Mark Gimenez - The Color of Law

“Pay the man.”

“I live just down the street. Can you deliver?”

“No, ma’am, but Louis can carry.”

Pajamae waved at Louis standing off to the side like he was trying to go unnoticed, as if a six-foot-six, 330-pound black man in Highland Park could blend in. When he arrived, she said, “Louis, this nice lady needs this chair carried to her house.”

Louis leaned down, spread his arms, grabbed the sides of the big chair, and lifted it without effort. He began walking toward Mr. Fenney like he was carrying a sack of groceries.

The lady said, “Do I have to tip him?”

“No, ma’am,” Pajamae said, “just don’t make him mad.”

Mrs. Smythe with a y and an e looked at Louis’s broad back walking away with her chair, frowned, and said, “I’ll tip him. Twenty. No, fifty.” She followed Louis over to Mr. Fenney.

Pajamae shook her head: White people wouldn’t last a day down in the projects. When Boo walked up, Pajamae said, “Mama would love this.”

“What?”

“Rich white people at a yard sale.”

“Do you shop at yard sales often?”

“Yard sales are our shopping malls.”

“Do you get good stuff?”

“Nothing like this. Course, we don’t look for designer labels. We just make sure the clothes don’t have blood stains, and no one’s thrown up on the furniture.”

Just then a woman wearing big sunglasses walked over holding out a handbag. “Is this a knockoff?” she asked.

Boo gave her a look. “Ma’am, my mother would rather have died than be seen with a knockoff. That’s a Louis Vuitton original, retails for seven-fifty. We’re offering that bag for two-fifty. My mother never even took it out of the house.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Pay the man.”

The woman left and Pajamae said, “Your mama has some fine stuff.”

Boo nodded. “Mother always said, any girl says money can’t buy happiness just doesn’t know where to shop. But I guess she was wrong.”

Boo pulled a black party dress off a rack. “A thousand dollars. She wore it one time to a party at the club.” She replaced the dress and picked up a red spike-heeled shoe. “Three hundred dollars.”

“For shoes?”

“Dior.”

“Dee who?”

“Christian Dior. Women kill for these shoes.”

Pajamae took the shoe and examined it. “My mama could wear these to work.”

Scott had moved Rebecca’s entire closet down to the backyard, hundreds of dresses and shoes and pants and shirts and garments of every kind and color. He had never once ventured into her huge walk-in closet so he had never realized just how many clothes she owned. He wondered now how much they had cost. Scott smiled as he accepted money from another customer buying his wife’s clothes.

Pajamae was holding up a powder blue fringed miniskirt.

Boo said, “That was Mother’s Cattle Barons’ Ball outfit.”

“Wearing this, she’d fit right in with Mama and Kiki working Harry Hines.”

Pajamae replaced the skirt and picked up red pajamas.

“Neiman Marcus,” Boo said. “One hundred thirty dollars.”

“You think Mr. Fenney would sell these to me? I can pay seven dollars.”

“You want red silk pajamas?”

“For Mama, so she doesn’t have to sleep in that jail uniform.”

“Oh.” Boo thought for a moment, then said: “A. Scott put us in charge of pricing because he doesn’t have a clue how much Mother paid for this stuff-he’d stroke out if he knew-so I’m going to mark these down to seven dollars. Pay the man.”

“The little black girl said to pay you.”

“Yep.”

Scott looked up to see Penny Birnbaum.

“Oh, uh, hi, Penny. Did you find something you like?”

“I found something I liked the first time I was here.” She smiled that smile and licked her red lips wet. “You want to go inside and see if I can find it again?”

“Well, uh, Penny, I’ve, uh, I’ve got to tend to the cash register, see?”

“You don’t need cash. I’m giving it away.”

She leaned in and her shirt gaped, revealing the top of her tanned breasts. Scott inhaled her perfume and he remembered that day in the steam shower and he became weak. He thought of feeling Penny’s naked body against his and his hands on her and hers on him and her mouth on…but he thought of Boo. She wouldn’t be very proud of her father if he gave in to his weakness.

Penny said, “I’ve come by every day and you haven’t been home. Don’t you want to see what else I can do?”

In fact, Scott had been home, but when he had seen who was standing on his front porch, he had hidden until she left.

“Oh, well, I know you’re a very talented girl and-”

“Girl with the cornrows, she said to pay you.”

Thank God. An old lady had walked up with a handful of clothes. Penny dropped three hundred-dollar bills on the counter and sashayed down the drive with two of Rebecca’s purses, her narrow bottom in the tight shorts moving side to side so temptingly.

Bobby couldn’t afford to buy any of the stuff Scotty had for sale-not that any of the furniture would go with the East Dallas flea-market decor of his little house-and he wasn’t helping Boo and Pajamae sell the stuff because he’d probably punch out the first rich bitch who tried to negotiate him down on a price. So he was shooting pool in the garage, hoping the GQ dude checking out the pool table wouldn’t buy it because he was hoping Scotty might give it to him in lieu of some of his fees. He could put it in his combination living/dining room.

“Your wife shopping outside?” he asked Mr. GQ.

“Yeah.” Mr. GQ picked up a cue stick and said, “Wanna play?”

Bobby shrugged. “Why not.”

Bobby played pool at the Mexican bar next to his office in the strip center two, three hours a day, sometimes more. Okay, usually more. In fact, his regular clients knew to call there if they had an emergency, which is to say, if they were unexpectedly arrested by the vice squad.

Bobby racked the balls and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “For a twenty? Or is that too much?”

Mr. GQ recoiled. “Too much?” He slapped a twenty on top of Bobby’s bill and busted the rack. Not a ball fell.

Bobby chalked his cue tip. On his eighth straight stroke, he rolled the eight ball into the side pocket for the win. He reached over for the two bills when Mr. GQ said, “Double or nothing?”

Bobby smiled. The GQ dude didn’t make his money playing pool in a Mexican bar. Two games later, when his wife came looking for him, Bobby had netted $140, more than he made lawyering most days.

Boo saw a familiar face and said, “See that woman over there, the blonde?”

Boo pointed and Pajamae followed her finger. “Wearing the short shorts and heels? The real skinny girl?”

“She’s a lollipop.”

“A lollipop? You mean, like a sucker?”

“Unh-huh. See how her head looks too big for her body?”

Pajamae studied the woman. “She does look like a lollipop. That white girl needs to put some meat on her bones.”

“Mother said she eats and then she throws up.”

“’Cause she’s sick?”

“No, on purpose! So she doesn’t gain weight.”

“Boo, you pulling my leg?”

“No! She was Mother’s sorority sister. She married money.”

Pajamae frowned. “How do you marry money?”

“You look like her and you find an old man with money.”

“Oh. Kind of like Mama does, only it lasts longer.”

“Mother said she’s only thirty-three, but she’s had breast implants, a tummy tuck, a butt lift, and liposuction. Mother said the only part of her that’s real is her brain, and that’s only because they don’t do brain implants.” Boo shrugged. “That’s what Mother said, anyway.”