He nudged Ingram with the toe of his shoe. “Where’s the film?”

  “I . . . dropped the roll off earlier . . . for processing,” he managed to say. Ingram was counting on the cop assuming the Speed Graphic used a film roll and not flats.

  “Whatever.” He let the bigger camera drop then kicked it, sending it skidding across the sidewalk.

  Ingram watched him do this, mumbling, barely able to focus as they hauled him off the ground. He coughed blood and his head hurt worse than any hangover he’d ever had.

  “He needs an ambulance,” someone declared.

  They handcuffed and threw him in the back of a patrol car. Fuzzy, Ingram could only distinguish the low murmur from the crowd as two cops got in the front bench seat. The driver started the engine. As the car drove forward, the officer on the passenger side turned halfway around to grin at the beaten photojournalist.

  “Man, I ain’t wailed on a sambo like that in a month of Sundays. Ooohwee, you gonna be all puffy, some blue on that black.” He laughed and his partner did too.

  Ingram slurred a reply, but he couldn’t understand his words. Then he lost consciousness.

  SEVERAL BLOCKS east, the Channel 5 News chopper passed over an industrial section near Alameda and Vernon. Down below were various types of concerns, including a bottling plant and a soap manufacturer. Though the rioting hadn’t reached this area, several of the businesses were closed. On the shadowed side of a compact unmarked building, a burglar used a prybar and hammer to break open two heavy duty padlocks securing the hasps on the door. With the police otherwise engaged, and no activity in the near vicinity, he’d picked now to pull off his illegal entry. He’d hit a few concerns in the area and had noticed the double locks on this building, wondering what may lay within.

  Wearing gloves, he pushed the door open and, thumbing his flashlight on, stepped inside the gloom. He supposed he’d been hoping to find diamond tipped drills or some such. He was momentarily perplexed by the nature of the equipment he was looking at. What the hell had he found?

  CHAPTER TWO

  “What is wrong with you?”

  Anita Claire stood on the side of Ingram’s bed in the prison ward of General Hospital, shaking her head ruefully. She’d already asked him how he was doing before scolding him for fighting with the police.

  “I was striking a blow for the working class,” he rasped.

  “And those cops struck blows for the ruling class. Harry, you know better. This could have ended a lot worse.”

  “I know, honey. But they were gonna whale on me no matter what.”

  “It’s wrong that you’re so right.”

  “Let alone what they did to Faraday.”

  The couple got quiet.

  Ingram ached all over and it hurt to try to smile. He’d had a grinding headache since he was admitted and the bandage wrapped around his head itched, as did the square of gauze taped to his cheek. His right wrist was cuffed to the bed’s railing. The morphine drip stuck out of his arm.

  Anita Claire leaned down again, and this time, kissed him. “I’m sure glad you’re okay, relatively speaking.” She kissed him once more with greater intensity.

  “How about a little sugar for me, baby?” another prisoner joked. He was a medium-sized Black man in a bed near the window. His arm was in a cast and suspended at an angle to his prone form. His other wrist was handcuffed to the bed like Ingram’s and the three others in the room. There were no chairs or stools in the room and no nightstands either. A policeman sat on guard outside the solid metal door with its reinformed inset window.

  Ingram regarded the man, twisting his lips into a sneer.

  “Just kidding, soul brother,” he winked. “Jealous is all.”

  One of the other prisoners had been allowed to keep a transistor radio brought to him by a visitor. He was listening to the baseball game happening not far from the hospital. The Dodgers were in a national pennant race and had been playing at Dodger Stadium since Wednesday, the night the riots began. Vin Scully, their announcer, noted that today’s crowd was only 29,000 or so, given the “local situation,” as he called it, had affected attendance. He also noted that Willie Crawford, who lived in the curfew zone, had spent the night at Johnny Roseboro’s house.

