Rose Gold (8 page)

“Old Golds,” Melvin said when he came back. He had pulled on a pair of jeans; I took this as a good sign on a bad day.

I handed him the envelope.

“What’s this?”

“A thousand dollars,” I said. “Consider that a down payment on us working together on the case.”

“I thought you were going to find Mary for me.”

“I am. But four murders, an armored car job, and a kidnapping trump a simple missing person. You pay the rent, hire a cleaning lady, and get a haircut and I’ll be calling in about Uhuru-Bob.”

Melvin lit my cigarette.

I inhaled the fumes, knowing for a fact that I would never die due to complications arising from tobacco smoke.

“You got a picture of your girlfriend?” I asked.

He pulled a wallet out of his pocket and took from it a Kodak snapshot of a pretty young woman with long brown hair and a smile that would have worked on any child or mark.

The drive from West Los Angeles down to South Central was like following a social science chart starting from working-class Culver City, where people thought they were middle class, down to the crime-riddled black community, where the residents were under no such illusions.

Maybe, I thought as I pulled up to the curb on South Central Avenue between 76th Street and 77th Place, it would be better falsely believing that you were living the good life rather than knowing you probably never would.

My office was on the east side of the street, on the third floor of a block-long building. The workspace was smaller than my new master bedroom but it was large enough for the extra-wide desk that sat with its back to a window looking over Central, and a blue sofa that was just the right size for a three-hour nap.

The first thing I did was change out of my gym outfit into regular clothes. Then I went to the window and looked down on the street. Midday pedestrian traffic had been on the rise since the riots. Employment was definitely down and hope, especially for black men, was pretty low too.

If I wanted a better class of client (that is to say, anyone with disposable cash) I should have moved downtown or west of there. But as I got older, experience with my people had become not only exhilarating but nostalgic. Every new black face I met was a hopeful long shot and at the same time I was reminded of experiences so broad that they seemed to cover multiple lifetimes. No amount of silver could buy the passions in an aging man’s heart.

After my mawkish musings about the street, I sat down and pulled out the phone book. After that I dialed a number.

“Metro College,” a man’s friendly voice said.

“Records department please.”

“We don’t have a records department, sir.”

“I need to talk to someone about a student you have who is applying to me for a job.”

“The administration office is what you want, sir,” the friendly, officious switchboard operator informed me.

The next thing I heard was another ringing phone.

“Student services,” a mature woman said.

“Is this the administration office?” I asked. I didn’t need to but I wanted to respond to the operator’s obliquely condescending attitude.

“Yes, sir, it is,” the woman said and I felt a little stupid.

“And who am I speaking to?”

“Miss Hollings.”

“Well, Miss Hollings, my name is Jason Silver. I run a little mom-and-pop assembly shop on Robertson. Actually we’re in an alley off Robertson, behind a hotdog stand. We put together toys and party favors that are prefabricated in Japan. That way, you see, the Japanese can say
Made in the U.S.A
. and still have some control.”

“And?” the woman asked. “How can I help you?”

Her mild confusion was part of my design, like a transient element of a modern art installation.

“You have a student there named Robert Mantle. He’s applying for a part-time position and he wrote on the application that he was in attendance at your college.”

“I’m familiar with that name. I’m pretty sure he’s one of ours.”

“That’s Robert Dallas Mantle who is studying political science and who lives on Slauson?”

“Let me see,” she said. I heard the opening of a metal drawer and then the rustling of paper. “Oh, yes. I know Bob. He hasn’t given a middle name and we don’t have a course in poli-sci. here at Metro. Bob is a bookkeeping major and he lives on … let me check … yes, he lives
on Hoover with his mother. Someone in our department met with him four weeks ago. He wants to transfer to a four-year school where he can major in dramatic arts but he’s learning a trade first. What position are you hiring him for?”

“He applied for the production-line job but maybe I should put him on the financial side.”

“He’s a very good student,” the woman confided, “and a very neat dresser, wears a suit and tie to class every day. That’s why I thought I knew who you were talking about.”

