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

"I ain't interested in that whisky jockey," Doll Baby said.
Chink worked as a bartender in the University Club downtown on East 48th Street. He made good money, ran with the Harlem dandies and could have girls like Doll Baby by the dozen.
"Since when ain't you interested?" Alamena asked sarcastically. "Since he just went out the door?"
"Anyway, I gotta go find Val," Doll Baby said defensively, moving off. She left immediately afterward.


Sitting on the lid of the toilet seat inside of the locked bathroom, Mamie Pullen was saying, "Dulcy, honey, I wish you'd keep away from Chink Charlie. You're making me awfully nervous, child."
Dulcy grimaced at her own reflection in the mirror. She was standing with her thighs pressed against the edge of the washbowl, causing the rose-colored skin-tight dress to crease inside the valley of her round, seductive buttocks.
"I'm trying to, Aunt Mamie," she said, nervously patting her short-cut orange-yellow curls framing the olivebrown complexion of her heart-shaped face. "But you know how Chink is. He keeps putting himself in my face no matter how hard I try to show him I ain't interested."
Mamie grunted skeptically. She didn't approve of the latest Harlem fad of brownskin blondes. Her worried old eyes surveyed Dulcy's flamboyant decor--the rainbowhued whore-shoes with the four-inch lucite heels; the choker of cultured pink pearls; the diamond-studded watch; the emerald bracelet; the heavy gold charm bracelet; the two diamond rings on her left hand and the ruby ring on her right; the pink pearl earrings shaped like globules of petrified caviar.
Finally she commented, "All I can say is, honey, you ain't dressed for the part."
Dulcy turned angrily, but her hot long-lashed eyes dropped quickly from Mamie's critical stare to Mamie's man-fashioned straight-last shoes protrudmg from beneath the skirt oj Mamie's long black satin dress.
"What's the matter with the way I dress?" she argued belligerently.
"It ain't designed to hide you," Mamie said drily, then, before Dulcy could frame a comment, she asked quickly, "What really happened between Johnny and Chink at Dickie Wells's last Saturday night?"
Dulcy's upper lip began to sweat.
"Just the same old thing. Johnny's so jealous of me sometimes I think he's crazy."
"Why do you egg him on then? Do you just have to switch your ass at every man that passes by?"
Dulcy looked indignant.
"Me and Chink was friends before I even knew Johnny, and I don't see why I can't say hello to him if I want to. Johnny don't take no trouble to ignore his old flames, and Chink never was even that."
"Child, you're not trying to tell all that rumpus come just from you saying hello to Chink."
"You don't have to believe it unless you want to. Me and Val and Johnny was sitting at a ringside table when Chink came by and said, 'Hello, honey, how's the vein holding out?' I laughed. Everybody in Harlem knows that Chink calls Johnny my gold vein, and if Johnny had any sense he'd just laugh, too. But instead of that he jumped up before anybody knew what was happening and pulled his frog-sticker and began shouting about how he was going to teach the mother-raper some respect. So naturally Chink drew his own knife. If it hadn't been for Val and Joe Turner and Big Caesar keeping them apart Johnny would have started chivving on him right there. Didn't nothing really happen though 'cepting they knocked over some tables and chairs. What made it seem like such a big rumpus was some of those hysterical chicks began screaming and carrying on, trying to impress their niggers that they was scared of a little cutting."
She giggled suddenly. Mamie gave a start.
"It ain't nothing to laugh about," Mamie said sternly.
Dulcy's face fell. "I ain't laughing," she said. "I'm scared. Johnny's going to kill him."
Mamie went rigid. Moments passed before she spoke. Her voice was hushed from fear.
"Did he tell you that?"
"He ain't had to. But I know it. I can feel it."
Mamie stood up and put her arm about Dulcy. Both of them were trembling.
"We got to stop him somehow, child."
Dulcy twisted about to face the mirror again, as though seeking courage from her looks. She opened her pink straw handbag and began repairing her make-up. Her hand trembled as she painted her mouth.
"I don't know how to stop him," she said when she'd finished. "Without my dropping dead."
Mamie took her arm from about Dulcy's waist and wrung her hands involuntarily.
"Lord, I wish Val would hurry up and get here."
Dulcy glanced at her wrist watch.
"It's already four-twenty-five. Johnny ought to be here now himself." After a moment she added, "I don't know what's keeping Val."


3

Some one began hammering loudly on the door.
The sound was scarcely heard above the din inside the room.
"_Open the door!_" a voice screamed.
It was so loud that even Dulcy and Mamie heard it through the locked bathroom door.
"Wonder who that can be," Mamie said.
"It sure ain't neither Johnny or Val making all that fuss," Dulcy replied.
"Probably some drunk."
One of the drunks already on the inside said in a minstrel man's voice, "Open de do', Richard."
That was the title of a popular song in Harlem that had originated with two blackface comedians on the Apollo theatre stage doing a skit about a colored brother coming home drunk and trying to get Richard to let him into the house.
The other drunks on the inside laughed.
Alamena had just stepped into the kitchen. "See who's at the door," she said to Baby Sis.