The row of buildings across the street were all boarded up —
every one of them. The riots had shut down SouthCentral L.A.
like a coffin. White businesses had fled and black-owned stores flickered in and out of existence on a weekly basis. All we had left were liquor stores for solace and check-cashing storefronts in place of banks. The few stores that had survived were gated with steel bars that protected armed clerks.
At least here the view matched my inner desolation. The economy of Watts was like Feather’s blood infection. Both futures seemed devoid of hope.
I couldn’t seem to pull myself from the window. That’s because I knew that the next thing I had to do was call Raymond and tell him that I was ready to take a drive down south.
The knock on the door startled me. I suppose that in my grief I felt alone and invisible. But when I looked at the frosted glass I knew who belonged to that silhouette. The big shapeless nose and the slight frame were a dead giveaway.
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“Come on in, Saul,” I called.
He hesitated. Saul Lynx was a cautious man. But that made sense. He was a Jewish private detective married to a black woman. They had three brown children and the enmity of at least one out of every two people they met.
But we were friends and so he opened the door.
Saul’s greatest professional asset was his face — it was almost totally nondescript even with his large nose. He squinted a lot but if he ever opened his eyes wide in surprise or appreciation you got a shot of emerald that can only be described as beautiful.
But Saul was rarely surprised.
“Hey, Easy,” he said, giving a quick grin and looking around for anything out of place.
“Saul.”
“How’s Feather?”
“Pretty bad. But there’s this clinic in Switzerland that’s had very good results with cases like hers.”
Saul made his way to my client’s chair. I went behind the desk, realizing as I sat that I could feel my heart beating.
Saul scratched the side of his mouth and moved his shoulder like a stretching cat.
“What is it, Saul?”
“You said that you needed work, right?”
“Yeah. I need it if it pays.”
Saul was wearing a dark brown jacket and light brown pants.
Brown was his color. He reached into the breast pocket and came out with a tan envelope. This he dropped on the desk.
“Fifteen hundred dollars.”
“For what?” I asked, not reaching for the money.
“I put out the word after you called me. Talked to anybody who might need somebody like you on a job.”
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Like you meant a black man. At one time it might have angered me to be referred to like that but I knew Saul, he was just trying to help.
“At first no one had anything worth your while but then I heard from this cat up in Frisco. He’s a strange guy but . . .” Saul hunched his shoulders to finish the sentence. “This fifteen hundred is a down payment on a possible ten grand.”
“I’ll take it.”
“I don’t even know what the job is, Easy.”
“And I don’t need to know,” I said. “Ten thousand dollars will put me in shootin’ range of what I need. I might even be able to borrow the rest if it comes down to it.”
“Might.”
“That’s all I got, Saul — might.”
Saul winced and nodded. He was a good guy.
“His name is Lee,” he said. “Robert E. Lee.”
“Like the Civil War general?”
Saul nodded. “His parents were Virginia patriots.”
“That’s okay. I’d meet with the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan if this is how he says hello.” I picked up the envelope and fanned my face with it.
“I’ll be on the job too, Easy. He wants to do it with you answering to me. It’s no problem. I won’t get in your way.”
I put the envelope down and extended that hand. For a moment Saul didn’t realize that I wanted to shake with him.
“You can ride on my back if you want to, Saul. All I care about is Feather.”
i w e n t h o m e late that afternoon. While Bonnie made dinner I sat by Feather’s side. She was dozing on and off and I wanted 3 0
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to be there whenever she opened her eyes. When she did come awake she always smiled for me.
Jesus and Benny came over and had dinner with Bonnie. I didn’t eat. I wasn’t hungry. All I thought about was doing a good job for the man named after one of my enemies by descendants of my enemies in the land of my people’s enslavement. But none of that mattered. I didn’t care if he hated me and my kind. I didn’t care if I made him a million dollars by working for him.
And if he wanted a black operative to undermine black people, well . . . I’d do that too — if I had to.
a t t h r e e i n t h e m o r n i n g I was still at Feather’s side. I sat there all night because Saul was coming at four to drive with me up the coast. I didn’t want to leave my little girl. I was afraid she might die in the time I was gone. The only thing I could do was sit there, hoping that my will would keep her breathing.
And it was lucky that I did stay because she started moaning and twisting around in her sleep. Her forehead was burning up. I hurried to the medicine cabinet to get one of Mama Jo’s tar balls.
When I got back Feather was sitting up and breathing hard.
“Daddy, you were gone,” she whimpered.
I sat beside her and put the tar ball in her mouth.
“Chew, baby,” I said. “You got fever.”
She hugged my arm and began to chew. She cried and chewed and tried to tell about the dream where I had disappeared. Remembering my own dream I kept from holding her too tightly.
In less than five minutes her fever was down and she was asleep again.
*
*
*
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a t f o u r
Bonnie came into the room and said, “It’s time, honey.”
Just when she said these words there was a knock at the front door. Feather sighed but did not awaken. Bonnie put her hand on my shoulder.
I felt as if every move and gesture had terrible importance. As things turned out I was right.
“I gave her some of Mama Jo’s tar,” I said. “There’s only two left.”
“It’s okay,” Bonnie assured me. “In three days we’ll be in Switzerland and Feather will be under a doctor’s care twenty-four hours a day.”
“She’s been sweating,” I said as if I had not heard Bonnie’s promise. “I haven’t changed the sheets because I didn’t want to leave her.”
Saul knocked again.
I went to the door and let him in. He was wearing brown pants and a russet sweater with a yellow shirt underneath. He had on a green cap made of sewn leather strips.
“You ready?” he asked me.
“Come on in.”
We went into the kitchen, where Saul and Bonnie kissed each other’s cheeks. Bonnie handed me my coat, a brown shopping bag filled with sandwiches, and a thermos full of coffee.
“I got some fruit in the car,” Saul said.
I looked around the house, not wanting to leave.
“Do you have any money, Easy?” Bonnie asked me.
I had given her the fifteen-hundred-dollar invitation.
“I could use a few bucks I guess.”
Bonnie took her purse from the back of the chair. She rum-maged around for a minute, but she had so much stuff in there 3 2
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that she couldn’t locate the cash. So she spilled out the contents on our dinette table.
There was a calfskin clasp-purse but she never kept money there. She had cosmetic cases and a jewelry bag, two paperback books, and a big key ring with almost as many keys as I carried at Truth. Then came a few small cloth bags and an enameled pin or stud. The pin was the size of a quarter, decorated with the image of a white-and-red bird in flight against a bronze background.