“Well,” I said, “they didn’t ask me anything about you, Mr. Preston. They did ask me about Mrs. Turner, though, and they mentioned her husband too.”
“But nothing about me?”
“Nope. Not a word about you.”
“Will you tell me if you hear anything?”
“From the cops?”
“Or from Idabell. If she calls about Pharaoh, tell me, and tell her that I really need to see her.”
“Tell me somethin’, Mr. Preston.”
“What?”
“Did the police show you a picture of Roman?”
“Yes. Yes they did.”
“And did you tell them that you knew him?”
“Of course. I just didn’t say about Idabell. You know it doesn’t really have anything to do with it. I’m sure it doesn’t.”
He looked the part of an honest and ignorant man, but, then again, so did I.
“Do you have any idea who could have killed Roman?” I asked.
“No. He was a great guy. Not like his brother at all.”
Except, I thought, that they were both dead.
13
Idrove down to the district office of the Board of Ed.
Bertrand Stowe was short and gray-haired, with a nose that thrust straight forward. He had eyes that were absolutely sure about things and a voice that his mother must have pulled out of a well.
He stood up, as far as he went, and put out his hand. “Easy.”
The fact that he used my street name meant that Bertrand had known me before I became a respectable workingman.
We met in the fall of ’61. I’d just recently gotten out of the hospital. I’d been recovering from a wound inflicted upon me by an old friend. While convalescing I reflected on my life, wondering how it could be that I was in danger even from my friends. I had decided, upon coming home, to concentrate on getting honest work.
I was reading the want ads when a woman called me at home one afternoon.
“Easy? Easy Rawlins?”
“Yeah? Who’s this?”
“It’s Grace Phillips. You remember me? I’m John’s friend. We met down at his bar.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking, Oh no. “Yeah, yeah.”
I didn’t ask what she wanted.
“John told me to call you, Easy. He said that maybe you could help me.”
“Oh?”
“Uh-huh. Could I come over your house?”
“What you want, Grace?”
“Well, um, okay… you know Sallie Monroe?”
“Sure.” Sallie was the toughest gangster, next to Mouse, in Watts.
“Well, Sallie think he own me.”
“He your pimp?”
“It ain’t like that really, Easy. Sallie just give some parties, that’s all. If I wanna go an’ have some fun, well, that was up to me. But he never owned me.”
I knew the kind of parties she was talking about. Sallie, or some other gangster, would rent somebody’s apartment for the night and sell tickets for a hundred dollars or so to his customers. He’d bring booze and reefer and sometimes something stronger. He’d also bring the girls. He’d give them twenty dollars or so to come and then they’d work a tip out of the man they danced with.
“So,” I said. “If you don’t wanna go, don’t go.” I was ready to hang up. I would have hung up if it wasn’t John that had given her my number.
John was my friend, one of my best and oldest friends, solid and stronger than rock. I knew John from the old days back in the Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas. He was a hard man. He had to be in his line of work. He’d run a speakeasy down in Watts in the forties. Now he owned a restaurant-bar.
“You ain’t heard me yet,” Grace complained. “I don’t go no more. I only ever went in the first place ’cause I thought it was fun. But I got me a boyfriend now.”
“So?”
“Well.” She hesitated for a moment. “Well, I met my boyfriend at Sallie’s and now Sallie wanna mess it up.”
It took a long time to get the story out of her. She was embarrassed, and I didn’t blame her. The head custodian at Sojourner Truth before me was named Bill Bartlett. Bill had taken his boss, Bertrand Stowe, to one of Sallie’s parties, and Sallie had paid Grace to be extra nice to Bert. He told her not to ask for tips and to do everything that Bert wanted. She said that she didn’t mind because Bert was sweet. He didn’t really know what the party was all about. He thought that she just liked him.
“You know,” she said. “Bill Bartlett got Bertie all excited about goin’ out an’ havin’ a good time. He told’im that he should go out an’ see how his workin’ staff relaxed. Bertie didn’t think he was gonna meet no girl — not an’ like her too.”
The next day he sent roses and chocolate. That weekend he told his wife that he had to do work at Sojourner Truth with Mr. Bartlett but instead he spent long afternoons of love with Grace.
Soon he was helping her with her rent and had agreed to help her get into Los Angeles City College to get a degree in office management. If she passed her courses, he told her, he’d get her a job working in the central office with him.
He even talked about getting a divorce.
“But now Sallie wanna mess up all that,” she said.
“How?”
“He got pictures.”
“Of you two?”
I could almost hear her nodding over the phone.
“Where’d he get that?”
“He had somebody take’em on the sly at the party when we was, when we was in one’a the back bedrooms. The door didn’t have no catch on it. I didn’t even see’im take it. He showed’em t’me an’ said if I didn’t get Bertie to help’im he gonna make sure that he’s fired from his job.”
“Help him what?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Grace, I don’t have time t’be messin’ on the phone.”
“I don’t!” she whined. “It’s sumpin’ about the inventory for his district. They want to make Bill Bartlett his assistant an’ then say that things is used an’ things is broke. I don’t know.”
But she did know. So did I.
We met with John at his restaurant and discussed the matter. John liked Grace. I could see why. Her skin was blackberry and her lips had never lost a thing from her African forebears. She was the kind of small that every man wanted to help. I asked what she thought Stowe would do.
“He’s a good man, Easy. He’d either turn us in or kill hisself.”
“Then why don’t you go someplace else?” I asked. “Get outta L.A. an’ let Sallie dig his own hole.”
Grace pouted with those beautiful full lips.
“She don’t wanna run, Easy,” John said. “If that was all she wanted I could help her to do that.”
“How come you say that this man Stowe is so good an’ he’s goin’ to one’a Sallie’s reefer parties?” I asked.
“It wasn’t no reefer that night,” she said. “It was only liquor an’ Sallie made it seem like it was just a party. You know Bertie just ain’t got no experience with that kinda stuff.”
Grace wasn’t in love, I thought, but it was something. I couldn’t figure it out at that time. But I could see that I had some possibilities.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay what?” asked John.
“I know what to do.”
“Really?” That was Grace.
“Yeah. I do. You go tell your boyfriend everything.”
“Everything?”
“Well… you don’t have to say that you was at a whole lotta Sallie’s parties. But just say what Sallie and Bill Bartlett wanna do. Tell’im about the pictures, tell’im all that, an’ then tell’im about me. Say that if he wanna get out of it he should give me a call.”
I had already been to the main personnel office for the Board of Education to see what I could see. Grace Phillips offered me some possibilities — that much was for sure.
Three days later I got the call. I had been taking a nap because I was still recuperating from the deep infection that settled in after my wound. Stowe told me that he’d talked to Grace, and then Bill Bartlett. He wanted to know what I could do. I made an appointment to meet him at his office. At first he balked, but I held firm.