Charcoal Joe (21 page)

“Have you told anybody about Seymour staying with you?” I asked Fearless from a pay phone sixteen blocks west of the undiscovered crime scene.

“Nobody, Easy. You know I might not say the right things now and then, but I never talk when I'm not supposed to.”

“How about him?” I asked then. “Has he been a lot on that phone?”

“Naw, man, there's a lock on it,” he said. “Right on the number three. Man who hired me put it on when he couldn't talk his wife outta lettin' me stay here. He put on the lock but she give me the key.”

That last sentence could have been the repeat line from some old blues song.

“I want you to stay close to him, Mr. Jones. Don't let him out of your sight night or day. I'll pay triple time for that.”

When I got back to the office I was, once again, feeling like Alice falling down that rabbit hole. I had accomplished what I'd been hired for. A good lawyer would have probably proven Seymour could not have committed the crime, at least not beyond a pretty long shadow of a doubt. But now there were gangsters, cops, and mysterious women involved. And they were looking at me for a lost fortune.

It was almost enough that I could forget the loss of Bonnie Shay to a man who at one time saved my daughter's life.

“Did you get Tinsford's note, Mr. Rawlins?” Niska Redman asked me when I came through our front door.

“Yeah. How you doin', N?”

“Fine. He said that he's going to need your help and Saul's too tonight.”

“What are partners for?” I said, and then moved toward the hallway toward my office.

“A police sergeant named Trieste called,” she said before I could escape.

“What did he want?”

“He said that he needed to talk with you as soon as you got in.”

“How long ago?”

“Fifteen minutes. The number is on your desk.”

I glared at that number as if daring it to dial itself. I never liked talking to cops I didn't know; I didn't like talking to most cops I was acquainted with. It was the duty of the police to keep men like me down and out, so scared that we were liable to make a slip, then to clap us in chains and lock us away from love, laughter, and light.

Keeping all this in mind, I dialed the number.

The phone rang once, made a funny crackling sound for a few seconds, and then buzzed twice instead of ringing.

“Station thirty-two,” a man said in a brusque tone.

“Sergeant Trieste,” I said.

“Who is this?”

“Rawlins calling for Trieste.”

“What are you doing on this line?”

“Calling Sergeant Trieste.”

“Where did you get this number?”

“Look, man, if you don't want to put me through that's fine. Tell Trieste or don't tell him but I called.”

I hung up the phone feeling both triumphant and that I had dodged a bullet.

I had a lot on my mind. There was a cache of money in the trunk of my car causing men to kill and be killed with unsettling regularity.

It came to me that I should talk to the benevolent racist Tom Willow. He was Joe's mailman—the guy that delivered messages from and to the unique crime boss. Tom might know something useful to me. When I asked Joe about him a dark light had gone on in the artist's eyes.

Information only had one
Willow, Tom
.

“Hello?” a man with a slick drawl said.

“Hello,” I replied. “Is Tom there?”

“Who is this?”

“A friend of Tom's.”

“I'm gonna have to give him a name.”

“Easy Rawlins.”

“Hold on.”

“Hello?” another man's voice said.

“Lookin' for Tom Willow.”

“Did you just call me?”

“I don't even know who you are, man.”

“Sergeant Bernard Trieste of the LAPD.”

The phrase
it's a small world
is not always a blessing. I considered hanging up but couldn't see how that would in any way improve my relationship with the LAPD.

“Where's Tom?” I asked.

“Why don't you come over here to see me, Mr. Rawlins? I've been looking for you.”

“Where are you?”

“1621 North Sacrosanct Drive, up in West Hollywood.”

Damn.

There were four squad cars and as many unmarked police sedans parked on the street, in the driveway, and even on the lawn of 1621. The front door of the terra-cotta flat-roof, faux-adobe home was open. A uniform stood sentry at the sidewalk.

This cop was just another barrier in my way.

“Crime scene,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Trieste called me,” I said. “Now remove your hand.”

Anger and fear live right next to each other in the chambers of my heart. I was ready to run or kill.

“What did you say?” The police officer demanded.

“I said, mothahfuckah, remove your hand.” Wow.

The stunned look on that white man's face was worth the risk. I don't think he had ever heard a civilian address him like that.

“Norman!” a strong voice called. “Norman!”

The second in command turned around. “Yeah, Sergeant?”

“Send that man up here.”

“But he—”

“Send him up.”

I am quite sure that moving aside for me was one of the hardest things that Norman had ever done. He wanted to make me bleed. I had the same designs on him. It's wild how people can come to hate each other without having even a passing acquaintance.

The man at the door was five-nine, in an avocado-colored suit. He was thin and his white skin had a tinge of brick red to it.

