Dallas Noir Read online

  “Did you decide to not cook?” he asked. “I don’t know how I feel about a woman not cooking.”

  This was the part she hadn’t planned on, this was what she’d have to fake: Cayenne’s repartee. She excelled in it on stage. “I burned it,” she said, spinning around, posing like a mistress who was also a dancer. Cayenne also didn’t back down, didn’t fear confrontation. “What’s the point of your bein’ rich and powerful if I have to cook?”

  “We’re about to be richer, baby. My ex-wife is signing away her alimony.”

  She had to shake those words off, the slightest moue would betray her. Instead, she laughed. “That woman, giving up money?”

  “She won’t let me see my son,” he said. “So why should I pay?”

  “I thought it was the law.”

  “It’s Dallas, baby. Who do you think makes the laws? Me and my buddies. That’s what school’s for, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? Go on—if you didn’t cook for me, give me a private show.”

  “The windows are wide open!”

  “You dance for a hundred men a night! What do you care?”

  “I perform for money. Not for free.”

  “C’mon, baby.” He got up, placing his hands on her, breathing scotch all over her. “Do it for me.”

  She forced herself to sink into his grasp, to taunt and flirt. “Well all right,” she said, knowing that every move was going to help in the end. Unpleasant but necessary. This was all part of the plan.

  Dance. Lights out, then shouts and gunfire. Cayenne arrested at her apartment. No one would know about the signatures. Or her son’s shame.

  She sashayed and dipped, smiled over her shoulder as she shimmied out of the robe. He was crass and crude, though she knew it was the true man, revealed.

  She finished her dance with a high kick, turning off the lights as she brought her foot down. The shack was plunged into darkness, only moonlight and the sole streetlamp lending illumination. She pulled out her gun and cocked the hammer.

  “What the hell, Cayenne?”

  Then he was on her, brute strength she’d forgotten, mean and vicious, and then . . . realization struck, recognition, and he laughed as he took the gun away, pressed her against the kitchenette’s counter, cursing her, fumbling with his pants.

  Not again. Not again! She fought and squirmed and found the handle of a cast-iron skillet on the stove. She heard the rip of her peignoir and brought the skillet down, hard on the arms holding her. He swore and leaned forward to attack.

  She brought the skillet above her head, and the miles swum at the country club, the tennis matches and equestrienne skills, and underpinning it all, the little girl who’d served family and strangers breakfast since she was eight, and crashed it down on his skull.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  And again.

  The skillet broke into pieces, Wyatt slumped, and Katherine Wainscott lay there in a stolen wig, shaking.

  * * *

  The ceiling looked polka-dotted in black and white with the light coming through the window. The room smelled like childbirth, the only other time she recalled the smell of blood. She’d lost so much, soaking through sheets and bed, all to bring her son into the world.

  Such suffering couldn’t go for naught. This wasn’t part of the plan. In the stillness she heard a soft whisper, but not conversation. Not . . . On hands and knees she crawled to the window. Droplets of water caught in the screen. Rain.

  Dallas had been in drought for months. Her spring flowers hadn’t had a chance. Rain. She spun around and leaned against the wall. Wyatt lay in a puddle of blood. The skillet . . .

  Rain! The convertible! Makeup!

  Galvanized, her hands fumbled as she opened the train case, pulling out the papers.

  “I won’t sign!”

  “You have two choices. You want me to go away? You sign. But if you keep my money, I keep seeing my son. Any way I want.”

  “You, you touched him!”

  “And who’s gonna believe you? When I met you you were twirlin’ your tassels for dinner! I’m fourth-generation! I’m SMU—”

  And if she said anything, accused him of the horrible crime, what would she do to her son’s life? The boy whose daddy molested him? And what of their second son? Conceived the night she’d begged for a divorce, he already had enough against him.

  So she’d signed. No money. No house. But also, no Wyatt. And then the plan she’d made, the one she’d run dress rehearsal on five times in two years, now had a curtain time.

  She hadn’t planned on the skillet or the rain.

  Just a gun. A decoy. An alibi.

