This past December he’d raced past Edwards’s blind pig in his car on his way to the Hacienda Motel, a no-tell motel on Figueroa. He along with several other newshounds had converged on the three-dollar-a-night place in response to the news that reached them over their respective police scanners. Rhythm and blues crooner Sam Cooke had been shot in the chest three times and died on the spot. From what was gathered, the shooting happened after a young woman he’d taken there, not his wife, had bolted out of the room, partly with her and his clothes, including his wallet which contained a goodly amount of cash. Angry, Cooke had banged on the door of the manager’s office, supposedly under the impression the woman was holed up there in league with the manager. In turn the manager, a Black woman in her fifties, said she was terrified as this near-naked younger man, with only his sport coat wrapped around him, broke in screaming at her and she shot him in self-defense.

  Lifting the handset off the hook, Ingram considered several rumors already sprouting in the community as to the true reasons for Cooke’s death. One of them being that he was becoming more political in the songs he wrote and therefore had to be stopped before he riled up the downtrodden. He put a dime in the slot and dialed a number. When the line connected he said, “Figured I might find you in.”

  “What’s shaking, Harry?” Wesley Crossman had been the last editor at California Eagle before it shut down last year due to declining revenues. While the presses had stopped rolling, the office was rented out for the desk space. Several reporters for the Sentinel were there as well as freelancers.

  “Can I come by and dig through the archives?”

  “Sure. Bring me a sandwich will you?”

  “Pig foot and a bottle of beer?”

  “A roast beef with some coleslaw on the side will do, Ma Rainey.”

  “Bet.”

  Cradling the receiver, Ingram stepped out of the booth as a prowl car pulled to a stop.

  “Hey, you know what to do,” the cop in the passenger seat said from the car. He was pointing the end of his nightstick at him.

  “What’s this about?”

  “Less mouth, more following my orders,” the cop said, exiting to the sidewalk. The one who’d been driving joined his partner.

  Roughly, the first one pushed Ingram toward a wall, the nightstick jabbed him between his shoulder blades. “Spread ’em. You got warrants, wants, huh?”

  “You ain’t got nothin’ on me.”

  “We got plenty on you, asshole,” the second cop said. “Get your lyin’ pictures in a special edition of Life magazine, huh, Ingram? The all fried chicken and watermelon issue?”

  The other cop was patting him down and leaned toward his ear. “Any time, day or night, it could happen, Ingram. We say that camera in your hand was mistaken for a gun. Boom, there goes your head. Maybe you get a flat tire and when a duty-bound officer stops to render assistance, he has to put you down ’cause you went all apeshit what with your known hatred of the police.” The odor of onions and cigarettes was on his breath.

  “You about done, officer?” The contents of his pockets had been tossed on the sidewalk.

  “Any goddamn time, Ingram.” He tapped him in the back with the nightstick and the two departed.

  Ingram bent over to pick up his items. When he straightened up, he saw an older woman with her shopping cart, the kind the elderly wheeled their shopping bags in. They exchanged a nod.

  Returning to his car and camera in it, Ingram then took a few pictures of what the Disciples had painted on the phone booth. He’d be damned if he was going to let the cops scare him or throw him off his game.

  NOT LONG afterward, Crossman let Ingram in the back way to the Eagle’s offices on Central Avenue. He was an average height, slightly overweight middle-aged individual who in addition to his part-time job at the also weekly Sentinel, also freelanced with several of the same publications Ingram did. This included the digest Jet and Dapper, a Black men’s magazine that recently had begun publishing more short stories. Today he was in his shirt sleeves and had his much-traveled pipe in hand. Ingram gave him the paper bag with his food in it.

  On Crossman’s desk were marked-up articles and photos with red crop marks on them. Idly, Ingram sifted through them, noting the color death picture of a man’s body laid out in the morgue, covered by a sheet. Regarding the discoloration on the corpse’s neck, he had a notion of who this was. He picked up the photo, showing it to Crossman. “This Neal Atkins, the burglar?”

