Farewell, Amethystine

14

I was up at six the next morning. Jesus had already made coffee on the second floor of Roundhouse. He never drank the bitter brew himself, but he’d made it for me almost every daybreak since he was five and I took him in as my son. He was a full-grown man since the age of twelve, but now, after returning from Alaska, he was something more than that.

“Beautiful up north?” I asked.

“Clear and mean,” he replied.

“So how you gonna live down here in the smog again?”

“I miss my family.”

I had once asked the well-informed, even academic, Jackson Blue who he thought the world’s greatest poet was.

“Ain’t no answer to that question,” Blue told me.

“Why not?”

“The greatest poet,” he opined, “is the man or woman who lives their poetry.”

That man was my son.

The ladies all slept late that day. Jesus and I hung around the kitchen, him with his northern newspapers and me with Papillon. Now and then we shared a word or two.

I had three phones at that time. The house line that Feather and I used, the business phone among the roses upstairs, and then the closed-circuit line that connected all of the Brighthope houses to the Sicilian work and guard staff.

The ringer on the private phone was more like a low gong that sounded once every three seconds.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Mr. Rawlins?”

“Hey, Erculi.” Erculi was the patriarch of the Longo clan.

“A man say his name is McCourt down here. He has a badge and wants to come up.”

“Tell him I’ll be right down.”

I put on a burnt-orange T-shirt, straw-colored suit, and shoes the color of Meyer lemons, looked in the mirror, and decided to cap off the ensemble with a dark-brown Stetson woven from supple straw.

The senior cop was standing in the parking area next to his maroon Pontiac.

“Anatole,” I said in greeting.

“Why wouldn’t the wop let me up there?”

“Brighthope Valley rule: no police unless with a warrant or the say-so of the owner.”

He looked as if he wanted to spit on my yellow shoes.

Instead, he asked, “Have you found Mary Donovan?”

“Not lookin’ for her.”

That answer squared the big man’s shoulders.

The police captain was not only tall and good-looking. He was something more. Strong as Sonny Liston and violent someplace way down in his soul. Only a fool would have riled or disrespected him.

“I thought we had an understanding,” he threatened.

“What is it with you and Suggs, man? He do somethin’ to you?”

“Flew too close to the flame,” Anatole opined. He took a beat and then said, “Tommy Jester was found in an alley near his West Hollywood apartment. He was facedown with a bullet through the back of his skull.”

“Who’s that?”

“You can’t get away with that, Easy.” It was the first time, ever, that he used my moniker. “His two neighbors said that a man look a lot like you was at his door yesterday.”

“I wasn’t there, but why would you even know that?” “Jester was an associate of Mary in the old days.” “Must be a coincidence.”

“I could take you in and put you in a lineup.”

“Because someone said somebody looks like me knocked on somebody’s door?”

“Are you saying that you never heard of Jester?”

“That’s exactly what I’m sayin’.”

“You can’t help Melvin like this.”

“Do a better job than you.”

He was considering killing me with his fists, I was sure of that. I was ready for it. Sometimes a man has to put it out there. Has to.

Whatever violence Anatole felt, he also had admirable self-control. That’s why I lived a little longer.

“You’re gonna go down on this, Rawlins.”

“We all do one day.” I managed to put on a grin.

Watching the police captain’s dark-red car drive away down the dirt road from my home, I had to make a decision.

The choice I made was to go back to Roundhouse, kiss my daughter, granddaughter, and daughter-in-law. Then I had breakfast with them and a really good conversation about almost nothing at all.

After the meal I went back up to my room, took off the glad rags, and donned worn blue jeans, a long-sleeved tan work shirt, and shoes that looked like a lifetime of hard knocks.

From there I went up to the roof, had my morning cigarette, and then I made a call.

“Hello?”

“Loretta?”

“Easy. How nice to hear your voice.”

“You too, girl. He in?”

“Yes, he is.”

The phone clicked twice and then...

“Mr. Rawlins,” said a voice that sounded like a lion’s cough.

“Our friend’s in some trouble,” I said, getting right to the point.

“Is he ever.”

“How much for a spring?”

“Fifteen hunnert.”

“I’ll meet you out front at ten forty-five.”

The criminal courts building is on Temple Street downtown. Concrete and steel, it’s a monolith and an edifice, a symbol of the power of a justice system that has managed to hide the corruption fueling its machinations.

I got there on time, and Milo, as usual when it came to money, was early. Milo Sweet, the porcine blackberry of a disbarred lawyer turned bail bondsman. He was smoking a long cigar and unconsciously rubbing his hands together.

“Milo.”

“Mr. Rawlins to the rescue,” he replied.

I handed him a fat envelope.

“Eighteen hundred just in case something unexpected comes up,” I said.

Taking the money, Milo proclaimed, “You know, Mr. Rawlins, no matter how hard we try, some souls are lost cases.”

“That’s true,” I agreed. “But those are the people whose stories we can’t wait to hear about.”

Shaking his head and cracking a smile, he said, “Lemme get to work.”

The walk from the courthouse to the 2120 Building on Wilshire Boulevard was just about thirty blocks. The 2120 was the second-tallest building in Los Angeles at that time. Thirty-nine stories, and reminiscent of the dark monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I tilted my head back to see the upper floors of the black-and-gray structure.

