Yours,
Bonnie
There was a big kiss at the bottom of the page. I looked at the note wondering at how wrong I could be and still survive.
JEWELLE WAS HAPPY with Jackson Blue.
“He knows so much,” she said to me over the phone.
“I don’t know about that, JJ,” I said.
“What you mean?” she asked. “He knows math and electronics and all about the history of the world.”
“But he don’t know how to survive, honey,” I said. “If you put him outta that house he’d be dead ’fore the sun went down.”
Jewelle didn’t have anything to say to that. She was a smart girl. Smart in every subject but men.
“What time is it?” Jackson asked me when he got on the line.
“’Bout eight-thirty.”
“Shit.”
“Jackson,” I said, “you remember what we talked about?”
“Bout Stetz?”
“Yeah.”
“Go on.”
“I want you to find out where he is and how I can get in touch with him.”
“What for?”
“I’m going to tell him that I know how to get my hands on the final shipment of aitch that Roman Gasteau was supposed to have for Joey Beam.”
“How much?”
“I already told you, three pounds,” I said.
“Naw, man,” Jackson complained. “How much we gonna charge?”
“Ain’t no how, Jackson. I’ma tell’im that you gonna quit bein’ his competition and that I’ll give him the drugs back for his friend.”
“But don’t you think we better ask for some money, man? I mean he ain’t gonna believe that you in it for your health.”
“You want money, Jackson?” I asked.
“I need it, man.”
“Well then,” I said. “Think about your life like it was a wad’a cash. An’ try not and spend it all in one place next time.”
“You passin’ up a golden opportunity right here, Easy.”
“All I want from you is to find out how I can get in touch with Philly Stetz.”
“Shit, man, I already know where that motherfucker is hid.” Jackson was beginning to sound like his old self. The presence of a woman will do that to a man—for better or worse.
“How you know that?”
“Well, you know.”
“No. I don’t know at all, Jackson.”
“Ortiz. Ortiz found out but … but well, you know.”
“Ortiz was going to shoot Stetz,” I declared.
“It was just insurance, Easy. Best to be prepared.”
“Prepared,” I repeated. “Jackson, you ain’t prepared for shit.”
When he didn’t say anything I added, “One mo’ thing, Jackson.”
“Yeah?”
“JJ got enough trouble wit’ her fam’ly an’ Mofass. Keep yo’ fingers outta the pie. You hear me?”
“I hear ya, man.”
He gave me the address of the gangster and I wrote it down. I felt good taking steps that would lead me somewhere. I wasn’t thinking of what might happen when I arrived.
THE INFORMATION I NEEDED wasn’t in the phone book this time.
“Bertrand Stowe’s office,” Stephanie Cordero said in my ear.
“May I speak to him, please? This is Mr. Rawlins.”
I was put on hold for about ten seconds and then the phone rang again.
Stowe answered on the half ring. “Easy?”
“Yeah.” I was about to say more when he cut in.
“Where is she? Have you talked to her? I called but nobody answered. I went by there this morning but there was nobody there. Mrs. Grant said that she’d left but she didn’t even ask them where they were going.” It all came out at once.
“What you talkin’ ’bout, Bert?”
“Gracie, man. Gracie. She’s gone.”
“John an’ Alva prob’ly took her over to their place. You know they got lives and there’s no space for three full-grown adults and a baby at Gracie’s.”
“Give me his number.” I heard sounds over the phone of him searching for something to write on or with.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“John don’t want no junkie’s boyfriend callin’ at all hours. I’ll call him and find out what’s happenin’ with Grace.”
“What’s John’s last name?” Stowe asked with every ounce of authority he could muster.
“Naw, Bert. You gotta trust me on this one.”
“I need that number, Easy.”
“No.” I let that hang in the air and then said, “But you got to do somethin’ for me. I want William Bartlett’s address. Gimme that and I’ll call you about Grace tonight.”
THE LITTLE BUTCHER had been living on Rondolet Street while he worked for the Board of Education. He’d moved but the landlord, who also lived in that building, knew his forwarding address. That was on Courlene, a residential street not far from downtown. It was a small house with peeling white paint and bare brown dirt for a lawn. There was an overflowing trash can right there on the porch. The front door didn’t belong to that house. It was an unfinished plyboard door meant for a temporary bungalow out on some construction site.
I hated that house.
I hated the disrespect it showed for the neighborhood and for itself.
I played the front door like a kettledrum.
“Bartlett!”
When I’d pounded a dent in the cheap wood I remembered Rupert. The next thing I knew my shoulder was making kindling from the door. I stumbled into the house stunned by my own violence.
Billy Bartlett was stunned too. He stood toward the back of the surprisingly neat and sunny room wearing boxer shorts. He had a long and slender knife in his fist.
Remembering the little butcher’s speed I took a large piece of the door and threw it hard; I came right behind it. I hit the confused cook in the nose and he went down.
No one was shouting from outside so I disarmed him and dragged him through the doorway he’d been standing in.
It was a neat little bedroom. Bartlett struggled to his feet and staggered around to get his balance. Blood was coming from his nose and front lip.
