“Okay, Paul Bunyan.”

  As she walked away, Ingram again fixated on Anita Claire and her well-being. He was going to have to tell her something, but how much of the truth was he going to reveal? If he got linked to Morty’s death, she could easily be labeled an accessory—he knew enough about that from delivering legal papers. It would torpedo the campaign and he’d forever be known as the man who sunk Bradley’s career. Rather than these prospects making him queasy, his appetite intensified. He made an effort not to wolf his meal down.

  “I’d ask how was it, but I think I know.” McClure surveyed the empty plate and the bowl the grits had come in.

  Ingram used his last piece of toast to sop up the leavings. “Hit the spot.”

  “Good to know. Wouldn’t want you to start chewing the roof beams.” She took away the dishes.

  His belly full, Ingram considered taking a room at the Y to lie low, but didn’t like the idea of leaving his place unguarded for Wicks to break into. That would be making his photos vulnerable, and he’d be damned if he was going to see them stolen or destroyed. Back at his place, he again considered what he could do with his photographs and negatives. When he’d previously separated out his negatives, he’d put a grip of them in a Stetson hat box and the remainders in a Gladstone luggage bag with twin sewn-on straps, one of the few items his long-departed father had left behind. For the moment he’d stuck these in the hall closet.

  Maybe he could arrange for his stuff to be stored at the Eagle or Sentinel, though he doubted either newspaper would go for that. The other clickers they used would have already asked. Too bad he didn’t know anyone with one of those fallout shelters in their backyard. But could be he might pay an overdue visit to his mother, thereby storing his photos with her. Otherwise, it meant paying a monthly fee to store them in town, and who knew how long he’d have to do that?

  Anita Claire called him back to say hi, and that for the next few days she was going to be too busy getting things ready for King’s visit to see him.

  “Of course, honey, I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I wanted to hear—”

  “No, the honey part.”

  “Oh that. Slip of the tongue.”

  “I’d say something a good girl shouldn’t say but I’m already getting looks speaking low into the phone. I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  “Bye for now.”

  “See you soon.”

  “That’s right.”

  Hearing that she was okay relaxed Ingram to a degree. He knew he better not get overconfident. He had some rope in his closet and used that to tie off the knob of the rear door in his darkroom off the back porch. He tied the other end of the rope to one of the legs of the utility sink. He debated moving his dresser to help block the front door but figured that might be going overboard. He did decide to sleep in the front room, though, gun handy. He also parked his car in front rather than his slot off the alley for a quicker getaway if need be. By eight that night he was worked up again, wondering if and how Wicks might come at him. He drank hard liquor, enough to take the edge off but not enough to spoil his aim. He relaxed again and by ten-thirty was asleep in his chair.

  Until.

  “Hey, Harry, your car’s on fire.”

  Ingram came awake in a start, disoriented, still embodied in the dream he was having where he was flying on a magic carpet over snowy Pork Chop Hill in South Korea. He wiped his face as he again heard his name shouted up at him from outside.

  “Your Plymouth’s burning, Harry.”

  The gun in his fist, Ingram came out of his chair and out the front door of his apartment in a rush. He pounded down the stairs, several locks of his neighbors’ doors turning as he passed. He reached the sidewalk and for an instant was transfixed at the sight of his car on fire. There was a line of flame from his hood up his windshield, across the roof then down the rear glass and the trunk. That meant someone had poured gas on his car then set a match to the trail.

  As Ingram started toward the vehicle, a blush of yellow-white flame flared from the rear end, driving him back. The photo chemicals in the trunk had caught fire. Emerging from the glare came Wicks around the rear of the Belvedere, blasting away at Ingram. He was already diving behind the hedges. The people who’d been watching the car burn scattered for safety. Hitting the ground, Ingram returned fire. The flames whooshed hotter and brighter and Ingram couldn’t tell if he’d struck his target. But there was no more shooting. Wicks must have run off, having failed in his ambush. The sirens getting closer, Ingram tossed his gun in the bushes next to his apartment.

