“Please!” a man shouted. “I’ma have it by Sunday. By Sunday mornin’, I swear.”
There was a thud of a blow being delivered, then a groan, and then the heavier thud of a body falling to the floor.
“Mr. London don’t wanna hear your nigger jive, Anton,” another voice said.
Conrad groaned again, making me suspect that he’d received a kick in the ribs.
“Sunday, man. Sunday, I swear,” Conrad whined. “It’s all set up.”
Another thud. Another groan.
“I know you gonna pay, nigger,” the white man said. “I know because after I burn your ass, you won’t ever forget to pay anybody ever again.”
Maybe, if the thug stuck to his regular job, that is, a sound beating for a late payment, I might have stood by until he was through. My best bet was to wait for him to soften Anton up. And then, when he’d gone, I could come in and ask a few questions about Brawly. But anything having to do with ropes or fire when it comes to black-white relations was bound to set my teeth on edge.
Conrad’s back porch was just a door and two concrete steps. I smashed the pot on the stairs and then plastered my back against the bricks. The first effect was complete silence, then fast steps coming toward the door. When he rushed out I caught him on the side of the jaw with a short right that had all of the evil intentions of Archie Moore. I followed with a left and then two more right hooks. The final punch missed because the white man in the ridiculous suit was already on the ground. His eyes were open but I doubt if they saw very much.
I lifted him by his garish lapels and let go long enough to connect with a powerful right hand. I kicked him twice when he was down and out. I didn’t kick him out of revenge or rage, at least mostly those weren’t the reasons. This was a dangerous man who knew how to inflict pain and, probably, death. The impact of those body blows would slow him up even if he regained consciousness.
I removed the pistol from his belt, dragged him inside the house, and closed the door.
Conrad had risen, propped up on his left hand. There was a pistol clutched precariously in the fingers of his right. I plucked it free and put it in my pocket to go along with the gangster’s piece.
Feeling the weight of three pistols in my pocket made me smile. It reminded me of a well-spent and wasted youth in Houston. Many a night I carried my friend’s weapons when they were likely to be arrested or searched.
Various odors wafted through the air. A garbage pail that should have been emptied three days before, a toilet that should have been flushed that morning.
Conrad writhed on the floor, wrestling with gravity and balance; it was a losing battle. The gangster was dead to the world, but breathing.
I knelt down and pinched Conrad very hard on the cheek. He came to full awareness with a painful start.
“What?”
“You might be dead now,” I said. “If it wasn’t for me.”
“What?”
“Your boyfriend over there.”
Conrad turned his head to catch a glimpse of his attacker on the floor next to him, then he toppled over.
“Shit,” he said.
In the corner was a door that led to the fragrant toilet. I searched the unconscious gangster for any more weapons and then dragged him into the bathroom and closed the door after him. The window in the toilet was about the size of a cow’s head, too small for a full-grown man to crawl out of, so I wedged a metal-framed chair against the doorknob, assuring myself that we wouldn’t be interrupted.
Conrad had pulled himself up so that his back was against the wall. We were in a dark room that had once been a kitchen. Dark because there was only one small window and two forty-watt bulbs for light, and once because the stove was dismantled, the refrigerator was open and unplugged, and all the shelf space and the sink were piled with books and magazines, cans of paint, and various tools. The unfinished wooden table had one metal chair (which I’d used to imprison the thug), a typewriter, and various sheets of paper.
Conrad glared at me.
“I know you,” he said.
“I guess that means he didn’t knock the sense outta your head.”
“What you doin’ here?” he asked. “I mean, how’d you find me?”
“What’s happening Saturday?” I asked him.
Conrad’s attempt at looking innocent was enough to make me want to laugh.
“You know,” I said. “You told that man beatin’ on you that you could pay your debt on Sunday after you did something on Saturday.”
“I… I… I was just talkin’, brother. Tryin’ to save my ass from gettin’ kicked.” Conrad looked away from me, trying to hide the lie in his eyes.
“Oh,” I said. “I thought it had to do with those stolen guns you and Brawly took over to BobbiAnne’s house.”
Making no attempt to rise, Conrad looked up into my eyes. He did not blink.
“You and Xavier plannin’ some kinda war?” I asked, just to keep up the pretense of a conversation.
“No. No. I’m gonna move them guns is all. Move ’em and then split the money with Bad Boy. On Saturday.”
On a whim I asked, “What you got to tell me about Aldridge Brown?”
Again his eyes darted away.
“Did you kill him, or did Brawly?” I asked.
“I don’t know what the fuck you talkin’ about, man. I never heard’a no Alvin Brown.”
“Where’s Brawly?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Does he have a room somewhere?”
“I only see him at the meetins,” he said.
“You collect them guns at the meetins?” I asked.
“I don’t have to talk to you,” he said angrily. He was working himself up, getting ready to do something.
“The cops think that you’re about to blow up City Hall, Anton.”
“How you know?” he asked. “You a cop?”
