I opened the car door.
“Hey, man,” Roger warned. “I’m talkin’ to you.”
“Not no more,” I said.
Half a block away I could see him in the rearview mirror, watching.
Traveling from Bellflower to West Los Angeles was a long drive to get nowhere. Beverly Hills was another white town. The only difference was the number of zeros behind the positive whole number on people’s paychecks.
Tyrell and Sloan LLC was located on North Canon Drive near Burton Way. It was on the third floor of an ivy-covered five-story office building. At that time there was no need for security in places like that. Criminals, on the whole, preyed on their own, and in Beverly Hills, the police were never too far away.
The doors to the patent lawyers’ office were made of light green glass. I could see Mary sitting at a wide, modern desk, tapping away at an IBM Selectric. When I pushed the right-side door open, she stopped typing and turned her head.
The people I make it my business to study are those whom I care about or them who pose a threat. Mary was both. Her white skin was tan and her hair what they call a dirty blond. Her brown eyes were clear, hiding their duplicitous potential.
She gazed at me a few seconds before smiling.
“Easy.”
“You know how to type?” I asked.
“Sixty-five words a minute with hardly ever a mistake.”
“Where’d you learn that?”
“I’ll tell you at lunch,” she said, letting me know that her talent came from the other side of the tracks.
“Mair,” a man’s voice called.
He came out from one of the two office doors behind Mary’s desk. He was tall and well-padded; his natural hair looked like a wig on top of a jowly face that tapered toward the forehead. He was in his forties and surprised to see me.
“Yes, Mr. Sloan?” Mary answered.
“Um,” the partner uttered. Then to me: “You’re making a delivery?”
“No, sir,” Mary said lightly. “This is my friend Ezekiel Rawlins.”
“Oh. Oh, I see,” Blindman Sloan said. “I see.”
He turned away and went back into his office, closing the door.
“You ready for lunch?” my friend’s wife asked.
“I could eat two horses.”
Grinning at me, she stood up, showing off her form-fitting button-up-the-front tan dress and grabbing her off-the-rack, faux-leather, maroon-colored pocketbook.
“Do you mind if we walk?” she asked when we were on the street.
This is an unusual request in Los Angeles, no matter when it is posed. Anywhere you want to go is too far away, and a man without a car is the Southern California definition of a loser.
“Not at all,” I told her. “You feelin’ all cramped up in there?”
“Drives me crazy. Them callin’ me Mair and always touchin’ my arms. I stopped carrying my knife ’cause I was worried I might stick one of ’em.”
I laughed out loud, getting a little attention from other pedestrians.
“How’ve you been, Easy?” Mary asked.
“Good, good.”
“How’s Amy?”
“You know, I decided not to see her anymore.” I don’t know why, but I just didn’t want to share the idea that Amethystine was back in my life.
“Oh, still? You know, I see her now and then. She says that she wants to get back with you. And Amy’s the kinda girl gets what she wants.”
“No argument there.”
We chatted idly until getting to a solitary door to a nondescript, maybe-office-building on Camden below Wilshire.
The door opened onto a slender stairway. Up two floors, through another door, and we were in a small restaurant with maybe a dozen little tables. Two other couples were there.
A middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper beard stood behind the host podium. He had olive skin and eyes that refused to be any one color.
The man said, “Mary. So good to see you.”
“Hi, Gregor, this is my friend.” I noticed that she didn’t give me a name.
“So good to meet you,” he greeted, coming around the lectern and grabbing me by the hand.
His big hands were both padded and strong — worker’s hands.
“Can we have the table by the window?” Mary asked him.
“Sure, sure. Take it.” His accent was from another land — it wasn’t French, German, or Italian. If I were to guess, I would have said the music of his words came from somewhere in Eastern Europe.
After we sat, another black-haired, olive-skinned man, this one younger, came to greet us. He bent down to kiss the left side of Mary’s face and then smiled at me. Mary ordered for us and the young man went away.
“So, Mr. Rawlins, what can I do for you?”
I wasn’t quite ready to get down to business, so I said, “This is an out-of-the-way place. And they seem to know you well.”
“They’re Albanians, by way of Greece. Old friends. I always come here to do business when I’m on the west side. I meet here with your friend Jackson Blue every other month or so.”
“How you even know Jackson?”
“Amy introduced us.”
I’d forgotten that Amethystine knew Jackson before we met.
“What kinda business you and Mr. Blue do?”
“I provide him with information about patents that come across my desk and those that are logged in the triannual publication that all reputable offices share.”
“I thought Melvin said that you were trying out the straight life.”
“I am,” she declared. “Pretty much. I mean, I’m just sharing ideas with a corporation that can make money for the inventors. Nobody’s getting ripped off.”
I smiled and asked, “So, you ever meet with any members of law enforcement?”
That question summoned up Mary’s poker face.
“Why?” she asked softly.
“I’m tryin’ to get a line on a couple’a crooked BNDD agents.”
“You want to do business with ’em?”
“They’re leaning on a friend of mine.”
“Oh. No, I don’t know anyone in particular, but I could look into it if need be.”
“It do be, indeed.”
“Okay then. I can get into it today.”
After giving the agents’ false names and bare descriptions I asked, “So, um, what can I do for you in return?”
“Don’t you insult me, now, Easy Rawlins. I owe you more than anyone. I mean, even with Mel it’s usually a even trade-off. But you have saved my ass more than once, and when I offered you that ass you turned me down.”
“I never meant to insult you, girl.”
She gave me a forgiving look and then the feast was served.
The meal was family-style, served all at once. Moussaka, chicken souvlaki, grape leaves stuffed with rice, and something I’d never had before, tomato fritters. It was amazing.
About halfway through the meal Mary said, “I wasn’t insulted. That’s when you first met Amy. And let me tell you, if it wasn’t for you, I woulda fucked that girl myself.”
15
In the mood for a well-deserved break, I drove out to Santa Monica after lunch. On weekdays there were always empty parking spaces near the beach. Barefoot, I walked for an hour or so through the moist sand down near the shore. There was a lot to think about and nothing to do. Amethystine was on my mind, like a line of music from a nearly forgotten song. I could come up with a word or two but wanted more.
On the way back to the car I bunged myself into a phone booth.
A woman’s voice answered, “Stenman Service. How can I help you?”
“VIP51,” I replied.
“Yes, ummm, let me see, oh, there it is, Mr. Rawlins.”
“Hi. I’m sorry I can’t place the voice.”