Blonde Faith

32

Driving away from the fish market, I had the feeling that I’d done something right. More than that, I felt good about my life . . . for a passing moment. I liked Lineman and the men and women who worked the fish trade, but I didn’t want my life to be like that: to go every day to the same place, do the same things, and say the same words to the same people.

My dalliance with Faith Laneer had put Bonnie in a box in a corner of my mind. She wasn’t gone, but she wasn’t in plain sight either. This was, I believed, the first step out of the sadness that had enveloped me.

I got to my office and went straight to the phone book. There was only one Pretty Smart listed in the Negro neighborhood; actually in any neighborhood.

I leaned back in my swivel chair and took the time to breathe deeply and enjoy the leisure that the moment provided. I even considered picking up a book I’d gotten at the Aquarian Bookshop, The System of Dante’s Hell by a young writer named LeRoi Jones. It was a difficult tome, but something about the certainty of the author’s tone made me think about freedom.

I didn’t pick up the book, but at least I thought about it. This was another milestone in my recovery. I lit a cigarette and gazed at my white ceiling. There were no faux bumblebees or even a water mark to betoken the poverty of my neighborhood. I was all right, on the road to a better tomorrow, free, or almost so, the best the scion of slaves could hope for.

Someone knocked at my door.

All that comfort and hope drained out at my feet. The cold reality of murder and grim retribution filled me more quickly than I could gauge the change. It was as if there had been no change at all; I had always been desperate and frightened, vengeful and ready to run.

I patted my right pocket to make sure my gun was there.

I went over to the far right corner away from the door and shouted, “Who is it?”

“Colonel Timothy Bunting,” a young man said in a practiced commanding tone.

I took a step to my left just in case the man decided to fire in the direction of my voice. All the regular questions went through my mind. Was he alone? Had he come to kill me? How many drug smugglers were there? It did not occur to me immediately to question whether he really was a military man come to see me for some valid purpose. Why would I think that? All I had met so far were victims and killers, and the killers were all in uniform — or at least once were.

“Mr. Rawlins?” the man called.

For a moment I considered shooting him through the door. After all, wasn’t he there to kill me? That’s when I knew that my bout with insanity was not yet over. I was prepared to murder a man I had never even seen. I had become those white men chasing me up the stairs in Bellflower — that was just not acceptable, not at all.

I went to the door and pulled it open, the gun in my pocket and my hands not in fists.

A natty young man in a colonel’s uniform stood there in front of me. He wore no medals and had his officer’s cap under his left arm. His face would not grow into manhood for at least another decade. He was tall, slender of shoulder in spite of exercise, and his skin was olive colored, not from the sun.

“Mr. Rawlins?” the thirty-something officer asked.

“Show me some ID.”

“Excuse me, sir, don’t you see the uniform?”

“Show me some ID now,” I said.

“I represent the United States government, Mr. Rawlins. . . .”

He stopped talking because I pulled out my .38 and pointed it at his left eyeball. The young officer knew enough to see when he was in a no-win situation, so he carefully took his wallet from his back pocket and opened it to show his military identification card.

This displayed his name, rank, and photograph.

I put the gun in my pocket and a smile on my lips.

“Come on in, Colonel,” I said. “It’s been quite a while since a man in uniform has told me the truth.”

I took the seat behind my desk and the young officer sat before me. We experienced a few seconds that dragged on into a minute of uncomfortable silence. I had pulled a gun on a man who was used to treating the smallest exhibition of insubordination with harsh retaliation. But here he had to swallow my defiance and continue as if nothing had happened.

“What did you mean?” the colonel asked.

“Come again.”

“What did you mean when you said that men in uniform were, uh, lying to you?”

I considered being cagey, putting out a few feelers to see how much Bunting knew. But I wasn’t in the frame of mind to tiptoe around. Bunting was either with Sansoam or against him; either way we were going to have to put our cards on the table. So I told him what I knew about Clarence Miles.

