Six Easy Pieces (24 page)

“Harry’s very sick,” she said. “He can’t talk.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Same thing’s wrong with all men,” the white woman said in a husky voice. “Thinkin’ about a woman’s butt and then wonderin’ why they got shit for brains.”

I laughed hard, not so much at her joke but at the shock of hearing such language from a white woman in those sedate surroundings.

“My name’s Alice,” the woman said. “You wanna come in, Jay?”

“Can’t think of anything better,” I said.

THE ENTRANCE HALL had yellow stone floors lit by slender three-story windows, which also threw light on the curving, cream-colored staircase leading to the higher floors. To the left was a dining room with a table set for fifteen, and a maroon carpet. To the right was a sunken living room with yellow sofas, chairs, and carpeting.

Alice led me into the living room.

She offered me scotch but I demurred. She poured herself a shot. It wasn’t the first one she’d had that afternoon. She asked if I had a cigarette. I gave her a Chesterfield and lit it. She steadied my hand with her fingers. Her hands were large and powerful, callused and misshapen by a life of hard work or hard time.

“I knew a girl got lynched just for touchin’ a nigger,” she said after her first lungful of smoke. “Selena was her name. The boy was Richard Kylie. You know, they had known each other since they were babies. They wanted each other all the more since it was a crime. She told me about their first kiss. Said it was so sweet it was like drinkin’ water from Jesus’ own hand. Said that all he had to do was kiss her neck and she’d shout out for the Lord.”

“I wish you would keep from saying the word ‘nigger,’” I said. “It hampers conversation.”

“It bothers you?” She sounded surprised. “It’s just a word back where I come from. I’m a cracker, you’re a nigger, Pablo’s a beaner, and Chin’s a chink. But okay. I don’t have to use the word, though.”

I nodded, thanking her for the restraint.

“Richard fucked Selena every day for six weeks,” Alice said, continuing with her story. “Every time she told me about it she was more upset. At first she was just playin’. It was taboo and sweet to her evil side. But sometimes her and Richard would steal away for a whole day. She’d say she was in school and he pretended to be lookin’ for a job down Minorville. You know, Jay, when a man make a woman feel like she turn inside-out, she cain’t help but be in love with him—nigger or not. Oh, excuse me.”

I took a breath. Alice was missing an upper front tooth but other than that she started looking good. Forty maybe. She had a tight body in her button-up cotton blouse and her yellow pants. I was almost glad for the insults; they meant that I would never let my guard down for the sex-crazed southern woman.

“I need to know something about Mr. Stout’s gun collection,” I said.

“Shoot,” she said, and then she laughed, realizing the pun.

“Did he have a Lux-Tiger?”

“A what?”

“It’s an English pistol,” I said. “A thirty-eight. Holds eight cartridges and has a handle looks like a rubber squeeze pump.”

“Oh yeah,” Alice said. “You know, Jay, you could fuck me right here on this couch and Harry wouldn’t even hear it.”

“What if he came downstairs to go to the toilet?”

“He don’t go nowhere without me helpin’ him.”

“I see. Well, maybe in a little while. You see, I need to know about that pistol first.”

“What for?”

“It showed up at a friend’s house and I was wondering if it was stolen.”

“It sure was,” Alice declared. She had a wide mouth and healthy teeth except for the missing one. That made me think that someone had socked her, at least once.

“What happened to it?”

“That girl took it. That whore.” She winked at me even though her words were angry.

“Who was that?”

“Doreen Fitz. Little whore drove Harry out of his mind. She had a boyfriend come up here and beat the shit outta Harry. That’s partly why he’s laid up now. They took all kinds of stuff from him. Rings and money and that old pistol. Harry loved that gun. He liked that it was so fat but hardly had no kick.”

“Are you Harry’s wife?” I asked.

“No. Just his cousin from Arkansas. Just his cousin come to make her fortune by pickin’ his bones. You could share some of it with me if you want.”

“You’re stealing from him?”

“Have you ever seen a sharecropper’s farm, Jay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

I thought about all of the poor black and white people I’d seen straining over hard dirt, going deeper into debt with each passing season. I saw all that pain in her callused hands.