“He does?”

“Yes. Why?”

“When he came in here he was wearing some kind of Afro-dashiki thing.”

“Oh.” She hesitated. “I seem to remember that Bob
is
very particular about the clothes he wears.”

“Define
particular
.”

“Nothing bad, Mr. Silver. He just dresses for whatever it is he’s about to do. It’s an aesthetic.”

“So if I change his job to bookkeeping he’ll put on a suit and tie?”

“Probably. Is there anything else? I have to get back to my work.”

The most important piece of information I got from Miss Hollings was that the police had not notified Metro College that their student was suspected of armed robbery, kidnapping, and murder. That was not standard procedure for the LAPD. Their penchant was to storm in with heavy boots and shotguns, knocking down doors and making threats.

What was it about Bob Mantle that had made them so circumspect?

I was considering that question when there came a tapping on my office door.

My inquiring mind dropped the police and their strange behavior and picked up on that soft knock. I hadn’t seen recognition in anyone’s face at Benoit’s. It was unlikely that someone there knew my name, profession,
and
office address; unlikely but not impossible.

In that instant my life became a blues song. There I was, sitting in
my own chair afraid to answer the door. That was another reason I kept my office in that neighborhood, because only the people down there understood the fear of everyday occurrences—like a simple knock.

This series of thoughts, contradictorily, lightened my mood. I smiled broadly, pulled the .22 from the gym bag, and called out, “It’s unlocked.”

The door came open framing a familiar countenance—EttaMae Harris, Mouse’s wife and one of the three true loves of my life. She was wearing a simple shift that was decorated by pale blue and deep burgundy swirls.

I dropped the pistol back into the bag and jumped to my feet. Etta and I embraced halfway between my desk and the door.

She was a big woman, lovely and dark. We kissed lips, then leaned back and smiled for each other. Her face was round and proud. I felt like I was something special when she gazed upon me.

Behind her was a small white woman in a dark red dress. This woman was younger than either Etta or I. She seemed to be laboring under a great weight.

“Easy, this here is Alana Atman. Alana, this is Easy.”

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi.”

We shook hands.

“Come on in.”

I stepped to the side, allowing the women to come in and situate themselves in the visitors’ chairs. I closed the door and locked it, then went around to my reclining office chair.

“Looks the same around here,” Etta said.

“No reason to change. I’m sorry I don’t have anything to offer you.”

“That’s okay, Easy. Alana and me already et and drank. At least I did. She haven’t been too hungry lately.”

I smiled, waiting.

“We got us a little problem,” Etta said after an appropriate wait. “Raymond told me that you came down here pretty regular so I was gonna leave you a note. We called your home number but the answering machine wasn’t on.”

“I just moved,” I said. “But you know that. Haven’t attached the recorder yet.”

“Alana here was married to a man named Fred Post.”

“The plumber?” I asked.

Just the question brought a trembling smile to the white woman’s thin lips.

“Yeah.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said to Alana. Fred had died of a coronary not long before I drove off that coastal cliff.

“Thank you.”

“He was only forty years old, Easy,” Etta continued. “You know they ain’t no guarantees in this life.”

“That’s for sure.”

“Fred was our plumber,” Etta said by way of explanation. “That’s why I know the family. He never charged us and sometimes I’d babysit for their child.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Anyway, Alana and Fred have a son name of Alton. He’s five years old, and the other day a black woman calling herself his auntie picked him up from kindergarten and took him away. His mother haven’t seen him since.”

“No idea who took him?” I asked Alana.

She tried to answer but only managed to shake her head and cry.

“We need you to find him,” Etta said. “Alana went to the police but they hardly even listened. You know the only thing worse in their books than a black mother is the white mother of a Negro child.”

“Etta,” I said, “I’m kinda jammed up right now.”

Instead of insisting she said, “LaMarque told me that you wanted me to say hey to Raymond.”

There was a whole persuasive speech squashed down into that solitary sentence—and no room for argument. In my business I traded in favors. If I wanted her to talk to Mouse I’d have to find a missing child.

