Black Betty (31 page)

“I’m going to make tea now,” Felix said.

It was about half an hour since we’d arrived at the house.

“Go make it,” I told him.

“You two better be goin’,” he said. His musical voice now a dirge.

“We should talk to Miss Eady,” Saul said to me. “We should find out what she knows.”

“What difference does it make? Who cares what happened?”

“Are you guys goin’?” Felix interjected.

“The hammer will fall, Easy,” Saul said. “We’re in this.”

I knew it was true.

“Lady needs to sleep,” Felix said.

“Listen, man,” I announced as if I were addressing a crowd. “We’ve got to talk to Betty. We are going to do that. When we finish we’ll leave you to it. Now if you want to watch that’s okay by us, but we will talk to her, that much is sure.”

Felix cut a glance at Betty in the bed, then sized us up. He knew that violence between us would only upset her more, but he was so angry that he couldn’t move aside.

Saul and I went around him though, and that seemed to break the spell. Felix left. To make tea I suppose.

Betty was lying quietly in the bed with her head and shoulders propped up on half a dozen pillows. Tears were flowing from her eyes.

“Betty,” I said.

“She’s dead, Easy.”

I took her hand.

“Were Marlon and Terry there the night Albert Cain died?” I didn’t want to ask her but I had to.

Betty looked away and shook her head—no.

“You sure they didn’t come in there with somebody else?”

No reply. Not even a motion of her head.

“Betty, we got to find the man killed your kids,” I said. “He might be after you.”

“I’m dead already. He already killed me.”

“If that’s true,” Saul said, “tell us what happened so we can get him—for the memory.”

I didn’t know what he meant but Betty seemed to understand. “Marlon and Terry come in with Arthur that night. I was gettin’ ready to go to bed.” Betty looked from side to side, pitiful in her own bed now. “But I heard somethin’ and I went to the stairs an’ saw ’em comin’ up.”

“Did they see you?” Saul asked.

“No. I was scared at how serious they looked. It was the first time I ever seen Arthur stalkin’ like a man. You know he just a baby. Why he wanna be walkin’ like that?

“And then later, when I went in to check on Albert he was dead with a pillah on his face.”

“And so you ran to make them think that you did it?” I knew it was true.

“I come down to stay at my house. I just told Felix that I was takin’ a vacation. You know I only called Odell ’cause of Terry. I needed somebody to put him in the ground.”

“Do you know where we could find Arthur, Miss Eady?” Saul asked in his undertaker’s voice.

“He might be at his secret place.” She was looking out past the wall.

“Where is that, Miss Eady?” Saul asked.

“Arthur was takin’ his momma’s checks an’ payin’ rent on a place on Little Santa Monica.”

“He told you that?” I asked.

“The landlord called about a year ago and asked to talk wit’ Miss Cain. But she wasn’t there. I told him that whatever check it was that Arthur gave him was okay. And then later when I ast’im ’bout it he said that he just needed a little place to get away.”

“Did Sarah know about it?” I asked.

“After a while he told her. He said that he liked to go write poems over there.”

THE PHONE NUMBER and address were listed under Arthur Cain in the white pages. Nobody answered, so Saul and I drove over to West Los Angeles.

We went up to apartment thirty-nine but nobody came to the door. So we went back downstairs to number one—the super’s apartment.

He was so tall that he had to stoop to put his head out of his own front door. “Yes?” he asked pleasantly. If he was startled to see a white man and a black man together at his door he didn’t let it show.

“Mr. Manetti?” Saul smiled upward. We hadn’t discussed how to approach this man but it was only natural that Saul would talk to the white man.

“Yes?”

“My name is Howard and this is my associate Mr. Grodin. We’re here to pick up some furniture from your tenant, a Mr. Cain.”

“Arthur Cain.” The super had his hands braced against each side of the door, like Samson.

“Yes.” Saul smiled. “Do you know if he’ll be in soon? You know, I’m going to waste a half a day’s pay on Mr. Grodin here if we can’t get in there.”

“Sorry, I don’t know. Him and his father took off ’bout an hour ago.”

His father?

“His father?” Saul asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Um, nothing. He did say that his father had rented the place for him.”

“I doubt that, Mr.… uh?”

“Howard.”

