When it rain five days an' de skies turned dark as night When it rain five days an' de skies turned dark as night Then trouble taken place in the lowland that night

"Don't you even know why he locked you up?" Mantle asked.

Dulcy reach over and turned the player down.

"Now, what'd you say?" she asked.

"Johnny had you padlocked in this room," Mantle said. "He phoned me from Chicago to come over and let you out. That's how come I knew he was in Chicago."

"That ain't nothing strange for him," Dulcy said. "He's chained me to the bed."

Mantle began to sob quietly to herself. "Child, what's happening?" she asked. "What happened here last night to send him off like that?"

"Ain't nothing happened no more than usual," Dulcy said sullenly. Then after a moment she added, "You know that knife?"

"Knife? What knife?" Mantle looked blank.

"The knife what killed Val," Dulcy whispered. Thunder rolled and Mantle gave a start. Rain slashed at the windows.

"c.h.i.n.k Charlie gave me a knife just like it," Dulcy said.

Mamie held her breath while Dulcy told her about the two knives, one of which c.h.i.n.k had given to her and the other he'd kept for himself. Then she sighed so profoundly with relief it sounded as though she were moaning again.

"Thank G.o.d then we know it was c.h.i.n.k who done it," she said.

"That's what I've been saying all along," Dulcy said. "But ain't n.o.body wanted to listen to me."

"But you can prove it, child," Mantle said. "All you got to do is show the police your knife and then they'll know it was his that killed him."

"But I ain't got mine no more," Dulcy said. "That's what I'm so scared of. I always kept it hidden in my lingerie drawer and then about two weeks ago it come up missing. And I been scared to ask anybody about it."

Mantle's complexion turned a strange ashy gray, and her face shrank until the skin was stretched tight against the bones. Her eyes looked sick and haggard.

"It just don't have to be Johnny what took it, does it?" she asked piteously.

"No, it don't have to be for sure," Dulcy said. "But there ain't n.o.body else who could have took it but Alamena. I don't know why she'd have taken it unless just to keep Johnny from finding it. Or else to have something to hold over me."

"You has a woman to come in here to clean," Mamie said.

"Yes, she could have taken it too," Dulcy admitted.

"It don't sound like Meeny," Mantle said. "So it must have been her. You tell me who she is, child, and if she took it I'll get it out of her."

They looked at ont another through frightened, whitecircled eyes.

"We just kidding ourselves, Aunt Mantle," Dulcy said. "Ain't n.o.body took that knife but Johnny."

Mantle looked at her and the tears rolled down her old ashy-black cheeks.

"Child, did Johnny know any reason to kill Val?" she asked.

"What reason could he have had?" Dulcy countered.

"I didn't ask what reason he could have had," Mantle said. "I asked what reason he might have known about."

Dulcy slid down into the bed until only her eyes were showing above the covers, but still she couldn't meet Mantle's gaze. She looked away.

"He didn't know of none," she said. "He liked Val."

"Tell me truth, child," Mantle insisted.

"If he did," Dulcy whispered. "He didn't learn it from me."

The record played out and Dulcy started it over again.

"Did you ask Johnny to give you ten thousand dollars to get rid of Val?" Mantle asked.

"Jesus Christ no!" Dulcy flared. "That wh.o.r.e's just lying about that!"

"You're not holding anything back on me, are you, child?" Mantle asked.

"I might ask you the same thing," Dulcy said.

"About what, child?"

"How could Johnny have found out, if he did find' out, if you didn't tell him?"

"I didn't tell him," Mantle said. "And I know Big Joe didn't tell him because he'd just found out himself and he up and died before he had a chance to tell anybody."

"Somebody must have told him," Dulcy said.

"Then maybe it was c.h.i.n.k," Mamie said.

"It wasn't c.h.i.n.k 'cause he don't know," Dulcy said. "All c.h.i.n.k knows about is the knife and he's trying to blackmail me for tengrand. He claims if I don't get it for him he's going to tell Johnny." Dulcy began laughing hysterically. "As if that'd make any difference if Johnny knows about the other."

"Stop that laughing," Mantle said sharply and reached over and slapped her.

"Johnny will kill him," she added.

"I wish Johnny would," Dulcy said viciously. "If he don't really know about the other then that would settle everything."

"There must be some other way," Mamie said. "If the Lord will just show us the light. You can't just settle everything by killing people."

"If he just doesn't already know," Dulcy said.

The recording played out and she put it on again.

"For G.o.d's sake, child, can't you play something else," Mantle said. "That tune gives me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s."

"I like it," Dulcy said. "It's just as blue as I feel."

They listened to the wailing voice and the intermittent sound of thunder from without.

