Nanette Hayes: Rhode Island Red Part 13

"Oh. Well, his friends called him Wild Bill."

"Then why didn't you say Wild Bill?"

"Sorry. I'm saying it now. You were a friend of Wild Bill's?"

"Bill's dead."

"I know."

"He dropped dead, on the street. Just fast as that. Stroke, they said. On his way here, I reckon. Said he just fell down dead. Just like that. It just go to show you, when you think you on top of the world, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d'll lay in wait for you, throw a big ole brick down from the roof on you. Fore you know it, you dead."

"You mean someone threw a brick at Wild Bill?"

"No, girl. I mean G.o.d. I'm just usin' ah example."

"Listen, Mr. Cooper, did you know Wild Bill long?"

In answer, he let go of the newspaper and held up his two hands, at a great distance from one another, presumably to mean the friendship had stretched over many a year.

"Did Wild Bill ever mention a Rhode Island Red?" I asked.

"A red what? ... Oh, yeah. He mention it."

"Can you tell me what he said?"

Coop leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

I repeated my request, but he remained as he was, eyes closed.

At length, it occurred to me what he was doing. Waiting for me to offer to buy him a drink. I got up and went to the bar. The bartender didn't wait for me to order. He placed a bottle of Amstel Light on the bar. Next to it he placed a gla.s.s and filled it halfway up with rotgut wine from a gallon jug. I paid for the drinks and brought them back to Coop.

He sipped daintily at the wine but finished the beer in practically a single gulp. Then he smiled and gestured for me to come closer. I moved right next to him.

He put his mouth against my ear and screeched: "Burrk! burrk! burrk!"-an earsplitting rendition of barnyard fowl. Then he added, "Girl, you think Bill ain't had nothing better to talk about than chicken."

I controlled my anger and wiped at my ear.

Then I pulled out the index cards and spread them over the table.

"Did he ever talk to you about these men?" I asked.

He drank more wine, surveying the names, shaking his head.

I stood up and started to leave.

"You know," he said slyly, "you look like Bill about as much as old Eleanor Roosevelt do. Least the police and the white man come around here ain't tried to lie and say they related to Wild Bill. Least they don't try to play me for a fool."

I sat down quickly. "I didn't mean to play you for a fool, either," I said. "The police have talked to you-a black cop? Big and mean looking. And a white man who wasn't with the police?"

"That's right."

"When? When did this white man ask you about Bill?"

"About a week before Bill die, maybe less."

"Do you know what his name is? Did he give you his address or his phone number?"

"He give me some of that good brandy is what he give me. And tell me there's a hundred dollars in it if I can tell him where to find Wild Bill."

"And did you?"

"No. Couple of weeks before Bill die ain't n.o.body much see him. He was acting mighty peculiar. Might as well have been a shadow for all the time he spent around here. And then, next thing we hear, he dead."

"What did he look like?"

"You don't know what Bill even look like?"

"Not him, not Wild Bill," I said, almost out of patience. "The white man!" I signaled the bartender to fix Coop up again.

So Henry Valokus-and, it sounded like, Leman Sweet-had been looking for Wild Bill a week or less before he died. Valokus and Wild Bill had more than Providence in common. That was for sure. But who really had been hunting who? And which one knew the secret of Rhode Island Red?

I headed north and west, toward St. Anne's Church.

It was easy to find: half the block had been razed. The gray stone church, its steeple rising high and alone, stood sad watch over the street, brooding and yet somehow hopeful. Next to the church was the decrepit building, now all boarded up, that had once been the school.

The youngish, flaxen-haired Finn who turned out to be the current priest at St. Anne's couldn't have been nicer to me. But he could be of very little help.

He took the index cards from my hand and went through them slowly, asking me at one point if I was planning to write a parish history.

"Why do you ask that?" I replied.

"Well, some of these names sound vaguely familiar. But it's probably from the records I've been going over lately. Probably their children went to school here, when we had a school, that is. But this generation is all gone."

The father had no recollection of ever seeing a man who fitted Wild Bill's description either. And no, there had been no gentleman, about so high, with a European accent, inquiring about old parishioners lately.

Everybody in this scenario was mighty interested in ships, in the docks of New York, way back when. That strange roster of longsh.o.r.emen intersected with a talented jazz trumpeter who ended up a desperate drunk, a mobster who had informed on and then become a laughing stock to his confederates and a crooked undercover policeman. But I had no idea why.

I'd been sitting on the church steps for a good twenty minutes, weary and craving a cigarette, when I noticed the white van across the street. At the wheel was the woman who'd held the gun to my head.

