“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I’m not doin’ it for him.”
“Then who?”
“Partly it’s John. You know we been friends for over thirty years. There was times that I’d go to John and ask him to hide me. He never asked me why and he never said no.”
“What’s the other part?”
“You were right when you said I’ve been sad. I know I got to get out there and find out what happened after EttaMae took Raymond from that hospital. But it’s been hard to push myself there. While I’m lookin’ for Brawly I kinda like lose myself in his problem and maybe, when it’s all over, I’ll find the old Easy and he’ll be able to go out there and find out the truth.”
Bonnie didn’t say anything. And after a while we came to BobbiAnne’s apartment building.
I kissed her again.
“Call me in sick at work,” I said, then opened my door.
“Easy?”
“Yeah?”
“You said that you lose yourself.”
“Yeah?”
“That’s not right,” she said. “What you should be doing is finding yourself, not this boy.”
I DROVE DIRECTLY over to John’s place. I knew he’d be gone to work, but that was what I wanted.
Alva opened the door with hope in her eyes. But when she saw me, the hope turned to fear.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Can I come in?”
I took the hassock I’d sat in a few days before while Alva put on water for tea.
After composing herself over the stove, she came to sit across from me.
“What is it, Mr. Rawlins?”
“We need some straight talkin’, Alva.”
“Is Brawly hurt?”
“Not that I know of, but I’m pretty sure he’s in trouble. He is in trouble,” I repeated myself for effect, “and only you tellin’ me the truth is gonna help me help him.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The kind of trouble that comes from hotheaded young men with wild women and guns everywhere.”
“Oh.”
It was the short syllable that preceded a big fall. I didn’t want to hurt her. From the beginning, my job had been to keep her from unbearable pain. But sometimes you have to feel pain before you get better. I hoped that this was one of those times for Alva Torres.
“Why is Brawly mad at you?” I asked.
“He thinks I don’t love him,” she whispered. “He thinks that I abandoned him when he was a child.”
“Why he think that?”
“Because I sent him to his father. He was so headstrong and physically he was strong, too. I’d tell him to go to bed or come back in the house and he’d just push me aside, just push me aside like I was one of the kids at the playground. And then…” She let her words trail off and stared at a point somewhere behind me.
“Yes? And then what?”
“His uncle died in a bank robbery attempt.”
Alva caved in on herself in the chair. She wept. I wanted to touch her, to reassure her, but I didn’t. The pain she felt was beyond my reach.
“When was this?”
“Nineteen fifty-four,” she said. “It was a Bank of America down on Alvarado. He went in there with a stocking mask and they shot him in the street with forty-two hundred dollars in his pocket.”
“Were him and Brawly close?”
“Yes, they were. Leonard would come over and Brawly would act right. Brawly and me both loved Leonard.”
“So what happened after he died?” I asked.
“The police kept comin’ ovah, askin’ ’bout what I knew about Leonard and his partner.”
“What happened to this partner?”
“He got away with most of the money. And the cops thought I knew about it. They kept comin’ over until I just couldn’t take it and they had to put me in the hospital.” Alva clutched her hands together.
“You let yourself get that sick rather than turn in Aldridge?”
Alva looked up at me with both surprise and relief in her eyes.
“I didn’t know until a long time later that it was Aldridge,” she said. “I would have never sent Brawly to live with him if I knew.”
“How did you find out?”
“Aldridge told Brawly and they fought.”
“When Brawly was fourteen?”
Alva nodded. “He told me when he came down here to live.”
“He didn’t tell you when you were in the hospital?”
“I don’t think so. But I don’t remember everything,” she said pitifully. “They give me drugs. Brawly said that he came and saw me and I told him that I wasn’t his mother and he should go away. But I don’t remember that. Then he went to stay with Isolda.”
Hatred replaced sorrow in Alva’s voice.
“And what happened then?”
“She twisted him,” Alva said. “She did dirty things to him and turned him against me.”
“Why she do that?”
“Because she’s wicked, that’s why.”
There didn’t seem to be much further I could get with that line of questions, so I switched gears.
“When did Brawly move away from Isolda?”
“When he was sixteen he got in trouble with the police. They said that he stole a radio out some store and put him on trial. If he was a white boy, they would have threatened him and let him go home. But bein’ black up there, they put him on trial and convicted him. He had to live in a residence for delinquents and report to this juvenile detention center until he was nineteen. He was on probation until twenty-one. That’s when I told him that he could come down here and I’d help him finish his high school degree and go to college. After he dropped out, John said that we could rent him a room in our building and he could work for us.”
“Did he steal the radio?” I asked.
“Yeah. But it was just a boy’s mistake. Brawly ain’t no thief. He’s just angry. And why shouldn’t he be? He had his childhood taken away from him.”
“Why’d you and Aldridge break up?” I asked.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well,” I said, “that’s why Brawly lost his childhood, ain’t it? Maybe that’s the key to me talkin’ to him when I finally pin him down.”
