That’s what bothered me about Amiee. Her crooked glances managed to get under my skin. It was hard for me to think about anything more than her sidelong smiles. For that reason I was happy to see her pass out of the door.
“Man, why you wanna go an’ threaten her with my mama?”
On cue the hacking cough sounded through the walls.
“Wasn’t no threat,” I said. “I just needed her out of here so we could talk about keepin’ your ass outta prison.”
“I’m not goin’ to jail, man,” he said. “Shit. I’ll have my ass down on some Alabama farm ’fore I go to no jail.”
Saul met my gaze. He shrugged slightly.
“Your mother put up her life savings against a fifteen-thousand-dollar nut,” I said. “What you gonna do, make her work the rest of her life ’cause you a coward?”
“Motherfucker!” Ross yelled.
He threw a long looping right hand but it was useless because I hit him on the side of the jaw with a left that also blocked his punch.
Ross went down hard on the desiccated floor.
Someone cackled behind me.
Mrs. Clara Henry was standing in the doorway gleefully clasping her hands.
“That’s right, mister,” she said encouragingly. “Hit him again, hit him again. Maybe you hit him hard enough you might knock some sense into his thick skull.”
She even did a little jig. But all that laughing and capering was too much for her condition. She fell into a bout of coughing that brought her elbows down to her knees.
Saul was crouched down next to Ross, who seemed stunned by the mere fact he’d been hit. He was rubbing his jaw and watching his mother’s show.
“Mama, what you doin’ back here?” the full grown man said. “This my room.”
Mrs. Henry recovered enough to laugh once more.
“You show him, mister,” she said to me. “Knock some sense inta him.”
With that Ross’s mother went off down the hall.
“I’m gone, Saul,” I said.
“Hold up, man.” That was Ross. “Hold up.”
He stood and held out a hand.
“No hard feelings, brother,” he said. “It’s just that you caught me right in the middle’a the pussy, man. I was gettin’ it but when she heard you comin’ she jumped up off me and put on her clothes. Then when you made her leave—shit, I lost it.”
“Are you crazy, Ross?” Saul asked. “Why do you want to have a woman in here when you’re in so much trouble?”
I think I was the first one to laugh. But Ross and Saul followed soon after. We all knew the answer to that question.
“All right now,” I said. “It’s time to talk turkey.” The smiling stopped.
Ross rubbed his mustache and leaned against the sink. Saul sat in the sill of a small window.
“You didn’t rob your boss?” I asked.
“What kinda shit question is that?” Ross said, half rising from his perch.
“You swing on me again and I’ll break that jawbone.”
“No, man. No. I did not rob Gator.”
“Then who did?”
“How should I know?”
“I don’t know, but if the cops don’t have nobody else they gonna give you to the judge. And you and I both know what he’s gonna do.”
“Over twenty-five guys work for him,” Ross said. “They come and go all the time. Must be a hundred different people know about the safe and that torch.”
“How many of them have access to a key?” I asked.
Ross winced and turned his head away.
“How’d you come up with the money for Amiee?” I asked.
“What you mean?”
“She’s a prostitute, right?”
“Man,” Ross said. “You just wanna get your ass kicked, don’t you?”
“She’s your girlfriend?”
“Today,” Ross replied. “Maybe not tomorrow.”
“Lemme see your wallet.”
Ross turned to Saul but only got the shrug.
You could see around Ross’s eyes that he was in his thirties. But in his heart he was still a young man, barely out of his teens. That’s why I treated him like a child.
He took out a black wallet that was maybe ten percent leather and the rest paper. He had a driver’s license, a library card, and three dollars. Under the secret flap he had a two-dollar bill that had the upper right corner torn away to avoid the bad luck associated with that denomination. If he had robbed a safe of thousands of dollars his wallet would have been stuffed with cash—I was sure of that.
“You do much reading?” I asked him.
“So what?” he replied.
I handed him the wallet and asked, “What kind of job could I get if I go down there?”
OLIPHANT’S GARAGE was an ultramodern auto repair and body shop. Everything was chrome and concrete, glass and white paint. The gleaming cylinders for the hydraulic lifts were well oiled and flawless. There was no trash or built-up grease in the corners. The mechanics wore dark-blue coveralls.
There were white men and blacks working together. If I was unemployed this would be the first place I’d look for a job.
“Can I help you?” a red-headed kid asked. He was no more than fifteen, with a big friendly smile on his face. I felt that I’d met him before but put that down to his engaging manner.
“Lookin’ for a job’s all,” I said.
“What kind of job?”
“Mechanic.”
For a frown the young man smiled just a bit less brightly.
“You been a mechanic before?” he asked.
“Sure have.”
“I wanna be a mechanic on racing cars,” he said. “Those guys travel all over the world and make real money.”
“I guess they do,” I said.
“You ever work on race cars?”
“I was in a few drag races when I was a hothead down south. I worked on those cars but I’ve never been a professional.”
The kid was looking right at me but I had no idea what he saw.
“I’m learning everything I can here,” he said. “By the time I get out of high school I’ll know everything I need.”
