Walter Mosley: A Red Death

He giggled again. I took the pistol from my pocket.

“And the bitch lived like a pig.” Agent Lawrence was breathing hard. “Filthy. And she acted like I could, could ever be like that… All you had to do was pay. All you had to do was follow the program. I didn’t want to kill them. But it was my ass out there on the line.”

“Chaim Wenzler wasn’t nuthin’ to you, man.”

“He was something to the FBI. If he was out of the way then they wouldn’t need you.”

“But then you tried t’kill me!”

Lawrence giggled again, and bit his thumb.

Twilight was falling. Actually it felt as if the darkness was rising out of the trees. It was time for me to collect my money and leave.

“Okay,” I said. I had my hand on the pistol like another time. “Gimme the money.”

I’d planned to act nervous when I took his money; but I didn’t need to act.

“I thought you might be a nigger with nuts,” he said, suddenly somber.

I felt my gorge rise, but I didn’t give in. The night was coming on faster, soon we’d just be shadows.

“You don’t really think that I’m going to let you get away with blackmailing me, do you?”

“Do somethin’ stupid an’ you’ll see what kinda nuts I got.”

Suddenly he made his decision. He took the package from the recess of his jacket and handed it to me.

I said, “Nice to do business with ya. You could go now.”

The moment I touched the envelope he lunged forward and shouldered me in the chest, hard. Because we were on a hill I had the feeling of flight again, but this time I landed on my backside, my hands shooting out behind.

I tried to bring my gun around but couldn’t. Lawrence ran down and kicked my shoulder. He grinned at me as he yanked awkwardly at the pistol in his pocket.

“Don’t do it, man!” I shouted in warning. But he had the pistol out.

He said the word, nigger, and then he flew backward about six feet. When he was in the air I heard the cannonlike pistol shot from down among the trees. I was running before the echoes were through shouting my name.

As fast as I ran, Mouse was already in the car by the time I got there.

He smiled at me and said, “You a damn fool, Easy Rawlins. We shoulda kilt that man the minute he showed his ugly face.”

“I had to know, Raymond. I had to know for me.”

We were driving down away from the observatory, through the forestlike park.

“You like some stupid cowboy, Easy. You wanna yell ‘Draw!’ ’fore you fire. That kinda shit gets ya killed.”

He was right, of course, but that way I convinced myself that I wasn’t a murderer. I gave him a chance to walk away from it-at least until I’d told the police about him.

“Was he the one?” Mouse asked. He really didn’t care.

“He did the killin’s.”

“What you gonna do now?”

“Pray nobody saw us an’ tell the FBI man that Lawrence forced me to tell about the work I was doin’. That he stole the papers from Wenzler. That he turned into a spy for profit. And I’ll prove it by sayin’ he was into tax cases fo’ profit.”

While I talked I counted out a five-hundred-dollar pile for Mouse.

I didn’t intend to keep anything. I gave to the families of the dead people, including Shirley Wenzler. I figured that Lawrence should at least pay dollars for the havoc he’d caused. I even donated a thousand dollars to the African Migration. Sonja Achebe has sent me postcards from Nigeria for over thirty years.

Mouse stuck out his lower lip. “Not too bad. Not too bad.”

I lit a couple of cigarettes while he drove. There were no sirens or any special activities on the road. I handed a cigarette to Mouse and breathed deep.

“Where you goin’ now?” He asked after five or six miles of driving. We were on Adams Boulevard and all the police cars ignored our progress.

“I tole LaMarque I’d come by and take him for hot dogs.”

And then I’d take him to Mexico, I thought.

But there was no reason to run anymore. There wasn’t a killing they could pin on me. When they found Lawrence and uncovered his crimes they hushed up the whole thing. His pistol was matched for Reverend Towne, Tania Lee, and Chaim Wenzler. I gave them a list of hotels that Mofass had driven Lawrence and Poinsettia to. They found his fingerprints in her apartment. Mrs. Trajillo recognized the photograph of the annoying insurance man.

I was ashamed of what I’d done to Mouse and what I planned to do. Mofass shamed me because we were just alike. I made like I was friends with people and then I planned to do them dirt.

I was at the Filbert Hotel that night. I knocked at the door and was admitted by Shirley. She was dressed in a simple pink shift that came down to her knee. She smiled shyly at me. I was surprised to remember that we had been lovers.

“Hi,” she said and then ducked her head.

The room was just large enough for two single beds and a chair and dresser.

“I was afraid that you might be the government men,” she said. “I was sure that they’d kill you and then come to get me.”

“No,” I said. “They know who did it now. The man that killed your father, that is. It wasn’t the government at all. Just a man who wanted to make some fast money. He thought he could take those plans and sell ’em.”

“Who was it?”

“Nobody. Nobody you’d know.”

I sat on one of the beds and Shirley settled beside me. I could feel her weight.

“It’s okay now. You don’t have to worry. I don’t think the government wants to mess with you.”

She didn’t respond. I knew she wanted me to hold her, but I didn’t. I’d already gotten her father killed, already destroyed her world.

After a long while I asked, “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. Go home, I guess. But are you sure it’s true?”

“Yeah, this guy was involved with First African. He was kind of crazy. He hated communists and black people and things like that.”

“He killed Reverend Towne?”

“Yeah.”

“Have they caught him?”

“Not yet.”

“What’s his name?”

“I didn’t get that. But whoever he was he thought I knew somethin’. That’s why he shot at me in front of the house. He wasn’t tryin’ t’kill you at all.”

I saw the relief in her face and then the guilt she felt for being glad that I was the target. I touched her hand.

“You can go home now, Shirley. It’s all right.”

She trusted me. I might as well have been the one to shoot her poor father through the door, but she didn’t know that. And I wasn’t going to tell her.

Primo trusted me too. I told him that the bad man was dead but that I didn’t need to leave anymore.

“I already spent half the money, Easy,” he said, acting a little cagey. “And I got my brother up here to take care of the place.”

“That’s okay, man. You an’ Flower have a good time down there.”

“Okay,” Primo said. He was laughing, so I figured that he had my five hundred dollars in his pocket. “But you know Jesus will be too sad if he knows you ain’t coming, Easy. That boy loves you. I think you should take him until we get back.”

“What?”

“He’s your boy, Easy. He loves you. Take him and if you want I’ll take him back when we come.”

“How long?”

“Three months, maybe four.”

So I said good-bye to Primo and Flower and I got Jesus in the bargain.

They were gone for three years. By then Jesus was my son.

Craxton was just as happy as Primo. They had found Lawrence facedown beside the observatory. He called me to his office, one floor above Lawrence’s room on Sixth Street.

“You say that Lawrence was in it with Wenzler? How can that be when he could only know Wenzler through you?”