Bad Boy Brawly Brown (30 page)

room?” I continued. “Or lay bricks or tan leather from a dead 14

animal?”

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“What are you getting at?” the colonel commanded.

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“I can do all those things,” I said. “I can tell you when a man’s 17

about to go crazy or when a thug’s really a coward or blowhard. I can 18

glance around a room and tell you if you have to worry about gettin’

19

robbed. All that I get from bein’ poor and black in this country you 20

so proud’a savin’ from the Koreans and Vietnamese. Where I come 21

from they don’t have dark-skinned private detectives. If a man needs 22

a helpin’ hand, he goes to someone who does it on the side. I’m that 23

man, Colonel. That’s why you sent Detective Knorr to my house.

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That’s why you talk to me when I come by. What I do I do because 25

it’s a part of me. I studied in the streets and back alleys. What I know 26

most cops would give their eyeteeth to understand. So don’t worry 27

about how I got here or how to explain what I do. Just listen to me 28

and you might learn somethin’.” I closed my mouth then, before I 29

said even more about what I’d learned in a world that had already S 30

passed those cops by.

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They were both staring at me. I realized that any chance I had of 2

them underestimating me had passed by also.

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“So who do you think killed Strong?” Lakeland asked.

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“I don’t know anything about it, Officer,” I said. “It could have 5

been somebody in the First Men, but not those two kids.”

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/ “BACK THEN OUR CUSTOMERS
were Jewish 1

gangsters and white girls who wanted to be star-

2

lets,” Melvin Royale told me. “Now we got a mixed clientele of a 3

lower pedigree.”

4

Melvin was a Negro, large and verbose, just the way I liked it. He 5

had worked as a bellman at the Colorado Hotel and Residences for 6

twenty-seven years. Twelve of those years he was the head bellman.

7

I met Melvin after asking at the front desk if there were any jobs 8

open for nighttime porters or bellhops. All hotels need people for the 9

graveyard shift, so the carrottop clerk sent me down into the base-10

ment office of Mr. Royale.

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The reception area of the hotel was small but elegant in a worn-12

down-but-comfortable sort of way. There were two potted ferns on 13

either side of the carpeted stairway leading to the rooms. The banis-S 14

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ter of the staircase was mahogany, with a shiny brass cap at the first 2

step.

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But the stairs going down to the basement were moldy and 4

damp. Melvin’s office was barely large enough to hold him and the 5

end table that he proudly called his desk. The chair he had me sit in 6

had its two back legs sticking out of the door.

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“You ever work as a bellman before?” Melvin asked me.

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“Yes, sir,” I said. “At the DuMont in St. Louis and at the Mark 9

Hopkins in San Francisco.”

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“You move around a lot, huh?”

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“I come outta Mississippi,” I said. “At first I went up to Chi, but 12

you know that wind was colder than a mothahfuckah up there. St.

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Louis was better, but they still had snowflakes for three months and 14

I spent half my salary on coal. Now, it never snowed in San Fran-15

cisco but I was still wearin’ a heavy sweater half the time in August.

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L.A. got warm weather and you see colored people almost every-17

where you go.”

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“They might not got a sign keepin’ us out, but you better believe 19

that there’s places you better not be.”

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“Oh yeah,” I said. “I know. I ain’t no fool.”

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Melvin laughed. We were getting along just fine. Old friends.

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“You kinda tall for a bellhop, ain’t you, Leonard?” he asked, us-23

ing the name I’d given.

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“I’ve done my share of hard labor, Mr. Royale,” I replied. “Heavy 25

stones and eighty-pound sacks of cotton. A suitcase or two is more 26

than enough for me.”

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Again Melvin laughed.

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“You got the right attitude,” he said. “Ain’t no reason to bust your 29

hump for these white peoples. Shit. You strain your back or break 30 S

your leg and they’ll drop you just like that.” He snapped his fingers, 31 R

causing a loud report. “They don’t care. I had a boy workin’ with me
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in here twenty-some years, Gerald Hardy was his name. Gerry would 1

do anything these people asked. One time I remember he worked 2

thirty-two days straight. Thirty-two days! And half’a that was double 3

shift. He worked like that for years. Always happy and willin’ to do 4

some things that weren’t quite legal and willin’ to overlook other 5

things that was downright wrong.

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“One day Gerry gets the flu. He calls in sick, sayin’ that he cain’t 7

pull himself out the bed. The boss man, Q. Lawson, says okay, take 8

it easy. But the next day he’s on the horn wonderin’ why Gerry ain’t 9

here. They had a function that night and were relyin’ on Gerry’s 10

overtime. Well, to make a long story short, four days went by and 11

Gerry was fired. I lent him money for two months’ rent, but you 12

know I couldn’t go no further than that.

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“Gerry was dead in five months’ time. Kicked outta his house 14

and sick inside somehow. Every maid, porter, bellhop, and waiter in 15

this buildin’ was at his funeral, but do you think Q. Lawson sent even 16

a lily to the grave? No, sir. You better believe I ain’t gonna strain my 17

back or damage my health for him or any other white man.”

