“Did he threaten you?”
She nodded.
“That why old man Gillian is ready with his shotgun?”
“I didn’t know if it was drugs or something else, Mr. Rawlins. It didn’t matter, because he hit me. My mother always told me that you can’t let any man treat you like that.” The steel in her eyes was fine by me.
“But you did talk to him again.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of that croquet set. Because of that note Idabell wrote.”
I was pushing to see how far she would trust me.
“He came to my apartment after they beat him up.”
“Who?”
“The people he dealt with. He didn’t say who. He told me that they had made a deal for six deliveries but we’d only finished five—”
“So they were going to kill him,” I finished the sentence.
“And me,” she said. “He’d told them how he was getting the toys into the country. He said that they were going to kill me too unless I went along with it.”
“And you believed it?”
“You should have seen him. He was all beaten up. Bleeding, swollen. There were bruises and lumps all over his body.”
“So you told him yes.”
“I told him no.” Bonnie Shay reared back like a king cobra. “I told him to get out of my house. I told him to send his killers, but I wouldn’t be his whore.”
That phrase played over and over in my mind for the next few weeks, and years.
“So what’s the problem?” I asked, trying to seem unimpressed with her heroism.
“Holland got Idabell to do it.”
“How does that work?”
“Roman kept calling but I wouldn’t talk to him. I was afraid to go to the police, I didn’t even know what I would say. So I just waited it out. When nothing happened I thought that everything was okay.
“And then a month or so later Idabell calls and asks if we can spend a few days in Paris. She said that Holland was going out of town. I got her a ticket. It was only when we were landing in L.A. that I saw the croquet set. It had been delivered to our hotel and she got it without me knowing.”
“But why would she do that? She didn’t owe anything to Roman, did she?”
“It was because of Pharaoh.”
“The dog.”
“Roman promised to share the money with Holland if he would get Ida to do it. So Holland hid the dog and told Ida that he’d kill it if she didn’t do what he said. You know Ida’s crazy over that dog.”
“But who killed them?”
“I guess it was the people who they were doing business with. The man who came to my house today.”
It made sense. It was a simple case of a falling out among thieves.
“But maybe Idabell killed Holland,” I guessed out loud.
“No,” said Miss Shay. “I don’t believe that.”
“Maybe to save her dog?” I speculated. “That damn dog seems to be the reason for every problem we have.”
“Idabell wouldn’t even know how to kill a man. Where would she get a gun?”
“Out of her husband’s top drawer. That’s where most men keep their guns, you know. In the top drawer, next to the bed.” I was just talking. “So now what do you want to do?”
“What do you mean?” She looked around, coming aware that she was in a strange man’s house. After all, what did she know about me? Killers had kids too.
“You wanna go to the cops?” I offered.
“Maybe I should.”
“Maybe so. I mean, if your life is in danger then maybe the cops will help; maybe they’ll believe that you didn’t know what was going on. But if they don’t believe you you’ll be alive, but you’ll also be in jail.”
She stood up quickly and took a step toward the door.
I stayed in my chair.
“Why are you trying to scare me, Mr. Rawlins?”
“I’m not tryin’ to scare you, honey,” I sighed. “I’m just tryin’ to point out that we both want the same thing.”
“What’s that?”
“To be let alone. That’s all. We both got lives and jobs and we both want a future. Police don’t care about none’a that.”
Bonnie stared at the floor in front of my feet the same way that Jesus had.
“You want to sleep for a while?” I asked.
“I, I don’t know. I’m tired, but …”
“You can have my bed. I’m’onna be here for a while. You could get some sleep and then we’ll figure out what you should do.”
I took her into my room and she stretched out on top of the blankets. I spent the next half an hour in the kitchen going over the crimes in my mind again. Sanchez and Fogherty smelled the drugs somehow. I don’t think they knew what or how, because if they did they would have either left me alone or thrown me in jail.
No, they had suspicions, that’s all. They wanted to know more about the whiff of dope that stuck in their nostrils.
He didn’t know it, but Sanchez wanted Bonnie. I’d never give her to him. She wasn’t the kind of woman that a fool like me could give up.
When the phone started ringing I decided not to answer it. On the sixth ring I wondered who it was. On the tenth bell I picked up the receiver.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Mr. Rawlins,” Hiram T. Newgate bellowed. “I see that you’re still at home.”
“What do you want, Hiram?”
“What do you think? You’ve decided not to come in to work anymore. The police are investigating you for theft—maybe worse. I’m calling to ask for your resignation.”
“My what? Are you crazy?”
“I have a school to run,” he said. “A school. I can’t have the people working for me disappearing without a word.”
“Didn’t Stowe call you?”
“This isn’t his school. He can’t just take my people. And anyway, you aren’t even working. You’re at home.”
I moved the receiver from my ear, intent on slamming it down, but I checked myself.
“Mr. Newgate, listen to me.” I breathed through the sentence so that he could hear the hiss in my throat. “I’m doin’ a job for the area office. Mr. Stowe is my boss—not you. I work for him. He provides my services to you. If you have a complaint then call the grievance office—and lodge it.”
“I won’t have you working for me, Rawlins.”
