He Said, She Said

by John Decure

  That’s the problem with me, my momma used to say; Boy, sometime you jus’ think too much.

  Can you believe that? Helluva thing to say to a child, you think too much! But there she is.

  So I’m thinking plenty anyhow because that’s jus’ me, I’m thinking about Sadie n’ what she’s gonna do about Bulldog, and I’m thinking how my momma was all things considered, a pretty wise woman, ’cause in this case, all my thinking wasn’t helping Sadie a damn. And I realize, these are kids, and sometimes kids, they gotta learn on their own. How I was when I were young and headstrong. How I still am, at times, to this very day. Gotta take my knocks, you know. Nothing worth a damn in my life has come easy. Sadie? Aside from her current taste in men, she’s a good kid. Maybe one of these here days she may learn something, you never know…

  Right about then, as I’m deep in thought—well, miracle of miracles, somehow I get that sofa on down off the railing without it crushing me, and wrestle it into the truck. Doing the same thing with Sadie, too. No Bulldog around, coast is clear, so we vamoose it on outta there, but I know it ain’t enough, jus’ moving her outta there, I’m still considering how I can help this girl, a girl who can’t seem to help herself. So I buy Sadie breakfast at Denny’s, sit through the latest hard-luck story about the latest ton o’ bricks been landing on the poor girl’s head these days. Worse than I imagined, too; the poor girl, she’s jus’ babbling like her head’s gonna roll off her shoulders and land right on her stack o’ flapjacks.

  Turns out Lester wasn’t jus’ mean and a bit violent when he was drinking, which she says is pretty much whenever he feel like it, but he’d been working something steep on little Sadie, getting up close and personal with her about her job at the savings and loan. So, I ask some questions like I usually do when I’m working an investigation, jus’ trying to establish the basics. Turns out ole Bulldog, he’s been pushing Sadie to get him copies of these keys, keys to safe deposit boxes at the savings and loan. Got this idea, told Sadie he’d done his homework on this deal and it’s surefire, cannot fail.

  Homework? Call it what it is, he’s plotting a felony, a federal crime! May the Lord have mercy!

  He’s gonna have copies of the keys made, Sadie says. Keys these wealthy bank customers are using at the bank for their safety deposit boxes, where they stash their jewels and cash and documents and assorted valuables of unestimable value?

  I mean, inestimable. Please excuse me. When I want, I can speak with perfect clarity and diction. At times, my job depends on that, so I proceed accordingly.

  Anyhow, jus’ three, maybe four customers, ones come in all the time, old white ladies dripping in jewels, carrying poofy little dogs under their arms. Checking on their valuables ’cause they got time on their hands and nothing better to do but go visit with their wealth.

  That’s all Sadie’s gotta do, i.d. some rich customers, get the box numbers they’re using, then find an excuse to get into the place where the bank keeps the duplicates, a safe box in a anteroom just outside the big safe.

  Damn, I jus’ about spit out my silver-dollars and sausage listening to that last part.

  “‘Duplicates,’ huh? The guy’s a dummy! They probably have a master key.”

  “There’s more, Uncle D. Don’t be mad.”

  “Lord have mercy.”

  Good ole’ Uncle D, he’s been listening the whole time, smoking a cigar he hadn’t lit since Tom Bradley became the mayor of Los Angeles. He’s been pretty quiet till now, happy to watch the waitress, an old pro, slinging hash behind the counter. But Uncle D must’ve looked like he couldn’t take it anymore.

  “You want to hear this or not? I can stop if you want.”

  My appetite takes a nosedive, listening to all this, so I stick with my coffee.

  “Go on, let’s hear the whole sorry thing.”

  “He wanted me to return the dupes once he made copies,” says Sadie. “So no one’s suspecting a thing.”

  “Yeah, right. Bulldog, he’ll jus’ stroll in like a new customer, sign up to get his own safe deposit box from the bank. So he can get inside the vault, just walk on in, of course!”

  “How’d you know that, Uncle D?”

  “Then when he’s inside, he jus’ whips out the copied keys and you guessed it, Lester Buggs is going on a miniature crime spree!”

