Peekaboo nodded permission at Marcus, and he began.
“White folks,” Marcus said, “let me begin with this: see nothing.”
“As a journalist I’m well aware,” Mike said.
“. . . You don’t realize,” Marcus said, “is that black folks see everything. And, as importantly, hear everything. D’you know that?”
“He can stand instruction,” Peekaboo said.
“The girl was tortured,” Mike said.
“And if you wanted, truly, to understand, whatever you call it, ‘human nature,’” Marcus said, “your school of philosophy would be not here, but a barbershop on the Stroll.”
“I’m the wrong color,” Mike said.
“Yes, and that’s insurmountable,” Marcus said. “Where we: see everything, hear everything, repair to our Forum to thrash it about, until it makes sense.”
“And return, wiser to the world?” Mike said.
“No,” Marcus said. “We live in the world. You see, we live in the world.”
“Where the fuck else would we live? Marcus,” Peekaboo said, “that snow gonna kill you.”
“I don’t care,” Marcus said. “Of course it’s gonna kill me. What the fuck do I care? Some of the girls here,” he said, “break your heart, see them get hooked on the shit, that’s sad. The other hand, it makes it easier have someone to talk to, and they like to talk.”
“Ruth Watkins. Worked for Lita Grey,” Mike said.
“The girl, worked for Lita Grey, I knew her, through her brother, ’fore he went away, that is, I knew of her.”
“Who was she?” Mike said.
“Ruth Watkins? She was a black girl,” Marcus said. “Intelligent girl, got took up, by some white man, so on, worked for his whore.”
“How did you know of her?” Mike said.
“I said, through her brother. He worked downtown? The Chez Montmartre.”
“Doing what?” Mike said.
“He worked there running errands awhile some time back. So on. His sister? Comes to meet him, one day, swept up by one of their Sheenies there, for a while, when her brother goes downstate; white man?, she takes his sympathy, this and that, he gives her the clap, claims she gave it to him, bats her around, what he’s going to tell his wife? The altercation, back room of the Chez. Very bad. Coming out, this girl, no place to go, no cash, she’s sick, isn’t she taken up by this white girl.” Marcus stopped. “You really see Bessie Coleman fly?” he said.
“I did,” Mike said.
“Where was that?”
“It was right here on Cottage Grove, the air show, ’twenty-five?”
“What’d she do?”
“She flew all over the sky and threw the plane around,” Mike said. “She snatched a handkerchief off the ground with her wingtip.”
“She flying anymore?”
“Not that I know of,” Mike said.
“Any black men fly in France?”
“Not for the AEF,” Mike said.
“Who then?” Marcus said.
“They flew for the French,” Mike said. “They don’t see color like we do.”
“I know that,” Marcus said, “from the tales, the boys came home.”
“Some of ’em stayed there, and got married,” Mike said.
“Yes, they did. To the white women,” Marcus said.
“They don’t see color the way we do,” Mike said.
“Why’d they kill Ruth Watkins?” Marcus said. “Do you think?”
“Well, as they roughed her up, beforehand, it would seem she died because she knew something, wouldn’t you say?”
“Or the next worse thing,” Marcus said, “they thought she did, but she didn’t.”
“Yes, that’s the bad one,” Mike said.
“And the other girl’s gone missing,” Mike said.
“The other girl?”
“. . . She worked for,” Mike said.
“Oh, yes.”
“Lita Grey.”
“Yeah well, they will have done her, too,” Marcus said.
“What were they looking for,” Mike said, “. . . do you think?”
“Well, you might have to want to ask that of the cops,” Marcus said.
“The cops?” Mike said. “Why?”
“As previous, and I’m sure unconnected, to her death, word is, they pulled her in on a pawn ticket. Yeah, yeah. I would like to see justice done. I don’t know what it is, but I would like to see it.”
“Pawn ticket?” Mike said.
“Piece of jewelry she was hocking,” Marcus said.
“Ruth Watkins?”
“That’s right.”
“You saying the cops fingered her?” Mike said.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Marcus said. “It’s just she pawned something.”
“I don’t suppose you know where,” Mike said.
“Well, of course I know where,” Marcus said, “where does anyone?”