Borrow Trouble (29 page)

Within the hour, all signs of a struggle and the subsequent murder had vanished. Uncle Chunk's was open for business, Henry was off to dinner with Estelle, and Baltimore headed on about his way, thinking about Franchetta's and hoping that she'd had better luck with Daisy than he'd had with Tipton.

B
altimore had already made up his mind to leave town first thing in the morning when he returned to the hotel room he shared with Macy. Tipton's mistake of showing up to Uncle Chunk's, barking like he was going to take on the world, had Baltimore sitting on the edge of that pull-down bed, wondering how the idiot could have been so dumb in the way he went about it. Tipton should have realized that a man with friends had the decided edge before he set foot inside the dimly lit barroom. Unfortunately, he only got the one chance to be so stupid.

It wasn't long before the hot water in the shower ran out, so Baltimore shut it off and snatched a clean towel from the metal rack in the bathroom. While shaving, he stared at his reflection in the dirty mirror and smiled. It was hard not to with nearly eighty-one hundred dollars safely hidden in a coffee can, placed inside the hole he'd cut into the floor of his closet. If he took his time spending it, there just might be a dollar or two left when the spring baseball season started three months later, Baltimore thought to himself. Then he began to chuckle because he knew better than that. He stood more of a chance becoming the governor than holding on to that kinda of money. “Yeah, I'ma get me a brand new coupe, wide whitewall tires, and a stereo to beat the band,” he said aloud. “Hell, maybe I'll buy me two,” he snickered, “one to drive slow and the other for going real fast.”

His spirits couldn't have been riding any higher. As far as he could recollect, there were no other jealous husbands after him, and the colored policemen's association was in an uproar behind some rogue white cop getting killed while trying to stop a robbery. That's how the established newspapers spun the story, anyway, and the whole community was talking about. The papers were investigating Negro officers because of the outfits the bandits wore. It was sheer genius to have everyone looking for dirty colored cops who didn't exist. There had been an article written that identified the slain gunman as a career criminal by the name of Louis Strong, originally from Springfield, Missouri, but the other details were sketchy. Sketchy was just fine with Baltimore. He couldn't have been luckier, although he was prepared to take all of the credit for the way it turned out. As far as he was concerned, the only thing standing between him and Henry getting on down the road was the night of fun and frolicking he'd planned to reward himself with.

Once he'd gotten dressed in that dark pin-striped suit and shiny gold-toned shirt, with a matching necktie and pocket kerchief, that Rascal had made him a great deal on, Baltimore hailed a cab and set out to pick up all four of his dates.

Franchetta was patting on a smidge of light-colored foundation in front of her vanity mirror when someone rapped on the front door. “Melvina, Chick!” she yelled. “Somebody's knocking!”

Chick sipped brandy from a cocktail glass as she made her way out of the kitchen, wearing an enchanting off-the-shoulder number, powder blue down past her knees. “I'm seeing to it now!” she replied at full volume. “You could've gotten it yourself, you know. Other folks got things they want to take their time doing, too,” Chick muttered under her breath as she moved the window curtain aside with the back of her hand. “Like this here, for instance,” she cooed quietly after discovering it was Baltimore at the door.

Melvina came down the stairs in a red sleeveless dress, formfitting but tastefully designed. “Is that him?” she asked while clipping on a set of dazzling fake ruby earrings to complete her ensemble.

Shortly after opening the door, Chick blushed at the way Baltimore leered at her approvingly. “Uhhh-huh, it's him alright,” she answered seductively. “It's him, straight up and down.”

“Wow, Chick, get a load of you,” Baltimore complimented.

Melvina stepped beside her roomie to see what had softened her around the edges. When her eyes locked on his, her jaw dropped, too. “Yeah, it's him,” she mumbled, as if he hadn't been consistently handsome the other times she'd seen him.

Baltimore winked, reading her mind. “Hot damn, Melvina. You look good enough to dream about, but I can't take you glowing at me that way. It might give me the wrong idea.”

“That'll do Melvina fine because she ain't got nothing but wrong on her mind,” Franchetta presumed correctly as she zipped Melvina's dress up in the back. “Somebody needs to go on and invite the man inside so we can flirt with him some more.”

Chick grinned and took Baltimore by the hand. “By all means then, do come in.”

“If I didn't know better, I'd think you girls were up to something,” he said, making an assessment of the unusual attention being heaped on him.