  I thought Sadie would be impressed with my acumen. Thought wrong.

  “Why’d I need to bother telling you, you already got all the answers?”

  Typical young black man, that Bulldog, I’m thinking. Always trying too hard to find a shortcut, the lazy man’s way to riches. But at what price? A federal crime? This plan was so dumb I didn’t have the words. And Sadie, she’s eyeing me like I’m a dartboard and she’s a dart. Like this is my fault. I was not getting through, so I put on my investigator’s hat for a minute.

  “Young lady,” I tell her, “that fool Lester never even thought about all the security measures at a bank like that, all they already got in the works, in place, designed for all the dumbasses of the world like him to come along, try and rip them off.”

  “Security measures.”

  “Oh, yeah. Such as, they don’t let you into the vault at banks to see your deposit box, not unless you got special clearance. Otherwise, they bring it out. Also, the box has gotta get opened with two sets of keys, a bank master and the customer’s key. How it’s done, I’m pretty sure. Point is, nowadays, a bank’s all over the process.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, Uncle D. I never even thought of half those things till you mentioned it.”

  “That’s because you’re not a criminal. That boy must’ve eaten some paint chips as a kid. I can’t explain it.”

  She pauses like an idea hit her, making me want to hide my eyes and shield my ears.

  “What? Say it, girl.”

  “You won’t get upset?”

  I must be twice her size, and I was leaning too far forward over the table. Okay, okay, time to ease off the intensity, boss.

  “Here? And disrupt this fine dining experience? I won’t make a scene, darling.”

  She smiled, then shrugged her shoulders. “The plan, how stupid it is—I agree with you, Uncle.”

  “Amen to that!”

  “Uncle.” She shook her head like to say, Please, just listen. So I shut up and waited.

  “The truth is, I dunno… bad as it may be, he surprised me with this. I mean, don’t be mad, but… it’s not like Lester.”

  She stirred a bite of pancake in the pool of syrup on her plate. Honestly, I was getting ready with another Uncle Knows Best piece of timely advice, lay some philosophical wood on her about the evil in men’s hearts and all that. But I spared her—and myself—from that blast of hot air because it was right then, before the next lecture, that it hit me: I’d been looking at this wrong. All wrong.

  “Good point, young lady,” I admitted. “In fact, it’s worse than it looks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bulldog, he’s got a street rep’ for being a smart one, always working the angles. He landed you as a girlfriend, and that took some doing. But this plan of his? Tell you what: He knows it’s no good, knows it’s bound to fail. But here’s the thing, if he can get you to buy in, get you to commit—”

  “Like, get him some keys—”

  “Then he’s got you under his thumb. In a very bad way.”

  “And I can’t leave him.”

  “Lord have mercy.”

  “He probably knows the deposit box rip-off won’t work.”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “So tonight,” she says. “My leaving like I did, I’m not so brave after all. He didn’t give me a choice, did he?”

  “You did good tonight,” I say. “What you did took some guts.”

  I laid off her from there. Should’ve seen all this myself. It’s not like some other damn fools hadn’t tried that tired old deposit box plan, I don’t know, twenty or thirty years ago. I remember a few heists on the wes
t side, two in Culver City, one over by the airport, this bank right on Century Boulevard by that big strip-club sign. All those geniuses got was free room and board in a federal penitentiary for their trouble. Banks caught on and made changes as they saw fit. Security is like life. It keeps on evolving all the time. Bulldog? He’s got his finger in a lot of pies around town, must’ve heard of the scam, figured he could use it to spin a little web around Sadie.

  Know what? I need to stop looking down on young black men in general long enough to see the person standing in front of me…. The view from Deshaun’s soapbox? It’s not as good as I think. Better to have both my feet planted on the ground.

  “Thanks, Uncle D,” Sadie says. Relieved, but sad, like she’d been through a meat grinder. “Sometimes I forget you got lots of experience with things I don’t know a thing about.”

  I say: Hey, no problem. I tell her, in my best authoritative voice, about the world being full of good men. Good black men, too.

  “You’ve only got to find one, darlin.’ Don’t give up.”

