A Red Death

by Mosley, Walter

  When I grimaced from the arm twisting I felt dry blood crack across my cheek.

  That nearly broke me. I was almost ready to confess, confess to anything they’d say. But the voice kept screaming for me.

  The door opened and a tall silver-haired man walked in. I was grateful for the respite, but when Fine released me it felt as if he’d torn the arm from its socket.

  I moaned, humiliated and in pain as I gazed at those shiny black shoes.

  “Captain,” Gabor said.

  Then I saw a second pair of shoes that were as bright as polished onyx.

  “This is what you call questioning, John?” Special Agent Craxton asked.

  “It’s a hard case, uh, Agent Craxton,” the silver-haired man answered. Then he said to Fine, “Agent Craxton here is with the FBI. He needs Mr. Rawlins for a case he’s working on.”

  “What about the murders?” Fine asked.

  “Unchain him and apologize or I tear off your prick and shove it down your throat,” Craxton said simply, almost sweetly.

  Fine didn’t like that, he brought his fists up to his chest and pushed his body forward a little, but when he peered into Craxton’s eyes he backed down. He even unlocked my manacles, but he didn’t apologize and he looked defiant, like a child angered at his father.

  Craxton just smiled. The spaces between his teeth made him look like an alligator that had evolved to human form.

  “Send me this officer’s file, John.”

  “Apologize, Charlie,” Captain John said.

  The fat cop who had caused me so much pain said, “I’m sorry.” And even though I was so hurt, that sounded good to me. His humiliation was like sweet, cold ice cream on hot apple pie.

  I rubbed the dried blood from my face and said, “Fuck you, mothahfuckah. Fuck you twice.”

  It wasn’t smart but I never imagined that I’d live to be an old man.

  AGENT CRAXTON was with two men who looked like real FBI. They wore dark suits and ties with white shirts and short-brimmed hats. They had black shoes and white socks and small bulges on the left side of their bulky jackets. They were clean-shaven and silent as stones.

  They were also the same men that I saw Shirley talking to in front of her house.

  The twins got in the front seat of a black Pontiac. Craxton and I got in behind. We headed out into the street, turning every three blocks or so. I don’t think we had a destination; at least not a place we were going to.

  “They think you killed all of them, Easy. Killed the girl at your place and killed the minister too.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Kill your tenant?”

  “What for? Why I wanna kill her?”

  “You tell me. She was your tenant. She wasn’t paying your rent.”

  “Ain’t nuthin to’ tell. I found Poinsettia dead and I found the minister too. Bad luck, that’s all.”

  “I can understand why they suspect you, though. If I hadn’t sent you into that church myself I’d think it pretty strange.”

  “Yeah, that’s how things happen—strange. I seen all kindsa things happen you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Somebody’s on to you, Mr. Rawlins. Somebody knows you’re working with us.”

  “Why you say that?”

  “Because this murder in the church was professional. Either they hired it out or one of the Russians did it themselves.”

  “Did? You mean shot them? Why would anybody wanna come kill Towne?”

  “The reverend must’ve been involved. They thought they could cover their tracks by killing him.”

  “Why not just kill me?”

  “Kill a weed at its root, that’s what they do. He could have been their prize pupil but they cut him short if they think he’d jeopardize even one thing.”

  I decided to take a chance with Craxton.

  “Man, they gotta be sumpin’ you ain’t tellin’ me.”

  He paused, looking at me for a few moments before speaking.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, I been on Wenzler for some days now an’ I cain’t see where he’s any big thing. So I gotta wonder why you wanna get me out of a fed’ral charge just to spy on some small-time union guy. Then, on top’a that, this man gets himself killed an’ you sure it’s got somethin’ t’do with what I’m doin’. Like I said—sumpin’ don’t add up.”

  Craxton leaned back against the window and began to outline his jaw with a hairy index finger. He started from the center of his chin and worked his way up the left side of his face. As his finger progressed a smile began to form. It was a full-fledged grin by the time he’d reached the earlobe.

