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Frank Novak always thought of the three elderly widows on his block as the Three Graces. The widows reminded him of a painting of the Graces he had seen in San Gabriel’s only museum, the Rutgers Museum of Art. He had gone there on a school field trip when he was twelve or thirteen.
As he watched Mrs. Henthorne fluttering across her yard toward him, he wondered as he had many times just why the painting had appealed to him. The three slender ladies did remind him of his mother with their gauzy scarves, floating tendrils of golden hair, and pale hands captured in gestures of fragile femininity.
“Mr. Novak! What happened last night?”
He had given up trying to get Mrs. Henthorne to call him Frank. He hated to admit to her that it made him feel old to be called “Mr. Novak” by a woman who was at least seventy-three. The only one of the widows who called him by his first name was Mrs. Kosub. She had been in the neighborhood when he was born. Now in her eighties, he was “Frankie” to her.
He waited to answer until Mrs. Henthorne was within five feet of where he was trimming the red-tipped photinia hedge which separated his yard from the sidewalk. “It was a drive-by shooting, Mrs. Henthorne. Someone shot up the Jackson’s house.”
“My goodness! Do they know who did it?”
“No, nothing yet. Bobby Ledbetter’s checking on it. You remember Bobby. He lives a couple of blocks down the street. He’s the one who investigated Mrs. Frazier’s robbery.”
Mrs. Henthorne’s hand clutched at her breast, a gesture of frightened desperation. “How do they expect to solve anything when they send colored officers to investigate colored criminals? Can you answer that, Mr. Novak?”
There was no hope that Mrs. Henthorne was ever going to be politically correct. “We have no way of knowing whether the ones who did the shooting were black, brown, or white. And it’s only been a little over twelve hours. Let’s give Ledbetter a chance—I think he’s impartial. A lot of crime never is solved. There’s so much of it now, and the police are overloaded. People are afraid to come forward and provide evidence.”
Mrs. Henthorne smiled knowingly. “Maybe I should let someone know what I saw last night.”
“What did you see?”
“I was in the bathroom when I heard the racket. It nearly scared me out of my wits. I looked out the bathroom window and saw a black pickup truck going on down the street there.” She motioned toward the south where the street disappeared between rows of overhanging live oaks.
Frank set the hedge trimmer on the sidewalk. “A pickup? A black pickup?”
“Yes. It had a lot of chrome All real shiny. I could see it shining under the streetlights. It was tearing along like somebody going to a fire.”
“Did you tell anyone about this yet?”
“No.”
“You need to discuss this with the police. I’ll call Ledbetter and ask him to come by and see you.”
“Do you think you could be there, too, Mr. Novak? I don’t particularly care to be alone with . . .”
“I may be at work. Call the house and maybe Darlene can come over.”
“Oh, that Darlene!” Mrs. Henthorne batted her lashes at him in a playful gesture aimed at softening her critical attitude toward Darlene. “Always running around to those craft classes, and the mall, too, spending her poor hubby’s money. I’ll never catch her at home.”
Frank stiffened, but stopped short of telling Mrs. Henthorne to mind her own business. His grim look must have sent the message.
She began babbling, hands fluttering nervously. “I don’t know what I’d do without you and Darlene. You do so much for us, me and Mrs. Frazier and poor old Mrs. Kosub.”
“It’s nothing. We’re just trying to keep the neighborhood safe.” He picked up the hedge trimmer and played with the switch. Mrs. Henthorne had a way of trapping him in long discussions of neighborhood gossip, and he couldn’t face it today. “I have to get this hedge trimmed. I have a meeting to go to this afternoon.”
“On a Sunday?
“Yes, a neighborhood sort of thing. Trying to get organized to fight crime.”
“I won’t keep you. I did want to ask you, do you know of anyone in this area I could hire to install a dead bolt on my back door? Ever since Mitzi died—you remember Mitzi—she always used to sleep in the backyard. Ever since she died, I’ve been meaning to have a dead bolt put on that door.”
The Three Graces were tricky about getting him to do things, but he didn’t know any way around it, since his prime concern these days was the security of the neighborhood. How many times had Mrs. Henthorne asked him if he knew someone she could hire to do an odd job around the house? He gave his standard answer. “I don’t know anyone in this area who could be counted on, Mrs. Henthorne. I’ll be glad to do it for you. I think I have a spare dead bolt in the garage that would work.”
“Oh, Mr. Novak! I can’t thank you enough. I’m going to bake a cake for you this week. Of course, Darlene’s always on a diet, trying to lose those extra few pounds . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Don’t worry. I’ll hide it from her. I’ll be over this evening after supper.” He flipped the switch on the trimmer, nodded to Mrs. Henthorne, and went back to work.
