Perdition, U.S.A.

by Gary Phillips

  “What happened, Clarice?”

  The mother morphed in front of him. “She ain’t got to tell you a goddamn thing ’cept bye. It was all this foolishness that brought this on her, and I’m gonna put a stop to it.”

  “I’m grown, mama, I can—”

  “Shut up,” the mother commanded.

  “I won’t,” Clarice said, a grunt breaking ranks. “This is my house too.”

  The mother narrowed her eyes at her daughter. “Look, Clarice, don’t you realize you need to get on with raising your daughter. What’s done can’t be undone.” Her voice had softened, the underlying worry breaking through. “You just have to leave it alone, baby.”

  “Would you please tell me who beat on you, Clarice?” Monk had positioned himself between the two.

  “She can’t tell you nothin’, mister.” the mother said, gaping resolutely at him. “Go away.”

  “I want to help.”

  “It’s your help that done this to my baby girl.”

  “No, that’s not so,” Clarice interjected. “I’m the one that messed up.”

  “How?” Monk asked.

  The mother warned the both of them with deadly looks but Clarice didn’t balk.

  “I wanted to do something in finding Scatterboy’s killer,” the young mother said in a low tone.

  The mother shook a large finger at Monk. “She got out in them streets among them dope heads and chippies. You know that’s no place for my girl to be.”

  “What the hell were you thinking, Clarice?” Monk said, also feeling protective of her.

  Unconsciously, the teenager touched the purplish stain spread across her the side of her face. “I just wanted to do something, they all said he wasn’t worth it.”

  “They?” Monk asked.

  The mother chewed her bottom lip. “The school where she goes, “she answered.” It’s a high school designed for pregnant and parenting girls.” She moved over to her child, and gently placed her hands on the back of her neck, massaging the area. “She’s trying so hard.”

  “You’re talking about your friends at school?” Monk asked.

  Clarice shook her head in the affirmative. “They be goin’ on ’bout how me and Shawndell was better off without him. Just ’cause the fathers of their babies are dogs don’t mean mine was.” She looked at her mother for confirmation, but even her love didn’t go that far.

  Tears glistened on the young woman’s cheek, and she shook loose from her mother’s hands. “I don’t care what anybody thinks anymore. I know I got to make my way for me and my baby. So what if I can’t go partyin’ or cruisin’ like I used to.” The energy seemed to leave her suddenly, and she sagged against the wall.

  “I got to think of my child now. I can’t do childish things anymore, I know that. But all the time you hear on the radio and TV ’bout how unwed mothers ain’t nothin’ but a burden on society. How the politicians want to make examples of us as just wantin’ to have children, get on welfare, and do nothin’ with our lives. Well, maybe I made a mistake having Shawndell, but that don’t mean I don’t love her and want to do right by her.”

  “But why you got to be so set on knowing who killed Scatterboy?” the mother pleaded. “If you do find out, that ain’t gonna bring us no help.” She didn’t finish it, but Monk knew she meant if it was gangs, then they might retaliate if one of their homies was nailed for the deed.

  “Because in Newport Beach or Sherman Oaks, the police would try a little harder if it was three nice white kids cut down in the streets. Because everybody thinks it’s just one of those things when it’s us. We’re Americans too, mom.”

  “You stay off the streets and in school, and I’ll do my part, Clarice,” Monk promised. “I’ll do my best to find the one who killed Scatterboy.”

  “Mister Monk,” the mother said, “you know we don’t have much money.”

  “I know that, Mrs.—”

  “Call me Helen.”

  “Don’t sweat the money, Helen. This one’s for the future.”

  Well, Monk concluded on the way home, he was really on the high road to shoring up his finances. But what the hell could he do? Write Clarice off even before she got into the race? The kid was trying her best in a game where the playing field was mined.

  On the drive home, his father kept whispering to him. “And when we do get a peek at the rule book, them cracker bastards are laughin’, ’cause they ain’t even goin’ by one.”

