“No. Really I don’t think he cared about politics. But he had a lot of trouble with Brawly when Brawly was a boy, and they were tryin’ to make up for it.”
“Do you think whoever killed Strong killed Brawly’s father?”
“The police killed Henry, but what do you mean about Mr. Brown?” If she was lying, she was a master at it.
“He was killed two days ago at a house owned by a woman named Isolda Moore.”
Tina shook her head slowly.
“Don’t you read the newspaper?” I asked.
“Why would I? It’s all lies anyway,” she said. “Why be blinded by white men’s lies?”
“Because you might read something that has something to do with you,” I said. “That’s why.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Rawlins. I’ve been staying at different friends’ houses since the night the cops busted up our meeting. Mr. Strong said that we should keep moving because the police had us all on a list and the leaders might be killed. I only came here tonight to get my stuff and move away. Miss Latour has always been kind and friendly. She told me I should talk with you, but really I don’t know anything about guns and murderers.”
“Why do you think the cops killed Strong?” I asked her.
“Because he’s so important to the movement. He told us that the police would try to eliminate our elite either by framing them or by assassination.”
Before I visited with Colonel Lakeland I would have sneered at the possibility of such a conspiracy; now, I didn’t know.
“What about Aldridge?” I asked. “Why would the cops kill him?”
“I don’t know. He never went to our meetings or anything. He just picked up Brawly sometimes and took us out for coffee.”
“But him and Brawly got along okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, they had a bad history, like I said. But that was all worked out. You could tell that Brawly was still a little distant, though.”
I tucked her words away. It was a puzzle with too many pieces. Even if one thing seemed to fit, something else was left to the side.
“What about you and Strong?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Did he ever come by here without Xavier knowin’ it?”
“A few times. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Men and women are free to know each other and see each other and—”
“How much did you show to Mr. Strong?” I asked.
“What business is that of yours?”
“Because after this talk here I’m gonna ask you to go with me to see Xavier. I don’t wanna say anything that will make him so mad that he loses reason.”
“Why would I take you to Xavier, anyway?”
“I didn’t say I wanted you to take me to him. I know where he lives. On Hoover.” I told her the address. “What I need is for you to pave the way for a calm conversation. Now how are we going to be calm if in the middle of it, it turns out that you’ve been beddin’ the master?”
The intensity of Tina’s eyes told me that Liselle’s suspicions were right.
“It wasn’t nuthin’,” Tina said. “He was lonely down here and we liked to talk. One day he put his hand on the back of my neck...”
I didn’t care about the details. I didn’t care that they had been together at all.
“Where?” I asked.
“My neck.”
“No. Where were you when you first... um... kissed him?”
“At his place.”
“The Colorado Hotel?”
“No.” She gave me a Watts address, not far from Central Avenue.
“Okay,” I said. “We don’t have to talk about that with Xavier. But did Henry say anything other than he thought he was gonna be assassinated? Killed?”
“No.”
“He was shot over by some tract houses goin’ up over in Compton,” I said. “You ever go there with him, or he ever talk about it?”
“Brawly was out there,” she said, hesitating over the memory. “I think Henry went out there with him once, maybe more times.”
“Why?”
“Henry liked Brawly. He said that he was a revolutionary in the rough. He told me that he was cultivating him for the movement.”
Like he was doing with you, I thought.
“You wanna go see Xavier?” I asked.
“Why?”
“Because I know things that he should know. Because somebody’s killin’ people close to you and it would be good to find out who.”
“I know who it is,” she said.
“You think you know,” I said. “But you can’t put a face on ’em. You think you know, but why would the cops kill Aldridge Brown? Why kill Strong? He’s from Oakland. Xavier’s the head man. Why not him or you — or Anton Breland?”
“How can I trust you?” Her question cut all the way down to my core. I thought of Mouse and how he went out with me and never came back. And he was my friend.
“You can’t,” I said. “How could you? You don’t know me. You don’t know who I know. All you know is that I knew where to look for you and that I know where to find Xavier. Come with me, watch me, and maybe you’ll find out if you can trust me or not.”
— 28 —
Jasper Xavier Bodan lived on the third floor of a rooming house on Hoover. He was at the end of a long hall lit by a single bulb.
There was a strip of light showing at the foot of his door.
“Who is it?” he asked after Tina knocked.
“Tina,” she said. “And the man who pulled me out of the storefront the other night. Easy Rawlins.”
The door opened inward. The room beyond seemed to be empty. I followed Tina with my hands visible at waist level. Xavier was standing behind the door with an extremely small pistol in his hand.
He pushed the door shut and glowered at us.
“Why you bring him here?” he asked Tina.
“He already knew your address,” she said. “He invited me to come with him.”
“Why you talk to him in the first place?”
“He found my address, and Miss Latour said that he was good at helpin’ black folks out when they’re in trouble,” Tina said. She was another young woman pleading for her black man to listen to reason. “I brought him because he says that he wants to help.”
“I don’t need your help,” he said to me. “I should have let Conrad shoot you the other night.”
When he held the pistol up in my face, it didn’t seem so small anymore. The proximity of the muzzle affected my lungs. I could breathe in just fine, but my exhaling ability seemed to be paralyzed.
“Put that gun down, Xavier,” Tina said. “He came here to talk to you.”
“I don’t need to talk.”
“Yes, you do,” I said. Forcing the air out of my lungs was one of the most difficult physical tasks I’d ever performed. I was dying for a cigarette. “There’s things you don’t know. Things that will put all of this in a different light.”
“Listen to him, baby,” Tina said. She moved next to the skinny kid. When she put her hand on his gun arm, I flinched, afraid that he might clench up and shoot me by mistake.
When Xavier let his pistol down to his side, my whole body relaxed. I realized that I had to use the bathroom but decided that it wasn’t a good time to ask where the facilities were.
“Can I sit?” I asked.
“Over there.” He pointed to a solitary wooden chair.
I sat down and reached for my pocket, remembering again that I’d thrown my cigarettes away.
“You got a cigarette?”
Tina reached into her purse and came out with a filter-tipped smoke.
“What you got to tell me?” Xavier said as Tina lit a match for me.
I inhaled deeply and my throat and lungs felt a strange cold burning all the way down. For a second I was afraid that I’d been poisoned but then I realized that it was a mentholated cigarette.