“I see what you got here, man,” I said, pointing at his pitiful pile of loot. “And what you ain’t got. You was out there that night when your boys pulled that white man outta his car. Either that or you were up here twiddlin’ your thumbs figurin’ out what chair to sit in. You were out there. Maybe you didn’t get a lick in. Maybe not. But you saw him and you saw where he went too.”
It was all guesswork. He was a looter and young. He was black in America, transplanted from the South, and all alone in a room hot enough to brew tea.
Bobby stared at me with anxious, calculating eyes. He wanted to steer clear of trouble and he was wondering if a lie or the truth would accomplish that end.
“I don’t know nuthin’ about what happened to Nola,” he said at last. “I haven’t even seen her since before the riotin’ started. All I know is some men pult that white man outta the red car and beat him. He ran away an’ after that I don’t know nuthin’.”
It could have been true.
“So you didn’t see Nola since the riots started?” I asked.
“No sir.”
“Did anybody around here see her?”
“Nobody I know.”
The police had put a muzzle on the murder. It hadn’t happened—yet.
“I need to know two things, Robert,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Where does Nola live exactly and who stole the white man’s car?”
“What do I get out of it?”
“For starters I won’t throw you out the window.”
“You think I’m scared’a you, old man?” the youth asked me.
“You should be, son. You should be.”
Grant had a weak jaw. When his mouth hung open he looked pathetic, though I’m sure he thought he was looking mean.
When he saw I wasn’t buying it he broke into a half-hearted laugh.
“I’m just fuckin’ wit’ you, man. Yeah, sure I’ll tell ya. Nola live over on the right over here on the third floor, apartment three. And it was Loverboy stoled that man’s car.”
“Loverboy?”
“Uh-huh. He famous around here. He steals cars for a livin’. One boy tried to set that white man’s car on fire but Loverboy an’ this other dude pushed him down an’ stoled that mothahfuckah.”
“You know his real name?” I asked.
Bobby Grant shook his head.
I couldn’t think of anything else to ask so I left him with his train sets, work pants, and his stacks of empty dishes.
11
When I got back out on the street the crowd on the corner was gone. That was either a good or a bad thing. Maybe Newell went home to lick his wounds or maybe to get his pistol. But either way, there was no turning back for me then. I went to the apartment building where Nola lived. It was next to a small grocery that had been gutted and torched.
Across the street the Gaynor Furniture store was just a gaping hole flanked by three walls. There was devastation up and down the block and for miles around. For a moment the enormity of what had happened got to me. On TV they had aerial views of this part of the city. It looked like Germany did when we marched in at the end of the war.
It was like a war, I thought. A war being fought under the skin of America. The soldiers were all unwilling conscripts who had no idea of why they were fighting or what victory might mean.
NOLA’S DOOR WAS locked but I had a slender metal slat in a comb sleeve in my pocket. That slat could crack most simple locks and latches. I also had a letter in my pocket that would get me out of jail if it came to that.
The apartment seemed together. There was no overturned furniture or open, tossed drawers. Nola Payne had been a neat woman. Her bed was made and the floors were swept. The dishes were stacked on the kitchen counter because there were no shelves installed. She had a two-burner black wrought-iron stove.
In her bedroom there was a small photograph in a silver frame set upon a two-drawer cabinet. Nola was in the foreground backed up by a tall brown man with a grin on his lips and his arms wrapped around her waist.
In the trash can in the bathroom there were three bloody rags torn from a sheet like the one Bobby used for a curtain.
I couldn’t find another drop of blood anywhere. Then I remembered that she was shot after being murdered.
Nola’s window looked down on Grape Street. The youth in the overalls was back on the corner with three or four others. Juanda wasn’t there. I was angry at myself for noticing her absence. I wasn’t looking for a woman to play around with. Bonnie was my woman. We nearly broke up over her African prince but then we’d decided to stay together.
I intended to honor that decision.
There was no address book among Nola’s things. That was odd. Such a neat and organized woman would have a place where she kept her phone numbers and addresses. I found her purse. She had a wallet with eight dollars and a silver chain with a broken clasp.
I searched for an address book for ten minutes. No one, especially a stranger, would have taken it, so I thought that it must be someplace obvious—staring me in the face. Finally I gave up. Maybe Nola was a loner and didn’t have to jot down the few numbers she called regularly.
As I walked out of Nola’s apartment I was thinking about Juanda’s yellow-and-white dress. It fit her figure perfectly. I speculated that she was in her early twenties and unmarried. Her skin was dark and she had big nostrils. Her face had an animal quality, like a fairy-tale fox.
I shook my head, dislodging the image. But when I walked into the hallway, there she was.
“Mr. Rawlins?”
“Yes, Juanda, what is it?”
“Um.” She was looking at me with hungry eyes. She expected me to embrace her. I was feeling it too but I didn’t give in.
“Yeah?”
“Newell went to get some’a his friends. They drivin’ around now lookin’ for you.”
“How did you find me?”
“I went to ask Bobby.”
“Why didn’t Newell ask him?”
“’Cause I told him that I’d go over and ask and when I told him Bobby didn’t know he believed me.”
I couldn’t seem to take a satisfying breath. The clamor of new love was rattling around in my chest in spite of my intentions.
I knew it was an effect of the riots, that the passion of release had let something go in me. And Juanda was a black woman looking out for me, taking chances for me. She was a poor man’s dream. And I was still, and always would be, a poor man in my heart.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I like you, I guess.”
“I’m parked over on Graham,” I said. “What’s the best way for me to get there without having to kick Newell’s ass again?”
My brave words thrilled Juanda.
“Down out the back way. We could go on a Hundred and Thirteenth Street across Willow Brook and over to Graham.”
“You comin’ with me?” I asked.
“Maybe, if you don’t mind. I need a ride to my auntie’s over on Florence.”
I gestured for her to lead the way and she smiled. Everything we did seemed to be important. I knew that any step I took, either toward her or away, I would regret in the morning.
“WHAT’S NEWELL’S PROBLEM with people?” I asked as we crossed Willow Brook. “I mean, I didn’t start this thing with him.”
“He just jealous.”
“Of me? He don’t even know me.”
“Naw, it’s me,” Juanda said. “He think if he say I’m his girl enough times, it’a wind up bein’ true. But you know I might have other ideas.”
“But what do I have to do with you?”
“You stood up to him and he got embarrassed, that’s all.” Juanda gave me a sidelong glance that made my heart flutter.
I led her to my car.
“This new car is yours?” she asked.
“Yeah. Jump in.”
She squealed and hopped in. For the next few minutes her talk followed a meandering line starting with how her uncle had a car like mine. Her uncle was a plumber for the city, he’d married her mother’s sister twenty years before when Aunt Lovey (whose house we were going to) was only seventeen. Everybody thought it was scandalous for a thirty-eight-year-old man to wed a teenager but Juanda thought that it was okay. She liked older men. But not men like Newell. Newell was always complaining about how people did him wrong, white people mainly, but he didn’t like black bosses, ministers, store owners, or policemen either. When a man got older, she said, he should feel comfortable with the world and not mad because things didn’t go his way. That’s why she liked me. I stood up for myself but still didn’t lord it over people when I had the upper hand. For instance, I could have kicked Newell when he was down but I didn’t. I could have told everybody that I was a friend of Raymond Alexander’s but I didn’t. That’s because I was sure of myself and Juanda liked that, she liked it very much.