Miss B. Shay lived on the second floor of a two-story stucco apartment building in Culver City. There was a bright talisman hanging from the protruding peephole of her front door; a small shield of brightly colored glass beads that came from somewhere in the lower Americas. I would have liked it, and the eye that placed it there, at any other time.
“Yes?” came a voice from behind the closed door.
“Miss Shay?”
“Who is it?”
“My name is Rawlins, ma’am. I came to ask you about your friend Idabell Turner.”
“What about her?” I didn’t blame her for wanting to keep the door closed against a big man who came knocking unannounced.
“It’s about her dog,” I said. “She left him with me today at work but then she took off and now I don’t know what to do.”
I guess the desperation in my voice convinced her. She opened the door to the length of the safety chain and filled that opening with her body.
B. Shay was tallish, about five-eight, with thick hair that was tied back into a lace cloth. She was a deep brown with naturally smiling lips. Her face was full of feelings and memories that I thought I might know. She had on a big loose gold sweater that came down below her knees. Her legs from there were bare. Even though the sweater was supposed to be shapeless there was definitely form underneath. I didn’t care.
A beautiful face wasn’t going to save my job and my kids from Sanchez.
“Ida left Pharaoh with you?” she asked me.
“Yeah.”
“And how did you know to come here?”
“Um, I work at school with her like I said, and so I asked for her emergency card when I realized that she was gone. You see, she was having some problem at home. As a matter of fact she said that she wasn’t gonna go home and that she was staying with a friend. I hoped it was you.”
“No,” B. Shay said. It was when she looked me in the eyes that my sleeping mind started making poetry out of her face. “Ida and I haven’t seen too much of each other in the last year or so. We used to be close but I haven’t even talked to her in months.”
“Uh-huh.” There really wasn’t anything else for me to say.
“Have you tried her home?”
“I called but nobody answered, and if she was havin’ trouble with her husband I didn’t wanna go by there. Maybe I could give you my number and if you talk to her…”
A frown flitted across her face. “What is it?”
“You got a pencil?”
“Just tell me. I’ll remember long enough to write it down after you go.”
She frowned again while I was reciting my number, at least giving the feeling that she was trying to remember it.
“Okay,” she said when I was through.
There seemed to be something else on her mind, but she wasn’t opening up to me. Maybe she knew where Idabell was; maybe she’d give her my number. I didn’t know.
I left with a plan in mind. I’d given Idabell Turner/ Gasteau every chance that I could. Now I was going to take care of myself. If Sanchez questioned me the next day I’d answer every question with complete honesty. If he mentioned the dog I’d tell him what I knew. I wasn’t guilty of anything — he’d have to see that.
At least I hoped he’d have to.
But the more I thought about it the more I feared that Sanchez would suspect me for some reason. What if he looked into the Seventy-seventh Street station’s records? I was all over those papers; suspected of everything from conspiracy to murder.
The closer I got to home the more I thought that I should get rid of the dog. Idabell wouldn’t claim that I had him, because he, or his “accident,” was her excuse for leaving school that morning. Sanchez was bound to get on the math teacher’s trail. There was a corpse in her house. The dead man in the garden had to be related to her in some way.
Get rid of the dog. That’s what I was thinking. After all, it was only a dog. And a damn mean and worthless dog at that.
9
Jesus was sitting at the dining table doing his homework when I got home. Feather was playing with the soon-to-be-gone dog.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said happily. “Frenchie could do tricks. I taught him to jump. Can’t we keep him?”
“No, honey. I have to take him back tomorrow. But we can get you another dog.”
“I don’t want another dog! I want Frenchie!”
Feather ran out of our main room through to the back hall. Pharaoh went after her but he stopped at the doorway and turned around to give me a hard stare.
Maybe he understood English.
“Jesus,” I said.
The dog darted off after Feather.
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Did you two eat?”
“Uh-huh. I made meat loaf sandwiches and chicken soup.” Jesus had a lot of Indian blood in him; he was slight and dark-haired. He was also Hamilton High School’s best long-distance man in track; he might have been the best in the city at that time.
“You put tomatoes and lettuce in the sandwiches?” I was trying to teach them to eat their vegetables.
“Uh-huh.”
“You wanna tell me about that money up in your closet?”
“What?” He looked up from his notepaper.
“Don’t mess with me now, Juice. I saw it. Now tell me where it came from.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
That was the first time I didn’t hit him.
“Listen, I’m upset. I’ve had a really hard day. You got hundreds of dollars in your closet and I got to know if you’re going to jail or not. So tell me where it came from or I might get mad.” I said that all in a calm voice but anyone with half an ear could have heard the violence underneath.
“It’s ours.”
“And where did we get money like that?”
“You know,” Jesus said. I almost smiled because it was so rare to hear the boy flustered. “I saved it.”
“Where’d you get it from?” I asked.
It was during the boy’s long silence that I didn’t hit him for the second time.
“Well?”
“I got it from you,” Jesus said simply.
“From me?”
I realized that the palms of my hands had gotten hot because suddenly they cooled.
Jesus squinted at me, looking like a sailor trying to peer through a high wind. He nodded.
“You stole from me?”
He didn’t have an answer.
“Juice, I’m talking to you. This ain’t nuthin’ like takin’ twenty-five cents from my change drawer.”
“I took it,” he said. “I took it…”
“Where? Where’d you take it from?” I was thinking about the cash box that I kept hidden under a sloppy pile of bricks at the back of the garage. The garage was locked, and there was a lot of brick. No burglar would find it, but a healthy inquisitive boy might.
“I took it from the grocery money,” Jesus said.
“Don’t lie to me now, boy. I don’t give you that kinda money for groceries.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’re you talkin’ ’bout?” I took a violent step toward the table. Jesus was up and around the other side with all the speed and graceful awkwardness of a young deer.
“If you give me ten dollars for stuff and if I save some coupons and stuff, then I took the money I saved and put it in my money box.”
“That’s some shit, boy.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I did too take it out of the shopping money.”
“If you did that, then where’d all these big bills come from? You didn’t get any twenty-dollar bills in change from Safeway.”
“But if I saved up enough change and dollars then I’d use them and keep the big bills.” Jesus was almost pleading. I knew that every word was true.
“You been stealin’ from me for years?” The rage in my chest was beyond any anger I could have felt at my son. It was Principal Newgate, Idabell Turner, and Sergeant Sanchez that made me rage. I knew it but I just couldn’t help myself.