  Seconds later a fire truck blared around the near corner. A fireman in the truck’s jump seat yelled out the window to no one in particular. “Get back, it’s going to blow.”

  Sure enough, the car’s fuel tank, strapped under the trunk area, blew, lifting the rear of the car up then slamming it down in a boom heard blocks away. In an odd twist of physics, the oxygen in the vicinity was sucked upward, extinguishing that part of the fire. The ruined back portion of the car was charred black and smoldering while the front end still burned.

  Parked in the street, the firemen jumped off their truck, connecting the big hose to a nearby hydrant. They set about stopping the blaze before anything else burned. The Rambler parked behind Ingram hadn’t caught on fire, but the windshield had been blown out from the explosion with other damage done as well. The onlookers had returned. Ingram knew more than one of them had seen him hide his gun, had in fact seen him shooting back at the white man shooting at him. But as they were Black and knew what kind of hell he could receive at the whims of the white-dominated Los Angeles Police Department, no one was volunteering information. He was also thankful the fire department hadn’t been close enough to hear the shots. One of his neighbors, a man who worked for the city’s Department of Water and Power, gave Ingram a knowing nod.

  “What happened?” the fireman asked Ingram, who’d told him this was his car on fire. The other man was big armed and blond-haired with hazel eyes.

  “Somebody torched it for kicks, I guess,” he answered.

  “You didn’t fall asleep smoking in it, did you?”

  “Nope. I was upstairs dozing and the next thing I know somebody’s yelling about a car on fire.” Ingram pointed toward his window. “I took a look and could see it was mine.” When he’d heard his name being shouted a warning had gone off in his head. It had been Wicks yelling up to him to get him outside.

  The fireman looked over to see his men finishing with the car. There were hosing down others as a precaution. He turned back to Ingram. “The police will want to talk to you.”

  Ingram shrugged. “Sure. I’ll give you my name and everything.”

  The fireman was obviously surprised at his openness. His experiences in the ghetto had informed him people in questionable situations like this were usually evasive. “Okay, fine.”

  No police had arrived by the time Ingram had finished giving his information to the fireman and gone back upstairs. He didn’t have full coverage on his Plymouth, so replacing it was on him. By the time he settled with the owner of the Rambler, his rate was sure to increase. Now he had to go to ground lest Wicks make another play for his hide. But for what remained of tonight until daybreak, he wasn’t worried about another attack. He regretted not getting any photos of his car burning. That would have made the front page of the Sentinel for sure, as it tended more toward the sensational than the more politically inclined Eagle.

  “Some One-Shot wonder I am,” he mumbled before falling into a deep sleep.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Don’t forget to stop and get the curtain rods on your way home, Paul, they’re ready,” his wife said.

  “I won’t,” Paul Westmore replied. “See you tonight.”

  “Have a good day.”

  “You too, dear.” The front door quietly closed.

  From his position he also heard the door of the Buick LeSabre parked in the driveway open and then, after a few seconds, close. But the ignition wasn’t engaged. Westmore must have noticed the gate to the backyard was partially open. The car door opened again and closed; footfalls along the concrete approached. He got ready, sucking in a breath and holding it. Maybe Westmore figured one of the neighborhood kids must have hit a baseball into the back and hadn’t bothered to close the gate again after retrieving the damn thing.

  “Shit,” Westmore swore, reaching the gate and seeing one of his patio chairs had been upended and moved onto his lawn. Focused on that, he stepped into his backyard to see what else had been upset.

  “If you yell, I’ll blow you goddamn head off.”

  Westmore turned to see an angry colored man holding a gun on him. He raised his hands. “Mister, I’ve got exactly forty-three dollars in my wallet. Take it, please, and leave us alone.”

  Harry Ingram said, “I’d like nothing more than to do that, Westmore, but I’m going to need something from you all right, just not money.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “You’re with Hamer, Nolvang and Jessup, and you’re the attorney named in the faked-up court papers that almost got me killed.”

