One-Shot Harry

“Ben? Goddamn, it is you.” Ingram set his camera on a small shelf upon which were bottles of liniment for the horses.
     The two rushed at each other and hugged, slapping each other on the back.
     “When did you get back to town?”
     “A couple of weeks ago. Been meaning to look you up, cousin,” Ben Kinslow said. Addressing the silver-haired man, he added, “We were in the service together, Mr. Hoyt.”
     The silver-haired man nodded curtly. “That’s something. Korea, was it?”
     “Yes, sir,” Ingram said, smiling. He took the older man to be Kinslow’s employer, and wasn’t going to say something crude if he could help it.
     Hoyt and the trainer walked inside the stall, the trainer’s calloused hand on the horse’s hindquarters.
     “I’d heard you’re still taking them stills,” Kinslow said.
     “You still tooting the horn?”
     “Now and then.”
     They’d stepped away from the stall, but Ingram had heard enough to know that Hoyt was the owner of the horse being examined. He said in a low voice to Kinslow, “Look, I don’t want to get you in Dutch with your boss. I’m sure he wants you paying attention to every pearl of wisdom spilling from his spoon-fed mouth.”
     Kinslow smiled, looking over at the other man. “Lay your number on me. I’ll give you a shout.”
     Ingram wrote it down on one of his sheets in his notepad, tore it off and handed it over. “Don’t be no stranger,” he said in his normal volume.
     “Never,” his buddy said. “Give me some dap.” They slapped palms. Ingram retrieved his camera and walked to his car. Near his vehicle was a coal-black 1962 Lincoln Continental. He whistled at the swank car. Dispensing with his envy, he got into his car and after turning the engine over for several cranks, the vehicle started. He drove off, stopping at a pay phone on Imperial.
     “Hey, Doris. Got anything for your favorite runner?”
     “I think I do, Harry,” Doris Letrec said. He heard her set the handset down, then papers being shuffled before she came back on the line. “Got a divorce case, a car involved in a cross complaint and some kind of suit involving a truckload of refrigerators.” She paused, reading the paperwork further. “Oh, but that one’s in Glendale.”
     He almost cursed. “You might as well have said Mississippi.”
     “I hear you.” Letrec was white but she knew about sundown towns like Glendale. If you were Black, it was best you not be caught there after the sun set—by the cops or by the self-righteous residents. Ingram wasn’t going to be there during the day if he could help it. “Okay, I’ll swing by for the divorce and car.”
     “See you.” She hung up.
     Ingram drove back into L.A. proper and the offices of Galton Process Services and Legal Papers on Grand Avenue, manager, was at the front desk typing a report when Ingram entered. She was a middle-aged woman who lived with a female roommate, a younger librarian, in a garden apartment in East Hollywood.
     Her cat-eye glasses were on a chain and she removed them as she looked up from her Underwood. “I’ve got them right here, Harry.” She handed the paperwork over to him.
     “Thanks.” He glanced at the addresses, then tucked them
away.
     The main part of the office contained a row of gray file cabinets, a few chairs, two desks—there was a man who came on for the after-hours trade from four to midnight—and an inner office. This had a door inset with a large glass pane, a set of blinds behind that. As usual, the blinds were drawn.
     Ingram pointed his jaw at the door. “Is His Lordship in?”
     “He was here before I got in,” she said, hunching a shoulder. “He did stick his head out once to ask a question.”
     “Like the groundhog,” Ingram mused.
     Tremane Galton, the owner of the business, was of British extraction but had lived in the States since his twenties, some thirty-plus years ago. He was agoraphobic, though he managed to drive from his house in Frogtown to the office at least three days a week.
     Ingram started for the exit. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
     “Keep ’em flying straight, Harry.”
     “Always above the flack.”
     Glasses back on, she gave him a last look, then resumed typing.
     Driving to his first destination, Ingram passed a sharp-dressed teenager standing on the corner hawking copies of the Sentinel.
     “‘Negro Workers Demand Fair Pay at Bethlehem Steel,’” the young man yelled. “Get your Sentinel newspaper, get your Sentinel newspaper.”
     Serving the divorce papers was not hard. The unshaven man who answered Ingram’s knock was wiping sleep out of his eyes. He worked the graveyard shift at a frozen fish supplier out in San Pedro.
     “Mr. Efrain Martinez?” Ingram said pleasantly.
     “Yes.” He regarded Ingram warily.
     “You’ve been served.” Ingram held out the tri-folded papers requiring his presence in court.
     “That puta bitch,” the man growled, taking the papers, muttering in Spanish and English as he slammed the door.
