Gray Dawn

12

It was rare for me to get blindsided while on any case or in life in general. I was usually in the driver’s seat, sitting comfortably in my old Dodge, following at a safe distance or parking down the street from my target, lying in wait, secreted under the deep shade of some huge oak or carob tree.

This time, however, I’d been struck, unexpectedly, by multiple blows. A house full of rich, dead white people and a child who somehow locked me in place like manacles to a wall. The police, who would have kept me in jail for months and might have never let me go if it wasn’t for McCourt and Suggs. There was Amethystine Stoller coming up out of nowhere, leaving me stunned in the water like a fish reeling from a depth charge.

And then there was Jesus. My son. The most intuitive human being I had ever known. The federal government was after him. The federal government.

I went down to the Redondo Beach marina, but their boat, The Proud Lion, was gone from its berth. If the boat wasn’t there, it meant that they were out fishing and Essie was with either me or Benita’s mother, Jaunice. If the boat was there, then they would probably be there too because they lived on The Proud Lion.

Jaunice Flagg lived in a third-floor apartment on Grosvenor Street in Inglewood. She was Benita’s mother. Her husband, a man named Clifford Brown, had left her for the pleasures of the street when Benita was just four. Jaunice and I didn’t have much in common, except for the fact that Jesus’s seven-year-old daughter was our granddaughter.

I climbed the external stairs to the third-floor landing, finding her front door open, revealing a latched screen.

“Anybody home?” I called into the shadowy living room.

Toward the far end of the room, in a backlit doorway, I could see the small and round shadow of a woman.

“It’s me, Jaunice, Easy Rawlins.”

“It is?”

“In the flesh. I’m lookin’ for Jesus.”

“Oh Lord.”

Coming to a decision, Jaunice moved quickly across the room, barely lifting her feet. The fabric of her silken house moccasins slid across the pine floor, sounding most like a copperhead moving in rectilinear locomotive gyration through dry grass. She unlatched the screen door, ushered me in, and then closed both screen and front door behind me.

“Have a seat, Mr. Rawlins,” she said, while turning on two lampshade lights on either side of a long green couch. I sat on the right side of the sofa while she alighted on a padded wooden chair that looked like it belonged to a nonexistent dining room set.

Jaunice was sitting but she wasn’t still. One of her slippered feet was toe-tapping and she was wringing her hands.

“That son of yours is in deep trouble,” she said.

“What kinda trouble?”

“I don’t know what it is, I just know that it is.”

“Okay. All right. Who told you that he was, um, in this trouble?”

“Police.”

“What kinda police?”

“The kinda cops that wears suits instead’a uniforms.”

“Did they show you their badges?”

“Yes, sir, they sure did.”

“What did the badges say?”

“I didn’t read ’em,” she said angrily. “They was badges and they was real. That’s all I had to know.”

“They came here lookin’ for Jesus?”

“They was after Benita too. Here she just a girl, a young mother, and they after her for what your boy done done. They come here three times. Three times. An’... an’... an’ ev’ry time they come they got more threats.”

“What kind of threats?”

“They said I could go to prison along with them. They aksed how I couldn’t know what my own daughter was doin’. They aksed was I stupid or what. I told ’em. I told ’em that they was hardly evah here. I told ’em that I never see them anyplace except when they come to visit or leave little Essie with me.”

“What were these policemen’s names?” I asked.

“They must’a said but I don’t remember. All I remember is those badges and threats.”

“What was it they said Jesus was doin’?”

“They didn’t.” Jaunice had light gray eyes with whites that had the scars of a long life of seeing too much. “I don’t know what they want ’em for.”

“When was the last time you saw your daughter and Jesus?”

“Two days ago.”

“Their boat’s not down at the dock. Did they tell you where they were going?”

“Yeah,” Jaunice said, almost sick with fear.

“Where?”

“They didn’t give a address or nuthin’. They just said that they was goin’ to stay wit’ somebody name of Mama Jo.”

I decided not to go looking for my son and his little family until after the sun went down. The day hadn’t turned out the way I wanted, so I went to a little coffee shop near La Brea and Olympic and ordered a chili size and fries.

While my meal was being prepared, I went to the pay phone up near the cashier’s desk. I called Niska to find out if Santangelo had checked in. He had not. I called Melvin Suggs to see if he had any more information about my son, but he was out or busy. Accepting these failures, I went back to my vinyl booth, devoured the meal, then ordered a cup of black coffee.

Sitting there, I let my mind roam over all the various aspects of the past couple of days. Niska was going out on her first case, while Jackson Blue lived like a spoiled prince in the uppermost reaches of P9’s castle. There was Amethystine Stoller, who might very well be the death of me, but still, that would have been an improvement on the stagnation and gloom that had become my daily meat.

Something about my dejected mood for the past two years made me think of the funky and unkempt Santangelo Burris. The memory of his destitute state brought back the opposite — that ring he wore. That ring. It meant something, something that I just couldn’t get a hold on.

Back at the diner’s pay phone I called my house.

She answered after the eighth ring: “Hello, Easy?”

