“Saber, when are you going to grow up?”
“Never. Come on, don’t be so serious,” he replied. “You should have seen Grady. There was a brown stripe through the seat of his Jockeys. People were coming out of their rooms, and cops were shouting at them to get back inside. Grady started cussing at a cop, and the cop shoved him on the concrete. His face was white. I thought he was going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“What are you going to do with his car?”
“Dump it in colored town.”
“That doesn’t sound like your friends,” I said.
“Manny and Cholo? They don’t want any more heat from guys like Vick Atlas and Grady. You know what Manny said? ‘Don’t mess with guys who got juice.’ ”
“I’m really impressed with their great knowledge. When are you going to stop listening to these liars?” I said. “Come inside.”
“What for?”
“To wash your face.”
“You got to lighten up, Aaron,” he said, starting to get control of himself. “Things will work out. We’ll always be buds, right?”
“I didn’t bust us up,” I said.
“Okay, so I was wrong. Look, you’re already smiling. We’ve got senior year coming up. It’s going to be a gas.”
“Promise me you’re going to dump the car, Saber.”
“What do I want with it?”
“Where is it now?” I said.
“Manny has it in a garage for safekeeping. It’s fine. You’re always worrying. Let’s get a couple of beers and drink them in the park.”
“Jaime Atlas might kill my whole family,” I said. “Detective Jenks told me he was an enforcer in Chicago and New York. He burned his victims’ armpits and genitalia with a blowtorch. That’s why I’m not laughing a lot.”
The mirth went out of his face. He wiped his eyes. I never realized how long his eyelashes were or how much they reminded me of a girl’s. “Jaime Atlas did what?”
THE RAIN POUNDED down for almost an hour, flooding the streets, then the storm was gone and the sky was once again as bright and hot as tin. I drove to Valerie’s. Mr. Epstein was on his hands and knees weeding around the rosebushes in front of the house, bare-chested in cutoffs, in full sun, the gold hair on his back soggy with sweat. He grinned up at me, his arms thorn-pricked and speckled with dirt. “She’s inside.”
“How you doin’, sir?” I said in the same way my father always addressed another man.
He didn’t answer. He just continued to grin into my face. I was never comfortable around Mr. Epstein, perhaps because I was intimate with his daughter. Or maybe there was another reason. I knew little of the violence that is a constant in the lives of some men and a last resort for others and for some an option that doesn’t exist. I knew Mr. Epstein was not a member of the latter group. But where did he fit? He was a leftist and perhaps an ideologue; as a commando, he must have killed enemy soldiers or even civilians with a knife or his bare hands. How do you wash that kind of guilt off your hands?
I sat down on the steps and tried to hold his gaze. “I talked with Detective Jenks today.”
“Is Merton okay?”
“I think he’s real sick. In the lungs. Maybe the heart, too.”
“Sorry to hear that. Merton knows how to take it to them.”
“Sir?”
“He carries a badge, but he writes his own rules. They all do.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
He grinned again. “They.”
“Mr. Epstein, I’m sorry for bringing all this trouble into Valerie’s life.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“You could fool me, sir.” Again he didn’t reply. I went on, “Detective Jenks told me some terrible things about Jaime Atlas.”
Mr. Epstein sat up on his haunches and wiped the mud off his hands on his cutoffs, his eyebrows beady with moisture. “The man who comes after you is only a man. Most assassins are cowards.”
“Jaime Atlas crushed a man’s head in a vise.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“Detective Jenks made it up?”
“No, Jaime Atlas probably did. Put it to his kind, and they’ll cut and run. They don’t serve in wars. They make money off them.”
I wasn’t interested in his thoughts on the Atlas family. The question on my mind was one I couldn’t force myself to ask.
“It’s not going to offend me,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“Whatever you’re wanting to say, it won’t offend me.”
“Who do you reckon killed Mr. Harrelson?”
He picked up a trowel and began digging at a clump of weeds, chopping hard. There were dirt rings on his neck.
“Did I say something wrong, sir?”
“Nope. Go talk to Valerie. A woman you know called for you. Tell her not to call here again.”
VALERIE WAS WASHING dishes in the kitchen. I picked up a towel and began drying them. I could see the color in her throat.
“Your father said I had a phone call.”
“Yes, the woman named Cisco.”
“She called here?”
“What did I say? Why are you in contact with this person, Aaron?”
“I tried to help Detective Jenks. He’s dying.”
“All right, but what does she have to do with it? Why does she have to call my house?”
“I don’t know. Did she leave a number?”
“Yes, she did. Maybe you’d better hop right on it.”
“Don’t be like that, Val.”
“Like what?”
“May I use your phone?”
“Help yourself.” She dropped a plate into the drying rack.
The telephone was in the hallway. I dialed the number Valerie had written down. Miss Cisco picked up on the first ring. “Where have you been?”
“Where have I been?” I said.
“Do you realize what has happened?”
“I don’t know what we’re talking about.”
“Where are you calling from?”
“Valerie’s house. What difference does it make?”