  Sadie’s nodding along, like, yeah, uh-huh, good advice, point taken, but she’s hardly touching her food. So, I back off even more, paying a bit better attention to her needs, now. Next thing, I’m holding her hand.

  “I’m scared.”

  “It’s gonna be all right, child.”

  Though with Bulldog out there looking for her, that pretty surely qualifies as wishful thinking. I was honest with her about that, too. Had to be.

  “What about you, Uncle D? He’s gonna be real upset. Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Me? Nah.”

  Thing is, I was worrying about him now. Went and made a big racket moving that sofa, saw some curtains part in people’s windows. People had to see me. Bulldog talks to them, they tell him about me, tell him fast, just to get rid of him? Not good. Should’ve left the damn sofa, bought her a new one! Don’t know what I was thinking.

  But I don’t say a thing to my niece.

  Good thing I’ve got a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Might need it when Bulldog catches up with me.

  And yes, he will. Some things you jus’ know. It’s like, you can feel it in the air. The way a bird know it’s time to fly south for the winter. I’ve been around enough dangerous characters in my line of work to know these things. My time to face Bulldog will come. I’ve jus’ gotta be ready when the moment arrives.

  * * *

  That was all last night, though. Now, here at the office, my back’s jus’ killing me as I recollect the story of Bulldog. Even though all I’m doing is sitting on my ass.

  Postman comes by, wrinkled little Asian fellow with a scowl on his face and a pile of bills in his hand, and like a polite fool, I thank the man. That’s how I was raised as a black child, the great-grandson of slaves, grandson of cotton-pickers, son of a maid and a chauffeur. Too damn polite at times for my own damn good.

  Sitting in a metal lawn chair under the tiny awning out front of my office, back hurting, squinting through my sunglasses though the sun isn’t even out yet and it’s pushing up on noon. Oh, my tired eyes and aching back! Gotta be the trip down those stairs with the sofa riding down on me like a giant’s shoe about to stamp me like a cockroach. I’ve got some tough years on this body, for sure, but I still pump iron and hit the speed bag over at City of Angels gym at least once a week, jog three miles often as I can, so I’m holding my own, can’t think of anything else would make me ache like this. Weather could be a factor, too, I guess—look at this fog and rusty brown sky out there, same thing day after day! Typical of what we get here in Inglewood, a mix o’ these morning clouds come creeping on in all the time off the ocean not four, five miles away, and that sea mist, you cross that shit with a million tailpipes on the 405 freeway chugging on by, heading somewhere, anywhere other than here—well, what you get is this brownish morning sky you could cut with a knife.

  So there you go. Blame it on the sofa and the weather, I guess. I shift in the chair and moan like a old man, look around, hoping nobody heard me, but there isn’t a soul out and about today, sidewalk’s empty.

  In my kind of business you don’t get a lot of walk-ins anyhow, especially on a no-name stretch of La Brea like this one. It’s quiet, though, peaceful even. Jus’ next door to me is Villareal’s, a beauty supply place run by a Mexican woman, Miss Maria, she been here years, now, still doesn’t speak much English. Nice lady, don’t get me wrong, Miss Maria, she brings me homemade food all the time, tamales at Christmas, always says hello. I helped her out a few years back when she had to find a man who stole a delivery truck from a friend of hers, illegal immigrant so he couldn’t go to the cops, but that truck was his whole business, his whole life. Located the truck pretty easily, in jus’ two days using some damn shaky Español I learned a while back, working on a brick-laying crew, before I got my investigator license. Miss Maria, she wanted to pay me the going rate, but I jus’ couldn’t take it, knowing her business was as slow as it was at the time. Today, she’s still bringing me food, paying me a couple dollars here and there, though I tell her every time she doesn’t owe me a thing.

  On the other side of my office is a Jewish bail bondsman, Bert Pink—and you guessed it, he’s got a storefront painted about the hottest of hot pinks, jus’ in case you might drive by, wonder if a man named Pink who owns a business posting bond has got a sense a humor. Or, is that what they call irony? I don’t know, but that color pink will make your eyes bleed, you look at it long enough on a summer day.