     The disputed car was another matter. The address took Harry to a residential street off of north Western Avenue. On his way he passed by the boarded-up Fox Uptown Theater. A few years ago, he’d taken a date there to see Vincent Price in a movie called The Tingler. The movie was pretty tame for a horror show. Ingram had hoped to get his lady friend all clingy. Instead, she’d fallen asleep by the second half.
     He slowed as he went past a California bungalow, double-checking the address. The car in question wasn’t out front, but there was a detached garage at the end of the driveway. First, though, he drove up and down the surrounding blocks, looking for the car whose plate and other details he’d memorized. Having done process server work for some time now, Ingram knew the tricks drivers used to hide cars they owed payments on—including switching the license plates. He rolled up on a Buick LeSabre, but it was the wrong color and plate. He didn’t think the driver, a Scott Jayson, had had the vehicle repainted. If he could afford that, he would have tried to come current on the note.
     Ingram parked several doors down from the bungalow and walked back to the house. He took a peek inside the garage. The double doors had a chain through where the locks had once been, and this was padlocked closed. But there was enough play between the doors that Ingram gapped them to shine his flashlight inside. The LeSabre was there.
     “Hey, what are you up to?”
     Ingram turned around to see a white man in jeans, his shirttail out. He was holding a baseball bat and had come out the back door.
     Ingram held up a hand. “Take it easy. You must be Mr. Jayson.” This wasn’t the first time he’d been threatened with violence when he’d been trying to serve someone. The war had taught him how to handle his fear.
     “What about it?”
     “Your car is involved in a cross complaint and I’m here to serve you papers initiated from Triton Auto Sales.” He’d also read the used car lot was run by Jayson’s brother-in-law.
     “Ain’t no coloreds work for Triton.”
     “I’m being paid to serve you.”
     “Yeah, then get in the kitchen and get my lunch ready.” The man chuckled.
     “No reason to not be civil.”
     Jayson came closer, waving the bat. “What you gonna do if I don’t? What if I use this to teach you a lesson about nosing in business that ain’t your concern? How would that be . . . boy?”
     “That would be a mistake, Mr. Ofay.”
     Jayson’s eyes popped open as if he’d been struck in the forehead. “What did you just say?”
     He swung the bat and Ingram turned his body into it, taking the brunt of the blow on his arm. He was hurting but focused. He got his hand on the bat and at the same time punched Jayson with his free hand.
     “How dare you, nigger,” the other man said, stumbling back but still holding the bat.
     Ingram allowed the other man’s momentum to carry the both of them backward, muscle memory dredging up the rudimentary jujitsu he’d learned in basic about leverage. Jayson aimed a fist at Ingram’s jaw, but he slipped aside, the jab glancing off the side of his face. Ingram got his foot behind Jayson’s heel and shoved. This sent them both down to the ground, Ingram landing as hard as he could atop the other man.
     “Get the fuck off me.”
     They both wrestled for control of the bat, rolling around on the ground. Ingram rammed an elbow into Jayson’s face, stunning him. An angered Jayson let go of the bat and got both his hands around Ingram’s neck, choking him.
     “I’ll teach you good, Blackie.”
     Ingram went flat on his back and as Jayson tightened his hands around his neck, the part-time process server got a knee against Jayson’s sternum, flipping him over. Ingram bolted to his feet, snatching the bat up from where it lay. The handkerchief pocket on his jacket was torn.
     Jayson was getting to a knee. “You better put that down. I’ll get you arrested for damn sure.”
     Ingram was mad enough to strike him, but feared sending him to the hospital, which would send him to jail quick. When it came to the testimony of a Black man against a white man’s word, what chance did he have in a so-called court of law? Still. He jammed the  opposite end of the bat into Jayson’s stomach.
     “You motherfucker,” the man wheezed, bending over and holding his middle.
     Ingram grabbed him by the shirt front and stood him up. “Listen, gray boy, if I have to come back here I’ll set that Buick on fire and you’ll never prove it was me. You’ll really be in the hole then.” He let him go and threw the court order at his feet. “You’ve been served, asshole.”
     “What about my bat?’
     “What about it?” Ingram started toward him and Jayson flinched. Ingram laughed harshly, then turned, spearing the bat through a bedroom window, shattering the glass with force. “There it is.”
     Off he went, a tremor in his leg. By the time he got into his car he was shaking all over, tears in his eyes as he gripped the steering wheel. Ingram didn’t give a shit about Jayson. It was the violence dogging him he knew. The war wouldn’t let him go.
     After a few minutes he calmed down. Hand steady, he inserted the key in the ignition, started the car and drove away.