“And one phone too many.”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, Easy. Each phone has a purpose. My business line and personal line; Jewelle’s business and personal; our family line, doctor’s line, and finally there’s you.”
“Me? I got my own dedicated line?”
“Yeah, man.”
“Then how come you never said my name before when I called?”
“’Bout six months ago I changed all the numbers around, got Mister to tell everybody we in touch with that the numbers have changed. We would still get a stranger callin’ on your line every once in a while, but nowadays it’s most usually just you.”
“Damn.”
“You wanna hear about Waynesmith?”
“Shoot.”
“When I had Mister put a call through to Von Crudock he got right on the line. And when I talked about real estate, he said come on out, so I did—”
“Where?” I interrupted.
“A place on La Cienega, a restaurant and bar called Shorts. When me and Jewelle got there, I told him that Jean-Paul was lookin’ to expand his real estate portfolio in Southern California. You know we got all kinds’a reports sayin’ that the land is gonna quadruple in value ovah the next fifteen years.”
“That all sounds good. What was he talkin’ about?”
“He said that he’s puttin’ his money in the canyons around LA an’ buyin’ up orange and lemon groves around the outer borders of the valley. You know, cheapest investment for greatest profit.
“But that wasn’t nuthin’. Then he said that he’d heard that we got a computer system keep tabs on everybody in the world that was in any way involved with a policy issued by P9. I told him that I was the one set up that database.”
“Oh,” I said. “And what did that mean to him?”
“He wanted to know about a woman name of Shelly Dormer. He says that this Dormer woman is the owner of a lot out in Culver City and that he’s very interested in talkin’ to her, and if not her, then to her heirs.
“What you think about that?”
I had asked Jackson to have a conversation about business in general because if I had to speak to the man, I wanted him to think that I knew something about what he was into. But now...
“Did he seem excited about findin’ this woman?” I asked.
“Excited? Shit. It was like his dick been hard for the whole month his woman been gone.”
“Jackson!” Jewelle shouted from somewhere near at hand.
“Sorry, baby, I was just talkin’ to Easy, you know,” Jackson said to her. And then to me, “Yeah, man. You wanna get to him, tell ’im you got a line on this Dormer chick.”
“Thanks, Jackson. Thank you. That’s gonna be some help.”
“Cool. Hold on, Easy, Jewelle wanna shout at ya.”
I was already deep in thought about the information that Jackson had mined.
“Easy?”
“Hey, Jewelle. Thanks for keepin’ Jackson in line.”
“That man is a mess.”
“What can I do for you, darlin’?”
“I don’t need a thing, Easy. But I wanted to tell you that I had a friend who did business with Von Crudock.”
“Oh? Who’s that?”
“Lindhoff, Bertrand Lindhoff.”
“What about him?”
“Bertie was a nice guy if you remembered never to do business with him.”
“Why’s that?”
“Bertie felt that if you lost sight of the ball, then the ball was his. So, he got into a deal with Von Crudock. They were building a shoppin’ center or sumpin’. Bertie called me one day and said that he saw a loophole in their contract, so he was gonna take the project over. He wanted me to provide workers that Von Crudock didn’t have his hooks into. They were thirty million dollars in, and he was gonna end up with it all.”
“So, what happened?” I asked, though I didn’t have to.
“Bertie disappeared. The police came and asked me about it. I told ’em I didn’t know a thing.”
This was no surprise. I’d seen the mercenaries on Ayres and what had happened to my son’s brother.
“Thanks, J. I’ll be careful.”
“What’s going on with you, Easy?”
“About Von Crudock?”
“No. Your voice.”
“What’s wrong with my voice?”
“It sounds, I don’t know, kinda forceful, like you about to bust out your skin.”
“I’m at home, honey. Must be the altitude. You know, they say it affects the larynx.”
“Hm, if you say so.”
“I do. If you don’t mind, can I holler at Jackson one more time?”
It was a relief to get off the line with her. I often forget the deft perceptivity that Jewelle possesses.
“Ease,” Jackson said.
“Do me a favor, Jackson. Look up that Shelly Dormer and her heirs in your files, but don’t tell Von Crudock.”
“You got it.”
“Hello?” a woman answered. A woman who had the crisp and authoritative voice of Violet Welles, my son’s friend.
“Easy Rawlins, callin’ for his son,” I replied.
“He’s not here.”
“You expect him back?”
“Sooner or later.”
“Come on now, Violet. Why you got to be like that?”
“Is there anything else?”
“Yeah. Tell him that the same folks killed Santangelo are after him. I know who they are.”
“Who?” Violet asked, the angry tone draining from her voice.
I told her my phone number, twice, and then hung up.
I decided to make lasagna for dinner using three kinds of cheese, including ricotta, a tomato-based pasta sauce that I made once a month just in case my fancy turned Italian, and thick-cut pepperoni for the meat. I’m a fast cook and within thirty minutes my lasagna dish was ready for a 350-degree oven. I like the lower temperature for an hour of baking.
The meal had been cooking for a quarter hour when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“This is Hannibal Lee,” he uttered, with words clipped and his baritone fully under control.
Those four words imposed a temporary silence on me. That was my son calling. The child of my blood.
“Anger tells me that you’re my son.” Even though I was deeply moved, I saw no reason to pussyfoot with the man.
“I’m callin’ because you said that you knew who killed my brother.”
“That’s why you called. I called you because of that and also because your mother claims my paternity.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“Okay,” I said and waited.
The seconds slid by.
“So, what do you want to ask me?” he said at last.
“I want to meet you, face-to-face.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Anything is possible, no matter how unlikely.”
That halted Hannibal again.
“All right. Tomorrow morning at eleven. The Penguin Club.”
“What’s that?”
“You never heard of the Penguin Club?” he accused.
“No. Where is it?”
“Down on a Hundred Twenty-Third. On the east side. You turn right at One Twenty-Three goin’ south on Central. It’s the first empty lot on the left. You can’t miss it.”
“Eleven o’clock,” I said.
“Eleven,” he replied, sounding as if he were correcting me.
I pulled up to the curb at 123rd in front of the empty lot at 10:31 the next morning. I remembered the big blue house that was once there. It was three stories high and proud-looking, an old place where a single family had lived at the beginning of the century. By the time I first saw it, the urban mansion had been subdivided and was then home to at least five families, only to be burned to ashes in the Watts Riot, August 1965.
The empty plot of land was covered with what looked like scorched earth. A light-gray-and-yellow dirt, rock-hard soil that wouldn’t give a micromillimeter under a man’s shod weight. Running the width of the back of the lot was a weathered wooden fence, maybe twelve feet high. At the far end, in front of the gray weathered fence, maybe eighteen cars were parked.