I left them standing dead still on the sidewalk, twisting their scrawny necks about to stare at me with outraged indignation as I climbed into my car and dug off.
I could even go back to the shipyard and work as a mechanic, I thought. As long as I knew I was going to kill him, nothing could bother me. They could beat my head to a bloody pulp and kick my guts through my spine. But they couldn't hurt me, no matter what they did. I had a peckerwood's life in the palm of my hand and that made all the difference.
CHAPTER VI
I called the best hotel in town when I got home and made reservations for a deuce at nine o'clock. The head waiter's voice was very courteous: 'Thank you, Mr. Jones.' I grinned to myself; he'd fall out if he knew I was a Negro, I thought.
Then I called Alice. I'd decided to knock myself out and when I told her to wear evening clothes her voice became excited. 'Now I know we're going to the Last Word.' That was a new club out on Central she'd been trying to get me to take her to ever since it opened; I suppose she figured that the people in her class didn't patronize such places and the only way she'd get there was for me to take her.
'Nope,' I said. 'The Avenue's out tonight.'
'You know I want to go to the Last Word,' she said. Her low, well-modulated voice was cajoling.
'That's not the mood,' I said. 'And anyway, nobody dresses for the Last Word.'
'Where, Bob, the Seven Nymphs?' That was a Hollywood joint where Negroes went sometimes.
'Nope, bigger and better,' I said.
'Don't tease me, Bob.' A thread of annoyance had come into her voice. 'I absolutely refuse to go unless you tell me now.'
'It's a secret,' I laughed. 'I'll call for you at eight.' I hung up before she had a chance to reply.
Ella Mae passed through the living room with the baby wrapped in a blanket. She had just finished bathing it. 'You oughta be 'shamed of yourself, teasing Alice like that,' she said.