'How much will Todd give you for me?'
'Thousand.'
'Get me to Frank and I'll give you two.'
'Frank tried to kill me.'
'He won't do anything to you if I'm there.'
'Take more than your smile to stop Frank.'
'Take me to him, Easy; it's the only way you'll get paid.'
'What about Mr. Carter and Albright?'
'They want me, Easy. Let Frank and me take care of it.'
'What's Frank to you?' I asked again.
She smiled at me then. Her eyes turned blue and she laid back against the wall behind the bed. 'Will you help me?'
'I don't know. I gotta get outta here.'
'Why?'
'It's just too much,' I said, remembering Sophie. 'I need some air to breathe.'
'We could stay here, honey; this is the only place for us.'
'You wrong, Daphne. We don't have to listen to them. If we love each other then we can be together. Ain't no one can stop that.'
She smiled, sadly. 'You don't understand.'
'You mean all you want from me is a roll in the hay. Get a little nigger-love out back and then straighten your clothes and put on your lipstick like you didn't ever even feel it.'
She put out her hand to touch me but I moved away. 'Easy,' she said. 'You have it wrong.'
'Let's go get somethin' to eat,' I said, looking away. 'There's a Chinese place a few blocks from here. We could walk there through a shortcut out back.'
'It'll be gone when we get back,' she said.
I imagined that she had said that to lots of men. And lots of men would have stayed rather than lose her. We dressed in silence.
When we were ready to go a thought came to me.
'Daphne?'
'Yes, Easy?' Her voice was bored.
'I wanted to know somethin'.'
'What's that?'
'Why'd you call me yesterday?'
She turned green eyes on me. 'I love you, Easy. I knew it from the first moment we met.'
27
Chow's Chow was a kind of Chinese diner that was common in L.A. back in the forties and fifties. There were no tables, just one long counter with twelve stools. Mr. Ling stood behind the counter in front of a long black stove on which he prepared three dishes: fried rice, egg foo young, and chow mein. You could have any one of these dishes with chicken, pork, shrimp, beef, or, on Sunday, lobster.
Mr. Ling was a short man who always wore thin white pants and a white tee-shirt. He had the tattoo of a snake that coiled out from under the left side of his collar, went around the back of his neck, and ended up in the middle of his right cheek. The snake's head had two great fangs and a long, rippling red tongue.
'What you want?' he yelled at me. I had been in Mr. Ling's diner at least a dozen times but he never recognized me. He never recognized any customer.
'Fried rice,' Daphne said in a soft voice.
'What kind?' Mr. Ling shouted. And then, before she could answer, 'Pork, chicken, shrimp, beef!'
'I'll have chicken and shrimp, please.'
'Cost more!'
'That'll be alright, sir.'
I had egg foo young with pork.
Daphne seemed a little calmer. I had the feeling that if I could get her to open up, to talk to me, then I could talk some sense into her. I didn't want to force her to see Carter. If I forced her I could have been arrested for kidnapping and there was no telling how Carter would have reacted to her being manhandled. And maybe I loved her a little bit right then. She looked very nice in that blue dress.
'You know, I don't want to force anything on you, Daphne. I mean, the way I feel you don't ever have to kiss Carter again and it's okay with me.'
