I was unhappy about going to meet Mr. Albright because I wasn't used to going into white communities, like Santa Monica, to conduct business. The plant I worked at, Champion Aircraft, was in Santa Monica but I'd drive out there in the daytime, do my work, and go home. I never loitered anywhere except among my own people, in my own neighborhood.
But the idea that I'd give him the information he wanted, and that he'd give me enough money to pay the next month's mortgage, made me happy. I was dreaming about the day I'd be able to buy more houses, maybe even a duplex. I always wanted to own enough land that it would pay for itself out of the rent it generated.
When I arrived the merry-go-round and arcade were closing down. Small children and their parents were leaving and a group of young people were milling around, smoking cigarettes and acting tough the way young people do.
I went across the pier to the railing that looked down onto the beach. I figured that Mr. Albright would see me there as well as any place and that I was far enough away from the white kids that I could avoid any ugliness.
But that wasn't my week for avoiding anything bad.
A chubby girl in a tight-fitting skirt wandered away from her friends. She was younger than the rest of them, maybe seventeen, and it seemed like she was the only girl without a date. When she saw me she smiled and said, "Hi." I answered and turned away to look out over the weakly lit shoreline north of Santa Monica. I was hoping that she'd leave and Albright would come and I'd be back in my house before midnight.
"It's pretty out here, huh?" Her voice came from behind me.
"Yeah. It's all right."
"I come from Des Moines, in Iowa. They don't have anything like the ocean back there. Are you from L.A.?"
"No. Texas." The back of my scalp was tingling.
"Do they have an ocean in Texas?"
"The Gulf, they have the Gulf."
"So you're used to it." She leaned on the rail next to me. "It still knocks me out whenever I see it. My name's Barbara. Barbara Moskowitz. That's a Jewish name."
"Ezekiel Rawlins," I whispered. I didn't want her so familiar as to use my nickname. When I glanced over my shoulder I noticed that a couple of the young men were looking around, like they'd lost someone.
"I think they're looking for you," I said.
"Who cares?" she answered. "My sister just brought me 'cause my parents made her. All she wants to do is make out with Herman and smoke cigarettes."
"It's still dangerous for a girl to be alone. Your parents are right to want you with somebody."
"Are you going to hurt me?" She stared into my face intently. I remember wondering what color her eyes were before I heard the shouting.
"Hey you! Black boy! What's happening here?" It was a pimply-faced boy. He couldn't have been more than twenty years and five and a half feet but he came up to me like a full-grown soldier. He wasn't afraid; a regular fool of a youth.
"What do you want?" I asked as politely as I could.
"You know what I mean," he said as he came within range of my grasp.
"Leave him alone, Herman!" Barbara yelled. "We were just talking!"
"You were, huh?" he said to me. "We don't need ya talking to our women."
I could have broken his neck. I could have put out his eyes or broken all of his fingers. But instead I held my breath.
Five of his friends were headed toward us. While they were coming on, not yet organized or together, I could have killed all of them too. What did they know about violence? I could have crushed their windpipes one by one and they couldn't have done a thing to stop me. They couldn't even run fast enough to escape me. I was still a killing machine.
"Hey!" the tallest one said. "What's wrong?"
"Nigger's trying to pick up Barbara."
"Yeah, an' she's just jailbait."
"Leave him alone!" Barbara shouted. "He was just saying where he was from."
I guess she was trying to help me, like a mother hugging her child when he's just broken his ribs.
"Barbara!" another girl shouted.
"Hey, man, what's wrong with you?" the big one asked in my face. He was wide-shouldered and a little taller than I; built like a football player. He had a broad, fleshy face. His eyes, nose, and mouth were like tiny islands on a great sea of white skin.
I noticed that a couple of the others had picked up sticks. They moved in around me, forcing me back against the rail.
"I don't want any problem, man," I said. I could smell the liquor on the tall one's breath.
"You already got a problem, boy."
"Listen, all she said was hi. That's all I said too." But I was thinking to myself, Why the hell do I have to answer to you?
Herman said, "He was tellin' her where he lived. She said so herself."
I was trying to remember how far down the beach was. By then I knew I had to get out of there before there were two or three dead bodies, one of them being mine.
"Excuse me," a man's voice called out.
There was a slight commotion behind the football player and then a Panama hat appeared there next to him.
"Excuse me," Mr. DeWitt Albright said again. He was smiling.
"What do you want?" the footballer said.
DeWitt just smiled and then he pulled the pistol, which looked somewhat like a rifle, from his coat. He leveled the barrel at the large boy's right eye and said, "I want to see your brains scattered all over your friends' clothes, son. I want you to die for me."
The large boy, who was wearing red swimming trunks, made a sound like he had swallowed his tongue. He moved his shoulder ever so slightly and DeWitt cocked back the hammer. It sounded like a bone breaking.
"I wouldn't move if I were you, son. I mean, if you were to breathe too heavily I'd just kill you. And if any of you other boys move I'll kill him and then I'll shoot off all your nuts."
The ocean was rumbling and the air had turned cold. The only human sound was from Barbara, who was sobbing in her sister's arms.
"I want you boys to meet my friend," DeWitt said. "Mr. Jones."
I didn't know what to do so I nodded.
"He's a friend'a mine," Mr. Albright continued. "And I'd be proud and happy if he was to lower himself to fuck my sister and my mother."
No one had anything to say to that.
"Now, Mr. Jones, I want to ask you something."
"Yes, sir, Mr., ah, Smith."
"Do you think that I should shoot out this nasty's boy's eyeball?"
I let that question hang for a bit. Two of the younger boys had been weeping already but the wait caused the footballer to start crying.
"Well," I said, after fifteen seconds or so, "if he's not sorry for bullying me then I think you should kill him."
"I'm sorry," said the boy.
"You are?" Mr. Albright asked.
"Y-y-yes!"
"How sorry are you? I mean, are you sorry enough?"
"Yessir, I am."
"You're sorry enough?" When he asked that question he moved the muzzle of the gun close enough to touch the boy's tiny, flickering eyelid. "Don't twitch now, I want you to see the bullet coming. Now are you sorry enough?"
"Yessir!"
"Then prove it. I want you to show him. I want you to get down on your knees and suck his peter. I want you to suck it good now …"
The boy started crying outright when Albright said that. I was pretty confident that he was just joking, in a sick kind of way, but my heart quailed along with the footballer.
"Down on your knees or you're dead, boy!"
The other boys had their eyes glued to the footballer as he went to his knees. They tore out running when Albright slammed the barrel of his pistol into the side of the boy's head.
"Get out of here!" Albright yelled. "And if you tell some cops I'll find every one of you."
We were alone in less than half a minute. I could hear the slamming of car doors and the revving of jalopy engines from the parking lot and the street.
"They got something to think about now," Albright said. He returned his long-barreled .44-caliber pistol to the holster inside his coat. The pier was abandoned; everything was dark and silent.