Роберт Паркер - Double Play

“He doesn’t really, does he?”

Burke shrugged. More and more she seemed to Burke like a woman eager to have sex with a famous black man.

“Anyone send you here?” Burke said.

“Send?”

“Send you here to get Mr. Robinson in trouble.”

“I don’t want to get Mr.... Jackie in trouble.”

“Then you came here to fuck Mr. Robinson,” Burke said.

“Don’t be coarse.”

“What would be your explanation,” Burke said.

“I just love him.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“But I watch him whenever he’s in Boston and I go to New York to watch him. And I read about him in the papers.”

“Why?”

“He’s so... beautiful.”

“Beautiful?”

“Yes,” she said.

She sat forward. Her eyes were bright. He face under the makeup looked flushed.

“Beautiful like a black panther,” she said. “Like a noble black stallion.”

Jesus Christ, Burke thought. You can’t fake that. Millicent stopped suddenly.

“If he’s not here,” she said, “where is he?”

“Down the hall,” Burke said, “playing cards with Clyde Sukeforth and Pee Wee Reese.”

“Will he come back here, soon?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Burke said. “You can’t have Mr. Robinson, but you can have the next best thing.”

“Best thing?”

“Yeah,” Burke said. “I’ll fuck you on his bed.”

She stared at him, her face now very definitely red.

“What a terrible thing to say to me,” she said and began to cry.

“You have no idea how terrible I can be,” Burke said.

“I want to go now,” she said.

“Sure,” Burke said. “But if you come back, I will be really terrible.”

She stood, sobbing, her makeup already streaked with tears. She walked to the door.

“I never want to see you again,” she said as she took the chain bolt off.

“You won’t have to, unless you bother Mr. Robinson again.”

She took a breath and turned with the door ajar and looked at Burke.

“You are very cruel,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Keep it in mind,” Burke said.

She shook her head and went out the open door without closing it behind her. Burke walked to the doorway and watched her down the hall until the elevator came and took her away.

Jackie lay on the bed with his shirt off, reading the Boston American.

“A black panther,” Burke said. “A beautiful black stallion.”

“Shut up,” Robinson said.

He continued to read the tabloid.

“That happen often?” Burke said.

He was still sipping Vat 69.

“You run into it,” Jackie said. “Or you hear about it.”

“Happen to you before?”

“Yes.”

Jackie turned a page.

“The black stallion thing?” Burke said.

“All of us are supposed to be hung,” Jackie said. “Some white women like that idea.”

Burke was silent for a moment. Then he took another small swallow of scotch.

“Got a lot of you killed,” Burke said.

Robinson put the paper down on his chest and looked at Burke.

“For looking at a white woman,” Robinson said. “For smiling. For brushing her arm in a doorway. It’s the big crime. Every Negro man knows it.”

“How about the white women?” Burke said.

“The ones want to crawl in bed with us? They got to know.”

“Maybe that’s part of the fun,” Burke said.

“ ’Course it is,” Robinson said. “They like the thrill, you know? They’re not just being bad, they’re being bad with a nigger.”

“And they can get the nigger killed,” Burke said. “How’s that for being bad.”

Robinson nodded.

“It’s a kind of a power, too,” he said. “White woman with a black man... all she got to do is say he raped her.”

“She could do that to a white man,” Burke said.

Robinson smiled and didn’t answer. Burke began to nod his head slowly.

“Not the same thing,” Burke said.

“Who’s the last white man,” Robinson said, “you can think of got lynched for rape?”

“Pretty sick,” Burke said.

“It is.”

“Easy way to set you up, too,” Burke said.

“I know. Why I was playing cards with two reputable white men when she came to my room.”

“I don’t think this was a setup,” Burke said. “I think Millicent was genuine.”

“She good-looking?” Robinson said.

“Yes.”

“Too bad. It’s easier when they’re not.”

Burke smiled a little.

“I offered on your behalf,” Burke said. “But she wasn’t interested.”

“The real thing or no thing,” Robinson said and picked up his newspaper again.

Burke was quiet sipping his scotch, looking out the window at Kenmore Square.

“Blackwell won another one,” Robinson said. “Three-hitter against the Pirates.”

“I could throw a three-hitter against the Pirates,” Burke said.

“No you couldn’t,” Robinson said.

They were quiet again. Robinson with the evening tabloid, Burke with his drink.

“It’s not just white girls and Negroes,” Burke said after a time.

“No?”

“No. There are girls who go for men because they are...”

“Forbidden?”

“Something like that. They want the sex to be, dirty or something like that.”

“Like it would be with a big bad black Negro?”

“Or a bad sick white guy.”

“Puts us in nice company,” Robinson said.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

Jackie smiled and lowered the paper enough so he could look at Burke over it.

“You got some personal experience?”

Burke was looking out the window, holding the water glass of scotch with both hands.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think so.”

Robinson kept looking at him with the paper lowered again to his chest, but Burke had nothing else to say and after a while Robinson returned to the newspaper.

One of my most vivid memories is of my mother screaming for my father. His name was Gus and when she needed him she would elongate that single syllable in a way hard to describe. The emergency was rarely dire. She would scream for my father if there was a mouse, or if the dog threw up, or if something started to boil over on the stove, or the car wouldn’t start, or a zipper got stuck, or a window wouldn’t close, or a door wouldn’t open. He was always calm when he responded and always able to correct the thing and allow my mother to go right back to being what she was most of the time, which is to say bossy and full of herself. Often wrong, my father would sometimes remark, but never uncertain.

I always enjoyed these moments of my father’s domestic heroism, because so much of the time my mother was everywhere telling everyone what to do. And he was letting her as if he didn’t mind.

They had been married sixteen years in 1947 and I don’t recall ever seeing them fight. They would annoy one another occasionally. She would raise her finger and speak forcefully. He would turn and walk away with no expression. But the door would close very firmly behind him. It was unwise to make my mother mad. She didn’t get over it easily and would sulk and sigh for days.

My father went to work each morning in his suit and came home each evening. He would take off his suit jacket and his tie, roll back his cuffs, and have a drink while supper was cooking. We would eat at the kitchen table and both of them were attentive to what I had to say.