Gray Dawn

2

Doing as the Sicilian elder suggested, I made it down the side of the mountain riding the vertical railway, descending into the mist as I went. Firing up the old brown Dodge, I made it to my office on Robertson Boulevard a few minutes before 6:30 a.m. I expected to have some hours alone to read and wait for the sun to burn away the fog. But after scaling the steep staircase to our third-floor offices, I found our receptionist and detective in training, Niska Redman, already at her desk and hard at work. Seated in her plush blue padded swivel chair, with one denim knee up to her chest, Niska was poring over one of six white-pages phone books open across her wide desk.

When I came in, she glanced up over a blue knee, smiled, and said, “Good morning, Mr. Rawlins.”

“Hey, Red,” I said, doing my best to keep the sadness out of my tone.

“I’m just wearing jeans until the office opens,” she apologized. “It feels more comfortable when I’m doin’ all this research.”

“What you workin’ on?”

“I put up a sign on the bulletin board at school offering to find missing persons or property.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, and this woman — a student — called me and said that she had this boyfriend that was missing.”

“Oh? Missing how?”

“At first it just sounded like he’d left her, but after we had tea at the student caf it turned out that he emptied her bank account without her knowin’.”

“How much?”

“Ninety-two hundred dollars.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah. That was everything she had. It was money her grandparents had given her to pay for school. And this guy, he called himself Martin Durer, wasn’t anywhere that she could think of.”

“Why you say ‘called himself’?” I asked.

“I called Captain McCourt’s office and asked about him. You know, maybe he had a record or was wanted, or somethin’. It — it turned out that he’d done that kinda thing before, and if it was the same guy, he’d gone by Denton McDaniels, Mack Daniels, Dean Minton, Darryl Morley, Dax Mandel, and nine other names, all with the initials D.M. or M.D., except for one — Stanford Pride. His usual MO was to wheedle his way into a woman’s life and run off with her money a few months later.

“He took Doreen’s money like so many others’.”

“Doreen who?”

“Anton, Doreen Anton. She’s a grad student in economics. I went with her to the downtown police station and they, um, corroborated what Captain McCourt said.”

“You talked to him? Not his assistant?”

“Yeah. I told Doreen that I’d look for Durer for two weeks and charge one hundred dollars.”

“And that’s what these phone books are about?”

“Yeah. I go through six books every morning looking for one or more of his aliases. Today it’s Fontana, Ontario, Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Van Nuys, and Los Angeles County.”

“Seems like you would have looked at LA first.”

“I know,” she said shyly. “I guess I was saving the best for last. I mimeographed fifty sheets with all the names printed on them and I’m checkin’ off each one as either not there or making notes on the ones that are.”

“You do this every morning?”

“I do.”

“And what do you plan to do if you find this guy?”

“When I find him,” she corrected.

“When you find him,” I acceded, grateful for the grin her determination brought out in me.

“I’m going to go get a look to make sure it’s him, then I’ll get my client to come and see. After that I’ll have her press charges.”

Niska had been taking detective lessons from me for the past two years. She used the work she did for me and my partners to see what would work for her. She took her time, and I was proud to see how far she’d come.

“That sounds really good,” I said. And then, changing the subject: “Saul and Whisper coming in later?”

“Uh-uh. Mr. Lynx is down in San Diego looking to see if he wants to take on this smuggling case he’s been offered.”

“Smuggling what?”

“I think he said something about guns, but I’m not sure. And Tinsford is on vacation in Hawaii with Shirley Brown.”

“Just all of a sudden, he left for Hawaii? That’s not like him.”

“I think he’s planning to ask her to marry him.”

Niska had come to the office from working with Tinsford Natley, also called Whisper for his low voice.

“Well,” I said. “Keep me updated on this case of yours. I don’t want you doing anything reckless. And, um, don’t tell Whisper about it until it’s over.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

Like most American men in the early seventies, Whisper felt that there was a deep divide between women’s work and the labors of men. I felt that way too but, at the same time, the world was definitely changing. Taking a step back from my own prejudices, I could see that if Niska could prove her ability as an investigator, then what she became was not up to me.

“Okay,” I said. “Keep up the good work. I’m gonna go back to my office.”

“Do you want me to tell you about calls or visitors?”

“Sure, why not?”

Sitting behind my overlarge desk I experienced the desire to have a simple and straightforward case like Niska did. Just thinking that there was somebody out there that I could find, a manhunt that needed doing, seemed to offer solace. It would be a joy to lose myself in a job.

I hadn’t taken on any cases in the last six months, and very few in the year and a half before that. Jobs came in, of course, but I passed them on to Saul and Whisper. But maybe it was time to shake off the stagnation and melancholy of a lost love that had been consecrated by the deaths of two men who might have been saved.

