Free White Butterfly by Walter Mosley

Marla?” I asked again.
    “Uh-huh.”
    “I wanna know about Bonita Edwards.”
    “She dead.”
    Marla took my hand in hers and rubbed the knuckles against her nipple. It hardened and became very long.
    Marla smiled. “She like you.”
    “I wanna know about Bonita Edwards.”
    “What you wanna know?”
    “Did somebody want her dead? Anybody you know?”
    Marla sat back with her hands propping her body from behind. “You workin’ for the cops? ’Cause the cops already came here an’ we told’em that we didn’t know nuthin’. Bonita had the day off an’ she just never came back.”
    “I just wanna find out what happened to her. That’s all.”
    “Max an’ Estelle say I better watch out about you. They say you bad news an’ I jus’ better fuck you an’ keep my mouf shut.”
    “S’pose I want you to use yo’ mouf on me?”
    Marla laughed and grabbed my arm. It was a very good laugh, lots of feeling behind it.
    “That was a good one.” She smiled at me and I realized that I was sitting on the bed with a naked young woman.
    Then came three raps at the door. “Five minutes!” a man’s voice said. It wasn’t Max Howard.
    “You got forty mo’ dollars, mister?” Marla asked.
    “How come?”
    “They only give ya ten minutes for’ twenty an’ they knock after five, you know, to hurry up. But if you pay again they let you go forty-five minutes fo’ just sixty bucks.”
    I gave her the money.
    She ran out in the hall without putting on a stitch.
    In the room alone I considered going out of the window. Maybe she’d tell them what I asked her and they’d come back with a gun. I hadn’t come armed. The whiskey was wearing off and I wasn’t so brave anymore. I wasn’t so sure.
    The door opened and Marla came back with a bottle of scotch, two glasses, and her natural charm.
    She was grinning. “We got almost a hour an’ this bottle. You wan’it?”
    She poured the two glasses full and settled on the bed beside me, her legs open wide enough to expose a thick mat of pubic hair. “So what you wanna know?”
    “Same thing. A guy wants me t’find out about Bonita. He’s upset about what happened and maybe he’d like t’say sumpin’ to the guy that did it.”
    “What guy?”
    “That ain’t none’a yo’ business, honey.” I took a long drink and poured another glass full. Marla did the same and laughed.
    “Bonita didn’t have no boyfriend,” she said speculatively. “She didn’t even like men, not like me. An’ I cain’t think’a nobody wanna do that.”
    I sloshed back another drink. “Had to be somebody. Nobody kills you fo’nuthin’.”
    “Baby, you ain’t never been in this business if you think that.” Marla leaned forward to shake her head, and I realized that her curls were a wig.
    “How old are you?” I demanded.
    “Nineteen. An’ I seen girls killed before. I seen men come at’em with a baseball bat and a razor blade. I seen men come up these here steps with a dog they want the girl t’get friendly wit’ Uh-huh. I might just be a girl but I’m a woman too. I been a woman since I was eleven.”
    We both drank some more. Marla put her hand way up on my thigh.
    “Who wanna know ’bout Bonita?” she asked.
    “I can’t say. They payin’ me an’ I ain’t s’posed t’tell.”
    “You wanna fuck me?”
    “Did Bonita know them other girls got killed?” I took another drink.
    “Uh-uh.”
    “How do you know?”
    “She told me. I know’d Julie LeRoi myself an’ when I told Nita ’bout her she said, ‘Who?’ ” Marla laughed. “ ‘Who?’ Just like a owl.”
    I don’t know how we started kissing, but there I was on my back and Marla was on top of me. I was so drunk I could barely feel our lips or tongues but something stronger than feeling was driving me.
    When she was pulling down my pants I said, “How ’bout the other ones, Willa Scott or a stripper named Cyndi Starr?”
    “You want me t’suck this thing or talk?”
    I didn’t say anything and