Ash dark as night, p.22
Ash Dark as Night, page 22
“It is. Give me a hand with this.”
Ingram gripped the opposite end of the credenza Beck had taken hold of. Together, they carried it toward his work area, but he indicated he wanted the piece over toward a corner.
“We’re gonna flip it over,” he said.
They did this so he could get at the legs.
Ingram resumed. “I plan to put him in an article I’m looking to write about Watts in the weeks following the riots. I talked to an editor at the Nation who has some interest. But I need to send him an outline first.”
“They been around since the Crisis magazine.”
Ingram was impressed the old man had it on the ball. “Yes they have.” The Crisis was published by the NAACP. “But I’m going to put all my cards on the table, Len. I also want to talk to your grandson because I believe he’s friends with Mose Tolbert and I’m trying to find him.”
The older Beck had begun the process of unscrewing the legs from the bottom of the credenza. He squirted a measure of WD-40 where each leg was flush with the base to cut through the accumulated rust and grime on the threads. He talked as he worked. “I recognize that name. Seems Donnie mentioned this Tolbert was gonna help him get an art show together ’cause he knew those kind of people. You lookin’ for this fella to be in the article too?”
“He’s definitely a fan of Donnie’s work. I’ve seen one of his paintings at the man’s home—a while ago, I mean.”
Now Beck used an adjustable wrench, closed its jaws on the leg. He’d first wrapped part of the rag around the leg to protect the threads. He twisted, grunting, and the leg turned. “Last time Donnie was by he said he had a gig, that’s what he called a job, like a jazz musician, taking him out of town for a few weeks.”
“He say where or what the job was?”
“Oh, that boy is always talking about who shot John and his big plans.” He paused, having gotten the second leg loose. “Though when it comes to getting the work, he’s no joke. He’s done jobs for the props department over there at them Paramount studios.” He motioned in the air. “Did these buildings like what you see in New York on big sheets of glass. He showed me the photos of him working. Said the photographer who worked for the studio did them and laid a few prints on him.”
He looked over at Ingram. “You ever do that kind of work?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Anyway, Donnie said it was some sort of play or, hell, I’m not sure. I think he also told me it was in St. Louis.”
“He say when he was coming back?”
He took the last leg off. “No, but that’s not unusual. He’s what you call footloose and fancy free. Meet some chick and that cat may not be back for half a year.”
“You remember when he left?”
He carried the legs to his worktable. “Must have been the second, no third day of the riots. That Saturday I guess it was. Friday he’d stayed overnight with me in the shop making sure I was okay and them angry soul brothers weren’t gonna torch me to cinders. Guess it helps I’ve been here since Hector was a pup and I knew them young’ins out in the streets since they was running around in knee pants.”
Ingram didn’t figure that was a coincidence, given Tolbert was last seen that Friday. Was one man responsible for the disappearance of the other? They went away together or suffered the same fate?
“Do you know if he got a call about this job on Saturday?”
Beck gestured. “No idea. But he called me late on Saturday to say he was heading out of town.”
Lacking an immediate follow-up question, Ingram glanced around the workspace. He chanced upon a loose pile of periodicals such as Ebony and even a several months old issue of Dapper near him on a stool. There were several letters atop the stack. Ingram keyed in on who the top letter was addressed to.
“Your grandson gets his mail here?”
The older Beck was measuring the credenza’s legs, jotting down the lengths. “The stuff he wants, yeah.” He paused, holding one of the legs before his eyes as if examining a rare gem. Offhandedly he added, “He wanted to make damn sure I looked out for a check he was waiting on from some more studio work he’d done. Wouldn’t be the first time I had to send him money once he called me.” He shook his head. “Damn sight better than how his long-haired beatnik buddies treat him. Doing work for nothing ’cause it’s for the people. Sheet.” He chuckled.
“What beatnik buddies?”
“That newspaper he draws for sometimes, the Free Message.”
“The Free Press you mean?”