  Brain suddenly buzzing again, she wrapped Wyatt’s bloody fingers around the gun. The stink of blood became normal; the texture of his dying skin and temperature of his body were details she couldn’t absorb.

  The face in the train case mirror made her flinch as she scooped out cold cream to get as much blood off as possible. It was in her hair, all over her peignoir, hands, and nails. She cleaned what she could to not be repulsive, because Cayenne never was.

  Car doors. A knock. “Cayenne?” She froze, then realized it was working—they’d recognized the car.

  Smoothing her hair, she snicked across the floor, the soles of her shoes tacky with blood, and opened the door, throwing herself into the man’s arms, pressing her breasts against him. He mustn’t look at her closely, he must see and feel just what he expected. One hand held her, the other flicked a lighter.

  “Holy hell, woman, what have you done?” The voice, the voice? Who was this? She kept her face buried in his chest, striving for Cayenne’s West Texas twang.

  “I didn’t have a choice! He pulled a gun!”

  He walked into the single room, looked at the walls and ceiling. “You shot him?”

  It didn’t smell like gunfire. The pistol wasn’t warm. She covered her face and wept Cayenne’s tearless but breast-bouncing way. How many landlords had given in to that? How many husbands?

  He stared at the body, though it was too bloody to tell if it had been shot or not. “I can help you, babe,” he said. “We can make this go away, just you and me.” He flicked the lighter again. His suit was too new, his hair too smooth: a mobster, but which one? She’d never seen him at the club, which meant he probably preferred strippers to the flirtation of burlesque.

  Mobsters didn’t grant favors. “I can do it,” she said, keeping her voice small but brave. “Just keep the police and . . . the fire trucks away?”

  He smiled, like he was impressed. “Fire trucks.” He laughed. “Fire trucks! You’re right. Only thing that can clean this up. And you,” he added, glancing at her peignoir. “Though I think we should meet later and discuss this. At your house. The two of us?”

  There was only one response. She forced herself to smile. “Of course, sugar. Go on now and I’ll see you then.”

  He left out the back and she heard his car slip away. But when he reached Fort Worth Avenue, he turned toward Dallas. Going to the police?

  A fire.

  She ripped the documents, setting them alight, tucking them around the body, in the combustible couch and beside the stove. A steak lay on the counter, Piggly Wiggly price tag still on it. That reckless man, spending a dollar fifty on a T-bone!

  The skillet! The pieces had scattered, and she gathered them together, using the blood to glue them back like a puzzle, and set it on the stove.

  His pants caught and she bit back a laugh—of course they did! She poured his high-dollar scotch on his shirt, the couch, feeding the fire that was creeping across the wooden floors and snaking up the walls.

  Outside, the rain was still just a patter.

  She set the train case, monogrammed CdP, on the counter and watched the papers, with her signature, burn to ash. He was dead. Her signature burned away. Now for the final step.

  She threw open the door, glimpsing the whites of the eyes that watched from the shadows. The sky rumbled and she
ran out the door, gasping, not having to fake fear or sobs as she climbed into the car and reversed, jammed it into first gear, and fishtailed out of the narrow street toward the viaduct.

  Once on the other side of the river, she slowed down, took side streets, and at last pulled into a leafy neighborhood with detached garages and single-family dwellings. She parked the car at an angle, then climbed over the side, slipping into the shadows.

  The sixth and final “joyride” some youngsters had taken in Cayenne’s car. Like a benediction, or a funeral bell, thunder clanged above and the skies opened. The inside of the blue Pontiac Eight was dashed with water and she peeled off the wet peignoir. Blood washed off her hands, poured out of her hair—the wig!

  She took it off and swung it like a dead animal into the car.

  She could barely see to get to her stash, her clothes, her borrowed bike. But if she couldn’t see, she couldn’t be seen. Above, the light in the kitchen of Cayenne DuPre’s love nest was still on. She’d gone home early tonight, and she was still awake?

  Pulling on dungarees and a shirt in the downpour was nearly impossible.

