Walter Mosley - Devil in a Blue Dress

“Frank tried to kill me.”

“He won’t do anything to you if I’m there.”

“Take more than your smile to stop Frank.”

“Take me to him, Easy; it’s the only way you’ll get paid.”

“What about Mr. Carter and Albright?”

“They want me, Easy. Let Frank and me take care of it.”

“What’s Frank to you?” I asked again.

She smiled at me then. Her eyes turned blue and she lay back against the wall behind the bed. “Will you help me?”

“I don’t know. I gotta get outta here.”

“Why?”

“It’s just too much,” I said, remembering Sophie. “I need some air to breathe.”

“We could stay here, honey; this is the only place for us.”

“You wrong, Daphne. We don’t have to listen to them. If we love each other then we can be together. Ain’t no one can stop that.”

She smiled, sadly. “You don’t understand.”

“You mean all you want from me is a roll in the hay. Get a little nigger-love out back and then straighten your clothes and put on your lipstick like you didn’t ever even feel it.”

She put out her hand to touch me but I moved away. “Easy,” she said. “You have it wrong.”

“Let’s go get somethin’ to eat,” I said, looking away. “There’s a Chinese place a few blocks from here. We could walk there through a shortcut out back.”

“It’ll be gone when we get back,” she said.

I imagined that she had said that to lots of men. And lots of men would have stayed rather than lose her.

We dressed in silence.

When we were ready to go a thought came to me.

“Daphne?”

“Yes, Easy?” Her voice was bored.

“I wanted to know somethin’.”

“What’s that?”

“Why’d you call me yesterday?”

She turned green eyes on me. “I love you, Easy. I knew it from the first moment we met.”

Chow’s Chow was a kind of Chinese diner that was common in L.A. back in the forties and fifties. There were no tables, just one long counter with twelve stools. Mr. Ling stood behind the counter in front of a long black stove on which he prepared three dishes: fried rice, egg foo yong, and chow mein. You could have any one of these dishes with chicken, pork, shrimp, beef, or, on Sunday, lobster.

Mr. Ling was a short man who always wore thin white pants and a white T-shirt. He had the tattoo of a snake that coiled out from under the left side of his collar, went around the back of his neck, and ended up in the middle of his right cheek. The snake’s head had two great fangs and a long, rippling red tongue.

“What you want?” he yelled at me. I had been in Mr. Ling’s diner at least a dozen times but he never recognized me. He never recognized any customer.

“Fried rice,” Daphne said in a soft voice.

“What kind?” Mr. Ling shouted. And then, before she could answer, “Pork, chicken, shrimp, beef!”

“I’ll have chicken and shrimp, please.”

“Cost more!”

“That’ll be alright, sir.”

I had egg foo yong with pork.

Daphne seemed a little calmer. I had the feeling that if I could get her to open up, to talk to me, then I could talk some sense into her. I didn’t want to force her to see Carter. If I forced her I could have been arrested for kidnapping and there was no telling how Carter would have reacted to her being manhandled. And maybe I loved her a little bit right then. She looked very nice in that blue dress.

“You know, I don’t want to force anything on you, Daphne. I mean, the way I feel you don’t ever have to kiss Carter again and it’s okay with me.”

I could feel her smile in my chest and in other parts of my body.

“You ever go to the zoo, Easy?”

“No.”

“Really?” She was astonished.

“No reason t’see animals in cages far as I can see. They cain’t help me and I cain’t do nuthin’ fo’ them neither.”

“But you can learn from them, Easy. The zoo animals can teach you.”

“Teach what?”

She sat back and looked into the smoke and steam raised by Mr. Ling’s stove. She was looking back into a dream.

“The first time my father took me to the zoo, it was in New Orleans. I was born in New Orleans.” As she spoke she developed a light drawl. “We went to the monkey house and I remember thinking it smelled like death in there. A spider monkey was swinging from the nets that hung from the top of his cage; back and forth. Anyone with eyes could see that he was crazy from all those years of being locked away; but the children and adults were nudging each other and sniggering at the poor thing.

“I felt just like that ape. Swinging wildly from one wall to another; pretending I had somewhere to go. But I was trapped in my life just like that monkey. I cried and my father took me out of there. He thought that I was just sensitive to that poor creature. But I didn’t care about a stupid animal.

“From then on we only went to the cages where the animals were more free. We watched the birds mainly. Herons and cranes and pelicans and peacocks. The birds were all I was interested in. They were so beautiful in their fine plumes and feathers. The male peacocks would spread out their tail feathers and rattle them at the hens when they wanted to mate. My daddy lied and said that they were just playing a game. But I secretly knew what they were doing.

“Then, at almost closing time, we passed the zebras. No one was around and Daddy was holding my hand. Two zebras were running back and forth. One was trying to avoid the other but the bully had cut off every escape. I yelled for my daddy to stop them because I worried that they were going to fight.”

Daphne had grabbed on to my hand, she was so excited. I found myself worried; but I couldn’t really tell what bothered me.

“They were right there next to us,” she said. “At the fence, when the male mounted the female. His long, leathery thing jabbing in and out of her. Twice he came out of her completely, and spurted jissum down her flank.

“My daddy and I were holding hands so tight that it hurt me but I didn’t say anything about it. And when we got back to the car he kissed me. It was just on the cheek at first but then he kissed me on the lips, like lovers do.” Daphne had a faraway smile on her face. “But when he finished kissing me he started to cry. He put his head in my lap and I had to stroke his head for a long time and tell him that it was just fine before he’d even look up at me again.”

The disgust must’ve shown on my face because she said, “You think that it was sick, what we did. But my daddy loved me. From then on, my whole fourteenth year, he’d take me to the zoo and the park. Always at first he’d kiss me like a father and his little girl but then we’d get alone someplace and act like real lovers. And always, always after he’d cry so sweet and beg me to forgive him. He bought me presents and gave me money, but I’d’ve loved him anyway.”

I wanted to run away from her but I was too deep in trouble to act on my feelings, so I tried to change the subject. “What’s all that got to do with you goin’ t’see Carter?” I asked.

“My daddy never took me anywhere again after that year. He left Momma and me in the spring and I never saw him again. Nobody ever knew about him and me and what had happened. But I knew. I knew that that was why he left. He just loved me so much that day at the zoo and he knew me, the real me, and whenever you know somebody that well you just have to leave.”

“Why’s that?” I wanted to know. “Why you have t’leave someone just when you get close?”

“It’s not just close, Easy. It’s something more.”

“And that’s what you had with Carter?”

“He knows me better than any other man.”