Walter Mosley - A Red Death

“Forget that.” Craxton waved a dismissing hand at the shoe box under my arm. “I got something for you to do for your country. You like fighting for your country, don’t you, Ezekiel?”

“I done it when I had to.”

“Yeah.” Craxton’s smile revealed crooked teeth that had wide spaces between them. But they looked strong, like brown-and-white tree stumps that you’d have to dynamite to remove. “I’ve been discussing your case with Mr. Lawrence here. I’ve been looking for somebody to help me with a mission, and you’re the best candidate I’ve seen.”

“What kind of a mission?”

Craxton smiled again. “Mr. Lawrence tells me that you overlooked paying some taxes for the past few years.”

“This man is suspected of tax evasion,” Lawrence interrupted. “That is what I said.”

“Mr. Rawlins here is a war hero,” Craxton answered. “He loves this country. He hates our enemies. A man like that doesn’t shirk his responsibility, Mr. Lawrence. I believe that he just made an error.”

Lawrence pulled out a white handkerchief and dabbed at his lips.

Craxton turned back to me, “I could fix it so that you just pay your back taxes, by installment if you don’t have the cash. All I need is a little help. No. No. Change that. All your country needs is a little help.”

That set Lawrence up straight.

He said, “I thought you just wanted to talk with him.”

Before he could say any more I jumped in. “Well, you know I’m always ready to be a good citizen, Mr. Craxton. That’s why I’m here this time of night. I want to show that I’m a good citizen.” I knew how to be good too; LaMarque didn’t have a thing on me.

“See, Mr. Lawrence, see? Mr. Rawlins is eager to help us out. No reason for you to pursue your current course. I tell you what. Mr. Rawlins and I will do some work together and then I’ll come back and have his paperwork transferred to Washington. That way you won’t have to worry about his settlement.”

Reginald Lawrence grabbed on to the arm of his chair a little tighter.

“This is not proper procedure, Agent Craxton,” the IRS man complained.

Craxton just smiled.

“I’ll have to speak with my supervisor,” Lawrence continued.

“You do what you think is appropriate, Mr. Lawrence.” Craxton never stopped smiling. “I appreciate that a man has to do his job, he has to do what he thinks is right. If everybody just does that this country will be fine and healthy.”

The blood rose to Lawrence’s face. My heart was going like a bird in flight.

Special Agent Craxton was saying, “Nice place, Hollywood,” as he sipped a glass of 7-Up.

I was nursing a screwdriver. We had driven to a small bar called Adolf’s on Sunset Boulevard near La Cienega. Adolf’s was an old place, established before the war, so it held on to that unpopular name.

When we got to the door a man in a red jacket and top hat barred our way.

“May I help you gentleman?”

“Stand aside,” Craxton said.

“Maybe you don’t understand, mister,” the doorman replied, raising his hand in a tentative gesture. “We’re a class place and not everyone can cut it.”

He was looking directly into my face.

“Listen, bud.” Craxton peeled back his left lapel. Pinned to the inside of the jacket was his FBI identification. “Either you open the door now or I shut you down-for good.”

After that the manager came over and seated us near the piano player. He also offered us free drinks and food, which Craxton turned down. Nobody bothered us after that. I remember thinking that those white people were just as afraid of the law as any colored man. Of course, I always knew that there was no real difference between the races, but still, it was nice to see an example of that equality.

I was thinking about that and how I had been suddenly saved from the gas chamber. Because it was a certainty that I would have murdered Agent Lawrence if the ugly man in front of me hadn’t shaken my hand.

“What do you know about communism, Mr. Rawlins?” Craxton asked. His tone was like a schoolteacher’s-I was being quizzed.

“Call me Easy. That’s the name I go by.”

He nodded and I said, “I figure the Reds to be one step worse than the Nazis unless you happen to be a Jew. To a Jew they ain’t nuthin’ worse than a Nazi.”

I said that because I knew what the FBI man wanted to hear. My feelings were really much more complex. In the war the Russians were our allies; our best friends. Paul Robeson, the great Negro actor and singer, had toured Russia and even lived there for a while. Joseph Stalin himself had Robeson as his guest at the Kremlin. But when the war was through we were enemies again. Robeson’s career was destroyed and he left America.

I didn’t know how we could be friends with somebody one day and then enemies the next. I didn’t know why a man like Robeson would give up his shining career for something like politics.

Agent Craxton nodded while I answered and tapped his cheekbone with a hairy index finger. “Lots of Jews are communists too. Marx was a Jew, grandfather to all the Reds.”

“I guess there’s all kindsa Jews just like ev’rybody else.”

Craxton nodded, but I wasn’t so sure that he agreed with me.

“One thing you have right is how bad the Reds are. They want to take the whole world and enslave it. They don’t believe in freedom like Americans do. The Russians have been peasants so long that that’s the way they see the whole world-from chains.”

It was strange talk, I thought, a white man lecturing me about slavery.

“Yeah, some folks learn how to love their chains, I guess.”

Craxton gave me a quick smile. In that brief second a shine of admiration flashed across his walnut eyes.

He said, “I knew we’d understand each other, Easy. Soon as I saw your police file I knew you were the kind of man for us.”

“What kinda man is that?”

The pianist was playing “Two Sleepy People” on a bright and lively note.

“Man who wants to serve his country. Man who knows what it is to fight and maybe take a couple of chances. Man who doesn’t give in to some foreign power saying that they have a better deal.”

I had the feeling that Craxton didn’t see the man sitting before him, but I’d seen pictures of Leavenworth in Life magazine so I pretended to be the man he described.

“Chaim Wenzler,” Craxton said.

“Who?”

“One of those communist kind of Jews. Union persuasion. Calls himself a worker. Building chains is what he’s doing. He’s been organizing unions from Alameda County on down the line to Champion Aircraft. You know Champion, don’t you, Easy.”

The last real job I had was at Champion.

“I worked production there,” I said. “Five years ago.”

“I know,” Craxton said. He pulled a manila folder from his jacket pocket. The folder was soiled, creased, and pleated down the center. He smoothed it out in front of me. The block red letters across the top said: “LAPD Special Subject.” And below that: “subj-Ezekiel P. Rawlins, aka-Easy Rawlins.”

“Everything we need to know in here, Easy. War record, criminal associations, job history. One police detective wrote a letter in 1949 saying that he suspected you of being involved in a series of homicides the previous year. Then in 1950 you turn around and help the police find a rapist working the Watts community.

“I’d been looking for a Negro to work for us. Somebody who might have a little trouble but nothing so bad that we couldn’t smooth it over if somebody showed a little initiative and some patriotism. Then Clyde Wadsworth called about you.”

“Who?”

“Wadsworth, he’s Lawrence’s head. Clyde saw an inquiry for your file go across his desk a few weeks back. He knew the neighborhood you lived in and gave me a call. Lucky for everybody.”