One shot harry, p.5
One-Shot Harry, page 5
He drove over to the Four Aces auto repair and showed the shots of the Mercury’s undercarriage to Jed Monk. Monk was also over six feet, solidly built with a trim mustache and a baritone voice. He wore a grease-stained gray work shirt and matching khakis. His shop was called Four Aces on account of the fact that he’d won the lease in a poker game.
They sat in his office off the service bay. Monk had also been in Korea but the two didn’t know each other then. Ingram told the mechanic about Kinslow as the latter peered through a magnifying glass he’d gotten out of his desk drawer to examine the pictures.
“Honestly, Harry, I can’t say for certain I see what you see.” Magnifying glass set aside, he put a finger on the photo where the brake line had separated from the rotor. “If you look closer, you can see some frayed trailings from the end of the line. The line could have been ripped loose on impact.”
“Could the line have been partially cut into? Whoever did it knowing it would eventually pull apart because of the pressure of the brake fluid pumping through it?”
Monk shook out a Lucky Strike, first offering one to Ingram, who declined. “Yeah, but there’d be a leak from the line when the car was parked. Maybe not big drops but still.”
“You being a mechanic, you might notice that, but what if you weren’t a mechanic?”
Monk blew smoke out. “Plus, there’s the brakes themselves. I mean you go to apply the pedal and they wouldn’t hold, or you’d have to pump the pedal several times to make them hold. You don’t have to be no grease monkey to know something’s up. And if you knew that, you sure as shit wouldn’t be taking that car up a climb like Mulholland with those curves.” He sat back with his cigarette, watching the smoke climb toward the ceiling. He then said, “But if I wanted to take out the brakes, figuring I couldn’t be crawling up under a car parked somewhere, I’d pop the hood and use a screwdriver to punch a hole in the master cylinder.”
Ingram nodded. “So even if you put on the emergency brake, you still might lose control.”
“Maybe.” Monk pushed the pictures back toward Ingram.
“I hear you, Jed. I appreciate this.”
“Why do you think there was something funny about how he died?”
“I guess it was what he told me. That big things were about to happen for him.”
Monk shook his head. “That could mean anything, like he was going to get a better job.”
“Yeah,” Ingram agreed. “But from the way he talked, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with music. At least, not directly.”
“I don’t know, man. I do know a good driver is only as good as his vehicle,” Monk said.
Ingram was on his feet. “I hear you, thanks.” They shook hands.
“Let me know when you got your next domino-and-beer night going on. I haven’t played any bones in a month of Sundays.”
“I will.”
Back home Ingram got listings for two Shirley Kinslows from the directory and called them. The first one wasn’t Ben’s mother. The second number rang several times but wasn’t picked up.
He called the morgue and found out Somerset wasn’t on duty today. He paced about in his front room, feeling stymied, out of sorts. Maybe he was making this all up in his head to what, avenge his friend when in fact his car hadn’t been tampered with? He stopped, hands on his hips, trying to recall the name of the man Kinslow had been driving for. Hoyt, was it? Had there been a first name mentioned? No, there hadn’t. Who was he and could he be tied into this, if there was anything to be tied into?
Ingram rubbed the back of his neck. Was he jumping through hoops of his own making? Certainly he could be, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t be thorough. He’d try to find out who this Hoyt was if only to satisfy himself that he hadn’t ignored any possible angles.
He tried to occupy his mind by fixing an elaborate lunch—elaborate by his standards, meaning more than just a sandwich and a bottle of beer. But halfway through preparing a dish of macaroni and cheese to go along with a pork chop he meant to fry up, he lost interest. He needed to get out, to do something to get at whatever it was that was eating at him.
It occurred to him he knew who could find out about the disposition of Kinslow’s body. He supposed he’d put off asking because he didn’t want to seem like he was taking advantage of a friend. But then what were friends for? He dialed Josh Nakano.
“Eternal Sands,” said a woman’s modulated voice.
Ingram asked for his friend and she asked who he was. He was then connected.
“What’s up, Harry?”
Ingram explained what he wanted. “If it means I have to pay to have his body picked up by you, Josh, that’s okay, but see if you can find out what the coroner’s report says.”
“You mean like alcohol or drugs in his bloodstream?”
“Yes, and was there any, you know, bruising on his body.”
“He was in a car accident, you said.”
“I mean inconsistent with the crash.”
“I’ll see. I think I’ve got all the particulars I need. I’ll be back in touch.”
“Thanks, man.”
After hanging up, Ingram sat there for a few minutes, but he couldn’t relax. He got up and turned on one of his scanners, listening. He stood there, slightly hunched, ear toward the speaker in anticipation. Various alerts from dispatchers were made, and responses to them came in from patrol cars over the airwaves. The incidents were ordinary, a traffic bang-up with two vehicles, a man locked out of his house and so on. He turned the scanner off.
With nothing else to occupy his mind, he took up his favored Speed Graphic and went out. He walked around his neighborhood, taking a few snaps of people going about their everyday activities. Ingram continued walking for several miles and eventually was in the Crenshaw area around Exposition and Muirfield Road, near Dorsey High School. Ingram recalled meeting a fellow vet, a man named Julian Dixon, at a function not too long ago. He was a few years younger than Ingram and had been in the service toward the end of the fifties. Dixon had mentioned he’d attended Dorsey and was contemplating a career in elected office to better advance the negro agenda.
