“What?”
“He pushed you,” I went on. “And then he was gonna hit you again. You threw your lucky punch and then fought until he was out of it. I was coming down the aisle and saw it all.”
“I wouldn’t have hit him if he hadn’t talked about the boy like that,” Preston said, remembering. “They shouldn’t let people like that have kids. They shouldn’t even let them live.”
“Hey, hey, hey, hey … hey.” I had my hands up in front of his face to keep his eyes off of Brown. “Let’s get down to the office and call the cops.”
“We can’t leave him here,” Preston said. “We have to tie him up or something.”
“Ain’t no niggahs gonna be tied up anywhere around here today.” I don’t know where the words in my mouth came from. But they were angry words and they weren’t to be toyed with. “We ain’t the police, and even though we got a story we both know what really happened.”
“But you should see what he did to his son.”
“You took the man’s child and broke his jaw. If he wants to get up and go before the cops get here, then we’re gonna let him.”
The cops found Andrew Brown trying to limp away from the school. He was the definition of a loser in L.A.: a man without a car.
Eric was in the nurse’s office the whole time. They tried to call his mother after the fight but she had to go down and get Andrew out of jail and into the hospital.
It took the courts to finally remove Eric from his home. Andrew had put him in the hospital that time. The police didn’t like that, and so they worked Mr. Brown over so bad that the judge took Eric away to keep his own police from someday being charged with murder.
Preston had been friendly with me since that day. Friendly in that superior-feeling white man kind of way. He’d do things like slap me on the shoulder and give me advice that I didn’t need.
THE LIGHTS WERE ON in the auditorium this time. Preston was down toward the front seated in one of the hard ash tiers. He was gazing up at the drawn curtains as if there were a play going on.
“Mr. Preston,” I called from the high ground.
He stood and waved. He didn’t look crazy so I strolled down to meet him. We walked out into the same space where he’d broken Andrew Brown’s jaw.
“Mr. Rawlins,” he said lamely. “How, um, how are you?”
“Fine,” I replied, smooth and cool as glass.
“The kids?”
“I got to get down to the area office by one, Mr. Preston.”
“Oh?” he said, pretending to sympathize. “Some problems?”
“What do you want, Bill?”
He took a deep breath and then looked back over his shoulder at the curtain. I wondered briefly if he was going to throw a roundhouse right.
He didn’t.
“You talk to the police?” he asked.
“Some.”
“I heard that they had you down at the gardens.”
I nodded and looked at my watch.
“What did they say?”
“I don’t know.” Easy, the honest man, was reluctant. “I mean, they said that it was all hush-hush, confidential. You know, police business.”
“Did they say anything about me?” he asked innocently.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, as doe-eyed as I could be. “Why would you think I know any more than anybody else?”
“Because of Gladys Martinez.”
“What about her?”
“She was telling Newgate about how Sanchez suckered you. He told her to report anybody who asked about Idabell.”
“So? I heard that she was sick or something.”
“I don’t care, Mr. Rawlins.” Preston put up his hand to assure me. But instead of relaxing I put up my forearm to block anything he might have thrown.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, surprised at my reaction.
“Forget about me. What is it that you’re asking, and what do you have to do with Mrs. Turner and that dead man in the garden?”
“The police said that?” There was real fear in Preston’s voice.
“No. You did.”
Suddenly Preston was confused.