  When Claire was let in, she’d brought a copy of the morning’s Herald Examiner, which was now folded over and rested atop the thin blanket at the foot of his bed. Somehow, one of Ingram’s shots, from one of the rolls he’d given Stan Chambers the newscaster, had already migrated to its front pages. The picture captured LAPD officers patting down several Black men and women with their hands pressed against a wall. Some had the muzzles of police revolvers pressed to the backs of their heads. The central focus was a male officer roughly searching a female suspect, his hands seemingly lingering inappropriately on her body. Ingram was credited.

  Meanwhile, in the Freep, Gerry Tackwood had termed the incidents of the past several days a “civil unrest.” As in the Black press, his reporting chronicled the questionable shootings of suspected looters by the police and other actions, like their liberal use of dogs and directing firemen to blow people over with pressurized water.

  “I’ve put in a call to Anton,” Claire said.

  “Thank you.” She was referring to Anton Spurlock, a civil rights lawyer who was a friend of her divorced parents. He was what the authorities called a fellow traveler, both for his ideological bent and his providing legal defense for the likes of striking union members and NAACP leadership for organizing boycotts.

  “What about your car?”

  “The cops took my keys and wallet. Though I’m pretty sure Jed could get the car going without them.”

  A Korean War vet like Ingram, Josiah “Jed” Monk was now a mechanic and owner of the Four Aces, a repair shop in South Central. Ingram had done a few photos at his place and a brief interview with Monk the second day of the riots. He and his mechanics had put a NEGRO ESTABLISHMENT sign on their building as well and took turns on guard duty, their pistols within easy reach. They not only kept an eye on their shop but watched a few other businesses on their block, too. Ingram had parked his car at Four Aces before setting off on foot into the riot zone.

  “The cops confiscate your camera too?”

  “I don’t know,” he said flatly. “Can’t remember.”

  Claire’s face clouded, then cleared. She knew the Speed Graphic meant more to him than just a means to make a living. After a beat, she asked, “Did you see it when it happened?”

  Ingram knew what she meant by that shorthand. “Not exactly. But I think it’s on the film.”

  They both kept their voices low, each aware of the possibility one of the prisoners in here was a jailhouse snitch or even a colored cop doing undercover work. Supposedly, they had all been arrested on riot-related charges, but it was not far-fetched to suspect the law had eyes and ears planted to better jam up the soon-to-be-indicted.

  “When the Guard showed up, I glanced over at them and looked back at the sound of the gun firing. Faraday was dead on the spot.” He motioned her closer. “I don’t know if I got the picture of them killing him, Anita. But I took something ’cause the shutter clicked. It was with my old camera.” He started to choke up and she gripped his hand, squeezing hard. They touched foreheads. They both understood the import of what he’d potentially preserved. That this wouldn’t be one more time when the police killed an unarmed Black man and there was no counter to that business-as-usual.

  “So it’s a flat?”

  “Yeah. It’s inside the black plastic the flats come in. I faked out the cops.”

  “Like you do, Houdini,” she said softly, smiling at him.

  He told her where he’d hidden the film.

  She straightened up. “I better fetch it. It’s small but unlikely to stay hidden for too long. It could get swept up with the other trash.”

  “Now who’s lost their cotton pickin’ mind?”

  A hand on her hip, Anita regarded him with mock disdain. “Maybe they beat the sense out of you, but I’m a grown woman.” Her voice had risen.

  “Yes you is,” the one near the window agreed.

  Realizing arguing was pointless, Ingram beckoned her again. He was worried about the film’s safety, too. “I know you know this, but plan this out, okay? And take Strummer with you.”

  His friend Pete “Strummer” Edwards made his living on both sides of the law and was handy with his fists and a pistol. Ingram’s Lenin-quoting girlfriend was no lightweight but still, it was Edwards who hobnobbed with roughnecks on the regular.

  “I don’t need no one to hold my hand,” she said.

  “Could you be more stubborn.”

  She lowered her voice again. “Look, Sergeant Rock, I’m not going off half-cocked. Our people are still in the streets but there are areas where things have cooled down or at least where the Guard has clamped down. Tom has been talking to Dr. King’s folks and he’s probably going to come back to town.” Anita Claire was a field deputy for Tom Bradley, a city councilman. “Once that gets announced, hopefully it’ll help cool things down.”