I had a copy of Katherine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools in my bottom left drawer. I bought it secondhand, drawn to the title. A fool adrift, that was me.

I’d been reading for a few hours when I realized that, though I really enjoyed the prose, I didn’t retain very much of the story at all. I had just let the words wash over me like sometimes when I’d stand in the shower for a very long time.

There came a tapping on the doorframe. I looked up from the book that I was no longer reading to see Niska’s head peering in.

“There’s somebody here who wants to talk to you,” she said.

“To me specifically?”

She nodded. “He said that he wants to see Easy Rawlins.”

“Not Ezekiel?”

She shook her head.

“Okay then, show him in.”

Her head withdrew, leaving me to wonder if I had somehow conjured up this visitation.

A few seconds later Niska came through. She was wearing a coral-colored dress and yellow pumps. Her face was made up and her straightened hair was piled at the back of her head. The man who came in behind her was dressed in dirty overalls with tears here and there and a gray T-shirt that had once been white, and shod in shit-brown clodhopper boots.

“Mr. Santangelo Burris,” Niska said, “this is Mr. Ezekiel Rawlins.”

The detective in training then left me with my visitation.

If I didn’t exactly smell him, I imagined that I could. It was as if he’d just fallen off the back of a farm truck and tumbled upon my doorstep. He had the build and hunched posture of a wild boar — not tall but brutish. His face contained many emotions, none of these pleasant. By turns he seemed angry, suspicious, and as determined as a soldier before a battle.

The only thing about him that wasn’t piglike, threatening, or foul was a thick gold ring he wore on the pinkie of his left hand. This singular piece of jewelry was festooned with a large hunk of topaz, inlaid with a silver torch or some other kind of scepter.

“Saint Angel,” I said idly.

His expression of mere anger elevated into rage.

“What you say?” he cried, half raising his right fist.

“That’s what your name means,” I said by way of apology.

“That’s what — what they called me at school. Called me little angel and homo and stupid.” He was on the verge of shouting.

“Sorry about that, man. I was just thinking about the Italian.”

“What Italian?”

“The word, Santangelo, it’s Italian.”

The beast-man’s eyes bulged and looked around for something, anything to hate.

“I don’t know about all that,” he said. “I’m here about my auntie, Lutisha James.”

“Okay,” I said in my most placating tone. “Why don’t you have a seat, Mr. Burris?”

The man’s breath came in angry huffs. He looked at the three wide-bottomed walnut chairs arranged before my grand desk. I could imagine him asking which chair I wanted him to take. Instead, he pulled an outer chair away from the other two and hurled his backside into it.

Thinking that I’d have to get the chair cleaned, I paused for a second or two and then leaned back in my swivel seat.

It occurred to me that I had rarely been with someone whose breath was loud enough for me to hear it.

“Where did you get my name, Mr. Burris?”

“What?” he challenged.

“I was christened Ezekiel. Only those who know me call me Easy.”

“I’ont know about that,” he replied defensively. “All I know is that I aksed a man if he knew how I could find somebody missin’ and he said go to Easy Rawlins.”

“Who was this man?”

“What?”

Very slowly I said, “Who is the man that told you to call me?”

“I don’t know.” Almost every word he uttered was loud. “It was this dude down in Compton across the street from the hotel where she stayed at.”

“What hotel was that?”

“Ummmm, Orchid. The Orchid.”

Finally, something I knew.

“I went there,” Saint Angel continued, “to find Auntie Lutie, but she was gone. Nobody knew where she went so I aksed the man who owned the sto’ across the street if he’d maybe seen her go. He’s the one said about you.”

His hard breathing did not abate. Anger seemed to vibrate with every word, every gesture.

“So, you went to the Orchid to find Lutisha James. She wasn’t there and a man you didn’t know told you about me.”

He stared at me wondering, I believe, if I had more to add. When I didn’t, he said, “Yeah, yeah, that’s right.” Then he moved the gaze from me to the ceiling and continued from memory. “My grandmama called me up from down home and told me to get Auntie Lutie to call her. She said that they said at the hotel that she had moved out. So I went down there to find out where she gone.”

“Where’s down home?”

“What?”

“Where does your grandmother live?”

“She live in Pistol.”

“She lives in a gun?”

“No, fool, Pistol, Pistol, Texas.”

“Never heard of it.”

“I cain’t hep that.”

I wanted to say Touché, but instead I asked, “Is this some kind of emergency?”

“Sure is. I told you, my grandmama want me to find her.”

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that this man was lying about something. But that didn’t matter, not right then. It was my job to reveal lies. That’s what detectives do.

“Do you have a picture of your auntie?”

“No. Don’t have no camera. My grandmama got a portrait’a her on her dresser back home.”

“But that’s in Pistol.”

“Yeah. That’s where she live at.”

“What kind of work does your auntie do?”

“She takes care’a old people an’ chirren. Old people an’ chirren. She pretty good at that.”