  “You’re a smart one, eh, Rawlins?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So smart that I’m here with you worryin’ ’bout my liberty, my money, and my life. If I was any smarter I wouldn’t even have to breathe.”

  “Wenzler’s got something,” Craxton said.

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “You don’t really need to know that, Easy. All you need to know is that we’re playing for high stakes here. We’re playing for keeps.”

  “You sayin’ I could get killed?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So why the fuck didn’t you say that before?” One of the robots in the front seat cocked his head a little. But I didn’t let that bother me. “Here you lettin’ me walk around like everything is goin’ on accordin’ t’plan an’ really they’s people drawin’ a bead on me.”

  Craxton wasn’t bothered by me, though.

  “You want to go to prison, Easy?” he asked. “Just say the word and we can hand you back to Agent Lawrence.”

  “Listen,” I said. “If you know what it is that Wenzler has got, why don’t you just take him?”

  “We have, Easy. We arrested him and interrogated him. But he gave us nothing and we haven’t got any proof. We don’t have a fiber of evidence. I can’t tell you what it is that we think he has but I can tell you that it’s something important. I can tell you that it would hurt America to let it slip through our fingers.”

  “So you ain’t gonna tell me what it is I’m lookin’ for?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know, Easy. Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

  “Okay then, tell me this,” I said. “Does whatever this is have to do with Andre Lavender?”

  “I can tell you that if you know where Lavender is you should tell us. This isn’t about race, Easy, it’s about your country.”

  “So I should go out there with a bull’s-eye on my back ’cause you say so?”

  “You can pull out anytime.”

  He knew the chances of me doing that. “So you want me to stay on Wenzler?”

  “That’s right. And now you have the knowledge that Towne was somehow linked. We already have his involvement with the antiwar people. You can work from his relationship with Wenzler. For all we know Wenzler is the one who killed him.”

  Chaim had been a killer in Poland. The war wasn’t so far back that a good soldier would forget his trade.

  “What about Poinsettia? You think the Russians killed her?”

  He gave me a hard look then.

  “You could have killed her, or maybe somebody else did. I don’t know and I don’t care, because I don’t have that job.”

  “You better believe those cops care.”

  Craxton shifted in his seat and gazed out the window.

  “When this is over I’ll explain why you were at the church,” he said, leaning so close to the glass that steam clouded his already dim reflection. “I’ll tell them that you’re a hero. If they have no physical evidence you did the girl, then …” He hunched his shoulders and turned from the window to look at me. I felt a trickle of blood come down the side of my face.

  “Ever been out in a cold foxhole, Ezekiel?”

  “More times than I’d like t’ remember.”

  “It’s cold and alone out there, but that
sure makes coming home sweet.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I could have said, “Amen to that.”

  “Yeah,” he continued. “Pain makes men out of scared little boys.”

  The sun was a big red ball just over the city. The underbellies of the clouds over our heads were long black hanging things, like stalactites in a great cave, but above those clouds was a bright orange that was almost religious it was so warm. I could almost hear the church organs.

  “Yeah, Ezekiel, we have a real job to do. And it might get kind of painful.”

  I couldn’t twitch my baby finger without a jolt going through my arm, but I asked, “How you figure?”

  “We got to get Wenzler. He’s a tough man and he’s in with people worse than that. I know that you’re taking a chance, but we need that to get this job done.”

  “What if I do all this you say an’ I still don’t find nuthin’?”

  “If I don’t get what I want, Mr. Rawlins, then my job isn’t worth a cent. If I can’t make this case you’ll be shit out of luck along with me.”

  “And if you do find it?”

  “Then I help you, Easy. Sink or swim.”

  “I have your word, Mr. Craxton?”

  Instead of answering me he asked, “Home?”

  “Yeah.”

