Walter Mosley - Devil in a Blue Dress

I tried to think about what Benny wanted. I tried to think of how I could save face and still kiss his ass. But all I could really think about was that other office and that other white man. DeWitt Albright had his bottle and his gun right out there in plain view. When he asked me what I had to say I told him; I might have been a little nervous, but I told him anyway. Benny didn’t care about what I had to say. He needed all his children to kneel down and let him be the boss. He wasn’t a businessman, he was a plantation boss; a slaver.

“Well, Easy?”

“I want my job back, Mr. Giacomo. I need to work and I do a good job.”

“Is that all?”

“No, that’s not all. I need money so that I can pay my mortgage and eat. I need a house to live in and a place to raise children. I need to buy clothes so I can go to the pool hall and to church…”

Benny put his feet down and made to rise. “I have to get back to my job, Easy…”

“That’s Mr. Rawlins!” I said as I rose to meet him. “You don’t’ have to give me my job back but you have got to treat me with respect.”

“Excuse me,” he said. He made to go past me but I was blocking his way.

“I said, you have got to treat me with respect. Now I call you Mr. Giacomo because that’s your name. You’re no friend to me and I got no reason to be disrespectful and call you by your first name.” I pointed at my chest. “My name is Mr. Rawlins.”

He balled his fists and looked down at my chest the way a fighter does. But I think he heard the quaver in my voice. He knew that one or two of us would be broken up if he tried to go through me. And who knows? Maybe he realized that he was in the wrong.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Rawlins.” He smiled at me. “But there are no openings right now. Maybe you could come back in a few months, when production on the new fighter line begins.”

With that he motioned for me to leave his office. I went without another word.

I looked around for Dupree but he was nowhere to be seen, not even at his station. That surprised me but I was too happy to worry about him. My chest was heaving and I felt as if I wanted to laugh out loud. My bills were paid and it felt good to have stood up for myself. I had a notion of freedom when I walked out to my car.

I was home by noon. The street was empty and the neighborhood was quiet. There was a dark Ford parked across the street from my house. I remember thinking that a bill collector was making his rounds. Then I laughed to myself because all my bills were paid well in advance. I was a proud man that day; my fall wasn’t far behind.

As I was closing the gate to the front yard I saw the two white men getting out of the Ford. One was tall and skinny and he was wearing a dark blue suit. The other one was my height and three times my girth. He had on a wrinkled tan suit that had greasy spots here and there.

The men strode quickly in my direction but I just turned slowly and walked toward my door.

“Mr. Rawlins!” one of them called from behind.

I turned. “Yeah?”

They were approaching fast but cautiously. The fat one had a hand in his pocket.

“Mr. Rawlins, I’m Miller and this is my partner Mason.” They both held out badges.

“Yeah?”

“We want you to come with us.”

“Where?”

“You’ll see,” fat Mason said as he took me by the arm.

“Are you arresting me?”

“You’ll see,” Mason said again. He was pulling me toward the gate.

“I’ve got the right to know why you’re taking me.”

“You got a right to fall down and break your face, nigger. You got a right to die,” he said. Then he hit me in the diaphragm. When I doubled over he slipped the handcuffs on behind my back and together they dragged me to the car. They tossed me in the backseat where I lay gagging.

“You vomit on my carpet and I’ll feed it to ya,” Mason called back.

They drove me to the Seventy-seventh Street station and carried me in the front door.

“You got’im, huh, Miller?” somebody said. They were holding me by my arms and I was sagging with my head down. I had recovered from the punch but I didn’t want them to know it.

“Yeah, we got him coming home. Nothing on’im.”

They opened the door to a small room that smelled faintly of urine. The walls were unpainted plaster and there was only a bare wooden chair for furniture. They didn’t offer me the chair though, they just dropped me on my knees and walked out, closing the door behind them.

The door had a tiny peephole in it.

I pushed my shoulder against the wall until I was standing. The room didn’t look any better. There were a few bare pipes along the ceiling that dripped now and then. The edge of the linoleum floor was corroded and chalky from the moisture. There was only one window. It didn’t have glass but only a crisscross of two two-inch bars down and two bars across. Very little light came in through the window due to the branches and leaves that had pushed their way in. It was a small room, maybe twelve by twenty, and I had some fear that it was to be the last room I ever inhabited.

I was worried because they didn’t follow the routine. I had played the game of “cops and nigger” before. The cops pick you up, take your name and fingerprints, then they throw you into a holding tank with other “suspects” and drunks. After you were sick from the vomit and foul language they’d take you to another room and ask why you robbed that liquor store or what did you do with the money?

I would try to look innocent while I denied what they said. It’s hard acting innocent when you are but the cops know that you aren’t. They figure that you did something because that’s just the way cops think, and you telling them that you’re innocent just proves to them that you have something to hide. But that wasn’t the game that we were playing that day. They knew my name and they didn’t need to scare me with any holding tank; they didn’t need to take my fingerprints. I didn’t know why they had me, but I did know that it didn’t matter as long as they thought they were right.

I sat down in the chair and looked up at the leaves coming in through the window. I counted thirty-two bright green oleander leaves. Also coming in through the window was a line of black ants that ran down the side of the wall and around to the other side of the room where the tiny corpse of a mouse was crushed into a corner. I speculated that another prisoner had killed the mouse by stamping it. He probably had tried in the middle of the floor at first but the quick rodent had swerved away two, maybe even three times. But finally the mouse made the deadly mistake of looking for a crevice in the wall and the inmate was able to block off his escape by using both feet. The mouse looked papery and dry so I supposed that the death had occurred at the beginning of the week; about the time I was getting fired.

While I was thinking about the mouse the door opened again and the officers stepped in. I was angry at myself because I hadn’t tried to see if the door was locked. Those cops had me where they wanted me.

“Ezekiel Rawlins,” Miller said.

“Yes, sir.”

“We have a few questions to ask. We can take off those cuffs if you want to start cooperating.”

“I am cooperating.”

“Told ya, Bill,” fat Mason said. “He’s a smart nigger.”

“Take off the cuffs, Charlie,” Miller said and the fat man obliged.

“Where were you yesterday morning at about five A.M.?”

“What morning is that?” I stalled.

“He means,” fat Mason said as he planted his foot in my chest and pushed me over backward, “Thursday morning.”

“Get up,” Miller said.

I got to my feet and righted the chair.