“You fell in love right up there in your office?” At least I wasn’t the only fool at school.
“When he hit her that time …”
“When was that?”
“Two weeks ago. When he did that I begged her to leave him. I told her that I’d go tell him that she was gone and take her clothes and everything. At first she said no, but then she said that she’d think about it while she was away with a friend who could get cheap tickets to France. She wanted to clear her mind.
“I was glad that she was gone, because if she had stayed in that house with that man I don’t know what I might have done. The night before she left I went by there with some state aptitude tests that I said she had to have graded by the time she got back. I just wanted to know that she was all right.”
“And was she?”
“She walked me out to the car and said that she was fine, that she’d see me when she got back.”
“And she saw you?”
“Only for a moment. Yesterday. The day they found Roman. She told me that you had her dog and that Holland was going to beat her for something. She didn’t say what. Just that she was going to leave right then.”
“So you think that Sanchez is going to point at you for Roman?” I asked.
“No. He was killed in the early morning. I was in bed with my wife out in the valley. That’s what I’m afraid of, that Sanchez might find out about me and Ida. Maybe she told somebody, maybe somebody saw us somewhere.”
Or maybe somebody saw him drive out to her house to shoot her husband. He might have done it. Maybe. I didn’t care, though. Not unless it brought me grief.
“Well,” I said, “they didn’t ask me anything about you, Mr. Preston. They did ask me about Mrs. Turner, though, and they mentioned her husband too.”
“But nothing about me?”
“Nope. Not a word about you.”
“Will you tell me if you hear anything?”
“From the cops?”
“Or from Idabell. If she calls about Pharaoh, tell me, and tell her that I really need to see her.”
“Tell me somethin’, Mr. Preston.”
“What?”
“Did the police show you a picture of Roman?”
“Yes. Yes they did.”
“And did you tell them that you knew him?”
“Of course. I just didn’t say about Idabell. You know it doesn’t really have anything to do with it. I’m sure it doesn’t.”
He looked the part of an honest and ignorant man, but, then again, so did I.
“Do you have any idea who could have killed Roman?” I asked.
“No. He was a great guy. Not like his brother at all.”
Except, I thought, that they were both dead.
CHAPTER 13
I DROVE DOWN to the district office of the Board of Ed.
Bertrand Stowe was short and gray-haired, with a nose that thrust straight forward. He had eyes that were absolutely sure about things and a voice that his mother must have pulled out of a well.
He stood up, as far as he went, and put out his hand. “Easy.”
The fact that he used my street name meant that Bertrand had known me before I became a respectable workingman.
WE MET IN THE FALL OF ’61. I’d just recently gotten out of the hospital. I’d been recovering from a wound inflicted upon me by an old friend. While convalescing I reflected on my life, wondering how it could be that I was in danger even from my friends. I had decided, upon coming home, to concentrate on getting honest work.
I was reading the want ads when a woman called me at home one afternoon.
“Easy? Easy Rawlins?”
“Yeah? Who’s this?”
“It’s Grace Phillips. You remember me? I’m John’s friend. We met down at his bar.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking, Oh no. “Yeah, yeah.”
I didn’t ask what she wanted.
“John told me to call you, Easy. He said that maybe you could help me.”
“Oh?”
