She felt it too, I could tell. It was like we were looking over a field and catching each other’s eye; our animal sides slowly overpowering our minds.
Who knows what might have happened if there hadn’t come that knock on the door?
It was three hard raps and then silence. Bonnie was about to say something but I put up one finger for her silence.
Ten seconds passed.
Three more raps. This time harder.
I stood up and went to the kitchen.
The raps turned into blows. “Bonnie Shay!” Rupert sounded as if he were in the room with us.
I put my fingers to my lips to keep Bonnie quiet and lifted an iron pan from the stove. Bonnie’s eyes showed fear but she trusted me — at least more than she trusted the man banging on her door.
The door was hollow. I was surprised that Rupert hadn’t broken through it with his knocks.
“Open up!” Rupert called.
I sidled up to the door and readied myself for the wrestler.
He probably used his shoulder to batter the door. On his first blow he cracked it down the middle, almost going through.
Bonnie let out a small screech.
“Who’s out there?” someone shouted from down the hall.
“Hey, man,” Rupert said. “Mind your own… Hey! Hey watch it!”
“Clear outta here or I shoot, bastid!”
“Hey, watch it!” Rupert shouted. His voice was already down the hall.
“I’m callin’ the police!” our savior yelled. “I’m callin’ ’em.”
Then there was a brief stretch of silence.
The next knock on the door was mild.
“Miss Shay? Miss Shay, you okay in there?”
“Yes, Mr. Gillian.” Bonnie went to the door and opened it.
He was an older man, smallish. But he made up for his size with the three-and-a-half-foot shotgun levered in the crook of his arm. He was black, yellow actually, with weblike soft white hair. His orange flannel robe was open at the throat. You could see the skin of his throat sagging, as if it knew that it was time to abandon the bones.
He had one foot in the room, the other one in the hall.
His eyes were on me as he asked Bonnie, “You want me to call the cops?”
“No, Mr. Gillian. Thank you for scaring him away. I don’t think that he’s going to come back.”
“You know, you should watch the company you keep,” he said, still looking at me.
I kept my hands down at my side. I didn’t want to scare Mr. Gillian into shooting me.
“Thank you again, Mr. Gillian,” she said.
Bonnie moved to push the door closed.
“You can come on down with me and Cheryl if you want, Miss Shay,” he said.
I liked him. He was worried that I was a threat and that she was scared to run from me.
But Mr. Gillian didn’t like me.
“Why’ont you come on with me, Bonnie?” he said.
He leaned forward to cut off my approach to her, balancing the gun so that he could swing it up into action with speed. The only problem he had was the length of the barrel. If he wasn’t used to wielding it it might take a second too long.
Gillian knew what I was thinking. He gave me a little smile that dared, “Go on, boy. Try it.”
He said, “Come on, Bonnie. Let’s go.”
Bonnie saw what was happening. She held the broken door by the knob and looked at me. Who was I? At least she knew Mr. Gillian. Mr. Gillian and Cheryl were safe.
They were safe but what did they know about the man pounding at the door?
“It’s okay, Mr. Gillian. Mr. Rawlins was helping me.”
“You sure?” There was disappointment in his voice.
“I’ll come down and talk to you and Cheryl later on,” she said while pushing the cracked door to usher him out.
“Okay now,” he said as the door was closing. “But I’ll be keepin’ a ear peeled.”
The moment the door was closed Bonnie gasped and brought her left hand to her breast. I moved to help but she held up the other hand to ward me off. Then she shook her whole body, head and all, making a noise with her flapping cheeks like you do when you’re very cold. The shiver subsided slowly until only her head and neck quivered slightly — her eyes shut tight. Then she took a deep breath and opened her eyes to look at me.
“Do you know who that man was?” she asked.
29
Rupert works for two white men,” I was saying at the Dunkin’ Donuts franchise down near La Cienega and Pico. Bonnie had taken her coffee with two creams and two sugars. “Philly Stetz and a guy named Beam.”
We had gone down to the back of the building and out through the laundry window. I didn’t know if Rupert was outside, if he was armed, or if Li’l Joe was with him. But even if he was alone and unarmed, I doubted my ability to stop him from taking Bonnie.
We tripped and stumbled through a cluttered cement deck that offered the building’s trash cans to the alley. A German shepherd growled and barked once but he backed down when I took a metal lid from the nearest can. Dogs had become my least favorite creatures over the past few days.
We caught a bus to a cab stand on Jefferson. From there we took a taxi to the doughnut shop. I was in no rush to take this woman into my home. I mean, I liked her but I loved those kids.
“You know either one of them?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Well, what do you know?”
“I don’t know much, Mr. Rawlins. For instance, I don’t know if I can trust you.”
“Hey.” I held up my hands. “You sure in hell cain’t trust Rupert.”
For some reason that made her laugh. She brought her hand to her lips in an attempt to suppress the giggles.
“What’s so funny?”
She tried to talk but the laugh wouldn’t let her.
Bonnie put her fingers at the back of my hand to steady herself.
“You looked pretty funny there,” she said.
“Where?”
“At my place. Your face got all cockeyed and you were holding that pan like it was a fly…” She couldn’t manage to finish for laughing. “A flyswatter.”
I laughed then. I was thinking that Rupert did resemble a fly. A big ugly fly who had had his wings clipped.
“You were so scared.” She laughed some more. “Kinda cute though.”
“More than cute,” I said in a somber tone. “If you would of opened that door you’d be dead right now.”
“You don’t know that,” she said defiantly.
“They killed Idabell, Bonnie.”
She shook her head the smallest little bit and winced.
“I was comin’ to leave you that note and she stayed down in the car. It was raining and she didn’t want to get wet but I think that she was also afraid to see you after what her people did. While I was up at your door somebody shot her in the head.”
“The police didn’t say that.”
“Uh-uh. The cops you talked to don’t know yet. The Santa Monica police found her but she didn’t have no ID.”
“Why? Why would they do that?”
“Because somebody was waitin’ for you. Because they saw me drive up an’ leave her in the car. Because she had something they wanted.”
“What could she have that would get her killed?”
“A child’s croquet set.”
I might as well have slapped her. Whatever words or arguments or points she had to make died in her throat. Her mouth hung open, silent.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll take you over to my house. It’s not too far.”
The stewardess had on flat shoes and so the walk wasn’t too bad. It was about seven. A strong wind was blowing and light filled the weak blue sky. Cars moved with purpose on the broad boulevard.
Feather was in the front room laughing with Pharaoh. She stopped dead when she saw that a woman had come into the house. Feather didn’t have much experience with women in our house. Jesus brushed her hair and saw that she got dressed. I cooked the meals and wiped her nose. I answered her questions about right and wrong, good and bad.