I stood suddenly and beat it back into the doorway of the church. But that prompted no movement from the van. They continued to sit there.

How long, I wondered, had they been following me. All day? And if they were going to try to s.n.a.t.c.h me again, what were they waiting for? Clearly, if they'd wanted to kill me they could have done so at any time during the last twenty minutes. But they'd chosen to do nothing. Why?

We had a real stand-off going. I wasn't budging from the doorway. And they weren't budging from the curb.

And then, without ceremony, they left. Just drove away.

I spotted the van again near the supermarket. The folks inside never said a word and never made a move toward me.

I walked into D'Agostino and bought three prime lamb chops, some fresh spinach, and a head of garlic. I went home and put the groceries on the kitchen table. But the moment I opened the bag I realized that I didn't want to eat. I just wanted to sleep. I walked out of the kitchen and collapsed on the divan.

CHAPTER 12.

Monk's dream Paris.

I am down in the Metro. The Les Halles stop. I am blowing my heart out. I never in my life ever sounded so grand.

There is not another soul around. Yet my high white silk hat is overflowing with gold coins.

Suddenly the cops show. They are all ferocious Senegalese wearing impenetrable aviator shades. They've come to get me, take me away. And they aren't being gentle about it.

I'm thrown into the back of a van, screaming, protesting my innocence-of whatever the charge may be.

The handcuffs go around my wrists.

You stole those coins! one of the flics shouts to me in his barking dog French. And he upends my hat and pours all the money into my lap.

I look down at the coins. Embossed on each one is the head of a fierce looking rooster.

Suddenly all the coins begin to bleed profusely. Within seconds, I have a lap full of warm, sticky blood.

And then the telephone rings!

I had never been so happy to be roused from sleep.

I picked up the ringing phone and heard "Hey, what are you wearing?"

"Ah, come on, Walter. You're making obscene phone calls now?"

He laughed heartily. "No. But I am planning to be obscene with you in person. Which I hope is gonna be in a few minutes."

"Are you coming up?"

"Not exactly. I want you to come down. You're hungry, aren't you?"

"Of course."

"Okay. There's a hip place on First and First. The steaks are great and this Creole brother behind the bar's got a martini with your name on it. Get on down here. And I want you to wear something nice."

Martini? What was I-a businessman? "Walter, are you sober?"

"Not completely. I just feel good."

"Did something happen at work?"

"Just get dressed and get here, Nan. Take a cab. And don't wear no overalls, okay?"

So I grabbed a taxi, driven by, thankfully, a brother who was downright eager to get me in his backseat. He beat out two other cabbies who were heading toward me like ICBMs. We were at First Street-in hippie renewal territory-in no time.

Ooo la la. My lucky night. The French hostess in the leopardskin leotard was glad to see me too. Maybe management would be willing to pay Walter and me a few bucks a night to lend a little dark ambience to the joint.

"Hey, baby." Walter took me in his arms and kissed me, reluctant to let me go, it seemed.

I finally broke from his embrace and took a seat next to him at the bar.

"Walter ..."

He kissed me again, lightly, on the ear.

I had once accused him of behaving like a jealous housewife, but now it occurred to me that he was doing the cla.s.sic guilty husband routine-overplaying the love bit because an infidelity was weighing on his conscience. If he pulled a box of chocolates out of his briefcase, I was going to deck him.

The bartender, Creole or not, was seriously cute. I'd take a 'tini from his tapered brown hands any day of the week. He smiled at us and left a little dish of olives next to my gla.s.s.

"Mind if we eat at the bar?" Walter asked. "It's private up here."

I looked past his shoulder into the hopping main room. A wave of high pitched conversation and laughter floated toward us.

"No problem," I said.

"You look good, sweetheart."

"Thank you, Walter. But what's your story? You're a little overstimulated, aren't you?"

He chuckled. "I suppose you're right. I just-I came to some decisions today, that's all."

"What decisions?"

"Number one, I'm quitting the job. Real soon. Another guy at the office-Morantz-Morantz and me, we're starting our own company."

"Well, congratulations ... I guess. But isn't that going to be a pretty big deal? I mean, money and offices and staff and all that stuff."

"It's gonna be covered. We've got an appointment tomorrow in Philadelphia. We sign up this client and we got it made. s.n.a.t.c.hing him right out from under the nose of the firm. And we are going to s.n.a.t.c.h him. Trust me."

I raised my gla.s.s, and my eyebrows, in a wordless toast to him. "And that's why I had to put on a dress?"

"No ..."

"Walter, you're acting dopey, you know that?"

"Nan, let me ask you something."

"Yeah."