Bad Boy Brawly Brown (3 page)

safe was sure to be full of cash.

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It was a good living, and they weren’t greedy — two jobs a year 30 S

kept them in groceries. But one day they decided to hit a dockwork-31 R

ers’ payroll in Redondo Beach. That safe had too much money for
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the payroll, and within a week there were white men in cheap suits 1

canvassing Watts, looking for the whereabouts of the two black bur-2

glars who specialized in payrolls.

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When they realized their situation, Mercury came to me.

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“How could you be stupid enough to knock over the dockwork-5

ers?” I asked him. Chapman had been so scared that he refused to 6

leave his mother’s house.

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“How we gonna know that they was mob men, Mr. Rawlins?”

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“By the way they shoot you in back’a your head,” I said.

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Mercury moaned and I felt for him. Even if he had been a white 10

man, there would have been little hope for his survival.

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When I called the shop steward at the dockworkers’ union, he 12

laughed at me. That is, until I told him that I was coming down there 13

with Raymond “Mouse” Alexander. Even the criminals in the white 14

community had heard about Mouse.

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I wore denim overalls the night of the meeting. Mercury’s and 16

Chapman’s clothes were so nondescript that I can’t even remember 17

the colors. But Mouse wore a butter-cream gabardine suit. He was a 18

killing man, then and always, but back then Mouse didn’t question 19

himself, didn’t wonder at all.

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“They made a mistake, Bob,” Mouse said to the man who had in-21

troduced himself as Mr. Robert. He wore a long coat and hat and 22

stood over Mouse, who, already a smallish man, was seated.

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“That’s not enough —,” Mr. Robert began in his guttural, East 24

Coast snarl.

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Before he could finish, Mouse leapt to his feet, pulled out his 26

long-nosed .41-caliber pistol, and shot the hat right off of Robert’s 27

head. The two men who stood behind him gestured toward their 28

guns but changed their minds when they looked down the barrel of 29

Mouse’s smoking piece.

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Mr. Robert was on the floor, feeling for blood under his toupee.

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“So like I was sayin’, Bob,” Mouse continued. “They made a mis-2

take. They didn’t know that you was who you is. They didn’t know 3

that. Did you, boys?”

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“No, sir!” Mercury shouted like a buck private at roll call. He 5

was a bulky man with cheeks so fat that they made his head resem-6

ble a shiny black pear.

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“Uh-uh,” Chapman, the lighter-skinned, smaller, and smarter of 8

the two, grunted.

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“So . . .” Mouse smiled.

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The shop steward and the three thugs, all of them white men, 11

had their eyes on him. You could see that they wanted to kill him.

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Each one was thinking that they probably had the upper hand in 13

numbers of guns. And each one knew that the first one to move 14

would die.

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I was biting my tongue because I hadn’t expected a fight. I 16

brought Raymond around for weight, not for violence. Why would 17

those men get angry if we wanted to return their money? Along with 18

the insurance from the legal payroll, they’d make a nice profit on the 19

deal.

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“All me an’ my friends need to know is what the finder’s fee is,”

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Mouse said.

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“You must be crazy, nigger,” Robert said.

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Mouse pulled the hammer back on his pistol as he asked, “What 24

did you say?”

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The thug was looking up into Mouse’s steel-gray eyes. He saw 26

something there.

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“Ten percent,” he uttered.

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Mouse smiled.

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We walked out of the beachside warehouse with $3,500 in our 30 S

pockets. Mouse gave five hundred each to Mercury and Chapman 31 R

and split the remainder with me.

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The burglars gave up their life of crime that very day. I’d never 1

seen anything like it. Usually a thief stays a thief; either that or he be-2

comes a jailbird. But those men set down roots and started a new life.

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They married two sisters, Blesta and Jolie Ridgeway, and went to 4

work in construction.

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When I heard that John was building, I got them together. Jew-6

elle had set up a traveling crew of workers who went from one site to 7

another among her various investors. But each work site needed a 8

couple of permanent employees to do detail work and prepare for 9

the larger jobs.

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“. . . and every house gonna be different, too,” John was saying.

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“Brick, aluminum-sided, wood and plaster. One-, two-, and three-12

bedroom.”

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“You hate it, don’t you, John?”

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An old hardness came into the ex-bartender’s face, a look that 15

somehow seemed happy.

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“Yeah, Easy. Here I am, out in the sun every day. Damn. You 17

know I’m black enough as it is.”

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“Then why you doin’ it, man? You think you gonna get rich?”

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“Alva Torres,” he said.

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I didn’t know John’s girlfriend all that well. She didn’t approve of 21

his old friends, so he stopped seeing most of them. He talked to me 22

on the phone every once in a while, but we rarely saw each other.

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Alva was tall and spare, her beauty was pure, flawless, and 24

hard — the kind of beauty torn from the pain and ecstasy of what it 25

was to be a Negro in this country.

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Alva didn’t like me but I accepted that because I once saw John 27

grin when someone just mentioned her name.

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“She wants me out of the nightlife and I cain’t say no,” John said 29

meekly.