  She felt laughter, fearful hysteria, burbling inside her. It was like her guts were full of helium and might burst out of her mouth. She clamped her hands over her mouth, remembering what Cayenne had told her: breathe the helium back in—it made your breasts higher, and higher breasts meant more money. As the two biggest-breasted girls from nowhere Texas, that always made them laugh. But not a fearful laugh, a knowing one.

  She swallowed the helium down, making sure the shirt was buttoned to the top. She tucked her dyed-brown hair into a cap and yanked on loafers, displacing the water that filled them. She leapt on her bike and peddled, swerving, sliding, then picking up speed.

  Mud ran in rivers down the alleys, but she was only two blocks from home.

  Then she saw the lights, flashing red and blue. The police pulled up beside her.

  Dropping her voice, she called out, “Here, boy . . . C’mere, boy!”

  “Son!” an officer called from inside the car. “What are you doin’ out here?”

  They were dry inside the car, assuming she was a boy. The policeman shouted, “Your dog is lost?” They’d stopped, turned the interior light on. The driver’s hand was on the gearshift to put it in park.

  “My mama’s cat!” she cried out.

  “Boy, you can’t find a cat in the rain! Go on home and—”

  The radio crackled and they both stared at the receiver. “Go on home, we got real crime here!”

  “Yessir,” she said, peddling into the darkness.

  The patrol car made a three-point turn and sped away. From the darkness, she waited. Drenched to the bone.

  Then, two hours later than planned, she rode her borrowed bike into the narrow alley by her window, where the lattice that had been installed years before, the first step of the plan, waited. She finally pulled herself into her bedroom, glad the open windows had soaked the windowsills. Would account for all the water inside.

  Stripping off, she squelched into the bathroom, turned on the light, and stared into the mirror. She saw the spots where his fingers would leave bruises, though as her teeth ground, she reminded herself: The last time. He wouldn’t hurt anyone else, ever again.

  She looked at the clock. Church was in five hours. She had to get the boys to Sunday school. Would the police wait until after services, or get here before? With all that had happened, gone wrong, been unexpected, she should plan on early. Would this be her last night here, her cute little Munger Place bungalow?

  Nothing had gone according to plan.

  She ran a bath.

  * * *

  There were two ways out of being poor, havin’ a daddy who didn’t keep his hands to himself, and a mama too worn out to care: one was to go to school and make something of yourself until you met a man and got married; the other was to take what you’d been given, put yourself on a stage, and catch a man.

  She and Cayenne had both taken the stage route, though it bothered Katherine more; she longed for respectability. When Wyatt Wainscott III, prestigious businessman out of Dallas, wanted to whisk her away, give her a new start, she said yes. Didn’t all husbands hit their wives every so often? Didn’t all men cat around?

  Everyone paid a price. At least she got to shop at Titche-Goettinger and was welcomed into the Garden Club. But Cayenne shopped there too, and Wyatt paid for her gloves just as sure as he paid for Katherine’s.

  Honestly, she didn’t mind. Until she had the boy, until he was two, until he asked his mama to “play with my weenie, like Daddy does” and Katherine knew, just as sure as the vomit filled her mouth, that Wyatt must be stopped. Completely.

  Planning a murder, she reasoned, was like planning a dance. Perfect practice meant perfect performance.

  Until the rain.

  Katherine sluiced cold water over her face. She had time for a catnap before she’d be expected up. With the ease of practice, she rolled her hair, slipped on her nightgown, and told herself: An hour. Then she would don her costume, the camouflage she’d worn at the end of her marriage, the decoy coloring she used in her everyday life. A shapeless dress over stockings and a petticoat and what she and Cayenne used to call “church secretary makeup.” A stick of eyeliner, a little bit of rouge mixed with lipstick on her cheekbones, a little pink on her lips, and one coat of mascara. With brown hair and light brows, she was frumpy.

  There was safety in frumpy. And frumpy certainly couldn’t be mistaken for the flamboyant and famous Cayenne DuPre.

  Not anymore.

