Three Days Before the Shooting ... (132 page)

“Hickman?” Aubrey said. “Are you really
A. Z
. Hickman, the slide-trombone man?”

“Yes, Aubrey,” he said, “I am. I’ve changed a bit but it’s been quite a long time since you’ve seen me….”

“Well, I’ll be damn,” McMillen said, “they been telling me you were out there! But hell, I took it for some more of their jive! But look here, let’s get this straight: How come they called you Doctor? Now me, I been drinking, but hearing something like that is enough to confuse even Einstein and George Washington Carver! Because, hell, man, the Hickman
I
used to know was a gut-bucket
bluesman!
You mean to tell me the white folks done up and made you a Ph.D. of
gut-bucket
music?”

“Not quite, Aubrey,” he said with a grin, “but as you know, even bluesmen can change. So I’ve been a minister for a long time now and I’m surprised that you haven’t heard it.”

“Well, I’ll be damn!”

“I know,” he said, “it’s a strange turn for me, but believe it or not, today I’m a minister.”

And as Aubrey’s eyes blurred and returned to focus he was met with a pained expression.

“Now why would a man like you go and do a thing like that,” Aubrey said, “especially when he was such a hell of a
fine
musicianer?”

“Aubrey, I was ‘called,’ you understand the meaning of being called, don’t you?”

“Yeah—maybe … I guess so, now that I remember your daddy’s being a preacher. But for such a fine
bluesman
as you to turn into one? Hell, Hickman, that’s almost as bad as going on drugs or passing for some kind of African—which don’t make sense, at least not to me. Still, a thing like that’s a man’s personal business—but you,
Hickman
, a
preacher?
It’s hard to believe. It really is, so let it be. But with you gone religious I guess ain’t no point in my offering you a drink—even for old times’ sake?”

“No, but thank you, Aubrey. I gave up drinking long ago.”

“Okay, ‘cause I don’t mean to insult you, but if it makes any difference this stuff ain’t bootleg, no matter what they been telling you. It’s
bonded!
We had us whole cases of one-hundred-percent, pure-dee bonded—which is what Mister Jessie ordered. And although a few bottles got busted there’s still plenty left. What’s more, I bought it at the
liquor store
. So don’t let these white folks sell you some bull about me being a bootlegger.”

“I believe you, Aubrey.”

“And you can bet on it. But look, Hickman, these police say you brought me a message from Carrie—how’s she doing?”

“Well, Aubrey, it’s like this—and I’m sorry to be a bearer of sad tidings—she’s as well as could be expected of someone her age, but now she’s nearing the end. That’s why she asked me to come here to persuade you to come home and see her before it’s too late. Won’t you please try and do that for your sister?”

Suddenly reaching for the table on which the dead man sat, McMillen attempted to stand, missed it, and tumbled back into the chair with a belch and a gurgle.

“And I mean to do it, I swear,” he said, “I’ma start packing just as soon as I can get these officers to understand that I wouldn’t harm
anybody
, much less a close friend like Mister Jessie.”

“I know,” Hickman said, “I know …”

“Naw, you don’t, ‘cause there ain’t many like him to be known. But the man was a prince. A
prince!
You dig what I mean but these smart-ass police don’t know a damn thing about his kind of colored man—and don’t
want
to! Because after my telling them they still won’t believe me. That’s right! Just because I’m black and a little woozy from drinking all that fine bourbon they think I’m lying. Which goes to prove they don’t know any more about a man like me than they know about Mister Jessie. But hell, Hickman, as you damn well know from the old days, I’m one hell of a
complicated
man….”

“Yes,” Hickman said, “I remember.”

“Sho,
you
do, but these police act like some of these ole dicty D.C. Negroes who see me as no more than an ignunt clown. Yeah, but unlike most of them
I’ve
been around, and around, and
around!
Oh, yes! And like that cat you used to sing about: I’ve wrasseled me some bears and outfoxed me some hounds, and done heard me some sweet-talk from some mellow high-browns—but hell, you been knowing about me for
years
. So do me a favor: Tell these police about the kind of folks I come from. ‘Cause as you know I’m out of some very fine people.
Honest
people,
respectable
people like Carrie. That’s why I wouldn’t even
think
of disgracing them by doing harm to Mister Jessie—and I
didn’t
! That’s right, Hickman, nobody did … less’n it was the sight of that crazy white man….”