“Hey. I thought you’d gone.”

“I was outside with Prince Valiant. He’s very strong.”

“That’s his job.”

“How are ya, honey?”

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“What’s that?” she asked in a tone that said she was going to be serious.

I told her about Santangelo’s topaz ring.

“Huh,” she pondered. “You think it was a college ring?”

“I’d be surprised if he made it through high school. And rings like that usually have some kinda writing on them. This just had that torch or whatever. Like the symbol was all that was needed.”

“So then,” Amethystine said, “probably not a sports thing either. How about a club or brotherhood?”

“That’s it!” I exclaimed. “The BFNE. It’s their symbol. The eternal torch that lights up the longest night.”

“What’s that?” Amethystine asked.

“Excuse me, sir,” a different woman said.

It was the waitress who had served me.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied to the redheaded server.

“What?” Amethystine asked.

“Not you, honey. The waitress needs something,” I said to my fate. Then, to the waitress: “What can I do for you?”

“Do you plan to pay for your meal?”

I handed her a ten-dollar bill and said, “Keep the change.”

“But the bill’s only six dollars.”

“Your lucky day,” I said, shrugging nonchalantly.

“Your loss,” she said, and then walked away.

“I’m back,” I said into the receiver.

“The BF what?”

“The Brotherhood of Free Negroes Everywhere. It’s an old private organization, ancient by American standards. It’s said that the brotherhood predates the Civil War.”

“I never heard of ’em,” Amethystine admitted.

“But without you I might not have remembered. Thank you so much, honey,” I said to the woman I really didn’t want to love. “I think this might be the first clue that don’t threaten to hit me upside the head.”

“What time you comin’ back?” Amethystine asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Because if it’s early enough maybe I could go shopping and you could make us dinner.”

“I’m not sure, but it’s probably gonna be pretty late.”

“Well, if you’re not coming, I might go home.”

“That’s okay. I probably wouldn’t be very good company anyway.”

“All right then,” she said in a soft tone. “Be careful.”

“I will,” I said, probably not knowing it was a lie.

The phone directory told me that there was a Los Angeles chapter of the BFNE on San Pedro down in South Central. When I saw the address, I remembered that it was lodged in the deconsecrated Church of the Savior.

A few years earlier, the loss of that church’s holy spirit was gossiped about all over the Black community of South Central LA. The minister, a man named Kearn, Samuel Arthur Bethune Kearn, and his wife, Lillian Kearn, née Renquist, had overseen the church and its congregation for six years. The head deacon was Fallon Potts, from Mississippi somewhere. Fallon’s wife was named Beatrice. Beatrice was a beauty and very sensual, the kind of woman that men would brag they could not resist.

Reverend Kearn, it was said, had a powerful voice and a deep understanding of the Bible and other religious texts. He worked closely with Deacon Potts and therefore spent some time with his wife.

The years passed and everything seemed to be fine. That is, until the minister invited Reverend Gregory Simms to take his place while he and his wife took a well-deserved two-week holiday to Jordan, where they planned to float on the Red Sea.

During that time Reverend Simms gave a powerful sermon about fealty, monogamy, and fidelity in marriage. It must have been a potent sermon indeed, because Beatrice Potts felt the Spirit enter her, and it would not rest until she had confessed to the open congregation about her many years of sin with Reverend Kearn.

Fallon and Beatrice Potts met every day for ten days with the visiting minister. They prayed together and read the Bible together. Gregory Simms talked to them about forgiveness being the closest any mortal could come to godliness. Toward the end of these ministerial meetings, Fallon and Beatrice had renewed their marital vows and could be seen going everywhere, hand in hand.

The sin, the confession, and then the revelation of the words of the Lord seemed to prove that faith could overcome any human problem.

Everything had worked out so well that Deacon Potts volunteered to meet the Kearns’ flight back from the Middle East. He shot the minister right there at the gate and then turned the gun on himself.

The night before, Fallon Potts was at peace with going to meet Reverend Kearn. He planned to forgive the minister at the gate. But that night an evil thought crept its way into the deacon’s mind. Finally, he confronted Beatrice, asking her if their children were his or Kearn’s. Beatrice was absolutely sure about two out of three of the progeny.

SO MUCH SIN — that was the headline of the Los Angeles Sentinel, LA’s largest Black newspaper. The cheating wife and minister, the murder and suicide, marked the Church of the Savior with the sign of Cain.

The congregation drifted away, seeking places of worship that were free of sin. No other church wanted to take over the building. So the BFNE bought it for a song.

I called up the number of the new West Coast headquarters of the runaway slave social club.

“Hello?” a man with a boy’s voice answered.

“Yeah,” I said. “My name’s Ezekiel Rawlins and I’d like to come by and talk to a man named Santangelo Burris.”

“I’ve never heard that name before, sir,” the man-boy said. “But maybe our membership office would know who that is.”

“May I speak to someone in membership?”

“You can when they’re here,” he said. “But we’re closed right now. Daily hours are from eight a.m. till six p.m. And Mr. Lorn won’t be in his office till day after tomorrow. He only works three days a week.”