“Can they hear you?”
“I suspect. What’s going on?”
“Go somewhere else and call me back.”
“Not unless you tell me what this is about, Miss Cisco.”
“Stop calling me ‘Miss.’ I don’t like that hypocritical Southern formality. Do you have any idea what your stupid friend has done? Any idea at all?”
“You’re talking about Saber?”
She hung up. Valerie was still at the sink, her back to me. “Would you take a ride with me?” I said.
She didn’t answer.
“Please,” I said.
She dried her hands and turned. “Fine,” she said.
I put my arms around her and held her tight, my face in her hair. I didn’t care if her father saw us or not. “I love you,” I said. “I’ll love you the rest of my life.”
WE DROVE TO a local drugstore. It was cool inside, fans spinning on the ceiling. I ordered chocolate milkshakes for both of us and went to the phone booth and closed the door. I could see Valerie reading a magazine at the counter. I could also see the front door and the traffic on the street and the newspaper delivery boys rolling their papers on the corner. It was a scene no different from any other working-class neighborhood in America in the year 1952. Except for one difference. The light outside was like the glitter of thousands of razor blades. The air blowing through the door smelled of hot tar and sewer water. The sounds of the traffic were metallic, shrill with horns. I dialed Miss Cisco’s number.
“That you?” she answered.
“Yes,” I replied. I stared out the plastic panel at the street, at the jittering light, at the harshness of the colors.
“Your friend stole Grady’s convertible, didn’t he? The one he bought to replace the other one your friend stole?”
“Which friend?”
“Don’t get cute unles
s you want your friend roasted on a spit. Where’s the car, Aaron?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s your friend?”
“Same answer.”
“I want to grind you into salt.”
“I saw the flowers you sent Detective Jenks. I thought that was real nice.”
“Tell your friend to leave the car any place of his choosing. Then he can call you and tell us where it is. It’s that simple.”
“Who’s this ‘us’? I’m not part of any us, Miss Cisco.”
“I thought you were a smart kid.”
“No, I’m dumb. I’ve proved that by having this conversation,” I said.
“You know what Ben Siegel used to say? ‘Don’t get involved with squares.’ I should have listened. Goodbye, Aaron. I tried.”
“What’s with the car? What’s the big deal about the car?”
She broke the connection. I replaced the receiver and opened the door of the booth. Out on the street, a lime-green ’49 Hudson with a whip antenna and lowering blocks passed the front door; then a pickup truck painted a shade of yellow that was ugly in the way the color of urine is ugly; then a souped-up drag racer with an exposed Merc engine decked out with duel carbs and chrome air filters and chrome nuts on the cylinder heads; then a shirtless guy in greasy jeans and cowboy boots mounted on a Harley.
I sat down next to Valerie and drank from my milkshake. Through the doorway, I could see heat waves on the sidewalk and hear the roller-skate wheels of a crippled man pushing himself on a board along the concrete. The pickup truck passed again. So did the guy on the Harley and the two guys in the drag racer. The lime-green Hudson had pulled up to a hamburger joint, one that had a canvas canopy over the parking area, where carhops in red uniforms carried the orders out on metal trays. “You know any of those guys out there?”
“Which guys?” Valerie asked.
“The guys who have been circling the block.”
“I don’t see anyone.”
I went to the doorway. Across the street, the guys from the Hudson were smoking cigarettes under a tree. They wore drapes and needle-nose stomps and shirts that hung outside their belts. They had left their car under the canopy and obviously had not ordered anything to eat. I stepped outside and looked directly at them. If they noticed me, they showed no reaction. The drag racer was at the light. The guy in the passenger seat resembled one of Grady’s buds, a crew-cut football player with upper arms like smoked hams. In the trainer’s room at my high school gym, I’d once seen him shove a skinny kid’s face into his crotch and say, “What’s happenin’, fart?”
I headed for the drag racer. The light changed and he drove away. Neither the driver nor his passenger looked back. I went back inside the drugstore. “My imagination is probably on overdrive.”
“What did that woman say?” Valerie asked.
“Miss Cisco?” I tried to keep my face blank.
“That’s who you came here to call.”
“Grady Harrelson bought another convertible to replace the one somebody stole,” I said. “It got stolen, too.”
“Nobody has luck that bad.”
“Grady does.”
“This sounds like Saber Bledsoe’s work.”
“You know how Sabe is. Trying to control him is like trying to reverse the course of Halley’s Comet.”
“He starts trouble and pulls you into it,” she said. “I’m tired of it, Aaron.”
I couldn’t blame her. The yellow pickup went by again. “Stay here. Don’t talk to anybody who comes in. I’ll be right back.”
I went to the rear door and looked in the alley. One of the guys in drapes was smoking a cigarette by the sidewalk. At the other end, the bare-chested guy on the Harley was messing with his chain as though he had a mechanical problem. The vertebrae in his back arched against his skin, and he wore a knife in a scabbard attached to his belt. I stepped into the alleyway. It was paved with old bricks and lined with garbage cans. Even though the temperature was above ninety, the wind felt cold on my face.
