“In a place.”
“What place?”
“In Juice room.”
Nobody wanted to use the Lord’s name in vain, so Jesus became Juice at Hamilton High School.
Feather led me to a corner in Juice’s closet where there was a cardboard chest that used to hold hundreds of little plastic soldiers. But the soldiers had all died or gone AWOL and in their place were neat stacks of different denominations of bills from one to twenty. Four hundred and eighty-nine dollars in all.
“It’s Juice treasure chest,” Feather said. “But it’s a secret, okay?”
I sat down on the floor. Pharaoh was growling at my elbow. There was too much money there to hope that he would get away from court with a warning.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah, honey?”
“Can I go downstairs and feed Frenchie?”
She’d already given the damn dog her own name. I went outside to have a cigarette and wait for my boy. He was lucky that he stayed away. In the mood I was in I might have struck him—and that was something I swore I’d never do.
My next-door neighbor, Mrs. Horn, came home before Jesus did. She was a skinny and nervous woman from white Christian California stock. Still, I never found any reason to distrust or dislike her.
“Hi, Mr. Rawlins,” she said.
I went over to help her with her bag of groceries.
“Jesus is out, Mrs. Horn,” I said. “And I got an appointment to keep.”
“That’s okay. You go on. I’ll come over and look after Feather. You know she’s just a darling little girl. I really love her.”
I’m sure she did.
Before I went down to my car I said, “Um, when Jesus gets here, please tell him not to go anywhere and wait for me.”
Mrs. Horn gave me a second look; she could hear the threat in my words.
THE RIDE BACK to Sojourner Truth was quick. I got there just a little before six. Everyone from the administration building had gone home. I used my keys to get into the office. There I opened the key closet where they kept the keys to the personnel files drawer.
Turner was her maiden name even though she called herself “Mrs.” Her husband’s name was Holland Gasteau.
She was thirty-two years old and had been born in French Guiana but had immigrated to America when she was four years old. I unlocked the phone plug on the rotary and dialed the Turner-Gasteau residence. I let it ring fifteen times before hanging up. I redialed but still no one answered.
I wrote down her Butler Place address, a street above Hollywood Boulevard, and also the address and phone number of a Miss B. Shay, who was given as someone to get in touch with in case of an emergency.
I didn’t know for a fact that the handsome dead man was Idabell’s husband, but I knew that she was in trouble and that she’d lied about the dog.
COMING OUT OF THE administration building I ran into Sergeant Sanchez. A lock of his longish black hair had trailed down onto his forehead.
“Working late, aren’t you, Mr. Rawlins?”
“How’s the investigation going?” I replied.
He didn’t like my answer. He didn’t like my clothes or the way I walked. If we’d worked side by side on a road gang, swinging sixteen-pound hammers, he wouldn’t have liked the way that I smelled.
“You find out his name yet?” I was actually sweating under his gaze.
“Where’s your night man?” Sanchez asked.
“I don’t know. Mr. Alexander follows his own schedule. All I care about is that the work is done when I come in in the morning.”
“And is it always done?”
“He’s a good worker.”
“Mr. Newgate says that there’s been some property missing from the school over the last year. TVs, musical instruments.” Sanchez the fisherman.
The only thing I was sure of about the thefts was that Mouse hadn’t been involved. Mouse would never have wasted his time with petty theft. But I couldn’t tell Sanchez that.
“You have a little time to walk me around the grounds to find your night man?” Sanchez asked.
“No. I got to make dinner for my kids.”
A frown knitted itself into the policeman’s brow. “You married?”
Of course, I thought, he’d read my files.
“No,” I said. “I mean, I was. But things didn’t work out.”
“And she left you with the kids?”
I could feel my heart swell in fear. Neither Jesus nor Feather was legally mine. I had gotten Jesus the papers of a child that had died in infancy, but his real story was worse than most orphans. He’d been sold as a child prostitute when he was about two and had probably come from Mexico, or maybe even from further down south.
There was no birth certificate for Feather at all. If the sergeant started looking into my private life everything could have fallen apart.
“Any more questions?” I asked him.
He shook his head but it was more disapproval than an answer to my question.
“Don’t you find it strange that someone would come into the school to hide something, Mr. Rawlins?” Sanchez asked. “I mean, why, how would they even know to do it?”
I wanted Sanchez to see me as an honest and hard worker. So I asked, “What was it they were hiding?” not because I cared or wanted to know but because I thought that that was the kind of question an honest man would ask.
“That’s police business,” he said. “Why don’t you answer my question?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t understand it. But I figure that if you want to do some late-night larceny the garden is the perfect place for it. You can’t see the lights on in the garden building because it’s surrounded by trees and bushes.”
“Oh?” he said speculatively. “And how would somebody know that?”
“Well,” I said, still the stuttering honest man, “I mean, the custodians know ’cause you can’t just look over there and see. You got to walk over there, open the gate, and go down behind the trees to tell.”
“I see,” he said.
I was beginning to dislike Sanchez as much as I did Mrs. Turner’s dog.
