off.”
“Did the white man know Nola?” I asked.
“Naw, man. That motherfucker was just lost, tryin’ to get his ass back to Hollywood or wherever. Did Geneva say that that white man they beat on went to Nola’s?”
“Like I said, all she knew was that that white man was runnin’ around Nola’s place. So if you don’t mind I’d like to know if Nola knew the white man you boys beat on.”
“What you mean by that?” Bobby asked, his face now filled with fear.
“I see what you got here, man,” I said, pointing at his pitiful pile of loot. “And what you ain’t got. You was out there that night when your boys pulled that white man outta his car. Either that or you were up here twiddlin’ your thumbs figurin’ out what chair to sit in. You were out there. Maybe you didn’t get a lick in. Maybe not. But you saw him and you saw where he went too.”
It was all guesswork. He was a looter and young. He was black in America, transplanted from the South, and all alone in a room hot enough to brew tea.
Bobby stared at me with anxious, calculating eyes. He wanted to steer clear of trouble and he was wondering if a lie or the truth would accomplish that end.
“I don’t know nuthin’ about what happened to Nola,” he said at last. “I haven’t even seen her since before the riotin’ started. All I know is some men pult that white man outta the red car and beat him. He ran away an’ after that I don’t know nuthin’.”
It could have been true.
“So you didn’t see Nola since the riots started?” I asked.
“No sir.”
“Did anybody around here see her?”
“Nobody I know.”
The police had put a muzzle on the murder. It hadn’t happened—yet.
“I need to know two things, Robert,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Where does Nola live exactly and who stole the white man’s car?”
“What do I get out of it?”
“For starters I won’t throw you out the window.”
“You think I’m scared’a you, old man?” the youth asked me.
“You should be, son. You should be.”
Grant had a weak jaw. When his mouth hung open he looked pathetic, though I’m sure he thought he was looking mean.
When he saw I wasn’t buying it he broke into a half-hearted laugh.
“I’m just fuckin’ wit’ you, man. Yeah, sure I’ll tell ya. Nola live over on the right over here on the third floor, apartment three. And it was Loverboy stoled that man’s car.”
“Loverboy?”
“Uh-huh. He famous around here. He steals cars for a livin’. One boy tried to set that white man’s car on fire but Loverboy an’ this other dude pushed him down an’ stoled that mothahfuckah.”
“You know his real name?” I asked.
Bobby Grant shook his head.
I couldn’t think of anything else to ask so I left him with his train sets, work pants, and his stacks of empty dishes.
11
When I got back out on the street the crowd on the corner was gone. That was either a good or a bad thing. Maybe Newell went home to lick his wounds or maybe to get his pistol. But either way, there was no turning back for me then. I went to the apartment building where Nola lived. It was next to a small grocery that had been gutted and torched.
Across the street the Gaynor Furniture store was just a gaping hole flanked by three walls. There was devastation up and down the block and for miles around. For a moment the enormity of what had happened got to me. On TV they had aerial views of this part of the city. It looked like Germany did when we marched in at the end of the war.
It was like a war, I thought. A war being fought under the skin of America. The soldiers were all unwilling conscripts who had no idea of why they were fighting or what victory might mean.
NOLA’S DOOR WAS locked but I had a slender metal slat in a comb sleeve in my pocket. That slat could crack most simple locks and latches. I also had a letter in my pocket that would get me out of jail if it came to that.
The apartment seemed together. There was no overturned furniture or open, tossed drawers. Nola Payne had been a neat woman. Her bed was made and the floors were swept. The dishes were stacked on the kitchen counter because there were no shelves installed. She had a two-burner black wrought-iron stove.
In her bedroom there was a small photograph in a silver frame set upon a two-drawer cabinet. Nola was in the foreground backed up by a tall brown man with a grin on his lips and his arms wrapped around her waist.
In the trash can in the bathroom there were three bloody rags torn from a sheet like the one Bobby used for a