Alva looked at me then. Before that day I had always thought that a man or woman who had a mental breakdown was weaker than other people. But I could see in her eyes the strength to handle more pain than I could imagine.
“It was the same old thing”— her voice wavered —“same old thing. He couldn’t keep his hands off the girls. Finally he found someone he liked so much that he didn’t even come home half the time. I put his things on the front yard one night, and in the morning they were gone.”
Many thoughts went through my mind but I kept them to myself.
“Can you save my son, Mr. Rawlins?”
I reached out and took both of her hands in mine.
“If it’s at all possible, I will bring him back here to you, Alva,” I said. “Even if I have to hog-tie him to the roof of my car.”
She giggled, and then she grinned.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry I misjudged you, Mr. Rawlins.”
I smiled and patted her hands. I nodded, accepting her apology, but I knew she had not misjudged me. She had seen me for what I really was. The only mistake she’d made was believing that she’d never need my kind of help.
31
I DROPPED BY Colonel Lakeland’s office at about ten that morning.
Miss Pfennig wasn’t happy about it, but she sent me on through to Mona, who was, if anything, even less enthusiastic about my presence. But Mona called her boss, and he had her send me right in.
Detective Knorr was seated at the table, in the same chair that I had chosen to keep from being the center of attention.
“Yes, sir,” I said without being asked anything.
I took a seat, also uninvited.
Knorr gave me his ass
assin’s smile. Lakeland was more honest and simply frowned.
“What do you have for us?” Lakeland asked me.
“Not too much,” I said. “Nothing solid.”
“How’d you get arrested?” Knorr asked.
“Just like I told them,” I said. “Me and Jasper and Christina had gone to see BobbiAnne, but she was out and the door was open. I’ve been havin’ a weak bladder lately and —”
“Cut the shit, Rawlins,” Lakeland said. He took a familiar-looking .45-caliber pistol from somewhere behind his desk. “What in the hell is this?”
“I found it on the table in that woman BobbiAnne’s living room,” I said.
“That the story you told Petal?” he said.
I knew he was talking about Pitale. Maybe that was the way he pronounced his name.
“No story,” I said. “It was sitting right there in plain sight.”
“How’d you like to spend thirty-five years in a federal prison, Mr. Rawlins?” Lakeland asked.
“No thanks.”
“Because this, this gun, was stolen from a federal facility in Memphis, Tennessee, and that’s the sentence for the theft.”
“I think my paternal grandfather was from Tennessee,” I said. “The story goes that he killed a white man and had to relocate to Louisiana for his health.”
Knorr’s light eyes regarded me as a child might stare at the wing he was about to pluck off a fly.
“It was on her coffee table,” I said. “I picked it up, put it in my pocket, and then the cops busted in. Why were they there, anyway?”
“Petal works for Captain Lorne. They’re also keeping watch on the First Men’s members,” Lakeland said.
“They were camped outside of BobbiAnne’s apartment?” I asked.
“Apparently,” Lakeland said. “When they saw Bodan and Montes go in, they hoped they could get them on something and break up their organization. But the real question is, what were you doing there?”
“I found out that BobbiAnne was Brawly’s friend from back in high school in Riverside, so I went there with Xavier and Tina to talk to her.”
“About what?” Lakeland asked. Both he and Knorr leaned forward, almost imperceptibly, to hear clearly how I lied.
“They were scared,” I said.
“Scared of what?” Knorr asked.
“Whoever killed Strong. Tina had been moving from place to place, and Xavier was sitting behind his door with a pistol in his hand.”
“So what’s that got to do with BobbiAnne?” Knorr asked.
“I told them that Brawly’s father, Aldridge Brown, had also been murdered and that I thought that his death had something to do with Strong’s and that BobbiAnne knew something about it because of her connection to Brawly.”
“What’s she got to do with Strong’s death?” Lakeland asked.
“Hell if I know,” I said. “Like I told you half a dozen times already, the only thing I’m interested in is Brawly. Tina and Xavier knew BobbiAnne, so I thought they could get her to get me with Brawly.”
“But what’s that got to do with the shootings?” Knorr asked.
“Ain’t that the question I just answered?”
“So you know nothing about Strong’s death?” Lakeland said. “You just lied to them so that they would take you to Brawly.”
“I lied to ’em,” I said. “But that don’t mean I don’t know nuthin’.”
I waited, wanting them to feel that they were mining information and not being spoon-fed.
“What?” Lakeland asked.
“The same thing you should know if you were listenin’,” I said. “Tina’s scared to death and so is Jasper. They both loved Strong and believe that he was murdered by the government, the police, or by both. They sure didn’t have anything to do with it. All they want is to build schools for black children.”
“Schools where they’d teach children hate,” Knorr said.
Lakeland turned his head to Knorr as if his words were the clarion call. Then he turned back to me.
“That’s all you know?”
“So far.”
“So you walk in here and tell us that you don’t think these people are involved with murder,” Lakeland announced. “Who did kill him?”
“Somebody scared, somebody stupid,” I said. “Somebody that he knew and that he could harm. That’s always the way, now, isn’t it, Colonel?”
