“It was over in just a minute. Holland was laughing kind of crazy. He was all sweaty and his eyes were shiny, like he had a fever. He put on his clothes and then when I asked him for the carpet balls he laughed and told me that I was going to work for him. He said that I owed him because of what Ida did.”
“And so you killed him?”
“He said that I was going to be his new wife now that Roman was dead and Ida was gone. He made me get dressed. He made me sit on his lap and kiss him. It was like you said. I got the gun from his drawer while he was in the bathroom. I shot him. I did.”
“He told you that Roman was dead?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And then you called Idabell at the school and told her, right?”
“I told her to come over but I didn’t say that Holly was dead. We packed her things. I took my carpet balls and she took the croquet set. I took the glass because I just didn’t know what to do with it.” She looked me in the eye as if to say that she couldn’t help it; that she’d had to kill him.
I was in no place to pass judgment.
I slept on the sofa that night. In the morning I drove her back home while the country mourned JFK.
I went to Arno T. Lewis from Bonnie’s house and told him that I couldn’t find Idabell. He told me that they’d identified Idabell’s corpse the night before.
I had found, I said, that Bill Bartlett was Holland’s partner in the little paper route business that worked out of the shack that held the stolen goods. A few days later there was an account in the paper of how Roman and Holland and Bartlett were in business stealing from the schools. Roman, who had obtained his job under an alias with forged references, had abused his power as a nighttime building consultant. In a falling-out among thieves, the article speculated, Bartlett had killed Roman and then Holland. Later on, after meeting with Bartlett at Whitehead’s restaurant, Idabell Turner was found dead.
Traces of heroin had been found and Bartlett was being sought for questioning. However, his house had been broken into and a goodly quantity of blood had been found. Foul play had not been ruled out in his case.
Jackson Blue disappeared with Jesus’s life savings.
For a week the nation mourned the passing of JFK. Everybody wondered would things ever get set straight again; they never did.
I wanted to call Bonnie, but Holland Gasteau’s lip-branded corpse came to mind whenever I thought of her. Holland and also Sallie Monroe. Sallie’s death had settled into my finger bones. I found myself rubbing my hands together with the strange feeling that my fingers had gone numb.
After the week was out I got the courage to go down to Temple Hospital. EttaMae hadn’t shown up for work at all, nor had she answered her phone.
I had friends at the front desk. They sent me to the intensive care unit to talk to a woman named Norva Long. I asked her about Mouse.
“Dead,” she told me.
“What?”
“Doctor told Mrs. Alexander five days ago that it was only a matter of a day or two. She said no and that she was gonna take him home. But the doctor wouldn’t release him.” Norva’s tone took the doctor’s side.
“An’ he died?” I asked.
“I was on duty with an orderly named James Pope. There was supposed to be another man but he came down with flu and stayed home. Maybe if he was with us we could have stopped her, but… “ Norva twisted her lips and shook her head. “But I doubt it.”
“What happened?”
“EttaMae come about two in the morning. I told her that visitin’ time was over and that’s the last thing I remember, except her ham fist.”
EttaMae had a strong arm.
“James said that he tried to grab her,” Norva said. “But she threw him up against a wall and laid him low with a metal tray. James was two floors down with a concussion for forty-eight hours. His momma say they gonna sue.”
“What happened to Raymond?” I asked.
“Front desk said that she carried him out the front door in her arms. The security guard was gonna take her but then she come out with his gun. He said he wasn’t gonna get in no shoot-out with a woman.”
“Why wasn’t any of this in the paper?”
“They kep’ it pretty quiet, I guess. James prob’ly get some money out of it, after all.”
“Then you don’t know that Raymond’s dead,” I said. “He could be alive.”
When Norva shook her head it broke my heart. She was sorry to tell me that Mouse had been in a coma and that he had been steadily fading over the days. Their house was abandoned. There were still dirty dishes in the sink.
I was in the maintenance office a few days later waiting to interview the replacements for Etta and Mouse. When the door slid open I was surprised, and not very happy, to see Sergeant Sanchez. He’d come alone.
“Mr. Rawlins,” he said from the door.
He wanted for me to say come in, and I did.
He came up to my desk, did not offer to shake hands, and sat down.
“I don’t like you, Mr. Rawlins,” he said straight out. “I just came from your principal’s office and he doesn’t like you either.”
“You come all the way down here to tell me that?”
“No. Lewis has me looking for evidence about Bill Bartlett. I told him that he’s wrong about that but I guess you have more friends than I knew about.”
Our eyes met and we were equals at last.
“Were you here when Bartlett was?” he asked.
“No,” I said truthfully. “I replaced the man but we never met.”
“I know that you were in it, Ezekiel. And when we find Bartlett I’m going to prove it.”
I didn’t think that he’d ever locate Bartlett. If I’d read the man right he was too smart to stay in L.A. He was a black man who was implicated in the murder of other black people. There wouldn’t be any national manhunt. They’d wait for him to be arrested on some other charge and then hope that fingerprint checks would do their job. But Bartlett wasn’t the kind of crook who was arrested often, if ever. And even if he did get caught, he didn’t have anything on me. I was innocent of everything except the murders of Sallie Monroe and Raymond Alexander. One I regretted and the other haunted me.
The phone rang as Sanchez was leaving.
“Where’s my car, Easy?” John asked in my ear.
We drove around L.A. that evening picking up cars. We went up to the hill behind the Black Chantilly to retrieve Primo’s wild roadster. I paid Primo by letting him sell Mouse’s car off for parts. I retrieved the bookie boxes and dropped them off at the Chantilly. To Philly Stetz, but Rupert took them.
It was when we were headed over to Bonnie Shay’s block that John got serious with me.
“Easy, I thought you had got yourself out the street,” he said.
“Yeah, me too.”
“You know you can’t be livin’ like this, man. You too old for this shit. Things gettin’ serious in this town, Easy. People turnin’ mean. Even Mouse got hisself killed.”
“I know, John.” I said it so softly he might not have heard.
“Easy, you need a woman,” John said. “A woman who wants a home an’ ain’t gonna take no shit.”
Bonnie Shay came to my mind. She smiled and carried no weapons.
We picked up John’s car and drove back to his house, me in Alva’s Buick and him behind his own wheel. I knew that Alva had made some headway against me, because John didn’t invite me in.
“I’ll drive you home, Easy,” he said.
On the way I asked him about Grace.
“I did what I could, Easy. After a day and a half she called that white man and he came and got her. She said she was gonna try’n go straight.”