“Listen, Arletta,” I said, putting my hand on her bare upper arm. “You don’t have to tell me. But you know I need to talk to the man for a minute.”
Arletta was the kind of woman that you wanted to touch. She was older than I, maybe fifty. I wasn’t trying to get over with her by caressing her skin. I wasn’t trying to but I did just the same.
“Well,” she said. “He’s out here in the kitchen.”
Arletta walked through a swinging door into the kitchen. I followed. There we found a large bald man who held a meat cleaver in his left hand. A once-white apron barely covered his large middle. The apron was stained with thick patches of pocked cow’s blood. Behind him hung what was left of a whole side of beef.
“William,” Arletta said a little loudly as if the cow-chopper was hard of hearing.
“Yeah?” The sharp voice came from behind the side of beef.
A small, gold-colored man came out from behind the slab of meat. He also wore an apron but he was so slim that it fit him like a wraparound dress.
When I saw his face I knew that I was in trouble deep. Up until that moment I knew that I had to be cautious; that there was trouble just waiting to rub off on me. But I had thought that it was other people’s troubles—not mine. What did I know about crazy mulatto brothers or swinging math teachers? What did I know about international smuggling, extortion, or murder?
Nothing.
I didn’t know a thing up until that moment. But I did know Idabell’s friend’s face. I’d seen it in a three-year-old Sojourner Truth yearbook. He was William the butcher at Whitehead’s but he was the blackmailer Bill Bartlett to me.
William carried a small knife and had no blood on him even though there was a rough cut of meat dangling from his other hand.
“This man need to ax you sumpin’,” Arletta said.
“Arletta, I cain’t work wit’ this shit,” the big, bald, and bloody cook interrupted. “I need William if we gonna prepare this meat an’ get the food out on the tables too.”
I walked quickly over to William with my hand outstretched. “Brad Koogan.”
William held up his knife and flesh to show that he couldn’t shake.
“Pee-dro!” the bald butcher shouted.
A Mexican man with mean eyes came from somewhere in back of the kitchen.
“What?” He was as large as the butcher.
“Get over here and help me with this meat.”
“I got six orders up,” Pedro replied.
“Com’on,” William said to me.
He turned and went through a back door. In the moment it took me to follow he’d put the knife and meat down on a plate, removed his rubber gloves, got a cigarette between his lips, and was ready to strike a match.
The speed he showed sent a chill through me.
“What you want, brother?” the little man asked.
I was noticing how large his head was in comparison to his body.
“What you said your name was again?” he asked.
“Brad Koogan.”
“Sound like a white man’s name.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, man. Every time I send in a application for’a job, and call about it, they always say on the phone, ‘Yeah, come on in, we got a openin’.’ But just as soon as they see my face the position has been filled.”
“Dig it,” the chef’s helper said.
“But the reason I’m here,” I continued, “is because this woman said that she saw you here an’ I need to get in touch wit’ her.”
“Who is that?” William spoke in short sentences and quick bursts, like a burp gun.
“Idabell Turner,” I said as he inhaled the smoke from his cigarette.
He held the breath a little too long and then, instead of saying anything, he took the pack of Winstons from his pocket and shook it at me.
I took the cigarette.
I took a light.
“What you want Idabell for?” he asked.
“She send a friend’a hers over to drop her dog off with me. He said that she’d come by today to take Pharaoh back but she ain’t showed an’ I already had to clean up shit twice.”
“How you know Ida?”
“Met her. At a party. Her an’ her hus’bun. Brother-in-law too, I guess. Damn! Look like twins t’me.”
I was saying one thing and thinking something similar. Did Bartlett know Roman and Holland? Was he involved in the killings? I wanted to grab the little man by the throat and choke the truth out of him but it wasn’t the right time—not yet. If he was involved and knew who I was, and that I knew him, then he’d run before I could gift wrap him for the cops.
So, for the time being, the only information I could get from him was what he let slip.
“I’ont know where she is, man.” His bullet words were a warning just over my head. “Bitch owe me three hundred dollars for six months. Come by last night to pay me off.”
Our eyes met in the involuntary agreement that we were both liars.
“But if I do hear from her I’ll tell’er you come by,” he lied. “What’s your number?”
“They took out my phone,” I answered. “But do you know her husband? Maybe I could call him.”
“Whose husband?”
“Mrs. Turner’s. Idabell’s.”
“Naw, man. Not me.”
“Where you know her from?”
“Around,” he said easily. “Listen, I got to get back on the job. Maxwell don’t hold much with no coffee breaks.”
I wanted to keep him talking. I wanted to break his face.
Instead I said, “Yeah, man. It’s a bitch.”
“See ya, brother. I’ll tell Ida you lookin’ for her—if I see her.”
CHAPTER 23
DOWN ON PINEWOOD STREET, somewhere on the road from Watts to Compton, was a small turquoise apartment building. Not many people knew that Jackson Blue lived there.
His door was on the ground floor. I knocked. I rang. I called out. I knocked again. I was so persistent because Jackson had become shy about public appearances ever since the white gangsters of downtown and Hollywood had gotten interested in his gambling operation.