  “Yeah. But you know I can’t run that one. I got this Little League team picture, but he was a kid then.” He tapped the picture of the smiling kids in their uniforms with his finger as Ingram regarded the shot. “Also got a mug shot, but that’s not appropriate either.”

  “I hear you.” Ingram put the photo back.

  “I talked to the landlady where Atkins laid his head. She told me the cops had been there and tore his place apart on the day he died. Even busted into some of the walls.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “That, among other issues, I’ll raise in the article. There’s also talk he may have been a jailhouse informant and was killed because of that.”

  “The cops won’t admit he was.”

  “I know, but I have to raise it. Anyway, thanks for the grub, Harry. I realized when you’d called, I hadn’t dirtied a plate since breakfast.” He stuck the pipe in the corner of his mouth and Ingram closed the door. “What are you looking for?” he asked. There were two others inside, both typing away at their desks.

  Ingram told him.

  “Rickler, yeah,” Crossman said, puffing a plume of aromatic smoke out of his mouth. “That’s the fella runs a joint over in Gardena. A swanky card parlor called the Emerald Room. Bomb went off there once.”

  “Say what?”

  Crossman continued, “Blew out some front windows but didn’t do any real damage and nobody got hurt.”

  “Is he mobbed up?”

  “Not like you mean. Maybe he has to kick back something to whatever there is of the mafia around these parts, but hell, this isn’t New York.”

  “It is not.”

  “If anything,” Crossman offered, “I’d wager he has ties to the downtown Caucasians. Drinking their lunches at the Pacific Dining Car and lamenting you negroes going wild while playing snooker at the Jonathan Club.”

  Ingram searched through the paper’s physical archives of bound newspapers and found the article that had run about the bombing at the Emerald Room in February of 1962. The Gardena Police Department at the time said the investigation was ongoing and they were receiving assistance from the close-by Sheriff’s sub-station. He made a few notes from the piece and continued his research. In the Entertainment section from eleven months ago he found another small item about the club. It was about a young Japanese American woman winning the Miss Gardena beauty contest. The picture accompanying the piece showed a tall, wide-chested white man in a suit with a matinée idol smile handing a bouquet of roses to the winner. The caption identified him as local entrepreneur Gavin Rickler, a graduate of USC. That was the extent of what Ingram discovered in the archives. He rose, stretching, and put the bound newspapers back in place in order.

  “Find anything?” Crossman asked when Ingram stopped by his open office door. The editor was leaning back in a swivel chair, hands tucked behind his head.

  “Ah, you know, maybe a thread to something else. What do you know about Rickler’s club?”

  “I know it was started with an investment from Ernie Primm. This was after the war and Primm had visions of making Gardena a Vegas. He owned two or three of the card clubs in town and was looking to put up more of them. The other owners of course balked, so the deal was he decided to own a piece of a couple other places on the QT-like.”

  “That’s where Rickler came in?”

  He straightened up, taking his pipe off a short stack of galleys. “Yeah, I think he showed up in ’58 or ’59. He’d been a standout baseball and basketball star at ’SC several years before.” He produced a pouch of tobacco and proceeded to pack a sizable pinch of flakes into the pipe bowl.

  “The modern face of the casino owner,” Ingram said. “Do you know what he did when he left college before he got to Gardena?”

  His friend shook his head from side to side. “Sorry, no.” Crossman was bent forward, putting a wood match he’d sparked onto the tobacco in his pipe bowl. He got it going and cocking his head to the side, offered, “’SC has an alumni magazine you know.”

  “Okay, might have to run that down. Thanks, Wes.”

  Crossman took his pipe out of his mouth and shook the stem at Ingram. “Whatever the heck it is you’re up to, think about turning it into a true crime piece. Bob says he wants more of that too for the mag.”

  “Good to know,” Ingram said as he started out. Bob was Robert Jeffers, the publisher of Dapper. Between trying to find Tolbert, his preparation for his upcoming appearance on the Lomax show this coming Thursday and trying to get a handle on his picture-book project, he doubted he’d have time or the mental agility to do such a piece. But no sense telling Wes all that. Have to keep your editor happy, he’d learned long ago.