“Why don’t we take a walk and look for your night man?” Sanchez asked again.
“I told you. I got to get home to my kids.”
“It’ll just take a little while. We could answer some important questions.”
“That’s your job, sergeant,” I said. “My job is at home.”
He shook his head again.
“Excuse me,” I said. And then I turned my back on him.
CHAPTER 8
NIGHT HAD COME by the time I reached 1646 Butler Place. Butler was on a hill so steep that I had to turn my front wheel into the curb to help the parking brake.
The small house basked in the dim glow of a granite post streetlamp. It was surfaced in corroding light-colored plaster and surrounded by stands of bird-of-paradise plants. There was a small tree that took up what little yard there was; it had dark berrylike fruit hanging from it. I didn’t know what kind of tree it was, but that was no surprise. There was almost every kind of plant in the world growing on the city streets. L.A. is a desert pumped full of water. A haven for plant life, but if anybody ever turns off the tap, ninety-nine percent of the life down here would wither.
There was a light on in the house and a dark ’58 Thunderbird in the driveway. The porch was unlighted and I stood there in front of the door for a good minute before ringing the bell.
I stood waiting on that cool step because I wanted to control my temper. I should have told Sanchez about the dog; if he had been friendly I probably would have. But that cop could have looked into my business; my job history, my kids. And just by looking he could have destroyed all that I had built. I blamed Idabell for that. Leaving her damn dog with me and then lying about his accident. I was an accomplice to something and I wasn’t even sure what.
Nobody answered on the first ring, or the second. I put my ear to the door after five tries; not a sound. The do
orknob didn’t turn. The window, hidden by the secret berry tree, was locked.
I could have gone home then—I should have. But the street had been calling me all day long. I had been seduced, hoodwinked, and blamed for a thief; I’d been bullied and looked at like a crook instead of an honest man. I could have gone home but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
The side driveway consisted of two slender paths of concrete laid to accommodate the wheels of a car. Spare grass sprouted here and there in the trail of dirt that passed in between the cement tracks.
The backyard was dark and overgrown with shrubs and vines. Anything could have happened back there in the dark. I was no longer in the law-abiding workaday world. I was alone, hanging by a thread again.
The back door wasn’t open but the sliding window was. I slipped my hand in and twisted the knob.
The back porch housed an old-time washing machine. A big barrel-shaped thing that had a chrome arch over the top. There were clothes that had been left in the washer for days; they had begun to mildew.
I went from there into an unlit kitchen. Even in the dark I could see the mess. Dirty dishes piled everywhere, the stench of garbage. I could feel grit on the floor through the soles of my shoes.
The dining room held a faint glow from the light of the room beyond it.
I froze there next to the maple table when I saw two shod feet in the next room. They were the feet of a man reclining on his sofa chair.
I don’t know how long I stood there; thinking about walking backwards, thinking about calling out or maybe just walking in on him. I looked around for a bludgeon to use if he came at me but there were only fragile teacups on the table.
Finally, without thinking about it, I walked right in.
I wasn’t thinking but my fists were tight and my hips could have taken me in any direction I chose.
I thought I was ready for anything, but the dead man lying on the plaid chair almost took me out of my skin. How could it be? Somebody took him from behind the stand of bamboo at Sojourner Truth? No. From the police morgue? No. Sanchez?
The body laid out on the chair was the same one I had seen earlier. Same tweed suit, same snakeskin shoes, same olive skin and oily hair.
“Damn!” I said loudly. “Damn!” I had a sinking feeling in my groin and there was sweat at the back of my neck. It was a fear from way back in my boyhood days in Louisiana. I remember thinking that if he got up from that chair I would have run all the way to the ocean.
But then my rational mind kicked in. This man had blood down his chest. He was stabbed or, more probably, shot in the heart. His temple was unmarked. And this man’s eyes were closed.
Also he bore a big, dark red kiss on his cheek.
A good-bye kiss.
I WANTED TO RUN but instead I forced myself to stay and look around. The blood was dry. The man laid out in the chilly room had been dead for many hours. He could spare a few minutes more.
I scanned the disheveled room but nothing registered. My breath was coming in gasps and, for the second time that day, my heart was playing the drums.
I forced myself to stare at the low coffee table that was off to the corpse’s left. There lay a crumpled pack of Salems, a plate completely filled with the red shells of pistachio nuts, a nearly empty fifth of Gilbey’s gin, a single glass, and a black-bladed knife. The knife was curved like a boomerang, the inner curve sharpened for hacking away thick vegetation.
The glass was handblown and had a thick green base.
He hadn’t finished his last drink.
THE BEDROOM WAS A MESS TOO. I remembered that Idabell said she’d been away. Holland, I supposed, was one of those men who expected women to clean up after them. There was a week’s worth of socks, underwear, and trousers on the floor. The bedclothes were piled up at the head of the bed. Four squashed down pillows had been stacked in the middle of the mattress. There were also a few drops of dried blood near the foot of the bed, near the pillows.
