Walter Mosley - A Red Death

For the most part I was blowing smoke. But I knew things that Craxton didn’t know. I had the papers and I knew who Chaim and Poinsettia’s killer was. One thing had nothing to do with the other, but when I was finished everything would be as neat as a buck private’s bunk bed.

I had Craxton over a barrel. He finally said, “When will you have something for me?”

“Six o’clock tomorrow. I got some irons in the fire right now. By six tomorrow I should know everything. If not then, then the day after.”

“Six tomorrow?”

“That’s the time.”

“All right. I’ll expect a call then.” He was trying to sound like he was still in charge.

“One more thing,” I blurted out before he could hang up.

“What?”

“You gotta make sure the police don’t mess wit’ me before then.”

“You got it.”

“Thanks.”

In the darkness of my house I spun plans. None of them seemed real. Mofass was all I had. He was the only one who connected everything. He had been up to something with Poinsettia, and I was the one who told him about the taxes and First African. He was the only one I could suspect. If I was guessing right he told Jackie and Melvin about me nosing around First African. So he was really to blame for Reverend Towne and Tania Lee, or maybe he killed them too. And Mofass was the only one with a reason. He wanted my money. He knew that the government would take my property and that he could buy it before it ever went to auction. He knew how to make payoffs. That’s why he didn’t want to sign, because he wanted it all.

I was going to kill Mofass, mainly because he had killed my tenant and I felt that I owed her something. But also because he had killed Chaim and I had come to like that man. He had destroyed my life, and I felt I owed him something for that.

All the things I’d told Craxton were half-truths and lies for him to follow down while I was on my way to Mexico.

Mexico. EttaMae and I and maybe even LaMarque. It was like a dream. It was better than what I had, at least that’s what I told myself.

I sat waiting for a call. No radio and no television. I turned a single light on in the bedroom and then went to the living room to sit in shadows. I had been reading a book on the history of Rome, but I didn’t have any heart for it that night. The history of Rome didn’t move me the way it usually did. I didn’t care about the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths sacking the Empire; I didn’t even care about the Vandals, how they were so terrible that the Romans made a word out of their name.

I didn’t even believe in history, really. Real was what was happening to me right then. Real was a toothache and a man you trusted who did you dirt. Real was an empty stomach or a woman saying yes, or a woman saying no. Real was what you could feel. History was like TV for me, it wasn’t the great wave of mankind moving through an ocean of minutes and hours. It wasn’t mankind getting better either; I had seen enough murder in Europe to know that the Nazis were even worse than the barbarians at Rome’s gate. And even if I was in Rome they would have called me a barbarian; it was no different that day in Watts.

Chaim wanted to make it better for me and my people.

Chaim was a good man; better than a lot of people in Washington, and a lot of black people I knew. But he was dead. He was history, as they say, and I was holding my gun in the dark, being real.

I was jolted awake by Mouse’s call.

“Got’im, man,” he said. There was pride in his voice. The kind of pride a man has when he’s paid off a bank note or brought a paycheck home to his wife.

“Where is he?”

“Right here in front’a me. You know, this boy sure is ugly.”

I heard Mofass’s gruff voice in the background, but I couldn’t make out what he said.

“Shut up, fool!” Mouse shouted in my ear. “We don’t need to hear from you.”

“Where are you, Raymond?”

“On Alameda, at that warehouse you said. I come in a window an’ fount his stuff. You know all I hadda do was wait an’ he come grubbin’ up the slide.”

The entrance to the building was in the alley off the main street. Two tall doors held together through the handles with a chain and padlock. When I rattled the door a window opened above and Mouse stuck his head out.

“Hey, Easy. Go on down the alley a little ways and they’s a chute for loadin’. It’s open.”

It was a two-foot-square aluminum slat, reinforced by a wooden frame, that lifted away from the wall. It opened on a metal slide, leading up into the building. That slide was slick from all the merchandise they dropped down into delivery trucks.

When I made it up to the second floor I dusted off and released the safety on my pistol. There were aisles formed by huge stacks of cardboard boxes and wooden crates. There was some light, but the long rows melted into darkness, giving the place the feeling of great depth. I could have been in Solomon’s mines.

“Over here, Easy,” Mouse called.

I followed the sound of his voice until I came to a little square kiosk. From inside that office the light came. Thick and yellow electric light, and cigarette smoke. There was a large gray metal desk with a thick green blotter. Mofass was behind the desk, sweating and looking generally undignified. Mouse was leaning against a wall, smiling at me.

“Here he is, Easy. I put a apple in his mouth if you want it.”

“What’s the idea, Mr. Rawlins?” Mofass started up. “Why you got this man to kidnap me? What I do to you?”

I simply lifted the pistol and pointed it at his head. Mouse flashed his friendliest smile at no one in particular. Mofass’s jaw started to quiver because of the spasm going through his neck and shoulders.

“You got this wrong, Mr. Rawlins. You pointin’ that peacemaker at the wrong man.”

“Go on, Easy, kill’im,” Mouse whispered.

That’s what saved Mofass’s life. Mouse didn’t even know why I had that man there, he didn’t care either. All he knew was that killing satisfied some nerve he had somewhere. I was growing the same nerve, and I didn’t like that idea at all.

“What you mean, wrong man?” I asked.

Instead of answering, Mofass broke wind.

Then he said, “It’s that tax man, Easy, it’s Lawrence.”

“What?” I hadn’t thought anything he could say would surprise me. “Com’on, man. You could do better than that.”

“You don’t lie to no loaded gun at your head, Mr. Rawlins.

It was Lawrence sure as I’m sitting here.”

The smell of Mofass’s flatulence filled the room. Mouse was waving his hand under his nose.

“You better come up with somethin’ better than that, Mofass. This is your life right here in my hand.”

I moved the muzzle of the gun closer to Mofass’s sweaty brow. He opened his eyes a little wider.

“It’s the truth, Mr. Rawlins. He pulled me down on a tax charge ovah a year ago.”

Mouse kicked a chair around so that he could sit on it. Mofass leaped up out of his seat.

“Sit down,” I said. “An’ go on.”

“Yeah.” A smile appeared on Mofass’s lips and vanished just as fast. “I ain’t paid no tax, not ever. I filed it but I always lied like I didn’t make nuthin’. Lawrence caught on, though. He had me by the nuts.”

“Uh-huh, yeah, I know what you mean.”

“He told me that he was goin’ t’court wit’ what he had. So I ast’im could we talk it over, over a drink.” Mofass smiled again. “You see, Mr. Rawlins, if he let me buy him a drink then I knowed I could buy him. I got to a phone an’ called Poinsettia. She hadn’t paid no rent even way back then. She told me she’d be nice t’me if I let’er slide, but you know I don’t play it like that.”