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“But you got colored tenants in here now, right?” I asked.

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“Couple of ’em,” Melvin said. “But they all special cases. If they 20

got some tap dancer in a Hollywood movie or some delegate from a 21

foreign nation. Sometimes when a rich white person is stayin’ at 22

some hotel in Beverly Hills, they send what they call their
nonessen-23

tial staff
to be down here. I mean things is changin’, ain’t no doubt 24

to that. Marion Anderson or James Brown could stay just about any-25

where they please. But your everyday Negro still have the door shut 26

in his face.”

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“But didn’t that man get killed down Compton live in here?” I 28

asked. “That’s what made me wanna come ask for this job. When I 29

read that a nice hotel had colored residents, I thought to myself —

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Leonard, that would be a good place to work for.”

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“No, brother,” Melvin said in a friendly but condescending tone.

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When he leaned back in his chair his oily face glinted in the electric 3

light. His skin had the color and radiance of wood resin. “No, 4

brother. Only special Negroes stay here. An’ they less likely to spare 5

a kind word or an extra coin than the white residents.”

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“So that man . . . that . . . that . . .”

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“Henry Strong.”

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“That’s it, that’s the name. Henry Strong. He was a movie actor 9

or somethin’?”

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Melvin pursed his big brown lips and frowned, ever so slightly. I 11

was a hair over the line, but just that. Not enough to be out of order.

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Not enough for him to think that I was anything other than Leonard 13

Lee, hopeful to be a bellhop at a hotel where famous Negroes some-14

times stayed.

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“Naw,” Melvin Royale said. “He was some kinda gangster turned 16

rat. I mean, they said in the papers that he was a political communist 17

or somethin’, that he worked with a group of black protesters. But 18

you know the only peoples that came up here to see him were white 19

men in cheap suits and white prostitutes.”

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“Really?” I said, widening my eyes as if the idea were too strange 21

to comprehend.

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“Uh-huh. On’y white people. The men paid his rent — in cash.”

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“Why you say ‘rat’?” I asked.

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“Because them men brought him here had badges, they said that 25

they wanted to keep Strong on the quiet.”

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I whistled and Melvin smiled at my country naïveté.

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“Damn,” I said. “A month’s rent in a nice place like this must be 28

a whole lotta money.”

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“Month?” Melvin said. “Hank Strong been here over a year —

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on and off.”

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“Oh,” I said, thinking of Alva and how much information could 1

be held in just a word.

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I
FILLED OUT
the application form that Melvin gave me. I put 5

down a Social Security number, an address, a phone number, 6

three references, and a job history going back seven years. It was all 7

lies. I told him that I’d come in at eleven that evening, ready for work.

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I said that all I needed from him was a red cap size seven and three-9

quarters. I said all that and walked out the door.

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T
HE APARTMENT BUILDING
where Strong seduced Christina 13

was on 112th Street, four blocks down from Central. It was a 14

wood-frame building covered with plaster and painted to look like 15

stone brick. Henry’s apartment was toward the back, its door facing a 16

small concrete path half obscured by untamed bushes. There was 17

nowhere to hide around his door. I was sure he took the place for just 18

that reason.

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The lock was too sophisticated for my card trick, but the door 20

was so cheap that my forty-four-year-old shoulder was good enough 21

to break it in.

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The room seemed to be oval shaped. I think that was due to a 23

failure of architectural design. There was a bed and a coffee table, a 24

rocking chair and sink. None of the furniture matched, and there 25

was a thin layer of dust over everything. He had three good suits in 26

his closet and six pairs of shoes. There was a brown and black Stet-27

son hat hung on a nail in the wall and a box of Havana cigars on the 28

floor next to a glass that once held bourbon whiskey. There was a 29

small metal box with a red cross on it under his bed. In there was the S 30

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half-drunk pint of whiskey, a pack of three condoms (with one gone), 2

and a straight razor.

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There was nothing in any pocket, nor was there anything under 4

the mattress. There were no books or newspapers or even a drawer 5

where he could have hidden some kind of note. I had searched the 6

whole place in less than ten minutes. And then for some reason I 7

went back to the bed. It was neatly made, like a soldier’s bunk. The 8

fitted sheet over the mattress, another sheet and blanket folded back 9

under the pillow so that you could see all the layers of bedclothes.

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I patted the tight fitted blanket from top to bottom.

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Something was there between the sheets and mattress.

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I pulled off the blanket, finding nothing but the covering sheet.

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I pulled off the second sheet, revealing nothing but the pristine 14

whiteness of the fitted slip. But under that I found something that 15

might have been the best sleeping aid a poor man could have: rows 16

of twenty-dollar bills fanned out under the sheet. Under the twenties 17

was a layer of fifties and hundreds. When I’d finished counting, it 18

came to just under six thousand dollars.

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Under the money I found an envelope and a slender notepad.

20

The envelope contained two tickets for the Royal Northern cruise 21

liner headed for Jamaica.

22

The tickets were issued to a Mr. and Mrs. J. Tourbut, the date of 23

departure was Friday afternoon. The names meant nothing to me.