I pulled out the gangster’s gun. It was a long-nosed .22, a killer’s caliber. I pulled back the hammer and Conrad’s handsome Caucasian features blanched.
“Get up,” I said, and he hopped to it.
“Take off your shoes and socks.”
He obeyed that command, too.
“Turn out your pockets,” I said. “And put everything on the table.”
By this time there was the sound of movement coming from the toilet. Conrad glanced at the door fearfully.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said.
“Go where?”
“Out to my car.”
We left the house and walked to my car. I stayed close to Conrad, with the gun always touching his side. I made him get in on the driver’s side and scoot over to the passenger’s seat.
“This gun don’t make no more noise than a cap pistol,” I told him, pressing the muzzle firmly into his side. “But it will tear your guts up.”
As we drove I asked him the same questions. He told me again that he and Brawly were in the gun business, that they were going to unload the weapons on Saturday so that he could pay his gambling debt to Angel London, a bookmaker from Redondo Beach.
I HAD A KNOTTY PROBLEM. There was a semiconscious killer wedged into Conrad’s bathroom. The killer now hated me more than he did Conrad. I couldn’t let him see me or question Conrad about my identity. On the other hand, if I left Conrad in his house, he might have shot the gangster through the door or window. One way I’d be the target of a killer, and the other I’d be an accessory to murder.
So I decided to take Conrad on a drive up into Griffith Park. He was sweating and, I’m sure, expecting to be killed. So he breathed a sigh of relief when I kicked him out way up on a hillside. He didn’t even complain about being let out with no wallet and no shoes.
“Next time maybe you’ll give me a ride back to my car when I ask for it,” I said before driving off.
I doubted that Conrad would go back home, and I was sure that the gangster was already on the street looking for my name.
18
JESUS,
FEATHER, AND I all got home at about the same time. I picked them up as they got off the blue bus at Pico and Genesee.
Feather had a homework assignment that she was so concentrated on, she didn’t even take time for her snack before she was hard at work at the kitchen table.
“It’s a book about a girl who fought in a war,” she told me, “in Frenchland. I have to read it and write a book report.”
“What girl?”
“Joan Arks,” she said.
“Did she have a gun?” I asked.
“No, un-uh, a sword. A big sword.”
“And did she cut off people’s heads?”
“No. She just held it up over her head and ran after the enemy and they got scared and run.”
It was a real book, about thirty pages, with large print and a black-and-white illustration every six pages or so. The cover showed Joan with the sword held high, men on their knees before her and men shouting her praises from behind. Feather studied each page with rapt attention.
“You want peanut butter an’ jelly, sis?” Juice asked her.
“Um, uh-huh.”
He made her the sandwich and poured some milk while I put rice on to boil and took frozen oxtails, which I’d cooked a week before, from the freezer. I also had a bowl of green beans and ham hocks on ice. When Feather had snacked and the food was all cooking, Jesus and I went into the backyard, where his long planks and sawhorses stood.
“So you still think you gonna build that boat, huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And what about school?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“If you wanna drop out, I got to sign a paper, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you have to look me in the face and talk to me, ’cause I don’t see any reason at all that you can’t go to school when every other kid in Los Angeles seems to be able to.”
“Not everybody,” he said.
“No. Pregnant girls and juvenile delinquents don’t go. Kids acting in the movies and little kids don’t have no parents to show ’em the right way to go. But everybody else makes it.”
Jesus turned away. He was probably going to leave, but I took his arm before he could make a move.
“Talk to me.”
He sat on the grass and I did, too. When he started rocking back and forth, I put my hand on his knee.
“I love you, boy,” I said. “You know when I was a kid I lost my parents, too. I know what it’s like to be in the street. That’s why I wanna see you get an education. What I never had.”
He stopped fidgeting and looked into my eyes.
“I can’t learn in class,” he said.
“Of course you can,” I said.
“No.” His tone and demeanor could not be denied. “I don’t want to listen to them anymore. They act like we should just listen and believe. They say things that are wrong. They lock the gates. I don’t want to be there anymore.”
“But you just have a little bit more than a year to go.”
“I want to build my boat.”
“Will you stay in school and try hard if I tell you to?” I asked him.
After a moment’s hesitation he said, “I guess I will.”
“Then let me think about it for a couple of days.”
WE HAD A GREAT TIME at dinner. Feather regaled us with fragments of “Joan Arks” while we ate. After dinner she read to us from her paper. Jesus went to bed early, reading his book on how to build a single-masted sailboat. Feather and I watched The Andy Griffith Show. She loved little Opie.
“Because he’s so nice,” she said.
DADDY? DADDY.”
I had just walked into a graveyard’s warehouse where dozens of occupied coffins had been stockpiled, waiting to be buried. It seemed that there was only one man, armed with just a shovel, whose responsibility it was to inter all those dead souls. I looked from one casket to another, but none had Raymond’s name on the little bronze nameplate placed at the foot of each box.
Somebody called my name. Somebody held out a shovel. He wanted me to get back to digging.