  Chapter 8

  The law offices of Fuler, Evans and Woznyak were located in a smoked-glass and brushed-steel highrise on Wilshire near Normandie. The boulevard was in the finishing throes of having the Metro line installed.

  It was all part of the fiber optic lined aluminum and tile Metropolitan Transit Authority’s traveling road show and tax boondoggle. The rail system the huge agency was constructing was supposed to accommodate 365,000 daily passengers.

  Half of the damned thing had already been constructed throughout the city. But save for some City Hall workers who took a short hop to the venerable Langer’s deli on Alvarado, and immigrant women who used it to get to the Grand Central Market downtown, most days its pristine underground halls were virtually empty.

  Still, one had to marvel at the hubris of an agency which had already spent $330 million a mile with its attended payoffs and kickbacks; had cut back bus services where most of its riders could be found to subsidize further construction; and had used wood shunts in a tunnel beneath Hollywood Boulevard to save money—thus causing a huge sinkhole in the the famous avenue. There had to be a board who believed in chaos theory guiding the work.

  It was like a plan that had been set in motion so long ago, nobody could remember what they were building, but they damn sure were efficient about it.

  Riding up to the 25th floor, Monk mused on what his dad would say about all this if he were alive. When he’d come to live in L.A. after the war, the red and yellow trolley cars were still running in some parts of town. Indeed, once upon a time, L.A. had the most extensive rail system in the country. But post World War II, people on the coast bought into the Detroit manufactured idea that a car was guaranteed in the Constitution. And the combine of rubber, oil and gas, with General Motors at the helm, maneuvered to buy up the trolley cars and their rights-of-way from L.A. and the growing suburban spokes.

  Now, decades later, the MTA had already gone broke laying down tracks in virtually the same routes the city used to own.

  The elevator stopped smoothly and opened onto an ante room done in rococo Italian furniture. Prints by Orozco, Homer and Tanner graced the ginger-hued walls. Monk ambled over to the receptionist who sat behind an ornate desk with spindly legs. The thing looked like it was going to collapse under its own weight if you breathed on it.

  The woman was an eastern Indian with a complexion nearly as dark as Monk’s. “My name’s Shayne, and I was looking for one of your attorneys.” He handed her one of his several fake business cards.

  The card identified Monk as an adjuster for the Helm Insurance Company headquartered in East St. Louis, Illinois. “Which one?” She asked, placing the card face down on the polished desk.

  “Well, that’s the problem. You see I inherited this assignment from someone who just up and left the company. Can you imagine that? He just up and left the company and took his files with them.”

  Apparently the woman at the desk couldn’t as she gave no indication.

  Monk twitched his leg impatiently. “Can you believe the gall? He’s going to try and build up his business on the back of our company.”

  An impenetrable wall began to rise between them.

  Monk continued his spiel. “This is a claim involving a Mr. Kinsolving who was in an incident at the intersection of Painter and Summit in Pasadena.”

  “If you’re from Illinois, then what have you got to do with it?”

  Monk did his best to look put upon. “He was insured with us and we have an affiliate office out here in Culver City. Only as I said, o
ur agent left and I had to come out here to do the company audit, and fill in until we get a new person for the slot. We are not big, but we are thorough.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “The lawyer I’m looking for is, I believe, a Hispanic—oh I’m sorry, I believe you say Latina out here—a woman whose first name starts with a Z or X.” Monk revolved a hand in he air. “That much I. was able to reconstruct from our secretary who talked with our agent—sorry, our ex-agent—last.” He put a hand on his hip, waiting.

  The woman considered Monk for several moments, seemingly hoping he would disappear. He didn’t and she tapped the desk with her palm. “Insurance case.”

  “Insurance case.”

  “I think I know who you mean.”

  Monk tilted his head but remained silent.

  “I’ll have to take your card and pass it along to the proper attorney.”