“You'd better watch yourself, slick. They went out and bought up damn near all the peanut butter in town,” Franchetta teased. “Now I see why. You do clean up nicely.”

“I can't say enough about you ladies. And, Franchetta, I swear 'fore God that Lena Horne can't hold a candle to you in that gown,” Baltimore added, praising Franchetta's movie-star appearance in the black embroidered dress, with spaghetti straps and beaded detail, designed in an attractive beige pattern.

Narrowing his eyes, Baltimore glanced up at the ceiling. “Hold up. Somebody's missing. Where's Li'l Miss Daisy Mae?”

Chick went back to sipping from her glass when she decided to let Franchetta tackle that one. Melvina sat on the divan, adjusting the small rectangular buckles on her sling-back pumps. A hush fell over the living room until Franchetta picked up on the others' reluctance to speak on the subject. “Well, Baltimore, a young girl like Daisy is still impressionable at times. She was a tinge mixed up about matters of the heart, so we, I convinced her that she needed some time to herself, you know, to clear her head,” she asserted, with an evil eye, daring the other ladies to utter a single word. “These two chickadees, who're wise to dummy up now,” Franchetta said flatly, “well, they didn't necessarily agree about me sending Daisy to the hairdresser for some private pampering while the rest of us got all gussied up to step out and howl.”

Chick smacked her lips in objection. “I only meant that Daisy could start getting her head right tomorrow morning, is all, after she's had the chance to spin her wheels.”

“What do you know from spinning wheels? The last time you had your hair let down, your mama was pressing it over a hot kitchen stove,” snapped Franchetta.

“At least I know my mama,” Chick fired back.

“Frannie knows her mama, too,” Melvina chimed in. “It's her papa, she ain't too clear on.”

Seeing where their friendly sniping session was headed, Baltimore played the diplomat, quickly reining it in before it got out of hand. “Whoa, whoa, maybe we ought to get a jump on the chow line. They don't like holding reservations past the sitting time. Anyhow, Roscoe ‘Gatemouth' McSwain is in town from Texas with his boys. That's guaranteed to pack the house.” After his cordial effort at maintaining order, a slight calm came over the room. Melvina smiled like she had something else to say but didn't. However, Franchetta did, on the sly.

“Yo' daddy is only the man yo' mama claims to be the papa,” she said, sneering behind Chick's back. “I heard tell, you favor the milkman.”

“Heffa!” Chick yelled, pointing her finger so there'd be no misunderstanding who she was insulting.

“Nag!” Franchetta spat back.

“Heyyy-hey!” Baltimore intervened. “I'm not putting up with this all night. Either y'all can stay here and act a trifling mess or come on out with me to the jazziest spot in all of Kaycee. Me for one, I'm hungry, and I got the car waiting outside for anybody else who wants to ball on champagne and chitlins.”

“Let me get my bag then,” Melvina squealed with delight. “I ain't had no Southern cooking in a good while.”

“You can have all the slave food you want. I'll dine on some of them steaks I've been hearing about,” Chick said, wrestling on her overcoat. Prepared to hit the door, she found Franchetta hovering over the perfume collection in her bedroom. “Well, you heard 'em. We's going out to feast on slave vittles, so is you coming or is you ain't?” she queried playfully.

“Since you put it like that, I is,” Franchetta cackled. “Let me get my coat.”

Long after Franchetta had gotten her coat and joined the party inside of a warm taxi, she enjoyed the way people at the extravagant Reno Nights club fussed over them while escorting the entourage past the long line waiting to be let in and all the way up to a ringside table next to the bandstand. Franchetta couldn't help but feel a little distracted about dissuading Daisy from joining them, although it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The girls were right about working on Daisy's bright ideas concerning love at a later date. The empty seat, between Chick's and Melvina's, should have been filled with their youngest protégé. By morning Baltimore would be glad it wasn't.

The evening was electric. Dinner was served as the house band played soft and sultry tunes to serenade the jam-packed dinner club. Couples mingled at tables built for two, and larger parties, like Baltimore's, passed stories among themselves as candlelit centerpieces overheard each one of them. It was a night of wine, women, and song. Baltimore glanced at the doorway every so often, expecting Henry to shake that new chippie of his and hang out with people who really gave two cents about his well-being. By the time the real entertainment was introduced to the audience, all hopes of Henry's late arrival seemed wasteful, so Baltimore sat back, watched the girls enjoying themselves, and tried to talk himself into doing likewise.

