“JJ got enough trouble wit’ her fam’ly an’ Mofass. Keep yo’ fingers outta the pie. You hear me?”
“I hear ya, man.”
He gave me the address of the gangster and I wrote it down. I felt good taking steps that would lead me somewhere. I wasn’t thinking of what might happen when I arrived.
THE INFORMATION I NEEDED wasn’t in the phone book this time.
“Bertrand Stowe’s office,” Stephanie Cordero said in my ear.
“May I speak to him, please? This is Mr. Rawlins.”
I was put on hold for about ten seconds and then the phone rang again.
Stowe answered on the half ring. “Easy?”
“Yeah.” I was about to say more when he cut in.
“Where is she? Have you talked to her? I called but nobody answered. I went by there this morning but there was nobody there. Mrs. Grant said that she’d left but she didn’t even ask them where they were going.” It all came out at once.
“What you talkin’ ’bout, Bert?”
“Gracie, man. Gracie. She’s gone.”
“John an’ Alva prob’ly took her over to their place. You know they got lives and there’s no space for three full- grown adults and a baby at Gracie’s.”
“Give me his number.” I heard sounds over the phone of him searching for something to write on or with.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“John don’t want no junkie’s boyfriend callin’ at all hours. I’ll call him and find out what’s happenin’ with Grace.”
“What’s John’s last name?” Stowe asked with every ounce of authority he could muster.
“Naw, Bert. You gotta trust me on this one.”
“I need that number, Easy.”
“No.” I let that hang in the air and then said, “But you got to do somethin’ for me. I want William Bartlett’s address. Gimme that and I’ll call you about Grace tonight.”
THE LITTLE BUTCHER had been living on Rondolet Street while he worked for the Board of Education. He’d moved but the landlord, who also lived in that building, knew his forwarding address. That was on Courlene, a residential street not far from downtown. It was a small house with peeling white paint and bare brown dirt for a lawn. There was an overflowing trash can right there on the porch. The front door didn’t belong to that house. It was an unfinished plyboard door meant for a temporary bungalow out on some construction site.
I hated that house.
I hated the disrespect it showed for the neighborhood and for itself.
I played the front door like a kettledrum.
“Bartlett!”
When I’d pounded a dent in the cheap wood I remembered Rupert. The next thing I knew my shoulder was making kindling from the door. I stumbled into the house stunned by my own violence.
Billy Bartlett was stunned too. He stood toward the back of the surprisingly neat and sunny room wearing boxer shorts. He had a long and slender knife in his fist.
Remembering the little butcher’s speed I took a large piece of the door and threw it hard; I came right behind it. I hit the confused cook in the nose and he went down.
No one was shouting from outside so I disarmed him and dragged him through the doorway he’d been standing in.
It was a neat little bedroom. Bartlett struggled to his feet and staggered around to get his balance. Blood was coming from his nose and front lip.
I unplugged a long extension cord from the wall and disconnected it from a lamp and an electric clock.
“Com’ere!” I grabbed Bartlett and made him put his hands behind his back. After I’d tied his hands I kicked the crook of his knees to make him fall on the bed. I tied his hands together with his feet, making him a bony bow on the trim single mattress.
It was then that I noticed that my vision was cloudy, dark. My fingers were numb and restless. That was murder in my blood.
I realized suddenly that I had to relieve myself.
I collided with the doorjamb going into the toilet off Bartlett’s room.
The crash of water as I urinated jangled my nerves.
“Hey!” the butcher called out.
“Shut up,” I said. “Or I’ma come in there and shut you up.”