A cartoon figure came to mind: a white guy in tux and tails saying, “Remember what Mr. Epsilon says, ‘From the 2120 Building to Bungalow Thirteen, property is the way to go for every man, woman and child.’”

I went through the dark glass front doors of 2120. About twelve steps from the entrance there was a reception area, a waist-high corral that contained three Caucasian security guards, all of them wearing similar grayish-blue uniforms. They watched me, ready to go into action if I tried to get any deeper into their preserve.

Despite expectations, I walked up to the kidney-shaped area and smiled.

“Hey. You guys got a employment office?”

The oldest among the guardians was around my age and balding. The uniform jacket couldn’t hide the paunch he carried. Through golden-wire-frame glasses, he looked me up and down. Then, in order to meet my eye, the short man had to tilt his face upward.

“What kinda job you lookin’ for?” he asked.

“What kind you got?”

The guard — his name tag read ELMER SIMON — didn’t know how to answer that simple inquiry.

“The man asked you a question,” said the guard named ROBERT CRESS. In his late twenties, Bob was my height with brown hair. Judging by his physique and demeanor I figured him to be an off-duty cop.

“Asked and answered,” I said, looking the young man directly in the eye.

“You didn’t say what job,” Bob told me.

“I didn’t ask for one neither. I asked for the employment office.”

The third guard was between his comrades in position, height, and age. He watched the interaction like a broke bystander watching a hand of high-stakes poker.

“Mr. Simon,” a man called from some distance away, near the elevator bank.

I turned my head in that direction and Elmer did too.

Coming toward us at a good clip was a tall man in a nice dark suit. His hair was black and shiny.

“Yes, Mr. Gentry,” Elmer said. I could tell by the elder guard’s tone that Gentry was boss on the ground floor.

“What’s going on?” the suave boss asked as he came near.

“This one’s messin’ around,” Bob answered.

“Did I ask you?” the man named Gentry said.

Bob didn’t know how to respond. On the street he would’ve hit him with a billy club. But we weren’t on the street.

“I wanted to know if you had a, you know, a employment office,” I said to the boss. I was pretending and intending at the same time.

“And what did they tell you?” Gentry asked.

“They were just tellin’ me where it’s at.”

This answer confused all four white men.

“Come on,” Gentry said, “I’ll take you there.”

I managed not to make eye contact with the guards as I walked away with one of so many bosses whom I’d dissimulated before.

“What’s your name?” the floor boss asked me as we waited for the elevator car.

“Ezekiel, Ezekiel Rawlins.”

“We’re not at full capacity, Mr. Rawlins. I’m trying to get the staff into shape.”

I nodded, thinking that such a task would take decades.

“Where you from?” he asked.

“Houston. Before that, when I was a kid, I lived in southern Louisiana.”

“Hot down there,” he said showing his teeth.

“Yeah. In more ways than one.”

A chime sounded and, three seconds later, one of the five elevator doors slid open. Gentry nodded for me to go in and I did.

“It’ll be a good place to work,” he said to me.

“Feels modern,” I said in a tone of agreement.

“Have you ever done custodial work before?” Martine Shalimar asked.

Her dress was peacock blue and her necklace beaded with tiny red stones. In her thirties, she was both confident and friendly — traits that made her see me for what I presented.

“Oh yeah. For five years I did cleanup at P9 down on Wilshire.”

“Why did you leave?”

“It’s a good place to work at, so nobody hardly ever quits.”

“Sounds like a good job.”

Her hair had a golden sheen, almost as if it were metal. Her eyes were a mottled gray and her teeth just a little crooked, making her smile attractive in its humanity.

I think she saw me categorizing her features and was pleased by the attention.

“It was a good job,” I agreed. “So good that nobody ever left.”

“So, you had no room for growth.”

“That’s it exactly.”

I never worked at P9, but the president, Jean-Paul Villard, had the head office make me a false history, for situations like the 2120. Trading favors was definitely a big part of my economy.

Miss Shalimar leaned forward on the blotter, indicating that the conversation was about to get serious.

“We’re at only thirty percent capacity right now,” she said. “The maintenance staff is working to put all the units and floors in order. There will, most certainly, be room for growth.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Well,” she said with a smile. “All you have to do is fill out an application for our files.”

“I can do that,” I said with real delight.

“Do you have any questions for me?”

“The man told me about the positions here was named Purlo, Ron Purlo, I think. You know him?”

The human resources professional shook her head and smiled with friendly apology spread across her face.

“No,” she said. “But we have quite a few investors. Maybe he’s one of them.”

“Don’t matter. I just wanted to thank the man.”

“When can you start working, Mr. Rawlins?”

“Right now.”

“Glad to see you want to get to it,” she said with a smile that hinted at something else. “But I’ll have to check your employment record and tell Mr. Henry first. He’s the maintenance supervisor.”

“So when should I come back?”

“Morning, day after tomorrow, should be fine. The custodial staff starts at seven thirty.”

“Day after tomorrow,” I said, pretending to do the calculations in my head. “That’s Saturday, isn’t it?”

“We have a six-day workweek here at the 2120,” she said. “Sounds good to me.”