and Ray been friends since Texas. Ain’t that right, mister?”
I nodded.
“Yeah,” another woman said. “I seen him wit’ Mouse, down at EttaMae Harris’s place. They was havin’ a barbecue.”
Newell raised his chin a bit then. Everybody knew about Mouse. He was one of the most dangerous men in L.A. No one but a fool would jump on his friend.
“Newell? That your name?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m just lookin’ for a guy I heard live around here. A guy name of Bobby Grant.”
“What you want wit’ Bobby?” Newell asked. He was just as afraid of Raymond as everybody else but Ray wasn’t there and Newell didn’t want to be seen as a coward.
“A woman I met, a Miss Landry, wanted me to ask him a question.”
“You know Geneva?” the woman in blue asked.
“Met her.”
“How do I know that?” Newell asked angrily. “You could just be a lyin’ motherfucker out here.”
“Why he wanna lie about Bobby and Geneva, Newell?” the older man asked reasonably. “You know Bobby live two doors away from her niece.”
“All I know is that the motherfucker could be lyin’,” Newell countered.
“Why the hell I wanna lie to some fool standin’ on the corner?” I said.
That was the only choice I had. Either we were going to fight or we weren’t. If we went at it either he was going to win or I was. That was the way it was on the street corners in Watts in 1965—riot or no riot.
“He live in that gray buildin’ across the street, Mr. Rawlins,” the third woman said quickly, trying to head off the conflict.
I cut my eye to catch a glance at her. Then I turned my head. The young woman wore a one-piece dress made from a stretchy fabric. It was composed of horizontal yellow and white lines that hugged her figure like a second skin. My heart had been beating fast in preparation for a possible fight with Newell but the anger turned to excitement when I saw her.
Her eyes watched mine and she flashed an appreciative smile.
“On the fourth floor,” she said.
“You live there too?” I asked. I didn’t mean to. I had no intention of following her to her door. But the question popped out of my mouth of its own accord.
“No,” she said. “I live next door in the blue buildin’.”
“What’s your name?”
“Juanda with ‘j-u’ instead of a ‘w.’”
“That’s a nice name.”
“Watch it now!” the older man cried.
I could see Newell moving from the corner of my eye. He might have blindsided me if it weren’t for the warning and the readiness of my blood.
I took a step backward, causing the broad-shouldered Newell to miss and step out of balance. Then I stepped forward with a nearly perfect uppercut to his midsection. I followed that up with three more blows, not to inflict added pain but to make sure Newell was put out of the fight.
He went down and two of his friends rushed to his side. My unexpected blows knocked the wind out of him and it was time for me to go.
In my youth that would have been the moment for me to say something insulting about Newell’s manhood but I was past that kind of behavior. I just turned and walked across the street, hoping that I could finish my business with Bobby Grant before Newell asked for a rematch.
I turned when I got to the opposite curb to make sure that no one was coming after me. Everyone had their attention on their fallen friend. Everyone except Juanda. Her eyes were on me.
10
Robert Grant didn’t get any checks in the mail. No one in the five-floor gray building did. The mailbox was two wooden crates, each of which once contained six one-gallon bottles of milk. The crates were hung side by side on the wall with names and apartment numbers scrawled over each square in red ink.
Bobby’s number was 4-D.
With all the strength tapped in my blood I ran up the three flights without breathing hard.
The stairs and wall, floors, and ceiling had once been painted white but most of that had worn away years before. Now the color was pitted, dirty pine.
“Who is it?” a man called when I knocked.
“Easy Rawlins.”
The apartment doors on either side of his came open. An old man stuck his head out of one side and a child peered from the shadows of the other. Both of them looked frightened.
