue straps that covered her shoulder. The dress was a little snug, because she’d gained a few pounds in the two years since she’d gotten her diploma.

“Place is a pigsty,” Mouse said, curling his lip with distaste. “I only been in jail one day. How could you do all this?”

Minnie just wilted.

Mouse held out his hands in a helpless gesture. “What’s that you say?”

“I didn’t say nuthin’, baby.”

“Then what do you have to say? I mean, I come home to a hog barn an’ you just gonna wave yo’ titties in Easy’s face?”

I felt for Minnie’s shame but there was nothing I could do to help her. What Mouse wanted to say was that we were going to have to talk business so we were going out again. But he couldn’t say something straightforward like that, so he criticized her cleaning in order that he could excuse himself while she got the house together.

“Now we gonna start over,” Mouse said. “I’ma go with Easy now an’ get some breakfast… ”

“I’ll cook for ya, baby,” Minnie interrupted.

“Uh-uh, no. We gonna go down to the Pie Pan an’ get us some food, and when we get back the house and you is gonna be just fine. Ain’t that right?”

“Uh-huh. But I could get cleaned up real quick, Raymond… ”

Mouse shook his head and frowned. “I don’t wanna hear it, Minnie. We goin’ now.”

We did go to the Pie Pan. Mouse had toast, jelly, and hot chocolate. I ordered grits, sausages, and eggs scrambled with cubed potatoes and onions. We didn’t talk at first because Mouse’s hands were shaking. Over the years I had learned that as long as Mouse’s hands were still shaking he could kill over the smallest slight. When he got nervous, violence was his easiest and first outlet. That’s why I didn’t take Minnie’s part in the house. He might have struck her, or me, if he felt that his will was being questioned.

So we ate and smoked and waited for the jailhouse shakes to subside.

After the meal was over and we were both drinking tea with lemon I said, “We gotta find the man did them killin’s, Raymond.”

“All right wit’ me. You know I wanna kill me some mothahfuckah. I don’t take to no cell.”

“We can’t kill’im, Raymond. I want the law off both of us an’ the only way we could do that is t’give’em somebody t’hang.”

“I might not have t’kill’im, but you know I might shoot’im a li’l just the same. S’pose he a big boy don’t respect my pistol?”

I didn’t argue. If Mouse wanted to hurt somebody there was no way to stop him. I had to accept his insane violence if I wanted his help.

I told him everything that I’d learned. I told him about Aretha’s and the whorehouse. I told him about Gregory Jewel and Cyndi Starr. In forty-five minutes he knew everything I did.

“What this white girl gotta do with it?”

“Bad luck, I guess.”

“Bad luck my ass.”

“What you mean?”

“I don’t know, Easy. But we gonna find out. Who we gonna talk to first? You wanna try them boys who beat up on you?”

“Not right now. They were just hands. Probably come after me ’cause Max thought it would keep me off them. It’s just bad for business have somebody ’round talkin’ ’bout killin’.”

“Gregory Jewel?”

“Uh-uh. He don’t know nuthin’. No. It’s Charlene Mars and Westley we talk to. Charlene told the cops that she never saw no man go up against Gregory Jewel. I don’t know why, she could just be lyin’ to fuck with ’em, but I think she knows somethin’ too. Otherwise she’d tell’em the little bit she knew.”

“Sound good to me. You wanna go over there now?”

“Uh-uh. Tonight, after they close.”

Mouse’s eyes lit up. “I’ll meet ya out front at two.”

I nodded and shook his hand. Then I took him over to Minnie’s house so he could spend the afternoon making up to her.

WHEN I GOT HOME there was a note waiting from Jesus’s gym teacher.

Jesus had gotten into a fight with two boys who were taunting him. When the gym teacher tried to stop them Jesus hit him in the nose.

“Don’t be too hard on’im, Easy,” Regina said after I’d read the note. “You know children always be ridin’ a child who’s different.”

“He gotta learn to keep his anger in check,” I answered. I was always happy that Regina cared about Jesus. She just accepted him.

I might have sounded tough to her but I wasn’t very upset by Jesus’s crime.

Still, I put on a severe face and went into the boy’s room. But when I saw him, curled up behind his knees on the bed, I knew that he’d already learned more than I could bully him into.

He shuddered when I sat next to him. I patted his shoulder and smiled as softly as I could.

“Don’t worry, boy,” I said. “We gonna go straighten this out in the morning.”

Jesus looked at me with frightened eyes. He nodded as if to say, “Really?”

“Yeah. I know you a good boy, Jesus. You wouldn’t fight unless you thought you had to. But I want you to promise me that you won’t never fight unless somebody hits you or tries to hit you.”

His gaze gained confidence. He smiled and nodded.

“’Cause you know a man can control you if he can drive you to fight over some shit he talks.”

Jesus nodded again.

Jesus put his cold hands on my neck and kissed me just off to the left of my nose. When he hugged me I was amazed at how hot his cheek was.

“Let’s go get some dinner now,” I said.

At dinner Regina and I sat across the table avoiding eye contact like strangers who are uncertain about striking up a conversation.

When the baby and Jesus were asleep I brought a thick envelope with nine hundred dollars in it to her.

“Here’s all the money you wanted and then some,” I said.

She looked at me with clear serious eyes. I waited for her to say something but the words never came. Instead her face softened and she pulled me down in the bed, on top of her.

We didn’t make love, just lay there like spoons with me holding her from behind. At one o’clock I moved away and dressed. I looked back at her from the door as I left. Her eyes were open wide, taking me in. I put my finger in front of my lips and waved. She just stared after me. God knows what she was thinking.

I PARKED DOWN THE BLOCK from Aretha’s. Bone Street’s denizens staggered alone and in pairs. There was shouting and kissing and vomiting on the sidewalk. The last ones to leave Aretha’s were the strippers. Big women on the whole who trudged toward their homes like tired soldiers returning from the front lines.

It was two-twenty when I looked at my watch but that didn’t bother me. I knew Mouse would be there when I needed him. He would always be there in my life, smiling and ready to commit mayhem.

The door to Aretha’s hadn’t opened in a while when he strolled out. He was wearing a bright yellow double-breasted jacket and dark brown pants. His silk shirt was blue and stamped all over with bright orange triangles. His close-cropped head was hatless. I guess Mouse figured that a man dressed like that just couldn’t be killed.

He walked up to my window and said, “It’s only them two now, Easy. I’da gotten what you wanted myself but I didn’t wanna cheat you outta the fun.”

“Door open?” I asked.

“Naw. They locked up when I left but I put a wedge on the back do’. We could go in when you want to.”

We cut down the alley that ran parallel to Bone and through a little gate that led to the back door of the bar. Mouse straight-handed the door, pushing it open into a large dark room. Then we went through a doorway that came to another door. This door was edged in light. I could hear Charlene and Westley talking on the other side.

Mouse was the first one through. I heard Charlene gasp and Westley say, “What?” and then I came in.