“
White
man!
What
white man?”

“The one who busted in here raising hell about buying back some kinda
damn coffin! That’s right, man! And a white one at that! Done up and color-segregated the goddamn
coffins!
Then the crazy dude claims that Mister Jessie bought it from somebody on one of his business trips down South. But then, when the sucker sees Mister Jessie sitting up there in that thing that’s been stored in the basement for years he looks like he’s seeing a ghost! It wasn’t enough for Mister Jessie to be sitting in that beat-up thing which I warned him would bring us bad luck—oh, no! But then, all of a sudden, here comes this big-shot-looking white dude yelling about his having a
white
one!

“And Hickman,” Aubrey said with a weary wave of his hand, “that’s the honest-to-God
truth!
Everything was going fine until that white dude showed up….”

“Showed up from
where?
And who let him in?”

“Hell, I don’t know, but when I look up he’s in here causing trouble! Hickman, we were just having a little party to celebrate Mister Jessie’s birthday, when all of a sudden this white dude is in here raving. And before I know anything that crazy white gal …”

“What! Do you mean that you had …”

“… Oh, no! Not me, she was strictly Mister
Jessie’s
idea. So get that straight! And when that fool gal starts doing her funky number I …”

“Yes,” he said, “yes?”

But before Aubrey could answer, Tillman reached between them and swung him around to face the coffin.

“Reveren’,” Tillman said, “that’ll be enough for now, because as you can see he’s getting overexcited again. So now we’ll take a break and continue after he’s calmer.”

“But, Officer, I’d like to hear the rest of it—especially about this
woman
he mentioned. What happened to her?”

“Now listen, Reverend,” the detective said with a sudden note of irritation, “you’re getting into
police
business, so let it lay! And since I’m convinced that you and your deacon had nothing to do with this matter you’re both free to return to your hotel. Just leave word as to where you can be reached in case we need you….

“McVey,” he said, turning abruptly to the freckled-faced detective, “go along and see that nobody stops them as they leave the building. That’s an order.”

So, Hickman thought, some things haven’t changed: Just mention a
white
woman and the law slams the door.

And suddenly struck by the comic undertones that sounded in Aubrey’s account of a white man invading a black American’s disorderly house in a search for his coffin, he surged with amusement. Had it actually happened, or was it an example of Aubrey’s sly skill in outfoxing the hounds by playing the dozens? Anyway, the whole thing’s too wild for that man to have been our boy—No!

And now, watching Aubrey eyeing Tillman’s restraining hand with a look of disgust, he turned to leave.

“Thanks, Officer,” he said, “I’m much obliged. And for what it’s worth I believe Aubrey’s telling the truth. Because given the general disorder around us, how could
anyone
make up such a story?”

“Reverend,” a voice called from the shadows, “didn’t I advise you to stick to heaven and let
us
decide what’s true or false in the area of crime?”

“Yes, Detective Morrison, I remember,” he said, “but while you keep trying to get at the truth and can’t believe what McMillen has told you, even an unworldly preacher like me knows that getting at the truth can depend upon asking the right party the right questions. So maybe if you forget your theory about McMillen being a bootlegger and ask his friend up there in the coffin the meaning of that cornbread, those yams, and his black-eyed peas and rice and you might get your answer.”

“Thanks for the brilliant advice,” Detective Tillman said. “Now get the hell out of here!”

“So long, Aubrey,” he called. “I’ll get in touch with you as soon as possible. Just keep telling the truth and you’ll be all right.”

“Come on, you,” McVey said, “let’s move it.”

“I’m with you,” Hickman said. And with a final look at the man in the coffin he put the scene behind him and moved through the shadows and focused his mind on the day ahead and the problem of seeing the Senator.

But now, having followed McVey to a point near the door, he was brought to a halt by the sight of a woman who lay stretched on her back in a lounging chair. And as he watched her white skin and features emerge from the shadows he thought,
So here’s the woman that caused Tillman to shut Aubrey’s mouth!