  He gaped. “Listen, I—”

  “In the pool house.” Ingram flicked the gun in that direction. Taking up the rear, he marched the lawyer around the pool and into what was little more than a shed for changing and storing pool-cleaning supplies. There was a chair in there and Ingram had Westmore sit down. There was a small window of closed frosted louvre glass slats.

  “What do you know about Winston Hoyt?”

  Westmore frowned as if Ingram had spoken to him in a foreign language.

  “I’m not fucking around.”

  “I realize that. Look, I know Hoyt golfs with one of the partners. I know that when I was told to execute the order, I did so knowing there was no such case, that is to say not active, at least. But I did as I was told. That’s all I know, mister.”

  “You had your office specifically ask for me.”

  He’d been sitting with his hands partly raised. Now he set them on his thighs. “That was through the partner, not me.”

  Ingram considered going at the partner, but putting a rod on more than one well-off white man, and another lawyer at that, seemed to be pressing his luck. He said, “What do you know about that house I was sent to in Altadena?”

  Westmore balked.

  Ingram tapped the slide of the .45 against his temple. “You ever hear one of these babies go off? They’re loud and leave a nasty hole.”

  “You seem like a reasonable man,” he began. “You don’t want to do anything you’ll regret.”

  “The house?”

  “It’s a—you know—for assignations.”

  “Small words.”

  He shrugged. “Where the partners or certain clients can take a broad who isn’t their wife.”

  “I bet the partner who’s Hoyt’s buddy lives out that way. Nice old-money South Pasadena maybe?”

  Westmore’s horrified look confirmed Ingram’s guess. The house where the sneaky pics had been taken also popped into his head.

  “Where does Hoyt live?”

  “You can’t get to him.”

  “Satisfy my curiosity.”

  “Santa Monica. On the beach.”

  “Do the Providers meet out there?”

  Again Westmore fixed him with a frown. “You better leave that alone. Far alone.”

  “I’m hoping to get a membership card and secret initiation ring.”

  Westmore went silent. Ingram considered taking a page from a Dapper story and pistol whipping him to get him to talk, which brought a crooked smile to his face. If he learned where they held their meetings, he imagined bursting through a skylight like the Crime Smasher in the comics and interrupting their hoodoo ceremony praying to the skull of Thomas Jefferson or some such.

  “Wait five minutes after I leave.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then you can tell your boss to kiss my shiny Black ass.” He quit the pool house and walked back along the driveway. He was stepping past the Buick when he heard Westmore’s front door creak open behind him.

  “Who are you?” the woman of the house called out. “What are you doing here and where’s my husband?”

  Ingram didn’t look back at her as he jogged diagonally across the adjoining neighbor’s lawn toward his borrowed car.

  “Paul,” yelled the wife. “Paul,” she repeated. A neighbor on the far side of where Ingram was came to his front door. “What are you doing here?” she demanded of Ingram.

  “What is it, Tricia?”

  “That negro . . . person,” she yelled.

  Her neighbor, in short sleeves and tie, came out of his house to catch Ingram’s eye as he drove away in a car he’d borrowed from Strummer Edwards, a humble Ford Falcon. In the rearview, Ingram saw the neighbor standing next to Tricia as they both stood on her lawn. Both were probably memorizing the car’s plate as it receded. But Westmore would tell them not to worry, don’t call the police. He wouldn’t want anyone at his firm knowing about this confrontation. What could one half-crazy colored man do against the Providers? He chuckled.

  In no hurry, Ingram drove from Hancock Park to his temporary digs, a comfortable room in the J-Flats. This part of town, on the edge of Echo Park, had gotten its nickname from the fact that when Japanese immigrated to L.A., they tended to come through here first as there were other family members around. There were a few Black families living in the area as well.