“You wanna go up and see Harry?” she asked.

IT WAS A BRIGHT BEDROOM with a picture window that allowed strong sun to beat down upon the occupant. He was a tall man but slender as a child. Even though he was under the sheet you could see the outline of his skeleton. His eyes were intelligent and the only part of him that moved. When he saw me a worried look crossed those eyes.

“Hey, Harry,” Alice said. “I brought a nigger up to look at ya. I fucked him on your couch. He nearly broke me in two.”

“Mr. Stout, my name is Jay Auburn. I’m looking for the people who stole your Lux-Tiger. Alice is just joking with you. She has some sense of humor.”

Stout was looking deeply into my eyes, pleading with me.

“Did Doreen Fitz take your pistol?”

With a supreme effort Harry Stout nodded.

“She had a boyfriend named Dean?”

Again he made his head move.

“Do you think that they might still be around?”

He didn’t nod that time but it might have been because he was exhausted.

Alice took a drag on her cigarette and coughed.

I went to the window and pulled the drapes closed.

“Hey,” Alice complained. “He needs a little color.”

“Keep the drapes closed and take care of him like you’re supposed to,” I said. “Do that or your free ride’ll be over.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“I’m a cop,” I said. “Looking into a murder right now but I’m calling social services the minute I get back to the precinct.”

“You can’t come in here without telling me you’re a cop. That’s against the law.”

“Sue me,” I said. “Tomorrow morning a social services agent, Saul Lynx, will be here. You better either be taking care of this man or be on your way.”

THERE WAS ONLY ONE D. Fitz in the phone book. The number had been disconnected. But I went over to the house anyway. The address was on South Robertson, the left half of a two-family home composed of salmon stucco.

There was a concave entranceway with the doors to both apartments facing each other. I knocked on the D. Fitz number I got from the phone book.

An old woman came to the door.

“Oh,” she said instead of a greeting.

“Miss Fitz?”

“Who?” she asked instead of replying.

“I’m looking for a Doreen Fitz.”

“No,” she said. “Not me.”

“She moved out,” a man’s voice said from behind me.

I turned to see a tall and elderly white man. He had kind eyes and stooped a bit but still he had the posture of a soldier. His smile was mild. It wasn’t joyous or even happy. The expression was more relief than anything else. Remembering him in the narrow doorway he seemed like he was in a coffin, made up for death.

The door behind me slammed.

“You know Doreen?” I asked.

“Why, yes I do. I tried to help her out when I could.”

“World War One?” I asked him.

“Yes sir,” he replied.

MR. PALMER—that was the veteran’s name—invited me in for coffee. He led me through a living room that was twice the size of a dressing room at the May Company department store, through a transitional space that was so small that it could have no name or purpose, and into a small kitchen that was connected to a screened-in porch.

The porch had two redwood chairs and looked into the boughs of a tall magnolia. It was cool out there and I relaxed.

“…wasn’t a bad girl really,” he was saying about Doreen.

We had been out there for an hour or more. Every once in a while the little white woman from the other apartment would come out onto her little porch to see if I was still there.

Palmer told me about the war and the trenches, about the mustard gas and wild dogs that fed on soldiers who had fallen alone. He had three children, two dead wives, and had come out to California after the war because the war had taken too many friends from his small Iowa town.

I told him about my leaving the South for pretty much the same reasons, except that most of my friends had died in Houston rather than on the battlefield.

It was a nice talk. He was the perfect host; a lonely old man who didn’t worry about race or wildness in girls. I guided him into a discussion about Doreen, telling him that I had a friend who knew her in Santa Maria and who worried that she might have been in trouble because of a guy named Dean.

“It was that Dean who got to her,” Palmer agreed. “He was handsome and drove a motorcycle. Girls like that. They think they want a wild man until they drop their first kid. Then it’s fuddy-duddies like you’n me they want, Mr. Auburn.”

I liked being called a fuddy-duddy.

“My friend wanted me to drop by and see if Doreen had moved back here,” I said.

“No,” Mr. Palmer said. “She never came back. But I send her mail on to an address down in Venice. I think it’s Dean’s brother. Here, I’ll get it for you.”

