White butterfly, p.4
White Butterfly, page 4
I knocked on the door. Why not? They were just crazy kids. There was no answer so I turned the knob. The house was a mess. Pizza cartons and dirty dishes all over the living room and the kitchen. Half-gone sodas, a nearly full bottle of whiskey, it was the kind of filth that many youths lived in while waiting to grow up.
I couldn’t tell if the rooms had been searched. But there wasn’t any blood around.
I GOT HOME a few minutes before four.
Etta picked up the receiver after the first ring.
“Hello.”
I told her about Big Art and Sinestra’s games.
“Old Willis don’t have to worry about Abel Snow with that girl in his bed,” I said.
“She called her daddy,” Etta said. “She told him where she was and asked him to come and get her.”
“Then she lit out?”
“I don’t know. All I know is what Mrs. Merchant said. She told me that Mr. Merchant sent Abel down to get her.”
“Did he bring her back?”
“No.”
“Damn.”
“Do you think he’s found ’em, Easy?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. Mr. Snow don’t mind leavin’ blood and guts behind him.”
“Maybe you better leave it alone, Easy.”
“Can’t do that, Etta. I got to see it through now.”
“I don’t want you to get killed, baby,” she said.
“That’s the nicest thing I been told all day.”
I SLEPT ON THE COUCH for the few hours left of the night.
When I opened my eyes she was sitting right in front of me.
“We have to talk,” Bonnie said.
“I got to go.”
“No.”
“Bonnie.”
“His name is Jogaye Cham,” she said. “We, we talked on the plane when everybody else was asleep. He talked about Africa, our home, Easy. Where we came from.”
“I was born in southern Louisiana and I still call myself a Texan ’cause Texas is where I grew into a man.”
“Africa,” she said again. “He was working for democracy. He worked all day and all night. He wanted a country where everyone would be free. A land our people here would be glad to migrate to. A land with black presidents and black professionals of all kinds.”
“Yeah.”
“He worked all the time. Day and night. But one time there was a break in the schedule. We took a flight to a beach town he knew in Madagascar.”
“You could’a come home,” I said even though I didn’t want to say anything.
“No,” she said, and the pain in my chest grew worse. “I needed to be with him, with his dreams.”
“Would you be tellin’ me this if them flowers didn’t come?”
“No. No.” She was crying. I held back from slapping her face. “There was nothing to tell.”
“Five days on a beach with another man and there wasn’t somethin’ to say?”
“We, we had separate rooms.”
“But did you fuck him?”
“Don’t use that kind of language with me.”
“Okay,” I said. “All right. Excuse me for upsetting you with my street-nigger talk. Let me put it another way. Did you make love to him?”
The words cut much deeper than any profanity I could have used. I saw in her face the pain that I felt. Deep, grinding pain that only gets worse with time. And though it didn’t make me feel good, it at least seemed to create some kind of balance. At least she wouldn’t leave unscathed.
“No,” she whispered. “No. We didn’t make love. I couldn’t with you back here waiting for me.”
A thousand questions went through my mind. Did you kiss him? Did you hold hands in the sunset? Did you say that you loved him? But I knew I couldn’t ask. Did he touch your breast? Did he breathe in your breath on a blanket near the water? I knew that if I asked one question that they would never stop coming.
I stood up. I was dizzy, light-headed, but didn’t let it show.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I got a job to do for Etta. A woman already paid me so I got to move it on.”
“What kind of job?”
“Nuthin’ you need to know about. It’s my business.” And with that I showered and shaved, powdered and dressed. I left her in the house with her confessions and her lies.
WITH NO OTHER INFORMATION available to me I went to see Etta at the Merchants’ seaside retreat. She only pulled the door open enough to see me.
“Go away, Easy,” she said.
“Open the door, Etta.”
“Go away.”
“No.”
Maybe I had gained some strength of will working for the city schools. Or maybe Etta was getting worn down between losing her husband and working for the rich. All I knew was that at another time she could have stared me down. Instead the door swung open.
Inside, sitting on the blue couch with golden clamshell feet, was a young black man and young white woman, both of them beautiful. They were holding hands and huddling like frightened children. They were frightened children. If it wasn’t for the broken heart driving me I would have been scared too.
“They came after you called me, Easy,” Etta said.
“Why didn’t you call back?”
“You did what I asked you to already. You found them. That’s all I could ask.”
“I’m Easy,” I said to the couple.
“Willis,” the boy said. He made a waving gesture and I noticed that his hands were bloody and bandaged.
“Sin,” the girl said. There was something crooked about her face but that just stoked the fires of her dangerous beauty.
“What happened to Big Art, Sin?”
Her mouth dropped open while she groped for a lie.
“I already know you called your father,” I said.
“I was just mad at Art,” she said. “He didn’t have to beat up Willis and hurt his hands. I thought my father would come and maybe do something.” Her eyes grew glassy.
“What happened?”
“I told Art that I was going down to the liquor store and then I called Daddy. I told him that I was with a guy but I was scared to leave and he said to wait somewhere near at hand. Then I waited in the coffee shop across the street. When I saw Abel I got scared and went to get Willy. When we came back to get my clothes he was… ” She trailed off in the memory of the slaughter.
