“I don’t respond well to threats and he doesn’t know any other way to talk.”
The woman of many names glanced at the front door. I believe she was beginning to regret letting me in.
“I haven’t told Brock any of this,” I said.
I could see myself—shot, stabbed, and hanging from a rafter—in her deadly frozen stare.
The feeling was so intense that I said, “Hold up, sister. I’m not here to hurt you. If I wanted that I would have traded my life for this address.”
That earned me a brief reprieve.
“So you’re here for Craig,” she said.
“Craig’s dead.”
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe I thought Donata/Roxanna would break down under the grief of this loss. But she didn’t have any response other than a few-seconds-long spate of silence. That’s all she took and it was back to business.
“Then who are you here for?” she asked. “Yourself?”
“In order to answer that question I need you to put a story together that makes sense to me. Craig’s the one that hired me and so I still see him as the client. After I hear you out I’ll have to decide on what he would want me to do and then how far I’d go to accomplish that end.”
She gave Craig a few seconds. My request qualified for a whole half a minute.
“I met Craig at this veterans’ bar down on Western—” she said.
“Excuse me, but I have to interrupt you there, Donata. You met Craig at the Dragon’s Eye when his mother got too drunk to drive and he came to pick her up. Something like that. If you want to have me on your side you have to tell the truth.” I didn’t know if I was right but I suspected that Lola had been less than truthful about DD.
Donata put on a big grin. Here I just called her a liar and she loved it—as if I had passed some kind of test.
“Okay,” she said. “You’ve done your homework. I met Lola first. She told me about Craig. She thought he needed a woman like her to make him walk the line.”
“But you saw something else in him,” I suggested.
“He was sweet,” she said. “But I’m nothing like Lola.”
“His mother said that you were having trouble . . . with a man.”
“Trouble with my boyfriend Alonzo, Alonzo Griggs.”
“He’s dead too,” I said.
That didn’t earn even one second.
“Craig had been going up to this cabin in an orange orchard since he was a boy. He took me there a couple of times.” She paused and looked at me, gauging how much she should reveal. “I told him to meet me there in the evening but I went up earlier with Alonzo. I didn’t know exactly what would happen, but . . . but Alonzo and me could get kinda kinky with sex and he went at it much harder if he was angry. He had babies with six other women and he knew I was pregnant. So when I asked him to tie me up to this tree, he did. Then I told him I got an abortion.
“I thought he would beat on me and then Craig would come and they’d fight. I expected Craig would win ’cause he’d come back from the war in the last year or two and he’d done a lotta hand to hand. I figured he’d see Alonzo hittin’ me and just lose it.”
“Excuse me,” I said when she stopped to take a breath.
“Yes?”
“Were you afraid of Alonzo?”
“Not really.”
“Even though he beat on you?”
“It wasn’t that bad and he always got pretty sweet afterward. I kinda liked how manly he was, how he could go all the way out there. No, I wasn’t afraid of him at all.”
“So then what did you need Craig for?”
That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. The lady took the time to consider her response. When she’d finished thinking she looked into my eyes and pondered a little longer.
“How much did Craig pay you?”
“My regular fee.”
“Is that a lot?”
“More than you’d make working at a taco stand.”
“What if I offered you fifty thousand dollars?”
One of the great things about being a black PI in the late sixties and before was that most people saw you as being poor. That way they could offer you what sounded like a great deal of money, confident that you’d sell your soul for it.
“Who I got to kill?” I said, going along with her convictions about me and mine.
“I did embezzle from Brock. Got three hundred twenty-six thousand out of him and his Mafia friends. The problem was that Alonzo, Ketch, and one other guy had done a heist in San Bernardino. Alonzo promised to hide my money until we could get away. He did hide it, but when I wanted to get at it he wouldn’t give it back.”
“That sounds like a mistake on your part,” I offered.
Donata smiled and nodded.
“I thought he was crazy about me,” she said, “that he’d do anything for a woman that gave him what he wanted. But that much cash had a sobering effect and he knew that sooner or later the San Bernardino job would take him down; something about a witness. My money became part of his escape plan.”
“So,” I said, “you posed for some photos of you two making love and then you shot him.”
“You’re a sweet man, aren’t you, Easy?”
“What makes you say that?”
“ ‘Making love.’ You’re the kinda guy I’ll end up marrying and raising kids with after my wild oats have flowered and gone to seed.”
That was a conversation stopper. I could hear the truth in those words. Well, not exactly the truth, but a conviction she held that would probably never be achieved.
“So,” I said, “we left off where you were tied to a tree and Alonzo was about to let you have it.”
“I didn’t realize how upset he’d get. He punched me a lot and then ran off saying that he was going to get enough wood to burn me up.”
“You say he beat you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The attack wasn’t that long ago and I don’t see any bruises.”
She stood up and opened the kimono. The only things she wore underneath were black and blues with hints of red and yellow around the edges.