“What?” I said. And then I remembered: I was the man in charge of burials, I was the gravedigger for all the dead black men and women.
“Daddy.”
“What?” I said.
“You’re asleep, Daddy.”
I opened my eyes. There was a static buzz coming from the television. Feather was pressing against my chest with both hands.
“We fell asleep,” she said.
I carried her to her room and put her under the covers fully dressed.
THE PHONE RANG but at first I thought it was the alarm. Who set the alarm, anyway? I called out Bonnie’s name. I knew that it must have been her, that she had some early flight and set the alarm and now was going to sleep through it.
“Bonnie, shut that thing off,” I said.
And then I remembered that Bonnie was out of town. She was in an airplane somewhere. I imagined a plane high in the sky. I was sitting in the pilot’s seat, looking out of the broad windows at the panorama of deep blue. There was no limit to the space overhead.
Then the phone rang again.
“Mr. Rawlins?” a deep voice asked when I answered.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Henry Strong,” he announced.
“Man, what time is it?”
“I must speak with you, Mr. Rawlins. It’s urgent.”
I looked at the night table. The clock’s turquoise luminescent numerals read 3:15. I blinked and started to slide into that big sky again.
“Mr. Rawlins, are you awake?”
“There’s a doughnut shop on Central at Florence,” I said. “It’s an all-night place that they use for the Goodyear tire plant down there.”
“I know it.”
“Be there in forty minutes,” I said, and then I hung up.
I turned on my back and took a deep breath. Graveyards and blue skies. The phrase ran through my mind. It was a good title for a jet-age blues song.
19
I PUT ON WORK CLOTHES so that I’d blend in with the crowd at Mariah’s Doughnuts and Deli.
I made it in twenty-five minutes, my car rattling now and again along the way.
Strong wasn’t there when I arrived. But the large room was half filled with workmen and -women smoking cigarettes and downing coffee.
It was way down in the black neighborhood, but the room was filled with all the races of L.A. Black and white, yellow and brown. All sitting together and talking. Norwegian, Nigerian, and Nipponese derivatives all speaking the same language and getting along just fine.
“Coffee,” I said to Bingham, the nighttime counterman at Mariah’s.
“How you want it, Easy?”
“Black as it gets.”
He went to fill my order and I let my eyes roll over the three dozen or so late-night workers. The nearby Goodyear plant ran twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. The people who worked there had simple, straight-ahead lives. They got up an hour and a half before they were supposed to be at work, then they worked eight hours, and maybe a little overtime. They were citizens of a nation that had won the major wars of the century and now they were enjoying the fruits of the victors: mindless labor and enough of anything they wanted to buy.
Everyone in the room looked as though they belonged there. No one was looking at me, and no one was looking away.
I sat at a small table near the cash register and guzzled the strong coffee. Every word spoken or cup banged down exploded in my ears. My fingertips were numb, and if I moved my head too fast, my vision shook a bit.
After my third cup of coffee things began to settle down. Strong came in the front door at 4:19 and strode up to my table. He had tried to dress for the occasion, wearing black slacks and a square-cut dark blue shirt with orange circles around the hem. But his head was too elegant for the clothes, and the clothes were too sporty for the twenty-four-hour diner.
Strong would have had a hard time
fitting in anywhere he was not the center of attention.
“Coffee?” I asked him.
I gestured at Bingham, who called a waiter from the back to bring a plate of hot beignets and two fresh cups of coffee.
“You hung up on me,” Strong said.
“You woke me out of a sound sleep.”
The standoff lasted until after the young man had delivered our breakfast.
“I have to talk to you, Rawlins,” he said.
“That’s why I’m here.”
“But not here. There’s too many ears around here.”
“Here is where they ain’t gonna be listenin’, man,” I said, letting my country upbringing soak each word. “Here is where people mind their own business. They don’t care about us.”
Strong had a long face with deep, soulful eyes. He used those eyes on me.
“Are you a race man, Mr. Rawlins?”
“I can run if I have to,” I said.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean. You one’a them better-than-thou kinda Negroes tryin’ to explain everything by your own book. But I’m just a everyday black man, doin’ the best I can in a world where the white man’s de facto king. I got me a house with a tree growin’ in the front yard. It’s my tree; I could cut it down if I wanted to, but even still you cain’t call it a black man’s tree. It’s just pine.”
I had given him everything he needed to figure me out. If Strong was smart enough to read me, then I’d have to take him seriously; if not — well, I’d see.
His rubbed his fingers across his lips, digesting my words. He stared even more deeply into my eyes.
Then he smiled. Grinned.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m not trying to convert you. I just wanted to know where you stand in relation to the First Men.”
“Next question,” I said.
“What do you have to do with Brawly Brown?”
“I’m looking for him. For his mother, like I said.”
“Is that all?”
Strong was taller than I was and heavier by thirty pounds. His question had the hint of a threat in it. But I wasn’t afraid.
“This is a waste of time,” I said.
I sat back and bit into one of the best beignets I’d ever tasted.
Bad Boy Brawly Brown Page 10
