Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley Page B

Rawlins. I think Marianne Plump gave you my number.”
    At that moment a huge white woman in a nurse’s uniform entered the room.
    “If you are not off of these premises in one minute I will call the police.” There was a ragged timbre to her voice.
    The little speech seemed rehearsed. I supposed that she’d sat around for many nights wondering what she could say to convince a trespasser to leave.
    “Hello, Mr. Rawlins,” Geneva Landry said. She had bags under her eyes and her words were a little slurred.
    “This is Mr. Rawlins, Nurse Brown,” Tina Monroe was saying. “He has permission from Dr. Dommer to visit Miss Landry at any time.”
    “Why is Miss Landry awake?” was Brown’s answer. “Haven’t you given her her medicine?”
    “Yes. But she was nervous so I’m sitting here with her for a while — until she relaxes a little more.”
    “Give her another dose,” Brown said in an almost threatening tone.
    “The charts don’t allow for that, Nurse Brown,” the serious black nurse replied.
    “Excuse me,” I said then.
    “What?” Nurse Brown said.
    “I’m here on official police business. I have to speak to Miss Landry and Miss Monroe. So if you don’t mind, we need some privacy.”
    The guard and the nurse didn’t want to obey but even they knew that it was a new world.
    “Come on, Tommy,” Nurse Brown said. “Let’s go check Dr. Dommer’s instructions.”
    They turned away slowly, looking for a way back in even as they exited.
    “What are you doin’ here at this time’a night, Mr. Rawlins?” Geneva asked me. “Have you found that man?”
    I perched myself at the foot of the high bed.
    “I found out how I could find him,” I said. “But I can’t do anything about it until morning so I thought I’d drop by and make sure that you were fine. I just thought I’d look in and see you sleepin’. You know you do need your rest.”
    “They give me pills that put me about halfway ’sleep. Then I start thinkin’ about Nola and I wake up. But Tina comes in and talks to me.”
    “Everything’s going to be all right, Miss Landry,” the nurse said.
    She was filled with the beauty of youth. Her light brown skin and luscious hair, her child’s hands and woman’s figure. Her lips were in the shape of a chubby heart and her eyes were always looking somewhere else to keep you from seeing the hunger they held. And even though everything about her was geared to making babies and a home she sat there night after night with Geneva Landry, listening to her grief and loss.
    “You’re a godsend,” Geneva said and her eyes fluttered, filling with tears.
    “In a day or two it will all be settled,” I said. “And I’ll make sure that Nola gets a nice service.”
    “You will?” she asked.
    “Yes ma’am.”
    “Mr. Rawlins?” Tina Monroe asked.
    “Yes?”
    “Are you going to stay here for a while?”
    “Until mornin’ I guess.”
    Tina stood up. “I have to make my rounds and I won’t feel so bad doing it if you stay here with Miss Landry.”
    “No problem.”
    I watched the young black woman in white move through the doorway.
    “She’s beautiful,” Geneva Landry said.
    “She sure is,” I added. And I meant it even though it wasn’t really true. Tina was handsome, she was well built, but not beautiful.
    “It’s nice that she can come and sit with you,” I added.
    “Oh yes. You know I think I might go crazy in here if it wasn’t for her. I start thinkin’ about Nola and my mind feels like there’s razor blades in it.”
    “Don’t think about it,” I said. “Let it go.”
    Geneva had lost weight in the few hours since I had seen her. Her face was drawn and her eyes drifted in her head even when she was talking to me.
    “I cain’t help it, Mr. Rawlins. I should have told Nola to get away from that white man. I know what men like that can do to a woman or a girl.”
    “Men like what?” I asked.
    “White,” she said as if I were a fool. “White men. They rotten. I