by Inga Vesper
‘The children are upset.’
‘Yes, I understand.’
‘They need their home. And their mother.’
Mick nods and gets up. ‘We are working as hard as we can. Meanwhile, if you can think of anything that could help us – any acquaintances from your wife’s past, anything she said or did that would hint at—’
Haney steps close to him. ‘My wife is a lovely, happy, delightful creature,’ he says, and his voice is dull with fear. ‘There’s no one in her life, past or present, who’d wish her any harm.’
‘Of course,’ says Mick. Of course that’s the case, Frankie-boy. Until it isn’t.
Back in his car, he flips to the notes he’s taken. He’s written down only one sentence.
I would have liked a boy.
There it is. The past tense. As if that option is forever eliminated. Crumpled and squashed, like a certain blue sleepsuit that now lies in an evidence box in the Santa Monica PD’s filing room.
*
The only thing that could make this day worse is running into Chief Murphy, and of course this happens with the same galactic inevitability with which the Giants lose to the Colts.
‘Blanke, what a delight to find you here.’ Murphy detaches himself from the coffee machine and grins like a raptor. ‘Hodge told me about your, shall we say, cursory investigation of the house.’
‘Evidence recovery is in today and tomorrow, right?’
‘’Course. And let’s hope they do their job properly.’
An icy silence ensues. Mick wonders whether he should be the first one to break it, just to vent the steam that’s boiling in his veins. But he leaves it. He’s dealt with enough Irish mobsters to know that, sometimes, silence is way more infuriating than insults.
‘Anyway.’ Murphy grunts. ‘Give me an update before I go home. What’s the husband been up to?’
‘Away at a conference.’
‘None of the neighbors seen anything?’
‘Nope. Nancy Ingram, the closest neighbor, was out. The other folks, the Ketterings, can’t really see the property. Too many trees. Besides, the Haneys put a big white fence all around their little haven. I spoke to Mrs Kettering. Seems the Haneys kept to themselves.’
Murphy folds his arms and blows up his cheeks. ‘You shouldn’t have let that Negro girl go. She’s our prime suspect.’
‘Right. And she’s never going to talk to a cop if she’s cooped up in a cell.’
‘Well, now she’s back in that rat’s nest of South Central, and her folks are surely going to give her an earful. I got a cousin who used to work the beat on Cooper and Twenty-Second. Goddamn life-threatening job, that was. I’m warning you – they don’t like the police.’
What a surprise, Mick thinks, but he doesn’t say it out loud. He puts on his hat and prepares to make like a tree. But Murphy isn’t finished.
‘You know,’ he says, ‘when they told me you were coming, I knew straight away we’d be in trouble.’
‘Chief?’
‘Thing is, you and your methods don’t really fit in here. This is Santa Monica. We’re a civilized people. No one’s going to deliver their grandma up for cash or rat someone out to get a plea bargain. You’re out of your depth. I’m giving you until Friday. If Joyce Haney hasn’t shown up, dead or alive, you’re off the case. We don’t need you fucking things up down here like you did in New York.’
An image flashes through Mick’s mind. Beverly Gallagher, her pale skin, sulking lips and large brown eyes. Eyes a man could get lost in, and many of them did, and it never ended well.
He wipes the memory from his head and grins. ‘Don’t worry, Chief,’ he says sweetly. ‘There’s only two kinds of fucking I intend to do tonight. The first involves the words “off home”. The second . . . well, depends on my wife’s disposition.’
With a tip of his hat, he heads off into the evening heat.
Chapter Seven
Joyce
N
ancy agrees to take Barbara for the morning while I head to the mall to see the doctor. Nancy is an utter treasure. It must be difficult for her, having lost a husband so early, without any children of her own. She turned thirty last year, and there is no new marriage on the horizon.
I wave goodbye and put Lily onto the back seat. It’s a slug on the small roads, which are always clogged. But once we hit the highway, we fly. Sunnylakes recedes and vanishes. There’s only us, the blue skies and the freeway bridge, still under construction, a giant arm reaching out into nothing. I will not be here when it touches the other side. Happiness explodes in me like fireworks. I’ll swoop over this bridge and into the blue yonder, full of wonder.
