Roman lived in an apartment building down on La Brea, not too far from my house. I drove by in the late afternoon. It was a great block of a building with two police cars parked out front. I even saw the back of Sanchez’s head in the open arcade that led to the atrium.
I drove on, trying to think of a way into Roman’s life.
Jesus and Feather weren’t at the house when I got there. Usually he’d go to her school after practice and bring her home. Sometimes I’d pick her up. Feather loved it when I came by the school. I liked meeting her. But I had to pass that day. I sat down and tried to think out the problem. Did Holland really threaten to kill Pharaoh? If he did, was that why his brother came to the school? Why did Idabell leave? And why lie about the dog?
The dog?
Where was that damned dog? I still planned to get rid of him. I had softened up a little, though. My new plan was to take him out to my old friend Primo. Primo would know somebody who wanted a dog.
I got up and looked around the house. There was no sign of him anywhere except for a small gift he’d left on my slipper. It was a dry turd so I figured that he’d done it in the morning.
He wasn’t in the yard. Or, if he had been, he’d slipped out through the bushes into the Horns’ property.
I was about to go next door when it struck me — why was I looking for that damn dog? He didn’t know anything, and if he did know, and he could talk, he wouldn’t have told me. That dog hated me more than any other solitary being ever had.
An hour later I had a plan.
Feather came running in the front door.
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”
Pharaoh dashed in at her heels. He was yelping happily until he saw me. Then he crouched down and growled. Jesus walked in over him.
“Hi, Dad,” my son said.
“Where’d that dog come from?” I asked Feather. I could tell that my voice had a sharp edge because a scared look came over her face.
“We left him over with Mr. Horn,” Jesus said. “He was crying so much this morning when we were leaving that Feather wanted to take him to school. But then I said that maybe Mr. Horn wouldn’t mind.”
“That’s an awful lot to ask of your neighbor,” I said.
“Uh-uh,” Feather whined. “Mr. Horn like Frenchie. He said so, huh, Juice?”
Jesus nodded. He looked at me and then looked away. There was still that money in the box upstairs to talk about. But Jesus was too afraid to bring it up — so was I.
I let them settle in. Pharaoh followed me around the house staying at the corners and watching my every move. That dog got under my skin.
After a while I said to Jesus, “Take that ole wagon’a Feather’s and go on down to Mr. Hong’s shop. Get me a box of steaks. Two-pound porterhouse steaks. The aged stuff. Tell’im t’put’em on my bill.”
Jesus nodded and went to get the wagon from the garage.
“Honey,” I said to Feather.
“Yeah?” She was watching Pharaoh watch me. “Frenchie like you, Daddy.”
“Oh? Why you say that?”
“ ’Cause he always wanna look at you.”
That devil dog had everybody fooled but me.
“Honey,” I said again.
“Uh-huh.”
“You know I would keep little heartache here if I could. But he belongs to somebody else who loves him even more than you do.”
“I’ll feed him, Daddy. I’ll build him a house in the backyard.”
“But honey, it’s not that. I know that you’d take care of him. But he’s not ours. Do you understand that?”
“Yeah,” she said through pouting lips. “Can I go play now?”
“Don’t you want to tell me what happened in school today?”
“No. I wanna go play with Frenchie.”
Mr. Hong sent a few bottles of barbecue sauce along with the steaks. He had no idea of how devious my mind was at that time.
The police cars were gone from in front of Roman Gasteau’s building by the time I returned. I took the white carton of steaks from the trunk of my car and went into the external entranceway through a corridor of coral-colored plaster. Once inside I went from door to door. The inner walls of the atrium were also coral. They shone from electric lights and doors that opened on evening TVs. There was talking and music and shows playing. In the courtyard children darted and screamed among the rubber plants and dwarf palms.
My plan was simple. I was Brad Koogan, a name borrowed from a friend who died at the Battle of the Bulge. Brad was going from one apartment to another trying to sell two-pound porterhouse steaks for a dollar each. He got the steaks from a truck driver friend of his. My reasoning ran like this: If somebody thought that I stole those steaks but they were still willing to do business with me, then they might know something about Roman and the circles he ran in.
Nobody answered the first door I knocked on. Maybe they weren’t home or maybe they got a peep of me and decided that I was bad news.
The next door was answered by an elderly black woman in a red-and-black-checkered robe. Thick bifocals dangled from her neck on a fake pearl necklace. She was small and almost bald.
“Yes, mistah?” Her nearly toothless smile was down-home friendly.
I hesitated for a moment because she was so old and frail. But the street is a wild place and compassion there is more dear than gold. I had to ask myself was this woman worth that much to me.
My answer went like this:
“Hi. My name is Brad Koogan. I’m sellin’ porterhouse steaks, two pounds each at a dollar apiece.”
“Hi. My name’s Celia,” she said. “But, Mr. Koogan, I ain’t tackled a steak in over ten years.”
“Celia,” a man’s voice called from the back of the apartment.
When he came into view I saw that he was the male version of her, checkered robe and all.
“Celia,” he said again.
“Yes, Carl,” she answered, slightly perturbed. “I hear ya.”
“Who is it?” he asked, looking right at me.
“Brad Koogan, sir,” I said. “I’m sellin’ steaks.”
“I don’t buy my meat offa the street, mistah,” he said.
He was gruff but I liked him anyway. Celia was smiling at her man. I lost heart then.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I’ll move on.”
“What’s your name again?” Celia asked.
“Koogan,” I said. “Brad Koogan.”
“We’re the Blanders,” she told me.
It was an apology for her husband’s rude behavior. I thought that when I’d gone they’d spend a good two hours enjoying themselves arguing back and forth about how she shouldn’t have opened the door to a stranger and how he should learn to be more courteous to people.
I steeled myself to be more ruthless from then on.
The next few doors were closed politely in my face. I was happy to know that there were so many honest people in the world but at the same time it cut into my ability to exploit the situation. I knew that some of the people who closed their doors would call the landlord and ask him to keep hustlers away from them and their kids. If he was a good landlord, like I hoped that I was, he would come down to see what was going on — or he would call the cops.
I had no desire to talk to the police, so I hurried on my way.
Cassandra Vincent wanted three steaks but she didn’t know anyone who lived in the apartment building.
Butch Mayhew wanted me to give him a sampler before he’d agreed to buy. When I told him no he tried to convince me by saying, “I’ll buy all of ’em if the one I taste ain’t tough.”
I wasn’t fooled by Butch. He’d try to get me to leave him a steak to taste. If I refused he’d offer to cook it up right then and there. At least he’d get a few bites in.