“I wish you luck,” I said, wondering how to get to applying for the job.
“I’m gonna buy a dirt bike tomorrow,” he said. “That’ll be great. I can start to learn about bikes and bike racing. We don’t fix motorcycles here.”
“Do you know if there’s a job opening?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s not up to me. You see the main office over there?”
He pointed toward a room encased by glass walls. Three men in blue coveralls were sitting around smoking and laughing with a big white guy in a green suit.
“Yeah,” I said.
“That’s Gator’s office,” the boy said. “He’s the one in green.”
“Gator?”
“Mr. Oliphant if you want the job.”
* * *
I KNOCKED ON THE GLASS DOOR. Gator turned his head in my direction. He took me in for a moment and then gestured with his head and lips for me to enter.
It was a good-sized room with two tables and a desk. The mechanics sat at one table. The other one supported a partly deconstructed car engine.
“Mr. Oliphant,” I said as I stuck out my hand. “I’m Larry Burdon.”
It was one of many names that I typed in as dead or missing during my stint as a statistics sergeant during WWII.
“How can I help ya?” he replied.
The other men took this as their notice to leave. They filed out into the unnaturally clean garage and took up various posts.
“Lookin’ for a job,” I said as they were leaving.
Gator was perched at the edge of his desk. He was as tall as Ross, but whereas Saul’s cousin-in-law was burly Oliphant was long and lean. I didn’t think I could get inside his offense and I wouldn’t have wanted to try.
“For what?” he asked.
“My specialty
is heating and cooling but I can do anything mechanical.”
“Oh really? Where you from, Larry?”
“Lake Charles.”
“You don’t say? Some good old boys down in Lake Charles. And they can eat.”
“Blue crab gumbo and crawdad pie to die for,” I said. “Put all that on a plate with some dirty rice and red beans and you will be in heaven.”
Oliphant smiled and a rough laugh escaped his lips.
He would have been handsome except for the pits on his cheeks and throat. In one way he was the exact opposite of Saul Lynx. The tall Cajun had brown eyes and green clothes.
“You know your food but do you know engines?”
“Oh yeah,” I said like they did down home. “Poor man got to know how to fix his car ’cause a place like this cost you a week’s wages.”
Again Oliphant laughed. “If you lucky.”
He picked up a slender stick and tapped the bottom of the engine.
“What’s that?” he asked me.
“Oil pan.”
“And that?” he asked tapping the upper region.
“Injector over the intake manifold.”
“What about down here?”
“Flywheel.”
We went on like that for a while. After I’d named twenty parts of the engine he began asking me how I’d fix various problems. I guess he was happy with my answers. I did know about cars.
“You say you’re a hot-and-cold man but you know your cars.”
“I know boiler rooms and air conditioners too,” I said. Working as the building supervisor I had to know how every machine at a school worked.
Oliphant rubbed his ravaged jaw and regarded me.
“I do have a position open,” he said. “But how’d you know about it?”
“Sam Houston,” I said.
“And here I thought the great man had died.” Oliphant’s smile was somewhat sinister.
“Not the original,” I said. “This one’s from Texas too, but he’s black and owns a restaurant in L.A. called Hambones. He found out about it somewhere.”
I doubted that Oliphant would go so far as to check my story but I’d already asked Sam to cover for me.
“Last boy to work here didn’t work out,” Gator said. “Broke my supervisor’s nose and broke into the safe too.”
“Was he from Louisiana?”
That got Gator laughing again. He liked to laugh.
“Okay, Larry,” he said. “We’ll try you out. If you can work as good as you talk you’ll do just fine.”
We smiled into each other’s eyes. He had the kind of eyes that made you feel that he knew what was going on in your mind.
TILLY MONROE was the first man I had to deal with. I knew his name from the moment I saw him—that wasn’t hard. First off he had a bandage over his black-and-blue swollen nose. Then he was short, five-five tops. He also wore red coveralls with the name TILLY stitched over his heart. All he needed was good sense and six inches and he could have been a matinee idol.
“So you the new buck?” he said, and I wondered why Ross had waited so long to bust his face.
“Just a mechanic,” I said.
“This ain’t no penny-ante backyard garage here, son,” he said. “This here’s a first-class operation. You get a job and a time estimate and you better believe that you will finish on time and keep your station clean.”
I inhaled through my nose and held it, trying to keep from saying something angry.
“No personal phone calls,” Tilly added, “except in emergency, and no sick pay. You get paid for hours worked and you work every hour you here. Understand?”
“Yes sir.” I hated myself for saying it.
I was given three engines and told that I had a week to overhaul them for the used-car lot across the street. That way, Tilly said, he could make sure that it was me and not some other man doing the job.
I signed up for the evening shift and worked into the night. It didn’t bother me not being home. Bonnie and I barely spoke but still it hurt my heart to have her near.
I SPENT SIX HOURS there and didn’t find out one thing that would help clear Ross Henry.
