A thousand questions went through my mind. Did you kiss him? Did you hold hands in the sunset? Did you say that you loved him? But I knew I couldn’t ask. Did he touch your breast? Did he breathe in your breath on a blanket near the water? I knew that if I asked one question they would never stop coming.
I stood up. I was dizzy, light-headed, but didn’t let it show.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I got a job to do for Etta. A woman already paid me, so I got to move it on.”
“What kind of job?”
“Nuthin’ you need to know about. It’s my business.” And with that I showered and shaved, powdered and dressed. I left her in the house with her confessions and her lies.
With no other information available to me, I went to see Etta at the Merchants’ seaside retreat. She only pulled the door open enough to see me.
“Go away, Easy,” she said.
“Open the door, Etta.”
“Go away.”
“No.”
Maybe I had gained some strength of will working for the city schools. Or maybe Etta was getting worn down between losing her husband and working for the rich. All I knew was that at another time she could have stared me down. Instead the door swung open.
Inside, sitting on the blue couch with golden clamshell feet, was a young black man and young white woman, both of them beautiful. They were holding hands and huddling like frightened children. They were frightened children. If it wasn’t for the broken heart driving me, I would have been scared too.
“They came after you called me, Easy,” Etta said.
“Why didn’t you call back?”
“You did what I asked you to already. You found them. That’s all I could ask.”
“I’m Easy,” I said to the couple.
“Willis,” the boy said. He made a waving gesture, and I noticed that his hands were bloody and bandaged.
“Sin,” the girl said. There was something crooked about her face, but that just stoked the fires of her dangerous beauty.
“What happened to Big Art, Sin?”
Her mouth dropped open while she groped for a lie.
“I already know you called your father,” I said.
“I was just mad at Art,” she said. “He didn’t have to beat up Willis and hurt his hands. I thought my father would come and maybe do something.” Her eyes grew glassy.
“What happened?”
“I told Art that I was going down to the liquor store and then I called Daddy. I told him that I was with a guy but I was scared to leave, and he said to wait somewhere near at hand. Then I waited in the coffee shop across the street. When I saw Abel, I got scared and went to get Willy. When we came back to get my clothes he was...” She trailed off in the memory of the slaughter.
I turned to Willis and said, “You’d be better off holding a gun to your head.”
“I didn’t mean for him to get killed,” Sinestra said angrily.
“What now?” I asked Etta.
“I’m tryin’ to talk some sense to ’em. I’m tryin’ to tell Sin to go home and Willis to get away before he ends up like that Art fella.”
“I’m not going back,” Sinestra proclaimed.
“And I’m not leavin’ her or L.A.”
“She just had a big man break your fingers, and then she went and fucked him.”
“She didn’t know. She was just flirtin’ and it got outta hand. She’s just innocent, that’s all.”
My mouth fell open, and I put my hand to cover it.
Etta started laughing. Laughing hard and loud.
“What are you laughing at?” Sinestra asked.
I started laughing too.
“Shut up, shut up,” Sinestra said.
“Yes. Please be quiet,” Abel Snow said from a door in the back.
He had a pistol in his hand.
“There’s a man in a car parked out front, Sinestra,” Snow said. “Go out to him. He’ll take you home.”
Without a word, the young white woman went for the door.
Etta looked into my eyes. Her stare was hard and certain.
“Sin,” Willis said.
She hesitated and then went out the door without looking back.
“Well, well, well,” Abel Snow said. “Here we are. Just us four.”
Willis was sitting on the couch. Etta and I were standing on either side of the boy. He turned on the blue sofa to see Snow.
“You gonna kill us?” I asked, my voice soaked with manufactured fear.
“You’re gonna go away,” he said, and smiled.
I took a step to the side, away from Etta.
“You gonna let us go?” Willis asked, playing his part well, though I’m sure he didn’t know it.
Snow was amused. He was listening for something.
Etta put her hands down at her side. She raised her face to look at the ceiling and prayed, “Lord, forgive us for what we do.”
At a picnic table Snow’s grin would have been friendly.
I took another step and bumped into the wall.
“Nowhere to run,” Snow apologized. “Take it like a man and it won’t hurt.”
“Please God,” Etta said beseechingly. She bent over slightly.
A car horn honked. That was what Snow was waiting for. He raised his pistol. I closed my eyes, the left one a little harder than the right.
Then I forced my eyes open. Abel Snow brought his left heel off the floor, preparing to pivot after killing me. EttaMae pulled a pistol out of the fold of her dress, aimed it at his head, and sucked in a breath. It was that breath that made Snow turn his head instead of pulling the trigger. Etta’s bullet caught him in the temple. He crumpled to the floor, a sack of stones that had recently been a man.
“Oh no,” Willis cried. He pulled his legs up underneath himself. “Oh no.”
Etta looked at me. Her face was hard, her jaws were clenched in victory.
“I knew you had to be armed, baby,” I said. “If he was smart, he would’a shot you first.”
“This ain’t no joke, Easy. What we gonna do with him?”
“What caliber you use?” I asked.
“Twenty-five caliber,” she said. “You know what I carry.”
“Didn’t even sound that loud. Nobody live close enough to have heard it.”
“They gonna come in here sooner or later. And even before that he ain’t gonna report in to Mr. Merchant.”
“Tell me somethin’, Etta.”
“What?”
“You plannin’ to go back to work for them?”
“Hell no.”
“Then call your boss. Tell him that Abel’s not comin’ home and that there’s a mess down here.”
“Put myself on the line like that?”
“It’s him on the line. I bet the gun in Abel’s hand was the one he used on Art. And if that girl of his finds out about any killing in this house, she’d have somethin’ on her old man till all the money runs out.”
“What about Willis?”
“I’ll take care of him. But we better get outta here now.”
I drove Etta to a bus station in Santa Monica. She kissed me goodbye through the car window.
“Don’t feel guilty about Raymond,” she said. “Much as was wrong with him, he took responsibility for everything he did.”
“What you gonna do with me?” Willis Longtree asked as we drove toward L.A.
“Take you to a doctor. Make sure your hand bones set right.”
“I’m still gonna stay here an’ try an’ make it in music,” he told me.
“Oh? What they call you when you were a boy?” I asked.
“Little Jimmy,” he said. “Little Jimmy because my father was James and everybody said I looked just like him.”
“Little Jimmy Long,” I said, testing out the name. “Try that on for a while. I can get you a job as a custodian at my school. Do that for a while and try to meet your dreams. Who knows? Maybe you will be some kinda star one day.”