Southland (8 page)
“Anyway,” Jackie said finally, “that’s not why I came here today.”
Lanier looked at her and nodded, waiting for her to continue.
“I’m looking for someone who would have been a kid in the fifties or sixties, a boy who probably used to go to my grandfather’s store.”
“Yes,” Lanier replied, “Curtis Martindale.” He hadn’t said the name out loud in years, although he’d thought it, dreamed it, watched it weave and twist and circle around him.
Jackie leaned forward. “Do you know him?”
“Used to. His daddy was my mama’s brother. Me and Curtis and his little brother Cory, we used to hang out all the time. Cory was my age and Curtis was older.”
“Oh, great.” This was easier than she’d expected. “Well, I think my grandfather knew him. He mentioned him in some papers my aunt found after he died.”
“That makes sense. He practically lived at your grandfather’s store, and he worked there for a couple of years. A lot of the older boys hung out there.” He remembered a group of them sitting on milk crates out front. He in overalls, Curtis in his work pants and apron. James—Jimmy—wriggled in between Curtis and another boy, sweater warm and scratchy against his cheek. Anything to be next to his cousin. They were listening to the radio that Mr. Sakai had set up by the door. The Dodgers versus the Yankees, in the ’63 World Series. Mr. Sakai handing out ice-cold sodas, beaming, as the Dodgers swept the Yankees in four.
“So why you looking for him?” asked Lanier.
“Actually,” Jackie began, then stopped abruptly. She couldn’t think of a convenient lie, and she didn’t want to mention the money. But a partial truth was probably safe. “My grandfather left him something in his will.”
Lanier raised his eyebrows. “Must have been a pretty old will.”
“Yeah, it was. So do you know where Curtis is?”
Lanier looked at her, nostrils flaring. “He’s dead.”
“What?”
“He died in the uprising. The
Watts
uprising—’65.”
Jackie wiped her hands on her pants and said, “Shit.” She was a bit annoyed at Lanier for making her drive all the way down there; he could have just told her over the phone and spared her the trip. But she was relieved, too—if Curtis Martindale was dead, then her duty had been fulfilled, her task completed. Lois could keep the money and buy a house. When she glanced up, though, she found Lanier looking at her curiously. She’d almost forgotten he was there—she was thinking about getting home and calling Laura—but now he seemed more troubled and interested than he’d been since she had come.
“You don’t know about this, do you?” he asked.
She gave him a look. “About the Watts riots? Of course I do. Marcus Frye. Four days of rioting. McCone Commission report.”
“No,” he said, ignoring her tone. “You don’t know about your grandfather’s store.”
Something in his voice made her pay attention. “Well, I know that it didn’t get burned.”
“No, it didn’t get burned, or looted either. But the day after the uprising ended, four black boys were found dead in the store’s freezer. And my cousin Curtis Martindale was one of them.”
“
What?
”
“There was a walk-in freezer in the back, where your grandfather kept meat and ice. Someone locked them all in there during the uprising. They would have frozen to death in a couple of hours.”
Jackie opened her mouth and closed it again. She couldn’t place this information in the same universe with what she’d known about her grandfather. “How?” she finally managed. “Why? I mean, I’ve never heard…”
Lanier nodded. “It was never reported in the mainstream press, since so many other things were going on. Not that anyone would have given a shit about a bunch of dead niggers. But I’m surprised that your family…”
Jackie shook her head. She didn’t have the energy to explain about how her family didn’t talk. None of them, including her grandfather. No words laced together into a chain of intertwined stories that connected her to anyone’s past. More than gaps in the narrative; there
was
no narrative. Whole years, like the years of World War II, dropped cleanly from their collective history.
“People thought it was a cop,” Lanier continued. “A white cop, Nick Lawson. He had a history of beating up black kids. Anyway, a while later, some other boys in the neighborhood took it upon themselves to shoot him. They didn’t kill him, but it got him off the street. I heard he stayed with the police, on a desk job, but no charges were brought against him. No one ever did shit.”
Lanier remembered those first few weeks, after. The weariness and sorrow among the people he knew as they tried to piece together their broken neighborhood. The tanks rolling down Crenshaw, through the tense, watchful silence. And Curtis wasn’t there to help him through it. Jimmy hadn’t understood why his cousin was gone. Knew he was dead, but still expected to see him taking the front stairs of the Lanier house, two at a time, and hear him yelling through the broken screen. When it finally dawned on Jimmy that he wouldn’t see Curtis again, or feel his wiry arm around his shoulders and sharp knuckles rubbing his skull, he dove into a thick depression he wasn’t sure that he’d ever come out of. It hurt worse than when his father left, because Curtis was dead, not just AWOL, and Jimmy was old enough now to feel it. With an eight-year-old’s impotent rage he wanted to kill the man responsible, but instead he took it out on everyone else. Most of all himself. Banging his head rhythmically, obsessively, against his bedroom wall, punishing himself for being alive and for not helping Curtis, until his mother couldn’t leave him alone. Cutting his arm with razor blades, steak knives, scissors, pens, so he would feel the pain there and not inside him.
