“… MOTHAHFUCKAH!” was the first word I had heard when I came through the back door. After that came the low murmur of another voice. It was the kind of man talk that sent sensible people going in the opposite direction.
The auditorium was mostly dark. From the elevated aisle I could see the two men standing in the glow of the floor lighting in the space down between the last row of seats and the stage.
“I don’t give a goddam ’bout all that shit! I want my boy and I want him right this mothahfuckin’ minute.” The man talking was big, really big. Taller than I was and younger too. From the look of those bulging short sleeves he was stronger than I had ever been.
The folding knife went limp in my pocket.
“He’s in good hands, Mr. Brown,” Bill Preston was saying. “Your son has been badly injured repeatedly over a long period of time. He has broken bones that have never been set right and maybe some internal damage …”
I hugged the shadows and moved down toward the men.
“I don’t know what the fuck you talkin’ about, man!” Brown screamed. “Eric’s just accident-prone. It’s in his feet.”
“Many of his injuries just couldn’t happen—”
Mr. Brown used both hands to push Preston backwards.
I flowed quickly through darkness.
I was next to the last tier of chairs, behind the brutal father—unseen by either man.
Preston righted himself and held up his hands.
“Hold on, Mr. Brown,” he said. “There’s enough trouble here already. When I saw what was wrong with Eric I had to call the nurse. She had to call the police. That’s the law. They took him to a hospital.”
“He my boy,” Brown said. “And I say what happens to him. If I say he goes to a hospital, well then, okay. If I say he stay home with a broke arm, you better believe that that’s where he gonna be.”
Andrew Brown—I’d later found out his name from the police forms I signed—was six foot four if he was an inch. Bill Preston might have grazed five-eight on a good day in his twenties. But despite the height difference, Bill Preston had a hidden advantage—he had steel springs in his legs. He pointed his right fist at Andy’s jaw and took off like a jet-powered pogo stick.
You could have heard the bones cracking from the back row. Andy Brown sagged backwards but he couldn’t fall down because Preston’s fists came on like mother birds protecting their nest. When the larger man finally slumped to the floor I was actually relieved for him.
The vice principal jumped up on the stage and ran back behind the curtains. I came over and kneeled down next to the unconscious man, to make sure that he was still breathing.
The jaw was definitely broken, his face was already swelling from the blows.
I heard something and looked up to see Bill Preston coming toward us with a black metal platform extender rod in his hands. He held the thing like a club. I stood up in front of Brown, expecting Bill to come to his senses. But he didn’t even see me. He raised the rod high and I tackled his midsection. Preston dropped his weapon, which fell on Brown’s foot, and started tussling with me.
“Bill! Bill! It’s me, man!” I yelled. “Stop! Stop!”
He struggled with great strength but no intent. When he said, “You can get off me now,” I knew that he’d regained self-control.
We sat there on the floor breathing hard. Preston rubbed his face. He was pressing so hard that I thought he might get crazy again.
“Let’s get our stories straight,” I said.
“What?”
“He pushed you,” I went on. “And then he was gonna hit you again. You threw your lucky punch and then fought until he was out of it. I was coming down the aisle and saw it all.”
“I wouldn’t have hit him if he hadn’t talked about the boy like that,” Preston said, remembering. “They shouldn’t let people like that have kids. They shouldn’t even let them live.”
“Hey, hey, hey, hey … hey.” I had my hands up in front of his face to keep his eyes off of Brown. “Let’s get down to the office and call the cops.”
“We can’t leave him here,” Preston said. “We have to tie him up or something.”
“Ain’t no niggahs gonna be tied up anywhere around here today.” I don’t know where the words in my mouth came from. But they were angry words and they weren’t to be toyed with. “We ain’t the police, and even though we got a story we both know what really happened.”
“But you should see what he did to his son.”
“You took the man’s child and broke his jaw. If he wants to get up and go before the cops get here, then we’re gonna let him.”
The cops found Andrew Brown trying to limp away from the school. He was the definition of a loser in L.A.: a man without a car.
Eric was in the nurse’s office the whole time. They tried to call his mother after the fight but she had to go down and get Andrew out of jail and into the hospital.
It took the courts to finally remove Eric from his home. Andrew had put him in the hospital that time. The police didn’t like that, and so they worked Mr. Brown over so bad that the judge took Eric away to keep his own police from someday being charged with murder.
Preston had been friendly with me since that day. Friendly in that superior-feeling white man kind of way. He’d do things like slap me on the shoulder and give me advice that I didn’t need.
THE LIGHTS WERE ON in the auditorium this time. Preston was down toward the front seated in one of the hard ash tiers. He was gazing up at the drawn curtains as if there were a play going on.
“Mr. Preston,” I called from the high ground.
He stood and waved. He didn’t look crazy so I strolled down to meet him. We walked out into the same space where he’d broken Andrew Brown’s jaw.
“Mr. Rawlins,” he said lamely. “How, um, how are you?”
“Fine,” I replied, smooth and cool as glass.
“The kids?”
“I got to get down to the area office by one, Mr. Preston.”