I turned to Willis and said, “You’d be better off holding a gun to your head.”
“I didn’t mean for him to get killed,” Sinestra said angrily.
“What now?” I asked Etta.
“I’m tryin’ to talk some sense to ’em. I’m tryin’ to tell Sin to go home and Willis to get away before he ends up like that Art fella.”
“I’m not going back,” Sinestra proclaimed.
“And I’m not leavin’ her or L.A.”
“She just had a big man break your fingers and then she went and fucked him.”
“She didn’t know. She was just flirtin’ and it got outta hand. She’s just innocent, that’s all.”
My mouth fell open and I put my hand to cover it.
Etta started laughing. Laughing hard and loud.
“What are you laughing at?” Sinestra asked.
I started laughing too.
“Shut up, shut up,” Sinestra said.
“Yes. Please be quiet,” Abel Snow said from a door in the back.
He had a pistol in his hand.
“There’s a man in a car parked out front, Sinestra,” Snow said. “Go out to him. He’ll take you home.”
Without a word the young white woman went for the door.
Etta looked into my eyes. Her stare was hard and certain.
“Sin,” Willis said.
She hesitated and then went out the door without looking back.
“Well, well, well,” Abel Snow said. “Here we are. Just us four.”
Willis was sitting on the couch. Etta and I were standing on either side of the boy. He turned on the blue sofa to see Snow.
“You gonna kill us?” I asked, my voice soaked with manufactured fear.
“You’re gonna go away,” he said, and smiled.
I took a step to the side, away from Etta.
“You gonna let us go?” Willis asked, playing his part well though I’m sure he didn’t know it.
Snow was amused. He was listening for something.
Etta put her hands down at her side. She raised her face to look at the ceiling and prayed, “Lord, forgive us for what we do.”
At a picnic table Snow’s grin would have been friendly.
I took another step and bumped into the wall.
“Nowhere to run,” Snow apologized. “Take it like a man and it won’t hurt.”
“Please God,” Etta said beseechingly. She bent over slightly.
A car horn honked. That was what Snow was waiting for. He raised his pistol. I closed my eyes, the left one a little harder than the right.
Then I forced my eyes open. Abel Snow brought his left heel off the floor, preparing to pivot after killing me. EttaMae pulled a pistol out of the fold of her dress, aimed it at his head, and sucked in a breath. It was that breath that made Snow turn his head instead of pulling the trigger. Etta’s bullet caught him in the temple. He crumpled to the floor, a sack of stones that had recently been a man.
“Oh no,” Willis cried. He pulled his legs up underneath himself. “Oh no.”
Etta looked at me. Her face was hard, her jaws were clenched in victory.
“I knew you had to be armed, baby,” I said. “If he was smart he would’a shot you first.”
“This ain’t no joke, Easy. What we gonna do with him?”
“What caliber you use?” I asked.
“Twenty-five caliber,” she said. “You know what I carry.”
“Didn’t even sound that loud. Nobody live close enough to have heard it.”
“They gonna come in here sooner or later. And even before that he ain’t gonna report in to Mr. Merchant.”
“Tell me somethin’, Etta.”
“What?”
“You plannin’ to go back to work for them?”
“Hell no.”
“Then call your boss. Tell him that Abel’s not comin’ home and that there’s a mess down here.”
“Put myself on the line like that?”
“It’s him on the line. I bet the gun in Abel’s hand was the one he used on Art. And if that girl of his finds out about any killing in this house she’d have somethin’ on her old man till all the money runs out.”
“What about Willis?”
“I’ll take care of him. But we better get outta here now.”
I DROVE ETTA to a bus station in Santa Monica. She kissed me good-bye through the car window.
“Don’t feel guilty about Raymond,” she said. “Much as was wrong with him he took responsibility for everything he did.”
“What you gonna do with me?” Willis Longtree asked as we drove toward L.A.
“Take you to a doctor. Make sure your hand bones set right.”
“I’m still gonna stay here an’ try an’ make it in music,” he told me.
“Oh? What they call you when you were a boy?” I asked.
“Little Jimmy,” he said. “Little Jimmy because my father was James and everybody said I looked just like him.”
“Little Jimmy Long,” I said, testing out the name. “Try that on for a while. I can get you a job as a custodian at my school. Do that for a while and try to meet your dreams. Who knows? Maybe you will be some kinda star one day.”
“Little Jimmy Jones,” Willis said. “I like that even better.”
I GOT HOME in the early afternoon. Bonnie wasn’t there but her clothes were still in the closet. I went to the garage and got my gardener’s tool box. I clipped off all the roses, put them in a big bowl on the bedroom chest of drawers. Then I took the saw and hacked down both rose bushes. I left them lying there on either side of the door.
The little yellow dog must have known what I was doing. He yelped and barked at me until I finished the job.
I went off to work then. I got there at the three o’clock bell and worked until eleven.
When I got home the bushes had been removed. Bonnie, Jesus, and Feather were all sleeping in their beds. There were no packed suitcases in the closet, no angry notes on the kitchen table.