“But you’re sure it was him,” Jackie said.
“I’m sure.” Lanier looked down, then looked up again. Uneasiness flickered through his eyes. “There were some people— not a lot, but a few—who believed that your grandfather did it.”
Jackie started to stand, and then sat down again. “Jesus Christ.”
Lanier put up his broad, squarish hands. “I know he didn’t,” he said. “Most people didn’t even know the kids were murdered in the store. And even the ones who did, just about all of them blamed Nick Lawson. But there were some, you know, who never liked that your grandfather had a business here. Crenshaw was mixed back then, much more than it is today, but there were a few people—white
and
black—who still hated the Japanese. So even though just about everyone knew he wasn’t involved, your family still took some flak.”
“Which explains,” Jackie said, more to herself than Lanier, “why they shut down the store and got out of here so fast.”
Lanier nodded. He remembered the “Closed” sign hanging in the window of the empty store for months, the Sakais vanishing like apparitions before the smoke had even cleared.
She looked up at him. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“So you won’t waste your time looking for Curtis. And so you’ll know.” And because I need to share this with someone, he thought, hand over half the burden. He leaned across the desk and looked at her intently. “I want to build a case against Lawson. I want the motherfucker to pay. I’ve been carrying Curtis’s murder, all those murders, around with me for years.” He knew his burden, his sense of urgency, were heavy in his voice; he felt accused by the image of Frank there in front of him, for not doing anything until now. Jackie leaned back, away from him, so Lanier eased off a little.
“Well, what about his brother?” she asked. “Or his parents? Where are they?”
“Dead. All of them. His parents both died a few years ago, and Cory was killed in Vietnam. It haunted him, too. I’ve always meant to do something, but I’ve just kept putting it off, you know. Didn’t know how to start. But when I ran into Loda this morning and she said that Frank Sakai had died and that his granddaughter was looking for Curtis, I knew it was finally time.”
“You said people didn’t know about it, right? So how are you going to build a case?”
“Oh, they knew the boys were murdered—they just didn’t know
how
. There were all kinds of rumors—that they’d been shot, or lynched, or burned up in a fire.”
Jackie rocked back and forth, thinking. “But what do I have to do with all this?”
Lanier looked at her and shrugged. “I don’t know. As much as you want.”
But then doubt settled over him, heavy and uncomfortable as a wet quilt. What the hell was he doing? For one thing, how was he supposed to get information on a cop? He thought of Allen Cooke, the cop from the Southwest Station who volunteered for his fathers group. Southwest was the natural place to ask questions, since that was where Lawson had worked, but it was a tricky thing, he knew, to look for dirt on another cop. The department, when you poked it, tended to close in on itself, and he didn’t know if Allen would be willing.
For another, he wasn’t sure he’d made the right move by enlisting Frank’s granddaughter. Her knowledge of the law—Loda had said she was in law school—might help with legal matters, if they ever got to that point. And someone in her family had to know
something
—maybe they’d even seen Lawson lurking around the store on the day of the murders. But Jackie Ishida was not the same kind of person as her grandfather. Frank was a down-to-earth, blue-collar man. Jackie, on the other hand, had clearly been coddled. She had the air of someone who never questioned her right to anything. Her hands were soft and unlined, her fingernails even and clean; those hands had never seen a day of real labor. Her clothes, though casual—jeans, blouse, light leather jacket—were elegant, cut well, expensive. She was attractive enough—nice face, straight shoulder-length hair, thin athletic figure—but there was something too prim about her, fastidious, as if she didn’t swear or sweat. She was a package wrapped tightly with a bright and colorful bow; all the edges of the paper lined up perfectly. Frank Sakai’s family, clearly, had moved up in the world—but maybe they’d moved so far that they no longer had use for Frank. Lanier wondered if he should leave Jackie alone and pursue Lawson by himself. But she had been the one to call Loda Thomas; she’d started this entire thing. He believed in omens, and this one was undeniable.
Jackie, sitting across from him, believed in omens too. She knew that her family was touched by what had happened. Their flight after the murders might have implied something at the time—even if, as she realized, most of her grandfather’s old acquaintances had liked him, there would always be that shadow of a question. And Frank would have wanted her to pursue this; he had practically willed it. She looked at Lanier, his probing eyes, his intense and handsome face.
“So what do we do now?” she asked.
