Black Betty by Walter Mosley Page B

Betty. This wasn’t the first time I had braved troubles for her.
     
     
    AFTER THAT KISS she gave me on the street I was always dogging her. I’d wait out in front of the flophouse Marlon lived in, because you never knew where Betty might be sleeping but Marlon almost always made it back home to his bed. Betty would show up at Marlon’s around sunset and sit out in the hall on the first floor drinking and laughing with the men who lived there. It was summer and she always wore loose blouses so that she could fan her bosom more easily.
    I hung around the front steps with the dogs and their fleas waiting to follow her wherever she went. I knew that she saw me but she hardly ever showed it, until one day, when she and Marlon were going down LeRoy Street. They stopped in front of a barber shop and then they both went in. I loitered around half the way down the street throwing stones into a muddy puddle and waiting to see where we’d go next.
    “Hey, boy!”
    My heart jumped so hard that it actually hurt.
    “Yes, ma’am?” I shouted.
    “Shh! Don’t be shoutin’.”
    I ran up to her prepared to tell her that she was the prettiest woman that I’d ever seen.
    “You know where Duncan’s place is?” she asked.
    “Yes, ma’am,” I said, again too loud.
    “Hush, boy! I ain’t deaf. I want you to go over there and find Adray Ply and tell him that Betty could see him at twelve if he come over to Paulette’s. You got that?”
    I nodded because I didn’t trust my voice.
    “Okay then,” Betty said. “You tell him that I said that he should give you a nickel.”
    Duncan’s place was an old blacksmith’s barn that went bust. I don’t think that Duncan owned it or even paid rent; he just made a gin joint there because there was no one to tell him no.
    It was an unsavory place. There were few chairs in Duncan’s. The men either stood around or they sat on the floor and leaned up against the wall. Only men went in there, and all they did was drink. The smell was so sour and the language was so coarse in there that I started shaking the minute I walked through the open doors. There were men all around talking and vomiting and drinking. Two men were flailing away at a third man with their fists, and I tripped over a man who was either sleeping or dead in the middle of the floor.
    “What you want here, boy?”
Duncan, the one-eyed barman, hollered. His left eye had been gouged in a fight early in his evil life. The lids were sucked into the socket around a tiny black hole. The skin around that eye was badly scarred, but he never wore a patch because that hideous wound and his brusque manner were enough to dissuade many a tough customer.
    “M-m-m-m-mister, M-m-m-mister Adray Ply,” I stammered.
    “What?”
    I couldn’t say another word. But I didn’t have to because a tall man in a close-fitting charcoal suit came up behind Duncan.
    The panther-looking man hissed, “You lookin’ fo’me?”
    “M-m-m-mister Ply?”
    “That’s right,” he whispered.
    The din around us seemed to recede.
    Adray looked over his shoulder as if he were worried that people wanted to know his business. He grabbed me by the arm and pushed me out of the door. His grip hurt but I was happy to get out of that hell.
    Outside he set me on a high step that led to a kind of utility door to Duncan’s.
    “What you want wit’ me, boy?” His hoarse whisper scared me more than Duncan’s eye.
    “Black Betty say that she could meet you at Paulette’s at twelve if you want.” It was everything I could do to keep the tears out of my voice.
    The smile that went across Adray’s face was a purely evil thing. He forgot me and turned back toward Duncan’s.
    I was so scared that I could feel my insides trembling, but still, a nickel would buy a head-cheese sandwich on half a French bread.
    “Mr. Ply, Betty said that you should gimme a nickel!” I knew it was a mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
    Ply turned and squinted at me. He