He snapped his fingers. “That’s it. A young white dude for the paper was around here interviewing me and some others about the riots.”
That had to be Gerry Tackwood. “Donnie’s done work for the paper?”
Beck pointed to the pile. “Some of his drawings have been used in it. He keeps them when they get published. For his portfolio, he called it. Go ahead, take a gander.”
Ingram searched through the pile and came to a folded-over tabloid sheet. It was an article by Gerry Tackwood about discriminatory apartment rental practices in West L.A. which included an illustration. The ink and wash drawing was of a giant white hand spread before a black couple and their two small children. It was signed Deebeck. Checking the date, Ingram saw this had run a month ago. On the back side of the sheet was part of a piece he’d written. Bemusedly, he concluded if his own head wasn’t up his ass so much, he would have noticed this before—hiding in plain sight from his ego.
Rearranging the pile, he noticed a certificate of merit he’d initially sifted past. He read it. “Donnie played on the Little League team you sponsored.”
“Yes, sir, heck of a shortstop.”
“Neal Atkins played on the team.” He recalled the photo Crossman had of the youths in his Little League gear.
The older Beck shook his head glumly. “He did. He was quick, could steal a base like Maury Wills. Too bad he didn’t stick to that kind of . . . taking.”
“You know if they kept in touch?”
“Can’t say for sure but it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“You’ve been a lot of help, Len.” He put his card on the letters. “If you hear from Donnie, let him know I’d like to talk to him.”
“Sure thing.” Beck was clamping a pair of vice grips on the threads of one of the legs.
Ingram left him to his work and drove off to look for a pay phone. He found one two blocks over and called Tackwood. Not at the Freep office but at his home, a courtyard apartment he’d been to with Claire for a party on the border with Culver City.
“Hello,” a female voice answered.
Ingram asked for Tackwood.
“He’s not here right now. Can I give him a message?” she asked.
Ingram was curious as to the identity of the mystery woman but kept it professional. He told her who he was and asked that Tackwood call him this evening at home if possible.
“He has your number?”
Ingram relayed that he did and she informed him she’d give him the message. He next drove to the Galton Process Services and Legal Papers offices on Grand Avenue, not far from the downtown courthouses. He parked on its compact lot and entered. Along one wall several padded metal chairs were aligned. On one of the chairs sat a beefy man in khakis and flannel shirt reading over papers he was holding in both rough hands. His face was clouded and intermittently he mumbled a curse word as he read.
“Hey, stranger,” Doris Letrec said, looking up from her typing on an Underwood, removing her cat-eye glasses on a chain. She was the office manager and her desk faced the street.
“Hey yourself,” he said.
Past the chairs, a pony wall had recently been installed the width of the room. Ingram pushed open its gate and stepped to Letrec’s side. The beefy man regarded this, then returned to his reading.
“You stop by for work?” she asked. “Got a couple of hot ones.”
“Not today, sorry, but I’d like to use the back room.”
“Of course, Harry, go right ahead.”
The door to Letrec’s right was inset with pebbled frosted glass and a set of drawn blinds. As he started past her desk, that door cracked open the bare minimum width to allow the face of a white man to appear in the sliver of the opening. The eye was as pale blue as a washed-out sky.
“Hello, Harry,” the eye’s owner said.
“Tremaine, how’s it going?”
“Shoulder to the wheel, old son, shoulder to the wheel.” The door closed slowly and clicked back into place.
A wry smile on his face, Ingram turned his head to Letrec, who mirrored his expression. He continued on, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the new-fangled coffee maker. Tremane Galton was the owner of the business. Born in Britain, he’d lived in the States going on some thirty-odd years. He was agoraphobic, yet managed to drive from his house in Frogtown to the office at least three days a week.
Ingram walked past a row of file cabinets to an unmarked door in the rear south wall. He stepped inside and closing the door, pulled the string on the bare light bulb overhead. In here were all types of aged ledgers. These assorted record books were kept in order by year on two shelves. In particular, he wanted to look at the listings of building permits, business licenses and property taxes issued by this city and several surrounding municipalities. This private accumulation of public information, usually requiring visiting various city records offices, was handy to have in one place when tracking down errant business owners who didn’t want their entanglements known.
