Rhode Island Red by Charlotte Carter

Author:Charlotte Carter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497691827
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller

The Emerald was a long, narrow place sandwiched between a thrift shop and a bodega. A single small glass window looked out onto Ninth Avenue.

At the bar sat eight old white men drinking Bud from long necked bottles in synchronized swigs. I watched them for quite a while, waiting for one of them to mess up. But nobody did.

There was a jukebox at the rear of the place. Tony Bennett was singing something, Stranger in Paradise, my pop had once had the sheet music for. I distinctly remember seeing it in the flip-open piano bench.

At the end of the long bar the room turned left, into an L. There at one of two tables was another old man, reading the News in the dim light. He was the only black man in the bar. I assumed this was Coop.

Not one of the drinkers turned around as I walked past. Only the bartender glanced my way, probably deciding whether I looked like a genuinely distressed down and outer who needed to use the ladies room or a junkie looking for a place to fix.

“Mr. Cooper?”

He looked up from the paper but didn’t speak.

“Mr. Cooper, I was related to Heywood Tuttle. I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes and answer some questions about him. Someone told me you were his friend.”

I pulled out a chair and sat down across from him, even though he had yet to speak a word to me.

“Mr. Cooper, I said—”

“Don’t know no Heywood Tuttle.”

“Oh. Well, his friends called him Wild Bill.”

“Then why didn’t you say Wild Bill?”

“Sorry. I’m saying it now. You were a friend of Wild Bill’s?”

“Bill’s dead.”

“I know.”

“He dropped dead, on the street. Just fast as that. Stroke, they said. On his way here, I reckon. Said he just fell down dead. Just like that. It just go to show you, when you think you on top of the world, that bastard’ll lay in wait for you, throw a big ole brick down from the roof on you. Fore you know it, you dead.”

“You mean someone threw a brick at Wild Bill?”

“No, girl. I mean God. I’m just usin’ ah example.”

“Listen, Mr. Cooper, did you know Wild Bill long?”

In answer, he let go of the newspaper and held up his two hands, at a great distance from one another, presumably to mean the friendship had stretched over many a year.

“Did Wild Bill ever mention a Rhode Island Red?” I asked.

“A red what? … Oh, yeah. He mention it.”

“Can you tell me what he said?”

Coop leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

I repeated my request, but he remained as he was, eyes closed.

At length, it occurred to me what he was doing. Waiting for me to offer to buy him a drink. I got up and went to the bar. The bartender didn’t wait for me to order. He placed a bottle of Amstel Light on the bar. Next to it he placed a glass and filled it halfway up with rotgut wine from a gallon jug.

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