  Not that Ingram was worried about getting run out of the J-Flats as he went along the aisles of the Fujiya Market picking up several items including ice cold Asahi beer. Through a connection of Josh Nakano’s, he was holed up in a room of a large house up the hill from the market on Clinton. The place he was staying in was where the road curved, the freeway below. The widow who owned the two-story regularly rented out her top rooms to college students. She knew Ingram wasn’t one, but hadn’t asked any questions because of Nakano. He’d paid for two weeks in advance in cash. He was pretty certain he wouldn’t be here that long, that one way or the other he had to bring things to a head—he’d be damned if he was going to always have to look over his shoulder for Wicks. He’d also moved out his boxed negatives, storing them for the time being in a locker at the Y. If he was alive after all this, he was going to secure them someplace more permanent for damn sure.

  Leaving with his purchases, Ingram walked past a freedom rally sign taped in a corner of the market’s display window. Back in his room he prepared his lunch: pickled mackerel from a tin with the spice furikake sprinkled on it, Japanese-style potato salad and a beer. In three days the rally was going down. He knew from Anita that King was already in town and staying with a friend in Sugar Hill. His meal finished, Ingram went outside with his beer, standing at the guardrail where the hill sloped down to the 101 Freeway below. Northwest of the freeway was a fenced-in plot of land containing the rusting hulks of trolley cars. Overhead a seagull circled the junkyard. The birds often came this far inland to try to pluck a trout from the stocked Echo Park Lake. Ingram’s plan, such as it was, involved keeping his head down for now and taking his pictures at the rally. He polished off his beer and walked back inside.

  “Harry?” Crossman said over the phone.

  “It’s me, Wes, heard you were looking for me.”

  “A big-headed white man came in here looking for you.”

  Wicks. “Shit. He get out of hand?”

  “Well, he was pretty tipsy. Mind you, this was about two in the afternoon today. He waved around a hundred-dollar bill asking if anybody knew where you were. Him broadcasting you weren’t at your apartment.”

  Crossman told him after Wicks left, he’d called Shoals Pettigrew, who he knew slightly. Ingram’s childhood friend didn’t know where he might be. But it was Pettigrew who’d called Edwards and Nakano, who in turn told Ingram the editor wanted to talk to him.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, we were ribbing this guy and I suppose a roomful of colored folks making fun of this square-headed ofay got under his pickled skin. He added a twenty to the hundred along with the pistol he pulled out.”

  Ingram’s stomach tightened. “He hurt anybody, Wes?”

  “No, he waved it around and insulted us and even blasted a round into the ceiling. Chester got him calmed down though, putting on the nice-negro act. Buttering him up, jus’ us darkies down here on the plantation. He said he’d never liked you and would ask around as to your location. The white boy left a phone number and split. Bumping into the doorframe on his way out with his drunk ass.”

  Linotype operator Chester Howard was seventy at least. He’d been a typesetter at the paper for many years. He’d also worked for the Sentinel and the L.A. Tribune. He was a veteran of World War I, a former Black Rattler. Legend was he’d survived an attack by white vets in the violent Red Summer of 1919, when Black veterans among others were set upon and at times lynched. This for daring to think they could exercise the rights they fought for overseas back home. Howard kept a pint bottle and pearl-black .38 in a rickety table next to his Linotype machine.

  “Wes, I’ll take care of this. You think Chester would be up to calling this guy?”

  “Harry, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe you should call the cops.”

  “They won’t do shit about this, Wes. Only me.”

  “Okay . . .” he drawled. “What do you want me to tell him to say? ’Cause you know that ornery old bastard will do it.” He chuckled nervously.

  “I’ll call you back in about fifteen minutes. I gotta check something out first.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  After he said good-bye, Ingram hung up the house phone. It was on a two-tiered table with the Yellow and White Pages on the bottom level. He chanced to look over to see the widow, Akane Ochi, standing in the doorway to her kitchen. She didn’t speak much English, but she nodded at him, smiling. He nodded and smiled back. He started to dial a number. The widow had returned, holding a plate of fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies toward him. He took two.