"I don't think that they'd dare call the cops on something like this but we should move on just in case," he said.
Albright's white Cadillac was parked in the lot down under the pier. He drove south down along the ocean. There were few electric lights from the coast, and just a sliver of moon, but the sea glittered with a million tiny glints. It looked like every shiny fish in the sea had come to the surface to mimic the stars that flickered in the sky. There was light everywhere and there was darkness everywhere too.
He switched on the radio and tuned in a big-band station that was playing "Two Lonely People," by Fats Waller. I remember because as soon as the music came on I started shivering. I wasn't afraid; I was angry, angry at the way he humiliated that boy. I didn't care about the boy's feelings, I cared that if Albright could do something like that to one of his own then I knew he could do the same, and much worse, to me. But if he wanted to shoot me he'd just have to do it because I wasn't going down on my knees for him or for anybody else.
I never doubted for a minute that Albright would have killed that boy.
"What you got, Easy?" he asked after a while.
"I got a name and an address. I got the last day she was seen and who she was with. I know the man she was seen with and I know what he does for a living." I was proud of knowledge when I was a young man. Joppy had told me just to take the money and to pretend I was looking for the girl, but once I had a piece of information I had to show it off.
"All that's worth the money."
"But I want to know something first."
"What's that?" Mr. Albright asked. He pulled the car onto a shoulder that overlooked the shimmering Pacific. The waves were really rolling that night, you could even hear them through the closed windows.
"I want to know that no harm is going to come to that girl, or anybody else."
"Do I look that much like God to you? Can I tell you what will happen tomorrow? I don't plan for the girl to be hurt. My friend thinks he's in love with her. He wants to buy her a gold ring and live happily ever after. But, you know, she might forget to buckle her shoes next week and fall down and break her neck, and if she does you can't hold me up for it. But whatever."
I knew that was the most I would get out of him. DeWitt made no promises but I believed that he meant no harm to the girl in the photograph.
"She was with a man named Frank Green, Tuesday last. They were at a bar called the Playroom."
"Where is she now?"
"Woman who told me said she thought that they were a team, Green and the girl, so she's probably with him."
"Where's that?" he asked. His smile and good manners were gone; this was business now—plain and simple.
"He's got an apartment at Skyler and Eighty-third. Place is called the Skyler Arms."
He took out the white pen and wallet and scribbled something on the notepad. Then he stared at me with those dead eyes while he tapped the steering wheel with the pen.
"What else?"
"Frank's a gangster," I said. That got DeWitt to smile again. "He's with hijackers. They take liquor and cigarettes; sell'em all over southern California."
"Bad man?" DeWitt couldn't keep his smile down.
"Bad enough. He somethin' with a knife."
"You ever see him in action? I mean, you see him kill somebody?"
"I saw him cut a man in a bar once; loudmouth dude didn't know who Frank was."
DeWitt's eyes came to life for a moment; he leaned across the seat so far that I could feel his dry breath on my neck. "I want you to remember something, Easy. I want you to think about when Frank took his knife and stabbed that man."
I thought about it a second and then I nodded to let him know that I was ready.
"Before he went at him, did he hesitate? Even for a second?"
I thought about the crowded bar down on Figueroa. The big man was talking to Frank's woman and when Frank walked up to him he put his hand against Frank's chest, getting ready to push him away, I suppose. Frank's eyes widened and he threw his head around as if to say to the crowd, "Look at what this fool is doin'! He deserve t'be dead, stupid as he acts!" Then the knife appeared in Frank's hand and the big man crumpled against the bar, trying to ward off the stroke with his big fleshy arms …
"Maybe just a second, not even that," I said.
Mr. DeWitt Albright laughed softly.
"Well," he said. "I guess I have to see what I shall see."
"Maybe you could get to the girl when he's out. Frank spends a lot of time on the road. I saw him the other night, at John's, he was dressed for hijacking, so he might be out of town for a couple of more days."
"That would be best," Albright answered. He leaned back across the seat. "No reason to be any messier than we have to, now. You got that photograph?"
"No," I lied. "Not on me. I left it at home."
He only looked at me for a second but I knew he didn't believe it, I don't know why I wanted to keep her picture. It's just that the way she looked out at me made me feel good.
"Well, maybe I'll pick it up after I find her; you know I like to make everything neat after a job … Here's another hundred and take this card too. All you have to do is go down to that address and you can pick up a job to tide you over until something else comes up."
He handed me a tight roll of bills and a card. I couldn't read the card in that dim light so I shoved it and the money in my pocket.
"I think I can get my old job back so I won't need the address."
"Hold on to it," he said, as he turned the ignition. "You did alright by me, getting this information, and I'm doing right by you. That's the way I do business, Easy; I always pay my debts."
The drive back was quiet and brilliant with night lights. Benny Goodman was on the radio and DeWitt Albright hummed along as if he had grown up with big bands.
When we pulled up to my car, next to the pier, everything was as it had been when we left. When I opened the door to get out Albright said, "Pleasure working with you, Easy." He extended his hand and when he had the snake grip on me again his look became quizzical and he said, "You know, I was wondering just one thing."
"What's that?"
"How come you let those boys get around you like that? You could have picked them off one by one before they got your back to the rails."
"I don't kill children," I said.
Albright laughed for the second time that night.
Then he let me go and said goodbye.
9
0ur team worked in a large hangar on the south side of the Santa Monica plant. I got there early, about 6 a.m., before the day shift began. I wanted to get to Benny, Benito Giacomo, before they started working.
Once Champion designed a new aircraft, either for the air force or for one of the airlines, they had a few teams build them for a while to get out the kinks in construction. Benito's team would, for instance, put together the left wing and move it on to another group in charge of assembly for the entire aircraft. But instead of assembling the plane a group of experts would go over our work with a magnifying glass to make sure that the procedures they set up for production were good.
It was an important job and all the men were proud to be on it but Benito was so high-strung that whenever we had a new project he'd turn sour.
That's really why he fired me.
I was coming off of a hard shift, we had two men out with the flu, and I was tired. Benny wanted us to stay longer just to check out our work but I didn't want any of it. I was tired and I knew that anything I looked at would have gotten a passing grade, so I said that we should wait until morning. The men listened to me. I wasn't a team leader but Benny relied on me to set an example for others because I was such a good worker. But that was just a bad day. I needed sleep to do the job right and Benny didn't trust me enough to hear that.