Gray Dawn

20

County jail, the only official place worse than the California penal system. County jail, where they stack prisoners one on top of the other and then leave them to figure out the pecking order. The same county jail that welcomes drunk drivers, those who fail to pay child support, and unemployed parents who shoplift milk; it also sequesters murderers, perverts, and gang members, especially gang members.

County jail. That’s where they put me. I could have been up at my house, my house that had an actual mountain stream flowing through. My home where I could leave the door unlocked and open wide and never would I get burglarized. My home where there lived a killer dog who would die to save me.

“Hey, bruddah,” somebody said, a little sing to his words.

I had to control my response to the auditory stimulus. In county jail you needed to be ready to fight to the death at the drop of a hat. But you also had to be judicious. Not every stimulation meant war.

“How you doin’?” I replied.

“Okay.”

The man speaking was probably my age, though he looked older, Hispanic, probably Mexican, with faded brick-red skin and dark eyes that studied me almost lazily. He was seated on one of the comparatively few bunks, which told me that he held sway in that overcrowded cell. He patted the space next to him. This gesture said that he was the one who was going to vet me.

I accepted the invitation. There was no other choice.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Easy. Yours?”

“Carlos. Carlos Ortega. What they got you for?”

“I was,” I said, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it, in that specialized and volatile environment. “I went to a guy’s house to tell him some things. Door was open and he was bleedin’ on the floor. I called an ambulance. They called the cops, and here I am.”

“The man your friend?”

“No. A client.”

“What kinda client?”

“I’m like a... a private investigator. This guy hired me to find his aunt.”

“Find her for what?”

“His grandmother, her mother, who lives down in Texas, hadn’t heard from her for a while. I guess she was worried.”

“And him lookin’ for his aunt got him shot?” Carlos asked. He seemed honestly interested.

“I sure hope not.” I was speaking truth in that man-made hell.

“You gonna ask him?”

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t make it.”

Looking around, I saw that other men in our cell built for twenty that held forty-five, many of whom were also Hispanic, probably Mexican, were watching me. These were specialists in maintaining the pecking order.

“That’s too bad,” Carlos said. “They gonna blame you?”

“They might. But I’m not too worried.”

“Why not?”

“Well, first, I didn’t shoot the man. Second, I really am a private investigator, so they don’t have any reason to not believe me. And lastly, they won’t find a weapon, at least not the one that shot him.”

“You’re so cool. Don’t nuthin’ bother you?”

I laughed easily. “Well, Carlos. Sometimes you got to face what’s in front of you. When it comes down to that, there’s not much time to be bothered.”

Carlos made the slightest motion with his left hand, and the men who were watching turned away.

After that, the jail cell bossman interrogated me, asking many questions about my profession; how did I start looking for people, did I ever work for the police, how much can you make being a detective, what happens if, when you find the missing person, there’s been a crime committed?

I answered his questions more or less honestly. When he asked if I worked for the police, I said no, that sometimes they might be looking into some case that held my interest too, but never had I taken money from them to find anyone.

It was a pleasant conversation. A good way to take my mind off the beating I could have received and might still receive in that cell.

“Why you askin’ all this, Carlos? You wanna be a detective?”

I expected a laugh, but instead he got serious.

“My father, his name is Rafael. He’s from Sinaloa, out in the country where he farmed tomatoes. He’s an old man but he still knows his family and his prayers.”

“You’re lucky. My dad died when I was eight.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he said, his eyes connecting with mine. “My father is a good man. He taught me much.”

“So, I take it, he’s missin’?” I asked, wanting to get down to the real reason he called off his soldiers.

“Yeah. Me and him take walks around the neighborhood a few times every week. He likes to take walks, have a beer, and look at the girls. But now they got me in here trying to figure out if they could, you know, prosecute me for something a friend of mine might have did. And so, my dad don’t have nobody to walk with. He usually waits for me, but now I don’t know when I’m gonna be home and my sister tells me that he’s gettin’ kinda restless, you know? He has his mind, but he forgets. He knows his name and where he live at, so usually he can make it home with no problem.”