The officers of the law were stumped by me speaking their language.
“Are you gonna keep on this?” Lakeland asked me.
“If you mean, am I gonna keep on looking for Brawly and trying to get him back home with his mother — the answer is yes.”
“We got you out of jail,” the colonel said.
“And I told you everything I learned from Xavier and Tina.”
Lakeland lifted up the pistol and bounced his hand. “Was this the only weapon you found in the apartment?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you need to know anything from us?”
“I’d like one more address,” I said.
“What?”
“Where did Strong live while he was down here?” I had heard the address they’d given on the news. It wasn’t the same one I’d gotten from Tina.
“The Colorado Hotel,” Knorr said. “On Cherry. But you don’t have to worry about going over it. We already searched.”
“Does where he live mean something to you?” Lakeland asked.
“No. I mean, I thought I might go by there and ask if Brawly been around. You know that’s my prime target.”
“I thought you were a janitor,” Lakeland said. “But you sound like some kind of detective.”
“Do you know how to sew, Officer?” I asked in response.
“What?”
“I don’t mean darn,” I said. “I mean could you piece together a pattern and stitch the seams of a shirt or a pair of pants?”
“No.”
“Can you bake a cake from scratch or lay a floor in an unfinished room?” I continued. “Or lay bricks or tan leather from a dead animal?”
“What are you getting at?” the colonel commanded.
“I can do all those things,” I said. “I can tell you when a man’s about to go crazy or when a thug’s really a coward or blowhard. I can glance around a room and tell you if you have to worry about gettin’ robbed. All that I get from bein’ poor and black in this country you so proud’a savin’ from the Koreans and Vietnamese. Where I come from they don’t have dark-skinned private detectives. If a man needs a helpin’ hand, he goes to someone who does it on the side. I’m that man, Colonel. That’s why you sent Detective Knorr to my house. That’s why you talk to me when I come by. What I do I do because it’s a part of me. I studied in the streets and back alleys. What I know most cops would give their eyeteeth to understand. So don’t worry about how I got here or how to explain what I do. Just listen to me and you might learn somethin’.” I closed my mouth then, before I said even more about what I’d learned in a world that had already passed those cops by.
They were both staring at me. I realized that any chance I had of them underestimating me had passed by also.
“So who do you think killed Strong?” Lakeland asked.
“I don’t know anything about it, Officer,” I said. “It could have been somebody in the First Men, but not those two kids.”
32
“BACK THEN OUR CUSTOMERS were Jewish gangsters and white girls who wanted to be starlets,” Melvin Royale told me. “Now we got a mixed clientele of a lower pedigree.”
Melvin was a Negro, large and verbose, just the way I liked it. He had worked as a bellman at the Colorado Hotel and Residences for twenty-seven years. Twelve of those years he was the head bellman.
I met Melvin after asking at the front desk if there were any jobs open for nighttime porters or bellhops. All hotels need people for the graveyard shift, so the carrottop clerk sent me down into the basement office of Mr. Royale.
The reception area
of the hotel was small but elegant in a worn-down-but-comfortable sort of way. There were two potted ferns on either side of the carpeted stairway leading to the rooms. The banister of the staircase was mahogany, with a shiny brass cap at the first step.
But the stairs going down to the basement were moldy and damp. Melvin’s office was barely large enough to hold him and the end table that he proudly called his desk. The chair he had me sit in had its two back legs sticking out of the door.
“You ever work as a bellman before?” Melvin asked me.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “At the DuMont in St. Louis and at the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco.”
“You move around a lot, huh?”
“I come outta Mississippi,” I said. “At first I went up to Chi, but you know that wind was colder than a mothahfuckah up there. St. Louis was better, but they still had snowflakes for three months and I spent half my salary on coal. Now, it never snowed in San Francisco but I was still wearin’ a heavy sweater half the time in August. L.A. got warm weather and you see colored people almost everywhere you go.”
“They might not got a sign keepin’ us out, but you better believe that there’s places you better not be.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I know. I ain’t no fool.”
Melvin laughed. We were getting along just fine. Old friends.
“You kinda tall for a bellhop, ain’t you, Leonard?” he asked, using the name I’d given.
“I’ve done my share of hard labor, Mr. Royale,” I replied. “Heavy stones and eighty-pound sacks of cotton. A suitcase or two is more than enough for me.”
Again Melvin laughed.
“You got the right attitude,” he said. “Ain’t no reason to bust your hump for these white peoples. Shit. You strain your back or break your leg and they’ll drop you just like that.” He snapped his fingers, causing a loud report. “They don’t care. I had a boy workin’ with me in here twenty-some years, Gerald Hardy was his name. Gerry would do anything these people asked. One time I remember he worked thirty-two days straight. Thirty-two days! And half’a that was double shift. He worked like that for years. Always happy and willin’ to do some things that weren’t quite legal and willin’ to overlook other things that was downright wrong.
Bad Boy Brawly Brown Page 17
