yours, Mac?â
âItâs okay.â
âMushâll be here any minute,â Hardman said. âHeâll take you down to the hotel.â
âWhere am I staying?â Padillo asked.
âAt your suite in the Mayflower.â
âMy suite?â
âI booked it in your name and itâs paid for monthly out of your share of the profits. Itâs smallâbut quietly elegant. You can take it off your income tax if you ever get around to filing it.â
âHowâs Fredl?â
âWe got married.â
âYouâre lucky.â
Hardman looked at his watch. âMushâll be here any minute,â he said again.
âThanks for all your helpâyours and Bettyâs,â Padillo said.
Hardman waved a big hand. âYou saved us having a big razzoo in Baltimore. What you mess in that for?â
Padillo shook his head slowly. âI didnât see your friend. I just turned a corner and there they were. I thought they were after me. Whichever one had the knife knew how to use it.â
âYou off that boat?â Hardman said.
âWhich one?â
âThe Frances Jane .â
âI was a passenger.â
âDidnât run across a little old Englishman, name of Landeed, about fifty or fifty-five, with crossed eyes?â
âI remember him.â
âHe get off the boat?â
âNot in Baltimore,â Padillo said. âHis appendix burst four days out of Monrovia. They stored him away in the shipâs freezer.â
Hardman frowned and swore. He put heart into it. The chimes rang and Betty went to open the door and admitted a tall Negro dressed in a crow-black suit, white shirt, and dark maroon tie. He wore sunglasses at two-thirty in the morning.
âHello, Mush,â I said.
He nodded at me and the nod took in Betty and Hardman. He crossed over to Padillo. âHow you feeling?â His voice was precise and soft.
âFine,â Padillo said.
âThis is Mustapha Ali,â Hardman told Padillo. âHeâs the cat that brought you down from Baltimore. Heâs a Black Muslim, but you can call him Mush. Everybody else does.â
Padillo looked at Mush. âAre you really a Muslim?â
âI am,â the man said gravely.
Padillo said something in Arabic. Mush looked surprised, but responded quickly in the same language. He seemed pleased.
âWhat you talkin, Mush?â Hardman asked.
âArabic.â
âWhere you learn Arabic?â
âRecords, man, records. Iâll need it when I get to Mecca.â
âYou the goddamndest cat I ever seen,â Hardman said.
âWhereâd you learn Arabic?â Mush asked Padillo.
âFrom a friend.â
âYou speak it real good.â
âIâve had some practice lately.â
âWeâd better get you to the hotel,â I told Padillo. He nodded and stood up slowly.
âThanks very much for all your help,â he said to Betty. She said it was nothing and Hardman said he would see me tomorrow at lunch. I nodded, thanked Betty, and followed Padillo out to Mushâs car. It was a new Buick, a big one, and had a telephone in the front and a five-inch Sony television in the back.
âI want to stop by my place on the way to the hotel,â I said to Mush. âIt wonât take long.â
He nodded and we drove in silence. Padillo stared out the window. âWashingtonâs changed,â he said once. âWhat happened to the streetcars?â
âTook âem off in âsixty-one,â Mush said.
Fredl and I lived in one of those new brick and glass apartments that have blossomed just south of Dupont Circle in a neighborhood that once was made up of three- and four-story rooming houses that catered to students, waiters, car washers, pensioners, and professional tire changers. Speculators tore down the rooming houses, covered the ground with asphalt, and called them parking lots for a
Catherine Cooper, RON, COOPER
Black Treacle Publications