King. These guys didn’t have a clue. I don’t think the Bone Losers even know where Claremont is.”
“So you don’t think they had a hand in the disappearance?”
“Nah. Life is never that obvious. I’d put my money on leprechauns first.”
“What is your theory?”
That slowed him right down. “How’s your water doing?”
“It’s doing fine.”
“Let’s stand on the balcony. This place is an oven.” They trooped outside. A half-dozen people were lying inert in the pool below or lying on chaises alongside it. Nothing in the world seemed to be moving in the oppressive air. “Okay, don’t overdo this. The weekend before they disappeared, he and Sher went home to South Central. He came back pretty pissed off.”
“How did his parents feel about Sherry?”
“Oh, man, they loved her, they had no trouble at all with inter-racial stuff. They’re saints, I mean it. You must have met his dad, a sharecropper’s kid who changed his life through the movement, a pal of John Lewis and Bob Moses. He left SNCC when Stokely started his Black Power stuff and refused to work with whites. Ami’s old man was the kind of guy makes you wonder whether there really is any need for irony in the world. He’s holy.”
Something was still unsaid. “So?”
“Amilcar came back pretty upset Sunday night. All he told me was, there’s some folks worse than the Nazis.”
“Do you think it was Umoja? Reverse racism?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know his old homies. He’d sure run into something.”
“Did he have anything to do with drugs?”
David Phelps turned and glared at him. “Man, you’ve got the wrong idea. Everybody’s got something to do with drugs, but if you think he was the big mule for the Crips out here in Claremont, you’re crazy. He didn’t touch anything beyond a little weed, like everybody else.”
“I had to ask.”
“He was more political than drugged up. Do you know who his namesake was?”
“Amilcar Cabral? The African revolutionary. Probably his mom’s idea.”
“Uh-huh. From Guinea-Bissau. Luckily Cabral died young so he didn’t have to see his name tarnished by later events. Look just inside the door, it’s a poster Ami gave me.”
Jack Liffey stepped back into the blast of heat, and on a stub wall dividing the living room from a dining area there was a poster of a young African in guerrilla getup, with the legend:
TELL NO LIES. CLAIM NO EASY VICTORIES !
— AMILCAR CABRAL
“I don’t know what happened, Jackie. I can’t imagine somebody driving out here from LA to get Ami and Sherry, but something did happen in LA that weekend. That’s all I know.”
“Thanks for your help.”
He gave the young man his card. Thankfully, he still had a few of the old ones from before Marlena had printed them up with the big eyeball on them.
“If you do find him, man, give him a big kiss for me. But no tongue.”
*
The children huddled up close on the rec room sofa and he hugged one with each arm, immensely grateful that God had blessed him at his age. He had married late, choosing decent, quiet, loving and acquiescent Kelly Wade, almost twenty years younger than he was. She had borne him the decent family he knew he needed to ride out a lot of bad memories of Vietnam and two bad marriages. The commercial was still on so he opened his mouth and bellowed out:
In the eyes of a ranger,
The unsuspected stranger
Had better know the truth of wrong from right,
‘Cause the eyes of a ranger are upon you,
Anything you do, he’s gonna see.
When you’re in Texas, look behind you…
The kids perked up and joined in.
‘Cause that’s where the ranger’s gonna be.
“Cool, Daddy.”
And there they were, Cordell Walker and his loyal pal Jimmy Trivette, walking into a laundromat for some reason. It was a rerun but he couldn’t remember the plot. Somehow he’d gone into lecture mode and he couldn’t stop himself. “See how good they work together when they’re decent and
“So you don’t think they had a hand in the disappearance?”
“Nah. Life is never that obvious. I’d put my money on leprechauns first.”
“What is your theory?”
That slowed him right down. “How’s your water doing?”
“It’s doing fine.”
“Let’s stand on the balcony. This place is an oven.” They trooped outside. A half-dozen people were lying inert in the pool below or lying on chaises alongside it. Nothing in the world seemed to be moving in the oppressive air. “Okay, don’t overdo this. The weekend before they disappeared, he and Sher went home to South Central. He came back pretty pissed off.”
“How did his parents feel about Sherry?”
“Oh, man, they loved her, they had no trouble at all with inter-racial stuff. They’re saints, I mean it. You must have met his dad, a sharecropper’s kid who changed his life through the movement, a pal of John Lewis and Bob Moses. He left SNCC when Stokely started his Black Power stuff and refused to work with whites. Ami’s old man was the kind of guy makes you wonder whether there really is any need for irony in the world. He’s holy.”
Something was still unsaid. “So?”
“Amilcar came back pretty upset Sunday night. All he told me was, there’s some folks worse than the Nazis.”
“Do you think it was Umoja? Reverse racism?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know his old homies. He’d sure run into something.”
“Did he have anything to do with drugs?”
David Phelps turned and glared at him. “Man, you’ve got the wrong idea. Everybody’s got something to do with drugs, but if you think he was the big mule for the Crips out here in Claremont, you’re crazy. He didn’t touch anything beyond a little weed, like everybody else.”
“I had to ask.”
“He was more political than drugged up. Do you know who his namesake was?”
“Amilcar Cabral? The African revolutionary. Probably his mom’s idea.”
“Uh-huh. From Guinea-Bissau. Luckily Cabral died young so he didn’t have to see his name tarnished by later events. Look just inside the door, it’s a poster Ami gave me.”
Jack Liffey stepped back into the blast of heat, and on a stub wall dividing the living room from a dining area there was a poster of a young African in guerrilla getup, with the legend:
TELL NO LIES. CLAIM NO EASY VICTORIES !
— AMILCAR CABRAL
“I don’t know what happened, Jackie. I can’t imagine somebody driving out here from LA to get Ami and Sherry, but something did happen in LA that weekend. That’s all I know.”
“Thanks for your help.”
He gave the young man his card. Thankfully, he still had a few of the old ones from before Marlena had printed them up with the big eyeball on them.
“If you do find him, man, give him a big kiss for me. But no tongue.”
*
The children huddled up close on the rec room sofa and he hugged one with each arm, immensely grateful that God had blessed him at his age. He had married late, choosing decent, quiet, loving and acquiescent Kelly Wade, almost twenty years younger than he was. She had borne him the decent family he knew he needed to ride out a lot of bad memories of Vietnam and two bad marriages. The commercial was still on so he opened his mouth and bellowed out:
In the eyes of a ranger,
The unsuspected stranger
Had better know the truth of wrong from right,
‘Cause the eyes of a ranger are upon you,
Anything you do, he’s gonna see.
When you’re in Texas, look behind you…
The kids perked up and joined in.
‘Cause that’s where the ranger’s gonna be.
“Cool, Daddy.”
And there they were, Cordell Walker and his loyal pal Jimmy Trivette, walking into a laundromat for some reason. It was a rerun but he couldn’t remember the plot. Somehow he’d gone into lecture mode and he couldn’t stop himself. “See how good they work together when they’re decent and
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