Mama Stalks the Past by Nora Deloach Page B

night,” Mama told him.
    “I don’t know nothing about that. The place was full, just like now,” Buford said.
    Mama nodded. Somewhere behind us, a woman shrieked with laughter. “Was there anybody particular around Nat?” Mama asked Buford.
    “Everybody. Nat had money last night, he was buying drinks for whoever walked into the door.” Buford shrugged.
    “Did he have an argument with anybody?” Cliff asked.
    When Buford didn’t answer, I placed my foot on top of Cliff’s and applied a little pressure. This was my way of telling him that Buford wouldn’t talk to him because he thought Cliff was a stranger. Cliff immediately understood. He sat back and surveyed the noisy room.
    “Did he have an argument with anybody?” This time, Mama asked. Buford looked at Mama, then worked his tongue along his teeth, sucking, as if he were trying to clean them. “Nobody was bothering Nat, if that what you mean.”
    “Was there
anything
unusual?” Mama persisted. “Anything at all?”
    Buford frowned. He slouched further into his chair. “Nothing that I saw,” he said grimly.
    Mama sighed, shook her head, and stood up. Cliff and I did, too.
    “Do you remember,” Mama asked as if it were an afterthought, “whether Nat mentionedthat he smelled something funny, something that he had smelled before?”
    Buford looked around, then chuckled sourly. “I don’t know what he could have smelled funny in
here
!” he replied.
    We followed Mama to the bar. There, she waved to a thick-lipped woman with stooped shoulders. The woman was light-skinned, but on one side of her face there was a liver spot the size of a half-dollar. Mama sat on a stool at the end of the bar until the woman walked over. Mama introduced her as Lulu, the owner of the Melody Bar.
    “Death comes in threes,” Lulu replied in a grim tone when Mama broached the subject of Nat’s poisoning. “If Nat doesn’t make it, somebody else will die before it stops!”
    “Did Nat mention smelling something funny before he died?” Mama asked, not deterred by this expression of impending doom.
    Lulu inhaled through her nose and waved Mama’s question aside. “Ain’t nothing wrong with my place,” she muttered.
    I was a little exasperated. “I don’t know about that.”
    Lulu looked at me. Her eyes were eerily vacant. “This your girl?” she asked Mama.
    “This is my Simone,” Mama replied. “And her good friend, Cliff.”
    Lulu stuck a Camel in the corner of her mouth. “Nat ain’t mentioned nobody smelling funny to me!”
    Mama frowned. “Was there anybody here other than the usual?”
    “No.” Lulu took a book of matches from her pocket and twirled it in her hand. “Nobody here but people who always be here.” She struck a match and lit her cigarette.
    “Could anybody have gotten to Nat’s drink?” Mama asked. In the background, somebody dropped a glass and cursed when it shattered.
    The record on the jukebox changed, although it didn’t sound much different from the one that had been on. Lulu inhaled a lungful of blue smoke. She hesitated, as if she was thinking. “I don’t know,” she said finally, exhaling. “I’ve done told Abe all this. When the music is right and spirits are high, nobody pays any attention to nobody at the Melody!”
    Mama took a deep breath as though she was trying to analyze what Lulu had just said. “Anybody you think I ought to talk to? Anybody who was particularly close to Nat?”
    Lulu grinned. “You mean was he sleeping with any gal?”
    Mama stared across the bar at her, saying nothing until Lulu blew another puff of smokeand answered. “Nat bedded down with lots of girls. But two come to mind,” she finally said.
    “What’s their names?” Mama asked.
    Lulu glanced at me. “I don’t remember seeing neither one of them was here last night.”
    “Their names?” Mama repeated firmly.
    “I ain’t for getting people in trouble who don’t need no trouble, you know what I mean,” Lulu said.
    Mama