“Yeah, I doubt that, Mr. Howard. Mr. Hawkes didn’t look like he could pay for a cup of coffee, and that dusty old yellow station wagon of his is just a pile of junk.”

“Station wagon?” I couldn’t keep quiet. “You said he drove a yellow station wagon?”

“Was it a Studebaker?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Come on, man,” I said to Saul. “We got to go.”

“What’s going on?” the big super asked. “Who are you guys?”

But we were going out the front door. We were in Saul’s car and headed back to Odell’s house.

I TOLD SAUL MY FEARS on the way. The more I said, the faster he drove. We made it to Odell’s house in less than a half hour.

At first I was relieved to see the familiar Studebaker out in front of Odell’s; at least they hadn’t made it to Betty. But then I was afraid of what we’d find in the house: Odell and Maude slaughtered and heaped on the floor.

I was already plotting my revenge when I burst through the front door.

They were all there. Odell and Maude with coffee cups in their laps, sitting on the sofa next to Sarah. Arthur was sitting in one straight-back chair and there next to him stood Dickhead, smiling and talking.

Dickhead looked up at me, his eyes glinting with mirth. “Well hi. Surprised to see me here?”

Dickhead was standing behind Arthur’s chair. His grin was so ingratiating that I was taken off guard. I saw him take the pistol out of the back of his pants but I didn’t react. Maybe it was because I was so tired, trying to do so much.

“Watch it!” Saul ran into me with both hands straight out.

Thinking back on it now, maybe it was a mistake. Dickhead, also known as Ronald Hawkes, probably wasn’t going to shoot. He just wanted to balance the odds. Saul hit me hard and Dickhead’s gun barked, twice. The first shot winged Saul and spun him around, the second one got him in the back. Arthur leaped out of the chair at the first shot and the women screamed. Dickhead looked over at them for a second.

That was just the second I needed. I moved low and caught the vacated chair by the legs, swinging it high while staying down. Dickhead, in a moment of fear, shot the chair before it crashed into his head. I had to hit him three more times before he was all the way down, and out.

I pulled the gun from the unconscious man’s hand, then I ran to Saul. His eyes were open like a dead man’s but a choking sound came from his throat. I pulled the hair at the front of his head back toward the floor and held his nose closed, then I took a deep breath and filled his lungs with my air.

“Call an ambulance!” I cried between breaths.

Blood was coming out from underneath the little man. Sarah Cain brought me a pillow to put under his head but I put it underneath him, hoping to block up the wound in his back.

Deep breath, exhale, push. Deep breath, exhale, push.

The women and Arthur were making fretting noises while I worked. Odell called the ambulance. There was a commotion suddenly. Odell had grabbed Dickhead, but the bloody-headed white man pushed him down and ran for the door. I had his gun but I was thinking about Saul. I couldn’t worry about the killer while there was life in my hands.

Everyone was shouting but I kept up my work. I did until I was light-headed but I still didn’t miss a breath. I didn’t know if Saul was dead or alive but that didn’t even matter.

Somebody must have called the police after hearing the shots, because the cops came before the ambulance. Arthur wouldn’t say a word but Maude described the car that they were in. Sarah gave them his name. Finally one of the policemen spelled me while the other one was on the phone to the police station.

I went out on the porch to get some air. Soon after that the ambulance drove up. They seemed a little confused about the address, so I went out to the curb to point the way. Three more police cars arrived at the same time. People were starting to come out of their houses to see about all the sirens and uniforms.

It was easy to get into my car and drive off. Nobody had asked me to stay.

I knew the police mind (at least I thought I did). If I had told them about the house he was going to they would have put me in jail. They wouldn’t have gone straight to the address, because they never listen to criminal cant; and all blacks were criminals.

So I doubled back to Arthur’s apartment. I drove like a crazy man, Dickhead’s gun wedged in my belt.

I ARRIVED AT THE SAME TIME as two police cars were pulling up. There was a Buick sedan on the curb in front of the building, blocking off the dusty Studebaker. I pulled up to the curb across the street and heard a man’s scream—loud and scared. Then there were a lot of shots, at least five, and the cops began to move quickly and cautiously down the alley at the side of the building.

I waited a couple of minutes and then followed. The policemen were standing at the far end of the dead-end alley looking down at the ground in the middle of a half-dozen overturned trash cans. Their pistols were all holstered.