“Good-bye,” I said. And we both hung up.
“Mr. Rawlins?” She was standing at the door to the kitchen.
“Yeah?” I let my eye settle on that small stain.
“I don’t want you to think I’m flirting with you,” she said.
“If this was you flirtin’, then love would strike me dead.”
She smiled and said, “Will you come lie next to me?”
“What?”
“You’re right, I’m very tired, but I’m scared in the bed alone. When I get up the room starts spinning. Just lie next to me—until I fall asleep.”
I SAT UP AGAINST the head of the bed while Bonnie lay curled toward me. We weren’t touching.
“Is she really dead?” Bonnie asked.
I didn’t answer her.
“I couldn’t go to sleep for thinking about it. I was afraid for her. I was afraid something would happen while I was gone.”
“You thought Holland or Roman would do something?” I asked.
Bonnie sat up and looked me in the eye. “Tell me what happened,” she said.
I told almost all of it. Not the lovemaking, I was shy about that, but I told her about meeting Idabell and taking her to Bonnie’s street. I told her what we talked about and about the man running through the rain. I told her about the park and Pharaoh’s cries.
“She deserved better,” Bonnie said.
“I know.”
She looked at me as closely as Sanchez had. And when I said my last words she nodded and allowed her eyes to fill with tears. Her intuition told her that I was telling the t
ruth.
I’d never felt closer to another soul.
BONNIE LAY ON HER SIDE, facing me, a peaceful look on her sleeping face. I wanted to touch her, to run my hand down the curve of her breast. But instead I stayed on my back with my hands behind my head.
Most people say that a man loses his rational abilities when he gets sexually aroused. I’ve often found the opposite to be true. My mind is sometimes clearest when there’s no doubt about how I’m feeling.
The tiles began to fall together in my mind. The characters of my little play, living and dead, picked up their parts and rehearsed their lines. I started with a happy ending and then worked backwards from there.
“MR. RAWLINS?” I was down in Louisiana again working my hoe on a row of snap beans. “Mr. Rawlins?”
Bonnie was standing over me but she wasn’t looking at my face.
My hand was down over my crotch.
“It’s noon, Mr. Rawlins.”
“Easy.”
“What?”
“That’s my name. Call me Easy.”
She had a nice smile. “You should get up.”
CHAPTER 30
THERE WERE BUTTER-GRILLED ham and cheese sandwiches and lemonade, made from the lemons in my yard, waiting on the kitchen table. A raven was stalking around outside the back window, searching the lawn for seed.
“You got someplace to go?” I asked her. “To lay low.”
“I have friends in France.”
“Can you get on a flight?”
“I’d rather stay in L.A. until I know what’s happening. I mean, I want to be sure.”
“Why would you stay here in Los Angeles if you’re in trouble with gangsters and the police?” I asked. “You got somethin’ else on your mind?”
“You can’t run from trouble, Mr. Rawlins,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess you’re right about that. Yeah. You can stay here for a while. After that we’ll see.”
I picked up the phone and dialed. Mouse answered on the seventh ring.
“Hello?”
“Raymond?”
“Hey, Easy. How you doin’?” He didn’t seem to care much.
“I need a ride in to the school today. You wanna come and get me?”
“Now? You mean you want me to come in to work early?”
“You could do some overtime. I can give it to you. I’m the boss.”
“Yeah, but for how long?”
“What’s that s’posed t’mean?”
“Nuthin’. I’ll talk to you later, man.”
Bonnie went back to bed.
After she was asleep again I bathed and shaved. By the time Mouse got there I was ready to go. He pulled up in front of the house in his tan Ford and tapped on the horn.
It felt good running out to get into a buddy’s car for a ride to work.
“WHAT YOU MEAN about that crack about me not bein’ around?” I asked while he drove.
“Newgate come ’round askin’ ’bout you,” Mouse said. “He wondered if you missed work a lot. Then he asked me stuff about what you used to do—before you come to work for the Board.”
“That all?”
“He said that it was unusual for you to get such a high job of responsibility so fast without no college.” Mouse grinned. “Then he said that somebody like me might have to work a dozen years to get that high.”
“Oh,” I said. Then, “You know, Raymond, I might need some help from you later on.”
“Sumpin’ at the school?”
“No.”
Mouse cut his gray eyes at me. “You don’t want me to do sumpin’ wrong now, do ya?”
“If there’s any doin’ t’be done I’ll do it,” I said. “It would just be good if I had somebody to come with me.”
“Hm.” Mouse brought a finger to his chin. “ ’Cause you know I went down to Etta’s preacher yesterday afternoon.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. I asked him what a sinner could do to repent, an’ he said to admit my sins and to accept Jesus. He said that way I could be forgave. He said if I did that then the Lord would give me a sign, just like you said.
“I tried to confess right there but he heard the first few words and told me to shut up. He said that we wasn’t Catholics to hear confession. He said that my repentance was just between me an’ God.
“That was my first sign, I know.”
Mouse had answered my request, but I didn’t understand him.
“Will you come with me tonight?” I asked again.
“Sure, Easy. Who knows where my next sign might be?”
