Charcoal Joe (12 page)

Two young men with long hair and beards were smoking marijuana through a hookah at the small dining table in the kitchen. One was black and the other white. They weren't talking at all and their only movements were to either refill or relight the bowl of the water pipe.

The white guy had the dope and the brother the matches.

I was dialing a number on the wall phone, thinking that those hippies were a glimpse into a multiracial future in which I might not wish to reside.

“Yeah?” a voice muttered in my ear.

“You got anything for me?”

“Mr. Sugarman,” the voice said. “Where are you?”

“Lookin' at two stoned-out hippie freaks on the Sunset Strip.”

“Meet me at the China Box in forty-five minutes.”

I took Sunset all the way.

It bothered me that Suggs wanted a face-to-face. That meant my investigation had hit either a live wire or a hornets' nest. Melvin and I were friends but he represented law and order in a city where the police often crossed that line.

The China Box was an old-fashioned establishment where each table was in a private room down a long aisle of closed doors. A gawky waiter in black cotton trousers and a pristine white jacket led me to station 22. He opened the door for me. Melvin was already in there eating fried wonton noodles and drinking a glass of ice water.

“Easy,” he said. It might have been a greeting or a warning.

I settled in across from him and the waiter closed the door. The dining cubicle was big enough to seat eight but I still felt crowded.

“I ordered for both of us,” he told me.

“Okay.”

“You like the hot ribs, right?”

“Why am I here, Melvin?”

The cop was maybe a few years older than I, shorter by four inches and stocky but not fat. His hands were the size of baseball mitts and his eyes the color of a fawn's soft fur. He had two modes of dress. When he was in love his suits were clean and pressed; when she was gone he was a mess.

He was looking pretty good that day in a snappy blue suit and a white dress shirt. The blood-colored tie was loose at the collar, denoting the gravity of our meeting.

“What do you have to do with Peter Boughman?” he asked.

The door opened and another Chinese waiter, this one short and swarthy, placed a platter of at least a dozen glazed pork ribs between us.

When he was gone I said, “Never met the man.”

“So why you on the case?”

“Seymour Brathwaite's foster mother asked me to help him out. She doesn't think he's done the crime.”

“Mothers never do.”

“And they hire me to make their beliefs into truth.”

Melvin took a rib and denuded it in five bites.

“Boughman was one tough customer,” he said. “He did it all—from extortion to murder for hire.”

“So whoever killed him did some widows a favor.”

“And made a pain in my ass.”

“Why's that?” I asked.

The door opened again. The shorter waiter brought in a broad cork-lined platter with plates of fried shrimp, peanut noodles, and a dose of sweet and sour pork. He set these down between us and backed out of the room.

“Boughman was slowing down in his elder years. He didn't do the rough stuff anymore.”

“Somebody should have told the killer that.”

Suggs ignored the comment and said, “He was into money laundering. It was goin' around that he was in the middle of a multimillion-dollar transaction when he was killed.”

“When I bailed Seymour outta jail he didn't have enough to buy breakfast.”

Rough-edged Suggs studied me with his beautiful eyes.

“The guy with Boughman,” Melvin said, “was a man known as John ‘Ducky' Brown. No one in my department knows a thing about him except that everybody was afraid of him and no one cares that he's dead. Not the kind of guy you take to a sit-down business meeting.”

“Maybe he was on the other side,” I speculated.

“Doesn't look like it. Him and Boughman were shot with the same gun, and that weapon has not been recovered.”

“Well,” I said. “I don't know either one.”

“And what about Charcoal Joe?” he asked.

Being white and poor or black and poor on the streets of America trained you to hide feelings of guilt. If you were in one of those categories you always felt guilty whether you'd done anything or not. So when a policeman asked you what you knew, you had to remain cool-headed, mastering everything from your furtive eyes to the quaver wanting to come out on your words.

“Never met him either,” I lied.

“But you know who he is,” Suggs suggested.

“I know his name. I've heard a bad man or two say it with respect.”

Suggs eyed me a little longer. Then he turned his attention back to the food.

“They could give your client the gas chamber with the help of the prosecutor,” he said while heaping sweet and sour flesh onto a bed of noodles.

“Why you say that?”