Maybe that’s what he should get, Ingram thought. An agenda—a more defined plan for what he wanted to do. Not that he was going to give up taking pictures, but if he wanted to crack the white magazine market, he should work more toward what they wanted to see. Or could be what he should do was put together his best shots and try to get a deal to do a coffee table book.
Contemplating this, Ingram was mid-block on Hillcrest when he saw a man in well-used coveralls heading toward a modest house, carrying lumber under an arm. His battered Ford pickup truck was parked at the curb. There were all sorts of materials and tools in the bed of the pickup.
“Hey you,” said a voice. It came from a police car that had pulled to a stop in the middle of the street. A white cop was addressing the Black repairman.
“Yes, sir,” said the handyman.
“Put that shit down and come over here,” the officer demanded.
The man did as he was told, laying the studs on the lawn. Standing several feet away, Ingram began taking pictures. He kept the camera down on his torso, sighting through the viewfinder from above.
“What are you up to?”
“Fixing a few things in Sister Armar’s home.”
“Sister? You her brother?”
“We belong to the same church is what I mean.”
“There’s been some burglaries around here. You could be faking this repairman business. Good cover a shifty colored like you could use to get away with who knows what.” He glared at him up and down. “You got some ID?”
“Yes, I do.” He began to reach for his wallet.
“Hey, what the fuck you doing?” The cop shoved his car door open, nearly hitting the other man with it. He was out on his feet, hand on the butt of his holstered revolver.
“Getting my identification like you asked, Officer.”
“You were reaching for that hammer.”
“What? No.” There was a claw hammer in a loop of the coveralls.
The gun was out now, aimed at his chest. “Don’t you back talk me, boy.”
“He wasn’t. He was answering your question.”
Both men turned their heads, seeing Ingram for the first time.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded the cop.
“A member of the press.” Ingram couldn’t help but hear the cop’s drawl. Police Chief William Parker actively recruited white officers from the Jim Crow South, running ads in various regional newspapers down there. The better to keep the natives in line, he reflected.
“Yeah, you look just like Edward R. Murrow,” the cop huffed.
“Want to see my ID?” Ingram held his hands away from his body, the camera hanging around his neck. “As you can see, I don’t have a hammer.”
The cop’s lips puckered like he was sucking on a lime. “Goddamn, is today negro sass day?”
“The man was just doing his job is all,” Ingram said.
The cop still had his gun out, but it was down at his side. Coming closer to Ingram he said, “I suppose you take a lot of pictures with that thing, yeah?” He tapped the barrel of the gun against the camera.
“Everywhere I can, Officer.”
“Get printed, do they?”
“In the Eagle and the Sentinel.”
“Figures.” The cop sneered.
“Even in the Herald Ex from time to time.”
“That right?”
“It is.”
The officer now tapped the gun against his uniformed thigh. “Both of you, let me see those IDs. Put them on the hood of my car.” The cop took another position so as to be behind both men as they complied with his orders. Ingram and the handyman looked at each other silently.
“Now go sit there, on the curb. Make sure you sit on your hands and don’t neither of you fucking twitch.”
Ingram was about to object but followed the command, like the other man.
The cop unclipped his microphone from the car’s two-way radio and called in the particulars on their driver’s licenses, asking of course for any wants or warrants. He replaced the microphone, waiting for the reply. He leaned on the driver’s side door, arms in front of him, holding the revolver. In this way he kept his eyes on the other two. A few people walked by. Eventually came the reply from dispatch.
“Are you sure?” the officer said upon hearing neither one had an outstanding ticket or other matter involving law enforcement. He replaced the microphone after the confirmation was repeated. He walked over, looking down on them. “Guess you two got lucky today.” He tossed their licenses at them, the paper cards fluttering in the wind. Instinctively the handyman was about to make a sudden move to try to catch his. Ingram clamped a hand on his arm for him to remain still. He looked up at the cop who glared at him unblinkingly. The driver’s licenses lay in the roadway several feet away.
“Keep your noses clean.” The cop got back in his car and drove away.
Finally Ingram and the other man stood, dusting off the seats of their pants.
“Mister, if you hadn’t been here with that camera, things sure could have gone worse with that cracker. I’m Deon but they call me Deets.”
“Hell of a way to live, ain’t it?” Ingram introduced himself as they shook hands.
“I’m just glad I can finish what I started.” He picked up the wood and went back into the house.
Ingram felt elated, having achieved a minor victory in his confrontation with the cop. He took a bus back to his apartment and made a double-decker sandwich for his late lunch, early dinner. He then went back out, this time with a specific destination in mind. He stepped inside the Lucky Clover tavern on Broadway. The bar was originally built here as the location was a terminus for the Yellow Car trolley. Unlike the Red Car, which served the interurban area, the Yellow Car operated inside the city, with downtown the center. There were a few trollies still in operation but the transportation department had announced those too would be mothballed by year’s end. The name of the watering hole was straightforward. But as the freeways came to dominate and define Southern California, patrons who’d been coming to the bar for years routinely called it the Cloverleaf, as in the crisscrossing patterns of the region’s many elevated freeways.
Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ the Night Away” was playing on the jukebox as Ingram sat on a stool at the bar. People laughed and conversed. Ingram liked the place. The atmosphere was inviting, as a neighborhood joint should be.
“Haven’t seen you in a while, Harry,” the barman, Clyde Hampton, said. He was a barrel-chested man with salt-and-pepper hair. Hampton wiped down the bar with a flourish. “You been on the wagon?”
“Not hardly. Gimme a beer—no, make that a rum and Coke.”
“Been that kind of day?”
“Damn right.”
“Cuba libre coming right up.”
Soon the barman returned with his drink and Ingram drank slowly, realizing there was tension in his shoulders, a residue of his encounter with the cop today. There were Black cops on the force but why the hell was it the white ones he always seemed to encounter? Surely, sitting here in a bar with “Luck” in its name, some of that had to rub off on him, didn’t it? He sniffed, having more of his rum and Coke, relaxing some.
“Hey, GI, you lonely tonight?”
Ingram had been staring at a napkin with the bar’s name on it. Now his head jerked up.
“Who said that?”
He glared at men and women, couples and those sitting by themselves. Little Eva was singing “Loco-motion” on the juke.
But that woman’s voice.
He wheeled back around on his stool and chalked it up to his nerves. The welcome alcohol warmed his insides. He had more, already considering another round.
“I know you’re cold out there.”
Ingram bolted off the stool, nearly knocking it over.
“Hey, man,” the customer next to him blared.
“Goddamn, that was Seoul City Sue,” Ingram muttered. He wiped his wet tongue over his dry lips as he went in search of the voice that used to broadcast to tired soldiers on those bitter-cold winter nights by the Naktong River. He looked hard at various female faces, some of them staring back at the possessed man. But this was a Black bar. Occasionally there might be a white or Asian person in here; it wasn’t unheard of for city department clerks or typists to come in here with coworkers. But there were no white faces in here tonight, and, as he’d told Ben Kinslow, Ingram had seen a photo of the woman they’d called Seoul City Sue.
Though what if those pics he’d seen in the magazine had been more propaganda from the enemy? What if it was a trick by the Red Chinese, the backers of North Korea? They might have set the whole thing up, duping the press as part of their plan. Hadn’t they perfected what was called brainwashing, using psychological methods to break the will? Making a person do things they wouldn’t normally do under their own steam? It wasn’t so crazy to think the commie might have a reporter or two in their pocket. White bread–eating white Americans who’d been given the whammy and even they didn’t know they were under orders from Peking. Wasn’t that the plot of the movie he and Strummer had seen last year, The Manchurian Candidate? POWs reconditioned to carry out deep-seated orders planted in their minds. There had been a scene where one of the GIs was ordered to strangle another captive.
Ingram sat back down at a different position at the bar. He was aware eyes were on him, including Hampton’s. Be cool, he advised himself. Don’t blow your top. If he next started seeing that child from Chorwa village walking up to him, they’d carry him off to the loony bin for sure.
“Everything okay, Harry?” Hampton was there in front of him.
“Yeah, just winding down is all.” He shook his glass, knocking the ice around. “Give me another, would ya?”
“Coming up.”
On alert, Ingram was poised to hear Sue speak again but there were no other words from her. Must be a screw loose in his addled brain. Was he under too much strain? Cobbling together a living chasing photos of people doing bad things to each other with the occasional process server job sprinkled in, always unwelcomed when he showed up bringing unwanted news. Maybe he ought to sell shoes or refrigerators. A job bringing smiles to faces.
What had that guy Deets said? If Harry hadn’t happened along today, it might have gone way different with the police. Ingram nodded. That was something to hold onto.
After finishing his second drink, ignoring the nervous glances of the other patrons, he paid his tab and left the Lucky Clover. On his way home, he hunched his sport coat around his shoulders against the cool of the evening. Seoul City Sue didn’t call to him from an alleyway or from a passing car. The ghost of a hungry and scared nine-year-old didn’t materialize in front of him. Even the cops left him alone. A weariness from more than the day’s activities had overcome him by the time he got inside his apartment. He sat in his favorite chair and fell asleep.
Sometime past three in the morning Ingram awoke. He pulled a bottle from his cupboard and poured a drink. He stripped down to his boxers and A-shirt and stretched out in bed, yawning. Try as he might, he couldn’t get back to sleep. He turned on his portable GE transistor radio, the one item in his apartment purchased in this decade. He didn’t find anything of interest on the AM band, so he switched over to FM. He turned the dial with the precision of a safe cracker, its glow on his fixed features the only illumination in his bedroom. Ingram came upon a soothing woman’s voice. She didn’t remind him of Seoul City Sue, therefore he didn’t turn away. This was on a station at the end of the dial with the call letters KPFK. It was run by a bunch of peace lovers and vegetarians, Ingram recalled, amused.