WHEN WE GOT TO SCHOOL I found four messages for me in the administration office. They were from the boys’ vice principal, the principal, Mr. Stowe down at the central office, and Sergeant Sanchez up in Mrs. Teale’s room.
I went to see Mr. Langdon in his wood shop.
His classroom was a bungalow like the ones on the lower campus but it was older and placed up next to the science building. The turtlelike teacher was pawing over thin flats of wood with four of his advanced students. They were building a large chest of six drawers, each of which was designed to be a unique size. You could see the intention by the frame of the chest that was standing behind them.
“Mr. Rawlins,” he said when he saw me.
His serious students looked up, and one of them even blinked like Langdon did.
“I have something to discuss with you, Mr. Langdon,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but we’re in the middle of a very delicate operation right now. Maybe if you came by tomorrow morning, before class …”
Mr. Langdon had regained his confidence and so now I was the well-dressed janitor again; a man who would have to wait no matter what he needed to know.
“Okay,” I said mildly. “I just wanted to know about that special croquet set you worked on for our friend.”
To see a pale man turn white is a frightening thing.
“Go on, boys,” Langdon said. “We’ll start over tomorrow.”
“But the glue is ready, Mr.—”
“Go on now. Go, go,” the great white turtle stuttered and snapped.
The boys left complaining under their breath.
I sat down on the long bench of vises and smiled.
“What, what … what can I …” Langdon was floundering on his own tongue.
“You hollowed out a set of croquet balls and mallets for Roman Gasteau, right? Some Italian carpet balls and wooden dolls too.”
Now Langdon could only gasp.
“You did that,” I went on. “And he used them to smuggle drugs.”
“No, no, no,” Langdon said.
“Yes, yes, yes,” I said.
He looked around the room for help but we were alone. “It’s not so bad really, Mr. Rawlins. I did make the croquet set but it was just for grass. We used to have marijuana parties.” He was talking loudly. I knew then that Roman Gasteau had been a fool. Only a fool would have taken on a partner like Langdon. A child could have forced the truth out of that wood shop teacher.
“With Idabell, Roman, and Holland?”
“Lots of people would come over.”
“How could you be such a fool to get involved with dope smugglin’?”
“It’s not like it was real drugs,” Casper said. “It was only pot. Roman used to go down to Tijuana and stuff the mallets or the dolls or the lawn balls with grass, sometimes hash.”
I didn’t correct Casper because I couldn’t see why he should know more than he admitted. He was scared enough to be involved with marijuana.
“It’s a girl, right?” I asked.
Langdon looked down. He held out his hands in front of his face and big tears splatted down on his fingers.
“What’s her name, Mr. Langdon?”
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
“Yes it is,” I said. “Roman took you out an’ got you high. Then he showed you a girl didn’t need any kind of promises or flowers. I know. I know.”
“She liked me.” Langdon blinked his heavy lids. The droplets clung to his eyelashes.
“What’s her name?”
“Grace,” he said. “But I haven’t seen her in two months.”
Any hope that I had for innocence was gone with a name. Roman knew Grace. I knew Grace. Grace was how I came to my job. It was as if I had been looking for the criminal and came upon myself on the way.
“Grace Phillips?”
“Yes.”
I don’t know how long I stood there speechless, staring at his fat white cheeks.
Finally I turned away from him and went to the bungalow door.
“Mr. Rawlins?” Langdon called from across the room.
“What?”
“Are you going to tell the police or, or Mr. Newgate?”
“The cops haven’t talked to you about this?”
“No. They showed me a picture of Roman and asked me if I knew him. I told them that he was Mrs. Turner’s brother-in-law. That’s all they wanted to know.”
“Well, you better hope that they don’t come back to you, Mr. Langdon. But if they do come back you better be quiet about what you know. Roman might have told you that it was all right but I don’t think that Sergeant Sanchez would agree.”
“Oh my God.”
SERGEANT SANCHEZ was sitting at Miss Teale’s desk.
“So, you decided to come in to work at last, eh, Rawlins?”
“Well, you know, there were some things that I had to do.”
He smiled. “You ready to talk to me?”
“Nuthin’ t’say, officer. I don’t know a thing.”
“Nothing? What about heroin, Mr. Rawlins?”
“No thanks.”
“This is no joke, man,” Sanchez said. “We got a serious drug problem here. The Gasteau twins were selling drugs.”
“Really?”
“We found traces in a wax paper bag in the hole in the garden. He had everything there he needed to cut drugs and package them.”
“What difference does it make?” I asked. “Those men are dead. Unless you think they gonna be sending drugs up from hell then that case is closed.”
“This is serious,” he said again. Maybe he was going to say something else but I cut him off.
“Naw, man. What’s serious is you got four or five dozen kids in this neighborhood climbin’ up under the bushes in front’a the school ev’ry night disintegratin’ their brains on airplane glue.” I was mad. “Every mornin’ you walk right over the rags. You see the kids stalkin’ an’ staggerin’ around and what you do? You come in here an’ try’n scare me because of somethin’ that happened years ago. I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout no heroin. I do know about glue though. You wanna hear about that?”
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