There had been two suitcases in the corner of the large walk-in closet. But one had been removed, leaving a suitcase-sized gap between its brother and the wall. There was also about an eighteen-inch space on the hanger rod. Only the man’s clothes remained. On top of his shoes sat three large shopping bags filled with thin blue rubber bands.
I DON’T LIKE HANDLING the dead but there was no way out of it. There was no clue to the dead man’s murder in the house. Nobody broke in. Everything was out of place. Maybe Idabell had done it. But she’d said that they were in trouble. Maybe somebody wanted to kill her.
I had come that far. I could have left without looking, but who knew what would come back to me later on? Better make sure I knew all I could before I left. The most likely place to look was in the dead man’s pockets.
All he had was a wallet. But what a wallet it was. It was thick with pieces of paper: receipts, notes, addresses, ads, even a letter. He had six hundred-dollar bills and a wad of various other smaller denominations.
I was about to sit down and sift through the papers and cards when a light played across the window shade. It was only a passing car but I took it as a sign that I should go.
I reclaimed my fingerprints from the back door and window, then opened the front door and rubbed those surfaces down.
“Mr. Gasteau?” An elderly white woman was standing at the gate. I didn’t think that she saw my face because I was still partly hidden by the night and the berry tree.
I’m proud to say that homicide never crossed my mind. Instead I splayed my left hand in front of my face, using the spaces for my eyes. My right hand I held above my head, dangling the car keys. I crouched down low enough to be five foot six and walked at a sway as I strutted toward the woman like a fleshy and belled crab.
She fell back. “Oh.”
I went right to my car, turned the wheel out, and released the handbrake. When I hit the ignition I was already coasting down the hill. With any luck the old lady had bad vision or didn’t think to take down my plates.
With any luck.
MISS B. SHAY lived on the second floor of a two-story stucco apartment building in Culver City. There was a bright talisman hanging from the protruding peephole of her front door; a small shield of brightly colored glass beads that came from somewhere in the lower Americas. I would have liked it, and the eye that placed it there, at any other time.
“Yes?” came a voice from behind the closed door.
“Miss Shay?”
“Who is it?”
“My name is Rawlins, ma’am. I came to ask you about your friend Idabell Turner.”
“What about her?” I didn’t blame her for wanting to keep the door closed against a big man who came knocking unannounced.
“It’s about her dog,” I said. “She left him with me today at work but then she took off and now I don’t know what to do.”
I guess the desperation in my voice convinced her. She opened the door to the length of the safety chain and filled that opening with her body.
B. Shay was tallish, about five-eight, with thick hair that was tied back into a lace cloth. She was a deep brown with naturally smiling lips. Her face was full of feelings and memories that I thought I might know. She had on a big loose gold sweater that came down below her knees. Her legs from there were bare. Even though the sweater was supposed to be shapeless there was definitely form underneath. I didn’t care.
A beautiful face wasn’t going to save my job and my kids from Sanchez.
“Ida left Pharaoh with you?” she asked me.
“Yeah.”
“And how did you know to come here?”
“Um, I work at school with her like I said, and so I asked for her emergency card when I realized that she was gone. You see, she was having some problem at home. As a matter of fact she said that she wasn’t gonna go home and that she was staying with a friend. I hoped it was you.”
“No,” B. Shay said. It was when she looked me in the eyes that my sleeping mind started making poetry out of
her face. “Ida and I haven’t seen too much of each other in the last year or so. We used to be close but I haven’t even talked to her in months.”
“Uh-huh.” There really wasn’t anything else for me to say.
“Have you tried her home?”
“I called but nobody answered, and if she was havin’ trouble with her husband I didn’t wanna go by there. Maybe I could give you my number and if you talk to her …”
A frown flitted across her face. “What is it?”
“You got a pencil?”
“Just tell me. I’ll remember long enough to write it down after you go.”
She frowned again while I was reciting my number, at least giving the feeling that she was trying to remember it.
“Okay,” she said when I was through.
There seemed to be something else on her mind, but she wasn’t opening up to me. Maybe she knew where Idabell was; maybe she’d give her my number. I didn’t know.
I left with a plan in mind. I’d given Idabell Turner/ Gasteau every chance that I could. Now I was going to take care of myself. If Sanchez questioned me the next day I’d answer every question with complete honesty. If he mentioned the dog I’d tell him what I knew. I wasn’t guilty of anything—he’d have to see that.
At least I hoped he’d have to.
But the more I thought about it the more I feared that Sanchez would suspect me for some reason. What if he looked into the Seventy-seventh Street station’s records? I was all over those papers; suspected of everything from conspiracy to murder.
The closer I got to home the more I thought that I should get rid of the dog. Idabell wouldn’t claim that I had him, because he, or his “accident,” was her excuse for leaving school that morning. Sanchez was bound to get on the math teacher’s trail. There was a corpse in her house. The dead man in the garden had to be related to her in some way.
Get rid of the dog. That’s what I was thinking. After all, it was only a dog. And a damn mean and worthless dog at that.
CHAPTER 9
JESUS WAS SITTING at the dining table doing his homework when I got home. Feather was playing with the soon-to-be-gone dog.
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