“Yes she did. Everybody did. It took the crew four days to dig the foundation. After that Mr. Merchant himself offered Willis a job. He made him the assistant groundskeeper and had him playin’ music for his guests when he gave parties.”
“Mighty ungrateful of that boy to think he deserved the boss’s daughter,” I said.
“It’s not funny, Easy. Mr. Merchant got a whole security force work for him. They use it to keep the Mexicans in line on the farms. He told the top man, Abel Snow, that he’d pay ten thousand dollars to solve the problem.”
“And he sees the problem as what?”
Etta held up her point finger. “One is Sinestra bein’ gone from home, and two,” Etta held up the next finger, “is Willis Longtree breathing the same air as him.”
“Oh.”
“Is that all you got to say? Oh?”
“No,” I replied. “I could also say, what’s it to you? Boys run away with girls every day. Daddies get mad when they do. Sometimes somebody ends up dead. Most of the time she comes home cryin’ and it’s all over. That’s the way it was in Fifth Ward when we were kids. I remember more than one time that Mouse got jealous’a you. Usually we got the poor fool outta sight before Ray’s .41 could thunder.”
“Grow up, Easy Rawlins. We ain’t in Houston no more and this ain’t no joke I’m tellin’ you.” There was that catch in her throat again.
“What’s wrong, Etta?”
“Willis ain’t no more than nineteen. He thinks he’s a man but he barely older than LaMarque. And Abel Snow is death in a blue suit.”
“You like the boy, huh?”
“He’d come around the kitchen in the afternoon and play for me, tellin’ me all the great things he was gonna do. If you just closed your eyes and listened to him, you might believe it’d all come true.”
“Like what?”
“All kindsa things. One minute he was gonna be in a singin’ band and then he talked about bein’ in the movies. He said that he looked like Sidney Poitier and maybe he could play his son in some film. He wanted to be a star. And then Sinestra got her hooks in him. She couldn’t help it. It was just kinda like her nature. Girl like that see a man- child beautiful as Willis and she cain’t think straight. She just wanna make him crazy, make him run like a dog with her scent in his nose. I saw it happen, Easy. I tried to talk sense to him.”
“Maybe you worried about nuthin’, Etta,” I said. “L.A.’s a big town. The police hardly catch anybody unless they committin’ a crime or they just turn themselves in.”
“Abel Snow ain’t no cop. He’s a stone killer. And he got Merchant’s money behind him.”
“That don’t mean he’s gonna find Willis. Where would he look?”
“Same place I would if I was him. Jukes and nightclubs on Central. Movie studios and record studios and any place a fool like Willis would look for his dreams. He told everybody his plans, not just me.”
“You know I’m still just a janitor, Etta.”
“Easy Rawlins, you owe me this.”
“If he’s big a fool as you say, it’s really only a matter of time. You know no matter how hard he try a fool cain’t outrun his shadow.”
“All I know is that I got to try,” she said.
“Yeah. Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
I was thinking about Bonnie and her African prince. It still hurt but the pain was dulled in the face of Etta’s maternal desperation. And she seemed to be offering me absolution over the death of her husband.
“I don’t even know what the boy looks like,” I said. “I don’t know the girl. It’s a slim chance that I’ll even catch a glimpse of them before this Snow man comes on the scene.”
“I know that.”
“So this is just some kinda blind hope?”
“No. I can help you.”
“How?”
“Drive me up to the Merchant ranch outside of Santa Barbara.”
I grinned then. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the idea of a long drive in the country.
* * *
LYMON MERCHANT was known as the Strawberry King, that’s what EttaMae told me. But there wasn’t a strawberry field within ten miles of his ranch. Lymon lived up in the mountains east of Santa Barbara. The dirt road that snaked up the mountain looked down on the blue Pacific. We strained and bounced and even slid a time or two, but finally made it to the wide lane at the top. The dirt boulevard was flanked by tall eucalyptus trees. I rolled down my window to let in their scent.
“This the place?” I asked when we came to a three-story wood house.
“No,” Etta said. “That’s the foreman’s house.”
The foreman’s house was larger and finer than many a home in Beverly Hills. The big front door was oak and the windows were huge. The cultivated rosebushes around the lawn reminded me of Bonnie. I felt the pang in my stomach and drove on, hoping I could leave my heartache on the road behind.