Ingram first looked up the Starbrite name. A main reason he’d come today was to confirm what he and Claire suspected, that there was no listing for such a company, having already looked in the White and Yellow Pages. He found no legal reference in terms of a property tax bill or business tax record in Los Angeles, nor when he checked through a few cities’ records in the vicinity. He was convinced the supposed carpet service was a disguised police operation.
He next looked through the records for Tolbert’s business but as he suspected, neither Rickler’s or Albert Domergue’s names were on the older property records.
If someone looked at the property tax records for Whitehead’s grocery store, only Arthur Yarbrough’s name was identified as owner. In reality, Ingram, Josh Nakano and Strummer Edwards owned a percentage of the market. This was delineated on an agreement signed by the three of them, its original held in a safety deposit box. Legally, if his blind friend wanted to squawk and not pay them their cut each year, or short them, Ingram understood Yarbrough would have the upper hand. But each trusted the other and too, unsaid was that neither Yarbrough nor Ingram were looking to get on Edwards’s bad side. Both had discussed this after a few sips in the grocer’s back office. They were damn certain Edwards had eliminated more than one unfortunate from the face of this troubled world.
Wanting to be thorough, Ingram also checked the Emerald Room’s records, but his search didn’t yield anything out of the ordinary. Ingram reminded himself he could get lost following the dusty trail of who Albert Domergue was and all his holdings. Still, he felt he should do some nosing about him if only to ascertain his relationship to the bookkeeper. All the more reason, he concluded, returning the hand-printed record binders to their proper location, to have that talk with Betty Payton. Yawning and stretching where he sat at the table, he stood again and returned the ledgers and binders he’d been looking through to their respective locations on the shelves. He clicked off the light and stepped back to the main room. Letrec wasn’t at her desk and the man who’d been reading and grousing was long gone. He looked at Galton’s door and considered knocking on it to say good-bye. The office manager returned from using the restroom and smiled at Ingram.
“Find what you were looking for, Harry?”
“Found something.” He’d wetted a paper towel from the water cooler and was using that to clean out his empty cup.
“One breadcrumb at a time for the bloodhound.” She retrieved several file folders from her desk and walking past Ingram, patted him on the shoulder. “Good to see you again.”
“Okay to use the phone?”
“Of course.” He called Gerry Tackwood and was glad he found him at the Freep’s office. They talked some. When he was finished, he said to Letrec, “Thanks, Doris.”
“Hope to see you around, Harry.”
Ingram left the service and drove over to the Detour diner. He was pleased to see Winnie McClure behind the counter. She hadn’t been here the other week he’d come through. McClure was a heavyset woman with a handsome face and reddish-brown hair. As usual she had it styled short and straight, a pixie cut like childhood drawings he recalled of Peter Pan in story books. As it was past the lunch rush, only a few patrons were present. He sat in a booth.
“What’ll it be, Harry?” McClure said coming over.
“Water for now. Meeting a guy for a late lunch.”
“Okay.”
He studied the miniature chalkboard on the wall for today’s specials. He could handle those smothered pork chops and greens. Having and wanting to keep a girlfriend like Anita Claire though had made him more conscious of his waistline. Not that she was a shallow person but in all ways he wanted to impress her. Ingram almost cackled, deluding himself that he somehow impressed her when he damn sure knew it was the other way around. Too, he better get to his fighting weight, considering what all was coming at them.
Tackwood arrived and Ingram waved him over. Tackwood sat opposite.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Ingram said.
“A free lunch is a free lunch.” Tackwood also studied the specials.
McClure came back, pad at the ready. “Gentlemen?”
“I’ll have the pork chops and greens,” Tackwood said.
“That comes with macaroni and cheese,” McClure said.
“Fantastic,” Tackwood enthused.
