“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.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hamish Segal hadn’t known where Wicks did his unwinding, but he did know that he wasn’t exclusive to Hoyt. Or at least if you had a mind to employ his services, there was a used car lot on Beverly near Normandie where a message could be left. The outfit was called Gladfair Auto Sales. Ingram concluded it would be a waste of time to keep watch on the place, and surely nothing good would come of his going in there to ask for Wicks. He concluded for the time being, the smart move was continuing to look for Hanisha and Clovis.

  “That’s the thing, Harry,” Edwards was saying over the phone. “I only know about them ’cause this chick I know knew her.”

  “You think she’d talk to me?”

  “She’s not in the free advice business.”

  “Didn’t think she would be.”

  Soon Ingram was at Dolphin’s of Hollywood, a record shop with listening booths on Vernon near Central. Like the racetrack, it was miles from the famous part of town. The LAPD used to station men in front to stop white kids from entering, listening and dancing to that jungle music. The woman who had been cooking the evening that Ingram and Edwards had visited Hanisha had mentioned Clovis and a record shop. Edwards told him to ask for Sherry and to be there exactly at 12:50 in the afternoon, her break time. They talked out behind the shop on a small patio area.

  “You gotta understand,” Sherry said as he handed a ten across. “Bell’s kind of the religious type.” She was referring to the shop’s manager. “She ain’t no nun her damn self as much as she likes to gossip, but the less she knows about my after-hours activities, the better.” Sherry wore a loose-fitting dress and to Ingram she looked like a showgirl only a year or so past her prime. He asked her about Hanisha. The story he and Edwards had cooked up to tell her was the two of them were looking to put on a shindig for some out-of-town Elks lodge members they were trying to get to invest in a tire store.

  “Now look, if you’re looking for some chicks to, you know, show these fellas a good time, I can line ’em up. But no whorin’, get me?” She pointed an immaculately red-nailed finger at him. “We tee-hee at their stale jokes, rub their little bald heads, maybe even let them rest a hand on a thigh, but that’s it. We help lubricate them and you make your sale. Now if one of those gals makes another arrangement, that’s different. But I’m no pimp in high heels. Dig?”

  “I appreciate what you’re telling me, Sherry. But the thing is a couple of these guys was out here before and, well, they’re kinda partial to Hanisha’s girls, if you see what I’m saying. But of course, not leaving you out.”

  She made a sound in her throat. “Yeah, she got that mumbo-jumbo she spouts about the power between our legs and the way to spiritual enlightenment through the mastering of the chakra for us females, but she’s just a hustler. Her and Clovis.”

  “How close are they?”

  “They ain’t that way in the sack if that’s what you mean. Him and his tough guy act,” she said derisively. “Back in their club days he figured he had to act like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He called hisself her manager, baby,” she said, head cocked.

  “Yeah, I heard she was a singer.”

  “Not much of one, but we got a couple of her records inside.”

  “Is Hanisha her real name?”

  Sherry laughed. “Hell naw. When she was gigging, she got onto that spiritualist bullcrap she likes to spout and changed it to that highfalutin one-name jive.” She laughed again. “Her country ass is Anna Mae Stanford.”

  “And Clovis is not what he pretends to be either?”

  “He went to Pepperdine. And I don’t mean he was a janitor over there.”

  “You know this how?”

  The look she fixed him with was one of practiced exasperation. “All men like to brag on themselves, don’t they?”

  “But he could have just been telling you that to try and impress you.”

  “Oh, I know. See, though, I saw his picture in the yearbook. He showed me. And when we was talking then, he dropped that no-education talk he likes to fool people with.”

  “What’s his last name?”

  “Gonna check?”

  “Do you mind?”

  “No, you’ll see I’m telling you straight. It’s Clovis Mitchell.”

  He catalogued this, then asked, “So you can round up the party girls Hanisha usually gets?”

  “Maybe,” she said cagily. “If it was worth my while.” She checked her watch.

  “It could be,” which wasn’t quite a lie.

  From inside something crashed to the floor.

  Sherry said, “I better get back to work. But you want the honeys, and I’m talking about a few that are top heavy like battleships, Mr. Harry, I’m your girl.” She handed Ingram a torn piece of paper with her name and number already on it. She figured to out-hustle the hustler, he concluded. “Call me and you won’t be sorry.” She kissed him on the cheek and returned to her duties in the record shop.

  Leaving, Ingram considered driving over to Pepperdine, a private Christian-oriented college on Vermont near Manchester. He recalled meeting two men at different times who’d also seen action in Korea taking classes there. Maybe there were a thousand students enrolled at the college, but not many more, he estimated. And Clovis Mitchell had gone there? It wasn’t just religious classes they offered, though certainly that was the core. But if he recalled correctly, you could study business management and even psychology there. It amused him to think of Clovis Mitchell in a suit and tie telling some patient their problems all had to do with a mother complex. Stopping at a light, Ingram laughed out loud at this, his window down. Several pedestrians gawked at the crazy man behind the wheel as he took off again.

  Ingram sobered up, wondering how Mitchell had paid for the tuition. He had no idea how much it cost but he figured it couldn’t be cheap. If the Providers were footing his bill, why? Because from what Sherry had said, it didn’t sound like he and Anna Mae, now Hanisha, had found the pot of gold in the entertainment business—though that could have been the way they and Hoyt met. Her being a singer, it was plausible she’d have met Ben Kinslow at one of the local spots the last time he was living in town. Maybe even dated, he wondered. She was procuring for Hoyt and she recommended his friend to the rich man as his driver—all the while the three of them looking to blackmail the guy. Clovis might have taken those pictures.

  That evening he kept an appointment he’d made regarding the missing diary.

  “You were in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.”

  “Yes, sir, I was.”

  “I’m not jivin’ you when I say that was something.” Ingram sat across from the wiry Charlie Sutton. He was a medium-built Black man with graying hair and an easy way about him. He was a partner in a print shop on Western Avenue that did letterpress and offset work. They were in Sutton’s comfortable home on west Seventy-Fourth Street in the Hyde Park area. Overhead a plane rattled the windows slightly on its way to landing at the airport.

  “Tell him what you did in the big war, honey,” his wife, Joyce Sutton, said from the kitchen where she washed the dishes they’d eaten on.

  “You were also in World War II? Damn.”

  “Yeah, part of the Balloon Busters,” he admitted.

  “The 320th?” Ingram said.

  “You heard of us?”

  “Had an uncle Elliot with them on my mother’s side,” he said fondly. “He died three days after Omaha Beach. I always remember him taking me to the corner store and buying me a comic book and jawbreaker when I was a kid.”