#
Frank stepped out of the shower and started drying off as he went from the bathroom into the bedroom. Darlene sat on the vanity bench, back to the mirror, waiting for him. “Let’s go to a movie,” she said.
“I can’t. I have that meeting, remember?”
“What meeting is that?
“I told you about it. Henry put our names on a list at his church. They’re trying to get a neighborhood organization going to fight crime. The meeting’s sponsored by an agency called Neighborhoods United. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it down at the temple. The meeting’s being held there.”
She sighed. “I don’t go out of my way looking for things like that. You’re always fighting something. If we’d get out of this neighborhood, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about crime.”
Frank finished tying his shoe and leaned to kiss her cheek. “We’ve been through all this before. I’m not going to let them drive me out of my home. Why don’t you come to the meeting with me, or go to a movie with one of your friends?”
“I don’t want to go to your stupid meeting, and I don’t want to go to a movie with my friends.”
Frank stared at her. He suddenly realized how much she had grown to resemble the widows in the past few years. Her blond hair curled around her face in the same way Mrs. Henthorne’s had done earlier today. He began to wonder what would happen to Darlene if he died first.
He supposed she would sell the house right away and try to make a go of it in a small apartment, or maybe she would buy a condo in a better neighborhood. Probably before long she’d be with one of the boys, Mark in California or Rob in Minnesota. California would be better. It was much warmer there, probably a lot like the climate here in Texas, and Mark’s wife would be more receptive than Rob’s. He must remember to discuss this with her sometime soon. There was no time now, but they would talk about it soon.
Henry’s truck pulled into the driveway; Frank could see it from the bedroom window. “Henry’s out there. I’m riding with him. I’m not sure how long the meeting will last, but I’ll be home as soon as it’s over. We’ll go out to eat. We can go to a movie this evening if you want.”
“I don’t want to go this evening,” she said as he went down the stairs. “Let’s just go eat.”
Frank climbed into the truck beside Henry, who looked better than Frank expected after last night. “How’s Ruby doing?”
“She’s doing well. You know Ruby. She bounces right back from most anything.”
“Do you know anyone who owns a black pickup. A shiny new one?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Mrs. Henthorne saw one roaring down the street right after your house was shot up.”
Henry signaled for the left turn onto Hazlitt Street, which dead-ended at The Temple of the Holy Redeemer. “I don’t think I know anyone with a black pickup. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Somehow, a pickup doesn’t fit the image I have of drive-by shooters. Don’t you see them as driving cars?”
“I never gave it much thought.” Henry pulled into the church parking lot.
“I called Bobby Ledbetter. He’s coming over to talk to Mrs. Henthorne tomorrow.”
Henry threw back his head and laughed. “Poor Bobby. I don’t like him, but that makes me feel sorry for him.”
Frank nodded and chuckled.
“Mrs. Henthorne is about as prejudiced as an old biddy can be.” Henry parked between two minivans and turned off the ignition. “She’ll give him a hard time, one way or another. You can count on it.”
“I’m sure you’re right. Oh, well, it’s part of his job.”
“Must be a very frustrating part, too.”
Frank had never been inside the Temple of the Holy Redeemer, but Darlene came every Sunday, and sometimes during the week. Frank’s only visits to any church were those like today’s session, usually held in the meeting room of the most convenient church.
The Reverend Jason Abingdon stood just inside the door, talking to an elderly couple. Frank had met him last year at a symposium on San Gabriel’s water supply. He was a tall man, even taller than Henry, and very thin.
Frank figured the minister must be at least fifty, but his strawberry blond hair, which curled just a bit over his collar, and his blue eyes gave him a boyish look. It was a bit hard to take him seriously as a preacher, yet he was known as a go-getter who pursued his duties with fervor.
He recognized Frank and strode toward him. “Mr. Novak. Good to see you again.”
Frank shook his hand. “Good to see you, sir.” Before he could introduce Henry, they were interrupted by a plump, middle-aged woman who rushed up to the reverend, wanting to discuss some problem of church finance. Frank and Henry went to the room in the temple which served as a kitchen and dining area. The tables had been folded and were standing against the wall. Rows of folding chairs faced a speaker’s stand. Frank put his name on a sign-in sheet for those who wished to address the group. They took a seat near the front.
“Wasn’t that Hugh Andrews I saw at your door this morning?” Frank asked as they waited.
