"Himes, Chester - The Crazy Kill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Himes Chester)

2

Deep South was shouting in a hoarse bass voice: "_Steal away, daddy-o, steal away to Jesus_ . . ."
His meaty black fingers were skipping the light fantastic on the keys of the big grand piano.
Susie Q. was beating out the rhythm on his kettle drum.
Pigmeat was jamming on his tenor sax.
The big luxurious sitting room of the Seventh Avenue apartment was jam-packed with friends and relatives of Big Joe Pullen, mourning his passing.
His black-clad widow, Mamie Pullen, was supervising the serving of refreshments.
Dulcy, the present wife of Big Joe's godson, Johnny Perry, was wandering about, being strictly ornamental, while Alamena, Johnny's former wife, was trying to be helpful.
Doll Baby, a chorus chick who was carrying a torch for Dulcy's brother, Val, was there to see and be seen.
Chink Charlie Dawson, who was carrying a torch for Dulcy herself, shouldn't have been there at all.
The others were grieving out of the kindness of their hearts and the alcohol in their blood, and because grievmg was easy in the stifling heat.
Holy Roller church sisters were crying and wailing and daubing at their red-rimmed eyes with black-bordered handkerchiefs.
Dining car waiters were extolling the virtues of their former chef.
Whorehouse madams were exchanging reminiscences about their former client.
Gambler friends were laying odds that he'd make heaven on his first try.
Ice cubes tinided in eight-ounce glasses of bourbon whisky and ginger ale, black rum and Coca Cola, clear gin and tonic water. Everybody was drinking and eating. The food and liquor were free.
The blue-gray air was thick as split-pea soup with tobacco smoke, pungent with the scent of cheap perfume and hothouse lilies, the stink of sweating bodies, the fumes of alcohol, hot fried food and bad breath.
The big bronze-painted coffin lay on a rack against the wall between the piano and the console radiotelevision-record set. Flowers were banked about a horseshoe wreath of lilies as though about a horse in the winner's circle at the Kentucky Derby.
Mamie Pullen said to Johnny Perry's young wife, "Dulcy, I want to talk to you."
Her usually placid brown face, framed by straightened gray hair pulled into a tight knot atop her head, was heavily seamed with grief and fear.
Dulcy looked resentful. "For Chrissake, Aunt Mamie, can't you let me alone?"
Mamie's tall, thin, work-hardened old body, clad in a black satin Mother Hubbard gown that dragged the floor, stiffened with resolve. She looked as though she had been washed with all waters and had come out still clean.
On sudden impulse, she took Dulcy by the arm, steered her into the bathroom and closed and locked the door.
Doll Baby had been watching them intently from across the room. She moved away from Chink Charlie and pulled Alamena to one side.
"Did you see that?"
"See what?" Alamena asked.
"Mamie took Dulcy into the crapper and locked the door."
Alamena studied her with sudden curiosity.
"What about it?"
"What they go so secretive to talk about?"
"How the hell would I know?"
Doll Baby frowned. It relieved the set stupidity of her expression. She was a brownskin model type, slim, tan and cute. She wore a tight-fitting flaming orange silk dress and was adorned with enough heavy costume jewelry to sink her rapidly to the bottom of the sea. She worked in the chorus line at Small's Paradise Inn, and she looked strictly on the make.
"It looks mighty funny at a time like this," she persisted, then asked slyly, "Will Johnny inherit anything?"
Alamena raised her eyebrows. She wondered if Doll Baby was shooting at Johnny Perry. "Why don't you ask him, sugar?"
"I don't have to. I can find out from Val."
Alamena smiled evilly. "Be careful, girl. Dulcy's damn particular 'bout her brother's women."
"That bitch! She'd better mind her own business. She's so hot after Chink it's a scandal."
"It's likely to be more than that now Big Joe is dead," Alamena said seriously. A shadow passed over her face.
Once she had been the same type as Doll Baby, but ten years had made a difference. She still cut a figure in the deep purple turtle-neck silk jersey dress she was wearing, but her eyes were the eyes of a woman who didn't care any more.
"Val ain't big enough to handle Johnny, and Chink keeps pressing Dulcy as if he ain't going to be satisfied until he gets himself killed."
"That's what I can't see," Doll Baby said in a puzzled tone of voice. "What's he giving such a big performance for? Unless he's just trying to get Johnny's goat?"
Alamena sighed, involuntarily fingering the collar covering her throat.
"Somebody better tell him that Johnny's got a silver plate in his head and it's sitting too heavy on his brain."
"Who can tell that yellow nigger anything?" Doll Baby said. "Look at him now."
They turned and watched the big yellow man push his way through the crowded room to the door as though enraged about something, then go out and slam the door behind him.
"He's gotta make out like he's mad just because Dulcy went into the crapper to talk to Mamie, when all he's really tryin' to do is get the hell away from her before Johnny comes."
"Why don't you go too and take his temperature, sugar," Alamena said maliciously. "You been holding his hand all evening."