again,” Thunder, a polar bear of a man, told me, “and me and my friends will break all your fingers.”
It’s funny the things that stay with you. I was so humiliated by that treatment that all the way home on the bus I planned my revenge. I was going to get my gun and go back there. If they didn’t return my money, I was going to kill Mung and Thunder.
I was in the bedroom loading my third pistol when Mouse called.
“What’s wrong, man?” he asked after I’d only said hello.
I told him my problem and my intentions.
“Hold tight, Easy,” he said to me. “I got friends down there. Why’on’t you let me call ’em first?”
“They humiliated me, Ray. I ain’t gonna stand for that.”
“Do me a favor, Easy,” he said. “Let me call my friend first. If it don’t work, I’ll go down there with ya.”
I agreed, and later on, after Feather and Jesus got home from school, I came to my senses. I was about to go on a killing spree over four hundred dollars and four fools.
I made dinner and put the kids to bed.
I was sitting in the living room, watching the ten o’clock news, when there was a knock on my door. It was Charles Mung. He wore a thick white bandage that completely covered his left eye, and his right hand was swollen, obviously the source of great pain.
“Here,” he said, handing me a big manila envelope.
Before I could ask him what it was, he rushed away.
The envelope contained automobile registration papers and four hundred and twenty dollars. The car, which was parked in front of my house, was Mung’s own ’62 Cadillac.
I used the money to buy another car and gave the Caddy to my old friend Primo, who made travel money by selling American cars down in Mexico.
I LEFT BEFORE EATING but promised Feather and Easter that I’d be back for dinner.
The huge car lot was twice the size it had been the last time I was there. Mel had bought out the property across the street and built a three-story showroom. The showroom was surrounded by huge columns of red and blue balloons and topped with a forty-foot American flag.
The place was so big now that it seemed like a military installation.
I parked in the customers’ lot and walked toward the glittering steel-and-glass headquarters. When I reached the doorway, a skinny man in a bright green suit approached me.
“May I help you?” the gray-colored black man asked. This was also a new addition, a Negro salesman.
His eyes were fevered. His smile twisted like an earthworm in the sun.
“I need to speak to somebody in records,” I said, showing him my PI’s license.
He held the card between quivering fingers. He was a pill popper, no doubt. I was sure that he couldn’t concentrate on my identification.
He winked, blinked, and grimaced at the card for a few seconds and then handed it back.
“Brad Knowles,” he told me. “Out on the lot somewhere.”
“What does he look like?” I asked.
“Knowles,” the hopped-up salesman said. “Out on the lot.”
I WANDERED AROUND for a while looking for somebody named Knowles. Most of the people walking around were customers pretending that they knew something about cars. But there was security too. After the Watts riots of ’65 everybody had security: convenience and liquor stores, supermarkets, gas stations… everyplace but schools; our most precious possession, our children, were left to fend for themselves.
I went up to this one big brawny white guy and asked, “Brad Knowles?”
He pointed over my left shoulder. When I gazed in that direction I spied a white guy wearing a cherry red blazer. He was gabbing with a young white woman. If somebody looked at me the way he was gawking at her, I would have run or pulled out a gun. But the woman seemed to be enjoying the attention.
“Thanks,” I said to the white muscleman, and made my way across baking asphalt, past a hundred dying automobiles, toward the wolf and his willing prey.
“Mr. Knowles?” I said in my
It’s funny the things that stay with you. I was so humiliated by that treatment that all the way home on the bus I planned my revenge. I was going to get my gun and go back there. If they didn’t return my money, I was going to kill Mung and Thunder.
I was in the bedroom loading my third pistol when Mouse called.
“What’s wrong, man?” he asked after I’d only said hello.
I told him my problem and my intentions.
“Hold tight, Easy,” he said to me. “I got friends down there. Why’on’t you let me call ’em first?”
“They humiliated me, Ray. I ain’t gonna stand for that.”
“Do me a favor, Easy,” he said. “Let me call my friend first. If it don’t work, I’ll go down there with ya.”
I agreed, and later on, after Feather and Jesus got home from school, I came to my senses. I was about to go on a killing spree over four hundred dollars and four fools.
I made dinner and put the kids to bed.
I was sitting in the living room, watching the ten o’clock news, when there was a knock on my door. It was Charles Mung. He wore a thick white bandage that completely covered his left eye, and his right hand was swollen, obviously the source of great pain.
“Here,” he said, handing me a big manila envelope.
Before I could ask him what it was, he rushed away.
The envelope contained automobile registration papers and four hundred and twenty dollars. The car, which was parked in front of my house, was Mung’s own ’62 Cadillac.
I used the money to buy another car and gave the Caddy to my old friend Primo, who made travel money by selling American cars down in Mexico.
I LEFT BEFORE EATING but promised Feather and Easter that I’d be back for dinner.
The huge car lot was twice the size it had been the last time I was there. Mel had bought out the property across the street and built a three-story showroom. The showroom was surrounded by huge columns of red and blue balloons and topped with a forty-foot American flag.
The place was so big now that it seemed like a military installation.
I parked in the customers’ lot and walked toward the glittering steel-and-glass headquarters. When I reached the doorway, a skinny man in a bright green suit approached me.
“May I help you?” the gray-colored black man asked. This was also a new addition, a Negro salesman.
His eyes were fevered. His smile twisted like an earthworm in the sun.
“I need to speak to somebody in records,” I said, showing him my PI’s license.
He held the card between quivering fingers. He was a pill popper, no doubt. I was sure that he couldn’t concentrate on my identification.
He winked, blinked, and grimaced at the card for a few seconds and then handed it back.
“Brad Knowles,” he told me. “Out on the lot somewhere.”
“What does he look like?” I asked.
“Knowles,” the hopped-up salesman said. “Out on the lot.”
I WANDERED AROUND for a while looking for somebody named Knowles. Most of the people walking around were customers pretending that they knew something about cars. But there was security too. After the Watts riots of ’65 everybody had security: convenience and liquor stores, supermarkets, gas stations… everyplace but schools; our most precious possession, our children, were left to fend for themselves.
I went up to this one big brawny white guy and asked, “Brad Knowles?”
He pointed over my left shoulder. When I gazed in that direction I spied a white guy wearing a cherry red blazer. He was gabbing with a young white woman. If somebody looked at me the way he was gawking at her, I would have run or pulled out a gun. But the woman seemed to be enjoying the attention.
“Thanks,” I said to the white muscleman, and made my way across baking asphalt, past a hundred dying automobiles, toward the wolf and his willing prey.
“Mr. Knowles?” I said in my
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