Farewell, Amethystine

32

I felt like I needed to do something, but it was late. So I drove back to my mountain home and spent the night cooking for my daughter. In the morning, I took her to a training swim-race down at the beach. There were six races, and she placed in each one, even came in first for one of them. After that, I drove her to Jackson and Jewelle’s house, and, finally, I started working again.

The drive down to San Diego was peaceful. Not much traffic, with small white and yellow blossoms from flowering weeds on either side of the highway. The ocean was on the right. In its northern quadrant the sun was sinking down over the Pacific. I liked driving alone. No radio or idle chatter and the only thing to be vigilant about was the traffic.

I wondered about Anger Lee for a twenty-mile stretch of lonely road.

I searched for Anger six or seven years after she left Houston, until I was finally drafted into World War II. She had four uncles and three aunts, all in and around the Fifth Ward. Most of them didn’t have time for a lovesick youth who didn’t have two nickels to rub together. The only ones who would talk to me were her uncle Holler Lee and Anger’s aunt Becka.

Holler was a wino who lived in a shack behind the house of an ex-wife, Malley. Malley let him stay there because she was the one who broke off the marriage.

If I brought Holler a jug of cheap wine, he’d talk with me until passing out. Anger was never close to him and certainly wouldn’t have told him where she’d gone. But he had stories about her that were funny and colorful. After an afternoon with Holler I’d be smiling for a week.

Becka Martin was a different case altogether. She was from Angel’s side of the family tree and Anger had loved her with a passion. Becka was a church lady. Whenever I dropped by, she fed me sugar cookies and watermelon juice.

I made it a point to visit her every other week or so for sustenance of body and soul. I devoured those cookies, and Becka was the only one I knew who had correspondence with Anger. She’d receive a postcard every once in a while and share the contents with me.

One time Anger had written that she got work as a maid on a riverboat. She’d met Louis Armstrong there. On another occasion Becka told me that Anger had had a baby and named him Ezekiel for my heroism. This made me both jealous and proud.

Becka never let me read the postcards, nor did she share where Anger made her home.

Then, less than a year before I was conscripted, I was sitting in Becka’s den, eating sugar cookies. She sat next to me on the divan and leaned in close. She didn’t say anything but reached into the pocket of her calico apron and brought out a postcard. It was a zoo card with a picture of a mama panda and her two cubs on it.

I was a twenty-two-year-old man at that time, but still tears came into my eyes. It didn’t bother me that her words were so blunt, maybe even hard, at the end. Anger came from a hard place in life, and I loved her for that.

“Anger told me that you could read,” Becka said, beaming with a maternal smile.

“That’s why we became friends in the first place,” I said, trying to keep the tears out of my voice. “I was readin’ this book called Tom Swift and His Motorcycle down in the park on Myrtle Street. She come up and told me that she thought I was pretendin’ and so I read a whole chapter out loud to her.”

Becka caressed my hot cheek with her soft hand.

“Get on with your life, Ezekiel,” she said.

Chita Moyer’s house was a block from Mission Beach. A medium-size two-story Tudor home. It was already dark outside, but the streetlamps showed that the home was painted light and dark green. On the right side of the front wall was a very large multiframed window that looked in on the living room.

The light was on, but I couldn’t see anyone. Then I went to the front door and rang the bell. There were eight notes to the ring. I’m pretty sure that it was the tune to the Tennessee Ernie Ford song “16 Tons.”

I was feeling patient. There was a bright peephole in the upper-middle part of the door. For a moment it darkened and then filled with light again. Half a minute after that she opened the door.

Tall, elegant, and at least seventy, she wore a dress that was opaque because of the many layers of gossamer pastel-green fabrics it was made from. The dress was full and fluffy, but the woman underneath was slender, you could tell. Her skin was golden and her eyes ebony under thick dark brows. Behind her rose an impressive stairway.

“Yes?” I could hear the Spanish accent in just that one word.

“Yes, um, my name is Easy Rawlins, are you Miss Chita Moyer?”

“Mrs. Moyer,” she said. “My husband died some years ago. How can I help you, Mr. Rawlins?”

Before I could reply, a familiar voice called out, “He’s not here for you, Eata. Mr. Rawlins is here for me.”

Harrison Fields was descending the stairs, ambling with the gait of a much younger man. He wore a dark-yellow suit over a midnight-blue shirt and an almost neon-yellow tie. He was smiling. A man without a care in the world.

“Drink?” he offered.

There was a games table set up next to the large window in the living room. The three of us sat there, leaving the one empty chair with its back to the street. Chita had made vodka martinis. I had mine with an olive, while they had twists of orange rind in their drinks.

“So, Easy,” Harrison said after we’d been served by Chita. “How the devil did you find me?”

“I’m a detective.”

“A damn good one. Eata is unlisted, and my brother doesn’t even know her phone number.”

