“Out.”
“Out where?”
“Like I told you, to look for that boy Etta wants me to help.”
“You haven’t even kissed me since I’ve been home.”
I pulled out my black slacks and yellow jacket. Then I went to the drawer for a black silk T-shirt. It wasn’t going to be Easy Rawlins the janitor out on the town tonight. A janitor could never find Willis Longtree or Sinestra Merchant.
I had put on dark socks that had diamonds at the ankles. I was tying my laces when Bonnie spoke to me again.
“Easy,” Bonnie said softly. “Talk to me.”
I went to the bed, leaned over, and kissed her on the forehead.
“Don’t wait up, honey. This kinda business could take all night.”
I walked to the door and then halted.
Bonnie sat up, thinking I wanted to say more.
But I went to the closet, reached back on the top shelf, and took down my pistol. I checked that it was working and loaded, and then walked out the door.
THE GROTTO was the first black entrepreneurial enterprise I knew of that cast its net beyond Watts. It was a jazz club on Hoover. Actually, the entrance was down an alley between two buildings that were on Hoover. The Grotto had no real address. And even though the owners were black it was clear that the mob was their banker.
Pearl Sondman was the manager and nominal owner of the club. I remembered her from an earlier time in Los Angeles; a time when I was between the street and jail and she was with Mona El, the most popular prostitute of her day.
Mona seduced everybody. She loved men and women alike. If you ever once spent the night with her you were happy to scrape together the three hundred dollars it cost to do it again—–that’s what they said. Mona was like heaven on Earth and she never left a John, or Jane, unsatisfied.
The problem was that after one night with Mona a certain type of unstable personality fell in love with her. Men were always fighting and threatening, claiming that they wanted to save her. It wasn’t until Mona met Pearl that that kind of ruckus subsided.
Pearl had a man named Harry Riley, but after one kiss from Mona, or maybe two, Pearl threw Riley out the door. For some reason most men didn’t want to be implicated in trying to free Mona from a woman’s arms.
A TRUMPET, a trombone, and a sax were dueling just inside the Grotto’s doors. It brought a smile to my face if not to my heart.
“Hi, Easy,” Pearl said.
She was wearing a scaly red dress and maybe an extra twenty pounds from the last time we met. Her face was flat and sensual, the color of a chocolate malted.
“I thought you was dead,” she told me.
“That was the other guy,” I replied.
Pearl’s laugh was deep and infectious—like pneumonia.
“How’s Mona?” I asked.
“She okay, baby. Thanks for askin’. Had another stroke last Christmas. Just now gettin’ around again.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Pearl said. “Mona says that she’s lived more than most’a your everyday people by three or four times. You know she once had a prince over in Europe pay her way, first class, every other month for two years.”
“What ever happened to him?”
“He wanted her to be his mistress. Offered her all kindsa money and grand apartments but she said no.”
“Why?”
“’Cause she liked the life she was livin’. With me and our two crazy dogs.”
I wanted to ask her how she could share a love with some stranger, but I held it back.
“I’m lookin’ for a boy named Longtree,” I said.
“Pretty boy with a wild white bitch?”
“That’s him.”
“He come in here Sunday night. Said he could play. When I asked him what, he said, ‘guitar, piano, or whatever.’”
“Not too shy, huh?”
“Not a bit. An’ he wasn’t wrong neither. He played the afternoon shift for twenty bucks. I think he might’a got twice that in tips. He didn’t play nuthin’ like bebop but he was good.”
“I need to find him.”
