just got a new pistol with a hair-trigger. Maybe he didn’t know how to use it. We’ll get him, but it doesn’t mean we’ll find out why.”
“I really would like to know. I realize it’s a possibility we’ll never find out, but it makes me nervous to think things might be utterly random.”
“There,” she said, nodding. There was no way to miss Frog Rock. It had probably looked a lot like one to begin with, but someone had got at it with green and black paint to make sure you got the joke.
“Jesus, that’s ugly.” The rock was embayed in a recess in the weathered range of low hills, as if left behind after a parade had passed by. A fire-red 1956 Thunderbird, the model with the little porthole, was parked on the dirt just beyond the frog. It even had whitewall tires.
“That’s her dad’s, for sure,” Jack Liffey said. “No kid would value that car enough for the headaches.”
“Don’t be hasty,” Gloria suggested. “Kids do funny things.” She parked beside the T-bird and they got out and introduced themselves to Barbara Thigpen, who was sitting on the fender of the car. The black girl would have been quite pretty with about fifty fewer pounds, but she was wearing a mini-skirt that left nothing about her thighs to the imagination. Still, that was her business, he thought. She wasn’t much heftier than Gloria.
“How come you wanted to meet us out here?” Gloria asked.
“Have you seen Clyde yet?” the girl asked.
Jack Liffey grinned. “Two minutes after we met him he tried to kill me.”
She nodded. “Then you know. The man is a wacko. Plus I can smoke out here without some busybody telling me it’s going to give me cancer.” She shook out a Marlboro.
“It’s going to give you cancer—and emphysema,” Gloria Ramirez said. Jack Liffey frowned at her, afraid they might start off on the wrong foot, but Barbara just ignored it and lit up.
“I’m immortal. Everybody my age is. And the deal is, yes, we’re the only black family in town, and, no, I don’t like it all that much. My dad works for the L.A. Water Department, and he was transferred here, from a nice safe black community in Pacoima, out to the one place where L.A. stole all the local water, the whole river, so we’re not very popular here on that account either. Segregated twice, you might say. But me and Lu were great friends.”
“Tell us about her,” Jack Liffey said.
“The only problem I had with her was an almost total lack of a sense of humor. She was sweet as could be and soo earnest, and I was lonely in this super white town. She had a secret Paiute name that she eventually told me, and other stuff.”
“What is it?” Jack Liffey asked.
“Sorry, that’s what makes it a secret. She had a thing about books and wanted me to read the same books as her so we could talk about them, and I suggested some books about princesses and Victorian girls. She tried, but she preferred simpler stuff. She had a little trouble with the language, unfamiliar words and stuff.”
A car came slowly up the road, an interloper, its headlights washing tentatively through the craggy canyon. It almost stopped, but then it passed on up toward Mt. Whitney, its engine noise gradually dying away. Maybe teens looking for a good spot to neck, he thought. They had all watched the car pass as if fearing something.
“Was Luisa good in school?”
Barbara Thigpen made a face as if she smelled something that had gone rotten. “There’s all kinds of smart. I don’t think anybody at school ever said to her, ‘Luisa, you’re just a dumb Indian,’ but it was kind of designed that way, you know—home ec and catch-up math, where all the Indians were. The high school is too small to have AP classes, but there’s an AP study group, and we get credit if we pass the tests, so some of us can get into good colleges. She wasn’t invited, or it just never came up, I don’t know how it worked. Most of the Indians drop out when they can. I said she
“I really would like to know. I realize it’s a possibility we’ll never find out, but it makes me nervous to think things might be utterly random.”
“There,” she said, nodding. There was no way to miss Frog Rock. It had probably looked a lot like one to begin with, but someone had got at it with green and black paint to make sure you got the joke.
“Jesus, that’s ugly.” The rock was embayed in a recess in the weathered range of low hills, as if left behind after a parade had passed by. A fire-red 1956 Thunderbird, the model with the little porthole, was parked on the dirt just beyond the frog. It even had whitewall tires.
“That’s her dad’s, for sure,” Jack Liffey said. “No kid would value that car enough for the headaches.”
“Don’t be hasty,” Gloria suggested. “Kids do funny things.” She parked beside the T-bird and they got out and introduced themselves to Barbara Thigpen, who was sitting on the fender of the car. The black girl would have been quite pretty with about fifty fewer pounds, but she was wearing a mini-skirt that left nothing about her thighs to the imagination. Still, that was her business, he thought. She wasn’t much heftier than Gloria.
“How come you wanted to meet us out here?” Gloria asked.
“Have you seen Clyde yet?” the girl asked.
Jack Liffey grinned. “Two minutes after we met him he tried to kill me.”
She nodded. “Then you know. The man is a wacko. Plus I can smoke out here without some busybody telling me it’s going to give me cancer.” She shook out a Marlboro.
“It’s going to give you cancer—and emphysema,” Gloria Ramirez said. Jack Liffey frowned at her, afraid they might start off on the wrong foot, but Barbara just ignored it and lit up.
“I’m immortal. Everybody my age is. And the deal is, yes, we’re the only black family in town, and, no, I don’t like it all that much. My dad works for the L.A. Water Department, and he was transferred here, from a nice safe black community in Pacoima, out to the one place where L.A. stole all the local water, the whole river, so we’re not very popular here on that account either. Segregated twice, you might say. But me and Lu were great friends.”
“Tell us about her,” Jack Liffey said.
“The only problem I had with her was an almost total lack of a sense of humor. She was sweet as could be and soo earnest, and I was lonely in this super white town. She had a secret Paiute name that she eventually told me, and other stuff.”
“What is it?” Jack Liffey asked.
“Sorry, that’s what makes it a secret. She had a thing about books and wanted me to read the same books as her so we could talk about them, and I suggested some books about princesses and Victorian girls. She tried, but she preferred simpler stuff. She had a little trouble with the language, unfamiliar words and stuff.”
A car came slowly up the road, an interloper, its headlights washing tentatively through the craggy canyon. It almost stopped, but then it passed on up toward Mt. Whitney, its engine noise gradually dying away. Maybe teens looking for a good spot to neck, he thought. They had all watched the car pass as if fearing something.
“Was Luisa good in school?”
Barbara Thigpen made a face as if she smelled something that had gone rotten. “There’s all kinds of smart. I don’t think anybody at school ever said to her, ‘Luisa, you’re just a dumb Indian,’ but it was kind of designed that way, you know—home ec and catch-up math, where all the Indians were. The high school is too small to have AP classes, but there’s an AP study group, and we get credit if we pass the tests, so some of us can get into good colleges. She wasn’t invited, or it just never came up, I don’t know how it worked. Most of the Indians drop out when they can. I said she
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