Free Killing Johnny Fry by Walter Mosley Page A

them all a toothy smile.
    We didn‘t talk anymore until we got to the museum.
    Jo‘s uncle, Bernard Petty, was a landlord in the Bronx and Brooklyn. He owned more than fifty buildings and other properties, making him one of the few black businessmen in New York who was worth more than $100 million. Every year Bernard bought a patron-level membership at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Jo‘s name.
    There were lots of benefits to the membership. The trustees‘ dining room for instance, which was for members only, and a lounge for high-level patrons to relax in. You never had to pay an admission fee, and every show was on display for members when the museum was closed on the Monday before the official opening.
    Jo took us up to the dining room, and we were greeted and put in a window seat that looked out over the park.
    While I sat there going over the menu, Jo stared at me.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Who are you?"
    “Cordell Carmel, translator."
    “No. Cordell would have never done what you did in the park just now. Cordell would have giggled and made a joke and pushed me back on the path. Even if he could have kept it hard enough to start something, he wouldn‘t have finished it, not like you did with those people watching."
    “So you think I‘m not me?"
    Jo‘s eyes widened to take me in. Then she shook her head and turned her attention to the menu.
    I rested my head in my hands because I was dizzy again. All of that sex and cuckolding and uncontrolled passion was taking a toll on me—a toll I would have gladly paid every day of the week.
    “Hi,” a man said.
    I looked up, and there stood Johnny Fry. He was wearing faded jeans and a white T-shirt tight across his broad, if pale, chest. He had brown leather sandals
on
his feet and lightly tinted yellow sunglasses propped up on top of his blond head. Next to the white man stood a coal-black woman with wild hair and nearly Caucasian features.
    “John,” Joelle said a little bewildered.
    “Hey, Joelle, L. How you guys doin‘? This is Bettye. She‘s from Senegal."
    “Hello,” the beauty said putting more emphasis than any American would on that “o."
    “What are you doing here?” Jo asked.
    “My family has a membership, and Bettye wanted to see the Egyptian art. What are you guys doing?"
    “Having a little brunch after sex in the park,” I said.
    Bettye‘s eyes widened, but a shadow crossed Johnny‘s face. I knew I was right, I knew he‘d had sex with her in the park too, I just wanted to be sure.
    “He‘s kidding,” Jo said, but there was an impish look to her.
    Maybe, I thought, Johnny felt he owned Joelle sexually. Maybe he was jealous of his lover‘s boyfriend. All of a sudden I was enjoying myself.
    “Why don‘t you guys join us?” I said.
    “Oh I don‘t know,” Jo and Johnny said as one.
    “Come on.” I stood up and took Bettye by the arm. I guided her to the chair next to me and gestured for Johnny to sit beside Jo.
    The move was slick, I must say.
    “Well okay,” Johnny said. He pulled out the chair next to Jo and sat.
    She looked very uncomfortable. It was no longer a surprise to me that I felt aroused by her discomfort.
    “You look beautiful, Joelle,” I said. “I love you."
    That burnished her coppery skin.
    “Oh. That‘s so sweet,” Bettye said.
    “Are you living in New York?” I asked the dark-skinned Senegalese woman.
    “Teaching at NYU,” she said, nodding with a certain amount of reserve.
    “What do you teach?"
    “Physics."
    “Oh?"
    “Does that surprise you?” she asked with a playful smile. Her white teeth were made even more brilliant by the blackness of her skin.
    “I guess I never think of women in physics."
    “I was trained in Cuba,” she said. “In Cuba girls excel at math and science, not the boys."
    I realized at that moment that I was losing my mind. I had just had semipublic sex in the park. I was sitting across from the man having an affair with my lover. And I was staring into his date‘s eyes