Walter Mosley - Fortunate Son

“I’ve never had such a long talk with anybody,” he said. “Man or woman. Not a real talk where I said things about myself and they wanted to know what I was saying.”

“I want to stop drinking,” she said.

“Will you still talk to me if you do?”

“What do you want from me?” Kronin Stark asked Raela five days later.

She was too weak now to get up from her bed. The giant loomed above her. Because of the weakness of her vision, he seemed to be shimmering.

“You know,” she said. “And I want my brother back in the house and for you to apologize to him.”

“You think you can order me?”

“Leave me alone.”

She closed her eyes until the shadow that covered her was gone.

The next morning in the lounge area of the Cape Hotel in Beverly Hills, a slight man in a rumpled light-gray suit approached Kronin Stark’s table. The man’s name was Silas Renfield, but everyone called him Renny. Renny worked for the governor, though he had no particular job title — no official position at all. He showed up at odd hours and traveled extensively around the state and the nation. Whenever he appeared at the governor’s door he was always admitted whether or not he had an appointment.

“Hello, Mr. Stark,” Renny said, remaining on his feet.

“Sit,” Kronin replied.

“How are you, sir?”

“I don’t have time for pleasantries, Mr. Renfield. You know what I want. Are you ready to give it to me?”

“The boy was convicted of a violent crime under a state law that the governor himself pushed through the legislature. It would be... unseemly for him to rescind his own legislation.”

“I’m not asking for him to overturn the law. All I need is for him to allow clemency for one boy, a hero.”

“This boy was convicted of gang activity.”

“He was abandoned by the system, left on the streets to fend for himself. He was shot down even though he was unarmed, and he saved a child’s life from a mad gunman, almost dying in the process.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but the governor was quite clear with me this morning. He is not offering clemency for anyone convicted under his law.”

“I understand that,” Kronin replied. “A man should stick by his principles. But don’t you forget that all of the resources I used to get your man elected will now be used against him.”

“Mr. Stark—”

“This meeting is over.”

“What about the fund-raiser at the arena this Saturday?”

“Canceled as of noon today.”

“And the dinner with the Royal Family?”

“I’m rescinding the offer.”

“This is a mistake, Mr. Stark.”

“Yes, it is,” Kronin replied. “And you and your governor are the ones making it.”

At first Constance Baker thought that she only wanted Eric for a plaything. She said as much to him on that first night between their early bouts of torrid lovemaking. But she had found something in his arms that she’d never known before with a man. Maybe, she thought, it was because he was so young and sweet. But she doubted that. He spoke to her in low tones while they were in passion. He didn’t whisper sweet nothings, he made declarative statements about what he was going to do. And he did everything he promised. Constance felt taken over by the young man. She wanted to make herself his.

At three in the morning she woke him to say that she had just called her Jim Harris and ended their six-year relationship.

“Why?” Eric asked.

“Because I never knew what being with a real man could be like. When you make love to me I feel like crawling out of my skin. You make me want to get down on my hands and knees. No man has ever made me feel like that.”

Eric had heard words like this before from women and girls, but he was surprised at Constance. She seemed so in control of herself, so in charge. He didn’t mind when she said that she wanted to sleep with him. He thought that it was just sex.

“I told the doorman to call me if you came by,” she’d told him when they closed the door to her bedroom. “I told Jim that something had come up at the office and I had to go have a meeting.”

Just sex, the young man thought to himself.

“But Connie,” Eric said after she professed her love. “I’m just on vacation. I’ll be going back to L.A. soon. I’ve got a girlfriend back there.”

“Stay with me until you have to go,” she said, giving him a coquettish smile. “Maybe I can change your mind.”

“What about my brother?”

“He can stay with us. The girl can stay too if you want.”

Eric stared at her face and saw Christie when the first bullet hit her in the abdomen. She had let out a terrible cry that he had heard even through the thick glass of the revolving door.

On that first night Thomas and Clea had found Connie’s condoms and used one.

“You come like a woman,” she said to him as they lay there side by side in the unlit room looking through the glass wall out on the lights of New Jersey. “I thought that you were hurting, and your eyes looked scared.”

“I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “I really am. It’s just, it’s just that I’ve been thinking about that for so long, and I never knew it would feel so, so...”

“So what?”

“I don’t know. It was like you were all silk and all I ever knew was rocks. And when you looked at me and nodded I felt so powerful that I was scared that I’d hurt you. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, curling around him. “It was really wonderful what you did. It was like I had your soul in my hands, like I was hurting you but it was okay.”

“I don’t know, Clea,” Thomas said. “I never knew anything like that before. But you know, maybe you shoulda gone away with that other guy.”

“I don’t want to be with him.”

“Yeah, but you see how it is with me. Here I can’t even walk down the street without getting arrested. I don’t even hardly know how to read, and you can read things in four languages.”

“So? We’re not getting married or anything. We’re just havin’ a good time.”

She put her hand on his forehead the way his mother did when he was overtired and couldn’t sleep.

Thomas dozed off and dreamed that he was floating on a pink-and-blue ocean with the sun all around him and fish swimming on top of the water.

The boys moved their things out of the Y and brought them down to Connie’s. Eric felt funny about it, but he had been honest with his mentor. They had a good time together, and she taught him all about Wall Street.

Two weeks went by, and Thomas learned about love from Clea as Connie did from Eric. The boys spent their afternoons together exploring the city.

One cloudy morning Eric brought Thomas to deliver one of Connie’s antique watches to a watchmaker whose office was on the eighty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building. They entered the Russian’s office a little after nine.

“Yes?” the burly man asked. He was frowning at Thomas.

“I brought a watch from Constance Baker,” Eric told him.

This took away the scowl.

“Let me see it.”

It was a tiny pocket watch with gold-filled numbers and a shiny blue lacquered back.

“It’s lovely,” the watchmaker said.

Thomas wandered over to the window at the back of the shop. The sky outside was opaque white, pure and unfathomable.

Eric exchanged the watch for a receipt.

“Let’s go, Tommy,” he said.

“What’s with this window?” the young black man asked.

The watchmaker, Mr. Harry Slatkin, smiled.

“Open it up,” he said.

Tommy pulled the old-fashioned window wide. The dense white mass hovered outside.

“What is it?”

“The clouds,” Slatkin told him. “We are in the clouds.”