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Not really. He applied for a permit to expand his business recently. Councilwoman Washington asked me to look over the application. He wanted to take on a contract for disposal of some really toxic stuff. He just doesn’t have the facilities for it, the way I see it. I recommended she do what she could to stop it. I attended a meeting where he presented his case. It seems to me he’s the type who’d try anything to skirt the law.”
Henry held his baseball cap in his hands and turned it around and around. “I don’t really know him myself. He’s looking for someone to do some work for him. I guess someone recommended me.”
“What sort of work?”
“Bulldozing, I guess. I turned him down. I’m too busy on weekends with church and my garden.”
“What the devil would Andrews need a dozer for? Is he building a house or something?”
Henry shook his head. “I don’t know. He didn’t say.” His voice faded away so that Frank had to lean over close to hear him.
#
Twenty or so people had scattered themselves over the sixty chairs in the room by two o’clock. A slender woman strode to the speaker’s stand. She was tall for a Hispanic, probably five-nine, with straight black hair caught at the nape of her neck with a barrette. She wore a jacket over her dress, and she took it off and tossed it on the back of a chair in the front row.
“Good afternoon. I’m Monica Cruz with Neighborhoods United.” Her voice rang out through the hall and carried the unmistakable accent of the South Texas Mexican-American. “I’m not here today to make a speech. I’m here to listen to you about your neighborhood problems and help you do something about them. Those of you who signed in will be given a chance to speak.”
Monica Cruz wasn’t beautiful, Frank decided. She had olive skin, dark eyes, and a slightly aquiline nose. Striking was a better word for her, or intense. And sexy. Then he remembered his purpose in the hall and steered his mind away from these thoughts like a driver wrestles with the wheel to avoid a frightful precipice. He concentrated on what she was saying.
“We work at the grass roots level by organizing block watches and by coming up with solutions to specific problems. We demand answers from our public officials when they’re lax in carrying out their duties to improve our neighborhoods. When you speak, let me know if you’d be interested in a block meeting. I have your phone numbers and addresses on the sign-in sheet. I’ll be back in touch right away.”
Frank waited his turn and listened to the usual litany of horror stories—burglaries, a car-jacking, two other crack houses in the area loosely classified as the South Side, a rape on a street several blocks away.
When Frank’s turn came, he went to the microphone. “We have a crack house on our block. We’ve had several burglaries, and we had something unusual last night—a drive-by shooting. We’d like a block meeting.”
The meeting dragged on till after four. Frank and Henry were helping fold and store chairs when Monica Cruz approached. “Aren’t you the same Frank Novak who served on the Mayor’s Committee for a Better San Gabriel last year?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Would you mind taking time to talk to me a bit when we’re through here?”
“I—I rode with Henry Jackson, and I wouldn’t . . .”
“I’ll drop you off. We could stop down the street for coffee.”
“Sure. We’ll be through here in a minute.” He cursed himself for feeling so guilty and nervous. Men and women got together for all sorts of business and community purposes these days. No one thought anything about it. Darlene might see Henry drive in and start wondering where he was, though. “Give Darlene a ring when you get home, Henry. Tell her I’ll be along in a little while.”
“And if she asks where you are?” Henry asked under his breath.
Frank smiled. Henry was even more naïve than he. We’re a hell of a pair, he thought. “Tell her the representative from Neighborhoods United wanted some information about the mayor’s committee. Tell her I’ll have a ride home.”
By the time they sat down with coffee in a nearby McDonalds, Frank had convinced himself that there was nothing out of the ordinary about conferring with the young woman across from him. And Monica was young. He guessed thirty-five. Possibly thirty-eight. He cleared his throat. “What was it you wanted to know about our committee, Miss Cruz?”
“Monica,” she insisted. “Call me Monica. I certainly intend to call you Frank. I never heard what the results of your committee’s recommendations were. I called my councilman, John Luna, and he was going to check on it for me, but he never got back in touch.”
Frank laughed. “Maybe that’s because there haven’t been any results, as far as I can tell. Actually, I’m exaggerating. Those that I proposed are progressing, because Councilwoman Washington is probably the most conscientious person on the council. I don’t think anything’s been done on the other proposals. I’ve been bugging city hall for three months now, and all I get is a run-around.”
“Typical. They appoint these committees to look good to the public, and then nothing ever gets done.”
Frank drank from the Styrofoam cup and set it back on the table. “Did you get a list of our recommendations?”
“Yes. One of your committee members, Luz Alarcon, works closely with our agency. She’s chairman of Citizens Against Drugs.”
“We have so many agencies and organizations these days, it’s hard to keep them all straight.”