“So,” I said. “Reynolds Ketch shows up while Alonzo is collecting kindling and Craig gets there just in time to see another black man kicking your ass.”
“Alonzo had taken Ketch’s money too. Reynolds got stabbed with his own knife. Alonzo came up behind Craig and knocked him out with a big branch he’d found. After all that he cut me loose and we cleaned up as best we could. We both thought Ketch was dead and maybe Craig too.”
“What about Sammy?” I asked, just to keep my finger in the conversation.
Mention of the little black puppy landed closer to her heart than any of the three murders. With rueful eyes and a sad smile she remembered her dog.
“I had just bought that little rascal. I tried to get him to come with me but he wanted to stay by Craig. Whenever I’d go after him he’d run off. Finally Alonzo made me come with him. Is Sammy okay?”
“Fine,” I said. “So you and Alonzo left together?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we did, but I knew I had to get rid of him because sooner or later he’d remember that he wanted to burn me alive.”
“And you’re just gonna tell me all this? Admit to murder?”
“I want you to understand how serious I am here. There’s money to be had.”
“Where is the money?” I asked.
“Where it is isn’t the only problem. How to get at it is where things get sticky. How to get at it is why we might work together.”
“Seems like the men that work with you don’t live long.”
“I’m sorry about Craig, but Alonzo and Ketch deserved what they got.”
“What about the three guards in the armored car job?”
Donata stared at me, the wide-eyed question plain on her face. That was her most telling moment.
“The three guards that Alonzo hijacked,” I reminded her. “They’ve been missing for over t
wo months.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” she said simply.
“Alonzo or Ketch never said anything about what happened?”
“No,” she answered carelessly. “Why would they?”
“Don’t you care?” I just had to ask.
She turned serious then, honest.
“I have never been the kind of person who feels another man’s pain,” she said. “If you’re with me you have to accept that. I was too busy living my own day-to-day to be worried about what Alonzo or anybody else was doing.”
“If you didn’t care about him, how did he get hold of your money?”
I expected some kind of anger or remorse, but the innocent-looking beauty did not feel that brand of emotion. She smiled and nodded, leaned forward, placing an elbow on either knee. The kimono was still open, but she didn’t care.
“The money is in small denominations—bulky, you know? And Brock was after me. I know this banker will transfer funds out of the country—slowly. Five thousand at a time. He’ll do it for a flat fee.”
“How do you know he won’t steal it?”
“Because he wants to go to London with me. You know—leave the wife and kids and start over. I have that effect on some men.”
“So you thought Alonzo was that kinda man and let him put your money with his—for safekeeping. Your bank connection was here, and carrying the money around with you was dangerous.”
“Yeah. But when I asked Al for twenty-five thousand of my own money he told me I had to wait. So I waited. After three weeks of being put off I decided I had to do something. That’s why I brought Craig in on it.”
“But didn’t you just say that Craig was supposed to find you and get mad because some man was attacking you? That doesn’t sound like he was in on anything.”
“I told him that a boyfriend that I broke up with had stolen my money. Then I went up to the cabin and got Al mad. Craig knew enough to help me get what I needed to.”
“But Alonzo went out looking for kindling and then Ketch showed up, so the plans changed.”
Donata sat up straight and shrugged.
“And did Alonzo ever tell you where the money was?” I asked.
“I went back with Al to his photo studio after we left Ketch and Craig. I told him I lied about being pregnant. Then I got him naked and took out a gun. I told him that either I was gonna get my money or I was gonna shoot him.”
“And?” I asked. “Did he tell you?”
“Yeah.” The nod and twist of her lips told me that this knowledge just presented another barrier. “He told me, but I realized that I couldn’t get at it—not directly.”
“So you needed him alive to get to the money?”
She nodded again.
“But you killed him anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Why would anybody kill someone when they needed him?” It’s a bad sign when you start discussing murder as if it were a chore done out of sequence.
“I could see in his eyes that he thought he still had me tied to that tree.” Her face was not quite so beautiful when she talked murder. “At the very least he planned to take my money and run. At most he’d leave me burned alive. He thought that I needed him too much to kill him. But as my mother used to say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
“Ah,” I crooned. “That’s where I come in.”
Donata smiled.
“But you’re not gonna tell me where the money’s at until you know that I can’t do what Alonzo planned,” I concluded.
“I need somebody who’s smart enough to negotiate,” she said. “Somebody who doesn’t think in absolute terms.”
Those blue eyes bore into mine like twin skies over a day-old battlefield. The land was devastated and the soldiers all dead or dying.
“Girl, you scare the shit outta me.”
Donata grinned, stood up, and retied the sash of her robe.
“Fifty thousand dollars,” she said. “That’s all you have to worry about.”
“If your money is stacked up with what Alonzo and his crew stole, then you got over four hundred thousand,” I argued. “Fifty don’t seem like enough.”
