Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2004

“Killin’ women and niggers ain’t never been a serious crime down here, Red. Killin’ don’t mean nothin’ unless you kill somebody important. What’s it to you anyway?”

“It’s nothing to me, but hell, it’s 1958. Times are changing. It ought to be important to all of y’all who have to live down here with his sorry ass.”

“Like that don’t happen up in New York.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, you need to get your ass back to New York,” Rufus suggested. “Ain’t nothin’ for you down here but trouble, and if you get in trouble you won’t have no friends — not the law, the church, lawyers, nobody.”

Memphis turned to meet Rufus’s eyes again.

“What about you, Rufus?”

“I ain’t got no white friends, Red,” he answered succinctly. Memphis nodded his understanding of the remark. For a fleeting second he considered making a retort, but it would have been wasted. Being colored in the South required survival skills, and picking friends wisely was an essential part of it.

“Hello, cowboy.”

Memphis stood in response to the soft intrusion of the female voice before looking for its owner.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” she continued.

“The only restaurant in town,” he explained casually. “Where else you gonna get breakfast?”

His hand made an inviting gesture toward an empty adjacent chair, and she accepted.

“I mean I’m surprised that you’re still in town after what you did to Ray.”

“I don’t suspect that Ray is in any condition to object. Do you?”

“Ray has friends,” the woman said.

“Are you one of them?” he asked.

She smiled at him deceptively without answering.

“Who are you anyway?” she asked. “What’s your name?”

“Memphis.”

She arched her eyebrows in amused surprise.

“That your real name?”

He gave her a noncommittal shrug for an answer.

“You got a last name?”

“Red.”

Her amused smile broke down into an unrestrained laugh.

“Okay, if you say so,” she managed to reply.

“What’s yours?”

“Lena,” she answered. “Lena Haynes.”

A waitress interrupted to take their order, and Memphis welcomed the intervention. He wasn’t big on unplanned encounters. That’s when mistakes could occur, and he couldn’t afford mistakes. He watched Lena surreptitiously as he ate. She seemed so different from her appearance at their initial encounter. She was a pretty woman and appeared far too intelligent to have placed herself in untenable circumstances without a reason. He could tell that she was trying to feel him out, and he remained intentionally circumspect.

“You’re either a very brave man or a fool, Mr. Memphis Red. I haven’t decided which yet.”

“Bravery is a matter of perception,” Memphis replied coolly. “I suspect it takes more courage to associate with a fool than to confront one.”

She absorbed Memphis’s penetrating stare for several seconds, as if trying to discern the meaning of the remark. She finally excused herself as if ultimately concluding that she had been insulted and her presence unwanted. She hesitated after taking a step away as if delayed by an afterthought.

“Sometimes people are compelled to do things for a reason.” She spoke softly and introspectively. “But I’m sure you wouldn’t know about things like that, would you?”

She moved away before he could reply. Memphis took a final sip of coffee. What he knew or didn’t know was nothing he planned to discuss with Lena Haynes for the time being.

Memphis slowly coaxed his car down the tortuous driveway that led to a sprawling ranch-style house nestled in a pine grove about a hundred yards from the highway. He rang the doorbell twice before he was greeted by Lena Haynes’s surprised countenance.

“You’re full of surprises,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you, especially here.”

“May I come in?”

She stepped aside, allowing him to enter the elegantly appointed foyer.

“I’m glad you came,” she volunteered.

It was an admission he hadn’t expected and one that he suspected she hadn’t intended to allow.

“You’re an interesting man, and interesting men are a rarity around here.”

His eyes wouldn’t leave her face. She was appealing even without makeup. He had known that she would be attracted to him. What he wasn’t prepared for was the ripple of emotion that she incited. He hadn’t felt that when looking at a woman for some time.

“Well, what should we do now?”

Her coquettish inquiry alone revealed vulnerabilities that would have ordinarily left him pursuing his advantage. He found himself torn, however, between his wants and his needs, and there was a fire in his gut that made him driven for things other than the obvious.

“I need to see Angus Haynes.”

He watched the darkness descend over her face and regretted instantly the demons that drove him.

She recovered quickly, and a tiny self-deprecating smile played at the corners of her lips, but her disappointment was apparent.

“Well, Mr. Memphis or whoever you are, I was foolish enough to think that I was the source of your interest.”

“You’re not foolish—” he began.

“Spare me,” she interrupted. “Save your platitudes for my father.”