There were cows leaving a pasture we passed. Black-and-white cows winding their way up a narrow pathway cut into the side of the hill. Their hold on the ground seemed precarious, but they were standing on bedrock compared to the cow-eyed man sitting next to me.
“You tell me what’s up an’ maybe I could help ya,” I said.
“How could you help me?”
“I could find you a place t’stay. Maybe I could get your girlfriend and her baby out to you. I might even buy you some groceries until this thing blows over.”
“Ain’t nuthin’ gonna blow over.”
“Tell me the story,” I said in a low, reassuring voice.
Andre sat back and wiped his palms against his pants. He was grimacing, showing a mouthful of teeth and moaning.
“I got set up!” he shouted. “Set up!”
“By who?”
“Them people at Champion, man. They put them papers in a envelope that wasn’t marked. It was in a blue folder, the same color folder they use for the distribution list.”
“What you talkin’ ’bout, man?”
“They set me up!” he shouted again. “Mr. Lindquist’s secretary told me I could wait fo’im in his office. I’m shop steward an’ I meet wit’ the VP every other month. But we been talkin’ strike out in the yard ’cause they gonna lay off a hundred and fifty men.”
He stopped talking as if everything should have been clear.
“So this list was the men they were going to lay off?”
“That’s what I thought. I grabbed it an’ took it out wit’ me.
It’s only later that I seen the seal.”
“What seal?”
“Top Secret, man.” Andre started tearing. “Top Secret.”
“Why not just take it back?”
“I swear, man, I got outta there quick ’cause I didn’t want no one t’see me. It wasn’t till I got home and opened it up that I seen that government seal. Then I was too scared t’bring it back.” Andre mixed his fingers together to show the complexity of his situation.
“But the envelope was the kind they used for the distribution list?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Could be a setup,” I said, noncommittally.
Andre looked at me hopefully. “I tole you.”
“Or you could just be a poor fool,” I said. “What you do with them papers?”
“I ain’t sayin’ nuthin’ ’bout that.”
It was Andre’s turn to be quiet. We drove on toward the outskirts of L.A. proper. It was high noon. The desert sun was so bright that even the blue in the sky seemed to fade.
I pulled off the road at a restaurant called Skip’s. I gave Andre a pullover sweater I kept in the trunk to hide the blood on his shirt. We couldn’t do anything about his head, though. At first I thought the waitress wasn’t going to serve us. We ordered chicken-fried steaks and beer. Andre was polite, but other than that he was silent.
I didn’t want to push too hard, because Andre was high-strung and he had been through quite a lot already.
When the waitress left the check Andre just stared at it.
“What’s it gonna be, Andre?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you gonna tell me about Chaim Wenzler or what?”
It was a pleasure surprising Andre. He face registered emotion like mercury gauging a match.
“How’d you know that?”
“I got my ways. I need to know about you an’ this dude.”
“Why you gotta know?”
“I’m working’ fo’a man, okay? Leave it at that an’ you might stay outta jail.”
Andre huffed and clenched his fists, but I could tell that he was broken.
“He’s a guy I met, that’s all.”
“How?”
“When I was elected steward. This white guy, Martin Vost, district union president, introduced me at a monthly meetin’. Chaim was there as a adviser.”
“Yeah? So he advise you t’go steal top secrets.”
“Man, he was just like a friend. We go out drinkin’ an’ talkin’ an’ aftah while he took me t’this study group he got.”
“An’ what they be studyin’?”
“Union newspapers an’ like that.”
“So he didn’t tell you t’steal them papers?”
“He said that strikin’ was a war. He said that we gotta do ev’rything we could t’win fo’our side. So when I seen that distribution list I took it. It’s kinda like he told me to; like he primed me fo’it.”
“What he say when you bring it to ’im?”
“Who said I did?”
“Com’on, man, I ain’t got time fo’this play shit.”
“His eyes got all wide an’ he asked me where I got it from. I told’im. He said that stealin’ that document was a fed’ral charge. He told me t’disappear.”
“That’s it?”
“All I gotta say, man.”
“But there’s one more thing,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Where’s what you stole?”
It was then that I noticed the sweat on Andre’s upper lip. Maybe it was there the whole time.
“You gotta swear you ain’t gonna tell where you got this from.”
“Where is the shit, man?” I was losing patience with Andre’s fears.
“You know the brick-walled car graveyard down at the far end of Vernon?”
“Yeah.”
“We went down there. They got this emerald-green Dodge truck down along the back wall. We put the papers ’hind the seat.”
“Wenzler go with you?”
“Yeah, man, we went there together. I said that we was lookin’ fo’a muffler and then we snuck back there an’ hid it.”
“What if they sell it?”
“Shit, man, that ole thang is just a wreck. It’s been back there fo’years.”
When we got back in the car I told Andre that I’d try to help him.
“I work for a guy named Mofass. He manages a few ’partment buildin’s,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“I’ma call him an’ ask him to put you up in one of his Mexican buildin’s. I’ll call Juanita too, send her over there.” I took the three hundred dollars from my shirt pocket and handed it to Andre. “Use it slow, man. You might have to be gone for a while.”
I let Andre off at a hotel on Buena Vista Boulevard. When I got home I called Mofass and told him to prepare a room somewhere for Andre.
“Who gonna pay me?” Mofass asked.
“I will.”
“Ain’t good business, Mr. Rawlins. Landlord should never pay nobody’s rent.”
Then I called Juanita.
“That you, Easy?” she said, softening when she heard my voice.