H
E WAS wearing a suit for the first time, skipping south along Westside Avenue, heading toward the church on Santa Barbara. The suit was one of Cory’s, fully half of his supply, but his cousin had been happy to wear the other one and lend the scratchy new brown one to Jimmy. Curtis was in a suit too, and suspenders and a hat. Curtis and Cory’s mother, Alma, wore a dark flower-print dress that swished and furled around her fast-moving legs. She was a little ahead of them, not looking back, forcing her three ducklings to swim after her quickly, and Jimmy wondered if God always expected his children to come calling in such a hurry.
It was almost nine when they arrived at the church, a plain square building a little short of the corner. Jimmy had never been to this church; hadn’t been to church much at all since he was a baby, although his mother came sometimes to get word about jobs. She was working this Sunday—the family she worked for was having a party—but his aunt had insisted that he go with her and her boys. It would be good for him to be there, and his presence was needed.“’Specially today,” she’d said. “’Specially today.”
People were milling around in the street and on the front steps, touching their hats, picking pieces of lint off their children’s shoulders. Jimmy knew from Curtis that several Black Muslims had been shot by the police that week, gunned down just outside of their mosque. He didn’t really know what a Black Muslim was, except that Curtis’s girlfriend’s brother was thinking of becoming one. Now pieces of conversation rustled past him, loose scraps blown by the wind. “You watch. Ain’t none of ’em gonna be punished, neither.” “Police be worse than overseers back in Arkansas.” “Those Negroes cause they
own
problems, followin around after that brother X.” “Need to stop hollerin Allah and come on back to Jesus.” “Hush, sister. To the cops, niggers niggers, don’t matter what name you tack on to the front of your prayers.”
Jimmy didn’t know what any of this meant. But he wondered if it was related to all the black people he kept seeing on TV, from Nashville, Montgomery, Birmingham, Jackson. When he was over at the Martindales’, Alma would shake her head at the images on the screen, and she’d been shaking her head at the
Eagle
and the
Sentinel
all week. Now, as they walked through the crowd of people, Jimmy watched her swivel and step, the angle of her head, her long, elegant neck, the fine hard line of her jaw. She looked strong and queen-like, and he was proud to be part of her group. The men tipped their hats and she acknowledged them with nods; the women, eyeing her suspiciously, laid firm fingers on their husbands’ arms. Curtis moved through the crowd more slowly, a man at fourteen, touching the rim of his hat at the women, shaking hands with all the men. Jimmy watched his ease, admiringly, and smiled politely as large women leaned over him and cooed. The three boys followed Alma at a distance, Curtis with a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder, steering him. They entered the church and sat in a pew about halfway to the front, Alma, Cory, Curtis, James. Curtis showed Jimmy where the hymnal was and pointed out some of his friends from school. Reverend Greene came in then, with his bible, and the noise tapered down to a hush. He was a tall, skinny man, all angles, the only rounded parts of him the top of his skull and the eyes that protruded out of his sunken face.
“My brothers and sisters,” he began, “a terrible tragedy occurred this week on South Broadway.” And after that, Jimmy was lost, words swirling around him that he didn’t understand, Moses and David, Redemption and the Promised Land. He heard people responding, “You tell it, brother,” and “Amen!” and because Curtis was one of those who called “Amen,” Jimmy did so, too. When it was time to sing, Curtis held the book down for him, which didn’t help because Jimmy couldn’t read. But he tried to imitate his cousin as he nodded and rocked. The singing scared and delighted him, the way the voices all flowed together and formed something greater than the sum of themselves, a presence as huge and beautiful to Jimmy as the thought of God. He felt the owners of these voices, the grown-ups in the church, could fight off anything, take over the world.
Jimmy tried to follow the pastor’s words for the first twenty minutes. Then his attention slowly failed him and he watched the congregation. He saw a sea of ladies’ hats, yellow and green and white, decorated with flowers, and sprays of baby’s breath and lace. He saw open faces turned up to the pastor, feeding on what sustenance he offered, and the few people who looked down, refusing to hear, and the others who had drifted off to sleep. He saw the tops of little heads, barely visible over the backs of the pews. He peeked to the left and spied Cory bouncing his knees and twisting his head, dancing to some unheard music. Jimmy started bouncing too, which did not escape Curtis. “It’ll be done soon,” he said, leaning over.
Outside, Alma stopped to talk to some people she knew—the parents of one of her students, and Miss Vera and Miss Alice, fellow teachers who lived together and didn’t have husbands. The boys hung back and Curtis pointed people out to his brother and cousin. “That lady move and belch like a tractor,” he said about a particularly large woman, who was grunting with the effort of walking. “That man skinny as a turkey bone four o’clock Christmas Day,” he said about a man who made Reverend Greene look fleshy. “That girl got her nose held up so high the birds be flyin into it.” The younger boys giggled, although they tried to stop each time one of the grown-ups looked over. Finally, another man approached Alma, a tall, dark-skinned man in a brown suit and black hat. “’Lo, Alma,” he said, and there was something about the way she took the veil off her smile that made Jimmy know the man was not trying to take something from her, or approaching out of mere obligation.