I unplugged a long extension cord from the wall and disconnected it from a lamp and an electric clock.
“Com’ere!” I grabbed Bartlett and made him put his hands behind his back. After I’d tied his hands I kicked the crook of his knees to make him fall on the bed. I tied his hands together with his feet, making him a bony bow on the trim single mattress.
It was then that I noticed that my vision was cloudy, dark. My fingers were numb and restless. That was murder in my blood.
I realized suddenly that I had to relieve myself.
I collided with the doorjamb going into the toilet off Bartlett’s room.
The crash of water as I urinated jangled my nerves.
“Hey!” the butcher called out.
“Shut up,” I said. “Or I’ma come in there and shut you up.”
Silence saved his life.
I washed my hands in cold water and then doused my face.
“WHAT YOU WANT, MAN?” Bartlett asked me. I was sitting in a chair next to his bed.
“My hands hurt,” he said. “I cain’t breathe through my nose.”
“You ain’t gonna be breathin’ at all you don’t talk to me,” I said softly.
“Talk about what?”
“You know who I am?” I asked. “My name is Easy Rawlins.”
“I thought you said your name was Koogan?”
“You know who I am?” I asked again.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Then talk to me.”
“What you wanna know?”
I just slapped him—that’s all. Knocking him around, tying him up. That wasn’t much considering what he had done to me.
“Hey, man!” he cried. “Lemme up.”
“Talk to me, Billy,” I said. “Talk to me.”
<
br /> “You wanna know ’bout the schools? Is that what you want?”
I didn’t reply.
“It was Sallie Monroe, not me. It was Sallie. I met Roman at Idabell’s house, at a party they had. We got friendly and I introduced him to Sallie. Next thing I know Roman’s with Grace an’ she’s on junk. Roman got the job and then Sallie got me to go in to help him ’cause I knew the school setups and how things worked. You know, alarms and electric systems, where stuff might be stored.”
“What about Holland?”
“What about him?”
“How was he in it?”
“Roman cut him in ’cause we could use his paper shack to hold stuff sometimes.”
“What did Idabell want wit’ you that night she came to Whitehead’s?”
“She wanted some money. She knew I was in it with Holly and she wanted three hunnert dollars.”
“What did she say to you?”
“Nuthin’. Just that she was goin’ outta town.”
“Is that all?”
“No. I mean I asked if she needed a place to stay but she said that she was going to stay with a girlfriend.”
“Who’d you tell?” I asked the flesh and bones.
He saw my face and realized what Joey Beam must have done.
“I didn’t know, man,” he pleaded. “I swear I didn’t know.”
“That ain’t gonna save your life, Billy.” I didn’t even know if I intended to kill him, but I certainly was on the edge.
“I’ll turn myself in, man. It was Sallie wanted to call cop on you. Roman was dead and he thought you could take the fall. It was Sallie.”
“No,” I said.
“What you mean—no!”
“I mean no, Billy. I mean whoever called knew Roman was dead before the cops or anybody else did. The man who called the cops called the principal at Sojourner Truth first. That man already knew that Roman was dead and he wanted them to be lookin’ at me for his killer. You sayin’ that Sallie killed Roman?”
For a moment there I thought that Billy had died. His eyes were opened wide and his mouth was too. Then I heard the high-pitched whine of his breathing.
“I don’t know nuthin’ about that,” he said. “I don’t know a thing.”
“Who killed’im, Billy? I ain’t gonna ask you twice.”
At first I thought he was coughing; that the blood from his nose had gone down his throat. But then I saw the tears. His lips were pushing in and out and his head bobbed in a steady beat with the barks.
“That does it!” I shouted.
I ran into the living room and looked around until I found the long knife on the floor. Then I stalked back to the coffin-shaped bed. I’d run out intending to kill Billy. But standing up and going from one room to the other, bending down to get the knife, made me remember the jailhouse bully whose name wasn’t Jones and Felix Wren. By the time I got back to Bartlett I had lost my desire for his blood.
But Billy didn’t know that.
“It was his brother, man. His brother. His brother. His brother …” He kept saying that with his big eyes on the knife in my hand. He was a butcher, after all; he knew what that knife could do to his meat.
“Holland?” I asked.
“Yeah. It was Holland. Roman come an’ got me to go out to the garden. He wanted to cut his drug for Joey Beam. Beam was gonna kill’im if he didn’t get his aitch. Roman was gonna cut it down at the garden class.”
“You dealin’ wit’im?”
“Uh-uh. No. I only ever helped stealin’ stuff. But Roman was in trouble wit’ Sallie an’ Beam. He wanted to turn the drug over an’ call it square.”
“But?”
“It was Holland. He come right outta the dark wit’ a shovel in his hand. He was shoutin’ an’ I run. I went right up to the fence an’ over.”
“An’ so how you know Holland killed his brother?” I asked.
“He killed him, man. Who else coulda killed’im?”
“Roman had keys to my school?”
“Yeah.”
“They didn’t find no keys on him. That’s why they was lookin’ at me.”
