I shook my head, a somber man of experience. “No, brother. Uh-uh. I tried that once. Actually that’s why I’m here at your buildin’.” I held my breath.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Dude name’a Roman owe me some money. Right after I unload these steaks I’ma go down to Roman’s place an’ have me a talk wit’ that man.” I stroked my chin and looked menacing.
“Roman gone.” That was Penny. The mention of the Gasteau brother had gotten her to sit up.
“Moved?”
“I’ont know,” Penny said. “Cops come here today askin’ ’bout him. They took everything outta his place in bags.”
I slammed my hand down on the table so hard that both of my hosts jumped. “Goddam!”
After he settled a little Ridley asked, “He owe you a lotta money?”
“Fi’e hunnert dollars. Is that a lot?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“You know where I could find him?” I asked Penny.
She cut a glance at Ridley and said, “No.”
I could see that Ridley was torn between greed and jealousy. He wasn’t a bad-looking man but he wasn’t tall and handsome; he didn’t wear snakeskin shoes. I was sure that Penny had given Roman the eye, and maybe even a little bit more of her anatomy. Ridley didn’t want to bring that man into their motel-decorated home. But one thing I was certain of — Ridley would have dropped Penny in a minute if there was a dollar to be made.
“What about that place?” he asked her.
“What place?”
“That place I told you not to go to no mo’.”
“I thought you didn’t even wanna talk about that,” she said, sneering at her man, moving her head from side to side in a disdainful rhythm. “I thought you said that you was gonna tear my head off if I ever even said somethin’ about it.”
“And now I’m sayin’ t’tell the man here!” Ridley was asserting himself.
Penny turned to me. “There’s a club up in the Hollywood Hills,” she said. “The Chantilly. It’s a white club but the man who run it got a place around back for black — the Black Chantilly. It’s a big house and a private club like. They got a room for dancin’ an’ one for gamblin’. They got private rooms too—”
“An’ what the hell was you doin’ up there?”
Ridley was up on his feet. He swung at her with an open hand and missed, on purpose it seemed to me, over the top of her head. Penny screamed and went down on the floor, ducking under the low coffee table.
“You said you wanted me t’tell’im where Roman was!” Penny shouted. “I didn’t say nuthin’!”
“You the one said he was gone!” Ridley swung at the air again. “Maybe you know where he went to!”
“Noooo!”
“Hey! Hey, Ridley,” I said, using his name for the first time since he’d given it. “Hey, man. You wanna talk about them steaks?”
Ridley took a deep breath. Penny looked up at him and he jerked his hand like he meant to swing again, but he just wanted to see her flinch one more time.
“Hey, man,” he said to me. “Sorry, but you know this here bitch just don’t ack right. She gonna lay up on her ass wit’ me payin’ the rent, an’ then got the nerve t’be winkin’ at some fancy-assed mothahfuckah upstairs. She lucky I don’t kill both they ass!”
Penny crouched down further.
“Get the hell outta here, bitch!” Ridley screamed at her. “Why the fuck you come out here near naked in front’a some strange man?”
Penny moved quickly, staying close to the floor as she went. She made it to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Ridley was staring at the closed door.
“Women like to drive a man crazy,” he said.
“Don’t you know it,” I agreed, hoping to calm him down. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, brother.”
“What?”
“I’ll leave these nine steaks here wit’ you tonight and then I’ll come back tomorrow with fifty more. You gimme the four dollars and fifty cent an’ then I’ll come back for the balance in two more days.”
I handed the box over to him and he took it. He let his gaze ride high for a moment to catch a glimpse of my eyes.
“What you doin’ here, man?” he asked.
“Sellin’ steaks an’ lookin’ for a man wear snakeskin shoes.”
“You gonna hurt him?”
“If I can,” I said. “If I can.”
16
It was a little after nine when I got home. I was soaking from the rain that had started while I asked questions. It was that blanket type of L.A. rain and I’d left the umbrella a block away in my car.
Feather was asleep on the couch with the damn dog nestled in her arms. Jesus was watching a western on channel thirteen. He was nodding. Jesus spent two or three hours every day practicing for track and field. He ate large meals and went to bed early but he always tried to stay up until I got home. In the earlier years it was because he felt bad for me after my wife, Regina, had left. But now it was just habit. I was used to my kiss good night and he was used to giving it to me.
“You better go to bed, Juice.”
He nodded and then reached over to shake Feather but I said, “Leave her. I’ll get her to bed.”
He came over to hug me and I kissed him on the top of his head. Then he stumbled down to the hallway toward his bed.
I went to the bathroom and then to the kitchen. There was ice water in an old-fashioned milk bottle in the refrigerator.
I took the phone on its long tangled cord into the living room and sat down on the couch next to my girl. When Pharaoh growled I battled his nose with my finger. He moved away from me, down to the other end of the sofa, and considered dog curses to lay upon my soul.
I placed the phone in my lap and was about to dial a number when the thing rang. I picked it up quickly. Feather moved her head up and opened her eyes, but when she saw me she closed them again.
The first thing I heard was the racket of a crowded room or maybe a public space. There were people talking and things being moved and slammed down. There was laughter too.
“Easy?” Her voice was loud to get over the din and also hoarse because she wanted to whisper. But as strained as the words were I still knew who it was.
“Idabell?”
“Oh, it is you. Thank God.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“A little place on Santa Barbara. I have to talk to somebody here. Oh, I’m in a lot of trouble, honey. A lot of trouble.”
Somebody laughed in the background, a good joke being told in some other part of town. There was music but its words and melody were lost in the static of the telephone wire.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Somebody killed my husband,” she whispered. “And, and…”
“And what?”
“And his twin brother… Roman.”
“Who killed them?”
When she said, “Easy?” I knew that she wasn’t going to give up any information right away.
“What?”
“How’s Pharaoh?”
The cur raised his head from his corner of the couch. Maybe his dog ears picked up the name on her lips.
“He’s fine,” I said.
“Can I talk to him?”
“Talk to him? No. The kids’re ’sleep. But don’t worry, he’s fine.”
“I have to get away, Easy.”
“Idabell, what happened? What happened to your husband?”
“I don’t know,” she whimpered.
Pharaoh raised his head a half an inch more.
“I left home just like I told you. Holland was high, I guess I didn’t tell you that. He’d been drinking, drinking.” She repeated the word as if she were trying to convince me of its accuracy. “And then he went out.”
“Where’d he go?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But as soon as he was gone I left with Pharaoh.”
“Why were you so scared, Idabell?”