Ingram gave in and also ordered the same, but no macaroni. Double up the workouts for sure, he vowed.
“Mm-hmm,” she said, writing down their orders. “Y’all want cokes or 7 Up with that? Got fresh squeezed lemonade too.”
“I’ll stick with water,” Ingram said.
“7 Up for me,” Tackwood said. “Before we get to your thing, check this out, I was working on my article when you called. Yesterday I had a meet with my contact at the 77th. Following up on Atkins supposedly taking his own life in lockup.” Neal Atkins’s reported suicide in custody had been covered by the white press, spurred by Crossman’s article speculating foul play, which had run in the Sentinel.
“You don’t buy the informant rumor and that he was done in by a fellow prisoner?”
“Do you?”
Ingram said evenly, “Smells like a cop fairy tale to cover their tracks.”
McClure brought their drinks and set out utensils. She went away again and they continued talking.
“I agree. My guy tells me he talked to Atkins earlier that evening. He knew him slightly from the streets. Atkins had been scooped up on an outstanding warrant during the rebellion.” Tackwood had his hand on his plastic cup of 7 Up and ice but didn’t drink from it. “He said that Atkins was looking forward to getting out and was in good spirits. The warrant was for unpaid parking tickets, not a thing to kill yourself over.”
Ingram nodded agreement.
Now Tackwood had some of his soda. “My guy was working down the hall from where they were holding Atkins. Not, I hasten to inform you, my stalwart colleague, in the general lock-up with the unwashed.”
The usual holding tank at 77th was a holding cell in the basement where everyone from drunks to women’s shoe sniffers were crowded into initially upon being booked. Ingram’d taken plenty of pictures of the inhabitants there. “You’re saying they put him in isolation for a reason?”
“I’m saying my guy was ordered away from his usual duties round about eight that night. He was told to go over to Records and Identification at Central to deliver several boxes of records.”
“Getting your guy out of the way, you mean?”
“Seems like.”
Ingram considered what his friend was saying. “He was the masked man on Lomax?”
“Yes,” Tackwood admitted quietly.
“But he’s not a cop. There’s no standing guard at the tank. Only he’s invisible.” Ingram snapped his fingers. “The janitor, they’re always cleaning up vomit, piss and who knows what all else down in holding. He overhears them paddy cops talking all the time. That’s who Atkins would talk to.”
A pause, then, “Pretty good, Harry. That’s right.”
“Parker must have checked sick days and whatnot to his appearance on TV. He won’t find him ’cause he probably doesn’t clock in to work until late afternoon.”
“Exactly. No one suspects him. Lomax agreed to go along with the dodge to better protect him. But what he talks about is accurate.”
“You’re not gonna out him in an article?”
“Of course not. But that’s what I’ve been wrestling with, how to write this without giving him away.”
They kept talking and their food arrived, Ingram nodding to McClure who once again returned to the racing sheet. “By the time my guy got back to the station, Atkins’s body had already been taken to the morgue’s meat locker. Now when I find this out, I go over to the morgue to see if I could worm my way in to take a gander at the corpse. Atkins had already been cremated, and the ashes interred at Evergreen.”
“Definitely not the protocol.” Ingram and Tackwood both knew the rule at the morgue: hold the body for a year, as attempts would be made to find the next of kin. Only then, if unsuccessful, would the departed be taken care of, and the ashes buried at the County’s potter’s field section amid the acreage of Evergreen cemetery in Boyle Heights.
“Why would the cops want to murder a lightweight like Atkins?”
“Still trying to figure that out. But I know you feel it like I do. The uprising has not only lit a spark in the ghetto but put a fire under the cops too. Everybody knows which way the wind is blowing.”
“You got that right,” Ingram agreed.
“I’ve been talking with Dorrell Zinum and a few others about this, my fears are for sure Parker would step it up in terms of keeping watch on the natives and whatnot. Did Anita show you my shots from the town hall and I pointed out this cat to her? The one I said was suspected of being a snitch or undercover cop?”
