Right as Rain

The brother was back in the main room, heading toward the hole he'd come through, pigeons fluttering above his head. Walking slow but not as slow as before, Tonio Morris thinking, he didn't find nothin', and now he's fixin' to get out quick.

'Psst,' said Tonio, his face half out of the shadows of his room. 'Got what you're lookin' for, brother.'

The man slowed his pace but he didn't stop or turn his head.

'Got information for you, man.' Tonio wiggled his index finger, keeping his voice low. 'Come on over here and get it, brother. Ain't go

Strange turned and regarded a sick little man standing in the open doorway of a black room. The man wore a filthy gray sweatshirt, and his trousers were held up loosely with a length of rope. His shoes were split completely, separated from the uppers at the soles.

Strange walked toward the man, stopping beside a large puddle by an I beam six feet from the doorway. The I beam blocked the sight line of the young man standing by the stairs. Strange stared at the ski

'What do you want?' said Strange, keeping his voice low.

'What I want? To get high. Higher than a motherfucker, man, but I need money for that. You got any money?'

Strange didn't answer.

'Suck your dick for ten dollars,' said Morris. 'Shit, I'll suck that motherfucker good for five.'

Strange turned his head and looked back toward the hole in the wall.

'Hold up, man,' said Morris. 'The name is Tonio.'

'I ask you your name?'

'You lookin' for somethin', right? Something or someone, ain't that right. Any fool can see you ain't one of us. You tryin', but you ain't. You can dirty yourself all you want, but you still got your body and you still got your eyes. So what you lookin' for, brother. Huh?'

Strange shifted his posture. Water dripped from an opening in the ceiling and dimpled the puddle pooled beside his right foot.

'White boy come in here yesterday afternoon,' said Strange. 'Don't imagine you get too many of those.'

'Not too many.'

'Ski

'I know him. I seen him, man; I see everything. You got money for Tonio, man?'

'This white boy, what's he doin' in here? Is he slammin' it upstairs?'

'The white boy ain't no fiend.'

'What, then? What kind of business he got with Coleman?'

'Do I look crazy to you? I ain't know a motherfuckin' thing about no Coleman, and if I did, I still don't know a thing.'

Strange pulled folded twenties from his wallet. He peeled one off, crumpled it in a ball, and tossed it to the floor at Morris's feet. Morris picked the bill up quickly and jammed it in the pocket of his trousers.

'What was the white boy doin' in here?' said Strange.

'Lookin' for a girl,' said Morris. 'A friend of mine. Old friend to him, too.'

Strange's blood ticked. 'A girl?'

'Girl named Sondra,' said Morris.

'This girl got a last name?' said Strange, his voice hoarse and odd to his own ears.

'She got one. I don't know it.'

'This her right here?'

Strange pulled the photograph of Sondra Wilson from his corduroy jacket, held it up for Morris to see. Morris nodded, his mouth twitching involuntarily. Strange slipped the picture back into his pocket.

'He find her?' asked Strange.

'Huh?'

'Is she here?'

Morris licked his dry lips and pointed his chin at the bankroll in Strange's hand. Strange crumpled another twenty and dropped it on the floor.

Morris smiled. His teeth were black stubs, raisins stuck loosely in rotted gums. 'What'sa matter, brother? You don't want to touch my hands?'

'Where is she?'

'Sondra gone, man.'

'Where is she?' repeated Strange.

'Two white men took her out of here, not too long ago. Little crosseyed motherfucker and an old man. I don't know 'em. I don't know their names. And I don't know where they went.'

Strange didn't speak. He balled and unballed one fist.

'They're comin' back,' said Morris playfully.

'How you know that?'

'Word gets out in here… The ones across the street, that one by the stairs… they know when we be gettin' too hungry. They tell us when we're about to be fed. And we are about to be fed. Those white men are bringin' it in.'

'When?'

'Tomorrow. Leastways, that's what I hear.'

Strange reached into his breast pocket and withdrew one more folded twenty. Morris held his hand out, but Strange did not fill it.

'What do you know about the girl?'

'The white boy, he used to bring her with him when he made his visits. He'd take her with him to that place across the street. One day he left her in there. She was across the street for a few weeks, comin' and goin' in those pretty-ass cars. A month, maybe, like that. Then she made her way over here. She kept her own stall up there on the second floor. But she never did make it back across the street.'

'You know what time those two white men are coming back tomorrow?'

'No,' said Morris, looking sadly at the twenty, still in Strange's possession.

Strange placed the bill in Morris's outstretched hand. 'You see me around here again, you don't know me, 'less I tell you that you know me. Understand?'

'Know who?'

Strange nodded. Most likely he'd just given that junkie more money than he'd seen at one time in the last few years.

Strange turned and shuffled off toward the hole from which he'd entered. There was a racing in his veins, and he could feel the beat of his own heart. It was difficult for him to move so slowly. But he managed, and soon he was out in the light.

25

Strange woke from a nap in the early evening. His bedroom was dark, and he flicked on a light. Greco, lying on a throw-rug at the foot of the bed, lifted his head from his paws and slowly wagged his tail.

'Hungry, buddy?' said Strange. 'All right, then. Let this old man get on up out of this bed.'

After Strange fed Greco, he listened to the soundtrack of A Pistol for Ringo as he sat at his desk and went through the matchbooks spilled across it: Sea D.C., the Purple Cactus, the Jefferson Street Lounge, the Bank Vault on 9th, the Shaw Lounge on U, Ki

Strange reached for the phone on the desk and called the Purple Cactus. He got the information he needed and racked the receiver. Strange rubbed his face and then his eyes.

He stripped himself out of his clothes. He took a shower and changed into a black turtleneck and slacks, then phoned the woman named Helen. Helen was busy that night and on the upcoming weekend. He called another woman he knew, but this woman did not pick up her phone.

Strange got into his black leather, slipped a few items into its pockets, patted Greco on the head, and left his house. He drove his Cadillac downtown, listening to Live It Up all the way, repeating 'Hello It's Me,' because he really liked the Isleys' arrangement of that song. He parked on 14th at H, walked to the K Street intersection, and entered Sea D.C.

The dining room and the dining balcony were full, and the patrons were three deep at the elevated bar. Many were smoking cigarettes and cigars. A narrow-shouldered manager with a tiny mustache was trying to get a group of men, all of them smoking, to step closer in toward the bar. His emotional, exasperated, high-pitched voice was making the men laugh. A television mounted above the call racks was set on the stock market report, and some of the fellows at the bar were staring up at the ticker symbols and figures traveling right to left across the screen as they sipped their drinks.