“I got the keys. They in that top drawer, in the dresser. I was carryin’ the keys for Roman and I still had ’em when I ran.” He looked at my knife. “Look in the drawer if you don’t believe me.”
I looked. There was a giant key ring with over thirty master keys on it. I pocketed the keys and went back to the butcher.
“And then you called the principal about me?”
“That was Sallie. I went to him to tell’im what happened. I didn’t tell’im nuthin’ ’bout no drug though. I just told’im that he was outta the school-robbin’ business.”
A feeling of calm came over me. The story sounded right. Yes. Holland killed Roman. Now at least I knew the truth.
I was half the way through the living room when Billy cried out, “Hey! You ain’t gonna leave me tied up!”
I dropped the knife and walked out the front door. Outside there was a man standing on the dirt lawn. He wore green work pants and a blue shirt, I remember. His face was shaped like a crescent and his eyes were small. His eyes darted from me to the front door.
Maybe he freed Billy after I’d gone. Maybe he robbed him.
CHAPTER 38
PHILLY STETZ’S SECRET OFFICE was in a small medical building on Olympic near Vine.
Walking down the midmorning street on my way to face one of the most dangerous men on the West Coast didn’t scare me. My gait was nonchalant and there wasn’t a thought in my head. It wasn’t that I was particularly brave. The fact was that I found it hard to imagine that I had come so far over the line in just a few days. Never in my many years of street life had I gone up against somebody like Stetz.
Never in my life had I taken such a chance for somebody else. I’d risked my life before but that was always because of my pride—or stupidity. But here I was working for a dead woman to save a woman who I hardly even knew.
Those shots of whiskey in John’s car had gone right to my brain and stayed there.
The office building was really a walled-in courtyard. The path between the cottage-offices was wet brick. The offices were made of brick too. Old crumbling brick that was dark from the dust of years and not pigment. The cold those walls threw off was clammy and unhealthy.
If there was a valley of death I had stumbled upon it.
Dr. Green’s office wasn’t even in the court, it was through a redwood door at the back and across an alley. There stood a turquoise stucco building with potted succulents on either side of the oak entrance.
I knocked and awaited my fate.
The man who opened the door wore a green suit. Maybe, I thought, that was his joke. There was no Dr. Green. Jackson had discovered that Stetz rented the office as a partial cover to his gambling activities.
“Mr. Stetz?” I asked the dark-skinned white man. He had a bad complexion, rough caves instead of cheeks. His hair was thick and black. He wasn’t a big man but you could tell by his dark stare that if he got mad you’d have to kill him just to slow him down.
“Who’re you?” He jutted his head at me.
“My name is Rawlins. I’ve come to speak with Mr. Stetz.”
“How’d you know to come here?”
I saw no reason to lie so I said, “Jackson Blue.”
The ugly man froze for a second and then he moved backwards, making room for me to enter the sham office.
He led me through a dwarf foyer into a waiting room, or parlor. There, seated around a squat maple table, were five white men. All of them smoking and all of them hard. Each one was figuring how he’d have to go about killing me, if he got the chance.
“Wait here,” the man in the green suit told me.
He went through a door. The men peered at me from their seats.
I was remembering the wet heat of the Louisiana summers of my boyhood. Old folks used to say that it was so hot that even God was sweating.
“What’s the skinny, shin
e?” a roly-poly man in a dark suit asked. His slight accent was eastern European but he’d been down among my people once or twice; the twist on his words told me that.
His tone also told me that my mortal troubles might soon be over. But I was pacific. I had a .38 strapped to my thigh and a slit cut into my pants so that I could get to it fast. I could kill the moonfaced talker and maybe one or two of his friends before I went down.
It was that thought that saved me. I didn’t lose my cool. I gave that man a look that said, “Don’t mess, motherfucker, don’t mess.” If I had gotten mad or scared he would have been on me in a second. This way he had to consider first. He had to wonder what it was that I had.
The other men started to laugh. They liked a good standoff. The man I was looking at had probably killed a dozen men, and every one of them begged for life. But not this time.
“Hey, Aaron,” a slappy-looking guy dressed in clashing browns said. “Looks like you met your match there.”
All the men laughed.
Moonface tried to grin, but failed.
I took a deep breath and he measured it. He tried another smile and I lowered my shoulder to go for the gun. I was a fool but I didn’t mind.
“Hey you.” The man in the green suit was standing in the doorway to the doctor’s office.
I looked at him feeling unconcerned. I was in no hurry.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Come on.”
Aaron smoothed back the little hair he had as I walked by. I felt a sort of comradeship with him. For a moment the violence that we both wanted seemed okay, like it was just an expression between men—rough humor, healthy competition, survival of the fittest.
As I passed into the big man’s office I shed the feelings of impending violence I had with Aaron. Now I had to be ready for a new game. I didn’t know what to expect, but that’s what street life is all about—you get thrown into the mix and see if you can get your bearings before your head’s caved in.
“THIS IS HIM, Mr. Stetz,” the green suit said.
“Thanks, Arnie. You frisk him?” Stetz asked.
Arnie and I looked at each other.
Stetz shook his head.
“Get outta here, Arnie.”
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