  * * *

  The beating on the door. Katherine had been waiting for it, trying not to snap at the boys as they bounced around, full of energy, ready to unleash on poor, unsuspecting Miss Roy, their Sunday school teacher. Katherine’s hands had steadied as she’d ironed Buddy’s second white shirt, the first one splashed with mud when he’d discovered it rained all night.

  “Mama, Mama, it’s Miz Harper!”

  Not the police? How could it not be the police? Every single thing had gone wrong, every detail backfired. She’d been seen by the policemen! But Katherine bustled to the door, admitting the older woman—the neighborhood gossip—who came with coffee cake and a double-edged smile.

  “Boys, boys, you need to take that in the other room,” she said, handing them the cake. “Cut yourselves small pieces—”

  “Is this small?” asked her youngest, holding his arms a foot apart.

  Buddy demonstrated what small was as they negotiated on the way to the kitchen. Miz Harper took Katherine by the elbow and led her into the sitting room. Katherine, surprised, let herself be led, then watched as Miz Harper poured a glass of whiskey and handed it to her.

  “I know it’s the Lord’s day and I know it’s not even ten a.m. I also know the First Baptist Church’s parking lot is flooded, so there are no services today.” She poured herself a glass and drew Katherine to the small settee. “You know my Rodney is a county sheriff, right?”

  She had forgotten. They were going to arrange a citizen’s arrest? Let her turn herself in? Katherine nodded. “Is he okay?”

  “This is why Gannaway is so right. We need to run that trash out of town!”

  Katherine wasn’t acting anymore. “What?”

  “Last night, my dear, well, there’s just no other way to put it: your filthy ex-husband met his Maker and I can’t imagine that God would have mercy on his soul, as unchristian as it is for me to wish ill on the dead. He deserves the other place.”

  Katherine drank her whiskey in one shot. It was true. Wyatt was very dead. She bit back the hysteria again. “H . . . how?”

  “Well, it appears he was expectin’ dinner company, and you know who I mean.” Anyone who’d read the paper in recent months had seen the glamorous couple: Wyatt Wainscott and his lady love, Cayenne DuPre, lunching at Neiman’s or sharing a bottle of fake champagne at the Colony Club where she was edging out Candy Barr. “The burlesque—”
/>   “That stripper?”

  The distinction was lost on anyone who hadn’t attended a show. One was shabby: unclean, hungry girls with wounded eyes trying to make a living because education wasn’t a possibility.

  The other was beautiful, skillful, fun, and sassy. It was a booming business. Six blocks in downtown Dallas hummed every weekend night. Neon dripped from buildings housing clubs like Palace and Fox, Rialto and Capitol. The street was lined with motorcars, gleaming and new. Women in flowing gowns and men suited from Irby’s walked from club to club, laughing, squeezing in to see the newest “girl” while sipping “members only” overpriced drinks.

  Each girl had a different hook. Shari Angel, the Heavenly Body; Sabrina Star who could spin tassels so fast the audience saw stars; and Cayenne with her firecracker-shooting, red-sequin bustier. Candy Barr with cowboy boots and cap gun reigned, but for every girl with a reputation and a following, there were a dozen nubile, buxom young women just waiting for their moment to come.

  Katherine never had a hook, was never that good. Always jumped the cue, gave up too soon, gave too much. Burlesque was about withholding. She was too scared to try. Cayenne excelled at it.

  “Katherine? Are you feeling faint?” Miz Harper poured another tot of whiskey.

  Katherine looked at the glass, then at her neighbor whose eyes were shiny with salaciousness. “There’s more?”

  “She came over and set his house on fire. Of course, dumb woman, it didn’t catch with last night’s storm, but he was felled . . . I’m sorry, is this hard to hear?”

  Katherine shook her head.

  “He hit his head. That’s how he—”

  “Met his Maker,” she said, sipping at the whiskey. Warmth flowed through her. He was dead. Dead! And they thought it was a fall—no one had noticed the skillet? The gun in his hand, which made no sense at all now.

  “Well, I guess Cayenne just can’t keep from wantin’ folks to watch her,” Miz Harper said with a harrumph. “She raced off in her fancy little motorcar. Then the heavens opened like the Lord Himself was trying to wash away her sins.”