The Patrolman - 34

 

 

34.

 

 

 

Mr. Slate stood outside the pawnshop on Hill Street. Next to it was a parking lot charging twenty-five cents an hour. He'd driven inside and paid the attendant for one hour. This shouldn't take long.

He saw trumpets, guitars, and clarinets in the window. Real sad. They were the stories of failed musicians. Musicians who had been forced to give up their passion, their trade. They'd had to hock their instruments to make the rent. He remembered reading a story about Glenn Miller. Who used to pawn his trombone over near Angel's Flight, then buy it back on advances. Even the greats struggled.

Lower down in the window were glass shelves loaded with jewelry. Earrings, wedding rings, bracelets, pendants, the lot. But one of them he had seen before.

It was a religious necklace he had seen in the old photograph. The one of Nora and her parents at the beach. It was an oval shape, with an intricate gold embellishment around the centerpiece of a saint. Mr. Slate didn't know who the saint was. It could've been the Virgin Mary. Valdez was a Latina, odds were she was Catholic.

It was a tiny necklace.

But it was Nora's.

He had been following a thin trail all morning. He'd told her to lay low. And now here he was, chasing her shadow. After speaking with the cleaner, he crossed the street and checked the bus route. He got in his car and drove the route. On his second run of it, he had caught up with the bus at Pershing Square. The end of the line. The bus driver smoked on a park bench. The same bench he had met Agnes Underwood at the morning before. He offered the driver a cigar. The driver had remembered her - looked like a white girl, wiry, jittery. The girl had run into the pawnshop and returned with change for the fare. It was enough for Mr. Slate.

This is where she had got off.

Mr. Slate pushed open the pawn shop door and stepped inside. A little bell dinged overhead. The shop smelled of brass and stale air. Behind the register, a guy looked up. He was a scrawny old Negro, in a pressed shirt and vest. Maybe in his middle sixties, with plenty of wrinkles and creases on his face. The sign of a life well lived. Enough to know the fella who had walked into his shop wasn't looking to buy anything. Like other pawn shop owners, he figured the guy had a loaded gun under the counter. Unless he was an idiot. Which he didn't look. Though Los Angeles was better than the South, he’d still have seen his share of trouble. Especially around Pershing Square. Especially at night.

'What can I do for you?' he said.

'Can you show me that religious necklace?'

'Which one?'

'The one in your window,' Mr. Slate said. 'The one you bought earlier this morning.'

The pawnbroker’s eyes widened at that. Likely figured there was no use in lying. 'I don't want no trouble,' he said. 'I paid a good price for it.'

'Get it,' Mr. Slate said. 'I want to buy it off you.'

'No refunds.'

'I ain't looking for one.'

The guy was a little disgruntled to get the tray out again so soon after he had put it out on display. Mr. Slate picked it up.

He said, 'Tell me about the girl who pawned this.'

'What are you?'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't want any trouble,' he said again.

'And you won't get,' Mr. Slate said.

'You ain't gonna hurt the girl?'

'No, sir. I'm gonna buy it back from you and ask where the girl went. How much did you give her for the necklace?'  

'$25.'

'Try another number.'

'Twenty?'

'Try ten bucks,' Mr. Slate said. 'And feel lucky you're getting it.'

The old guy unhooked the necklace, put the tray back, and made out a receipt for a total of $10.60.

'There,' Mr. Slate said. 'Now talk. Where did the girl go?'

'Well, she ran back out and used some of it to pay the bus driver. Fella didn't seem best pleased.'

'I know, I talked with him already.'

'What are you? Some kind of private dick?'

'Not quite,' Mr. Slate said. 'I know the girl. It's my job to protect her.'

The pawnbroker didn’t quite believe him and asked for her name, height, hair color, and what she was wearing. He wanted to be sure. Mr. Slate didn't blame him. If a tall Negro walked into his shop asking after a customer, he wouldn't want to give her up either. Except Mr. Slate had an answer to every question put to him. If he still had doubts about the girl's safety, they eased once he got his answers.

The pawnbroker paused a beat. Then he said, 'I was worried about her. She asked the same thing a white girl asked me once. Never saw her again.'

'What did she ask you?'

'Where the Bamboo Room was.'

'Fine,' Mr. Slate said. 'Now I'm asking you, where is the Bamboo Room?'

'Central & 42^nd Street,' he said. 'If you pass the Dunbar, you've gone too far. It's next door. Hurry.’

 

© J. A. Stapleton 2025 - Image Source: Wikimedia Commons