“That’s crazy,” Sam decreed.
“Yeah, you better believe it. More than that,” I said. “Crazy ain’t even the word.”
Sam brought me to a small house in Riverside, on a street called Del Sol. The lawn was unruly and the bushes that grew around the walls had become ragged. From the design of the house, I was sure that it was built by the people who had first lived in it. Arc-shaped and multileveled, it was two stories to the right of the entrance and only one to the left. When Clarissa opened the front door she fell back and I could see that there was another door behind her. The glass in that door revealed a green backyard. It was a home with its own personality. I broke out a cigarette to accent my pleasure at the unique design.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Doris called but she just said that you were comin’, Sam.”
“It’s okay,” Sam said. “I know you been lyin’ to me, but Easy here done broke it down. I brought him to find out about Brawly, but he ain’t gonna do nuthin’ to hurt either one’a you.”
Clarissa’s shoulders slumped and she led us into the living room, which was in the two-story part of the house. The room had been straightened up recently. I could tell that the once pristine white carpet had seen a spate of stains and cigarette holes, but all of that had been vacuumed and cleaned to show its best face. The rosewood furniture was old and well cared for, except at one time the spilled glasses had been set upon the surfaces with no coasters and the cigarettes that fell to the floor first were set on the corners, where they left bullet-shaped black smudges along the edge.
Everything that could be reached was dusted, but there were cobwebs along the ceiling and thick dust at the top of the drapes.
Clarissa was wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt with no bra underneath. She was a good-looking girl. Her skin was dark and her light eyes large and translucent. If I had to guess her thoughts, I would have said that she was hoping that she could close her eyes and when she opened them we would be gone.
“Sit down, Clare,” Sam said.
She did as she was told.
The fluffy tan sofa and chairs had been vacuumed also. The suction hole had left neat lines across each fabric surface. I took to a chair while Sam sat down next to his cousin on the couch.
“Mr. Rawlins has some questions to ask you,” Sam said.
“I ain’t talkin’ to him,” she said.
“Why not?” A sharp tone came into Sam’s voice.
“’Cause I ain’t,” she declared, and I was reminded of Juice.
“They killed Henry Strong,” I said. “You know that, right?” Clarissa looked up at me with hatred in her eyes.
“I didn’t do it, sugar,” I told her. “But whoever did is still out there.”
“What’s that got to do with me an’ Brawly?”
“The first one killed was his father,” I said. “Somebody beat him to death at Isolda Moore’s house.”
For an instant the bright-eyed girl froze.
“Isolda Moore,” I repeated. “She’s Brawly’s cousin, used to live up here. You know her, don’t you, Clarissa?”
“Bitch,” she uttered.
“What kinda language is that?” Sam said.
“Let her use any language she need to, Sam,” I said. “Is this her house?” I then asked Clarissa.
“No.”
“Then it must be BobbiAnne’s,” I said. “BobbiAnne Terrell’s house. What is it, the parents dead? Moved away for good? They can’t just be on vacation, not with the mess this place was in before you cleaned it up.”
Clarissa was stunned by my simple deductions. Sam was, too.
“How you know all that?” he said.
“Did they bring the guns out here?” I asked Clarissa.
She shook her head.
“What guns?” Sam wanted to know.
“How long was Conrad livin’ out here?” I asked.
Clarissa started to cry.
“I didn’t tell you,” she sobbed. “I wouldn’t.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” I said in a soothing tone. “You’d never betray your man. But you kids are in it deep. It doesn’t matter that he thinks he’s invisible, that he believe the cops and the government don’t know what he’s doin’. He thinks they don’t even know he’s out there, but he’s in plain sight, like a sittin’ duck, like a fish in a barrel, like—”
“Stop it,” Clarissa cried. “What do you want from me?”
“It’s like I told you from the start,” I said. “I’m workin’ for Brawly’s mother. She thinks he’s in trouble, and I think she’s right. What I need from you is to help me help him outta the mess he don’t even know he in.”
“He told me not to talk to you.”
Sam reared up and opened his mouth, but I put up a hand before he could holler.
“I know,” I said. “I know. You love him and you think he loves you. And if you go behind his back, he might get so mad that he’ll just walk away — you might not never see him again. But that ain’t nuthin’. You’re a pretty girl and good in your heart. You’ll find another boyfriend and Brawly will still be breathin’.”
“He said that you were the police” was her reply.
“Honey,” Sam said. “You know that man I always talked about — Raymond Alexander?”
“The one they called Mouse?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. You know all them stories I said about him. About when he faced down and killed three armed men in the Fifth Ward and all he had was a stick. About when the police heard that he was holed up in a house outside’a L.A. and said that they couldn’t go because it was across the county line.”
“And when three of his girlfriends,” Clarissa added with a grin, “made his birthday party with bows in their hair.”
“That’s him.”
Clarissa smiled and said, “So?”
“This here Easy Rawlins was Mouse’s best friend. They ran together for almost thirty years, since they were kids. If there’s anything I’m sure of, it’s that Mouse would never have run with a man that could turn another black man over to the cops.”
“I thought you said that Mouse was dead,” Clarissa said.
“Nobody ever saw a body or went to a funeral,” Sam replied. “And even if they did, that wouldn’t turn Easy here into no rat.”
Clarissa considered for a moment and so did I. I wondered at the strength of character and will of a man like Raymond who could reach out beyond the grave to help me in that Riverside hideout.
— 36 —
“No,” Clarissa was saying, “he didn’t ever tell me what he was doin’. All I know is that they started to work with Mr. Strong on somethin’. They were like a special group inside the Party, and only a few of them knew what was goin’ on.”
“What were they doing?” I asked again.
“I don’t know. Conrad would come over and pick Brawly up at all hours. They’d go off and meet with Mr. Strong—”
“Did he meet with anybody else?” I asked.
“I think so,” she said. “But I never knew who. I mean, I figured that they were in the group but it was all secret.”
“Now why they wanna keep somethin’ like that a secret?” Sam asked his cousin.
“Sam,” I said, “I let you come along but this is my party.”
He didn’t like to hear it, but he sat back on the couch.
“But you did know about the guns,” I said.
She looked down at her knotted hands and nodded.
“How’d you know?”
“One day Brawly had Conrad’s Cadillac,” she whispered. “He had let Conrad off at somebody’s place and they didn’t want his car to be around there, so Brawly took it. He brought me out there and showed me in the trunk. It was six or seven rifles wrapped in army blankets.”
“What he say they planned to do with them?”