A Little Yellow Dog

35

Sojourner truth was getting to be like a fond memory, like an old house that I had once lived in but now it was inhabited by strangers. I felt like an intruder even though I used my key.

There was a light on on the top floor of the administration building. Mouse was there with his cloth push broom. He’d sprinkled the hall with oil-treated sawdust and was pushing the greenish shavings in an even back-and-forth pattern, sucking up the dirt out of the corners and cracks of the floor.

“Hey, Raymond.”

He nodded and set his long-handled broom against the wall.

Walking down that long hall toward me, Mouse looked like all the black men I’d known working late hours. His casual gait graceful like that of a woodland beast, each careful step testing the ground.

“Where you got me goin’ t’night, man?” he asked.

“I just need t’talk to some people, Raymond. An’ I don’t wanna go it alone.”

“I don’t got no gun, man.”

“That’s fine by me, brother.”

I helped him to get everything squared away. And then we left.

“I thought we was going someplace in Compton?” Raymond asked when we were almost in Santa Monica.

“Got to get Jackson Blue first.”

“Jackson.” Mouse grinned. He always grinned when it came to Jackson Blue.

I parked in the motel lot and knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” This time he was standing straight back from the door.

“Come on, Jackson, open up.”

We settled his bill with the woman who ran the place and then headed north. Mouse took the backseat and Jackson sat next to me.

“How much you know about a guy named Beam?” I asked Jackson.

“Joey Beam? He’s a bad cat. Really bad.”

“He work for Stetz?”

“Not really. Philly run the place an’ Beam hang out there. They both gamblers mainly. But Philly owns the numbers. At least all the numbers he could get ahold of. Philly’s the top dog. He the one says what’s what. But Beam don’t answer to Philly. He might do a job fo’im but Beam’s his own man.”

“They friends?”

“I’ont know, man. They know each other. But you know those kinda men like each other just as much as their money is green.”

Mouse laughed in the backseat.

“What if I went to Philly an’ told him that I had a friend in trouble with Beam?” I asked. “What if I said that this friend had taken something didn’t belong to him but now he wanted to give it back?”

“Who’s that?”

“We’ll get to that later,” I said. “But this thing I got to give him he’s gonna really want. Then let’s say that you gonna drop the numbers and the bets. Then maybe he could get this price off your head.”

“What’s that?” Mouse asked.

“Somebody put out a price on my head,” Jackson said. “Now all kindsa brothers wanna hunt me down. Could you believe that?”

Mouse didn’t answer.

“What you got for Beam?” Jackson asked me.

“Aitch.”

Jackson’s eyes widened. “How much?”

“Don’t you worry about that, Jackson. That don’t matter to you. All you got to care about is helpin’ me with Stetz.”

“I ain’t dealin’ wit’ Stetz. Nooo, no. That man wants to see me dead.”

“I’ll be the one to go to’im, Jackson. All I need for you to do is to help me.”

Jackson didn’t reply.

We were headed up Sunset for the hills above West Hollywood. Just before we got to Laurel Canyon we took a left up a smaller road. That wound around until we reached a long dirt driveway that led to a small house on a precipice overlooking L.A.

Jewelle met us at the door.

“Hi, Mr. Rawlins, Mr. Alexander,” she said. She looked at Jackson, waiting for an introduction.

“This is Jackson Blue,” I told her. “He needs a place to stay for a couple’a nights, JJ. I know it might be trouble—”

“That don’t matter,” she said, cutting me off. “We don’t mind helpin’ you, Mr. Rawlins.”

“Thank you,” Jackson said. The spark in Jackson’s eye was starting to worry me when I heard Mofass coming toward the door.

His normal breathing sounded like a severe asthma attack. He struggled up the three stairs to the entrance and then stopped, leaning against the wall like a man who had just raced five miles.

“Mr. Rawlins,” the gravel-toned real estate agent said. “Mr. Alexander.”

He had on the ratty Scotch-plaid housecoat that he almost always wore. Mofass rarely went out. Jewelle took care of the apartments and the real estate business that they’d taken from her aunt. She took care of him too.

“Uncle Willy, you shouldn’t be up here in this breeze,” she said. “Come on, let’s get back down to the couch.”

With that the slender girl tugged and supported the two-hundred and-fifty-pound man. She didn’t ask for any help and didn’t seem to want any. Her labor was a labor of love.

We followed them down the stairs to a large room that was carpeted with thick, real animal-skin rugs. There was a large fireplace roaring and a picture window that had the same view that was behind Lips McGee at the casino.

“This is nice,” Jackson said, falling down into a plush settee. “Real nice. Like a little country house for a Roman senator.”

“The Romans had emperors,” Jewelle corrected.

“Yeah,” Jackson said. “But they had senators too. You know, the Greeks started democracy but the Romans made law. They had elected officials too. Ain’t that right, Easy?”

“Yeah, just like America was. They had senators and they had slaves.”

“Where’d you learn that?” she asked.

“Mr. Rawlins,” Mofass complained, “why you bringin’ these people into my house?”

“It’s just a couple’a days. Jackson and I got some business to handle, and while we do he got to lay low. You know what that’s like, William.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he wheezed.

Mouse and i didn’t stay long. I sat with Mofass for ten minutes pretending that he ran the business. He barked out some orders to Jewelle and she answered, “Yes, Uncle Willy,” every time. She ran the business better than he ever could, but she loved him and respected him. She would have thrown away all that money and all that land just to be there. Her love was a jagged scar, it hurt me to see it.