  Claire continued. “I’m going to do what you soldiers call reconnoitering before I go prancing around. I know how to get my shit together.”

  “Please do,” he emphasized.

  She gave him a peck on the unbandaged cheek, then patted his leg and headed toward the door. “Bye, Harry.”

  “Bye, honey.”

  When she was gone the man at the window asked, “Say, man, she got a sister?”

  Ingram waved him off as the Dodgers got a base hit. If he was a religious man, he ought to pray she’d be all right.

  WALKING ALONG the corridor, Claire spotted Josh Nakano approaching from the opposite direction. He was in his formal attire, a dark suit and somber tie, as the funeral director of the Eternal Sands Mortuary should be. She had to shake the sudden chill his appearance gave her. He wasn’t here to bury her boyfriend. They greeted each other.

  “How’s he doing?” he asked.

  “For a man beat half to death, not too bad. Crazily he still has his front teeth. Doctor said he was concussed but not as terrible as it could have been.” She almost choked up but held her emotions in check.

  Nakano looked off. “Motherfuckers.” He clenched his fist then relaxed his fingers.

  She squeezed his upper arm. “Don’t go getting all nuts now, Josh.”

  “Oh no, of course not, I’ll be the good Oriental and smile in the face of adversity. Shit.”

  “He’ll be glad to see you.”

  “Yeah,” Nakano said, a faraway look in his eyes. He adjusted his glasses and, nodding at her, continued on toward Ingram’s room.

  Outside, tails of gray smoke emanated from the south. Claire got in her ’62 Valiant but didn’t turn the key. She sat there, staring out the windshield, not focused on the hospital personnel, ambulances and what-have-you passing through her field of vision. Breathing deep, she allowed herself to feel the anxiety she’d tucked away when she’d first walked into Ingram’s room earlier. She supposed it worried her how much she cared for him. She knew intellectually how retrograde her mother might say it was for her to entangle herself too much into what happens to her man. You are an individual, women stand on their own two feet, dammit. Still, Anita couldn’t deny that she didn’t like imagining her life without him. At this stage anyway. She turned the key and, after the engine came to life, left the grounds of General Hospital.

  She drove back toward the house she and Ingram rented on South Cloverdale, on the outskirts of the Crenshaw District. Crossing Western on Exposition, she was stopped at a checkpoint and had to produce her identification.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” The fresh-faced young white Guardsman handed her driver’s license back. He touched the edge of his helmet and she continued on.

  Their home was a modest one-story bungalow with a tended front lawn, a flagstone-bordered porch, a blooming flower bed and a decent-sized backyard. The couple had done their share of entertaining since renting the place, including hosting several dominos games on the patio, some after a cookout. When Ingram had his bachelor apartment, playing bones had been the sole providence of his male friends, Nakano and Monk often among the players. Nowadays, the women played too. This included Claire, her mother Dorothy Nielson and one of Claire’s closest friends, Judy Berkson. Judy drank beer and cussed along with the men.

  In the driveway, the burnt odor in the air was sharp in her nostrils. Strummer Edwards would no doubt be willing to accompany her on her foray to search for Harry’s film. She’d already rolled the idea over a couple of times in her head on the drive home. She finally dismissed the notion. She was used to putting it on the line robbing banks—not that her boyfriend knew that. Here she was, involved with her oddball lefty divorced parents and their dangerous hobby. She’d told herself it was to keep them safe. But really, it was exciting. By comparison then, her current task was merely an excursion, right?

  Inside, Claire changed out of her skirt and top and put on cuffed khakis, a button-up work shirt and tennis shoes. Ingram kept his service .45 in the house, and she knew where it was and how to use it. What he didn’t know was she had a gun, too. It wasn’t modesty that kept her from telling him about it. If he knew about the gun, he would naturally ask where’d it come from. If she told him the truth . . . well she wasn’t ready to lay that on him just yet.

