Blonde Faith

47

And this is the backyard,” Feather said with feigned nonchalance.

We had already seen what E.D. had dubbed the Big Room with its long, long table and rough-hewn, heavy oak chairs. We’d seen the library with its hundreds of books, the kitchen that had four stoves and a freestanding wood-burning oven, the roof garden, eight of the twelve bedrooms, including the master bedroom, and five or six other rooms whose purposes were not immediately apparent.

I was amazed along with my friends, but in my heart there was a war going on. I’d think of Bonnie, of walking with her from the house to the tree garden. The pain of that impossibility brought back to mind my name written thirty times by a woman who was killed as she was falling in love.

“Goddamn,” Mouse exclaimed. “Will you look at that pool? It’s like a goddamned lake.”

To accent Mouse’s claim, Jesus ran forward and jumped in, followed by Feather even though she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. The pool led to a lawn and the lawn ended at a cliff overlooking a valley. In the distance you could see the Pacific Ocean.

I wondered what kind of deal Jewelle had made to come up with a place like that. She was always looking around, buying up lots of land on the cheap in hopes of future projects. A lot that prevented the construction of a downtown skyscraper might have been worth this hidden mansion.

Easter took Christmas to her room to show him what it looked like. Benita went to the other side of the pool to watch her lover and his sister while at the same time avoiding any contact with Raymond.

“She hates me, huh, Easy?” Mouse said.

“Sure do.”

“Well . . . I guess she got good reason.”

We were sitting on a pink-and-gray marble bench that was anchored in the concrete. He was wearing a blue-and-purple Hawaiian shirt and white pants.

“You should go stay with Lynne Hua for a while, Ray.”

“Fuck that. Cops want me, they better be ready to lose a few’a they own.”

“Just two days, man,” I said.

“I thought you wanted me to help you kill this Sammy dude.”

“I do and you will.”

Ray grinned his friendliest and deadliest smile.

“You askin’ me this for a favor?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You been to see Lynne?”

The question threw me, but I didn’t show it.

“Yeah. Lookin’ for you.”

“That all?”

“Ray, how long you known me, man?”

He snorted and took out a cigarette.

I got up and wandered into the California dream house, looking for a phone.

“HELLO,” she said quickly, expectantly on the first ring.

I froze. The paralysis started in my gut but traveled swiftly to my fingertips and tongue. I had every intention of speaking, of saying hello like any ordinary person would do. I wanted to say hey, but I couldn’t even breathe.

“Hello?” Bonnie Shay asked again. “Who’s there?”

One of the reasons I couldn’t speak was that my mind was ahead of my vocal cords. I was in the middle of telling her about Sammy Sansoam and poor Faith Laneer, but I had yet to open my mouth.

My heart throbbed rather than beat. It seemed to make a sound, a high-pitched chatter that reminded me of a winter’s day in southern Louisiana five weeks after my mother had died.

It was after one of those rare Louisiana snowstorms in the early morning. A quarter inch of the fine powder covered the ground. A daddy longlegs spider was hobbling back and forth on a broad plain of white. As a child, I figured that he was probably looking for the summer again, that he thought he was lost and that there was solid ground and warm earth somewhere . . . if he could only find it.

My heart was that spider way back then.

“Easy?” Bonnie said softly.

I hung up.

JESUS WAS WAITING for me outside the library. He had a keen sense about my feelings and a belief that he was the only one who could save me from myself.

“Jewelle told me to tell you that we could stay here as long as we wanted, Dad.”

“That’s good,” I said. “I need you up here for a while.”

“Did you talk to Bonnie?”

I looked at my son, proud of his talents and his gentle ways.

“No,” I said. “Uh-uh. I was about to make a call to the police about somethin’, but then I thought that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.”

WHEN CHRISTMAS told Easter Dawn that it was time to go, she broke down crying. She didn’t want to leave her new room or her sister, Feather. I told the disgraced soldier that we had the house for as long as we wanted and that I’d like him to stay around to make sure that my family and his were safe.

“You don’t have a house now anyway, do ya?” I asked him.

“No,” he said, his head bowed down.

“Then stay, man. I got E.D. enrolled in a school. She needs other kids. She needs a life.”

The sour twist of Black’s lips was the taste of bile and blood, I’m sure. He was thinking about breaking my neck. I knew this from my own impression and also because Mouse raised his head to regard us.

Easter Dawn was all that Christmas had left. He wanted to take her and crawl into a hole somewhere to heal. And there I was, the first-ever impediment between him and his daughter. My life, my home, my children called to her. Christmas wanted to silence that song.

But he was a good man beneath all the insanity. He loved his daughter and wanted what was right for her. In the car he had dismissed me as a subordinate, but that was over now. I was an equal in an unfair world.

AFTER A FEW long good-byes I drove Ray to Lynne Hua’s apartment. He slapped my shoulder and winked at me before getting out.

“You got to take it easy, Easy,” he told me. “You gettin’ all worked up, man. I mean, I got people out there plannin’ to kill me an’ I ain’t as upset as you.”

“I got it covered, Ray. Just a few more steps and I’m home free.”

I STOPPED ON LA BREA in the early evening, went into a phone booth, and dropped two nickels. I dialed a number I knew by heart and wrapped a handkerchief around the mouthpiece.

“Seventy-sixth Street Precinct,” a woman told me.

“Captain Rauchford,” I said in a deep voice with a growl inside it.

Without reply, she plugged me into the switchboard. A phone rang one time before a man answered, “Rauchford.”

“I hear you lookin’ for Ray Alexander.”

“Who is this?”

“Don’t you worry about who this is, just listen up,” I said in a voice I heard in my mind sometimes. “Mouse outta town right now, but he be back with his boys in a day or two.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know yet, but I will know because that mothahfuckah fuckin’ my woman,” I said with real feeling, too much feeling. “She gonna run to him the minute he’s in town.”

“Tell me your name,” the white man commanded.

“My name ain’t got nuthin’ to do with it.”

“This call has been traced. I know where you live.”

Just about then an ambulance raced by, its siren crying.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, late morning or noon, and give you the knowledge.”