“They got a call from a phone booth saying that a black man had broken into a house on the beach and that shots were fired. Boughman and Brown had been dead at least an hour when the call came in and there was no gun on the kid, in the house, or out in the sand. But medical records can be lost and your friend's foster child was standing over the dead men when the cops busted in. The report said that he had their blood on his clothes.”

“But you could save Seymour,” I surmised.

“Aren't you going to eat?” he asked.

“Taking my daughter for pizza after I pick her up from school.”

“You once told me,” Suggs said, “that you trade in favors.”

“I did and I do.”

“I need to know where the money that Boughman was handling has disappeared to.”

“Like the money we took off those kidnappers?” I said, referring to the windfall that we had shared not a year past.

“I'm after the bad guys, Easy.”

“I find the money and you take the weight off Seymour?”

He nodded and chewed.

The job I had set for myself had already been done. Seymour was innocent; but innocence was rarely the deciding factor for a black man on trial for his life.

“Okay,” I said. “What else can you tell me?”

“There are two people that know about Boughman's current business dealings,” Suggs said, pouring tea into a cup from a ceramic teapot. “Want some?”

“What two people?”

“The first, and most important, is Tony Gambol, a regular fixture at Santa Anita racetrack. Gambol has deep connections in the gambling worlds—both legal and not. Boughman went out to see him on the lunch court a dozen times in the last six weeks.”

Reaching down at his side, Melvin came up with two manila files. He handed me one of these.

It was a rap sheet on the gambler Tony Gambol. He hadn't been convicted of any major crime but he'd been arrested for everything from assault to fraud. His unusually thin face was dark from the sun.

“The second,” Melvin said, “is Willomena Avery. She's a saleswoman at Précieux Blanc on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. She was at two of the meetings at the racetrack, and two other times she met with Boughman alone.”

Her file was not official. It was a picture with the address of her workplace. In the photo her hair was pulled back and she wore unflattering glasses.

“No home address on Miss Avery?” I asked after perusing the makeshift file.

“Can't find one. She's not listed and her driver's license address is no longer valid.”

“Why not ask her where she lives?”

“We don't want her to know that she's on our radar.”

There was a question I had to ask for two reasons: the first was because I needed an answer; the second was to make sure Mel didn't know where my orders were coming from.

“Why'd you mention Charcoal Joe?”

“That beach house belongs to Tyler.”

“Who?”

“Rufus Tyler, that's Joe's real name.”

“And where was he when Boughman and Brown were being slaughtered?”

“In jail.”

“So he's not a suspect?”

“No. He's a small-time gambler and we suspect that he rents out the house from time to time to people who need to do their business in secret.”

“So what is it that you want from me exactly, Melvin?”

“If you find out who the killer is then you probably have found the money too. You give that information to me and I'll set your boy loose.”

I had an hour or so before I had to head out to pick up Feather, so I went into the Chinatown branch of the Bank of America and changed a five-dollar bill into quarters. From there I went down the block to a small hotel called the Red Pagoda. I'd been there before, they had a nice bar and, I remembered, a fairly posh phone booth.

No one molested me when I shuttered myself into the scarlet stall.

The operator asked how she could help and I read the number from the slip of paper Jackson Blue had given me; the one that had the word
grandmamma
scribbled on it. The operator told me that it would be a dollar twenty-five for the first three minutes and I dropped five quarters. Each coin was accompanied by a deep bonging tone as it traveled downward. Five bongs and the operator thanked me.

The phone rang seven times and the connection was made.

A mature man's voice said, “Hello.”

“May I speak to Sarah Garnett please?” I asked in the neutral accent of a white Californian.

“She's not in.”

“How about her son?”

“He's away at college. Who is this?”

“Ezekiel Rawlins.”

“What do you want with my wife, Mr. Rawlins?”

She was married. Of course she was. Sarah Garnett was not the kind of woman to feel that life was worth living without a man to live it with; a man to love and to hold, a man who would honor and provide.

“I'm calling about her granddaughter,” I said.

“There must be some kind of mistake. My wife doesn't have a granddaughter. Her son isn't even engaged.”

“Milo, right?” Remembering the young man's name, I thought about the other Milo; the darker, cigar-smoking bail bondsman.

“Excuse me?” the man's voice asked.

“Her son is named Milo,” I said. “Milo Garnett.”

“Is there anything else?” he asked.

I wanted to argue with the man. I wanted to tell him that he had no idea what he was talking about in spite of his assured and confident tone. I wanted to take that receiver and slam it against the glass window of the booth. But I didn't do any of those things. It wasn't my heart on the line in that conversation. I was doing a job.