The afternoon wore on. Dulcy kept on drinking, and the level of the bottle went down and down. Mamie dipped snuff. Every now and then one of them would speak and the other would answer listlessly.

No one telephoned. No one called.

Dulcy played the one recording over and over and over.

Bessie Smith sang:

Backwater blues done cause me to pack mah things an' go Backwater blues done cause me to pack mah things an' go Cause mah house jell down an' I Cain' live there no mo'

"Jesus Christ, I wish he'd come on home and kill me and get it over with if that's what he wants to do!" Dulcy cried.

The front door was unlocked and Johnny came into the flat. He walked into the bedroom wearing the same green silk suit and rose crepe shirt he'd worn to the club the night before, but now it was wrinkled and soiled. His .38 caliber automatic pistol made a lump in his right coatpocket. His hands were empty. His eyes burned like live coals but looked tired, and the veins stood out like roots from his graying temples. The scar on his forehead was swollen but still. He needed a shave, and the gray hairs in his beard glistened whitely against his dark skin. His face was expressionless.

He grunted as his eyes took in the scene, but he didn't speak. The two women watched him with fear-stricken eyes, unmoving, as he crossed the room and turned off the record player, then parted the drapes and raised the window. The storm had stopped, and the afternoon sun was reflected from the windows across the airwell.

Finally he came around the bed, kissed Mantle on the forehead and said, "Thanks, Aunt Mantle, you can go home now." His voice was expressionless.

Mantle didn't move. Her old, bluish-tinted eyes remained terror-stricken as they searched his face, but it revealed nothing.

"No," she said. "Let's talk it over now, while I'm here."

"Talk what over?" he said.

She stared at him.

Dulcy said defiantly, "Ain't you going to kiss me?"

Johnny looked at her as though studying her under a microscope. "Let's wait until you get sober," he said in his toneless voice.

"Don't do nothing, Johnny, I beg you on bending knees," Mantle said.

"Do what?" Johnny said, without taking his gaze from Dulcy.

"For G.o.d's sake, don't look at me as though I crucified Christ," Dulcy whimpered. "Go ahead and do whatever you want to do, just quit looking at me."

"I don't want you to say I took advantage of you while you were drunk," he said. "Let's wait until you get sober."

"Son, listen to me--" Mantle began, but Johnny cut her off. "All I want to do is sleep," he said. "How long do you think I can go without sleeping?"

He took the pistol from his pocket, put it beneath his pillow and began stripping off his clothes before Mamie had got up from the chair.

"Leave these in the kitchen as you go out," he said, giving her the near-empty brandy bottle and gla.s.s.

She took them away without further comment. He piled his clothes on the chair she'd vacated. His heavy brown muscles were tattoed with scars. When he'd stripped naked he set the radio alarm fQr ten o'clock, rolled Dulcy over and got into bed beside her. She tried to caress him but he pushed her away.

"There's ten G's in C-notes in my inside coat pocket," he said. "If that's what you want, just don't be here when I wake up."

He was asleep before Mantle left the house.

19.

When c.h.i.n.k entered the flat where he roomed, the telephone was ringing. He was grimy with dirt, unshaven, and his beige summer suit showed that he'd slept in it. His yellow skin looked like a greasy paste lined with wrinkles where the witches had ridden him in his sleep. There were big black half moons beneath his beaten muddy eyes.

His lawyer had taken all the money he'd gotten from Dulcy to get him out on bail again. He felt like a whipped cur, chagrined, deflated and humiliated. Now that he was out, he wasn't sure whether it wouldn't have been better for him to have stayed in jail. If the cops hadn't picked up Johnny he'd have to keep on the run, but no matter how much he ran there was no place in Harlem where he could hide. Everybody would be against him when they found out he'd turned rat.

"It's for you, c.h.i.n.k," the landlady called to him.

He went into the bedroom where she kept her telephone, with a padlock on the dial.

"h.e.l.lo," he said in a mean voice and gave his landlady a mean look for lingering in the room.

She went out and closed the door.

"It's me, Dulcy," the voice from the telephone said.

"Oh!" he said and his hands began to shake.

"I've got the money," she said.

"What!" He looked as though someone had stuck a gun in his belly and asked him if he wanted to bet it wasn't loaded. "Ain't he been arrested?" he asked involuntarily before he could catch himself.

"Arrested?" Her voice sounded suddenly suspicious. "Why the h.e.l.l should he be arrested? Unless you've ratted about the knife."

"You know d.a.m.n well I ain't ratted," he declared. "You think I'm going to blow away ten grand?" Thinking fast, he added, "It's just I ain't seen him around all day."

"He's gone to Chicago to check up on me and Val," she said.

"Then how'd you get the ten grand?" he wanted to know.