Ingram arrived at Chin Low’s on Alpine Street not far from Dodger Stadium, which opened the year before. There had been a fight about its construction as the sports venue displaced housing of mostly working-class Mexican and Mexican Americans in what was called Chavez Ravine. The man Ingram had run into at the party on Sugar Hill, Frank Wilkerson, had been involved on the side of the ones losing their homes. People did not go willingly, and the cops removed the recalcitrant by force after they were formally evicted from their rental properties. The worn wood frame buildings were bulldozed away, the dirt graded and tiered as if no one had ever lived there, tending their little gardens and sending their kids to school, hoping they’d get a better shake.
Ingram stepped into a cool dark area fronted by a walnut and marble counter. A large brass disk of intricate design hung behind the young woman there.
“Yes, may I help you?” she said. “Early lunch for one?”
“I’m here to see Hamish.” He told her his name.
For a moment she regarded him as if there was a writhing octopus on his head. Her composure returned and she retrieved a conference phone from below the counter. Pressing one of its buttons, she spoke into the handset in Chinese. She listened, responded and hung up.
“All the way back toward the kitchen, then left at the hallway, sir.”
“Thank you.” Ingram went through the padded leather swing doors, walking past diners. In the half-lit hallway, he was greeted by an older man in casual clothes with a golf club in one hand and golf balls in a wire bucket in his other hand. He had a round pleasant face and white-gray hair receding at the temples. There were heavy gold rings on the pinkie and ring finger of his right hand.
“Come on while I limber up, Mr. Ingram. Got a foursome coming up with money on the line and need the practice.”
Figuring he wasn’t going to get bashed in the head, Ingram answered, “Sure.”
He followed Hamish Segal up a flight of stairs to a second-story private dining room. From there, they took more stairs to the roof. From this vantage point Ingram could see downtown and beyond—homes and old-style apartment buildings in the Echo Park area, Elysian Park with the police academy as well as the modernly designed oval of Dodger Stadium. Ingram darkly amused himself wondering if he were up here by himself smacking golf balls into the air and breaking somebody’s window, how long would that last?
Segal stuck a tee in the tar of the roof and set a ball on it. “I owe Dot a few favors, so she called one in for this meet. I hope you appreciate that.”
“I do.”
“I asked around about you.” He hit the ball with precision and force. “Would it surprise you to learn I know Charlotta Bass? I was around that time she announced she was running for vice president on the Progressive Party ticket.”
“Not too surprised,” Ingram admitted. A transcript of her 1952 speech had run in the Eagle. Ingram had read it in the newspaper’s archives.
“That was something. A colored woman running for the second highest office in the land. Man. They didn’t get much traction but still.” He hit another ball he’d set up. This time he shaded his eyes with his hand to track its flight, and gave a satisfied nod of his chin.
“And anyway, I wanted to size you up since you’re squiring Anita.” He paused in setting up another shot, shaking the grip end of the club toward him. “I don’t want to see any harm come to that girl.”
“Neither do I.”
“But you want to know about these lunkheads.”
“I’m not inviting them over for tea.”
“You kept your rod from the service?”
“Cleaned and ready.”
“She can shoot.”
“Anita?”
He fixed him with a look. “I taught her.”
“Good to know.”
“That’s right, no tipping out on her.” He smacked another one onto the imaginary fairway.
“I can’t walk away now. I’m in too deep. Best to take the fight to them and not wait around to get my teeth kicked in.”
“I can appreciate such thinking.” He hit another one with a resounding thwack. “This Morty I don’t know from Adam but this Wicks, him I’ve heard of. Trevor Wickland is his formal name, if you can believe that.”
Ingram said, “A muscle for hire who’s been around.”
“Yeah, but like you, he was in the service. One of those fresh off the farm boys who couldn’t wait to do or die for Uncle Sam. From what I heard he stayed in, looking to make a career of it, but something went haywire and he was bounced out, avoiding a sentence in Leavenworth.”
“And he came out here?”
Segal nodded and swung again.
“How’d he hook up with Hoyt?”
“Not sure, but one story I’ve heard had to do with a rabbi needing hush money paid to this chipee and Wicks was used to make the payoff.”
“The idea being if she kept squawking, the next time he saw her, it wouldn’t be an envelope of money he’d be delivering.”
“There you go.”
“Wait, is Wicks Jewish?”
“Half or a quarter, something like that. You figure to trap him with a nicely prepared pastrami sandwich and a crisp dill pickle?” Thwack.
“Colored folks like pastrami too.”
“You mean Johnny’s on Adams?”
“Yeah, especially around two-thirty in the morning and you need solid food.”
“Soak up that whiskey you’ve been sippin’ on at Claudine’s,” Segal added. Claudine’s Chalet was a nightclub in the area.