“Can you give your wife my message and a phone number where she can reach me?”

“I've already told you that my wife has no granddaughter.”

“I heard you. I'm not arguing either. All I want is for you to give her my name, message, and phone number. If she thinks that it's some kind of mistake then she won't call back and that will be my answer.”

There was something authoritative in the way I strung that sentence. The man on the other end of the line hesitated. My voice on the telephone line was an unexpected threat that his posturing tone could not deflect.

“What did you say your name was again?” he asked.

I told him.

“And what is this about?”

“Her granddaughter.”

“And what is her name?”

“Feather.”

“That's not a name.”

“If that doesn't ring a bell, tell her that it's Robin the younger. She'll know what I mean.”

“I'm a lawyer, Mr. Rawlins. We will not submit to any scam or intimidation.”

“I'm not asking for anything, sir, whatever your name is. I'm calling to talk to your wife about her granddaughter, Milo's niece. I couldn't care less what you think or what you do for a living.”

“Please deposit seventy-five cents,” the operator said.

I obliged.

When the bongs were over, Mr. Sarah Garnett said, “What was that number?”

I told him and thanked him and then hung up the phone.

As I walked out of the Red Pagoda I noted that my heart was beating fast. That reminded me about Bonnie, which brought to mind the tea Jo gave me; the potion that made every moment into an absolute present where my feelings were thrusting forward—not, for the most part, dwelling on the past.

Parked down the way from the entrance to Ivy Prep, I considered going into Marvin's Eats to see if Inez would call the cops on me again. But there was enough trouble in my trough; I'd save the reeducation of the white race for sometime later in the week.

With no windmill to tilt at, Bonnie entered my elixir-induced present. Her sudden betrayal had worked its way into my consciousness. I realized, sitting there, that there was no leisure time for me to wait for life to work itself out.

“Hi, Daddy.”

Her voice surprised but did not frighten me.

Feather had opened the passenger-side door and flopped almost elegantly into the seat next to me. Her calico dress was printed with red and yellow tulips and cut in a French provincial design. When I kissed her cheek she leaned into the touch.

“How was school?” I asked.

“Okay. Are we going home tonight?”

I pulled away from the parking space and drove out of the compound.

“I need you to stay someplace else for a few more days. That's why I'm picking you up. I don't want you to forget what I look like.”

“I'll stay with Uncle Jackson and Aunt Jewelle,” Feather allowed, “but I won't stay at Bonnie's house.”

“Just because Bonnie and I have a problem doesn't mean that you should be mad at her.”

“Uh-uh,” Feather said, shaking her head for emphasis. “She's on one side and you're on the other one. And I'm with you.”

“But Bonnie's been like a mother to you, honey.”

“I know. And I love her too. But she's just
like
my mother. You're the only father I'm ever gonna have.”

We were headed for the canyon drive that led from Studio City to L.A. I pulled off onto the side of the road and engaged the parking brake.

Feather gave me a worried look, thinking that she had said something wrong. I saw her fear. I wanted to assure her but I needed a moment to put my thoughts in a line.

“What, Daddy?”

“I was,” I said and paused. “I was wondering how a child your age ever got so wise.”

She smiled, leaning forward into the grin like she had for my kiss.

“When I was little,” she said, “and you were out working, Juice would take care of me. He was really nice and he let me eat ice cream
and
cookies in the same desert. And if you were gone too long he'd put me to bed and tell me a story.”

I was a sucker for Feather's stories. She'd tell me tales that I already knew but her point of view would make it all sound somehow different.

“Most of the time he'd tell me fairy tales about giants and princesses and knights in shining black armor. But every once in a while he'd tell me a
very
tale instead of a
fairy
tale.”

“Very tale?” I said. “What's that?”

“Those were stories too but they were more real.”

“And that's what Juice called them?”

“No. I did. But can I finish what I'm saying?”

“Sorry.”

“His very tales were always about us; about how we were lost children and you found us and took us home and took care of us even though nobody told you to and nobody made you. Jesus would say that that was what made you a hero, and whenever he'd say that it would make me cry. And when I'd cry he'd tell me I didn't have to be sad because we could take care of you just like you did with us. And that would make me so happy that I'd close my eyes and go to sleep.”