Driving south and east of L.A.’s downtown, I felt relieved to be alone. Redbird was a good partner and a solid man to have as a backup, and he didn’t talk too much either but I needed more than silence; I had to have solitude to pull together the edges of the broad cloth that comprised the problems presented by the gulf between Rosemary Goldsmith and Bob Mantle.
I stopped at a phone booth on Slauson, looked up an address, and wrote it down.
I decided against calling Sister Godfreys. I didn’t want to spook or warn her so I drove over to her address on Wadsworth Avenue off of Florence Boulevard. She lived in a white plaster box that had four apartments—two upper and two on the first floor.
I checked the outside mailbox, walked in the front door, up the stairs, and then knocked on the door to the left.
Without asking who it was, she pulled the door open. She was tall and meaty (not to say fat), wearing a red T-shirt, coral shorts, and an auburn wig that stood high on her head, making her look like a backup singer in an all-girl Motown soul band. She was a sensual woman with dark skin and prominent features. Her expression was careless and friendly—qualities I found very attractive in women. Just looking at her, I wished that Bonnie wasn’t winging her way to Asia.
“Yes?” she said.
“Easy Rawlins, ma’am. I’m here representing Belle Mantle.”
“Oh. How is Belle? You know I haven’t seen her since me an’ Bobby broke up. She was nice but I moved since then and I didn’t even think she knew where I lived at.”
She stacked the facts one on top of the other like red bricks but there was no mortar of suspicion.
“Bob’s gone missing,” I said, “and she asked me to help find him.”
I handed her my PI’s license.
Upon reading the little card she said, “I don’t understand.”
“I’m a private detective and Belle is my client. She thinks that Bob might be in trouble. She told me that you two broke up but I said you might know something.”
“It’s that Rosemary Goldsmith, idn’t it?”
“May I come in, Miss Godfreys?”
“Um. I guess it’s all right. I mean you really are working for Belle, aren’t you?”
“I just came from her house over on Hoover. She showed me his room with all the pictures of the costumes Bob loved on the wall.”
“Okay, Mr. Rawlins. Come on in. But I don’t have nuthin’ to offer you to drink or eat or nuthin’.”
She had two folding pine chairs and an oak bench for furniture in the otherwise empty sitting room. It was like the living room in my new house but I suspected that she wasn’t going out to buy new furniture anytime soon. I thought it was a shame that a woman as young and beautiful as Sister found herself in such stark circumstances.
“Take a chair, Mr. Rawlins,” she said. “It’s more comfortable.”
When we were seated I looked around the bare chamber. There were no paintings or prints on the walls, no plants on the window ledges. The floor was pine and finished, swept and bare.
“I don’t have nuthin’ to drink but water,” she said. “I could get you a glass if you want.”
“No thanks, Miss Godfreys. I’m kind of in a hurry to find your ex. You said something about somebody—a woman?”
She crossed her legs and the room became softer, more inviting.
“White woman,” Sister agreed. “She come up here just yesterday an’ give me money for Cousin. Three hundred dollars. She said it was from Bobby but I know for a fact that he couldn’t save up that much money ’fore spendin’ it.”
“She left money for his cousin? Who is that?”
“Not his cousin,” she said, “our son, Cousin. Didn’t Belle tell you about him?”
“No. All she said was that she hoped you two stayed together.”
“Me an’ Bobby lived together in a nice apartment when he was still boxin’,” Sister said. “But when he got banned he lost heart and moved back home with Belle. Cousin an’ me both really miss him.”
She turned her head to the side, looking out of the window wistfully.
I followed her gaze, noticing that there were neither shades nor curtains installed.
“And this Rose Gold brought you money for his son?”
“She was talkin’ all political and all,” Sister said, turning her attention back to me. “She was callin’ me sister like we was blood an’ it wasn’t my name. She told me that Uhuru was workin’ for the revolution but that he wanted to take care of his son. That’s all some shit. Bobby only ever cared about how to be somebody else.”
“Uhuru?”
“He started wearin’ this dress he called a royal African robe. When he had it on he talked funny and said things about the revolution but it was all just dress-up. That white girl was fooled but I took her money though. Cousin needs clothes and food and I hardly make enough to pay our rent.”
“Mama!” a high voice yelled. Then there came the thumping of small bare feet.
He was short and solid, dark with a big ball of woolly hair. He ran right at Sister, leaped in the air, and landed on her like some kind of predator attacking a leaf eater five times its size.
Sister grunted and then folded him in her arms. Somehow she turned him around with this embrace and he found himself looking at me.
“This is Mr. Rawlins, baby. What do you say?”
Somewhere between three and four, the boy was fearless in his mother’s arms.
“Hello, mister,” he said.
“This is my son,” she announced, “Cousin Mantle.”
“Hello, Cousin.”
He nodded and then squirmed until he was out of his mother’s arms and standing between her and me.
“Mr. Rawlins is looking for your father,” Sister said.
“My daddy send a white lady with some money to buy me red cowboy boots.”
“How long ago?” I asked in the general direction of mother and son.
“I ’ont know,” the boy said.
“It was yesterday,” his mother amended.
“Was she alone?”
“I think that there was somebody in a car downstairs.”
“Did she tell you how to get in touch with her?”
“No.”
“She said that when I get my cowboy boots that there was a merry-go-round with yellow and brown and red horses on it right across the street from her friend’s house,” Cousin said in a quick stream of words. “She said that I could ride a red horse to go with my red boots when I got ’em.”
“She did?” I said with real interest.
“Uh-huh. An’, an’, an’ she said that there was a ice cream truck that came by every day and that all the kids runned down to get ice cream on’a stick. They went swimmin’ too but you cain’t swim right aftah eatin’ or you’ll get a cramp.”
“That’s true.”
“Uh-huh,” Cousin said with a great nod. “An’ I could ride a red horse an’ eat ice cream and maybe my daddy would be there too.”
Cousin had been named by his mother’s tradition but he looked just like his father. Gazing on him, I thought about Alton Post; his mother, Alana; and his dead father—Fred.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you and Belle, Mr. Rawlins,” Sister Godfreys said.
I looked up from Cousin into his mother’s eyes.
“Can I use your phone, Miss Godfreys?” I asked.
“They disconnected the phone six weeks ago.”
“Then I guess I’ll be going,” I said.