Read Online Blind Man With a Pistol by Chester Himes - Free Book Online Page B

smiled amiably but didn't speak. The doorman kept an empty elevator waiting for him. He rode it to the third floor, where he dismissed his bodyguards and took his clerics inside.
          The entrance hall was sumptuously furnished. A wall-to-wall carpet of a dark purple color covered the floor. On one side was a coat-rack with a full-length mirror attached and beside it an umbrella stand. On the other side a long low table for hats, with twin shaded lamps at each end, flanked by straight-backed chairs of some dark exotic wood with overstuffed needlepoint seats. But Doctor Moore did not linger there. After a brief glance into the mirror he turned right into the salon along the front of the building with two wide windows, followed by his clerics. Except for translucent curtains and purple silk drapes behind white venetian blinds, the salon was as bare as Mother Hubbard's Cupboard. But Doctor Moore kept on through to the dining-room with his clerics at his heels. It was equally bare as the salon with similar blinds and curtains. But Doctor Moore did not hesitate, nor did his clerics expect him to hesitate. Into the kitchen they marched in single file. Not a word had been spoken. And as yet still without speech, his clerics shed their coats and clerical collars and donned white cotton jackets and cooks' caps while Doctor Moore peered into the refrigerator.
          "They're some neckbones here," Doctor Moore said."Make some neckbones and rice and you'll find some yellow yams somewhere and maybe there's some of those collards left."
          "What about some corn bread, Al ?" one of the cook-clerics said.
          "All right then, some corn bread, if there's any butter."
          "There's some margarine."
          Doctor Moore gave a grimace of distaste. "Tap the trunk," he said "A man's got to eat."
          He went quickly back into the hall and opened the door to the first bedroom. It was empty except for an unmade double bed and an unpainted wardrobe.
          "Lucy!" he called.
          A woman stuck her head out of the bath. It was the head of a young woman with a smooth brownskinned face and straightened black hair pulled aslant her forehead over her right ear. It was a beautiful face with a wide straight nose and unflared nostrils above a wide, thick, unpainted mouth with brown lips that looked soft and resilient. Brown eyes magnified by rimless spectacles gave her a sexy look.
          "Lucy's out; it's me," she said.
          "You? Barbara! Somebody with you?"his voice came out in a whisper.
          "Shit, naw, do you think I'd bring 'em here?" she said in a softly modulated voice which jarred shockingly with the words.
          "Well, what the fuck are you doing here?" he said in a loud coarse voice that made him sound like another man altogether. "I sent you to work the cocktail party at the Americana."
          She came into the room with the waft of woman smell. Her voluptuous brown body was covered loosely by a pink silk robe which showed a line of brown belly and a black growth of pubic hair.
          "I was there," she said defensively. "There was too much competition from the high-society amateurs. All those hincty bitches fell on those whitey-babies like they was sugar candy."
          Doctor Moore frowned angrily. "So what? Can't you outproject those amateurs? You're a pro."
          "Are you kidding? Against all those free matrons? You ever see Madame Thomasina with a hot on for whitey?"
          "Listen, whore, that's your problem. I don't pay to send you to these cocktail parties to let these high-society bitches beat you at the game. I expect you to score. How you do it is your business. If you can't collar a whitey John with them all about, I'll get myself another whore."
          She went up to him so he could smell her and feel the woman coming from her body. "Don't talk to me like that, Al baby. Ain't I been good all along? It's just these