“Rawlins?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Why did you hang up on the relay officer?”

“Same reason I'd've broken Norman's jaw. People don't act right on the wrong days.”

I expected some kind of quip but the thin sergeant smiled slightly and said, “I got something to show you here.”

He walked me through the living room, down a short hallway, and into a fairly large kitchen. On the floor was the clay of a man surrounded by a goodly amount of coagulating blood. All he wore was a white T-shirt that was fairly well spattered with red; no trousers, no underwear. Also on the floor was a blocky milk bottle, its spilled white contents in sharp contrast to the darkening red. His eyes were open wide. His expression gave no hint that he knew what was happening when he died. The bullet had entered his back somewhere and knocked him forward, turning him as he fell. He was probably unconscious for a while before he was dead.

“Tom Willow,” Sergeant Trieste said.

“And?”

“Do you know him?”

“No.”

“Then why did you call here?”

“A man calling himself Willow rang my office and left a message saying that he had some information for me. He left the phone number I called.”

“What information?”

“He didn't say.”

“What about this?” Sergeant Trieste asked, handing me a clear plastic sleeve that enveloped a business card.

It was a WRENS-L Detective Agency business card with my name scrawled at the bottom.

“Where'd you get this?” I asked as innocently as I could.

“It was on the floor in his bedroom. Any idea how it got there?”

“I hand these things out by the dozen. When we got them printed we didn't put our names on them. So I always write mine in so people will know who to contact.”

Trieste studied me then. My answers were too perfect.

“He was killed a few hours ago,” he said.

“I was at Avett Detainment then.”

“That's where Mr. Willow here worked.”

“Not a few hours ago.”

“So,” Trieste said. “Do you know him?”

“I don't recognize him. I might have met him but you know, most white guys look the same to me.”

Trieste gave me that wan smile again.

“Looks like Mr. Willow had just opened his refrigerator,” Trieste surmised. “He was knocking back a draught from the milk bottle when someone shot him.”

“That's what it looks like,” I agreed.

“Do you remember him now?”

“No.”

I noticed something then.

“His suitcase was packed,” Trieste added.

“A lot of that goin' around. The vacation season sneaks up on you.”

“You were at Avett when Tom Willow was on duty,” the patient, self-amused sergeant informed me. “The administrator had him bring you down to see Inmate Rufus Tyler.”

“This was that guy?” I asked the question with real wonder in my tone. Then I squatted down, pretending to want to get a closer look. I did want a better view; of the baby finger of the dead man's left hand.

Standing up again I felt a minor rush of blood from my brain. I said, “You know I think you're right, Sergeant. This was the man that brought me out to see Joe, I mean, Inmate Tyler.”

Trieste was no longer smiling.

“This is murder, Rawlins, not some joke. What did this man say to you?”

“ ‘This way. Bungalow eight. You have fifteen minutes,' ” I said. “I certainly didn't give him my card.”

“Why did they send you with him?”

“I wanted to see the prisoner and they called this man to take me that way.”

“Did he know the prisoner?”

“Maybe he did. I really don't know.”

“So you're telling me you don't know this man at all.”

“If I had any idea of who killed your man here,” I said, “I would lay it out next to the blood and milk. But the truth is I don't know anything about him dying. I don't even know why he didn't have his pants on.”

It was at that moment the black ant of my mind doubled back on the million dollars in the trunk of my car. I couldn't have this cop wanting to search me and my vehicle.

I consider myself a man of fair intelligence. I know what secrets I should keep, and not to drive around the city with a million dollars in the trunk of my car; just like a married man knows that he shouldn't bed Eartha Kitt with his wife in the next room. But sometimes, when the real world comes knocking, all we can do is hold tight and hope the roof doesn't fly off.

“There was a letter that he was working on still in the typewriter,” Trieste was saying.

“Oh?”

“It was his resignation from Avett.”

While we spoke, policemen were sifting through the apartment; slamming doors and opening drawers, inspecting glasses and putting clues into little plastic bags.

“There was one thing he said,” I told Trieste.

“What's that?”

“I told him that he seemed to have a great job and he said that he hated L.A. and was gonna move back to, um, North Carolina I believe. He said that he was going to open a commissary store out among the Negro tobacco sharecroppers.”

Trieste was looking at me pretty hard. But at one moment his glance went beyond me to someone or something behind.

I turned to see a plainclothes cop standing next to youngish but balding white man who wore a short-sleeved yellow, button-up shirt and maroon Bermuda shorts. The man was peering at me and shaking his head.

I turned back to Trieste and said, “That's why you wanted me here?”

