Actually I had asked him when he’d become a sergeant but I saw no reason to point that out.
“I had a lot of help,” he continued. “People like you helped me. Negro people and my own Mexicanos—living like dogs instead of standing up and taking advantage of what’s right in front of them.
“It was hard for me to get this job because the bosses downtown didn’t believe that a Mexican could speak good English or work hard. They think our people are lazy, Ezekiel. They think that we’re all no-good crooks. Because of people like you. And because of you I made myself perfect to get this job.
“And now I have it. And I’m not going to hold your hand and say how sorry and sad I am that you were poor or that you think it’s too hard to be as good as other people. That’s why you’re going to talk to me now—because I know what you are and I don’t give a shit about you.”
There was a lot I could have said but I didn’t. Sergeant Sanchez was a zealot and he couldn’t hear anything unless you told him that you believed in his vision. And seeing that his vision was that I was a lazy crook—silence was my best choice.
“You can start with the little shack down on Olympic,” he said. “How’d all those wind instruments from Locke High get down there?”
Half a minute passed; then thirty seconds more.
“I don’t have all the patience in the world, Mr. Rawlins,” Sanchez said.
I prayed silently and was rewarded with a knock on the door.
A uniformed officer came in.
“What?” Sanchez’s lip curled as if he might damage whoever it was that interrupted us.
The uniform, a beefy specimen with a red bristle brush for a mustache, crossed over to Sanchez and whispered something.
“What?” the sergeant barked again.
“That’s what he said.” The uniform hunched his shoulders.
Sanchez stood up so quickly that I flinched, thinking that he was on the attack.
“Come on, Drake,” he said.
“Come on where?”
“Just come on.”
Sanchez went out in long angry strides followed by the red-whiskered cop. But Drake lingered for a moment, cradling his fist.
“Drake,” Sanchez called from the open doorway.
Drake was pulled by his superior’s voice but I could see that he wanted to hit me at least once before going.
“Drake! Let’s go!”
Drake opened his fist and used his big hand to blow me a kiss.
Another good-bye kiss. He closed the door and I was back fifteen years. A long time had passed but the helplessness felt just the same. The fear was the same too.
I sat remembering that the last time I was in that room I hadn’t tested the door. Maybe it wasn’t locked. I wasn’t under arrest. If the door was open I could walk free.
I was going to test the door this time. But I just needed a moment to steel myself.
I skipped the moment and went for the door. The knob turned. When I pushed the door open my heart was pounding and I wondered if every time I breathed hard I would be reminded of Idabell and our moments of love. I didn’t think long though. I stepped into the hall and ran into a man who was approaching my door.
“Hello, Easy,” Lieutenant Arno T. Lewis said. He was almost smiling.
Long and lean, hard as ironwood, the bespectacled policeman angled his opaque lenses at me. “Looks like I just saved you from a good ass-kicking.”
“I’m gettin’ too old for this shit,” I said.
CHAPTER 31
HIS DOOR WAS NEXT to the EXIT sign.
“Sit down, Rawlins.” He wagged a hand over his shoulder as he went around his desk. He was taller than I, spare as the barrel of a .22-caliber rifle. His head was shaped somewhat like a square loaf of store-bought bread. Arno was the second-most-powerful man in the hierarchy of the precinct; second only to the captain. It didn’t surprise me that he had the authority to send Sanchez on an errand in the middle of an interrogation. What puzzled me was why he chose to do so.
Lieutenant Lewis didn’t like me. He didn’t like, or dislike, anybody. He simply sat in his office and pulled the strings of the law. He didn’t play favorites and so he didn’t have any friends to help. He caught the bad guys—and put them in jail. We’d brushed up against each other now and then, but there was no love lost at our partings.
He leaned back into the swivel chair and gave me another rare smile.
“In trouble again, huh, Easy?” He even showed a few teeth.
“I don’t know a thing about it, officer. Not a thing.”
