Clandestine

A chill went over me. "What about Michael?" I asked.

No one answered. My expression and manner must have changed somehow, alerting some sixth sense in the youthful ballplayers.

"I gotta go," the quiet boy said.

"Me, too," another one piped in.

Before I knew it they were all running off down Maple Avenue, casting furtive glances at me over their shoulders. They all seemed to disappear into dusty front yards just moments later, leaving me standing in the street wondering what the hell had happened.

Medina Court was only one block long.

A tarnished brass plaque inlaid in the cracked sidewalk at the entrance to it said why: the street and the four-story tenements that dominated it had been constructed for the housing of Chinese railroad workers in 1885.

I parked my car on the dirt shoulder of Peck Road—the only access lane to Medina Court—and looked around. The buildings, obviously once painted white, were now as grayish-brown as the plague of smog that stifled the summer air. A half-dozen had burned down, and the charred detritus of the fires had never been removed. Mexican women and children sat on the front steps of their peeling, sunbaked dwellings, seeking respite from what must have been ovenlike interiors.

Garbage covered the dusty street through Medina Court and prewar jalopies lay dead along both sides of it. Mariachi music poured forth from inside some of the tenements, competing with high-pitched Spanish voices. An emaciated dog hobbled by me, giving me a cursory growl and a hungry look. The poverty and meanness of Medina Court was overpowering.

I needed to find the mailman-father of the first baseman, so I started by checking out the entranceways of the tenements to see if the mail had been delivered. The mailbox layout was identical in all of the buildings—banks of metal mail slots, rows and rows of them, bearing poorly printed Spanish surnames and apartment numbers. I checked out three buildings on each side of the street, getting a lot of dirty looks in the process. The mailboxes were empty. I was in luck.

Medina Court dead-ended at a combination weed patch—auto graveyard where a throng of tattered but happy-looking Mexican kids were playing tag. I walked back to Peck Road feeling grateful that I didn't live here.

I waited for three hours, watching the passing scene: old winos poking about in the rubble of the burned-out buildings, looking for shade to drink their short-dogs in; fat Mexican women chasing their screaming children down the street; a profusion of squabbles between men in T-shirts, filled with obscenities in English and Spanish; two fistfights; and a steady parade of pachucos tooling down the street in their hot rods.

At one o'clock, as the sun reached its stifling zenith and the temperature started to close in on one hundred degrees, a tired and dejected-looking mailman walked into Medina Court. My heart gave a little leap of joy—he was the very image of the blond first baseman. He walked into the "foyer" of the first tenement on the south side of the street, and I was waiting for him on the sidewalk when he walked back out.

His tired manner perked up when he saw me standing there, white and official-looking in my suit and tie. He smiled; the nervous, edgy smile of someone hungry for company. He looked me up and down. "Cop?" he said.

I tried to sound surprised: "No, why do you ask?"

The mailman laughed and swung his leather mail sack from one shoulder to the other. "Because any white man over six feet in a suit on a day like this in Medina Court has gotta be a cop."

I laughed. "Wrong, but you're close. I'm a private investigator." I didn't offer any proof, because of course I didn't have any. The mailman whistled; I caught a whiff of booze on his breath. I stuck out my hand. "Herb Walker," I said.

The mailman grasped it. "Randy Rice."

"I need some information, Randy. Can we talk? Can I buy you a beer? Or can't you drink on duty?"

"Rules are made to be broken," Randy Rice said. "You wait here. I'll deliver this mail and see you in twenty minutes."

He was good to his word, and half an hour later I was in a seedy bar near the freeway, listening politely to Randy Rice expound on his theory of the "wetback problem plaguing America."

"Yeah," I finally broke in, "and it's a tough life for the white working man. Believe me, I know. I'm on this tough case now, and none of the Mexicans I talk to will give me a straight answer." Randy Rice went bug-eyed with awe. I continued: "That's why I wanted to talk to you. I figured a smart white man familiar with Medina Court ought to be able to give me a few leads."

I ordered another beer for Rice. He gulped it, and his face contorted into a broad parody of caginess. "What do you wanna know?" he asked.

"I heard Marcella Harris used to hang out on Medina Court. I think that's a hell of a place for a white woman with a kid to be spending her time."

"I seen the Harris dame there," Randy Rice said, "lots of times."