Gator was well named. He cruised around the garage like a huge green predator. He had the same kind of evil grin as the alligator and seemed to come up out of nowhere. I met eight men other than Oliphant, Tilly, and Ed. Ed was the kid I met coming in. I don’t remember anyone else’s name. They all worked hard and laughed well. Maybe one of them robbed the safe. It was beyond my ability to tell.
The garage closed at eight that Sunday night. I dawdled around until nearly nine, cleaning up my station.
“See ya, Larry,” Ed said to me.
“Later, kid.”
His bright smile shone in answer and Ed turned toward the door.
“You about finished, Burdon?” Tilly asked me.
When I looked up to see the small man, I saw Gator beyond him, looking at us both through the glass wall of his office. His brow was dark and dangerous.
“Just about,” I said.
“’Cause we don’t want any of the brothers around when we’re not here to watch ’em, if you know what I mean.” Tilly was standing nearly on top of me, which was unsettling because I was down on my knees putting my tools into an iron chest.
I stood to my full height and Tilly fell back, one step and then another.
“Didn’t that man who stole your money break your nose for you?” I asked him.
“What of it?”
“Nuthin’,” I said. “It’s just that you should go home and study your eyes and that nose in the mirror. See if you can find a correlation between the two.”
“Corra-what?”
I never expected to return to Oliphant’s garage. Why not give them a glimpse of the man who hid from them in plain sight?
“See you tomorrow,” I said.
I stripped the blue coveralls off of my street clothes and marched out of the mechanic’s glare into the briny night.
ED WAS STANDING on the corner, waiting for a ride I supposed. He was a good kid. Talked a little too much. But whenever he did Gator came out and set him straight without embarrassment. If anybody was going to let something drop, it would be Eddie.
I wanted to go home, to sleep on my sofa. But Saul was a friend and I had made a promise. So I went to the corner thinking this would be my last stab at getting information on the robbery.
“Hey, Ed.”
“Mr. Burdon.”
“Goin’ home?”
“Yeah. My mom’s coming to get me. I won’t get my license for three more months. Then I can drive myself. You need a ride?”
“Yeah, which way you goin’?”
“Up to Sea Breeze, but my mom can give you a ride anywhere around here.”
I had no idea where Sea Breeze was and I had my own car. I just wanted to hang around Ed until he answered a question or two.
“They say the guy I’m replacing broke old Tilly’s nose,” I ventured.
“Sure did,” Ed said. “Ross is a good guy and that Tilly’s just mean. He don’t like black people too much, you know. He’s from the South.”
“So’s Gator,” I said. “You got a little twang there yourself.”
“Ah yeah, but Gator’s great. He’s my dad.”
No one had mentioned this during the day. But it made sense once Ed said it. I thought Gator was looking out for him because he was the only kid at the place. But thinking about it, Gator wasn’t just being a boss, he was being paternal in a cold sort of way; like the lizard he emulated.
A white Cadillac pulled up to the curb.
“That’s my mom,” Ed said.
The car door opened and a woman said, “Come on now, Eddie. I got to—”
She didn’t finish her sentence because I turned and she saw my face. She was looking straight at me but her face still seemed to be in profile. That grin still thrilled my heart.
“Hey, mom,” Ed said. “This is Larry Burdon, the new mechanic. He n
eeds a ride.”
“Easy?”
“No, it’s Larry,” Ed corrected.
“Oh.”
Amiee came around the side of the car to shake my hand. She grabbed onto two fingers, squeezed, and pulled.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Burdon. You look familiar.”
“That’s funny,” I said. “So did your son when I met him.”
“Mr. Burdon did the best of anybody on dad’s test,” Ed was saying.
We were looking into each other’s eyes. I was ready dive to in, right there.
“You don’t have a car, Larry?” Amiee asked.
“I took the bus, Mrs. Oliphant,” I said. “I live a ways up, near Sepulveda.”
“I’d be happy to give you a ride.”
As I climbed into the car I looked over at the garage. The lights went out just as I turned and so I couldn’t be sure that I glimpsed Gator standing in the glass door, staring in our direction.
We dropped Ed off at the Oliphant’s front door on Sea Breeze Lane. Then Amiee drove off in the opposite direction from my fictitious home.
“I was surprised to see you,” we both said at the same time.
“Twice,” she added.
“You mean when I came up on you in the clenches with Ross?”
“No,” she said. “When I saw your handsome face come in that room.”
I was a full-grown man, forty-four at that moment. I had been on three different continents and seen everything from birth to death many times over. With all that experience one would think that a slip of a girl with an uneven face would hardly even make an impression. But Amiee had my heart fluttering and my mouth watering to the point where I had to swallow.
She smiled at my discomfort.
“What’s goin’ on, Amiee?”
My question had extra meaning as we were pulling into a parking lot that bordered the Pacific Ocean. The low-slung three-quarter moon sent a corridor of light rippling from the horizon to the shore, not twenty feet from our car door. The moonlight and that woman filled my chest with awe.
“You working for Ross?” she asked me.
“After a fashion. You workin’ on him, or with him?”
“I was just giving him a little justice,” she said.
“Justice?”
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