After a long time the window to an apartment on the third floor slid open. Someone was leaning away up there, staring down while remaining hidden in shadow.
“They gone!” a woman’s voice called.
“Doris?”
“Easy? Easy Rawlins, is that you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well come on up here and say hey.” Her words were gay but she didn’t sound that happy.
SHE OPENED THE DOOR and came outside, looking both ways down the hall as she did. Doris was a deep brown woman with features that were a series of perfect circles; her nose, her nostrils, her eyes, even her mouth. Her hair had been straightened and now stood up, held by stiff hair spray, like a manicured lion’s mane.
Doris pulled her robe close at the chest. She gave me a worried, searching look and then peered down the hall again.
“You alone, Easy?”
“What’s goin’ on, Doris?”
“Jackson gone. They after him, Easy. Them bookie men wanna kill’im. They send some colored mens down here after him.”
“Where is Jackson, Doris?”
She looked up and down the hall again.
“Doris, I ain’t got time for this.”
“I ain’t s’posed to be sayin’ t’nobody.”
“All right.” I could live with that. I turned away.
“He’s at thirteen twenty-seven and three-quarters Morton Street,” she said to my back.
I kept walking.
“Did you hear me?” she asked. “Easy?”
I kept walking.
I walked down the stairs and out to the car. I saw Doris looking from the window above but I didn’t acknowledge her. I was thinking that Jackson’s help might not be worth its price.
Jackson and his evil friend Ortiz had been running a numbers and bookie operation to oppose the established white gangs
ters. Jackson had developed a tape recorder system that he could attach to the telephone lines. That way nobody could catch him at his phone center because there was no phone center. Jackson made a few connections at the telephone company and crazy Ortiz ran the collections.
They made more money in three years than an honest man could make in a lifetime.
I imagined a school bell ringing and the scuffle of children’s feet down the halls of the administration building. But that was all very far away.
“WHO’S THERE?” Jackson shouted from somewhere in the room beyond the door. I figured that he was to the right, behind a corner no doubt.
“It’s Easy, Jackson. Lemme in.”
“Easy?”
“Yes, Jackson. Easy.”
The door swung open quickly. Jackson was behind it. All he let me see was his frantically beckoning hand.
“Com’on, com’on, com’on, come on, come on!”
It was dark in the small room.
Jackson Blue, the smartest man I ever knew, was also one of the most untrustworthy. He was wearing black slacks and a long-sleeved black turtleneck shirt. They were both tight-fitting and so displayed his skinny frame.
It was hard to distinguish Jackson’s skin from his clothing. He held his shoulders high and his head down as if he were continually ducking from a blow.
There was a rounded couch covered by a shaggy rug and a dark wood rocking chair in that room. To the right was a door half open on a kitchen.
The only light in the room was from a streetlamp outside that shone brightly on the drawn shade.
“Can we turn on a light, Jackson?” I asked.
“No no, brother, no light.”
“You standin’ over there in the kitchen when you hollered at me?” I asked.
Jackson looked from the kitchen to the front door. I didn’t have to tell him how easy it would have been to shoot him through the wall.
“What you want, Easy? You here about who after me?”
“No. Who is it?”
“It’s not just one. Gangsters done put a bounty out on my head. Whole bunch’a soul brothers out to make a grand on my hide.”
When he swallowed it was like his whole body was the throat.
“What about Ortiz?” I asked. “He think he could take anybody.”
When Jackson sat down on the shag-covered couch a dusty odor rose in the room.
“What’s wrong, Jackson?” I asked. It struck me then that I was unarmed. I had gone unarmed in the streets of L.A. for over two years but this was the first time that it made me feel light.
“It’s all fucked up, man. All fucked up.”
“You mean the money on your head?”
I wasn’t being truthful with Jackson. I knew about his problems. That’s why I had sought him out. I’d heard from Mouse that Ortiz had been arrested; I figured that would have put Jackson in a vulnerable position.
“That, yeah. But it ain’t just him. It’s just bad luck.” Jackson shook his head and stared at the floor. “Bad luck.”
“What kinda bad luck?”
Jackson had his head down with his hands clasped at the back of his neck. He raised his head without releasing that grip, looked at me for a hard moment, and then sighed.
“Ortiz in jail,” he said.
“What for?”
“Two dudes got it in their heads to hijack our runners. We got hit twice. Lost twenty-six hunnert dollars near ’bout. But they got greedy and went in for number three. One’a my people recognized’em an’ Ortiz went down to a bar where they hung out, down on Slauson. They saw’im comin’ but they decided to fight instead’a runnin’.” Jackson shook his head at their foolishness. “But you know Ortiz got some heavy fists. Heavy.”
“So it was just a fight?” I asked.
“Yeah. Ortiz busted’em up pretty bad but he’s in jail because them white bookies got to the judge. Cops and the prosecutor actin’ like Ortiz is public enemy number one. They wanna have a big trial an’ meanwhile Ortiz up in jail with no bail.”
“And with him in jail your butt’s in a sling,” I declared.
“Yeah, they figgered it was a good time t’pick me off.”
