I’d hit him on his left cheekbone when a voice said, “He had enough.”
The words came from an old, very old man, whose rheumy eyes held no judgment. He was simply telling me that I had already dished out whatever my attacker deserved.
I stood up and away from the mugger, staring down into the old man’s eyes. I wanted to apologize, but that didn’t seem right. No words would fit that moment of communication between us.
The mugger groaned, moving slowly from side to side, at last sitting up. Finally, he rose to his feet, blood streaming from his mouth and other busted-up parts of his face. His posture was crooked, and his face grimaced in pain. He glanced at me and the old man for only a second before moving away. Trying to run, realizing he couldn’t, he shambled down the street. He could barely stand up under his own power, so he made his way leaning up against storefront walls and fences, headed back to whatever den he used to lick his wounds.
When the mugger made the end of the block, the spell of silence broke.
“You need a ride home, sir?” I asked the old man. It was a warm evening, but he wore an old tweed coat that came down to his knees.
“No, I don’t need no ride. I only live a couple’a blocks from here.”
“I could walk wit’ ya.”
“No, brother, no,” he said, waving the four fingers of his left hand like a tightly woven fan. “I got the Lord on my left side, where my heart is at, and...” He patted the overcoat pocket on the right side, adding, “a snub-nosed twenty-two on my right.”
Some people, hearing about the violence I used, might think that I took unfair advantage of that mugger. But, as ugly as he was, he was also young, no more than twenty-five years. Past fifty, I’ve known for quite some time that fighting is a young man’s sport. That’s why I carried the aluminum knuckles. One day I’ll give up the streets completely and live on top of my mountain till the lights go out.
I cracked the lock on one of the back doors to the clubhouse. Inside I used a penlight to guide me.
For all the changes they had made to the church, it still had the solemn and silent feel of a house of God. It felt chilly despite the summer heat outside, and there was a scent soaked into the wood that was pleasant though not sweet.
Mary, the mother of God, gazed down on me from a stained-glass window that was at least twenty feet high. She held out one hand as if blessing me on my mission. The illumination came from the sidewalk streetlamp that stood before the failed church.
I was suddenly very tired. I wanted to sit down, to lie down and rest, before continuing my desecration. Then I laughed, imagining lying down on some bench and sleeping till the next morning when the brothers of freedom came in to find me.
I had to pry open the dead bolt to the membership office door.
Luckily the file cabinet therein was not locked.
Sifting through the manila folders, I found the file concerning Santangelo Burris. It wasn’t a very thick file, but it contained enough pages to keep me from remembering or writing down all of what I needed. Rummaging through the membership official’s desk, I found a leather pouch in a lower drawer that had $386 in a tin cashbox, and a small .32 revolver in the pencil drawer. I took both. The money so that they’d think I was a simple thief and the gun in case my would-be mugger had friends.
My Dodge was parked four blocks away. I was walking down San Pedro when a woman approached me.
“Mister,” she said in a beseeching tone.
Somewhere in her thirties, with light sienna skin, she wore a turquoise-colored T-shirt and navy-blue pants, both fabricated from tight spandex. Her figure was a little more than those tight clothes could contain comfortably, but the whole package delivered the idea she intended.
“Mister,” she said again.
“Yeah?”
“You got a dollar?” The words came across more like a simple question than a request.
My reply was supposed to have been What do I get for that dollar?
Then she would have said, A smile and a handshake.
I would have wondered aloud what I’d receive for ten dollars, and, after that, the real conversation would develop.
But I wasn’t interested in that dance right then.
I took the wad of cash I’d taken from the BFNE and pressed it into her hand. When she saw what I’d given her, her eyes opened wide.
“Take it, sister,” I said.
“I’ma feed my kids with this,” she promised.
“Give ’em a kiss good night from me.”
She got up on her toes to kiss my cheek, in order to take both my gifts with her.
16
Sitting alone in my lighthouse-like mountain home, I studied what the BFNE thought they knew about Santangelo. He’d told them that he’d moved to Los Angeles from La Marque, Texas, not Pistol, having been born in St. Louis. His mother was listed as unknown, his father too. Santangelo’s acceptance for admission to full membership was still under review after four years because a couple of members of the admissions board thought that his anger represented some kind of instability. This seemed strange to me, because the original members of the BFNE back in the 1830s were men just like Santangelo. Today they might have been dentists and lawyers, shopkeepers and bank clerks, but back then they were desperate men forced to buy their freedom, or to steal it, from the men who held the entire race as inferior.
As far as I was concerned, the only important details in the file were his address and phone number.
I considered dialing Mr. Saint Angel’s number but decided that, unless we met face-to face, he’d never answer my important questions.
So, instead: “Stenman Service. How can I help you?”
“Hey, Julie.”
“Hi, Mr. Rawlins. How are you tonight?”
“Still breathin’.”
“You got pencil and paper?”
“Right here on the table.”
“Okay. First, you have Niska Redman. She’s going to meet Delroy for lunch tomorrow. She said to make sure you know it’s lunch, not dinner, and Doreen will be there to make the identification. You get that?”
“I did.”
“Okay. A woman named Ama, Amat, Ama-thigh...”
“Amethystine.”
“Yeah. That. She said that she wants to go mountain climbing again when you have some free time.”
“Got it.”
“Mr. Jones called. He said you two have got to get together, that it’s important. He doesn’t have a phone, so you’ll have to meet him at Maynard’s Coffee Cart tomorrow morning.”
“How many more?” I asked.
“Just one. A Miss, or maybe Mrs., Alice Fab-ri-cant called and said that Geraldine is staying with distant cousins, the Ellenbogens, and that they need you to help them communicate with the child. Here’s the address.”
After writing it all down, I asked, “That it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks.”
“Hello,” she said in a sleepy voice.
“I wake you?”
“Uh-uh. I was just, um, resting my eyes.”
“Okay then, when and where?”
“Delroy called and told me that tomorrow is his day off, so lunch would be better, for some reason, and he wanted to meet at a place called Clooney’s Diner, that’s on Wilshire.”
“I know the place. What time is the date?”
“Twelve thirty.”
“Okay. How long’s Whisper gonna be gone?”
“Until next week sometime.”
“Then you, me, and Doreen should meet at the office at eleven, no, no, make it eleven thirty.”
“You don’t trust me to handle a lunch on my own?”