“Not the last time?”

Carlos’s nod was almost a bow. That was to show respect.

“He went out three days ago and didn’t come back. My people are lookin’ for him but he’s not at any of the usual places.”

“Where’s your father’s house?”

“On Hamel Street in East LA.”

“He talk to people around there on his walks?”

“Yes. He has many friends.”

“Gimme the address and I’ll see what I can do.”

“How much?”

“I think we both know that you already paid me.”

Not long after that, a phone call I’d made when I was being processed bore fruit.

Two guards came to take me out of the cell.

I shook hands with Carlos, taking a slip of paper that contained pertinent information about his father.

The uniformed escorts took me to a part of the jail I’d never been to before. It was like a lounge for the guards and their superiors. Off from the lounge was a room they had for special circumstances. In that room Anatole McCourt and Melvin Suggs were waiting.

“Easy,” Melvin said, jumping up and shaking my hand.

“You want coffee?” Anatole offered.

“Sure. Yeah.”

“Why don’t you take a load off, Easy,” Melvin suggested. “They never have enough places to sit in those cells.”

I sat and Anatole placed a paper cup of black coffee before me.

“Damn,” I said. “Shit must be hip-deep for both’a y’all to be here.”

“We need resolution on this Bel-Air thing,” Melvin admitted. “The chief is callin’ me five times a day.”

It was maybe 3:00 a.m. by then, a long day.

“You know I’m too old for this, don’t you, Melvin?”

My friend cracked a grin, but Anatole was serious as an undertaker.

“At least you’re gettin’ older,” Melvin’s number two informed him.

“I don’t know who did it,” I said. “That’s the truth. I think I might find out before it’s all over, but as it stands, I can’t tell ya what I don’t know.”

“What can you tell us?” Anatole pressed.

“The guy they arrested me for maybe shootin’ is named Santangelo Burris. He hired me to find his aunt, Lutisha James, like I already told Melvin. He said it was because her mother, his grandmother, who he said lives down in a town that don’t exist, wanted to talk to her. After lookin’ into it I think maybe she got hold of a deed or somethin’ like that, that some rich man prob’ly wants.”

“What rich man?” Mel asked.

“I’m not sure.” I put a spin on these words because Melvin was a living polygraph machine.

“What does that mean?”

“Deeds make you think of somethin’ legal. I mean, ain’t no bank robber gonna wanna steal a deed.”

“You don’t think it’s some crazies did this?” Anatole asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I think whoever did it was there lookin’ for Lutisha James. That’s all I know about right now. If you want more, you got to gimme a couple’a more days.”

“We don’t have days,” Anatole complained.

“Then tell the chief and newspapers that the crime happened but you’re sure that it was a robbery. Mel said that they took a safe. The man was rich. Makes sense that someone’d break in his house and steal and kill.”

Anatole got to his feet, exhibiting his disfavor. I didn’t show the right kind of respect he thought a senior officer of the law deserved.

I half expected him to take my bitter cup of coffee and pour it over my head.

Melvin sat back in his chair, pondering the value of my suggestion.

After a minute or two the senior officer said, “You need a ride home?”

“Not all that way,” I said. “But maybe to my office.”

“How you doin’ with that other thing, Easy?” Mel asked on the ride out to West LA.

“The way I hear it, the two BNDD agents that are after my boy are in business for themselves.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Around.”

“From your son?”

“No.”

“No?” asked the living polygraph.

“No.”

Over the years since we’d met, Mel and I had become close. We both had secrets and, even though the police captain wanted to stay on the straight and narrow, he also understood the love of family. So he dropped the discussion about Jesus, and we rode in silence until he stopped in front of WRENS-L headquarters.

“I think I’ll take you up on the advice, Easy,” he said before I disembarked. “It don’t feel like a hippie thing.”

“No,” I agreed.

Hitting the couch in my office at around five in the morning, I slept fitfully but long.