  Old Bert’s got a different kind of clientele, but it turns out we refer some clients back and forth, some business opportunities popping up for both of us. Some tough-guy types might make fun of Bert’s name and all, but Bert doesn’t care, he’s glad to let them have a laugh on him, especially when they’re forking over the cash into the palm of his hand—which, come to think of it, is pink, too.

  Anyhow, you might probably guess marketing’s not exactly my cup of tea. Doesn’t really have to be, though, ’cause I do my business almost entirely from referrals, word of mouth. People happy with the work I’ve done and willing to tell someone else about it? They’re buttering my bread for me. Which isn’t always the case because a lot of what I do, folks I’m working for don’t wanna be tied in very close to it, you know, at least not in an attention-getting kind of way.

  My specialty is simple: I dig up dirt.

  Cheating spouses, people filing phony lawsuits, claiming this injury or that when the truth is, they fit as a fiddle; employees got a hand in the till when they think no one’s looking. I’ve done all kinds of jobs, always getting hired by and paid by those folks who’ve been cheated on, ripped off, bamboozled. Confidential services, nothing illegal, results guaranteed, no questions asked. My clients, they like things kept on the hush hush. It’s jus’ how the job works.

  Think about it: Nobody stuck in a jam is ever fond of broadcasting it, saying Hey, y’all, look at me, I totally fell asleep! My brain went dead! I got played for a dupe! Been drop-kicked hard, right upside the head! No, what they say is very, very little, as little as possible, and quietly. But I’m good at what I do, and Ida Mae, she writes a damn fine report, so you combine our skills, and okay, its all right for business. I get more than my share of referrals.

  Wow—hold the phone, here! Today, I think I’ve got a rare one, a walk-in. My back’s still killing me, but I straighten up, try to look presentable. Shiny black Lincoln, jus’ cruises up out of nowhere and stops not ten feet from my door. Man in a dark suit gets out slowly, looking at my sign, then at me. Smiles with these small, straight teeth, nodding like yeah, this is it, this is the place. Definitely not a friend of Miss Maria’s—too dressed up. Maybe a little out of Bert Pink’s class of clientele as well.

  Which gets me wondering: Why this empty street in Inglewood? Why me?

  No good answer for either question. Something tells me this one’s not gonna be a surprise walk-in…

  Honestly, I was this close to kissing off the entire day, afte
r the night I jus’ survived playing midnight moving-man for Sadie. When the man in the suit walks in to have a chat, I take a seat in the big oak chair behind the desk, today’s Hollywood Park race card spread out in front of me. And it hits me, jus’ how tired I am. But that race card also gets me thinking how all in all, life’s pretty good. Sadie is safe, it’s all that matters for now. And Ida Mae? She can give me her best dirty looks, now that I’m inside my office with a stranger who may want to hire me, and I’m staring at that race card like it’s my ticket to freedom. Can’t help it. Ida Mae can draw her own conclusions about what I intend to do with the afternoon, that’s okay. Still, I had no real designs on the day. Another hour or two jotting notes on the thoroughbreds I like in each race, maybe make a few phone calls on a missing person case, I’ll be ready to clock out. It’s my show, I can call it quits when I want.

  And then surprise—this man wants to see Deshaun. Looks familiar, but I can’t say from where, which bothers me. Anyhow, the man looks like he’s coming straight from a board of directors meeting, first-class dressy suit and tie combo, expensive duds, suit as black as coal up close, the tie a burning red. A lawyer, most probably, though not the kind of lawyer any of Bert Pink’s clients could ever afford.

  “May I call you Deshaun?” he says, getting settled in now.

  Fine, if I knew who he was. I gear up and played along with him anyway, though.

  He says his name is Leyes. Gives me his card. Beverly Hills address, office high-rise on Wilshire. Starts talking me up jus’ as easy as that, like we’re old friends from way back. I smile and nod, sure that something’s coming. He says, don’t I remember him from that case I’d done work on, well known psychiatrist, Dr. Don, ’cause he sure does remember me!

  I lie that yes, I do remember, but no, I don’t.

  Next thing you know, we’re discussing the Lakers, USC football, where you can go for good barbecue in these parts, and so on, but for the life of me I can’t recall his face. Small, tight nose and lips, like you might find on a possum.