  She went into the fenced-in backyard, past a circular glass patio table and other such lawn furniture to the bar-b-que grill that had come with the house. There was space between the back of the grill and the fence. Shading this area were several leafy branches laden with ripening avocadoes from their neighbor’s tree. Claire knelt down on the patch of lawn and removed the brick she’d previously loosened in the back. In the cavity was her gun, a snub-nosed .38 revolver. She put the brick in place again and went back into the house.

  In the living room, Claire dropped the pistol into her handbag. Despite revving herself up, she was aware of the risk she was taking. She wasn’t too worried about being attacked by one of her fellow denizens, drunk on the hubris of striking back at Mister Charlie, if only temporarily. But if the police should stop and search her, they’d find the gun. More than just her job was at stake for carrying around this unregistered gat, she reflected ruefully. But being out and about at a time like this unprotected seemed foolish as well. Had her extracurricular activities with her mother and father rubbed off on her?

  She sighed. Now was not the time to evaluate her outlaw extracurricular activities. She decided to dial around on the radio to see if there were any news bulletins on what was happening before leaving the house.

  “. . . the death in custody of Neal Atkins, arrested during the riots in South Los Angeles, a known sneak thief and house burglar with a long rap sheet, is being looked into by the proper authorities, this broadcast was informed. What is known is he was found hung by a sheet—”

  Claire turned the dial and landed on KGFJ, lingering there. Nathaniel “Magnificent” Montague was one of the station’s popular disk jockeys. He would often riff on his tagline, “Burn, Baby, Burn,” referring to the hot disks he played. But when the riots broke out, his on-air callers started to say his line back to him—but meaning, of course, the actions in the street. Bradley’s office, along with other politicians and the police, had received their own calls from irate taxpayers, white and Black, demanding they tell the station, Montague and his listeners to stop repeating it, as the slogan was encouraging law-breaking and whatnot.

  Before putting on her sunglasses, she caught sight of a framed photograph above the mantle. The photograph, taken by Harry two years ago, was a clear image of a round white pill being released by female fingers into a glass of beer, suspended just above the liquid’s surface. The drink had been intended for Martin Luther King, Jr., who’d come to town to speak. She and Ingram had purposefully spilled the spiked drink. Was the pill meant to kill the civil rights leader, make it seem a heart attack had felled him or incapacitate him in some other way? Clearly, they’d concluded, it was intended to derail what he was about to accomplish, to set the movement back. Four months later, Dr. King was able to give his rousing speech at the historic March on Washington. They never found out what was in the pill and the person who’d put it in the drink had disappeared. Claire pushed the glasses firmly in place on her nose, took a last look at the picture, and out the door she went.

  Like Harry’s, Anita’s plan wasn’t to drive into the fire zone, but to get close and then travel on foot to where he’d hidden the film. Her destination was near the intersection of 90th Street and Broadway. This was not the Watts section, but the rioting had flooded over various parts of South Central, even as far west and north as Crenshaw, where they lived. If she was stopped at a checkpoint, she’d tell them she was on duty for Councilman Bradley.

  As she drove, Claire witnessed people working together sweeping up debris and others already putting in new windows and repairing storefronts. These scenes of rebuilding played out side by side with testaments of the property devastation and the disruption of lives. An S&H Green Stamps redemption store had been looted, its accordion security gate now leaning gently against a wall, as if it was removed with care. Spray painted on that outer wall in vermillion were the words, THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES.

  Having reached Figueroa unmolested, she was surprised to see an RTD bus in operation heading further south. At least two of its windows had been broken out. She turned east off Figueroa—smack into a group of women in the process of pulling a cop off his motorcycle, which fell over as she watched, the engine still running. Three of the women were Black and one was Mexican American. Claire stopped her car and didn’t back up. She knew she should be on her way—attract as little attention as possible—but this was too good to miss.

  “Get this cracker,” an attacker yelled. She had a scarf tied around the curlers in her hair. “Teach this bastard he can’t ride through here insulting us.”