“So, what do you want from me?”
“Why’d Howard Green get killed?”
She stared through me as if I were a mirage. “Who?”
“Come on.”
She looked away for a moment and then sighed. “Howard worked for a rich man named Matthew Teran. He was Teran’s driver, chauffeur. Teran wanted to run for mayor but in that crowd you have to ask permission like. Todd didn’t want Teran to do it.”
“How come?” I asked.
“A while ago I met him, Teran I mean, and he was buying a little Mexican boy from Richard.”
“The man we found?”
She nodded.
“And who was he?”
“Richard and I were” — she hesitated for a moment — “friends.”
“Boyfriend?”
She nodded slightly. “Before I met Todd we spent some time together.”
“The night I first started lookin’ for you I ran into Richard in front of John’s speak. Was he lookin’ for you?”
“He might have been. He didn’t want to let me go so he got together with Teran and Howard Green, to cause me trouble so they could get at Todd.”
“What kind of trouble?” I asked.
“Howard knew something. Something about me.”
“What?”
But she wouldn’t answer that question.
“Who killed Howard?” I asked.
She didn’t answer at first. She just played with the blankets, letting them fall down below her breasts.
“Joppy did,” she said at last. She wouldn’t meet my eye.
“Joppy!” I cried. “Why’d he want to do somethin’ like that?” But I knew it was the truth even before I asked the question. It would take the kind of violence Joppy had to beat someone to death.
“Coretta too?”
Daphne nodded. The sight of her nakedness nauseated me right then.
“Why?”
“Sometimes I would go to Joppy’s place with Frank. Just because Frank liked people to see me with him. And the last time I went there Joppy whispered that someone had been asking for me and that I should call him later to find out who. That’s when I found out about that Albright man.”
“But what about Howard and Coretta? What about them?”
“Howard Green had already come to me and told me that if I didn’t do what he and his boss said, they would ruin me. I told Joppy that I could get him a thousand dollars if he could make sure that Albright didn’t find me and if he could talk with Howard.”
“So he killed Howard?”
“It was a mistake, I think. Howard had a fast tongue. Joppy just got mad.”
“But what about Coretta?”
“When she came to me I told Joppy about it. I told him that you were asking questions and” — she hesitated — “he killed her. He was scared by then. He’d already killed one man.”
“Why didn’t he kill you?”
She raised her head and threw her hair back. “I hadn’t given him the money yet. He still wanted the thousand dollars. Anyway, he thought I was Frank’s girl. Most people respect Frank.”
“What’s Frank to you?”
“Not anything you’d ever understand, Easy.”
“Well, do you think he knows who killed Matthew Teran?”
“I don’t know, Easy. I haven’t killed anybody.”
“Where’s the money?”
“Somewhere. Not here. Not where you can get it.”
“That money’s gonna get you killed, girl.”
“You kill me, Easy.” She reached over to touch my knee.
I stood up. “Daphne, I gotta talk to Mr. Carter.”
“I won’t go back to him. Not ever.”
“He just wants to talk. You don’t have to be in love with him to talk.”
“You don’t understand. I do love him and because of that I can’t ever see him.” There were tears in her eyes.
“You makin’ this hard, Daphne.”
She reached for me again.
“Cut it out!”
“How much will Todd give you for me?”
“Thousand.”
“Get me to Frank and I’ll give you two.”
“Frank tried to kill me.”
“He won’t do anything to you if I’m there.”
“Take more than your smile to stop Frank.”
“Take me to him, Easy; it’s the only way you’ll get paid.”
“What about Mr. Carter and Albright?”
“They want me, Easy. Let Frank and me take care of it.”
“What’s Frank to you?” I asked again.
She smiled at me then. Her eyes turned blue and she lay back against the wall behind the bed. “Will you help me?”
“I don’t know. I gotta get outta here.”
“Why?”
“It’s just too much,” I said, remembering Sophie. “I need some air to breathe.”
“We could stay here, honey; this is the only place for us.”
“You wrong, Daphne. We don’t have to listen to them. If we love each other then we can be together. Ain’t no one can stop that.”
She smiled, sadly. “You don’t understand.”
“You mean all you want from me is a roll in the hay. Get a little nigger-love out back and then straighten your clothes and put on your lipstick like you didn’t ever even feel it.”
She put out her hand to touch me but I moved away. “Easy,” she said. “You have it wrong.”
“Let’s go get somethin’ to eat,” I said, looking away. “There’s a Chinese place a few blocks from here. We could walk there through a shortcut out back.”
“It’ll be gone when we get back,” she said.
I imagined that she had said that to lots of men. And lots of men would have stayed rather than lose her.
We dressed in silence.
When we were ready to go a thought came to me.
“Daphne?”
“Yes, Easy?” Her voice was bored.
“I wanted to know somethin’.”
“What’s that?”
“Why’d you call me yesterday?”
She turned green eyes on me. “I love you, Easy. I knew it from the first moment we met.”
Chapter 27
Chow’s Chow was a kind of Chinese diner that was common in L.A. back in the forties and fifties. There were no tables, just one long counter with twelve stools. Mr. Ling stood behind the counter in front of a long black stove on which he prepared three dishes: fried rice, egg foo yong, and chow mein. You could have any one of these dishes with chicken, pork, shrimp, beef, or, on Sunday, lobster.
Mr. Ling was a short man who always wore thin white pants and a white T-shirt. He had the tattoo of a snake that coiled out from under the left side of his collar, went around the back of his neck, and ended up in the middle of his right cheek. The snake’s head had two great fangs and a long, rippling red tongue.
“What you want?” he yelled at me. I had been in Mr. Ling’s diner at least a dozen times but he never recognized me. He never recognized any customer.
“Fried rice,” Daphne said in a soft voice.
“What kind?” Mr. Ling shouted. And then, before she could answer, “Pork, chicken, shrimp, beef!”
“I’ll have chicken and shrimp, please.”
“Cost more!”
“That’ll be alright, sir.”
I had egg foo yong with pork.
Daphne seemed a little calmer. I had the feeling that if I could get her to open up, to talk to me, then I could talk some sense into her. I didn’t want to force her to see Carter. If I forced her I could have been arrested for kidnapping and there was no telling how Carter would have reacted to her being manhandled. And maybe I loved her a little bit right then. She looked very nice in that blue dress.
“You know, I don’t want to force anything on you, Daphne. I mean, the way I feel you don’t ever have to kiss Carter again and it’s okay with me.”
I could feel her smile in my chest and in other parts of my body.
“You ever go to the zoo, Easy?”