  THAT EVENING he and Claire attended a fundraiser sponsored by the Free Press to raise monies for the Disciples in the lawsuit they were preparing to level against the city and the police department. The gathering took place in the Venice West Café, which was an institution in the Slum by the Sea. More than one Hollywood celebrity was milling about with the regular folk.

  “That’s Brando,” Claire said to Ingram. There was standing room only inside the café and the crowd had spilled out onto the sidewalk on Dudley. Actor Marlon Brando was about two yards from them talking to a few others, his head back as he laughed.

  “You sound kinda breathless when you say his name.”

  “Don’t I?” Her eyes sparkled at him, and they kissed quickly.

  “Hey you two.”

  “Hi, Gerry,” Claire said.

  “What’s going on, man?” Ingram said to Gerry Tackwood.

  “Boss has me out here covering the event.”

  Ingram smiled. “Make sure you get a great quote.”

  “Oh, I will.” He had his portable tape recorder with him, its strap slung across his torso and the device down at his side. A police car rolled by, the two officers in the car eyeing the crowd, but the vehicle continued on.

  Ingram said to his friend, “You know anybody over at USC?”

  “A couple of adjuncts. Why, you looking for work there?”

  “Harry’s looking for a man who disappeared during the riots,” Claire said. “Getting paid for it too.”

  “Well, look at you.” Tackwood smiled genuinely.

  “There’s an ’SC angle,” Ingram said. “I’m going to go over to their library to look through the alumni magazine but was hoping to talk to someone who’d been around there for a time about a connected guy named Gavin Rickler who went there in the ’50s.”

  Tackwood nodded. “One of them I know might be of help. I’ll ask.”

  “Thanks, Ger.”

  Inside, an older balding man in glasses had come to the front and raised his hands for the crowd to quiet down.

  “That’s Lawrence Lipton,” Tackwood said. “I’m gonna slip inside.”

  “For sure,” Ingram said.

  Lipton was a poet and his novel of a few years ago, The Holy Barbarians, had made it known there was a beat scene in L.A. as there was in places like San Francisco and the East Village in New York. He also wrote a weekly column in the Freep called The Wasp. Ingram and Claire edged toward the entrance to better hear him.

  “My fellow friends and ratfinks,” Lipton was saying, “’cause I know you’re out there among the real of us, you under-the-covers Parker G2ers and maybe even J. Edgar’s goon squaders.” The audience hooted, the sound filling the compact space. Lipton continued, “We come here tonight for as we know what went down not too many miles inland from here, while it was destruction, like what we did for war-torn Europe, we must enact a kind of Marshall Plan for our ghettos and under-privileged across the land of wealth and honey. As Art said in his newspaper, ‘The negroes have voted!’ No more money for A-bombs and money for milk and books. Tonight we can take that first step and bring it to the man like it’s never been brought to him before.”

  Roars of approval again filled the room. After Lipton was finished, several other people spoke, including the lawyer for the Disciples and Dorrell Zinum. Art Kunkin, the Freep’s publisher, was the last to come to the front. His job was to make the pitch for people to dig deep and donate to the fundraiser. As he did this, several medium-sized tin buckets were passed around inside and out. It didn’t take long for the buckets to be stuffed with cash and checks. At some point the patrol car that had been by earlier had returned and was now parked across the street, the two cops inside, smoking and watching.

  “Good to see you again, Anita.” The white man who’d stepped onto the sidewalk was in his forties, fit and tanned like a tennis player. He wore slacks, a stylish sports jacket and a turtleneck. His rugged features were complemented with sandy brown hair and sideburns, and his mustache was full but not bushy. He was the lawyer representing the Disciples.

  He kissed her on the cheek and turned his attention on Ingram.

  “Clyde, this is Harry, and Harry this is Clyde Kennedy, who is representing the Zinum family in their suit against the Police Department.”