Ingram asked, “You know any of Wicks’s hangouts?”
Segal paused his swing. “You plan on taking care of Wicks?”
“I’m not crazy enough to put a gun on a white man.”
“Sure, I believe you.” He hit another ball.
“I just want to get to the bottom of this, whatever this is.”
“It could burn you. I know enough to know those Provider bastards don’t play, Mr. Ingram. To them, Jews, negroes, Mexicans, they all best remember their place.”
“I guess Wicks keeps that in mind.”
Thwack.
Leaving Chinatown, Ingram followed up on what Claire had suggested, and took a trip back to Mulholland Drive, taking the ascent in low gear. When he got to the scene of the accident, he saw the guardrail had yet to be replaced. Ingram kept going. He didn’t believe there was anything pertinent to be seen here. He turned down various residential streets, looking to see if he might find the house where the spy photos of the wild parties had taken place. He had copies of the photos with him and more than once stopped to investigate a particular house. But he struck out, not finding the place.
Ingram next piloted his car over the hills and into the San Fernando Valley. He drove along for a while, more or less aimlessly. He eventually stopped at a pay phone and sure enough, under nightclubs in the Yellow Pages, found a jazz joint he recalled being at a few years ago. It was called the Flying Potato and after consulting his map book for its location, he drove to the place. He parked and tried the front door but this time of day, the club wasn’t open yet. He walked around back and saw the rear door ajar. Stepping through the doorway was a thickset man carrying an empty produce crate he added to a stack against the wall.
Ingram walked over. “You wouldn’t know if a horn player named Ben Kinslow played here in the past, would you?”
The man had bushy eyebrows and hairy arms, a ring on each middle finger. His tight smile showed crooked front teeth. “Lot of cats come through here, man. On their way to the moon or nowheresville, baby.”
“I hear what you’re saying. How about a chick who went by Hanisha?”
His face lit up. “Now her, I remember well. She was a gas.” He frowned and said, “Ain’t seen her around in, oh, maybe since late 1960, come to think about it. Yeah, now that you mention her, seems to me I heard she’d gotten out of the biz, had a new hustle going I think. You looking to book them for a gig?”
“An article,” Ingram lied, giving him one of his cards.
The proprietor studied the card. “Wow, dig that. I’m Gabe, by the way.”
“Pleasure, Gabe. What about her manager, Clovis?”
He shook his head side to side. “Now him, I always said he was more anchor than propeller to her career, if you know what I’m sayin’.”
“I do, I’ve met him.”
He smiled again.
“You don’t know if they stayed out this way, her and Clovis I mean.”
“As opposed to the Black side of town?”
“Right.”
“Can’t say.”
“I appreciate your time.”
“Sure, man, take it slow.”
“Righteous.” They shook hands and Ingram started to walk away.
“You know,” the club owner said, snapping his fingers, “Clovis had some kind of relation out here.”
“Yeah?”
“Uncle, half-brother, something like that. I remember this because one night when she was headlining Clovis was giving me grief ’cause he wanted me to comp like a party of five including this relation of his. Like this is the Hollywood Bowl and not a little club eking out a living.”
“That’s Clovis. You remember this uncle’s name?”
“No, sorry.”
“Like I said, ’preciate your time, Gabe.”
Ingram gave a half-wave good-bye. Driving away, he was pretty certain that the two had to be hiding out here in the Valley. He made a mental note to ask Johnny Otis if he knew Hanisha from her singing days.
“Mom says you’re all right.”
“Of course.” He grinned.
“Believe me, she can be quite judgmental, so that’s saying something.”
It was past ten in the evening and Claire had called first then dropped by with beer and takeout Chinese food. She also had her valise with her. Ingram had put a folded-over blanket on the floor and they were having their picnic in his front room, the jazz station on low. Miles Davis was blowing cool. On the coffee table was the pamphlet he’d gotten from Claire’s mother, a torn piece of newspaper in it as a bookmark. He’d been reading it earlier.
“What do you think of the beer?” she asked. “It’s from Mexico.”
“I like it. I sometimes go over to the J-Flats to buy a Japanese beer I first had in the service. Kimchi too.”
“What’s that?”
“Spicy cabbage.”
“You’re such an international man.”
“Ain’t I though?”
At some point they cleared off the space and Ingram lay on his back, having stripped off his clothes. She had her hand around his erect member working him up and down.
Huskily he said, “Baby, I’m about to blow my top.”
“Not yet you aren’t.”
He reached under her dress. She took it off but kept her underwear on. They made love with her straddling him. The lascivious words she whispered in his ear would make Redd Foxx blush. Afterward he dozed there on the floor, his boxers back on and another blanket draped over him. Her valise open and papers about, Claire, wearing his robe, worked at his kitchen table late into the night.