Tammy’s little two bedroom furnished apartment didn’t have nothing in it but second hand furniture that Mr Houseman had picked up at St Vincent de Paul’s, and there wasn’t much of it, thank goodness, ’Cause with the rooms being medium size and Tammy’s brood of three with their toys and whatnot, wouldn’t of been standing room in there had Mr Houseman put more furniture in the lounge in particular. Apart from the naughahyde sofabed, there was just three hardback chairs and two lamp tables that I thought should of matched the coffee table, but Tammy said she didn’t mind they was different. But me and Freddie B’d slapped a couple fresh coats of cream paint on the walls not but a month ’fore Tammy’d rented it and with the overhead light off and the two wine bottle lamps on either side of the sofa that Tammy’d bought switched on, the living room didn’t look bad. And that evening, with the half dozen red roses stuffed in the cutglass vase Tammy’d borrowed from me soon as she got in from work, the place looked homey, even though she’d taken down the framed pictures of Jesus that I had hanging between the two lounge windows that overlooked the side street. Feeling uncomfortable, I was ready to examine every inch of every wall as I stood there and shifted from foot to foot.
‘Come on Baby Palatine. Sit and let me introduce you to Dagwood,’ Tammy said, patting at the free space on her sofa like it was either the time for me to sit or her to be introducing him.
He didn’t even make the effort to stand up when I reached to shake his hand, so right away I knew what kind of hometraining he had. ’cause any man raised right knew to stand up to greet a woman, ’specially as I was obviously older than him, though I reckoned it couldn’t of been more than ten years.
He flashed me a smile and I tried to smile back and said, ‘How d’you do,’ and got my rusty dusty out of there quick as I could, ’cause no sooner than we’d exchanged hellos, Tammy had the nerve to lay a big kiss on his cheek like I wasn’t still there. If he didn’t know no better, she did, and what with them kids right there in that apartment ’sleep, I thought it was a disgrace that they was carrying on so that anybody could walk in on ’em.
‘I’ll latch the door behind me,’ I said, hinting that they should of done as I walked out. But I don’t reckon that they heard me or knew that the door was open or cared, ’cause Tammy was a goner once Dagwood came on the scene.
It was two weeks after that that Tondalayah come visiting and spotted Dagwood down washing his car, and I’ll give her credit that she didn’t never bat her eyes at Dagwood once I’d made her swear she’d keep to herself and respect that he was Tammy property. When Tondalayah died fifteen years later from liver cancer, it nearly broke my heart, and I’ll give Tammy her due, she cried near as much as me and her girls did. Including Anndora. ’cause Toni did a lot more for them girls than Tammy ever knew about over the years, and it was Tondalayah Hayes they had to thank when time came for them to take to the stage and do things right from knowing what to wear to hip shaking.
I hated that she died with no family to mourn her. But we did the best we could, and I kept a black armband on for a whole month after she passed, I loved that woman so. Near as much as I loved Joy, but different. ’cause Toni was like my sister and Joy was like my child which is exactly why I didn’t want nobody as distant as Tammy’s husband Jesse talking to me about Joy and relating either that she was dead or how it come to pass.
But how I want things to be and how they often is, are two different kettles of fish so there I was still holding onto my telephone with Jesse’s husky voice dripping down the line. Richmond to San Francisco.
‘Tammy told me that you’d be calling, but I must admit when the phone rang I thought it was the Sante Fe police department calling me back, because I had just left a message with a fellow I know that moved to that precinct from Chicago.’
‘Why were you calling him?’ I sure do hate it when my curiosity gets the best of me and I start asking questions when I want to be quiet.
‘Because that’s where Joy fell dead from a massive heart attack on that tennis court, and I figured he might help out with dealing with all the paper work so that we can get her body back to New York without a lot of extra cost. Actually, it wasn’t in Santa Fe she died. It was Taos.’
‘Where’s that supposed to be,’ I said, asking a question I didn’t much need a answer to ’cause the ‘where’ wasn’t half as important as the ‘how’ of Joy dying.
‘In the mountains above Sante Fe, that’s why I got on to the Santa Fe police department.’
‘Now I realize that you didn’t know nothing much about Joy, but I can set you straight on one thing. She had enough energy to bury Hitler’s army, and I find it completely impossible to believe that she died from playing no tennis. She took good care of her body. Ate right … used to drive me half crazy reading them food packages before she’d eat something that wasn’t fresh. Exercised. Jogged most every day since she turned thirty, so it don’t make a blind bit of sense that she’d of dropped dead playing no tennis. I refuse to believe it, and if I had the money I’d be right on the plane to see what done happened for real.’
‘I’ve spoken to the coroner himself, and I didn’ get the impression that anything happened other than what he told me which is that Joy was having a tennis lesson, and in the middle of a serve she fell to the ground, in a way that made the tennis instructor first think she’d had a bad cramp. But when Joy didn’ get up and seemed to have a convulsion, this girl that was teaching her called for an ambulance. But Joy was dead before it got to her. Massive coronary is the verdict, and while I can understand that both you and her mother find it unbelievable, it sounded like the truth to me. Why would the coroner have a reason to lie? Joy was nothing to him.’
Just like my mind had told me from the first I heard Jesse’s voice, he wasn’t the person that should of been telling me none of this, ’cause he didn’t have no special feeling for Joy. I could hear that in his voice. It was Tammy I wanted to be speaking to and I asked him to get her.
‘I told you Baby Palatine that she’s asleep, and with that sedative that I gave her, there’s no way in the world that I could get her to come to the phone now. She couldn’t make any sense if she did anyway,’ Jesse added.
The idea that Joy was laying somewhere dead with nobody with her made me feel sick, and I wanted to talk to Tammy to find out how Rex Hightower figured in it.
‘What the hell is Tammy doing in the bed if her child is dead,’ I asked Jesse. That second I got over feeling sad ’cause the thought of Tammy laying in the bed while Joy was laying in a morgue made me so mad.
All the time I knew her, Tammy’d been so concerned with how she was feeling that she didn’t never let them girls of hers come first. Not even Anndora for all the fuss Tammy made about her. Tammy’s girls didn’t get raised. They just drug themselves up once she got to feeling sorry for herself after Dagwood left in ’56 … maybe it was ’57 … I ain’t never been good on dates, but Freddie B probably can remember exactly, ’cause it was the same year the Yankees lost the world series and he’d bet on ’em. Whatever year it was, I did what any Christian would and didn’t let them girls run wild. As Freddie B and me couldn’t have none of our own, it suited me. But like my baby sister said at the time, that wasn’t the point. True enough, it’s the mama who’s s’posed to take time to mother, but if’n it hadn’t of been for me and Freddie B ain’t no telling what would have happened to them. ’cause from the time Dagwood walked out, Tammy stopped caring about everything, and her kids was the first on the list to go.
But it was real obvious me and this new husband of Tammy’s didn’t see eye to eye about what