“Hello, Victor. Good to see you. How you doing?”
“Fine, fine. And you? Where’s your husband this morning?”
“Hmph. Bed, like usual. Didn’t get home till ’round three this morning. Got his sister’s baby here, though.”
The man was alone, which Jimmy thought strange, and in another moment Mrs. Martindale introduced him as Mr. Conway. “Good to meet you, young man,” he said, bending over and taking Jimmy’s small fingers in his larger ones. He already knew the Martindale boys, and they smiled, looking happy to see him. At the door of the church, the women started to gather; they’d go back inside, cook, trade gossip and recipes, make quilts for the old and the needy. Jimmy wondered why Curtis’s mother didn’t join them, not understanding that Alma didn’t like these group projects and activities; not knowing the other women considered her haughty. And
his
mother was never a part of groups like this, either; the Laniers were one of the families they made quilts
for
.
Alma and Mr. Conway started walking down the street and the three boys fell in step behind them. The sight of her walking beside a man who wasn’t her husband seemed odd to Jimmy. They were two puzzle pieces jammed together forcefully, their edges nowhere near matching up. But he sensed somehow that the man didn’t
want
them to match; there was nothing sly in his eyes or over-anxious in his step, in the way he smiled and spoke to her. Jimmy couldn’t make out their conversation, but he heard the shining, silvery peals of her laughter, the pulse and reverberation. And this unexpected laughter, Curtis’s jokes, the warm spring weather, made Jimmy feel—despite the heaviness of the sermon and the pinching of his suit—lighter and freer than he had in months.
A couple of blocks up from Santa Barbara, they saw a man sitting on his porch in a small, plain rocking chair. He was a Japanese man, neither young nor old, and he rocked in his chair and stared out at the street, holding his left arm out straight and making long sweeping motions with his right. Jimmy had seen this man before, wandering around the neighborhood. Sometimes the man seemed perfectly normal. But other times he mumbled under his breath, holding a conversation whose other member was invisible.
“Morning, Kenji,” Mr. Conway called out. “How you doing this fine morning?”
“I’m very busy,” the man replied. “Trying to keep the traffic under control.”
Mr. Conway and Alma both looked at the empty street, then back at the man on the porch. “Don’t look like there’s too much traffic,” Mr. Conway said.
“On
Crenshaw
,” the man insisted, pointing. “It’s real busy over on Crenshaw.”
Jimmy looked at where the man was pointing and saw only a row of houses. Alma smiled.
“Ain’t been able to see straight through to Crenshaw for ’bout ten years now, Mr. Hirano.”
“That’s nonsense,” the man said, vehemently. “You’re talking nonsense. And this is
God’s
day. You all need to get your eyes checked.”
The boys were right on the heels of the adults now, and Jimmy heard Alma say under her breath, “It must be one of his bad days.”
Mr. Conway smiled. “All right, Kenji,” he called out. “You have a good afternoon now.”
But the man had already forgotten them, focusing again on the street.
When they were out of earshot, Jimmy shook his head. “That man nuttier than a peanut field harvest morning,” he offered, remembering something his mother had once said about a relative. He expected Curtis and Cory to laugh, but instead, Curtis turned and leaned over him, blocking out the sky, face blazing like a too-hot sun.
“Don’t you talk ’bout him that way.” His voice was low, his cheek muscles working, and Jimmy was so shocked by the anger in his cousin’s face that he just stood there, afraid to move. In the ten months since he’d started spending time with his cousins, Curtis had never so much as raised his voice at him. Curtis stood, rocked back, rocked toward him again. “Don’t you
ever
let me catch you talkin ’bout Mr. Hirano that way.”
Jimmy didn’t know what he’d done wrong, or why it had been OK to laugh at the silly people at church but not at this crazy man who couldn’t see the houses in front of him.
Alma and Mr. Conway, hearing this exchange, stopped and turned around. “He’s a nice man, Jimmy,” Alma said.
“That’s right,” Curtis agreed. “He’s just got his own ways, is all.”
Jimmy felt so low now that his eyes began to fill, although he couldn’t tell whether he was upset because of guilt or Curtis’s anger. At least his cousin’s anger, though, unlike his long-gone father’s, had a reason, a set of rules for things to avoid, and didn’t just explode without warning. The boys walked along in silence for several blocks, the grown-ups talking in front of them. Jimmy sniffled and sank deeper into his suit, his chin pressed down into the collar. He wished he could disappear. But just when he thought he was going to cry for real, Curtis took his hand. His heart lifted. He knew, because Curtis still stared ahead and didn’t look at him, that he wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. But he also knew that he would be forgiven.