Fear of the Dark

Chapter 34

Brian Motley lived in a residence hotel called Leontine Court on the other side of downtown. The building was made from bricks that hadn’t been cleaned since the day they were laid and edged in once-white marble. The sidewalk leading to the door was so soiled and marked that it was almost as dark as the asphalt of the street. There were eighteen stairs rising to the front door. The climb told me that this hotel had been a fancy place that had come down with the neighborhood. Years ago you could have ordered sirloin steak with red wine from room service. Now the men hanging out around the entrance carried their day-old wine in back pockets. The only steak they ate had gone through the grinder.

There was a solitary figure at the front desk sitting under a sign that read ROOMS $2. The gatekeeper was a small white man with large square-framed glasses. The thick lenses threw reflections around the dingy room.

“May I help you?” he asked Mr. Friar.

“Brian Motley, please.”

“He’s in four-A,” the man, who was somewhere between thirty and fifty, said. “Across the courtyard and up the stairs to your left.

“And what about you?” the down-at-the-heels concierge asked Fearless.

“We wit’ the white man, boss,” Fearless said with a grin.

The Leontine courtyard must have been beautiful at one time. The marble walkways ran through great planters walled in by granite bricks. But the palm trees and elephant’s ears had all died away. The huge gardens were now used for cigarette butts and broken bottles. The men and women who perched out there on stone benches were young and old, beaten down and broken.

The sun glared pitilessly on the wide square, but the people still looked to be in shadow.

The only light on the stairway leading to the fourth floor came through paneless windows open to the yard. Dirt was caked in the corners and long-legged spiders scrambled out of our path. There were big roaches too, and flies, and one pigeon that couldn’t seem to find its way out of that hell.

Friar knocked on the crayon blue door. The man who answered wore shapeless maroon pants and a strap-shouldered undershirt. The shirt, once white, was now equal parts yellow and gray.

Brian Motley was unshaven but prebeard, five six exactly, and worn down to fit perfectly among the other residents of that slum.

His rheumy eyes registered Martin and then took us in. He made a slight shrug of resignation and said, “Killing me won’t help you, Marty.”

With that he backed away from the door and shambled down a very long, very narrow hall to a small room that wasn’t worth the buildup.

Motley’s floor hadn’t been finished or sealed in many years. The wood was pale and fibrous. His wooden bench and chairs had been built for outside use. There was nothing on the walls — hardly even paint. The only good thing about that room was a small window that looked upon downtown with its high-rises and blue skies.

I had been in many rooms like this one since coming to L.A., but I had never seen a white man living in one. That was a real eye-opener for me. In America anyone could be poor and downtrodden. I would have spent more time thinking about that, but I was worried about someone deciding to cut my throat for finding out.

“What’s happened to you, Brian?” Martin Friar asked his supplier of black women.

“Who’re your friends?” Motley replied, sitting heavily on a wooden lawn chair.

“Robert,” I said, holding out a hand. “And this is my friend Frank.”

When Brian Motley grinned, you could see that he’d recently lost most of an upper front tooth.

“Bob, Frankie,” he said. “Sit, sit. I found this couch three blocks from here. Can you imagine somebody throwing out something so sturdy? You know, there’s people in China take somethin’ home like this an’ pay for their kids’ education with it.”

We all sat.

Martin was visibly shaken by the condition of his friend.

There was a half-empty pint of Thunderbird wine on the tree-fiber floor. Brian took a swig from it, considered offering us some, and then decided that his generosity would be wasted.

“What can I do for you, Marty?” he asked.

“What has happened to you, Brian?”

“Same thing happening to you,” the wine-soaked white man said. “Only you haven’t got to this stop yet.”

“What are you talking about?” Friar asked. “What do you mean?”

“They got fifteen thousand out of me before they cut me loose,” he said. “All I had to do was give ’em you and three others.”

He giggled.

Then he took a swig of wine.

“Was that Sterling?” I asked, and for the first time Brian Motley’s eyes showed something akin to fear.

“I didn’t tell you that,” he said.

“No, but I’ll tell him you did when I find him.”

“That’s a lie!” Brian shrieked. He jumped up from his chair, but Fearless pushed him back down with enough muscle that he decided to stay put.

“It’s a lie,” he said again.

“Yes,” I admitted. “And I’d be happy to omit that prevarication if you would tell us how we could get to the man.”

From rage to suspicion is a long jump. Mr. Motley’s head bounced like a child’s rubber ball running out of steam. Then he said, “What?”

“We know about Angel, or Monique,” I said. “We also know about Hector LaTiara...”

That name struck home. Motley’s head now made a viperlike motion: serpentine without the fangs.

“He’s dead,” I said. “Killed in his own apartment.”

At this point Motley began breathing through his mouth. I didn’t know what that meant. Was he frightened that someone might kill him too or was he excited that a dark cloud over his head had gone away?

“What do you want from me?”

“Sterling.”

“Why should I help you?”

“Because if you don’t, I’m still going to be looking for the man. And when I do find him, I will tell him that it was you who sent me. That is unless you really do.”

The wine garbled my words in Motley’s ears. He had to think about what I’d said for a moment or two.

“I need much money,” he said at last.

“How much?” I asked.

“Two hundred,” he said. “No. No. Three, three hundred. Three hundred dollars in fives and tens.”

“Can you do that, Mr. Friar?” I asked.

“I don’t have it on me, and my bank will be closed by the time we get there.”

“I got it if the man take twenties,” Fearless offered.

He pulled a large wad of cash from his back pocket. This didn’t surprise me. Fearless often carried large amounts of cash. He never trusted banks.

“Bank ain’t nuthin’ but a robbery waitin’ t’happen,” he always said.

While Fearless peeled off the bills, I said, “Sterling.”

“What do you want to know about him?” Motley asked, licking his lips for every third twenty Fearless thumbed.

“I wanna know the scam, his address, and his full name.”

Fearless had finished counting.

Motley looked at the money like it was a glass of water and he’d spent seven dry days in the Gobi Desert.

“Lionel Charlemagne Sterling,” he said. “He was once a member of the Santa Anita racing commission. He also belongs to the Greenwood Golf Club.”

“He’s the one you gave Mr. Friar’s name?” I asked.

“First I met Monique,” Motley admitted. “She brought me to a few card games and showed that she was always a winner. I put some money with her, and she won a few times. Then she told me about a big game. I put up six thousand dollars... Only one of it was mine. She lost and Hector came to me. He made me take more, ten thousand more. Then, when I told him I couldn’t take anything else without getting caught, he said he wanted other names. What else could I do?”

“You could have been a man,” Martin Friar suggested.

I wondered what the righteous Mr. Friar would have done if gangsters had threatened his lifestyle and his family for the cost of a few names.

“Where does Sterling come in?” I asked Motley instead.

“Hector brought me to him when I said I couldn’t steal anymore. He told me that they’d cut me loose if I played along. I gave them what they wanted, but my superiors found out about the money I took. They didn’t want a scandal, but they fired me and blackballed me. I can’t work. I can’t live. My wife won’t have me after those women. All I can do now is get on a bus and go back to Sacramento to my family.”

He reached for the money, but I put my hand in the way.

“Write down the list of names you gave to Sterling and his address,” I said.

“I don’t know where he lives,” Motley said, his voice quavering.

“I can find him,” Friar said in that man-in-charge voice of his.

“Okay,” I said. “Get a pencil and write down the names.”