“Oh?” he said, pretending to sympathize. “Some problems?”
“What do you want, Bill?”
He took a deep breath and then looked back over his shoulder at the curtain. I wondered briefly if he was going to throw a roundhouse right.
He didn’t.
“You talk to the police?” he asked.
“Some.”
“I heard that they had you down at the gardens.”
I nodded and looked at my watch.
“What did they say?”
“I don’t know.” Easy, the honest man, was reluctant. “I mean, they said that it was all hush-hush, confidential. You know, police business.”
“Did they say anything about me?” he asked innocently.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, as doe-eyed as I could be. “Why would you think I know any more than anybody else?”
“Because of Gladys Martinez.”
“What about her?”
“She was telling Newgate about how Sanchez suckered you. He told her to report anybody who asked about Idabell.”
“So? I heard that she was sick or something.”
“I don’t care, Mr. Rawlins.” Preston put up his hand to assure me. But instead of relaxing I put up my forearm to block anything he might have thrown.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, surprised at my reaction.
“Forget about me. What is it that you’re asking, and what do you have to do with Mrs. Turner and that dead man in the garden?”
“The police said that?” There was real fear in Preston’s voice.
“No. You did.”
Suddenly Preston was confused.
“Didn’t you just ask me about what the cops knew about you?” I asked him. “And then you said that it had something to do with Mrs. Turner. I don’t need a Ph.D. in PE to figure that one out.”
Preston was guilty of something—I was sure of that. All of his military certainty and gym-class tough-guy pose went ou
t of the window when I caught him in his words. His breathing got shallow and his hands began to wander as if he were trying to ward off what I had said in sign.
“Well?” I asked.
“Forget it. Just forget I asked you anything. Just go on down to the area office. I, uh, I was out of line.”
Preston had fallen into another trap. It’s the way many people, then and now, fall under the spell of their own superiority. There he was a white man with a college education who dictated the rules to children, their parents, and their teachers. No waitress or gardener or janitor—certainly no colored man—was going to disobey his rules. I was supposed to erase all of his questions from my mind and go on about my life.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Preston, but I can’t forget what you said.”
“What?”
“I mean, what if Sergeant Sanchez wants to question me again? If I lie and then he finds out that I knew you were askin’ questions, then he could see me as a whatchamacallit—an accomplice.”
“Are you crazy, Rawlins? I didn’t do anything.”
“How do I know that? Here you callin’ me in here all secret-like. And you know the last time I saw you in here you almost killed that man Brown.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“That man in the garden was hit. Somebody hit him with something like that rod you tried to hit Brown with.”
That really opened Preston’s eyes. He saw for the first time how much trouble he’d opened himself up for with me.
“Sit down, Mr. Rawlins,” he said. “Please, sit down.”
“After you.”
Preston jumped up to a seated position on the apron of the stage. I followed his lead.
“What can I do to keep you from being worried, Mr. Rawlins?” he asked.
“I just wanna know why you all secretive,” I asked.
“Well, let’s just say that I didn’t have anything to do with what happened but I know something about the people and I don’t want it getting around that I do.”
“You knew that dead man?”
“Now listen …” He was trying to be reasonable.
“Did you know him?” I said with emphasis. I was looking down at his hands as if I were afraid of the answer; as if I were just a poor peasant afraid of a world that I could barely comprehend.
“Yes,” he said. “His name, well, his name is Roman Gasteau, and he’s Idabell’s brother-in-law.”
“But her name is Turner.”
“It’s really her maiden name. She kept it because she was a teacher before she got married.”
“What was he doing in the garden?” I asked, pretending nervous impatience.
“I don’t know. I swear I don’t.”
I just looked at him.
“Listen, Mr. Rawlins. A lot of people around here knew Idabell and her husband, and brother-in-law. For years she’s been giving faculty teas at her house. Maybe five or six a year. And when her brother-in-law moved into town …”
“That’s the dead man, what you call him, Roman?”
“Yes, Roman Gasteau. When he moved in some of the men teachers would go to some, uh, parties a little bit wilder than a tea. If you know what I mean?”
“No, Mr. Preston, I don’t know what you mean at all. If half the school knows this, this Roman, then why are you scared that somebody might put you with him?” Or with Idabell Turner, I thought.
“Well, you see,” he said, “Idabell’s husband is a real jerk. He was okay at first, she said. But then he went off the deep end. She blamed it on Roman, because he had a wild lifestyle. But Roman was a nice guy. Holland was abusive. He had girlfriends, he quit his job and used Idabell’s money. He even hit her once. She didn’t know what to do.”
Bill Preston took a deep breath as if he had gotten some big problem off his chest.
After his second gasp I said, “So? What if she told you all that? That doesn’t make you a crook to be hidin’ from the cops.”
Another sigh.
Another silence.
“She used to come up to my office, Mr. Rawlins. She’d come because I was the only one …” He paused for a second. “… the only one that she could talk to. You know what I mean. I couldn’t do anything but console her. We got close. I think we fell in love.”