  “And who would that be, ma’am?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Shayne, but I can’t give that out until I’ve cleared it with the attorney.”

  “I have a lot of things to do while I’m here. Are you trying to tell me you can’t give me her card or buzz her so that I can discuss this matter with her?”

  “She’s not in the office right now, and since you are not on her calendar, I prefer giving the attorney your card. She can call you.” With that, she rose and started to leave.

  Monk said, “Don’t you need a local number for me?”

  Exasperation slumped her body and she pushed the card toward him across the desk’s shiny surface.

  In bold caps, Monk wrote out a phone number in the 310 area code on the back of the card’s pebble finish.

  The receptionist picked it up and entered the door to the inner suites. She closed it behind her.

  Monk lingered for a time but no one returned. He took the elevator back down to the street and retrieved his car from the distant, overpriced parking lot. He stopped at his donut shop and entered through the front.

  “Honest” Abe Carson the carpenter was sitting at the counter, sipping coffee. Abe was a raw-boned brown-skinned man with knuckles the size of quarters and tapered forearms that looked as if they were carved from walnut. He possessed an even-tempered disposition, and was meticulous about doing his job right, and for the price he’d quoted. Hence his nickname.

  Monk patted Carson on the shoulder, and moved behind the counter to pour himself a cup. “What’s going on, Cool Breeze?”

  “Most of the same, a few things different,” the deep-voiced craftsman said. He pulled a folded sheet of paper from the center pocket of his overalls and placed it on the counter. He continued to sip his coffee thoughtfully.

  It was Elrod’s day off and Lonny, the part-time worker and fulltime musician appeared from the back. He was dressed in faded jeans and an oversized work shirt, tail out, and he carried a tray of fresh, deep-fried, devil’s-food donuts, sliding them into place in the display case.

  “The Monk,” he exclaimed.

  “What’s up with the Exiles, Lonny?”

  The Exiles were his current group, three other men and one woman, all of them in their twenties. Their political repertoire of songs and rap attack against the State was glossed with the sensibilities of Hendrix, Cameo, Art Tatum and Dean Martin. At least that’s how Lonny explained it to Monk.

  “Got a gig comin’ up at the Dread Room in East Hollywood, chief. You oughta bring the judgie judge by, we gonna premiere some new cuts.”

  “Is that right,” Monk said less than enthusiastically.

  Lonny huffed. “You can’t hold that other time against me when you showed up at one of our sets and those Rolling Daltons and East Side Furys decided to blast it out.”

  Monk sighed audibly. “Maybe it’s just me, Lonny, but I don’t consider part of my concert going experience to be ducking bullets and bottles.”

  “It’ll be copasetic, I assure you. You won’t even have to bust no heads like you did last time.” Lonny wheeled around and headed into the back.

  Monk spoke briefly to Josette, a single mother who worked the counter three days a week, and then sat down next to Carson at the counter. “How’s work?” Monk poured a sizable volume of milk into his coffee and stirred in a small amount of sugar.

  “Well, you know, being self-employed ain’t all they said it would be on that home study course I subscribed to off a book of matches,” Carson laconically drawled. “But I’ve been working on a house extension over on Cimarron near Manchester.” Carson picked up his cup and tipped it toward the folded piece of paper on the counter. “I had to go over to the hardware store on Western to get a few things and encountered this when I came out.”

  Monk picked up the white sheet of paper and unfolded it. The thing was a bad photocopy of a typewritten original which had been blown up. It read:

  “Brothers and Sistahs: don’t be fooled by our supposed leaders telling us that Mexicans are in the same leaky boat as us and we must work together. Illegals are crossing our borders at rates to fast to mention. They are taking our jobs and now want to take us out, and not just in the election ring. We must stand strong, we must close the border and unite for black self-improvement. Don’t listen to the sell-outs who go begging hat in hand for foundation grants and dollars from big white corporations so they can drive around with a white woman on their arm in their Jap cars made in Korea. Stand up for your rights.”