“I’ll have this Miles looked into,” he said officiously.

“Don’t bother, Tim,” I said. “There is no black Clarence Miles in your army, at least not no captain.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know things that would amaze you, Tim. Just take my word on it. Clarence Miles’s real name is Sammy Sansoam.”

Bunting knew the name. He might have been an officer, but he’d never be a cardsharp.

“You should refer to me as Colonel, Mr. Rawlins.”

“If you don’t like what I say, then get your ass outta here . . . Tim. I been jerked all around this city by everyone from security guards to colonels. I refuse to respect you because you don’t give a shit about me. So if you need somebody to kiss your ass, you can just move on down the hall.”

Again the young man needed a moment to collect himself. He was a soldier, and our country was at war. I should have been falling over myself to help him — that’s what he thought.

“Samuel Sansoam was an officer,” Bunting said at last. “We suspect him of having been involved with criminal activities in the army and even now after his discharge.”

“What crimes?” I asked.

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Drug smuggling for a warlord in Cambodia, maybe?” I said, trying to look like an innocent.

Bunting was injudicious in his silence. He should never have been made colonel, but he’d probably end up with five stars.

“What other information do you have, Rawlins?” he asked in a hard-as-nails voice that he must have practiced at night.

“Mr. Rawlins,” I said.

This time a look of hurt went across Bunting’s face. If I could call him Tim, then why couldn’t he use my last name?

Life is not fair. These were some of the few words of advice I had left to remind me of my father. What he meant was that a black man had to swallow his pride, his pain, and his humiliation on a daily basis when it came to dealing with white folks. It felt good to turn the tables on that adage. And I felt no remorse for doing so with the self-important boy-officer.

“Do you have any other information . . . Mr. Rawlins?”

“First you tell me how you got to my door.”

“I’m not here to answer your questions, sir.”

“You’re not here at all, son. You are a soldier and I am a civilian. I’m not answerable to you, and you hold no jurisdiction over me. So if you want to play nice, I will consider answering your questions. Otherwise we can go on playing this silly game.”

“I’m looking for Major Christmas Black,” Bunting said. “He was once a member of our special forces, but he left the army.”

“And you think that he is a part of your drug smugglers’ cabal?” I could tell that Bunting didn’t understand the last word, but he covered it up pretty well.

“No. We had a letter from a former soldier, a pharmacist named Craig Laneer. He told us that he’d been part of this smuggling ring and that he wanted to turn over the organization. Laneer was subsequently murdered. His wife, a woman named Faith Laneer, disappeared. We found out from her Vietnamese charity that she had been friends with Black. The LAPD told us that Black and a criminal named Raymond Alexander were friends and that you and this Alexander were very close.

“I’m here to find out if you can help me find Black.”

By the end of this explanation, I was fairly certain that Colonel Bunting was who he said he was and that he was looking for the same people I was.

“I know Christmas,” I said. “He has a house up in Riverside.”

“We’ve been there. He’s gone.”

“Did the police tell you that Raymond has disappeared and is wanted for questioning in the disappearance of a man named Pericles Tarr?”

“No.”

“Maybe the cops want you to do their work for them,” I suggested.

Bunting frowned, remembering something that he did not share.

“They were right about me and Ray bein’ friends, though,” I added. “I’ve been tryin’ to run him down myself. So if you want to leave me a number or something, I’ll be glad to call you if I get a line on Christmas.”

“You would?” He was really surprised.

“I don’t have anything against you, Colonel,” I said. “I just need you to respect me as much as you respect the flag.”

The soldier looked at me in a way that said this encounter would stay with him for the rest of his life. He might forget my name and the circumstances of our meeting, but the changes wrought in him would be indelible on his understanding of power, its distribution, and its use.

He wrote down his numbers on a piece of paper that I provided.

“It’s time,” I said.

“Time for what?”

“For you to get out of here and follow your nose.”