  On the ride all he talked about was how he was going to buy some bonita, cut the fish in chunks, scald it, and then marinate it in a vinegar and soya sauce. It was a dish he’d learned to make while on duty in Japan.

  “Nips know how to do fish,” he said.

  — 26 —

  WHAT YOU THINKIN’ ’BOUT, EASY?” Etta asked.

  We were lying back in her bed. I had my hands together behind my head and she was running her fingers along my erection, under the covers. I felt strange. It was one of those feelings that doesn’t quite make sense. My body was excited but my mind was calm and wondering about the next move I should make. If Etta hadn’t kept her fingers going like that I would have been nervous, unable to think about anything.

  I came to her house in the evening, after LaMarque had gone to bed. She bathed me and then I loved her, again and again until it was close to sunrise. I don’t think there was much pleasure in it for her, except maybe the pleasure of helping me dull the fear and pain I felt.

  “ ’Bout them people. ’Bout how they dead but still I gotta worry ’bout ’em. That’s what makes us different from the animals.”

  “How’s that?” she whispered and, at the same time, she gave me a little squeeze.

  “If a dog see sumpin’ dead he just roll around on the corpse a few times an’ move on, huntin’. But I find a dead man an’ it’s like he’s alive, followin’ me around an’ pointin’ his finger at me.”

  “What you gonna do, baby?”

  “FBI man thinks Reverend Towne was mixed up in somethin’. He thinks that Towne was messed up wit’ communists.”

  “What com’unists?”

  “Uh, that feels good,” I said. “The Jew I been workin’ for, communist.”

  “What they gotta do wit’ Towne?”

  She sat up a little.

  I said, “Put your hand back, Etta, put it back.”

  She grinned at me and settled back against my chest.

  “That’s why the government got me outta jail. They want the Jew,” I said, clearheaded again.

  “So? Let them do it. You ain’t gotta go out an’ do they job.”

  “Yeah,” I said. Then I sat back and smiled because so much pleasure could come after pain.

  “Mofass is gone,” I said after a while.

  “Gone where?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “Outta his house?”

  “Uh-huh. He left some kinda half-assed note at the office. Said his mother was sick down in New Orleans and he was going to care for her. He let his room go too. That’s some strange shit.”

  “Ain’t nuthin’ wrong wit’ that.”

  “I guess. But I cain’t see Mofass runnin’ out without a word.”

  “People change when it comes t’ family.”

  “But that’s just it, Mofass never even liked his momma.”

  “You just cain’t tell, Easy, blood is strong.”

  I knew she was right about that. I loved my father more than life even though he abandoned me when I was eight years old.

  “But you know it is funny,” Etta said.

  “What?”

  “You know that boy tried to beat up on you after church?”

  “Willie Sacks?”

  “Uh-huh. His momma, Paulette, come by here today.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I asked her ’cause I wanted her to know how Willie had come after you. I told her but she already knew it. She said Willie had gone bad after he met Poinsettia.”

  “Bad how?”

  “She had’im runnin’ after her an’ spendin’ all his money. Willie used t’take his money home. He ain’t got no father an’ Paulette relied on him t’pay the rent.”

  “Boys grow up, Etta. LaMarque do the same thing when some girl get him to feelin’ like this.” I touched her hand.

  “But you know Willie never made enough an’ Mofass was payin’ fo’ that girl too.”

  “What?”

  “Mofass been payin’ her rent the last year. Poinsettia told Willie ’bout it. She said how sometimes she had to go out with him but that they never did any more than kiss.”

  “No lie?” I never thought Mofass chased the ladies.

  “But she also said how Mofass had her go out with other men sometimes.”

  “You mean like he was her pimp?”

  “I don’t know, Easy. I just know what Paulette said. Now you know she heard it from her son an’ he got it from Poinsettia. Willie broke up with her when he found out. At least that’s what Paulette thought. But after her accident she started callin’ again. Maybe Mofass did somethin’ to that girl.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I can’t see it. What could she have on him to make him wanna do that?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I just know it, that’s all. You’re a smart man, and you care too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She tossed back the blankets so that I could see her handiwork. She watched it too.