The veteran weighed no more than a hundred and ten pounds but he had to use all of his strength and a lot of leverage to get up and out of his chair. While he was gone the old lady next door spied on me from her kitchen window.

I felt that I deserved her distrust. There I was lying to the friendly old man. If it wasn’t for Domaque and my blood debt to Mouse I would have left then.

“It’s a place down in Venice,” Palmer said when he returned. “I drove her down there once before the state took my license. They say I can’t see well enough. Anyway, it’s a small place not far from the water. But his brother isn’t a friendly fellow. I wouldn’t go there alone if I were you, Mr. Auburn. If you know what I mean.”

It was his only reference to race. Even then he might have meant I’d have trouble because of my fuddy-duddy status.

I had an extra cup of coffee and swapped a few war stories. He walked me to the door as evening came on.

“Come back and see me again sometime, Jay,” Mr. Palmer said as I left. “It’s nice to talk to somebody smart now and then.”

I DROVE DOWN TO THE ADDRESS Mr. Palmer gave me. It was on a small street a mile or so south of Pico. The house was smaller than the gaping garage, and the lawn was covered with rusting cars and motorcycle parts. I saw three men and one white-blond girl sitting on a bench, drinking whiskey from a quart bottle. One of the men and the girl had been in the photograph I took from the Santa Maria trailer.

The men were a rough-looking lot. They had long greasy hair that came down past where their collars would have been if they wore proper shirts. But they wore T-shirts and leather jackets, dirty jeans and heavy boots.

I drove by quickly and then headed back toward Compton.

I MULLED OVER THE PROBLEM of Dean’s brother’s place all the way. Mr. Palmer was probably right about me walking up there alone. Even in a gesture of friendship those men would have probably shown me the door—with a tire iron. And I didn’t want Doreen or Dean to know I was looking into them, not until I had a plan.

I needed backup but there was only one man I knew who could take that ride. And it scared me to death even to consider his help.

ETTA ANSWERED THE DOOR when I got there. Her eyes turned to stone when she saw me through the screen.

“How did you find us?” she asked in a whisper.

“Why’d you lie to me, Etta?” I replied.

“Who is it?” Mouse called from somewhere in the house.

“Nobody,” Etta said.

“It’s me,” I said, raising my voice.

“Come on in, Easy,” Mouse said.

Etta stared death at me a moment more and then stepped aside.

Raymond was sitting at the dining table playing solitaire, dressed in a soft gray shirt and dark gray pants. These colors made his gray eyes spark like fire.

Etta moved to a corner and stared at me like Feather’s little yellow dog does sometimes.

“Don’t be gettin’ all mad, Etta,” Mouse said. “I told Easy I was here. You know we gonna need him if we want Dom to get out from under that police investigation.”

Etta turned on her heel and strode from the room. We could hear her slamming pots and pans around in the kitchen.

“What you know, Easy?” Mouse asked.

“Too much,” I said.

“It’s them books, brother. Readin’ ain’t all that good, you know. It softens up your brain.”

“We can’t kill ’em, Ray.”

His teeth were smiling but he was staring gray-eyed death.

“Really, man,” I said. “If you kill ’em then Dom will go down for the murder.”

“Okay, baby. I got ya. No killin’ ’cause it’s for Dom. Okay.”

“I need an out-of-town car,” I said. “That and the money bag.”

“We could keep the money, though,” Mouse said. “Right?”

“Most of it. Hopefully they got more money at the house.”

“What house?”

“Down in Venice.”

Mouse grinned again. “You’re good, Easy. Damn good.”

WE PICKED UP A CAR from a friend of Raymond’s. It was a purple Chrysler, from San Diego we were told. We headed out for Venice at about nine-fifteen. On the way we decided that Mouse should approach the family, to make sure that Dean and Doreen were there. I tried to think of something better. Putting Mouse in the face of the enemy more often than not ended up in a war. But I made him promise that he’d keep his gun in his belt loop and his knife in his pocket. That didn’t mean much, though. Mouse had killed people with his hands, feet, and once with his teeth.

I waited down the block while he approached them with the promise of good weed that he could procure. He was gone over an hour and a half.