'I am afraid.'
'But why you gonna trust me?'
'I 'ave no choice. I am a stranger 'ere and my friend is gone. When Coretta tells me that you are looking for me I ask her if you are a bad man and she says no to me. She says that you are a good man and that you are just looking, how you say, innocent.'
'I just heard about ya,' I said. 'That's all. Bouncer at John's said that you were something to see.'
She smiled for me. 'You will help me, yes?'
The time for me to say no was over. If I was going to say no, it should have been to DeWitt Albright or even to Coretta. But I still had a question to ask.
'How'd you know where to call me?'
Daphne looked down at her hands for maybe three seconds; long enough for the average person to formulate a lie.
'Before I gave Coretta her money I said that I wanted to 'ave it, so I could talk to you. I wanted to know why you look for me.'
She was just a girl. Nothing over twenty-two.
'Where you say your friend lives?'
'On a street above Hollywood, Laurel Canyon Road.'
'You know how to get there?'
She nodded eagerly and then jumped up saying, 'Just let me get one thing.'
She ran out of the living room into a darkened doorway and returned in less than a minute. She was carrying an old beaten-up suitcase.
'It is Richard's, my friend's,' she smiled shyly.
I drove across town to La Brea then straight north to Hollywood. The canyon road was narrow and winding but there was no traffic at all. We hadn't even seen a police car on the ride and that was fine with me, because the police have white slavery on the brain when it comes to colored men and white women.
At every other curve, near the top of the road, we'd catch a glimpse of nighttime L.A. Even way back then the city was a sea of lights. Bright and shiny and alive. Just to look out on Los Angeles at night gave me a sense of power.
'It is the next one, Easy. The one with the carport.'
It was another small house. Compared with some of the mansions we'd seen on the ride it was like a servant's house. A shabby little A-frame with two windows and a gaping front door.
'Your friend always leave his door open like that?' I asked.
'I do not know.'
When we parked I got out of the car with her.
'I will only be a moment.' She caressed my arm before turning toward the house.
'Maybe I better go with ya.'
'No,' she said with strength that she hadn't shown before.
'Listen. This is late at night, in a lonely neighborhood, in a big city. That door is open and that means something's wrong. And if something happens to one more person I know the police are gonna chase me down into the grave.'
'Okay,' she said. 'But only to see if it is alright. Then you go back to the car.'
I closed the front door before turning on the wall switch. Daphne called out, 'Richard!'
It was one of those houses that was designed to be a mountain cabin. The front door opened into a big room that was living room, dining room, and kitchen all in one. The kitchen was separated from the dining area by a long counter. The far left of the room had a wooden couch with a Mexican rug thrown across it and a metal chair with tan cushions for the seat and back. The wall opposite the front door was all glass. You could see the city lights winking inside the mirror image of the room, Daphne, and me.
At the far left wall was a door.
'His bedroom,' she said.
The bedroom was also simple. Wood floor, window for a wall, and a king-sized bed with a dead man on it.
He was in the same blue suit. He lay across the bed, his arms out like Jesus Christ—but the fingers were jangled, not composed like they were on my mother's crucifix. He didn't call me 'colored brother' but I recognized the drunken white man I'd met in front of John's place.
Daphne gasped. She grabbed my sleeve. 'It is Richard.'
There was a butcher's knife buried deep in his chest. The smooth brown haft stood out from his body like a cattail from a pond. He'd fallen with his back on a bunch of blankets so that the blood had flown upwards, around his face and neck. There was a lot of blood around his wide-eyed stare. Blue eyes and brown hair and dark blood so thick that you could have dished it up like Jell-O. My tongue grew a full beard and I gagged.
The next thing I knew I was down on one knee but I kept myself from being sick. I kneeled there in front of that dead man like a priest blessing a corpse brought to him by grieving relatives. I didn't know his family name or what he had done, I only knew that he was dead.