Jimmy and I used to park up under a half-constructed bridge like this when they were building the Walt Whitman Bridge. Just for a laugh, I decide to tell Lily about it.
‘Bunny,’ I say, ‘do you know that the first time Mommy drove a car it was with Jimmy? I thought I couldn’t do it, but he said you just have to push the pedal down and steer in the right direction. I laughed so much my belly hurt.’
I press my hand to my guts. My belly is hurting now. Still hurting.
Jimmy. Everything blurs and bulges in my memory. All the ups and downs. The highs and lows, ebbs and flows. Lily smiles and I giggle like a schoolgirl. Frank hates it when I rhyme my words. But Genevieve Crane says that there is a poet in every woman. ‘You cannot help becoming a poet,’ she says. ‘There is so much that women cannot say straight out.’
My moods are getting out of whack again. When I’m like this, I am prone to taking risks. The doctor says I need to learn to settle myself. I dig a Miltown from my purse and swallow it down. Lily stops smiling.
The exuberance drains from my head like dishwater, leaving only stainless steel, beautifully blank. The sunlight dims and my skin turns to stone. Nothing can come inside me now. And what’s inside cannot escape.
When we enter the mall, people stare. I am wearing my yellow dress and Lily is in a little pinafore number with cherry hair clips. She looks absolutely adorable. Even the doctor says so. Genevieve Crane was right, he is so understanding. He takes me into a private room, sends out the nurse and gives me what I crave.
Afterward, I clutch the plain little packets. Lily and I walk around the mall. I should not go to Reubens, but I cannot help take a look at the storefront. It draws me like a magnet.
Unfortunately, Mrs Reubens is at the front, stocking shelves. I walk right past and enter the store next door. A young girl immediately runs over to assist me, and because I feel embarrassed and the memories are pulling at me, I buy a blue sleepsuit. The girl packs it up and glances at my stomach, which is smooth and cinched, thanks to Appetrol and discipline. It responds to her stare with a cramp. But no emotion follows. Nothing at all.
We leave and pass Reubens again. Lily and I look with abandon. I am glad I didn’t bring Barbara. She is all her father, always demanding, never satisfied. She would tear at my skirt and grab at things she wants, and throw a tantrum when she doesn’t get them.
Lily, however, is still malleable. She oscillates between babyhood and childhood, between her mother and her father, between amazement and dashed hope. She looks at everything, but merely because everything is wonderful to her. I want to reward her for that wonder. She needs to know that she should never stop being amazed.
So I go in.
When did I stop being amazed? When did I stop painting? Why should I have to stop at all?
These questions prey on my mind as we choose the crayons, and suddenly I have the answer in my hand. Watercolors. Lemon yellow, cadmium blue, rose madder. A pocket-sized rainbow. More joy than a pill packet could ever give.
I should not paint. Frank does not like it, even though Genevieve Crane says I have amazing talent. It’s a bad example to the kids, a mother who indulges, when there are meal plans to be made and carpets to vacuum and flowers to be arranged.
Lily tugs at my skirt while I pay and shoulder the heavy bag. She starts crying, but I
cannot carry her, too. I drag her along to the car, walking so fast her little legs almost cannot keep up.
Chapter Eight
Ruby
U
nder the sheets the world is warm and peaceful. Joseph’s skin smells of cinnamon and soap and something that is impossible to name. It’s him alone.
Ruby shifts her head just a little bit. She loves it when her cheek brushes his collarbone, loves how he responds, half asleep, by tightening his embrace. Then his arms relax again as he drifts away. His chest rises and falls, carrying her body in constant ebb and swell.
The sun burns through the curtains, which are cut from an old bed sheet and tacked against the frame. The room is stuffy with sleep. She does not want this moment to end. Soon enough, Mimi will start a row and Pa will holler for his breakfast. She runs her hand along Joseph’s arm. There is so little time in this world for just the two of them.
Someone starts shouting in the street. There’s a smash of glass and a scream. Joseph shoots up from the bed, rips the curtains aside and yells: ‘Get the fuck out of our neighborhood!’
Ruby wraps herself in the sheet and joins him at the window. Too late. All she sees are three shapes running, turning the corner. Across the alleyway, one window has been smashed in of the ancient Ford that Mr Roan keeps parked up in front of his house.
