Роберт Паркер - Double Play

“We got three possibilities here,” Burke said. “One, she’s a crazed fan and she wants your autograph. Two, she’s part of a setup to catch you in a compromising situation with a white woman. Three, she’s some kind of sex bomb with a thing for colored guys.”

“She ain’t just a crazed fan,” Robinson said.

“So we look at possibilities two and three,” Burke said.

“Three,” Robinson said.

“Because?” Burke said.

Robinson turned from the window and sat on the other twin bed across from Burke. He leaned forward with his forearms on his thighs and his hands clasped.

“There’s women like that,” Robinson said.

“The legend of the large black dick,” Burke said.

Robinson shrugged.

“That might be part of it,” Robinson said, “but it’s more than that. Women like that want you to be crude. They don’t want no high-toned college Negro. They want a savage.”

Burke thought about Lauren.

“Why?” he said.

“I look like Sigmund Freud to you?” Robinson said.

“Not without a beard,” Burke said. “The way some girls are crazy for horses? You know? Get to control a big powerful thing between their legs?”

“Don’t know about horses,” Robinson said. “But I know there’s a certain kind of white woman that wants to do it with a big crude nigger and have him swear and talk dirty and shove her down and tear off her clothes.”

“And if the big crude nigger is also the most famous nigger in America?” Burke said.

“So much the better,” Robinson said.

“It could still be a setup,” Burke said.

Robinson nodded.

“Either way,” Burke said. “I got to keep her away from you.”

“You’re no fun at all,” Robinson said.

Smoking, Burke leaned on a lamppost in Kenmore Square across the sidewalk from the entrance to the hotel. He had the snapshot of Millicent. Behind him the weekend traffic, some of it from the recent ball game, moved inbound past him on Commonwealth Avenue. People came in and out of the hotel. The doorman hailed cabs, and opened doors, hustled bags, and pocketed fifty-cent tips. At quarter to seven Millicent got out of a cab wearing a sleeveless white sundress and a big straw hat, and carrying a big purse that matched the hat. The doorman jumped to hold the cab door, and scurried to open the hotel door as Millicent strode past him on very high heels. Burke stayed put until the cab she’d come in pulled away. He looked carefully around the square. He saw no one he recognized, no one who showed an interest in Millicent or where she was going. Burke snapped his cigarette butt into the gutter, and walked into the hotel.

Millicent was at the front desk. She took a big red envelope out of her purse and handed it to the desk clerk. He looked at it and nodded and put it under the counter. Millicent went to a chair in the lobby near the elevators and sat down, and showed a flash of thigh above her stockings as she crossed her legs. Burke admired the thigh. He knew she’d sit until the bellhop went past her with the red envelope. Then she’d follow him to Robinson’s room. He looked around the lobby. No one was paying any attention to Millicent that wouldn’t be explained by the amount of knee she was showing as she sat and waited. No one was looking at him, either.

Burke almost smiled. Meet you there, he said silently and took the next elevator to the fifth floor. The room he shared with Robinson was empty. Burke poured himself a drink from a bottle of Vat 69 he’d brought with him. Then he closed the blinds, turned off the lights, put the .45 on the reading table by his elbow and sat in the one chair. He sipped his scotch and waited. In thirteen very slow minutes there was a knock on the door.

Burke said, “Yeah?”

“Message for Mr. Robinson.”

Burke stood, put his drink down, picked up the .45 and answered the door, keeping the .45 out of sight.

“Mr. Robinson?”

“Sure,” Burke said.

He gave the bellhop a quarter and closed the door. He took the red envelope to the chair, put down the gun and opened the envelope. He picked up his drink and sipped it. There was no message in the envelope, only another snapshot. This one in the same bathing suit, back to the camera in her tight suit, looking awkwardly at the camera over her left shoulder. Burke recognized the Betty Grable pinup pose and smiled a little. Then he put the photo down beside the gun and drank a little scotch and waited some more. After another six minutes of slow time there was a soft knock on the door. Put down the drink. Pick up the gun. Walk to the door. Burke stood behind the door, out of sight when he opened it.

“Jackie?” a woman’s voice said.

“Come in,” Burke said softly.

He knew he didn’t sound like a Negro ballplayer from Pasadena, but neither, in fact, did Robinson. She turned toward him as she came into the dim room.

“Please,” she said, “be gentle with... You aren’t Jackie.”

Burke closed the door. Burke kept the gun against his right thigh, but she saw it.

“I’ll scream,” she said.

“No,” Burke said. “You start to scream and I’ll knock you out flat cold on the floor.”

“What are you going to do with me?” she said.

Burke put the chain bolt on the door.

“We’ll start by talking,” Burke said.

He pointed at the chair.

“Sit,” he said.

The room was small and Burke was big. Millicent had to maneuver around him to sit in the chair.

“You want a drink?” Burke said.

“No.”

She sat on the edge of the chair with her knees together and her hands clasped in her lap. She was wearing white gloves. Her perfume was heavy in the small room. Burke picked up his drink and sat near her on the edge of one of the beds.

“I, I’m sorry,” she said, “to have seemed so scaredy. It’s just that you startled me, and the gun...”

“Why’d you come here?” Burke said.

“Jackie invited me.”

“And gave you his room number?”

“Yes.”

“Which is why you pulled off that hocus-pocus with the red envelope.”

“I just wanted to send him a picture so he’d recognize me.”

“You wanted to follow the bellhop to his room,” Burke said. “That’s why you used a big red envelope, so you could spot it.”

“Oh dear,” she said.

Her voice was small and girlish with a husky edge to it.

“I was in the lobby when you came in,” Burke said.

“Oh, my,” she said. “Maybe I could have a little teeny drink if you would.”

Burke poured her a shot in a water glass.

“Don’t you have any ice or anything?” she said.

“Nope.”

She sighed in resignation and took the glass. She drank some scotch delicately. She smiled at Burke over the rim of the glass.

“I feel so unladylike,” she said, “drinking it straight like this.”

Burke nodded. The .45 lay on the bed near his right hand.

“Are you going to do something to me?” Millicent said.

Burke sipped some scotch.

“We both know Mr. Robinson didn’t invite you here,” Burke said.

Millicent was looking around the room.

“Is this his room?” she said.

“His and mine.”

“Yours?”

“Yeah.”

“You room with Jackie?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t... What is that like?”

Burke didn’t say anything.

“Is some of this stuff his?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Which bed is his?”

“The one near the window,” Burke said.

Millicent put her hand out and rested it on the bed near the window. Burke wasn’t sure she knew that she was doing it.

“Does he... ah... does he wear pajamas.”

“Pink ones,” Burke said, “with little feet in them.”