Not knowing what answer would soothe her, I said, “They’re my friends.”
“Your real friends?”
“Yes.”
“O-o-o-okay.”
There was a phone next to one of the kitchen doors. Lifting the receiver from its cradle, I dialed a number I knew well.
“Melvin Suggs’s line,” Myra Lawless said in my ear.
“Hi, Myra, Easy Rawlins here. Please tell me he’s in.”
“Is it important? He’s trying to finish a presentation he’s doing for the chief.”
“I’d say it was life and death, but really it’s only just death.”
Three clicks and: “Melvin Suggs.”
“Hey, man, Bel-Air’s in your jurisdiction, right?”
“Yeah.” We were such good friends that there was no need to stand on ceremony.
“Well, I’m here at...” I gave him the address. “There’s three homicides and one frightened little girl. It’s bad.”
“Anatole’s in West LA right now. I’ll send him and a few uniforms out there.”
“Tell ’em there’s a Black man here. There’s a Black man here and they shouldn’t shoot him. Make sure they know that.”
“Talk to you later, Easy.”
He hung up and it was just me and the girl, with death in the other room, and retribution on the way.
“Are they coming?” she asked.
“Yeah. They’re gettin’ into their cars and drivin’ all the way out here.”
She smiled at what I said but I didn’t think that it had to do with the information imparted.
“They came in through the broken window, I think,” she said with prodding. “I could hear Mamie screaming like she was hurt.”
“Did anybody hurt you?”
Shaking her head, she said, “Only Uncle Rolfo when he pushed me into the secret room at the back of the closet where they keep the towels. Where is he?”
The ghost child had to be always touching me. She was seated on my lap, sipping her water with one hand holding the mug and the other on the side of my face. I took the mug, holding it for her to drink from while she used the free hand to grasp my sports jacket lapel.
Time was passing by sluggishly, bringing to mind thick molasses dripping from a crack in a crockery jar at the back of an unheated winter pantry that belonged to my grandfather. Sometimes I’d go out there to sniff at the sweet, burnt-smelling leak.
“What’s your name?” I asked to fill in the moments.
“Geraldine, but they call me Gigi.”
“Gigi?”
“Yeah.”
“Did a woman named Lutisha used to stay here?”
“Lutie!” she cried, grinning broadly and nodding.
“She had black skin like me?”
“Yeah. She’s my best friend.”
In the distance sirens whined.
“Was Lutie here last night?”
Gigi shook her head no.
The sirens were getting louder.
“Did you see anything that happened after you went in the secret room in the closet?”
She went stock-still and stared at me.
“It’s okay. You won’t get in trouble.”
Hesitating, she said, “I had to go to the bathroom, so I got out really quiet and I — and I saw Uncle Rolfo screaming at this man that had on a suit jacket that was like a checkerboard. The man hit him real hard and I ranned back to the closet.”
“The checkerboard suit jacket was red and black?”
“Uh-uh, yellow and black. I’m sorry I ranned out.”
“Don’t worry, honey, everything you did was perfect.”
She nestled her head against my chest and then a cop burst into the room. He had his pistol out and was pointing it at me and Gigi.
“Don’t move!” he shouted, and Gigi started her banshee’s cry.
Another cop, also with a pistol in hand, ran in from another room. That direction, I knew, was from where the dead bodies were.
“Let the girl go!” the second cop commanded.
I put my hands up next to my ears.
“Come to me,” the second cop said to Gigi.
“Go away!” she screamed at him. It felt as if she was trying to climb into my sports jacket.
“I’m the one who called you guys,” I said.
A third uniformed officer came in then. His gun was out too. I was hoping beyond hope that Gigi would stay holding me because I believed that it was only her physical proximity that could protect me from a dozen bullet wounds.
“Put those guns down!” someone yelled. Just hearing his voice sent cold prickles down the back of my neck, replacing the fever of absolute fear.
The voice walked into the room. It was Captain Anatole McCourt.
“You okay, Rawlins?”
“Ask me that after my heart slides back down into my chest.”
“You two go back to the crime scene,” he said to the first two cops. “And you, Rath,” he said to the third man.
“Yes, Captain.”
“You call down to the precinct and get a full team up here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And don’t give ’em any details. Just say that we need a full team to examine a suspected crime.”
“Yes, sir.”
When the gunmen were gone, Anatole walked over to us and sat down on a stool like ours.
Gigi’s eyes opened wide at the sight of McCourt’s great height and breadth. The red-haired, green-eyed cop was at least six six, blessed with a Neanderthal’s chest.
Gigi held tight on to me while appreciating the gray-suited captain.
“Okay,” Anatole said in a world-weary tone of voice. “Let’s hear it.”
I told him almost everything. Why not? I was looking for Lutisha James, it didn’t matter who knew it. Santangelo said it was to call her mother. Nothing wrong with that. But when it came to talking about the dead bodies in the other room, I softballed it for Gigi’s sake.
Anatole was the kind of student who never took notes, but he listened very closely. When I finished, he requested that we stay in the kitchen. Gigi and I were happy to comply.
Some time went by while various police officials came to inspect the crime scene. Gigi left my lap only once, when I had to carry her to the bathroom, wait, and then bring her back to our stool in the kitchen.
The child was too frightened to maintain any kind of conversation. Whenever we spoke about anything beyond creature needs, she tended toward tears. My only job, right then, was to hold her.
Maybe two hours later Anatole came in with a woman clad in a dull orange dress and boatlike dark brown low-heeled shoes. She was white, somewhere around forty, with a smile that seemed forced under the vise of her squashed-down face.
“Mrs. Alice Fabricant, meet Ezekiel Rawlins,” the giant announced.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said dismissively. Then, bearing that forced grin, she said to Gigi, “And who is this?”
My temporary papoose turned her face away, burying it in the fabric of my jacket.
“This is Gigi,” I said.
Alice Fabricant gave me a sour look.
“She will have to come with me,” she said. “I represent Child Services. Um, and who are you?”
“Mr. Rawlins,” I replied formally. “I just met the young lady. She seems to think of me as a kind of protector.”
Mrs. Fabricant reached out a hand to take Gigi’s arm.
“No!” my charge screamed. “You leave me alone!”
“But, honey,” Alice said softly, “you have to come with me.”
“No! I want to be with my friend, Easy!”
That battle went on for some time. I tried to help, but Gigi was absolutely sure of what was best for her. No one could gainsay that.
After a long while Fabricant went away and then came back with a pint bottle of lemonade.
The social worker pretended to take a sip from the bottle and said, “This is really good lemonade. It’s sweet and tart and helps you to relax.”