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“So what you want from me?” I asked.

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“Why’ont you take a ride with me over to our place? We can talk 2

better over there.”

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“Hey, Mr. Rawlins,” Mercury Hall called. He was coming across 4

the graded dirt road, slapping his hands together like two chalky 5

blackboard erasers.

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“Mercury.” I shook his hand and smiled. “I see you still playin’

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honest citizen.”

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“Oh yeah,” he proclaimed. “Got to.”

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“Mr. Rawlins!” Kenneth Chapman shouted. He was an ochre-10

colored man, very thin with the broad features of our race. His smile 11

was the biggest thing I had ever seen in a human mouth.

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“Hey, Chapman. Don’t you go shortchangin’ them nails now.”

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His laugh was immense.

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“Come on, Easy,” John said.

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It was from the tone of his voice that I knew whatever John had 16

to ask was going to require sweat.

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4
/ JOHN AND ALVA
were living in a box-shaped apart-1

ment building near Santa Barbara and Crenshaw. The 2

outside walls were slathered with white stucco that had glitter sprin-3

kled in it. There were bullet holes here and there, but that wasn’t 4

unusual. That part of L.A. was full of Texans. Most Texans carry 5

guns. And if you carry a gun, it’s bound to go off sooner or later.

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The stairway and halls were all external, making the apartment 7

building resemble a cheap motel. John and I made it up to the third 8

floor. While he was fishing around for his keys, I looked out across 9

the street. Three floors was high in L.A. in 1964. I could see all the 10

way to downtown: a small cluster of granite buildings that looked like 11

a thousand movie backdrops I’d seen.

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Across the way was a newly built and empty office building next 13

to a used-car lot. Even that made me smile. I have a soft spot for used S 14

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cars. They’re like old friends or family members you love even 2

though they always give you trouble.

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“Right in here, Easy.” John had worked his key in the lock and 4

pulled the hollow wooden door open. He gestured for me to walk in 5

and I did.

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The room was the size of a ship’s cabin, hardly wider than it was 7

high. The furniture was cheap bamboo supporting fake blue leather, 8

and the walls, though they had the sheen of being painted, were no 9

color to speak of.

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I sat down on a hammock-like footrest and regarded the bartender-11

turned-builder.

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He walked into what I thought was a closet and said, “What you 13

drinkin’?”

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It was the question I’d heard most often from John. My most 15

common reply had been
whiskey,
but my drinking days were over by 16

then.

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I got up to see what kind of bar John had carved out of a closet.

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But what I found was a kitchen in miniature. A tiny two-burner stove 19

on top of a refrigerator no larger than a picnic cooler. The sink had 20

no drain board or shelves.

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“They call this a kitchen?” I asked.

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“We had to sell the house an’ put our stuff in storage,” he said, as 23

if that somehow answered my question. “To pay for the labor and 24

some’a the legal expense for the buildins.”

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“Damn.” I was amazed by the crowded little cooking closet.

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“Hello, Mr. Rawlins.” I didn’t have to turn to know her voice.

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“Alva.”

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I don’t want to give the wrong impression of Alva Torres. She was 29

a good woman, as far as I ever knew. She just didn’t approve of my 30 S

old life. What some might have called an economy of trading favors 31 R

she saw as criminal activity.

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She held out her hand in welcome, and maybe as a peace offering.

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“How are ya?” I asked.

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“Why don’t you have a seat,” she replied.

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I went back to my footrest.

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“What’s up with you guys?” I asked as amiably as I could.

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The reaction was discomfort and silence. Alva wore a gray pants 6

suit that didn’t hang right on her. She was a woman who needed 7

bright colors and flowing lines. She stared at me as if I had tried to 8

insult her with my question.

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“It’s a pretty long story, Easy,” John said. “It’s got to do with Alva 10

and her first husband —”

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“John,” she said.

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“What?”

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“I don’t know. I don’t know if this is right.”

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“Well,” John said, a glint of his old hardness coming through.

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“Make up your mind, then. Easy come over here to help if he can, 16

but he cain’t do a thing if you don’t tell him what it is you want.”

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Alva clenched her long fingers into bony fists. “Can I trust you, 18

Mr. Rawlins?”

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The alarm in my head, the giddiness, the wind through the win-20

dow of my car — they all came back to me with her question.

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“I have no idea, honey,” I said. “I don’t know what it is that you 22

need.”

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The tension went out of Alva’s long body and she slumped back 24

onto a blue bolster. John stared helplessly at her.

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“My ex-husband,” Alva began. “Aldridge A. Brown. He took care 26

of Brawly when he was a child. I couldn’t do it. A boy needs a man 27

to guide him. That is, if the man will stay around.”

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I had no idea who she was talking about. But she was straining 29

so hard just to get the words out that I decided to let it go for the S 30

moment.

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“Aldridge wanted to be a good father. He might have been a good 2

husband — for some other woman — but he was just . . . just . . .

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too much for us.”

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She stopped for a moment, and John went over to sit by her. He 5