“You fell in love right up there in your office?” At least I wasn’t the only fool at school.
“When he hit her that time …”
“When was that?”
“Two weeks ago. When he did that I begged her to leave him. I told her that I’d go tell him that she was gone and take her clothes and everything. At first she said no, but then she said that she’d think about it while she was away with a friend who could get cheap tickets to France. She wanted to clear her mind.
“I was glad that she was gone, because if she had stayed in that house with that man I don’t know what I might have done. The night before she left I went by there with some state aptitude tests that I said she had to have graded by the time she got back. I just wanted to know that she was all right.”
“And was she?”
“She walked me out to the car and said that she was fine, that she’d see me when she got back.”
“And she saw you?”
“Only for a moment. Yesterday. The day they found Roman. She told me that you had her dog and that Holland was going to beat her for something. She didn’t say what. Just that she was going to leave right then.”
“So you think that Sanchez is going to point at you for Roman?” I asked.
“No. He was killed in the early morning. I was in bed with my wife out in the valley. That’s what I’m afraid of, that Sanchez might find out about me and Ida. Maybe she told somebody, maybe somebody saw us somewhere.”
Or maybe somebody saw him drive out to her house to shoot her husband. He might have done it. Maybe. I didn’t care, though. Not unless it brought me grief.
“Well,” I said, “they didn’t ask me anything about you, Mr. Preston. They did ask me about Mrs. Turner, though, and they mentioned her husband too.”
“But nothing about me?”
“Nope. Not a word about you.”
“Will you tell me if you hear anything?”
“From the cops?”
“Or from Idabell. If she calls about Pharaoh, tell me, and tell her that I really need to see her.”
“Tell me somethin’, Mr. Preston.”
“What?”
“Did the police show you a picture of Roman?”
“Yes. Yes they did.”
“And did you tell them that you knew him?”
“Of course. I just didn’t say about Idabell. You know it doesn’t really have anything to do with it. I’m sure it doesn’t.”
He looked the part of an honest and ignorant man, but, then again, so did I.
“Do you have any idea who could have killed Roman?” I asked.
“No. He was a great guy. Not like his brother at all.”
Except, I thought, that they were both dead.
CHAPTER 13
I DROVE DOWN to the district office of the Board of Ed.
Bertrand Stowe was short and gray-haired, with a nose that thrust straight forward. He had eyes that were absolutely sure about things and a voice that his mother must have pulled out of a well.
He stood up, as far as he went, and put out his hand. “Easy.”
The fact that he used my street name meant that Bertrand had known me before I became a respectable workingman.
WE MET IN THE FALL OF ’61. I’d just recently gotten out of the hospital. I’d been recovering from a wound inflicted upon me by an old friend. While convalescing I reflected on my life, wondering how it could be that I was in danger even from my friends. I had decided, upon coming home, to concentrate on getting honest work.
I was reading the want ads when a woman called me at home one afternoon.
“Easy? Easy Rawlins?”
“Yeah? Who’s this?”
“It’s
Grace Phillips. You remember me? I’m John’s friend. We met down at his bar.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking, Oh no. “Yeah, yeah.”
I didn’t ask what she wanted.
“John told me to call you, Easy. He said that maybe you could help me.”
“Oh?”
“Uh-huh. Could I come over your house?”
“What you want, Grace?”
“Well, um, okay … you know Sallie Monroe?”
“Sure.” Sallie was the toughest gangster, next to Mouse, in Watts.
“Well, Sallie think he own me.”
“He your pimp?”
“It ain’t like that really, Easy. Sallie just give some parties, that’s all. If I wanna go an’ have some fun, well, that was up to me. But he never owned me.”
I knew the kind of parties she was talking about. Sallie, or some other gangster, would rent somebody’s apartment for the night and sell tickets for a hundred dollars or so to his customers. He’d bring booze and reefer and sometimes something stronger. He’d also bring the girls. He’d give them twenty dollars or so to come and then they’d work a tip out of the man they danced with.
“So,” I said. “If you don’t wanna go, don’t go.” I was ready to hang up. I would have hung up if it wasn’t John that had given her my number.
John was my friend, one of my best and oldest friends, solid and stronger than rock. I knew John from the old days back in the Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas. He was a hard man. He had to be in his line of work. He’d run a speakeasy down in Watts in the forties. Now he owned a restaurant-bar.
“You ain’t heard me yet,” Grace complained. “I don’t go no more. I only ever went in the first place ’cause I thought it was fun. But I got me a boyfriend now.”
“So?”
“Well.” She hesitated for a moment. “Well, I met my boyfriend at Sallie’s and now Sallie wanna mess it up.”
It took a long time to get the story out of her. She was embarrassed, and I didn’t blame her. The head custodian at Sojourner Truth before me was named Bill Bartlett. Bill had taken his boss, Bertrand Stowe, to one of Sallie’s parties, and Sallie had paid Grace to be extra nice to Bert. He told her not to ask for tips and to do everything that Bert wanted. She said that she didn’t mind because Bert was sweet. He didn’t really know what the party was all about. He thought that she just liked him.
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