Jackson rubbed his hand over his face and turned in my direction. “Can you help me?” he asked.
Like I said, I knew that Jackson was in trouble. But I had washed my hands of trouble. When I’d heard about Jackson’s dilemma I worried that my buddy might get killed but I didn’t do anything to help him. I didn’t do anything because he had chosen his road and I’d chosen mine. But now I saw where our paths might intersect again. I’d come looking for him knowing that he’d ask for my aid.
“Help you how?”
“I don’t know, Easy. I wish I did.”
“What were you plannin’ to do, Jackson? You just gonna sit here till somebody come in here with guns blastin’?”
“No … I mean, what could I do?”
When it came to Jackson Blue, things never changed.
“I need something from you, Jackson.”
“Anything, brother. ’Cause you know long as I’m helpin’ you I gotta still be breathin’ to do it.”
CHAPTER 24
YOU KNOW A PLACE called the Chantilly Club?” I asked Jackson Blue.
He froze like a wary bug when a man’s shadow passes nearby.
“Why?”
“Why? Because what I need to know got to do with the Chantilly Club. That’s why.”
“What you doin’ here, Easy Rawlins?” Jackson sat up in his chair and tried to look threatening.
“What’s wrong, Jackson? You crazy?”
“You know Philly Stetz?”
“Never heard of ’im.”
Jackson had the face of a scout dog from a wild pack. He was trying to sense my danger to his brood.
“What you wanna know?” he said through nearly closed lips.
“You ever hear of Holland and Roman Gasteau?”
“Mmm-hm. Roman’s a gambler. Holland’s his brother.”
“Roman got himself killed at the school I work at and then Holland wound up dead at his own house. Holland was married to one of the teachers at Sojourner Truth. I hear the brothers hung out at a private Negro club at the back of the Chantilly Club.”
“You sure you don’t know Philly?” Jackson asked again.
“Who’s that?”
“He’s one’a them, one’a the men could be after me. He run the Chantilly.”
“That’s why I come to you, Jackson. I know that you deal with gamblers. I thought you could help me. It’s no surprise that I’d ask you ’bout somebody you know.”
Jackson nodded and rubbed his face again. “How you gonna pay me for this help?” he asked.
“Get you outta this mess you in.”
“How?”
“I got a place for ya,” I said. “And who knows what after that? You get me the right information and maybe I’ll find you an honest job mopping up floors.”
Jackson frowned at the idea and I laughed.
I WENT OUT to the car while Jackson gathered his things. By the time he came out to meet me I had the engine going.
“Whose apartment is that, Jackson?”
“It was ours,” he said. “Just a room we kept in case things got rough.”
“I guess they did, huh?”
“Guess so.”
JACKSON WAS BETTER than a library when it came to information about the criminal side of L.A.—both black and white. His head was a vault of who did it, when they did it, and how much they got paid for it. That was the way he stayed out of jail for so long; the cops would arrest him for this or that and then ask him what he knew that would make them agree to let him go. That was also why he found no sympathy from the black hoods from Watts and thereabouts. Very few people liked Jackson Blue.
But he was worth the trouble he might cause. Jackson told me about Philly Stetz, the owner of the Chantilly Club. He had been a sports promoter back east who had come to L.A. in the fifties. He did
somebody a big favor in city government and then took over the mansion. Stetz dabbled in gambling, fences, prostitutes, and various other L.A. pastimes. Ice didn’t melt on his tongue and he didn’t know, for a fact, the color of his own blood.
JACKSON WAS AFRAID to stay down in south L.A. because he thought that he was open to any black man who knew the price that the gangsters had put on his head. He was afraid of Hollywood and downtown because of the gangsters themselves.
So I took him to the Oasis Palms Motel on Lincoln in Santa Monica.
“Anything else to tell me about the Chantilly Club?” I asked.
“Naw. Just say you know Blackman. Tell’em he sent ya an’ that’ll get ya in back.”
“You know anything else ’bout the Gasteaus?”
“No, uh-uh,” he said.
“I’ll come by in a few days wit’ someplace for you to stay till you can try’n get outta this mess,” I said.
“Easy?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you let me have a couple’a dollars? Just till you get back.”
“You don’t have no money?”
Jackson studied his hands.
“Jackson?”
“What?”
“How much money you and Ortiz made in this last year?”
“You mean since a year ago exact, or just since January?”
“This year.”
“I’ont know. More’n fifty thousand, that’s sure.”
“Where is it?”
“Gone.”
Gone. The one-word sentence that describes so many people’s lives. Jackson Blue making more money in ten months than most black people see in ten years. Where is it? Gone. Like my mother and the house I was born in. Like my wife and, with her, my first child—lost to me in the hills of Arkansas with a man who had been my friend. Gone.
I wanted to strike Jackson.
Instead I gave him one hundred dollars that I’d lifted from a dead man’s pockets.
“Wait for me here, Jackson. I might have one more thing for you to do.”
“I ain’t got no place to go, Easy.”
And that was just the way I wanted it.
CHAPTER 25
A Little Yellow Dog Page 19