“Witness saw somebody leaving the premises.”

“And if I was that man do you think I'd call up to see if he was still dead and then come back here to be identified?”

“Crooks are stupid.”

“I guess them and the cops must make a matching pair then.”

Once again mimicking my insect counterpart, the little black ant, I made my way back to Rodeo Drive. Précieux Blanc was closed when I got there. All of the merchandise had been removed from the windows; a standing precaution against the smash-and-grab class of thief.

It was getting late so I went to a pay phone and dialed my own office. Niska passed me through.

“Hello,” Whisper said.

“I'm into something, Mr. Natly. When do you need me?”

“Nothing will go down until after eleven. Why don't we meet at Reuben's sometime before ten?”

“I'll be there.”

An hour or so past sunset I made it over to Highland. Fearless answered the door to his posh servants' quarters and smiled.

“Easy.”

“How's it goin', Fearless?”

“Just fine. Come on in, brother.”

We sat at the square dining table. He had a beer and I a glass of ice water. After the pleasantries were over I asked, “Where's the college man?”

“In the back with Marybeth Reno, tryin' to forget what tomorrow might be.”

“I'm here, Mr. Rawlins.”

Seymour came out wearing a pair of new blue jeans and a black-and-white speckled dress shirt. Next to him stood the waitress Fearless had introduced me to two days before. She was wearing her new man's faded red T-shirt, nothing more.

“New clothes?” I asked.

“M got 'em for me this afternoon.”

M.

“How are you, Miss Reno?” I inquired.

“Great. It's nice knowing real people out here.”

“Do you mind if I have a few minutes alone with Dr. Brathwaite?”

“Not at all. Fearless was going to teach me how to play Chinese checkers.”

On the apron of concrete between the servants' quarters and the garage, Seymour and I perched side by side against the hood of my car. There was a floodlight shining from a pole between the two structures.

“How's it goin', Mr. Rawlins?” he asked. “I mean with my problem.”

“You don't seem too worried.”

“Marybeth is very nice,” he admitted, giving a shy smile and pushing on his glasses. “She only moved out here two months ago and has been kind of lonely.”

“Do you know a woman named Willomena Avery?”

“No.”

I took the photograph that Suggs gave me from my breast pocket and handed it to the young man.

“This is the woman that brought me the diary,” he said. “I'm almost positive. Her name is Avery?”

All the young man's arrogance and trepidation were gone. Marybeth Reno might have been the name of some elixir on Mama Jo's alchemy table.

“A woman told me a folktale the other day,” I said.

“This Avery woman?”

“Yeah,” I said. It was hardly a lie. “She said that there was an owl that lived in a tree and that there was a green snake that was rumored to be able to climb trees. The owl worried that the stories about a climbing snake might be true, so she took her crystal eggs and hid them in the apple of wisdom. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Where did you see this woman?”

“At a jewelry store.”

“What does it mean?”

“I wanted to know what you thought,” I said. “You're the one with the big education.”

“You think it might have something to do with the dead men in Malibu?”

“Could be. It doesn't mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Then maybe she was just talking,” I said.

“Did you get that book for me, Mr. Rawlins?”

“Oh, yeah. I got it in the backseat.”

Handing Seymour
The Feynman Lectures,
I had the feeling that something was off but I didn't know what and I didn't have time to figure it out.

I left Fearless, Seymour, and Marybeth to follow their own repetitious patterns.

I knew what I needed but not how to get at it. There were places I could go, people I could ask, but there was a problem with every solution. The best thing was to wait for the next day and to see what had and had not happened.

So I drove down to Reuben's Cafeteria on Ott just south of downtown proper.

The little yellow kitchen, owned by Reuben Patel, was surrounded by big picture windows. It gave off enough light to illuminate the entire block at night. Reuben was a black man from Charleston who had been a cook on a destroyer in the Pacific theater during World War II. He cooked and served at the little restaurant from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. It was the place where those in the know could get a meal at an hour when no other restaurant was open.

Ren Tollman, a very large white man from Bangor, Maine, sat guard at the front door, and it was well known that Reuben never went anywhere without his .45 close at hand.

Reuben always had clam chowder on the back burner and his hamburgers tasted like they were homemade.

I was working on a bowl of chowder and a grilled cheese sandwich when Whisper and Saul came in. That was somewhere just past nine thirty.

We were all wearing loose dark clothes.

Both of my friends had eaten but Reuben didn't mind. Nine thirty was still early. His big crowd didn't come in until after midnight.

“How's your thing with Mouse going?” Saul asked after ordering his second cup of coffee.

“Hangin' by a thread and there's a storm warning on the radio.”

“You armed?” Whisper asked me.

