“You don’t know Caesar, do you?”
“Know thyself, that’s my motto.”
“Thanks anyway.”
I tried two more sleepers, with similar results. Lee’s Bakery was still open, so I went in. Mr. Lee was working behind the counter in crisp white overalls and a tall white cap. He looked up at me and bowed.
“May I have some coffee, Mr. Lee?” I asked.
“You sit,” he said, gesturing toward the tables by the front window. “I bring.”
I drew my coat closer around me and sat down. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until I came inside where it was warm. The sky had begun to cloud over again and there was a very brisk wind.
Mr. Lee put a mug of coffee and a plate of pork cookies in front of me.
“Dr. Emily, she be okay?” he asked.
“I hope so, Mr. Lee. I hope so.”
He bowed twice and started to walk away.
“Mr. Lee,” I called. “Do you happen to know a man named Caesar? I met him outside your bakery last night.”
“Man have dog?”
“Yes.” I stood up. “Have you any idea where he might be?” He scratched his head. Then he scratched his shoulder. “Possible. Come with me.”
He headed out the front door, with me close on his heels. We waited for traffic, then crossed the street to a Chevron station on the corner. The station was closed for the night, but there was a light showing from somewhere inside. Mr. Lee rapped on the front window.
An inside door opened, and I saw the dark shape of a man. He seemed to be very cautious. He looked us over before he came out into the station’s office and turned on the overhead lights.
“That you, Mr. Lee?” The man didn’t have any front teeth, but he seemed well-scrubbed and he wore fresh blue overalls with a Chevron logo on the sleeve. He unlocked the door and talked to us through a narrow crack. “What do you want?”
“You know Caesar?” Mr. Lee asked.
“He’s not here, honest. I told the boss I won’t let Caesar in here no more at night, and I meant it. He never hurt nothing. I mean, I take good care of the place. I wouldn’t let no one touch nothing he wasn’t suppose’ to.”
A dog sauntered in from the back room and growled at us from behind the man’s legs.
“Is that Caesar’s dog?” I asked.
“The boss never said nothing about no dog. ‘Sides, a watch-dog’s good company, don’t you think? I don’t like being in here all alone all night. A good dog’s good company.”
“Where is Caesar?” I asked.
“Said he was goin’ over to the Weingart for dinner, see if he could find him a bed. On account of, they won’t give him a bed if he has a dog.”
“Thank you so much,” I said, slipping him a five from the wad of bills my mother had given me. I walked Mr. Lee back to his store, tried in vain, again, to pay for the coffee, thanked him twice, bowed a few times, then ran to the curb where I had parked Max’s car.
The Henry Weingart Center is the best financed, most efficiently run shelter and soup kitchen on Los Angeles’s Skid Row. I couldn’t remember exactly where it was. I drove south from the civic center, tracking the density and general direction of the migration of street people until they coaxed out on San Pedro Street. Weingart was in the block after Fifth Street. I parked in a loading zone out front and walked in the front door.
Weingart was better established, certainly, than Grace House, though the clientele was essentially the same. The place itself was large and clean and well-staffed.
It had begun to drizzle again. Just inside the door, two staff members were handing out silver survival ponchos. There was a long queue waiting for the ponchos. I walked up to the man who seemed to be in charge.
“Excuse me,” I said.
I was roughly nudged aside by a man draped with so many Glad Bag bundles he looked like a kid’s Halloween version of a bunch of grapes.
“You gotta wait,” he said, crossly. “Can’t just walk into a line like that. Ain’t right. You gotta wait your turn.”
“Do you know a man named Caesar?” I asked him. “He was coming here for dinner.”
“Dinner?” He turned to the people behind him in line to affirm how stupid my question was. “If he’s looking for dinner, he done missed it. It’s damn near breakfast time, lady. And you still have to wait in line like everyone else.”
I moved to the woman behind him. “How about you? Do you know a man named Caesar, usually has a dog with him?”
“Everyone knows Caesar.” She flipped a hank of gray hair over her shoulder, rearranged her army blanket toga, and recited: ” ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear seeing death. A necessary end, will come when it will come.’ ” She bowed with a flourish.
“What you say?” the grape man demanded.
“Shakespeare,” she said. “Julius Caesar, act two, scene two.”
“Who’s he? He here tonight?”
“He is always with us,” the woman sighed. She looked over at me. “The man, Caesar, about whom you inquire, was turned away tonight. He was quite in his cups, you know. The staff here will not admit one in that state. If he’s sleeping in the neighborhood tonight, then he makes the cobbles of the street his pillow.”
“You’re sure he isn’t in the dormitory?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “I just told you, bitch. They gave the sot the heave-ho.”
“Thanks for your help,” I said. I went back out to the street. It was a mob scene, something like the streets of Pasadena the night before the Rose Parade all done in a silver motif. Poncho-clad people lined the sidewalks two and three deep. A canopy of ponchos strung together sheltered a noisy crowd partying to the accompaniment of huge boom boxes. They shared bottles, jostled each other, or just roamed. Lying here and there around the entire area were the silver-wrapped mounds of bodies at rest. Or bodies, period.
In the grassy verges behind the sidewalk, in the driveways of boarded-up warehouses, people clustered around K-Mart barbecues for warmth. Some of them lounged in plastic lawn chairs, their feet resting on ice chests. Whatever they were doing, everyone faced the street as if waiting for something – I don’t know what, a marching band, a fight, someone to mug, Armageddon.
A pair of overweight, underage hookers plied the crowd, seeking to exchange a little quick pleasure for a hit of crack. They didn’t seem to be having much success.
I beckoned them over as they moved off the sidewalk in front of the center and into the street.
“I’m looking for a man,” I said.
“Who ain’t?” The taller of the girls laughed behind her hand, modestly covering the gaps among her front teeth. She probably was no more than fifteen, but it was difficult to tell.
“His name is Caesar. Do you know him?” I asked, slipping her a five.
“What’d he do to you?” The money disappeared into the top of her black satin shorts.
“I just want to talk to him.”
“Maybe I know him, maybe I don’t. No one tells me his name, just what he wants. What does this dude look like?”
I looked at the men walking by, or sitting at the curb stoned. Caesar looked like all of them.
“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t have another five, so I gave her a ten. “Ask around. If you find him, leave a message at the Weingart for Maggie. There’ll be another twenty in it for you if you do. I’ll be back later.”
“Listen,” the girl said, grabbing my arm as I walked away. “You look more like Hollywood Boulevard than San Pedro Street. They don’t pay so good down here. If you find this Caesar guy, better ask him to pay in advance.”
“Good advice,” I said. I slid into the Beemer, tucking in my sequin train.
I locked the car doors and turned on the engine and the cellular phone. I needed some help. There was no way in hell I was going to move more than six feet down San Pedro Street alone.