Stupid thieves – there sure ain’t nothing to steal in there. But maybe they didn’t mean to steal. Maybe they just wanted to break something up.
‘This . . . This . . .’ Joseph grasps for words as he pulls on his underwear. ‘I hate seeing this. Boys reduced to theft. Robbing a brother. And for what?’
‘There was nothing there to rob,’ Ruby says. ‘It’s just Mr Roan’s Ford.’
‘Smashing and stealing, instead of working and doing right by themselves. It makes me sick.’
‘They didn’t take nothing, I don’t think.’
‘. . . shackled to a life of crime and property, which begets more crime. Shackled, Ruby, that’s the right word for it.’
‘Yeah, they should get a job.’
Joseph spins around. ‘There are no jobs. That’s the whole problem. They won’t hire blacks. No jobs for us.’
‘I have a job. And so do you. Old Man Toby hires only blacks.’
Joseph scoffs. ‘Yeah, ’coz we’re cheap and Old Man Toby is a cheap-ass bastard.’
‘He’s nice enough. He drove Momma to hospital in his tow truck. Remember?’
‘And he charged you three dollars.’ Joseph’s words muffle momentarily as he disappears into his shirt. ‘. . . That’s why we gotta keep up the fight. Slavery is over, they say, segregation is dying. But you get an ambulance for your mother? You see mixed schools? You see Black boys with ties and careers, going steady to their office? Huh? You see that?’
He’s right. You don’t see that.
‘And now stealing. In front of our own house.’
Ruby’s heart warms up. Our house, he says. Like it’s where he lives now.
But he mistakes her expression. ‘Why are you smiling? That funny to you?’
‘It’s not funny. The plight of the Black man—’
‘The plight of the Black man creates the prosperity of the whites,’ Joseph continues. Once he gets started, he can go on for some ’n more. ‘The terror of being Black . . .’ He pauses and seems to remember what happened yesterday. He swoops his arms around her and presses her against his chest. ‘Well, you know what I’m talking about.’
Ruby closes her eyes. That’s better. Don’t talk for a bit. Just feel me. Feel how I’m still alive.
‘Rubeeeh.’ Mimi’s voice can carve through brick. ‘Ruby, lemme in there now.’
‘Whaaa?’ Ruby shouts into Joseph’s chest. ‘We’re sleeping.’
‘You ain’t sleeping. You’re talking.’
Joseph rolls his eyes. Ruby plants an apologetic kiss on his lips.
‘My sister wants to get dressed,’ she says, and grabs a clean pair of underwear and her towel. ‘You get outta here and give the girl some space.’
*
In the kitchen, Pa has started breakfast. There’s a pan of eggs sizzling on the stove and coffee bubbling in the kettle. Ruby waves good morning and slips into the shower, whacks two roaches with her towel and stuffs the plughole with tissues. Don’t need more roaches looking at her privates while she’s trying to get clean. The patter of droplets on her shower cap soothes her nerves. The sound of normal.
Afterward, she sits down in the kitchen and grabs yesterday’s LA Times , as always folded to the sports section. Dizzy’s blowing a tune on the radio and Pa’s pouring coffee. She starts to read, and the words of Mrs Cannon, her former teacher, bubble up in her mind. A body has to read. The more you read, the more you know. She’s made it a habit to sift through the rest of the paper while Pa is on the sports, and she’s starting to pick up quite a bit.
But just as she’s halfway through an interview with the new senator from Hawaii, Joseph comes in and starts chatting with Pa.
Ruby puts the paper down and eyes her men. Pa is polite; he has resigned himself to the fact that his little girl is a woman now. And him and Joseph, they always got lots to talk about.
‘Civil rights are no good if they’re happening just on paper,’ Joseph proclaims. ‘We need a revolution in this country, a real change.’
‘But how’re you gonna get that without a fight?’ asks Pa. ‘And you don’t wanna start a fight. I’ve seen it before. They be down here in minutes, guns blazing. Firing at anything that moves. I’ve seen it, boy. That’s not the way to go. So, what are they talking about in your committee?’
‘Peaceful marches. Like the Indian guy – whats’name.’
‘Mahatma Gandhi,’ says Ruby.
