Farewell, Amethystine

3

For quite a while after Amethystine had departed, I stared out the window at our backyard neighbor’s picnic table.

Not long before, a quintet of hippies lived there, growing marijuana in a jury-rigged greenhouse. They escaped capture by the LAPD because I had warned them of the threat, and now a young couple lived there with their toddler son.

Anger Lee and I were walking down a dark Galveston alley late one Wednesday night. I was smitten with her even though she treated me like a little brother.

I’d just gotten off from my job as a dishwasher at an upscale bordello on Rent Street. Halfway down the alley a big Black man jumped out, slapped me, and then pulled out a jagged-looking black-bladed knife.

“Bitch! You comin’ wit’ me!” the attacker yelled at Anger.

Fifteen-year-old man that I was, I jumped up and tried my best to demolish our attacker. Instead, I was laid on my back with a knife wound in my left shoulder and a concussion that lasted nine days. Even though I was outmanned, my attack was a success because it gave Anger the chance to pull out her long-barreled .41-caliber pistol.

“Back it up, suckah!” she yelled.

Then there was a shot.

“Mr. Rawlins?”

Niska was standing at the door, her words a beacon set on leading me out of a nightmare.

“Yeah, baby?” I said, speaking words in the language of a long-ago life.

“Can we talk?”

“Come on in.”

She crossed the threshold.

One of the many things I liked about our office manager was that, whenever she was nervous, it showed in her gait.

Stiffly she moved to the central visitor’s chair. We then sat in unison.

“What can I do for you, Niska?”

The differences between our office manager and Amethystine were many.

Niska was open and aboveboard, a churchgoer, and careless about things that did not matter.

“I’ve been here over two years,” she began. “Before that I worked for Mr. Natley.”

I nodded.

“That’s a long time,” she added. “Since I was sixteen.”

“It is.”

“I like this job and, and I’m pretty good at it.”

“And now you want a raise,” I said with absolute certainty.

“No. You pay me more than most kids my age get. It’s just that I don’t want to be an office manager forever.”

“That’s why you’re going to college, right?”

“I want to be a PI like you.”

These words created a vacuum in my mind. I didn’t see Niska as a detective. As a matter of fact, I had never met a woman PI. In my experience, back then, women only did men’s jobs if they worked on a farm or if the men had gone off to war.

“What do you think about that?” Niska wanted to know.

Searching for the right words, I asked, “You talk to Whisper ’bout this?”

“Tinsford treats me like he my uncle or sumpin’. He always comes and picks me up if I ever work after nightfall and if he’s out of town he gets somebody else to do it.”

“But you drive your own car,” I argued against the man not there.

“They walk me to my car.”

Her look was plaintive, and I could understand why.

“I can see why a man like Tinsford would think he had to protect a young woman,” I said. “That’s just the world we come from.”

“But it’s not the world we live in, Mr. Rawlins,” she complained. “Just as much as a man, a woman has to follow her dreams. She has to be able to take care of herself too.”

“And your dream is to be a private detective?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But why? I thought you were studyin’ business or somethin’.”

“You remember when I told you about the guy I met at the TM retreat a few months ago?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a patrol cop and wants to be an investigator one day. When he found out that I worked for two Black detectives he was so excited. It made me realize how good and important your job is.”

“You’re a big part of this job, N.”

“I know. I mean I know that I help. But you’re out there in the world making sense out of things that are hidden, secrets. Reggie wants to do that, and while he was saying it, I realized that I did too.”

“Reggie’s a Black man?” I asked, realizing how often that kind of question came to mind.

“Yeah. And he wants to be like you and Whisper.”

“And you do too?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because this work makes more sense than book learning does. Human sense.”

I was impressed.

“What do you think?” Niska insisted.

“The first thing is you have to talk to Tinsford. You can tell him that I support you and that I’ll be part of your education. But he has to agree. I won’t go against a partner like that.”

Niska gave me a long, soulful look and then nodded.

“You’re right,” she said. “If I want something like this, I have to stand up for myself. Thank you, Mr. Rawlins.”

She stood up, held out a hand for me to shake, and then walked out with confidence and aplomb.

After Niska was back at her desk, my mind wandered for a while. There were many thoughts swimming around up there. Mouse talking revolution, Niska wanting to put her life on the line. And, most important, Amethystine Stoller, who somehow reminded me of a woman named Anger with a smoking gun in her hand.

I nodded to myself and picked up the phone.

“Commander Suggs’s line,” informed a woman’s voice that was weathered by age.

“You sound sad, Myra.”

“Oh. It’s you, Mr. Rawlins.” Her words seemed to be coming up off some dismal memory like mist from a stagnant lake. “Can I help you?”

“He in?”

Without Myra Lawless saying another word, the phone made three loud clicks and then another line began to ring.

“Captain McCourt.” The answering voice was not only deep but also musical.

“Anatole?”

“Who is this?”

“Easy Rawlins.”

“What do you want?” I was not Mr. McCourt’s favorite person.

“I was trying to call Melvin, got Myra, and she passed me along to you, I guess.”

There was silence for a beat.

“Commander Suggs is away on vacation,” Anatole McCourt said as if reading the words off a cue card. “He’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”

I’d seen Mel only five days earlier. He’d told me then that he was going on vacation to Paris with Mary Donovan — his live-in girlfriend who was born and breastfed on the other side of the tracks.

Mel and I were having breakfast at Tony’s Bistro Diner on Flower Street. We liked going there for our now-and-again morning meetings because Mary had him on a forever diet and I’d always get the strawberry waffles.

“Last time I was in Paris was during the Allied occupation,” I’d said. “When you goin’?”

“May, before it gets too hot.”

Mel took a four-week vacation once every two years; that was a hard-and-fast rule. So Anatole was lying, but that didn’t matter. Conversing with liars was my bread and butter.

“Well then, maybe you could help me, Captain.”

“What do you need?”

“I’ve been asked to look for a missing person. A man named Curt Fields.”

“Negro?”

“White.”

“What’s he done?”

“Disappeared.”

“And who is the client?”

“His wife. Mrs. Fields.”

The cop went silent, but my mind did not wander. I was trying to read his thoughts over the phone.

“Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll look into it. Why don’t we meet at Clifton’s around one?”

I knew then that whatever was going on with Mel, there was something wrong with it. McCourt saw me as the Element and himself as the Cure. We’d traded information from time to time, but never had he asked for a meet.

I called Mel’s home phone but there was no answer. This was strange because Mel was one of the few people I knew who had an answering machine.

Next I flipped through my Rolodex looking for the card containing the number for Pink Hippo #3. After eight rings, an answering machine did engage.

“Nobody’s here right now,” a man’s deep voice proclaimed. “If you want somethin’ then leave a message and somebody might get back to you.”

When the beep sounded, I said, “Easy Rawlins,” and then hung up.