“I’ll go as high as one hundred thousand. That’s the limit.”
“And what about Brock?”
“We leave LA. He’ll never find us.”
“Brock’s a killer,” I said.
“Yes, he is. That’s why we have to do something, Easy. Either take the money and run or just run.”
“I could give you to Brock.”
“He’d kill you anyway.”
She was probably right about that.
“What do you say, Easy? Is it a deal?”
It was my turn to think. I should have been figuring out the right move to make but instead I wondered how I could get into so much trouble. Most people live their entire lives without experiencing what I had just sitting here, talking to Donata Delphine.
There was a trick that she meant to play on me at the last minute. I was sure of that. Roxanna Coors had the information that would save me from my own case. But she was also probably the greatest danger I faced.
“Okay,” I said. “But how can I help if I don’t know what to do?”
“You’re going to have to trust me, Easy.”
“Just looking for you I’ve come across two dead men. That’s the kind of path you wreak. What’s there to trust in that?”
“I just want my money,” she declared. “And I need a man I can trust to accomplish that goal.”
“And why aren’t you out there trying to do that?” We were talking but the words meant nothing.
“I never leave this house except to go to the Safeway to buy food and wine. Brock would snap my neck in a minute. And you better believe he’s out there looking too.”
“What about my neck?” I wondered out loud.
“You got to risk something, baby.”
I truly admired this woman. It felt like she was the child of evolution, a being who had mastered survival skills that most other human beings couldn’t even imagine. That appreciation must have shown on my face because she made a little bow using her head and left shoulder.
“Give me your phone number and I’ll call you within the next three days,” she said.
“I take it you’ll be in a different place.”
“Don’t worry, Easy. You aren’t like Alonzo or Ketch, because I know I can trust you. And you’re not like Craig, because you know how to survive.”
I found myself hoping that the lies she told me were truth.
37
“Hi, honey.” I’d called Feather down at Jackson’s house.
“Hi, Daddy. Are you home?”
“Right now I am.” Sammy was licking my fingers and Frenchie was watching, mumbling something in Dog.
“Can I come up?”
“I’m still pretty busy on this case. And lots of the work is at night.”
“Can’t I just stay there by myself? I’m old enough.”
“Why don’t you want to stay at the Blues’? Is anything wrong?”
“No, Daddy, I just wanna be in my own room and in my own house so my friends can call me.”
“I don’t know, little girl. I’d be so worried about you up here all by yourself.”
“I’m not a little girl and I worry about you every night you’re out working. But I can’t tell you to stop.”
I grunted a couple of times and sighed.
“What does that mean?” my daughter asked.
“I’ll be down to get you in about an hour.”
Feather fell asleep in the passenger seat. I drove and she snored. That’s a song I’d never tire of.
The next morning I made pecan waffles and codfish cakes. Feather and I sat together at the ledge around the stove eating and enjoying each other’s company.
“I talked to Erculi last night after calling you,” I said.
“How is Uncle Hercules?”
“He told me to tell you that
if you had any problem just to hit the alarm button and him and his sons will be here in under three minutes.”
The elder Longo had little red buttons installed in every house just in case there was some kind of emergency. We had one on each floor.
“Uh-huh,” my daughter said. She wasn’t worried and I suppose that was a good thing.
“You been talking to your uncle Milo?”
“He told me that my mother used to play violin when she was a girl. He said that she was one of the best in her age-group in LA.”
“So what do you think about him?”
“He’s my blood,” she said with unexpected conviction. “When I talk to him about our family it feels like he knows things about me that I don’t, but, but it’s like I feel like I always did. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess it’s important to have real family.”
“No, Daddy.” Feather put her hand on mine. “You’re my real family. Uncle Milo and his people are where I came from. But you’re my father forever.”
I got to work at about 9:00. I wasn’t bothered to be alone because I figured Oldstein, or whatever his name was, would honor the forty-eight hours he gave. I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have found Donata on his own and that money was the primary issue on his mind.
I went to the window of my office and looked down on the hippie yard. The youngsters were going back and forth from the greenhouse bringing various chemicals and tools to bear.
I noticed, not for the first time, a dark sedan parked across the street and down a few houses from the hippie house. The sun was beating down hard and there was no respite of a breeze.
I trundled back to Niska’s desk, making myself comfortable there. I find that at times if I change small patterns, like sitting at Niska’s desk, for instance, I gain a different perspective and maybe even a slightly altered way of thinking.
Sitting at the innocent student’s desk, I considered Mouse’s suggestion of killing Eddie Brock. He was a bad man even Melvin Suggs couldn’t protect me from. But killing was such a final thing.
I tabled the notion, and then there was a knock on the front door.
It could have been the grim reaper tapping on my chamber door. Maybe I should have run, but this was my office. You only die once, but giving in to fear was endless defeat.
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