The elder was smiling as he spoke. He had the patience of Buddha.

“I guess the LAPD has a better phone book.”

Even the mention of the police didn’t seem to bother the Ohioan.

“Must be something important to go to all that bother.”

“Have you talked to your people?” I asked him.

“You mean Alastair and Winnie?”

“Your brother and sister-in-law.”

Leaning back in his chair he said, “Not since I came down here.”

It seemed as if he was and yet was not the man I’d met a few days before. There was something both confident and aloof in his manner.

“Then nobody told you about Curt?”

“They found him?”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh.” That was Chita. “Oh,” she said again, rising to her feet.

“How?” Harrison asked. He wore a proper frown and even had some compassion showing on his lips and forehead.

“Somebody shot him in the head.”

“I, I’ll go make us another round,” Chita said, as she went about retrieving our glasses.

“Who did it?” Harrison demanded. “Did they catch him?”

“The police don’t know. They’re investigating.”

“Curt was a good kid. He didn’t deserve that,” Harrison said to the tabletop.

Chita bustled out of the room, carrying our empty long-stemmed glasses in one hand and a silver-plated tray in the other.

“Are you looking for the men did it?” Harrison asked.

“Tryin’ to make sure Amethystine is safe.”

“You got anybody you’re looking at?”

“He was staying at a place that Purlo controlled.”

“Ron?”

“That’s his name,” I said, meaninglessly.

“So do they think he killed Curt?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I got the cops to find Chita’s address. After all, you’re the one that told me about Purlo. Can you think of any reason he’d have for killing your nephew?”

“No.” The elder dandy frowned again. “I mean, Ron worked with gangster guys, but he never went in for the rough stuff.”

“Could he have had somebody do it for him? Maybe Shadrach?”

“Nah,” Harrison said with a sneer. “Shad’s just a weak sister with long teeth.”

The image he conjured made me smile.

“Tell me something, Harrison.”

“What’s that, Mr. Rawlins?”

“You came down here right after I told you about Curt being missing.”

“I already knew he was missing.”

“But you didn’t know that Amethystine had hired me to look for him.”

“I was happy you were helping.”

Chita came back in with the silver platter holding three drinks: two with orange twists and one with a green olive. This she placed at the center of the table.

“It seemed kinda sudden,” I said.

“Chita called me and said that she was selling her house and leaving the country. I worried that some unscrupulous real estate agent would try to take advantage of her, so I came down to help.”

“Oh,” I said thoughtfully. “I thought that it might have had something to do with a guy named Sturdyman.”

I don’t know what I expected, but I hoped to get a rise. Instead, Harrison smiled and said, “That’s what Purlo calls me.”

“I heard it that Purlo pushed Sturdyman out of the Exeter Casino deal.”

I took up my drink and sipped it.

“I was never really in the deal,” Harrison said. “I mean, I helped him connect with Curt, and he promised to get me a job. But I didn’t want to move to Vegas. Too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.”

“Would you like something to eat, Mr. Rawlins?” Chita asked.

“No, thank you, ma’am. Where you movin’ to?”

“Argentina. I have a son down there.”

“Are you going too?” I asked Harrison.

He took a drink and said, “No. After I see her off, I’ll be back in Santa Monica.”

“You know, Harrison,” I said, taking another tack. “When you told me about Purlo and Shadrach it seemed like you hardly knew ’em.”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to be involved, but I still wanted to help Curt.”

“Can you think of any reason anybody could have for hurting your nephew?”

“Got to be money,” he pontificated. “Got to be. Money, a mistake, or maybe both.”

“What kind of mistake?” I asked, feeling oddly generous.

“Maybe Giselle had a husband she didn’t tell him about or maybe Purlo messed up a decimal point and thought Curt had robbed him.”

I took in a deep breath through my nostrils, exhaled, and then breathed in again.

“I thought you said Purlo was a weak sister.”

“I said Shadrach was.” Harrison’s words floated on his smile. “Shad don’t go in for the rough stuff.”

“Oh. Oh yeah. Pronlon. No... Ron...” I looked out the window to see a dark sedan pull into a driveway across the street. This event seemed miraculous.

Turning back to my hosts, I experienced a moment of light-headedness.

When Harrison came into focus, I said, “Why? Why you drug me, man?”

“I don’t want to suffer the same fate as my nephew,” he said affably.

Chita stood up and smiled down at me from what seemed like a great height.

“Are you going to kill me?” I asked, in no way worried.

“No, Easy, I wouldn’t do that.” Harrison’s voice seemed to come from somewhere very far away.

“That’s good. Good,” I intoned. “You know I like you two just fine. I only came down here, down here...”

I wanted to say that I had come to protect Amethystine again, but words, all words, eluded me. While looking around for the missing gift of language, I noticed that darkness was descending from the ceiling.