Blonde Faith

“I’ve been believin’ nuthin’ but that for four hundred years,” I said.

“What?”

I stood up on steady legs. I knew something more about my employers, and I, even though he didn’t understand me, had shared a common confusion with Tomas Hight.

The boy in the picture looked just like Hight, only smaller. His son? His brother? Him? Why not a girlfriend or parent?

“Where are you going?” he asked me.

“Down to my car.”

“I was just getting ready to go to work. I’ll walk down with you.”

I realized then that I couldn’t escape the kindness of Tomas Hight. He was going down the stairs alongside me with a hard hat under his arm because he knew that Roger and his friends might be waiting down there. He gave me his protection without a thought to race or even if I deserved it. He would have protected a malingerer on the same principle.

At my car, we shook hands.

“Be careful around Thorn,” he advised. “A couple of his friends in the MPs were killed right after he left. And it wasn’t Charlie that did it either.”

20

Tomas Hight stayed on my mind all the way back to the city. He’d saved a life in that hall, but not necessarily my life; it was just as likely that one or more of his acquaintances would have been shot.

I thought about his one-room apartment. I owned two houses and three apartment buildings but still felt that he had more than I did. I thought he was more heroic too, but hadn’t I been the one to stand up first against those men?

It’s strange how you can know something and still not feel it, how you can covet the assets of others though you would never think of trading places with them.

THE ADDRESS TOURMALINE had given me for Christmas Black was on a street named Gray. It was a single block in the area between the black neighborhood and downtown. There were warehouses and small wholesale businesses all over that unzoned neighborhood. The building across the street from Christmas’s house was Cairo Cane Distributors.

There wasn’t a soul anywhere to be seen.

I had waited till midmorning to go to Christmas’s door because he was not the kind of man you wanted to take unawares. Black was at least as proficient a killer as Mouse. Added to that, he was crazy and paranoid; added to that, there really were people after him.

I parked in front of Cairo Cane but didn’t get out immediately. Black’s address was another cottage. The small yard was laid with green concrete. There was an attempt at a porch, though I doubted that there was enough room for a stool on that thin band of wood.

Flowerless flowerpots hung on either side of the front door.

I watched the house for five minutes and no one passed by.

The debacle at Tomas Hight’s house had made me temporarily cautious. I didn’t want to run out into another dangerous situation, and I needed to put the words together that I would say to Christmas when and if I found him.

The minutes went by, and my confidence returned.

For a while there I had forgotten the answer to the unasked question framed by fearful caution. Will I die? the mortal asks from the fear shared by all his kin. Yes, you will die, the answer comes from the infinite experience of our race. I might get hurt, be hungry, get old, contract some fatal disease. When my children uttered these fears, I told them not to worry, that nothing was going to happen. But in my life I knew better. The only way to end fear was to stop breathing, to stop moving forward . . . and there I was on a street named Gray under a bright sun with no one else in sight.

THE FRONT DOOR had been broken down and put back in place hastily. This was not a good omen. I clasped my hands and prepared to back away. I swayed, but my feet stayed planted on that faux porch.

There was nowhere else to go. If I didn’t want to be a detective, I should have gone back to the LAUSD and asked them to reinstate me as a school custodian. Medical insurance, retirement program, two weeks vacation . . .

Gripping the doorknob with a gloved hand, I levered the half-unhinged door open. This brought me to an entry chamber. The uncharacteristic foyer was probably why Christmas had taken the place. Anyone trying to come in on him would have been stymied by the second door, and at the same time the occupant would have been warned of his attacker.

I wrenched the front door back in place and strode through a short passageway into the living room, as the second door was also broken in.

The room had no windows and so was shrouded in darkness.

That’s where I found the first body.

Actually, I stumbled on his leg as I looked for a light switch on the wall. I almost fell. Then I waved my hand above my head and found the chain for an overhead lamp. When the light snapped on, I was looking into one of Glen Thorn’s bright gray eyes. His other eye had been destroyed by the ice pick that was lodged in his brain.

I looked quickly around the small room. It had pine floors with no carpet and a pair of small brown stuffed chairs. Between the chairs stood a round table with a whiskey glass set upon it. Below the table, taking up most of the floor space, was the body that had once housed Glen Thorn. He wasn’t wearing a uniform now, just black trousers, a red-and-black checkered shirt, and tennis shoes like the kids wore.

There was a pistol in his left hand.