  “Good to meet you,” Ingram said.

  They shook hands. “I’ve heard about you, Harry.”

  “Yeah?”

  “From Dot. She’s bragged on you even before your famous photo made you a household name.”

  “Then you must know Anton,” Ingram said.

  “That’s right. We’ve known each other for about twenty years. Back when Anita and her sister were knee high.”

  “They babysat us a few times,” she added, squeezing his upper arm. “He and Ingrid would have movie night and we’d watch Popeye cartoons with popcorn and candy because they had a projector. Clyde represented the cartoonist union local back then so he could get us the films.” Abruptly she stopped her reminiscing, giving the older man a solemn look. “I miss her too.”

  “Thanks, honey, so do I.” He looked off as Dorrell Zinum had appeared and she was signaling to him. “Gotta go confer with my client. Let’s get together soon.”

  She kissed his cheek. “We will.”

  “Looking forward to tipping a seltzer with you, Harry.”

  “Same here, Clyde.”

  When he was gone, Ingram looked questioningly at Claire.

  “His first wife, Ingrid, died unexpectantly. Heart attack out of nowhere. She was pregnant at the time.”

  “Damn.”

  “It really knocked him on his heels, ya know? He dropped into the bottle for a time but with help from Anton, and my mom and dad and some other friends who didn’t give up on him, he climbed back out. Somehow even when he was living in this threadbare apartment above a machinist shop, he’d managed to hold on to his law license. Anyway, he’s been going to his AA meetings for more than a decade. Now he just lives for his work.”

  “He didn’t re-marry?”

  “No. According to Mom, he hasn’t had any lasting girlfriends either.”

  “You know what them bluesmen says, whiskey and women done ruined my life.”

  In his ear she said, “And Bessie said she needed a hot dog for her roll.”

  “You should be careful how you tease me. Isn’t it Be Kind to Veterans week?”

  “You know by now I don’t be teasing.”

  “How true.”

  Though the event was over, plenty of attendees were still hanging around. A set of bongos had been brought out along with a guitar. As the unmistakable odor of marijuana persisted, Lipton and a younger woman in white chinos, a striped shirt and a straw cowboy hat recited their poems to the improvised musical accompaniment.

  “And the war birds haunt the skies over the rice paddies of the villagers,” she called out, swaying to the bongo beat. The people standing around clapped or snapped their fingers in approval. “And the bombs they drop and their eyes flicker red as the jungle ignites and we must ask the reasons why and decry the excess when the poor can only look through the window and wonder.” The young poet stopped swaying as the clicks of snapped fingers rose. Lipton held up one of her arms as if she were a contender who’d just won her boxing match.

  Ingram and Claire moved away. Alongside the café was a narrow passageway swathed in near darkness. Her back against the brick wall, Claire hiked up a leg and wrapped it partly around Ingram as she used her hand to guide him inside her. At the moment she didn’t notice that one of her heels was spiking a book on the ground that had either been discarded or somehow fallen from someone’s grasp unnoticed. Though why they’d been in the passageway who knew. The title of the clothbound book was The Ways of Tantra, the words in worn gold leaf.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Anita,” he sighed.

  “I’m so crazy for you,” she replied as he thrust into her. She gasped with pleasure and gripped his shoulders, digging her nails into the material of his coat. “Now shut up and fuck me.”

  IN THE police car still stationed across the street, one of the uniformed cops continued making field notes of the observed proceedings at the cafe.

  Those field notes, among others, landed on the desk of a captain in the LAPD’s administrative offices, nicknamed the Glass House, walking distance from City Hall. The captain was in the intelligence division’s command chain and reported directly to Chief Parker. He was a compact man with a broad face and broad chest. Like Parker, he was a decorated veteran of World War II, having seen action in the Pacific Theater. And like Crossman, he smoked a pipe, though he preferred a long-stemmed one akin to what a lighthouse keeper would smoke. He puffed away as he perused the reports. His phone rang and he picked up the handset.

  “Yes,” he said.