“Does she have any hobbies or other interests?”

He couldn’t even ask What? about that query. He just stared vacantly, with only a hint of rage.

“For instance, does she, uh, collect china plates or play any board games?” I suggested.

That got me my first smile from the feral man.

“She play hearts,” he said through a wide grin. “Hearts. She really good at that. Sometimes she play for money. Good money.”

“She play any other kind of card games? Bridge? Poker?”

His shoulders told me that he didn’t know.

“What about some other job, other than a domestic, I mean?”

“She not married.”

It took me a moment to realize that the word domestic dredged up marriage from the cauldron of Santangelo’s experience.

“Does she do any other kind of work?” I asked.

He thought so hard on that question that his eyes nearly closed.

“Um,” he began. “Uh. Back down in Texas she used to, um, take numbers over the phone in her house. That’s the only way she could afford to have a phone.”

I could think of more questions, but I doubted that the answers, if they came at all, would be of any use. While I stared at him, his nostrils opened wide, unconsciously testing for danger.

“Why does your grandmother need to talk to your auntie?”

“That’s her private business.”

“Okay,” I said. “All right. But you have to understand that I can’t be lookin’ for people if the one who pays me is out to settle a grudge.”

“It’s my grandmama wanna talk to her daughter. What kinda grudge could there be in that?”

“You’d be surprised at the number of times people want to use me to get at somebody.”

“Why my gram wanna hurt her own blood?”

It was at that point I wondered why I was even entertaining the conversation. This shitkicker out of deep Texas obviously did not have the $125 a day to pay for my services. He couldn’t afford to hire me, so why tease him?

It was this last thought that upset my neatly stacked applecart. I went into this business because poor Black people rarely got a break or official assistance. It once was that I did the work and they paid what they could. Often, we’d trade in favors, not having to deal with money at all. I wanted to get back to that way. Back then I was a happier man.

“Look here, Santangelo, you need to see this from my side’a the table. I don’t know you or your grandmother. I don’t know the man works across the street from the Orchid SRO. How am I to be sure that you don’t have some score to settle with this Lutisha James?”

“She my auntie, man. She my blood. I just need to get her the message that her mama want her to call.”

He had calmed down, was looking at me with the closest he would probably ever get to sincerity. It was something, but not enough.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll look for your auntie. And if I find her I will tell her what you said. If she wants to see you, I’ll make that happen. Or I can just pass on the message about making the call.”

Santangelo Burris’s murky eyes concentrated on me for at least two minutes. This gaze was so intense I thought that if he had had a gun I might have died right then and there.

Then he nodded and said, “Okay. How much it cost?”

I knew he wouldn’t be able to afford my going rate, and I didn’t want to say I’d do it for free. I also didn’t want to offer to trade favors with someone who was that angry.

“How much to find your auntie?”

“Yeah.”

“I charge by the day. Seventy-five dollars.”

“How, um, how many days would it take?”

“If I can’t locate her in a week, I’ll probably never find her.”

“And so that’s seventy-fi’e dollars a day for seven days?”

“That’s right,” I agreed, thinking that this man wasn’t as stupid as I’d assumed.

He gave me another two-minute stare, nodding almost imperceptibly, and then pulled out a thick roll of ten-dollar bills. He peeled off fifty-two notes, counting them out one by one as he laid them on the desk before me. It was dirty money, greasy and worn. After returning what was left of his wad of cash to a jacket pocket, he reached into another pocket, came out with a crumpled wad of green and slowly unfolded it into a five-dollar bill. This he laid upon the stack of tens.

It surprised me that a man looking like he did knew how to do numbers in his head.

“That enough?” he asked.

“Um. Yeah.”

“Okay then,” he said and then rose without using his hands for extra leverage.

“Do you have any idea of where your auntie could be?”

“Naw. If I did I would go there myself.”

“But she stayed at the Orchid?”

“Yeah. I aksed them where she went but they didn’t know.”

“You think she might work numbers here in LA?”

“I don’t know nuttin’ ’bout that. I just need you to go out and find ’er.”

Giving up on getting any more out of the boar-man, I asked, “How do I get in touch with you?”

“What for?”

“To tell you what I’ve found.”

“Oh. How long you think it’a take?”

“Maybe one day,” I said. “Maybe never.”

“But you gonna get into it right away, right? My grandmama need to talk to her.”

“It’s the only job I got right now. I’ll be on it this very morning.”

“Okay.”

“So, what’s your number?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ma... I’ma... I’ll call you.”

“It’d be better if I could call you.”

“I’ont have a number right now. I’ll call you at the end’a the week.”

I shrugged and nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll call Friday. You be here, now.”

He turned and walked down the short hall from my office to the front door.

I followed him to make sure that he didn’t take a bite out of or stamp on Niska.