I laid down on the couch and thought about Mouse, that he was really dead. Sleep came quickly after that and I knew that my time of mourning was near an end.
READ SIX EASY PIECES FOR THE CONCLUSION.
WHITE BUTTERFLY
CHAPTER
1
EASY RAWLINS!” someone called. I turned to see Quinten Naylor twist the handle of my front gate.
“Eathy,” my baby, Edna, cooed as she played peacefully with her feet in her crib next to me on the front porch.
Quinten was normal in height but he was broad and powerful-looking. His hands were the size of potholders, even under the suit jacket his shoulders were round melons. Quinten was a brown man but there was a lot of red under the skin. It was almost as if he were rage-colored.
As Quinten strode across the lawn he crushed a patch of chives that I’d been growing for seven years.
The violent-colored man smiled at me. He held out his beefy paw and said, “Glad I caught you in.”
“Uh-huh.” I stepped down to meet him. I shook his hand and looked into his eyes.
When I didn’t say anything there was an uncomfortable moment for the Los Angeles police sergeant. He stared up into my face wanting me to ask him why he was there. But all I wanted was for him to leave me to go back into my home with my wife and children.
“Is this your baby?” he asked. Quinten was from back east, he spoke like an educated white Northerner.
“Yeah.”
“Beautiful child.”
“Yeah. She sure is.”
“She sure is,” Quinten repeated. “Takes after her mother, I bet.”
“What do you want wit’ me, officer?” I asked.
“I want you to come with me.”
“I’m under arrest?”
“No. No, not at all, Mr. Rawlins.”
I knew when he called me mister that the LAPD needed my services again. Every once in a while the law sent over one of their few black representatives to ask me to go into the places where they could never go. I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto.
“Then why should I wanna go anywhere wit’ you? Here I am spendin’ the day wit’ my fam’ly. I don’t need no Sunday drive wit’ the cops.”
“We need your help, Mr. Rawlins.” Quinten was becoming visibly more crimson under his brown shell.
I wanted to stay home, to be with my wife, to make love to her later on. But something about Naylor’s request kept me from turning him down. There was a kind of defeat in the policeman’s plea. Defeat goes down hard with black people; it’s our most common foe.
“Where we gonna go?”
“It’s not far. Twelve blocks. Hundred and Tenth Street.” He turned as he spoke and headed for the street.
I yelled into the house, “I’m goin’ fo’ a ride with Officer Naylor. I’ll be back in a while.”
“What?” Regina called from her ironing board out back.
“I’m goin’ out for a while,” I yelled. Then I waved at my forty-foot avocado tree.
Little Jesus peeked out from his perch up there and smiled.
“Come on down here,” I said.
The little Mexican boy climbed down the tree and ran up to me with a silent smile stitched across his face. He had the face of an ancient American, dark and wise.
“I don’t want you off exploring today, Jesus,” I said. “Stay around here and look after your mother and Edna.”
Jesus looked at his feet and nodded.
“Look up here at me.” I did all the talking when around Jesus because he hadn’t said a word in the eight years I’d known him.
Jesus squinted up at me.
“I want you close to home. Understand me?”
Quinten was at his car, looking at his watch.
Jesus nodded, looking me in the eye this time.
“All right.” I rubbed his crew-cut peach fuzz and went out to meet the cop.
OFFICER NAYLOR DROVE ME to an empty lot in the middle of the 1200 block of 110th Street. There was an ambulance parked out front, flanked by patrol cars. I noticed a bright patent-leather white pump in the gutter as we crossed the street.
A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. Seven white police officers stood shoulder to shoulder across the front of the property, keeping everybody out. The feeling was festive. The policemen were all at ease, smoking cigarettes and joking with the Negro gawkers.
The lot itself was decorated with two rusted-out Buicks that were hunkered down on broken axles in the weeds. A knotty oak had died toward the back end of the lot.
Quinten and I walked through the crowd. There were men, women, and children stretching their necks and bobbing back and forth. A boy said, “Lloyd saw’er. She dead.”
When we walked past the line of policemen one of them caught me by the arm and said, “Hey you, son.”
Quinten gave him a hard stare and the officer said, “Oh, okay. You can go on.”
Just one of the many white men I’ve shrugged off. His instinctive disrespect and arrogance hardly even mattered. I turned away and he was gone from my life.
“Right this way, Mr. Rawlins,” Quinten Naylor said.
There were four plainclothes policemen looking down at the back of the tree. I couldn’t make out what it was that they saw.
I recognized one of the cops. He was a burly white man, the kind of fat man who was fat everywhere, even in his face and hands.
“Mr. Rawlins,” the burly man said. He held out a pillowy hand.
“You remember my partner,” Quinten said. “Roland Hobbes.”
We’d come around the tree by then. There was a woman in a pink party dress, a little open at the breast, sitting with her back against the trunk. Her legs were straight out in front of her, a little apart. Her head tilted to the side, away from me, and her hands were on either side of her thighs with the palms up. Her left foot sported a white pump, her right foot was bare.
