"THE ADDRESS ALBRIGHT HAD GIVEN ME was a small, buff-colored building on Alvarado. The buildings around it were taller but not as old or as distinguished."
"One story he told was about when he was a lawyer in Georgia. 'I was defending a shit-kicker who was charged with burning down a banker’s house,' DeWitt told me as he stared out toward the wall behind my head."
"John kept paying off the police and running an illegal nightclub through the back door of a little market at the corner of Central Avenue and Eighty-ninth Place."
"California was like heaven for the Southern Negro. People told stories of how you could eat fruit right off the trees and get enough work to retire one day."
"Big white clouds sailed eastward toward the San Bernadino mountain range. There were still traces of snow on the peaks and there was the lingering scent of burning trash in the air."
"The card had his name printed on it in flourished letters. Below that was the address he’d scribbled. It was a downtown address; a long drive from Watts."
"No matter where you live in a Southern city (even a wild and violent place like Fifth Ward, Houston) you see almost everybody you know by just looking out your window."
"I dreamed about casting for catfish down south of Houston when I was just a boy. There were giant catfish in the Gatlin River. My mother told me that some of them were so big that the alligators left them alone."
"THERE WAS A BIG HOUSE on Isabella Street, at the end of a cul-de-sac. That was Vernie’s place. Lots of workingmen would drop by there now and then, to visit one of Vernie’s girls."
"The streets were especially dark and empty. Central Avenue was like a giant black alley and I felt like a small rat, hugging the corners and looking out for cats."
"We turned down the first corner we came to and then down an alley, half a block away. He didn’t find us, but as we were walking down Merriweather Lane someone shouted, “Blue!”"
"ABE AND JOHNNY were brothers-in-law. They came from Poland, most recently from the town of Auschwitz; Jews who survived the Nazi camps. They were barbers in Poland and they were barbers in Auschwitz, too."
"“Where do you live, Mr. Navrochet?” Miller asked. He took out a pad and a pen. “Twenty-seven thirty-two and a half, down on Florence. It’s upstairs in the back,” Mouse lied."
"We worked together, with a team of men, taking on the large jobs in Beverly Hills and Brentwood. We even took care of a couple of places downtown, off of Sixth."
"We worked together, with a team of men, taking on the large jobs in Beverly Hills and Brentwood. We even took care of a couple of places downtown, off of Sixth."
"Joppy’s house was dark and his bar was padlocked from the outside. The night watchman on duty at Albright’s building... So I made up my mind to call information for every town north of Santa Monica."
"THE FIRST PLACE I went was Ricardo’s Pool Room on Slauson. Ricardo’s was just a hole-in-the-wall with no windows and only one door. There was no name out front because either you knew where Ricardo’s was or you didn’t belong there at all."
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