Free Violent Spring by Gary Phillips Page A

Deeper into the black belt, the more segregated portion of Mid-City which eventually became the Crenshaw District.
    Nearing La Brea, Monk passed a stretch of shoddy motels laid out one against another like fallen dreams. In the gated courtyard of a pink and green stucco model, he spied small Latino children laughing and kicking a ball back and forth. One of them stood at the gate, looking out at the passing traffic, a thumb lodged comfortably in her mouth. In the next motel, with an ungated courtyard, two young men stood under the eaves. Each was dressed in black khakis and black Air Jordans. One of them, short and muscular, had on a purple shirt buttoned at the cuffs and collar, the regalia of the Rolling Daltons.
    The other wore a fedora with a feather in its crown crammed low on his head, and he whistled at Monk as he drove past. On the corner where the motels ended, a woman darker than Monk with hair dyed an eye-hurting color that might charitably be called blonde, lolled against the east wall of the building.
    Above her, on the roof of the motel, was a billboard. It was the logo of SOMA printed in garish colors. In reversed-out letters below the flaming logo were the words “The Future Begins Today.” The woman smiled at Monk, revealing gold-capped front teeth.
    He reached Palm Grove Avenue and turned right. Monk parked the car at a rectangular duplex sitting on a lot of brown grass in the middle of the block. The porch had spots of chipped red paint, and the apartment on the right had a hole in its screen door. The one on the left, the one that Monk approached, had a heavy gauge security door fronting it. He rang the bell.
    The inner door opened but he couldn’t see beyond the opaque mesh of the screen. “Yes, may I help you?” The voice belonged to a young woman.
    â€œMs. Jacobs, my name is Ivan Monk. I’d like to ask you a few questions about the time you worked at Hi Life Liquors.” He produced his license. Maybe, he absently reflected, he ought to have the thing stenciled to his shirt he was showing it so much.
    â€œOkay. Come on in.” The screen door swung outward revealing an African-American woman in her mid-twenties. Her hair was dreadlocked and pulled back from a handsome face. She was dressed in jeans, a loose top and sandals. Her head was oblong shaped and the eyes in it were alive, observant.
    â€œI didn’t think any of us were Mike Hammer types.” Her smile was genuine.
    â€œI’m not, that’s for the Hollywood tough guys.” Monk passed through the door jamb into a neatly appointed apartment. Karen Jacobs closed and locked the screen door, leaving the inner door open.
    â€œHave a seat.” She sat in an overstuffed chair where two text books and a pad of yellow paper rested on one of its arms. Block printing covered the pad’s surface.
    He sat on the couch. “I got your name from David Chung. He says you’d been there asking about Mr. Suh.”
    â€œYeah, that was terrible. He was really a nice man. But I don’t know what I can tell you. I only worked in the store part-time up until the beginning of last year. I’m going to school at UCLA, you know.”
    â€œWhat are you studying?”
    â€œEconomics.”
    â€œGonna start a business?”
    â€œNo, not how you mean. I plan to do economic planning and fundraising for community groups and nonprofits.”
    â€œBet. We don’t need more profiteers in the ’hood.”
    â€œYou go to some kind of socialist private eye school?”
    Straight-faced, Monk said, “I can’t even spell the word. Did Bong Kim Suh owe you money? Is that why you asked about him?”
    â€œNothing that mercenary. I’d heard that he wasn’t around and was just curious is all.”
    â€œHe was that nice a boss.”
    â€œYes.”
    Monk said, “Really.”
    â€œYes,” she insisted.
    â€œOkay, if you say so.”
    There was a gap of time