“I know. We do some good, though. At least Neighborhoods United does. What we’ll do here is to call a public meeting. We’ll invite the mayor and council, and make sure they understand the purpose of the meeting. The news media will be there. We’ll have specific questions ready for the politicians about what’s been done with your committee’s recommendations. It’s a fairly simple concept, and one that’s worked well in the past. The people are getting pretty good at this sort of thing. You’d be surprised at how a timid housewife from the barrio can get up and demand to know why the streets in her area haven’t been paved when the north side of town has had innumerable resurfacings.”
“I’ve been to a couple of those meetings. They do work. The politicians can’t afford to refuse the invitation. Give them enough lead time, and they’ll get to work on the problems so they can look good on the panel. They’ll promise to work on what hasn’t been solved. I guess we could have a follow-up meeting to hold their feet to the fire.”
Monica laughed. “You got it! You can’t give them a moment’s peace or none of this works. We try to have one really high interest item on the agenda, so we’ll have a good crowd. You noticed that at today’s meeting, we only had twenty or so. This was an entirely different matter. When we advertise a meeting to talk about crime and other neighborhood problems, we’re hoping to attract neighborhood leaders who can organize their blocks. You’re the ones who show up for meetings such as this.” She sipped her coffee. “How did you happen to get appointed to the mayor’s committee?”
“I think it was because I’ve been working with Councilwoman Washington’s office as a volunteer for a long time, trying to improve conditions in her district. Then my name was in the news for a brief period of time. A man was shot in front of our house last year. Maybe you remember the incident. I woke up in the middle of the night—I’m a very light sleeper. I heard yelling. Then right away, I heard a gunshot. After that there was a crash. I grabbed my shotgun and ran outside.
“Two men who owned a tavern over on Aurora Street had just closed the place and were driving home. They started arguing, and the one on the passenger side shot the driver. The man who did the shooting jumped out and ran away, and the driver steered into a yard across the street from me. The car hit the front porch and stopped. An elderly widow, Mrs. Kosub, lives there. She was too terrified to even put a light on.
“By the time I got outside, the man had managed to get out of his car and was staggering across the street. He collapsed in front of my hedge. I yelled at my wife to call EMS and the police. He was shot in the stomach. I got a towel and held it to his wound until EMS got there. And then the strange thing was, he had a handgun. The ambulance crew got him onto the stretcher, and he handed it to one of the technicians as they were putting him in the ambulance. Shook the poor guy up so much, he threw it into the back of the ambulance with the victim.”
Monica finished the last of her coffee. “Did he survive?”
“Yes. His brothers came around later and thanked me. The publicity happened because they made a big deal of it with the paper. Also, there was a roving van from the TV station out that night, and they must have been monitoring police radio. They showed up and took some footage of me holding that towel. I was in my underwear, with bare feet. It was embarrassing.”
Monica chuckled. “I’m really sorry I missed that. Seriously, it was a courageous thing to do. Most people won’t stick their noses out the door for anything these days. I don’t blame the mayor for wanting you on his committee.”
“It was nothing at all.” Frank could feel his face flushing. “I should get on home now. If you’ll call me this week to schedule a block meeting, I’d appreciate it. Then maybe we can get together to work out the meeting with the mayor and council. Do you think any of the recommendations the committee made would be high profile enough to draw a crowd?”
“Let me study them again. We’ll work out something. Maybe we can offer refreshments.” She unlocked the doors of her battered dark green Volkswagen bug. “Sorry I can’t offer a classier ride. I bought this from my brother. I have six brothers, and they all love cars and work on them all the time. The engine’s in good shape, but the body’s a mess.”
Frank tried to imagine Darlene driving such a car. She always drove a Buick, because her parents had always driven Buicks. A VW bug would be the last thing on earth she would be seen in. Comparing Darlene to Monica in such a way was a bit of disloyalty Frank wouldn’t allow himself to indulge in for long, however, and he concentrated on neighborhood issues until Monica came to his block.
“Pull up here, right in front of the electrical tower.” Frank pointed to the tower which stood on the corner of his property, part of the San Gabriel Power Co. distribution system.
“You have a nice place here,” she said.
“Thanks. It belonged to my parents. I’ll talk to you this week about the schedule for the block meeting. We can have it here.”
Darlene sat in her favorite chair in the living room, crocheting, when he came in, and Frank was reminded again of the widows. She said nothing about the fact that he hadn’t returned in Henry’s pickup as expected, but arrived a half hour later in a battered VW. She simply smiled and suggested they go out to eat.
