Conrad had pulled himself up so that his back was against the wall. We were in a dark room that had once been a kitchen. Dark because there was only one small window and two forty-watt bulbs for light, and once because the stove was dismantled, the refrigerator was open and unplugged, and all the shelf space and the sink were piled with books and magazines, cans of paint, and various tools. The unfinished wooden table had one metal chair (which I’d used to imprison the thug), a typewriter, and various sheets of paper.
Conrad glared at me.
“I know you,” he said.
“I guess that means he didn’t knock the sense outta your head.”
“What you doin’ here?” he asked. “I mean, how’d you find me?”
“What’s happening Saturday?” I asked him.
Conrad’s attempt at looking innocent was enough to make me want to laugh.
“You know,” I said. “You told that man beatin’ on you that you could pay your debt on Sunday after you did something on Saturday.”
“I... I... I was just talkin’, brother. Tryin’ to save my ass from gettin’ kicked.” Conrad looked away from me, trying to hide the lie in his eyes.
“Oh,” I said. “I thought it had to do with those stolen guns you and Brawly took over to BobbiAnne’s house.”
Making no attempt to rise, Conrad looked up into my eyes. He did not blink.
“You and Xavier plannin’ some kinda war?” I asked, just to keep up the pretense of a conversation.
“No. No. I’m gonna move them guns is all. Move ’em and then split the money with Bad Boy. On Saturday.”
On a whim I asked, “What you got to tell me about Aldridge Brown?”
Again his eyes darted away.
“Did you kill him, or did Brawly?” I asked.
“I don’t know what the fuck you talkin’ about, man. I never heard’a no Alvin Brown.”
“Where’s Brawly?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Does he have a room somewhere?”
“I only see him at the meetins,” he said.
“You collect them guns at the meetins?” I asked.
“I don’t have to talk to you,” he said angrily. He was working himself up, getting ready to do something.
“The cops think that you’re about to blow up City Hall, Anton.”
“How you know?” he asked. “You a cop?”
I pulled out the gangster’s gun. It was a long-nosed .22, a killer’s caliber. I pulled back the hammer and Conrad’s handsome Caucasian features blanched.
“Get up,” I said, and he hopped to it.
“Take off your shoes and socks.”
He obeyed that command, too.
“Turn out your pockets,” I said. “And put everything on the table.”
By this time there was the sound of movement coming from the toilet. Conrad glanced at the door fearfully.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said.
“Go where?”
“Out to my car.”
We left the house and walked to my car. I stayed close to Conrad, with the gun always touching his side. I made him get in on the driver’s side and scoot over to the passenger’s seat.
“This gun don’t make no more noise than a cap pistol,” I told him, pressing the muzzle firmly into his side. “But it will tear your guts up.”
As we drove I asked him the same questions. He told me again that he and Brawly were in the gun business, that they were going to unload the weapons on Saturday so that he could pay his gambling debt to Angel London, a bookmaker from Redondo Beach.
I had a knotty problem. There was a semiconscious killer wedged into Conrad’s bathroom. The killer now hated me more than he did Conrad. I couldn’t let him see me or question Conrad about my identity. On the other hand, if I left Conrad in his house, he might have shot the gangster through the door or window. One way I’d be the target of a killer, and the other I’d be an accessory to murder.
So I decided to take Conrad on a drive up into Griffith Park. He was sweating and, I’m sure, expecting to be killed. So he breathed a sigh of relief when I kicked him out way up on a hillside. He didn’t even complain about being let out with no wallet and no shoes.
“Next time maybe you’ll give me a ride back to my car when I ask for it,” I said before driving off.
I doubted that Conrad would go back home, and I was sure that the gangster was already on the street looking for my name.
— 18 —
Jesus, Feather, and I all got home at about the same time. I picked them up as they got off the blue bus at Pico and Genesee.
Feather had a homework assignment that she was so concentrated on, she didn’t even take time for her snack before she was hard at work at the kitchen table.
“It’s a book about a girl who fought in a war,” she told me, “in Frenchland. I have to read it and write a book report.”
“What girl?”
“Joan Arks,” she said.
“Did she have a gun?” I asked.
“No, un-uh, a sword. A big sword.”
“And did she cut off people’s heads?”
“No. She just held it up over her head and ran after the enemy and they got scared and run.”
It was a real book, about thirty pages, with large print and a black-and-white illustration every six pages or so. The cover showed Joan with the sword held high, men on their knees before her and men shouting her praises from behind. Feather studied each page with rapt attention.
“You want peanut butter an’ jelly, sis?” Juice asked her.
“Um, uh-huh.”
He made her the sandwich and poured some milk while I put rice on to boil and took frozen oxtails, which I’d cooked a week before, from the freezer. I also had a bowl of green beans and ham hocks on ice. When Feather had snacked and the food was all cooking, Jesus and I went into the backyard, where his long planks and sawhorses stood.
“So you still think you gonna build that boat, huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And what about school?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“If you wanna drop out, I got to sign a paper, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you have to look me in the face and talk to me, ’cause I don’t see any reason at all that you can’t go to school when every other kid in Los Angeles seems to be able to.”
“Not everybody,” he said.
“No. Pregnant girls and juvenile delinquents don’t go. Kids acting in the movies and little kids don’t have no parents to show ’em the right way to go. But everybody else makes it.”
Jesus turned away. He was probably going to leave, but I took his arm before he could make a move.
“Talk to me.”
He sat on the grass and I did, too. When he started rocking back and forth, I put my hand on his knee.
“I love you, boy,” I said. “You know when I was a kid I lost my parents, too. I know what it’s like to be in the street. That’s why I wanna see you get an education. What I never had.”
He stopped fidgeting and looked into my eyes.
“I can’t learn in class,” he said.
“Of course you can,” I said.
“No.” His tone and demeanor could not be denied. “I don’t want to listen to them anymore. They act like we should just listen and believe. They say things that are wrong. They lock the gates. I don’t want to be there anymore.”
“But you just have a little bit more than a year to go.”
“I want to build my boat.”
“Will you stay in school and try hard if I tell you to?” I asked him.
After a moment’s hesitation he said, “I guess I will.”
“Then let me think about it for a couple of days.”