‘Like him. March for our rights. And stop working. Go on strike. Show them what we’re worth.’
‘You just said nobody’s working, anyway.’
Joseph ignores her. ‘That’s the way to go. The Black Man’s Advancement Committee got another meeting tonight. Leroy’s chairing. We gotta get our voices heard.’
Ruby looks up. ‘Can I come?’
‘Don’t you have to work for the Funnylakes folk?’
She shakes her head. Not after what happened on Monday night. Mrs Ingram left a message via Mrs Estrada to say that Ruby’s employment was terminated. So she might as well fill her evening.
‘I’d like to hear what they’re saying.’
Joseph gives her an uncertain smile. ‘Ruby. It’s the Black Man’s Advancement Committee. To advance the lives of men like me and your father. You should stay home, be with your family.’
My life needs advancing, too , Ruby wants to say. But it just sounds too corny. So she goes down another route. ‘Leroy’s sister goes,’ she says. ‘Don’t she?’
Joseph looks right past her. ‘Not really. Not often. Why? You jealous?’
Jealous of someone as tall and glamorous as Tamona? The Lord knows how, but Tamona’s in good money, even though she’s not working. The other day, Ruby saw her at the nail parlor, with her hair all kinked around her head like a halo. Natural-looking. Crazy.
She wants to make a snappy reply, but Joseph has already turned back to Pa. ‘You coming?’
‘I’m too old for this, boy.’ Pa smiles weakly. ‘I seen it all come and go. We moved out here to escape the lynching, but it didn’t get better. Then we went to war and it didn’t get better. Now segregation is going. But it ain’t better. We still separated, black and white. Separate homes, separate jobs, separate lives. And it’s always gonna be like that.’
For some reason, Joyce pops into Ruby’s mind. She’d sit her down at the kitchen table and ask questions. You should get some books on teaching, get a head start on college. You can do it, Ruby, you’ll see. Don’t ever let things hold you back. Joyce never once mocked her aspirations.
‘You know,’ she begins, ‘Mrs Haney, she’s—’
‘She’s exactly what I’m talking about.’ Joseph wiggle
s his head. ‘Have you seen this?’
He snatches the paper from her and flips it to the front page. There’s Joyce’s face. Underneath, it says: Sunnylakes Mystery – Housewife vanishes in broad daylight. Ruby reaches for the paper, but Joseph holds on to it.
‘Listen.’ He reads out loud. ‘Seventeen policemen searched the lake and waterfront, while another dozen undertook house-to-house searches. Neighbors combed the area all afternoon, but found no trace of the missing woman. “We’re doing all we can,” says Detective Michael Blanke, who leads the investigation. “We’re still hoping to bring Joyce home to her children and her husband, alive and well.”’
‘So?’ Ruby says.
‘They’d never make such trouble over a Black woman vanishing. You think Mrs Estrada from upstairs disappears, the police are gonna send thirty people to search for her? They won’t send no one, and you know it.’
‘That’s not Mrs Haney’s fault.’
‘And what happened to you yesterday?’ Joseph shakes his head. ‘I’m telling you, you stay away from the white folk. They may seem nice, your prim little housewives, but all you are to them is cheap service.’
Anger rushes into Ruby’s chest, red-hot and searing. She jumps up, spilling her coffee over the table.
‘Money’s money,’ she shouts. ‘I’m doing my best. Don’t you ever say I’m cheap.’
‘But what they pay you is peanuts to them. The society we live in puts you in the—’
‘I said. Don’t. You. Ever.’ She takes a breath, her heart pumping. ‘Say. That. Again.’
She yanks open the kitchen door, then remembers to not slam it, because it has a habit of coming off its hinges. That somewhat interrupts her flounce. Then she walks straight into Mimi, who is standing in the hallway, her hands on her hips.
‘Phone call for you,’ she says.
Ruby comes to a dead stop. Mrs Estrada is filling the front door. She is wearing a huge quilted duster with faded flowers and a yellow bow around the throat, which makes her look like a gigantic birthday present. But her expression is more a portent of a funeral than a party.
‘Always on my line,’ she says. ‘Always I’m gonna have to come down the stairs to get you. Or your sister. Or your pa. Always it’s on me. My phone is not a—’