“Do you know Fred’s family?” I asked Alana.

“Not too much,” the sad woman said. “Fred was estranged from his people.”

“Because of you?”

The arc of her nod was maybe a quarter inch.

“Have you asked them about Alton?”

“I spoke to his mother,” Etta said, “Mathilda. She says they don’t have him, that she don’t have no idea who coulda took him.”

“You believe her?”

“I don’t know. She sounded upset.”

“Did she ask you about the police?”

“No.”

“You have a picture of your son, Mrs. Post?”

From a scuffed, blue vinyl purse Alana produced a felt-lined yellow wallet. From this she took a small Kodak snapshot of a smiling caramel-colored boy wearing a cowboy hat and a light blue T-shirt.

“Alton,” she said as she handed the picture across my desk.

“Handsome young man.”

“I loved his father, Mr. Rawlins.” It was then that I discerned the twang of the South in her words. “I’m from Tennessee. My people would take us in but they don’t understand Alton. They’d treat him like he was different, you know?”

I could see the sleepless nights in the dark circles under her eyes.

I stood up and said, “Why don’t you lie down on the sofa a minute, Mrs. Post. Lie down and close your eyes. Etta can tell me what I need to know.”

Maybe it was because it was a mature black man who reminded her of her dead husband that Alana relented and allowed me to lead her over to the couch. She lay down and I believe she was asleep before her head touched the cushion.

“That’s a woman do anything for her man,” Etta said. “She’s a man’s woman.”

“You close with the family?” I asked.

“Raymond liked Fred. They used to gamble together from time to time.”

“What was Fred’s life like before Alana?”

“He lived with his mother after his first wife died. That’s Mathilda, the mother. His first wife was named Nora. Mathilda didn’t mind too
much about Alana but her older sister Mona, who brought the family out here, was sad to see Fred go—especially with a white woman.”

“You think she has the boy?”

“The woman they described at the kindergarten didn’t look like her,” Etta said. “I send Peter over to Mathilda’s house with some flowers. I told him to pretend that he was deliverin’ to somebody else. He did but he didn’t see any children or children’s things in the house.”

“Peter still at your place?”

“That poor white boy ain’t got no place to go, Easy. And he gives me a lotta help when Raymond’s outta town.”

“Fred have any other family?”

“Lots of brothers, sisters, cousins, grandchildren, and great-grandbabies, and then there’s Mona Martin. Mona raised Fred’s mother and all her brothers and sisters. She’s the head of the clan.”

“Anything else you could tell me?” I asked.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and sneering at her ignorance. “Just that Alton’s gone and my heart goes out to his mama.”

In the country we traded favors for survival. When we moved up north we packed our country customs in with the pots and old photographs.

“I don’t know when I’ll be home, Etta, but I’m sure to be there after midnight.”

“I’ll tell Raymond,” she said. Then she looked at her sleeping friend. “You know, I hate to wake her up. She haven’t slept two hours since her boy been gone.”

“You can stay here,” I said. “Just lock up when you go.”

“Thanks, baby. You be careful now.”

I was walking down the western staircase of my building as a man was walking up. It was Percy Bidwell. At that moment he looked up, saw me, and reminded himself to smile.

“Mr. Rawlins.”

We stopped there in the stairwell upon reaching a common stair.

He was wearing dark brown pants and a light brown shirt with buff-colored pointy-toed shoes. His processed curls were a little tighter and he smelled of cologne, just that much too sweet. There was a heart-shaped curve to his pursed lips.

I fought down the urge to slap him.

“Percy. I thought Jewelle said that you were going to call.”

“She told me that I should come by and apologize in person.”

“You’re lucky you found me,” I said, pointlessly. “I’m hardly ever even here.”

“I dropped by your house first. Nobody was there and Jewelle had given me this address.”

“I’m pretty busy, Percy. What do you need?”

“I already told you that.”

The Goldsmith case along with Alana Atman’s missing boy had cut my temper pretty short. I was about to go on my way, leaving the young man to consider his lack of proper civility.