  There was nothing else on the paper.

  “Somebody gave this to you?” Monk asked, tapping the flyer with the back of his hand.

  “It was stapled to a phone pole outside the store.”

  Even though the flyer looked as if it were done on somebody’s kitchen table with a beat-to-hell Underwood, it seemed to Monk the spelling errors in it were deliberate. The message was clear and concise and subtle, implying blacks should use violence against Latinos before they moved against blacks.

  “You take this thing seriously?” Monk asked Carson.” I mean, do you think this is the work of just a couple of disgruntled brothers, or a real organization?”

  “I was at the lumber yard last week and I heard a couple of guys talking about seeing these, or similar ones around town.” Carson indicated the paper with a nod of his head and took a long drink of his coffee. “That’s why it caught my eye and I took it down.”

  Monk observed, “This is like those weeks after everything jumped off in ’92, and all of a sudden people started to see stuff coming over their faxes. My sister at her school got one which was supposed to be from the Swans claiming that they were going to start killing police officers after sundown.”

  “I remember,” Carson said. “Some folks said the cops’ dirty tricks boys put those warnings out themselves as a way of undermining the truce the Swans and the Daltons were getting under way.”

  “Or recently another flyer was going around,” Monk added. “This one from some unnamed gang stating that on the upcoming weekend there would be a lot of drive-bys as a way of gang initiations.”

  “My ex-wife in Oakland even saw some of those,” Carson added.

  “But you think there’s something more to this one?”

  “I’m just a student of life, Monk,” Carson articulated.

  “This is true, Abe. You are the only man I know who’s been able to explain to me Dadaism and the fellas down at Kelvon’s.” Monk referred to the Abyssinia Barber Shop and Shine Parlor on Broadway in South Central.

  It was a constant source of amazement to him that Kelvon Little, the co-owner and head barber of the establishment, made a living at barbering. Considering how many characters Monk always found hanging around the place—from Old Man Spears who came in to listen to the ball games on the decrepit Philco to the retired postman, the hairless Willie Brant—who came to gab but hardly use, or need, Little’s services.

  “There are worlds with in worlds. Sometimes they orbit independently of one another, and sometimes they collide.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I suspect more of
these are going to be showing up.” Carson turned his head as the bell over the door jangled. A teenaged Latino couple who were holding each other so close they looked joined at the hips, entered and approached the counter. Josette filled their order, Monk and Carson drank in silence. The two departed and Josette leaned over the counter.

  “One of those flyers was in the wash house where I do my laundry.” She opened the paper that Monk had refolded when the couple had entered. “It was kind’a like this one,” she began, scanning the paper, “but it talked about illegals being the source of AIDS. That if you looked at when the U.S. started getting a lot of people coming here from Central America that was when the disease was starting to spread.”

  “Damn,” Monk declared.

  Josette looked perplexed. “AIDS came from someplace, didn’t it?”

  “So you believe what the flyer was talking about?” Carson inquired.

  “No, not really,” Josette said defensively. “But it is true we’re seeing more tuberculosis because of immigrants and people with the virus who can’t shake the TB.”

  Monk frowned at her. “That’s because of the fucked-up health conditions on top of the fucked-up economic conditions in other countries.”

  “Several of whom enjoy the dubious benefits of interference by the supposed intelligence community of the U.S. of A. in its eternal search for red agitators and other troublemakers, such intervention contributing to the movement of these unfortunate immigrants,” Carson illuminated in his erudite fashion.

  Josette put her hands in the air. “Hey, I’m just telling you two how some people see this out there in the streets. And I don’t just mean this is a totally black thing,” she emphasized. “There were two older Mexican women in there who were nodding their heads when they read that flyer, too.”

  With that, she bagged two crumb donuts for the next customer. Carson and Monk discussed whether the Oakland Raiders would blow it again this year or would Hostetler, Brown and Williams help pull them out of the basement. Later, Monk called his office to catch up on his messages with Delilah.