Walter Mosley - Devil in a Blue Dress

“All I want is my chance,” I said.

“Yeah, Easy. Yeah, that’s all.”

“But let me tell ya,” I said. “I’m scared t’get mixed up wit’ you, man.”

Mouse flashed his golden smile at me. “What?”

“You remember when we went to Pariah? To get yo wed-din’ money?”

“Yeah?”

“Daddy Reese an’ Clifton died, Ray. They died ’cause’a you.”

When Mouse stopped smiling the light in the room seemed to go dim. All of a sudden he was pure business; he’d just been playing with Frank Green.

“What you mean?”

“You kilt’em, man! You, an’ me too! Clifton came to me two nights fo’ he died. He wanted me t’tell’im what t’do. He tole me how you planned t’use him.” I felt the tears pressing my eyes but held them back. “But I didn’t say nuthin’. I just let that boy go. Now ev’rybody think he killed Reese but I know it was you. And that hurts me, man.”

Mouse rubbed his mouth, never even blinking.

“That been botherin’ you all this time?” He sounded surprised.

“Yeah.”

“That was a lotta years ago, Easy, an’ you wasn’t even there, really.”

“Guilt don’t tell time,” I said.

“Guilt?” He said the words as if it had no meaning. “You mean like what I did makes you feel bad?”

“That’s right.”

“I tell you what then,” he said, putting his hands up at his shoulders. “You let me work on this with you and I let you run the show.”

“Whas that mean?”

“I ain’t gonna do nuthin’ you don’t tell me t’do.”

“Everything I say?”

“Whatever you say, Easy. Maybe you gonna show me how a poor man can live wit’out blood.”

We didn’t touch the whiskey.

I told Mouse what I knew; it wasn’t much. I told him that DeWitt Albright was up to no good. I told him that I could get a thousand dollars for information about Daphne Monet because there was a price on her head.

When he asked me what she had done I looked him in the eye and said, “I don’t know.”

Mouse puffed on a cigarette while he listened to me.

“Frank come back here an’ you might not get out again,” he said when I stopped talking.

“We ain’t gonna be here neither, man. We both leave in the morning an’ follow this thing down.” I told him where he could find DeWitt Albright. I also told him how he could get in touch with Odell Jones and Joppy if he needed help. The plan was to put Mouse on Frank’s trail and I’d look into the places I had seen Daphne. We’d come up with the girl and improvise from there.

It felt good to be fighting back. Mouse was a good soldier, though I worried about him following orders. And if I had the whole thing scammed out right we’d both come out on top; I’d still be alive and have my house too.

Mouse fell asleep on my living room sofa. He was always a good sleeper. He once told me that they’d have to wake him for his execution because “the Mouse ain’t gonna miss his rest.”

I didn’t tell Mouse everything.

I didn’t tell him about the money Daphne stole or the rich white man’s name: or that I knew his name. Mouse probably meant to keep his word to me; he could keep from killing if he tried. But if he got a whiff of that thirty thousand dollars I knew that nothing would hold him back. He would have killed me for that much money.

“All you have to do is worry about Frank,” I told him. “Just find out where he goes. If he leads you to the girl then we got it made. Understand me, Raymond, I just wanna find the girl, there ain’t no reason to hurt Frank.”

Mouse smiled at me. “Don’t worry, Ease. I was just mad when I seen’im over you like that. You know, it made me kinda wanna teach him a lesson.”

“You gotta watch him,” I said. “He know how to use that knife.”

“Shit!” Mouse spat. “I’as born wit’ a knife in my teefs.”

The police met us as we were leaving the house at eight in the morning.

“Shit.”

“Mr. Rawlins,” Miller said. “We came to ask you a few more questions.”

Mason was grinning.

“Guess I better be goin’, Easy,” Mouse said.

Mason put a fat hand against Mouse’s chest. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Name is Navrochet,” Mouse said. “I just come by t’get some money he owe me.”

“Money for what?”

“Money I lent him over a year ago.” Mouse produced a wad of bills, the topmost of which was a twenty.

The broad grin on Mason’s fat face didn’t make him any prettier. “And he’s just got it now?”

“Better have,” Mouse said. “Or you officers would be comin’ fo’ me.”

The cops exchanged meaningful glances.

“Where do you live, Mr. Navrochet?” Miller asked. He took out a pad and a pen.

“Twenty-seven thirty-two and a half, down on Florence. It’s upstairs in the back,” Mouse lied.

“We might have some questions for you later,” Miller informed him as he wrote down the address. “So you should stick around town.”

“Anything you boys want. I work at that big World Carwash on Crenshaw. You know I be there if I ain’t at my house. See ya, Easy.” Mouse went swinging his arms and whistling. I never did figure out how he knew the streets so well to lie like that.

“Shall we go in?” Miller gestured back toward the house.

They put me in a chair and then they stood over me, like they meant business.

“What do you know about this Richard McGee?” Miller asked me.

When I looked up I saw them searching my face for the truth.

“Who?” I said.

“You heard me,” Miller said.

“I don’t know who you said.” I was stalling for time to figure out what they knew. Mason laid a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“LAPD found a dead man in his house in Laurel Canyon last night,” Miller told me. “Richard McGee. He had a handwritten note on his table.”

Miller held out the scrap of paper to me. On it was scrawled “C. James.”

“Sound familiar?” Miller asked.

I tried to look stupid; it wasn’t very difficult.

“How about Howard Green? You know him?” Miller put his foot on my table and leaned forward so far that his gaunt face was no more than a few inches from mine.

“No.”

“You don’t? He goes to that nigger bar you were at with Coretta James. That place just isn’t big enough to hide in.”

“Well, maybe I’d know his face if you showed me,” I said.

“That would be kinda hard,” Mason growled. “He’s dead and his face looks like hamburger.”

“What about Matthew Teran, Ezekiel?” Miller asked.

“ ’Course I know him. He was runnin’ for mayor up till a few weeks ago. What the hell is this, anyway?” I stood up, faking disgust.

Miller said, “Teran called us the night we arrested you. He wanted to know if we’d found out who killed his driver, Howard Green.”

I gave him a blank stare.

“We told him no,” Miller continued. “But there had been another murder, Coretta James’s murder, that had the same kind of violence related to it. He was real interested, Easy.

He wanted to know all about you. He even came down to the station and had us point you out to him and his new driver.”

I remembered the peephole in the door.

“I ain’t never even met the man,” I said.

“No?” Miller said. “Teran’s body was found in his downtown office this morning. He had a nice little bullet hole through his heart.”

The spike through my head drove me back into the chair.

“We don’t think you had anything to do with it, Ezekiel. At least, we can’t prove anything. But you have to know something… and we have all day to ask you questions.”