I should have gone away, I know that. But there was just too much hatred in me right then. I moved up behind the cops. There lying between a scatter of green ale bottles was Dickhead. His arms and legs were every which way and his khaki shirt had turned the color of murky blood. His head rested on a shoulder.

“I shouted for him to stop,” Commander Styles was saying.

He spoke patiently to a uniformed cop jotting in a notebook.

“I heard the APB on the radio. I’m Beverly Hills but I was down here looking for something for my kid’s birthday. You know the shops in my town…” He didn’t finish because he spotted me over the wall of blue shoulders.

The note-taking policeman looked up then too. “Hey! You! What are you doing here?”

The rest of the pack turned toward me.

“Uh, I just heard the commotion and come around the corner, officer. I—I didn’t mean nuthin’.” I was nobody and nothing.

“Did you see anything?” the policeman asked. But it was Commander Styles’s stare that I was answering.

“No, sir. I come back here after you did.”

“Well, move on. Get out of here.”

I backed up the first few steps, looking Styles in the eye. He smiled at me and the L.A. summer broke.

MAUDE AND ODELL were alone by the time I returned. “The ambulance took your friend to Temple, Easy. Miss Cain and the boy went on with’em,” Maude told me. “He didn’t look too good.”

TEMPLE HOSPITAL. The place where my wife met her lover; my old friend, Dupree Bouchard. The place where my only blood child, Edna, was born. The whole place had a feeling of loss for me.

The front desk sent me to the intensive care ward. I got to the nurse’s desk there and asked after my companion.

“He’s in critical condition,” the older Mexican woman told me. “They’re operating on him now. His family are down the hall in the waiting area.”

She pointed out the direction and I went. All the way to the hospital I’d been thinking about Saul, worrying about the white man who had put my life before his. And so I was surprised to see Sarah Cain and Arthur sitting in the hall outside of a door labeled INTENSIVE CARE. A few seats away from them was a young black woman who held an infant in her arms. Another tragedy case, I thought. Her brother or boyfriend was probably cut down in Compton or Watts over a dime bet or another man’s woman.

Sarah Cain rose immediately and came toward me.

“Mr. Rawlins,” she said.

“What you doin’ here?” I wanted to slap her face.

“We came… we came because of Mr. Lynx.”

“What you care about him? You don’t know him.”

Sarah Cain hesitated and I knew why she was there.

“You afraid he was gonna say somethin’, huh?” I asked her. “You afraid he’d say about Arthur and Terry and Marlon.”

“Not just that. No.”

I wanted to be mad. I wanted to hate her, but I couldn’t. A woman had the right to protect her child.

“You got that divorce you wanted,” I said.

“He’s dead?” She actually reached out and touched my forearm.

I nodded.

“Arthur,” Miss Cain said in a voice that meant business.

The young black woman was watching the doctor’s station but now and then she’d steal a glance at me.

Arthur came up to us. His fresh complexion was marred by a few days’ growth. “Yes, Mother?”

“Your father is dead, Arthur. He’s dead.” Sarah Cain’s voice was full of emotion. There was joy there in celebration of the death of the man she hated; and a deep sadness for her son and herself.

Arthur for his part was past feeling. I could see in his eyes that all the violence and hate in his life had hardened him into a man. The kind of man who has nothing to give.

“Tell Mr. Rawlins what you told me,” Sarah said, seemingly oblivious to the changes in her son.

“But, Mother, is that wise?”

“This man risked his life.” It was a simple declaration. For bearing the best news that she had ever received I was, for a brief moment, her best friend. She would have shared anything, told me anything, because I had touched her deepest desires. I was the source of her joy.

“Dad got me together with Marlon.” He went right into the story with no preparation or pretense. “He told Marlon about how Grandpa got him to set him up for that robbery and about what he did to Aunt Betty after Marlon was gone. He told him that Grandpa was Gwen and Terry’s father. He said that Betty couldn’t ever be free until Grandpa was dead. Then he told me that I had to forge a check to Marlon, ‘for reparations,’ he said, and I had to let him and Terry in the house that night. And after I did that and Marlon was gone he wanted me to call the cops, he even gave me the number to call. I didn’t know what they were going to do.”