  “I want some more, baby.” She said it loudly and bold as if she were announcing to an audience.

  I knew she didn’t but I asked, “You do?”

  “Yeah.” It was almost a growl in my ear.

  “Where?”

  And she guided me. And I turned into a rutting pig again, trying to rut myself to safety.

  I WOKE UP WITH A START. There was a sound somewhere in the apartment. I worried that Mouse was in the other room with his revolver but at the same moment I looked at EttaMae. I looked at her feeling how spent I was and I realized that I wanted her more than just for sex. That was new to me. Usually sex was the first and last thing with me, but I wanted her with the same ardor when I was all used up.

  I snaked out of bed and slithered into my pants. There was no light from outside or from the other room. I eased the door open and saw him sitting in the living room. He was swinging his head back and forth and kicking the heels of his feet against the couch.

  “LaMarque!”

  “Hi, Unca Easy,” he said, looking around me to the room I came from.

  “What you doin’ up?”

  “You sleep wit’ my momma?”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I could only hope that he would never repeat it to Mouse. I would have liked to ask him to keep it quiet, but it was a sin, I thought, to make a child lie.

  “Oh.”

  “Why you up?” I asked again.

  “Dreams.”

  “What kinda dreams?”

  “ ’Bout a big ole monster wit’ a hunert eyes.”

  “Yeah? He chase you?”

&nbs
p; “Uh-uh. He ax me if I wanna ride an’ then he take me flyin’ so high an’ then he start fallin’ like we gonna crash.”

  LaMarque’s eyes opened wide with fear as he spoke.

  “Then,” he went on, “he stop jus’ fo’ we crash an’ he laugh. An’ I ax ’im t’ let me go but he jus’ keep on flyin’ high an’ scarin’ me.”

  I sat next to him and let him crawl into my lap. He was panting at first.

  I waited until he’d calmed down and then I asked, “Do you like it when your daddy takes you to Zelda’s?”

  “Uh-uh, it’s smelly there.”

  “Smell like what?”

  “Dookey an’ vomick.” He stuck out his tongue.

  “You tell your momma ’bout what it smells like there?”

  “Uh-uh, I never telled. I’s ascared ta.”

  “How come?”

  “I’ont know.”

  “You think that they might fight if you told?”

  “Uh-huh, yeah.”

  He’d grabbed a fistful of the fabric of my pants and wrung it.

  “You know if you told your daddy that you didn’t wanna go there no more he wouldn’t take you.”

  “Yeah he would. He like to be gamblin’ an’ gettin’ pussy.”

  When LaMarque said the last word he ducked down as if I might hit him.

  “No, honey,” I said and I patted his head. “Your daddy wanna see you more than them folks. He wants to play ball wit’ you, an’ watch TV too.”

  He didn’t say anything to that, so we just sat for a while. He was wringing my pants hard enough to pinch me.

  “Your daddy gonna come visit you an’ Etta in a coupla days,” I said after a long while.

  “When?”

  “Prob’ly day after tomorrow, I bet.”

  “He gonna bring me a present?”

  “I bet he does.”

  “Are you gonna be in my momma’s bed?”

  I laughed and hugged him to my chest.

  “No,” I said. “I got work to do.”

  We sat there and watched the sun come up. Then we both fell asleep. I dreamed about Poinsettia again. The flesh was coming off her. She was deteriorating in my dreams from one night to the next; soon she’d just be bones.

  I awoke maybe half an hour after we’d gone to sleep. LaMarque was snoring. I carried him to his room and then I looked in on Etta. She was in the same position, one powerful hand thrown up next to her beautiful, satin-brown face. I still wanted her the way I had for so many years, but for the first time in my life I considered marriage.