There was a maid cart outside 109. The door was open. I went in and found Cathy doing the bathroom, Lorette Walker making up the bed.
” `Mawnin’, suh,” they said. I sat in the armchair and waited and watched. Brisk work, sidelong downcast glances, a kind of humble knowing arrogance. Two to a room, one of the classic defensive maneuvers of the Negro motel maids across twenty states, where, as an indigenous morning recreational device, they are, when young enough and handsome enough, fair game for paper salesman, touring musician, minor league ballplayer, golf pro, stock car driver, mutual fund salesman.
After all, it is the only situation where white male and black female meet in the context of bedroom, and the quarry cannot exactly go running to the management to complain about a guest. Other defensive devices are the switchblade in the apron pocket, the kitchen knife taped to the inside of the chocolate thigh, the icepick inside the fold of the uniform blouse. Some, after getting tricked, trapped, overwhelmed by a few shrewd, knowing, determined white men, become part-time hustlers. Others cannot accept or adjust. Classic tragedy is the inevitable unavoidable tumble from some high place, where the victim has no place to turn, toppled by some instrument of indifferent fate. A high place is a relative thing. Pride of any kind is a high place, and any fall can kill.
“I see you didn’t get fired, Cathy,” I said as she came out of the bathroom with the towels.
She cast a swift and wary look at Lorette and then said, “No, suh. Thank you kindly.”
There was a silence. I saw that they had begun to dust areas already dusted and were making other busy movements without improving anything. Lorette Walker, her back to me, said, “I can take off now, and this here girl can finish up.”.
“You look finished. You can both take off.”
Lorette straightened and turned to face me, swinging that stupefying bosom around. “You want us both leaving, after I went to all the trouble of telling this here girl she should leastway give you the chance to collect on that favor you did her?”
Cathy stood at semiattention, staring at the wall beyond me, Indian face impassive. She was a big brawny woman, wide through the shoulders and hips, nipped narrow at the waist, with strong dark column of throat, husky shapely legs planted, her body looking deep and powerful through the belly and loins.
“Cathy?” I said.
“Yassa.”
“There’s no point in Mrs. Walker making us both uncomfortable. So why don’t you just take off?”
Cathy looked toward Lorette, eyebrows raised in question. Lorette said something to her in a slurred tone. Cathy scooped up the sheets and towels and with one swift and unreadable glance at me, went out and pulled the door shut. I heard the fading jingle of the service cart as she trundled it away.
Lorette came over and sat on the bottom corner of the bed, facing me, studying me. Small and pretty brown face, coffee with double cream, with no highlights at all on the smooth matte skin, with eyes so dark the pupils and irises merged. She fished cigarettes and matches from her skirt pocket, lit one, crossed slender legs as she exhaled a long plume. There was challenge and appraisal in her stare.
“Black turn you off, man?”
“Not at all. Suspicion does, though. It’s an ugly emotion.”
“And ugly living with it or having to live with it. Maybe you don’t want it from Cathy on account of it would hurt your chance of making it with me, you think.”
“How did you ever guess? I forced poor Cathy to drink that doctored gin, and I arranged to have the nurse killed, just so you and I could meet right here and arrange the whole thing. Take a choice of places, honey. Guatemala City? Paris? Montevideo? Where do I send your ticket?”
She was simultaneously angry and amused. Amusement won. Finally she said, “There’s just one last thing I got to be sure of. Tell me, are you any kind of law at all? Any kind?”
“Not any kind at all, Lorette.”