A slick-dressed announcer grabbed the spotlight and the microphone. He straightened his black tuxedo jacket and belted out his welcome. “Good evening, ladies and gents. We always like to start the festivities out by thanking you for dining with us and sharing in a good time here at Reno Nights, the jewel of Kansas City, Missurah. Now put your hands together for a true country boy making out nice in the big cities of our great land. All the way from Dallas to jurn us, please welcome Mistah Roscoe ‘Gatemouth' McSwain.” To thunderous applause, a middle-aged man attired in a purple crushed-velvet dinner jacket and black slacks, with a strip of purple running down the side of each pant leg, stood up from the piano without interrupting the arrangement going on between his fingers and the piano keys.

When the light brown musician smiled, his teeth seemed to be spread out an inch apart. Chick grinned brightly, thinking how his nickname served him right. Baltimore wondered if the famous entertainer remembered meeting him one blistering summer in Texas.

“I used to know that cool cat,” he told Franchetta. She didn't dare doubt his words, but Chick was the wiser.

“Go on, Baltimore,” Chick said, with a hint of uncertainty in her voice. “You've been around, I'll grant you that, but I think you're shining us.” Before Baltimore could plead his case, the piano player that people stood out in the cold to see fell into a slow, rhythmic tune that hushed the crowd.

“Looks like there'll be a hot time in the old town tonight,” said Gatemouth, with his patented buttery-smooth pitch. “I just got here on the five o'clock train, but I'm feeling mighty at home. I've been told there's some of Kaycee's very own Negro League champi'ns done made it in to join us. Let's give a hand for Satchel Paige and Ernie Banks, my homeboy from the Lone Star State. Congratulations, Monarchs.” Applause rang out as two of the men from the table next to Baltimore's stood and waved. “Now, before I go any further, Im'a do something I haven't been blessed to do in a very long time, and that's saying hello to the youngest old soul I ever met. He probably don't recall the day he saved my life when a snaggletoothed rattlesnake jumped up and bit me while I was helping myself in another man's watermelon patch. I'm forever beholding to him…'cause he sucked the poison out when he could have left me for dead. Now I won't tell you where that old snake nipped me, though. It might embarrass the fella I'm about to introduce. Oh yeah, there's one other thing that bonds us together. Listen up 'cause it's a testimony. Now, I haven't shared what I know about
him
and my brother's wife, and that makes him lucky.”

That loaded statement caused laughter to fill the air as he continued. “But, he does know about
me
and my brother's wife, kept it quiet, too, and that makes him my friend.” Franchetta looked at her man, fidgeting uncomfortably with his hands. She shook her head at the improvability of it all as the music played on. “He's a man up to his old tricks and, by the looks of it, some new ones, too,” Gatemouth said compassionately. “Please show your love for Mistah Baltimore Floyd, ladies and gentlemen.”

Melvina's eyes widened as she turned toward Baltimore to express her surprise. Chick puckered her lips, wishing she could have taken back what she'd said earlier about not believing him. “Well, you gonna stand up and let these people get a look at you or not?” Chick prodded gleefully. Baltimore didn't mind being acknowledged among great Negro ballplayers, but that was as far as he wanted it to go. Gatemouth, he had other ideas altogether.

“Baltimore, come on up and help me out with this. I need me a cigarette. You know I don't like to stop once I get started.”

“Go 'head on, Daddy,” Franchetta insisted when it appeared Baltimore wouldn't budge. “You can't let that man down. He's famous.”

The audience cheered as Baltimore approached the stage. He took a subtle bow, and then he took a seat at the piano, next to Gatemouth, who quickly stood up and pointed to his behind, signaling exactly where the snake had dug in. “Sorry, Baltimore, but they wanted to know,” he apologized halfheartedly. In turn, Baltimore played along, wiping both lips on the sleeve of his suit coat, as if he were still trying to get the taste out of his mouth. “Guess I should've washed it first,” Gatemouth jested before hugging Baltimore with his free hand. “Now he's goin' to play for you nice people while I have myself a drag.” The older man slid off the piano stool before his accompaniment was ready. Baltimore's first note fell flat, so he grimaced while Gatemouth poked fun at him. After he'd found his key, Baltimore sat in on two duets at the entertainer's behest. By the end of the night, Baltimore had considerably more admirers than the three he'd brought with him.