“Mr. Rawlins,” she said, shaking my shoulder. “Easy.”

“Hey, Niska. I thought you were takin’ the day off.”

“I did too. But Clemmie called me and said that when she went back to the bathroom, she saw that you were here asleep. I came in and told her she could go home, and that she’d still get paid for today instead’a me.”

That was enough to get me to a seated position.

“What time is it?”

“About two fifteen.”

“In the afternoon?”

She nodded.

“Whoa. I must’a been tired.”

“I know. I told Clemmie to turn off the ringer and just use the light to answer. I only woke you up because I know you’re on a job.”

“What happened with Doreen?”

“I called her, and she said she was dropping out of school and that her and that boyfriend’a hers was leavin’ town.”

“That was a great lesson for you. ’Cause ya know you can’t always trust that you and the client gonna be on the same page.”

“I can see that now,” Niska agreed. “You know, if you had asked me, I would have said that Doreen would have been thinking exactly like me. But then I realized that if I fell in love with somebody, I might do the same damned thing.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Understanding people’s flaws instead’a what we think is right and wrong is the only way to go.”

“So, I’m doin’ pretty good?” she asked.

“Mostly.”

“Mostly? What have I done wrong?”

“Goin’ to that cigar store, goin’ to meet Delroy Whatever at that restaurant, comin’ out back after Fearless hit him upside his head. Then, after all that, you find out that the boyfriend has robbed a bank robber.”

“Yeah?” she questioned, showing that she still didn’t see anything wrong.

“Lookin’ at all that, are you frightened?”

Taking my question in, she considered and then said, “I guess not.”

“That’s what’s wrong.”

After that Niska went back to the front office and I took a shower. That woke me half the way up. I made coffee in my office percolator and drank it, wondering when the fright of my night in jail would descend.

The interoffice buzzer on my phone sounded and I answered, “Yes, Niska?”

“Amy’s on line two.”

I pressed the button for line number two and said, “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“Where are you?”

“At your place.”

“I thought you were gonna wait till I called you.”

“You didn’t come home last night,” was her reply.

“Yeah. I got arrested.”

“What? Why?”

“I made the mistake of trying and probably failing to save a man’s life.”

“Well, why are you at work? You should come home.”

Home. That word in her mouth seemed to brush over me like the tongue of some bestial mother.

“I got work to do and no time to lose. You gonna be there this evening?”

“Are you comin’ home?”

“I sure the hell hope so.”

“Okay, then. I’ll be here.”

More than a long rest, better than coffee, even outdoing a brisk shower, talking to Amethystine exhilarated me, brought me back to life.

Dressed in my best dark suit, I came out to the front office and pulled up a visitor’s chair to Niska’s desk.

“You look nice,” she said. “You goin’ t’see Amy?”

“If only,” I lamented. “How you doin’?”

“Okay. I understand what you mean about me not bein’ scared. If I had come across those men that were, I mean are, after what’s-his-name, I don’t know what I woulda done.”

“Or,” I said, holding up an educating finger. “If Delroy was the paranoid sort, he could have shot or stabbed you because you might’a been workin’ with the men after him.”

“I didn’t even think of that.”

“Don’t worry, girl, in this business a healthy sense of distrust and fear builds up over time.”

“I hope my next job will be more clear-cut.”

“That reminds me. You speak Spanish, right?”

“I do.”

“Fluently?”

“Near about. Why?”

“I met a guy in jail name of Carlos Ortega. He’s probably some kind of gang leader but we didn’t really talk about that. Carlos has an elderly father name of Rafael Ortega who lives at this address on Hamel Street out in the barrio.” I put the slip of paper with all the information on her desk. “Rafael went out for a walk three days ago and lost his way or something. He’s a friendly old man, so stores, gas stations, maybe ladies who hang out on their porches might have said hello to him.”

“Okay,” Niska said. “I could go out there tomorrow morning, and Clemmie could come here.”

“Sounds like a plan. Why’ont you go on home now and rest up. I won’t need you anymore today.”