Apparently asleep, with a bare arm curving above her head, the woman lay beneath a blue policeman’s jacket that stretched from the tip of her chin to the cleft of her thighs. And as he gazed at the odd fringe of yellow paper that protruded beneath the end of the jacket he realized with a start that the woman’s silk panties were adorned with depreciated twenty-dollar bills like those on the floor near Jessie Rockmore’s coffin. And as he looked back to the woman’s face he felt a jerk on his arm.

“Let’s move it,” McVey shouted, “and I mean now!”

“All right,” he said, “all right!” But not yet. For at the sound of his voice the blue-shadowed eyes popped open and flashed from his face to McVey’s—and he was watching the motion of the woman’s hand as it reached for the jacket and drew it aside with a stripteaser’s gesture—and except for its flip-tail skirt and high-heeled shoes he was staring at a female form which was completely bare.

But what better costume, he thought, for somebody performing a “funky number.” And with McMillen’s term echoing in his ear he saw the woman smile and extend her manicured hands in his direction.

Instantly insulted and alarmed by a white female’s signifying play upon taboos that could trigger many white men to violence, he snatched his arm from McVey’s grasp as the woman spun to her right and attempted to stand. And now,
rocking and reeling against the counter-swinging of her bulging breasts, she kicked the jacket aside and turned to McVey with a challenging smile. Whereupon, sensing an eruption of movement, he whirled to see McVey reaching down and shooting erect with the abandoned jacket stretched in his hands; and as the young detective sprang forward with a grimace of distaste the scene became a distorted version of a chapter from Genesis, and he was transfixed by fleeting images of Shem and Japheth hurtling backwards with a billowing blanket between them. And with details of the post-Deluge story flooding his mind, he realized that neither the likes of wine-drunk Noah nor the son who had witnessed his nakedness were anywhere to be seen, heard the woman explode with obscenities, and saw McVey’s improvised blanket resume its mundane form as it flew like a fisherman’s net toward the woman’s red head.

And as he listened for Tillman to take over, he saw McVey closing on the woman with the sleeves of the jacket flapping like the wings of a hawklike bird. He thought,
Hickman, as one of his so-called sons you’ve always questioned Ham’s being punished for looking too hard at his father’s weakness, but drunk or sober this woman’s no Noah, and McVey’s no Shem or Japheth—so how is it that way late, and here in this crazy Washington house of all places, you’re being forced to suffer Ham’s sin and his fate once again?

And as he restrained a sudden impulse to grab the jacket and allow the woman to deal with her own bawdy nakedness, he was amazed to see her snatch McVey to her breasts and assail his crotch with a fierce bump-and-grind.

Yes
, he thought,
but that’s far too simple for a final answer. So much for Noah, so much for Ham, and so much for Ham’s son, Hickman
. And collapsing with laughter he heard a disgusted Tillman roaring behind him, “McVey, handcuff that strumpet and get that goddamn preacher out of here—and I mean NOW!”

“Right,” McVey called, “right!”

But as he laughed and watched McVey struggling to break free of the woman’s embrace she glared at him over the detective’s shoulder.

“That’s it, Dad,” she called, “laugh your chitt’lin’- eating head off if you think it’s so funny, but this is one frigging gig that’s been
tra—uuul-ly
maaad!”

At which, cursing and breaking her hold with a thrust of his shoulder, McVey leaned forward, and in raising the jacket received a backhanded slap across the bridge of his nose as the woman screamed, “Get your hands off me, you sonof -abitch!”

And as McVey paused and stood shaking his head, she snatched at the jacket and screamed, “That’s right, Dad, the whole frigging deal has been mad as a hatter! We were having … one … wow of a time … just the three of us … spreading a little joy … as you boot boys say …”

Bump!

“Take that, you little bastard!—I say, stop it, you clown!—But then some bigshot
coffin-freak
shows up—how about that!—and before this ole gal could
yell hooray the hell for Jackie Robinson he’s gone and a gang of creeps like sonny here come barging in! And then, Daddy-O, all
hell
broke loose! And with the Boots and cops going at it like the Dodgers and Giants, the whole frigging scene turned into a saaud,
saaaauud
maaud!”