“If it's you askin' for help you better damn well believe I'm armed.”

In the no-man's-land between South Central and downtown there was a little street named St. Croix that wasn't zoned at all. There was a produce distributer called Fruit Valley, a factory of some kind named Purvis Inc., a few three- and four-story brick buildings that gave no inkling as to their purpose, and a small hotel called the Lily.

Driving a dark gray 1959 Plymouth Fury, Whisper ferried us past the hotel and parked up the street. The car was not his and the license plates weren't from that car; I knew this without asking because Whisper was a very careful detective.

“Redd Roberts usually comes back around midnight,” Whisper told us. It was the first time I'd heard the name of our quarry. “He got the top floor of the hotel. His half brother Paul is at the front desk.”

“Roberts,” Saul said. “Wasn't he the guy they had on trial for killing that woman in Compton?”

Whisper nodded and I felt in my pocket for my gun.

“What's the plan?” I asked.

“When he comes in we go around the block. There's a wall there that blocks an old alley. I cut a hole in it two nights ago. We follow that alley to a door that no one uses since the wall was put up. There's stairs that lead to the top floor.”

“She's with him?”

“She'll be with him when he gets here.”

“What's his game?” I asked.

“He gets a woman, breaks her all the way down, and then sells her to places keep a woman a slave.”

“Wouldn't it be better to tell the police?” I asked. “I mean that way we save Lolo and put Redd away.”

“I promised Keisha that I'd get her girl out with the least possible damage. The police can't promise that. You know if he's scared her enough Lolo might tell 'em that she wants to be with him.”

“Maybe she does,” Saul suggested.

“That ain't Redd's game.”

And so we waited.

One of the many things I appreciated about my partners was that they didn't feel obliged to talk when there was nothing to say. There was no light to read by or radio on. Whisper knew what he was looking for, and so Saul in the front passenger's seat and I in the back just sat there letting our minds wander.

I was thinking about how I could find Willomena Avery. Maybe she would be at work the next day. But even if she was, I didn't know if I should approach her or follow. It was a very public place and her bodyguard was armed. She was dangerous on her own, I knew that much. She had killed Tom Willow.

“There he is,” Whisper said at a few minutes past one.

A 1967 cherry red Cadillac deVille had pulled up in front of the Lily. A black man in a bright strawberry-colored suit got out, went to the driver's side, and pulled a woman to the curb. She was young and light-skinned, staggering and helpless. The man, Redd Roberts, slapped her for no reason that I could discern and then pushed her with some force toward the front door of the hotel.

When they were gone Whisper turned the engine over and drove around the block.

It was a dark lane with only one streetlight—and that was out. Whisper had probably disabled it that night or the night before.

He walked us to a plank wood wall, inserted a pocket knife at about four feet from the ground, and tilted the haft upward. A four-by-three-foot section of the wood fell outward and Whisper ushered us in.

He had attached a handle on the other side of the portal so that he could put the wall back in place while we did our business at the Lily.

Once we were sealed in, he took out a flashlight and we followed. The black door at the back of the Lily was once secured by four padlocked latches but they had all been cut.

We climbed four flights and then slowly opened a door labeled
5
TH
on either side. There was a short hall with red carpets and walls. Seeing the color, I wondered how long Roberts had been using that floor.

At the end of the hall a rangy man was sitting in a chair facing the other way, an elevator door to his left and a stairwell to his right.

With hand gestures Whisper told me and Saul to stay put. He took a sap from his pocket and moved ever so silently up behind the sentry.

Tinsford laid a blow against the side of that man's head that made me wince. I knew it was anger at how his client's daughter had been treated but still I felt for the defenseless sentinel.

When Whisper threw open a door to his right, Saul and I were close behind.

Another red room. It reeked sickly sweet and of human body odor.

The girl, sallow-skinned Lolo Bowles, was naked, on her knees, facing us with a look on her face that was mostly confused. Standing over her, also naked, was Redd Roberts. He had a huge erection and a knife somewhere close to Lolo's throat. I could tell that he was high, probably on cocaine, because the erection didn't wilt at the sight of three armed men coming in on his play.

I noticed that there was music playing, “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” sung by Jackie DeShannon. Between the smell, the knife, the erection, and the helpless child, I forgot for a moment my own problems.

“Get the fuck outta here mothah—” was all Redd had time to say; this because Whisper shot him in the throat.

Blood gushed out on Lolo's head and shoulders. She was so out of it that she didn't scream. Saul grabbed her and pulled her away from the fallen pimp but her head, both shoulders, and breasts were covered in red.

I wanted to wash her off, but a shot had been fired and so it was way past time to be gone.