Walter Mosley - A Little Yellow Dog

“What you said?” I asked.

“White pow-ter.”

“Holland in it with him?”

“He wanted t’be.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Holland come ’round an’ talk like he was workin’ wit’ Romny but it weren’t true. Roman used to just laugh when people would talk about it.”

“You worked wit’ Roman though, right?” I asked.

Tony winced and stuck a finger into his ear. He rubbed his nose and then pulled up his loose trousers by the front belt loops.

He glowered at my chest and I asked my question again.

“I did some little errands,” he whispered. “You know Romny liked people t’do things for’im. But I wasn’t in his business. I only ever saw’im when he’d be at the Black Chantilly an’ I happened t’be ’round. You know usually I’m out back washin’ or carryin’ or sumpin’.”

“What kinda things you do?”

“Just get cigarettes an’ shit. Nuthin’ heavy. Nuthin’ could put me in jail.”

“Anybody know more about his powder business?”

Tony glowered again.

I took two twenties from my pocket.

His eyes almost closed. “A guy named Billy B,” he mumbled. “Billy B and Sallie Monroe.”

“Oh,” I said. The last piece of the puzzle was a soft lead bullet aimed at my gut. I thought about the dapper little butcher and craved his blood.

“That enough to get you up offa that forty dollars?” Tony wanted to know.

“This Billy B,” I asked. “He a little dude with a big head, gold-colored kinda Negro?”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “All’a that. Light, little, an’ big-headed. That’s Billy B.”

Mouse was high on whiskey and so I drove him home. He let me take his car, saying that he could work out rides with Etta.

Bonnie and the kids were asleep when I got home. Pharaoh growled in the shadows.

I pulled out the drawer next to the kitchen sink and put it on the floor. I reached in under the ledge and came out with my .38 and a box of shells.

The gun needed cleaning but all I had was time. I wasn’t going to sleep. There were gangsters out there in the shadows whispering my name. There were cops hoping that my body broke before my spirit did. My life had gone to pieces and none of it was my fault.

It was the dog’s fault. That’s what I told myself.

But by then I knew that it wasn’t true. I’d dug this hole two years before. It was just a little unfinished business that I had to clean up.

“Easy.” Bonnie Shay was standing at the kitchen door. If she saw the gun on the table she didn’t act like it.

“What?”

“Was I telling the truth?”

“Huh?”

“Did you find the hot-water bottle?”

“Oh. Yeah.” I smiled. “Yeah, I did.”

“Did you leave it there?”

“No, Bonnie. I’ma need it to get them gangsters an’ cops offa us.”

Bonnie’s face smiled. It wasn’t just her mouth but also her eyes and cheeks and the angle of her head to her shoulder.

“Come to bed,” she said.

“Come again?”

Her smile was a long-ago memory of good things.

“Not that,” she said. “But you need some sleep. Come lie down with me. Let me hold you.”

“Bonnie,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Do you know a man called Bill Bartlett?”

“William. Yes. He used to work at Sojourner Truth. I met him after that, though, at a party that Idabell gave. By that time he was working on the supply truck that brought Holland his daily papers.”

“He still work a paper route?”

“No, I don’t think so. He quit about the same time that Holland did. Ida told me that he became a cook.”

She helped me off with my clothes and almost guided me into the bed. She pressed her warm body against me from behind and placed her hand on my bare chest — over my heart.

“Your heart’s beating,” she whispered.

“An’ yours isn’t?”

“Shh.”

The warmth of her body through that thin slip was what was missing in my life. A woman who took charge of herself and her needs. A woman who could hold my desire without fear or anger.

“You know,” I said.

“Hm?”

“I’d like to turn around here.”

“We’ve got time, Easy. Let’s just get some sleep tonight.”

I was running hard with wild dogs on my trail. I hit the forest under a moonlit, cloudless sky and ran deeper and deeper into the thickening gloom of branches. My progress was slowed by the trees but the hacking breath of dogs seemed to be further behind. Soon I was crawling through pitch black, pushing hard against the wall of snapping sticks. Finally I was flat on my stomach.

I heard a whisper, “Shh,” and then I was asleep.

I woke up alone in the bed, fully rested. It was early but Bonnie and the kids were already gone. I remembered Feather’s laugh, a growl too near my ear, and a “shush,” and then a kiss on my cheek.

The note, resting in hard sun on the kitchen table, said:

Easy,

Feather and Jesus are off to school. I’m going down to the airline to pick up my check and cash it. I’m really looking forward to getting to know you.

Yours,

There was a big kiss at the bottom of the page. I looked at the note wondering at how wrong I could be and still survive.

Jewelle was happy with Jackson Blue.

“He knows so much,” she said to me over the phone.

“I don’t know about that, JJ,” I said.

“What you mean?” she asked. “He knows math and electronics and all about the history of the world.”

“But he don’t know how to survive, honey,” I said. “If you put him outta that house he’d be dead ’fore the sun went down.”

Jewelle didn’t have anything to say to that. She was a smart girl. Smart in every subject but men.

“What time is it?” Jackson asked me when he got on the line.

“’Bout eight-thirty.”

“Shit.”

“Jackson,” I said, “you remember what we talked about?”

“Bout Stetz?”

“Yeah.”

“Go on.”

“I want you to find out where he is and how I can get in touch with him.”

“What for?”

“I’m going to tell him that I know how to get my hands on the final shipment of aitch that Roman Gasteau was supposed to have for Joey Beam.”

“How much?”

“I already told you, three pounds,” I said.

“Naw, man,” Jackson complained. “How much we gonna charge?”

“Ain’t no how, Jackson. I’ma tell’im that you gonna quit bein’ his competition and that I’ll give him the drugs back for his friend.”

“But don’t you think we better ask for some money, man? I mean he ain’t gonna believe that you in it for your health.”

“You want money, Jackson?” I asked.

“I need it, man.”

“Well then,” I said. “Think about your life like it was a wad’a cash. An’ try not and spend it all in one place next time.”

“You passin’ up a golden opportunity right here, Easy.”

“All I want from you is to find out how I can get in touch with Philly Stetz.”

“Shit, man, I already know where that motherfucker is hid.” Jackson was beginning to sound like his old self. The presence of a woman will do that to a man — for better or worse.

“How you know that?”

“Well, you know.”

“No. I don’t know at all, Jackson.”

“Ortiz. Ortiz found out but… but well, you know.”

“Ortiz was going to shoot Stetz,” I declared.

“It was just insurance, Easy. Best to be prepared.”

“Prepared,” I repeated. “Jackson, you ain’t prepared for shit.”

When he didn’t say anything I added, “One mo’ thing, Jackson.”

“Yeah?”

“JJ got enough trouble wit’ her fam’ly an’ Mofass. Keep yo’ fingers outta the pie. You hear me?”