I touched the bandage on my cheek. I can’t tell you why. Perhaps for the same reason university duelists in Germany preserve their facial scars. “I’m here, if you guys want to talk.”
Neither guy seemed to hear me. Then the guy working on the Harley stood up and turned in a circle until he was looking straight at me. His jeans hung below his navel, his pubic hair showing, his skin pale and shiny with grease and sweat. He took his comb out of his back pocket and combed his ducks into place with both hands, his head tilted, his armpits festooned with hair.
“You guys working for Grady?” I said.
Neither of them answered.
“I got no beef with you,” I said.
The biker put away his comb and slipped a switchblade from his right pocket. He pushed the release button and began cleaning his nails as though I were not there. I could hear the guy at the other end of the alley walking toward me. I looked around for a weapon, then picked up a garbage can lid.
“We thought you could he’p us,” the guy in drapes said. “You run with Bledsoe, right?”
“Saber Bledsoe?”
“You know him?” he asked.
“He’s my friend.”
“That’s good. You’re an honest man,” said the guy in drapes. His hair was mahogany-colored, combed straight back, waved across the top. There were pits in his cheeks; his nose and eyes and mouth seemed too small for his face, like lead birdshot that rolled to the center of a plate. “Bledsoe is tight with a couple of spics?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
He lifted his hand for me to be quiet. “My point is, we’re only interested in the wets. Bledsoe gets a pass. One of them is named Manny. Know a guy named Manny?”
“I think I heard of him,” I said.
“Know where we can contact him?”
“Maybe he’s screwing your sister. Give her a call,” I said.
“That’ll get you in trouble, man,” the biker said. I had taken my eyes off him. He was closer now, the knife in his palm, sharp edge up. “I got an extra shank, man. Want to go one-on-one?” He was grinning.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so,” he said. “Starting to wet your pants?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, I told myself. I stepped farther into the alley. “Put the frog-sticker away and let’s see what happens.”
The guy in drapes flicked his cigarette into a wall. “Cut this crap out. Where’d they put the convertible, buddy? Wise off one more time, we’re going to break your sticks.”
“I don’t know where it is.”
The guy in drapes and the biker looked at each other. There wasn’t a sound in the alley.
“Cut him,” the guy in drapes said.
That casual and indifferent. An arbitrary command to mutilate someone unarmed and outnumbered. I looked at him as I had never looked at anyone before. I wondered if it would be held against me should I kill someone under these circumstances.
I turned around to go back into the drugstore. Grady’s crew-cut friend was standing as big as a house in the doorway.
“Where’s Valerie?” I said.
“Ladies’ room, I think,” he said. He smiled as though full of goodwill.
“Get out of my way, please.”
“Sorry,” he replied.
“You were a linebacker. You were all-state runner-up.”
His eyes dulled over as though he were trying to remember somebody he used to know. Then he came out of it. “Cain’t let you by. Sorry.”
My options were gone. “Valerie Epstein isn’t part of this. If you hurt her, her father will kill you. That’s not a line.”
“Nobody is going to hurt a girl,” he said. Then he whispered, “Hey, man, give them what they want.”
I turned back to the alley. The guy in drapes was five feet from me. He was scratching the back of his neck with one finger. His other hand was behind him. “Open your palm,” he said.
“What for?”
“You dealt it, boy. You know what for. Nothing’s free.”
“My father will catch up with you.”
“I’m shaking.” He waited. “Come on, Broussard. Get with it.”
“Get with what?”
“Give me your hand. It’ll be over.”
“What will?”
“It’s going to end in only one way. You know that. Why put it off? Take your medicine.”
“Fuck you,” I said. I shoved him and said it again: “Fuck you.”
Then I saw the barber’s razor in his left hand. He reached for my wrist. I heard the pickup truck stop at the end of the alley and the passenger door open, squeaking like a tin roof being wedged up. It was Loren Nichols, an oiled chain as supple as a snake swinging from one hand.
“What’s happenin’, Loren?” said the guy in drapes, his eyes askance.
“You sprouts beat feet. You ever try to touch my buddy Aaron, I’ll be looking you up,” Loren said. He looked at the crew-cut guy in the doorway. “That includes you, fat boy.”
“We got no grief with you, Loren,” the guy in drapes said.
“You can say that again,” Loren replied.
They had no place to hide their shame except in their silence.
Then they were gone. That fast. Loren draped his chain over my shoulder. He cupped his hand on my neck and bent his forehead into mine. “Get out of town.”
“I won’t run.”
“I knew you’d say that,” he replied, tapping his head into mine. “Some guys just got to be a hero.”
Chapter
27
I DROVE VALERIE HOME, and later, when my parents were gone, I put the .32 Loren had given me under my car seat, and put the stiletto I had bought from the pawnshop in my jeans. I had no idea what I would do with either of them. I sat in the backyard in the gloaming of the day, with Major at my feet and the cats on top of the redwood table, and tried to play my Gibson and forget about what happened at the drugstore.