As he grew older Primo studied philosophy by considering all of the things he knew in Spanish, English, and life. His thoughts were always powerful because the pictures he used to describe them stayed with you over time.
I managed a chuckle and clapped his back. He was still a strong man.
Big black Panamanian Flower came out of the front door. She gave me her wide grin and a big kiss.
“Easy,” she said loudly. “You don’t come out here enough.”
“Working, you know,” my mouth said. But Flower could hear my heart. Her welcoming smile turned sad. She kissed me again and then cupped the back of my neck with her big hand.
“You take care of him now,” she said to her husband.
“Window on my passenger’s side is busted out, Primo,” I said, looking after Flower as she went back into the house. Two little brown kids came running from around the screen door. They had dark and almond-shaped faces and slanting eyes, from the oldest American stock, like Jesus. They were stalking up to us with silly grins on perfectly balanced feet.
“Oh,” Primo said. “You have a accident?”
“Somebody shot my girlfriend through the window while I was droppin’ somethin’ off down the street. She’s dead.” I said it all at once; partly just to say it, to know that it was true, and partly because I didn’t want to get Primo mixed up in anything that he didn’t know about from the beginning.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m just tryin’ t’stay outta trouble, man.”
Primo nodded his head and said, “So clean it up and put in a new window, huh?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. I’ll pay ya for it.”
“You need a car. I got a nice Chevy right out here.”
It was a late model, fierce metallic blue with balloon tires in back.
“Don’t you have somethin’ a li’l quieter?” I asked.
“Sometimes a loud noise is the best way to hide what you don’t want somebody to hear.”
“Do you have another car?” I asked the philosopher again.
“Not that’ll drive.”
“So then this one is just fine. Fine. Fine.”
Primo laughed and I managed to shake my head. The two boys made roaring noises and leapt at us.
“My grandchildren,” Primo told me proudly. “They are jaguars from the deep forest. Killers of great birds.”
The rain had stopped by the time I made it home. I had just pulled Primo’s souped-up Chevy into the driveway and gotten out to go into my house.
“Mr. Rawlins.” I didn’t need to turn around to know Sergeant Sanchez.
He was getting out of a parked car.
I cursed under my breath for not checking out the street before parking. For some reason I felt safe at my own home — a mistake that a poor man should never make.
“Sergeant.” I smiled, trying to read in his bearing whether or not he knew about Idabell Turner’s demise.
I was pretty sure that he didn’t intend to arrest me. He’d come alone, and policemen never arrest a man single-handed if they can help it.
“You’re not at work today,” he said as he approached.
I remained silent.
“Do you have some time for a few questions?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Whatever you wanna know.”
“Can we go in your house?”
Remembering Pharaoh moping around the front door I said, “House is a mess, officer, we better stay out here.”
“Oh.” His eyes were looking for an opening through my defense. “That’s a wild car you got there.”
“It takes me from place to place. That’s all you could ask for.”
“Is it yours?” he asked.
“No.”
“Where’s your car?”
“I lent it to my friend Guillermo to ride out to Las Vegas. My car’s better than his and he wanted to trade just for his vacation.”
“Where does this Guillermo live?”
“Out past Compton.”
Sanchez winced, just a hair. It was intuition about my car. He could smell something about it. But he didn’t want to push me, and that was a surprise.
Cops didn’t mind pushing around men like me. That kind of pushing was part of their job. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t a white man. Cops is a race all its own. Its members have their own language and their own creed.
I realized then that Sanchez was on the trail of something bigger than me, and bigger than the death of mulatto twins. Something that Idabell Turner had brought to America in a box.
“The man we found at your school was Roman Gasteau,” Sanchez said. “Idabell Turner is his sister-in-law.”
Is.
“His twin brother Holland,” Sanchez continued, “was found dead at his own house night before last and now Mrs. Turner is missing.”
“That’s a lotta happenin’,” I said to Sanchez. “Damn.”
“You don’t know anything about this, Rawlins?”
“Idabell is a kinda friend’a mines, sergeant, but I never had her confidence. I didn’t know her husband or her brother-in-law.”
“She never said anything to you about what her brother-in-law did for a living?” Sanchez was almost human in his need for an answer.
“No sir,” I said. The regret in my lying mouth was real.
“You busy right now?” he asked me. It was a simple question that one friend might ask another on a street corner in May. Maybe he’d met a woman who wanted a date for her girlfriend.
“Well, I got some work to do around the house.”
“This wouldn’t take long. Why don’t you come on up to the Hollywood station with me?” He didn’t sound urgent. “I think you could help.”
“Well…”
“Drive your own car. You’re not under arrest or anything. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
“What’s this all about?”
“Nothing. Just a few questions about Idabell Turner. Captain Fogherty asked me if I’d ask you to drop by. It’s not far, you know. Just up here in Hollywood.”
“Okay,” I said. “If it’ll be short.”
“You can follow me.”
“Uh-huh.”
At that moment Pharaoh started barking. He yipped and whined and barked again. Maybe he wanted to tell Sanchez the truth.
The sergeant heard the dog. He even looked at the house but there wasn’t enough there for him to grab on to and so he turned around and went back to his car.
20
I knew a shorter route to the Hollywood station but I trailed behind Sanchez’s unmarked car anyway. I wanted to know what he was thinking. I didn’t have faith that anyone would care for me. The only chance I had, I believed, was to make sure that nobody could bring me down.
Sanchez parked at a blue curb painted with big white letters that read FOR OFFICIAL POLICE BUSINESS ONLY! When I passed by he tooted his horn and pointed that I should park in front of him. I made a U-turn and nosed up in front of his black Chevrolet. He was waiting for me with a blue-and-red cardboard sign that had a long code number printed on it.
“Here, put this on your dashboard,” he said. “They’ll leave it alone then.”
The number reminded me of an arrest ID. When I put it down I was hoping that I wouldn’t meet its brother inside.
We went in through the large garage doors; a black man and a brown one strolling through a cavern full of white cops.
“Can I do something for you?” the first cop we ran into asked.
“Sergeant Sanchez,” my escort replied. He had his ID out and ready.
“Okay,” the towheaded cop said suspiciously. “Where you going?”
“Captain Fogherty wants to see us,” Sanchez said without a trace of anger in his voice.