“He jes’ fulla himself, that’s all,” Lana Rudd confided in me. “Always away on business and comin’ home like he was king’a the hill.”
“What kinda business?” I asked. Lana wasn’t the first to talk about Landry’s out-of-town business.
“Don’t ask me,” she replied, waving her hands as if deflecting fists. “He got a job with the city but he down there in San Diego every other week, seems like.”
Fearless needed me to save Lucas from prosecution because he had grown tired of Inez and he believed that saving her son would lessen the sting of their breakup. So I broke into Lamming’s car one night when all the hardworking people were in their beds dreaming about money. I found four bills addressed to a Laval and Kyla Biendieu, on a 24th Street address in San Diego.
I spent the next few days watching Landry. When he threw a small suitcase in his trunk and kissed his daughter and wife good-bye, I followed him down the coast highway toward the city in the sun.
I was stopped on the way by an overzealous highway patrolman. He needed to check my tires and brake lights, my spare in the trunk, and my license, license plate, the contents of my lunch bag, and what destination I had that day.
“The zoo, officer,” I said with a smile. “My auntie and sister, her husband and kids, they went down earlier, but I just got off work. I heard that they got a two-headed snake in the snake house. You know I’d pay money to see anything with two heads.”
“Where do you work?” the young white behemoth asked. He had blue eyes and broad shoulders and he didn’t like me one bit.
“At a beauty parlor on Slauson,” I said. “I do hair and nails for men and women.”
That made the motorcycle cop wince.
“It’s called Charlene’s,” I added. “Do you ever come up to L.A.?”
“Make sure you check the pressure in those tires,” he replied.
I drove off glad that I had had the foresight to break into Landry’s car.
Landry’s new turquoise Bel Air was parked in front of Laval Biendieu’s home address. I walked up to the front door and read the name on the iron mailbox that was nailed to the wall: Laval and Kyla Biendieu.
“Yes?” Landry Lamming asked, answering the door in his bathrobe. He was a small man. His English-like accent seemed incongruent with his dark Negro features. I never have gotten used to black men who don’t speak in the dialect of the American South.
“Mr. Beendoo?” I asked, mauling the pronunciation terribly.
“What do you want?”
“Are you Mr. Laval Beendoo?” I insisted.
“Yes,” he said reluctantly.
“Because I fount somethin’a yours and I wanted to give it back.”
“What do you have of mine? How would you know something was mine? I haven’t lost my wallet.” Even as he spoke he reached for his back pocket to make sure, but, since he was in his robe, there was no back pocket to be found.
“My sister’s kids is nine an’ eleven,” I said, as if those facts should have cleared up everything.
“So?”
“They fount some bills and was playin’ with ’em like they was money.” I’ve found that talking in a way that sounds ignorant makes arrogant people like Landry feel like they are in charge.
“Let me see,” he commanded, opening the door three inches.
I handed him the envelopes I had stolen from his glove compartment.
“Where did your nephews find these?”
“Niece and nephew,” I corrected.
“Where did they find them?” he asked with greater volume.
A light-skinned young woman with a baby in her arms appeared behind Landry/Laval.
“Somethin’ wrong, Lal?” she asked.
“Go back in the other room, Kyla. Go on now.”
The baby started yowling and Kyla faded beyond the range of the screen.
“Now will you answer my question?”
“They just said that they fount ’em in the street,” I said.
