A Red Death

by Mosley, Walter

  “Evenin’, Reggie,” I called out from behind a scraggly pine. I walked out of the trees to meet him with both hands in my pockets.

  He made a gesture toward his breast, but I brought my right hand out to show him the little pistol I held, then I shoved it back in my jacket pocket.

  He gave me a lopsided smile and hunched his shoulders. His big, bruising hands hung peacefully at his side.

  “You got the money?” I asked.

  He leaned forward slightly, indicating a brown paper parcel he held in his jacket.

  “But if I give you this money, what guarantee do I have that you’ll let me be?” he asked.

  “I know you a killer, man. I’ma run wit’ this here money. Run someplace you cain’t find me.”

  He smiled at me, and we both froze in time. I could see that he didn’t plan to move until I said something else, so I asked, “Why, man?”

  He jumped slightly from a tremor running through his body.

  “Hey! Fuck you!” he said, twisting his neck from side to side. I could smell the gin.

  “Uh-uh, really. I gotta know, man. Why you do all this shit?” I asked. I knew he was crazy, but I just wanted to have some reason.

  There was a fever in Agent Lawrence’s eyes.

  “Niggers and Jews,” he said. It was a toss-up whether or not he was talking to me.

  “Like your wife an’ child?”

  He looked me in the eye then. But he was quiet.

  “I mean, why Towne? Why Poinsettia?”

  “I told the nigger minister about you. You know what he did?”

  Lawrence brought his fists to his shoulders, so I said, “Cool it, man.”

  “Yeah.” Lawrence sputtered a laugh. “He threw me out. But I went back there. Yes sir, I did.”

  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.

  — 38 —

  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 c
aught 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?”

  “He tried to bribe me, Mr. Craxton. He put the squeeze on Mofass and then when you got involved he tried to get me in trouble.”

  “How did you find out about it?”

  “Mofass finally broke down and told me.”

  Craxton nodded.

  “I told him that I was going against a white guy doin’ charities for the church. I didn’t know that he was crazy.”

  “What about the girl, your tenant?”

  “He knew about my buildin’ and he wanted to squeeze me for a payoff, so he killed her I guess to put me in jail. If I was in jail I couldn’t work for you.”

  “But if you were in jail for murder, how could he get your money?”

  “I don’t think he meant to kill her, really. I think he only wanted to hurt her. That’s why her face was so bruised up. When she died he tried to make it look like suicide.”

  That last little bit of thinking was a little too sophisticated for what Craxton thought a Negro could come up with. He looked at me suspiciously but didn’t say anything. Craxton didn’t want to rock the boat. He had a dead communist and a man dealing in espionage. He had the evidence I planted at Lawrence’s house and two bodies. I imagined that he’d get a promotion out of it.

  “And where is Shirley Wenzler?” he asked.

  “She’s home, Mr. Craxton, and you know she don’t have nuthin’ t’do with this. She didn’t have anything to do with what her father was doing.”

  “You like her, huh, Easy?”

  “She’s clean, man.”

  Craxton chuckled. He was on top of the world.

  “But let me ask you somethin’,” I said.

  “Yes, Easy?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about them papers Wenzler had?”

  “Because you weren’t supposed to know. Nobody was. It was a secret project that Champion had scrapped. Lindquist was supposed to have destroyed the copies he had. I was supposed to make sure that he had done that. We both slipped up.”

  “You mean they weren’t even anything you were gonna use?”

  “It would still have looked bad if they showed up in Russia.”

  “Look bad?”

  I didn’t tell anybody about Jackie Orr and Melvin Pride, or about Winona. I sent a letter to Odell, though; I didn’t want to burn my brothers and sisters but I didn’t want them to continue stealing from the church either. I left the African Migration out of it completely.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Rawlins, I don’t know. It’s all real neat, but who killed Lawrence?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t there.”

  CRAXTON WAS TRUE TO HIS WORD and I took two years to pay off the money that the IRS said I owed. He also took the heat off of Shirley Wenzler and gave me his private number where I could get to him anytime.

  Andre Lavender and Juanita got back into circulation. He never stood trial because Craxton never brought up his name. The FBI man wanted smooth sailing over a sea of death and silence.

  Everything was fine.

  THE NIGHT AFTER I SPOKE to Craxton I went to see Etta. I opened the door with my key. The apartment was dark, but I expected that. The door to LaMarque’s room was open. I looked in to see him smiling in the arms of a giant teddy bear that I was sure came from Mouse.

  “That’s it, Etta,” I heard him say. His voice came right through the wall, as if he were whispering in my ear. “Oh yeah, yeah. You know I missed that.”

  Then a loud smacking sound and then, “I love you, Daddy.”

  “You say what?” Raymond Alexander asked his wife, his woman.

  “I love you, Daddy. I need you.”

  “You need this?”

  And she made a sound that I cannot duplicate. It was deep and guttural and so charged with pleasure that I got dizzy and lowered myself to the floor.

  The sounds Etta made got louder and even more passionate. She never made those sounds because of me; no woman ever had.

  Mouse is crazy, I thought, just crazy!

  But I wished for his insanity.

  Etta did too.

  — 39 —

  THE BOY AND I went to Mofass’s office a few days later. Jesus went through the door first and pulled out the chair for me to sit in front of my employee.

  Mofass was staring at a plate of eggs and ham, with hash browns on the side. He’d probably been doing that for a quarter of an hour.

  “Mo’nin’, Mr. Rawlins.” He had a leery look in his eye. Any man who survived a death threat from Raymond Alexander was leery.

  “Mofass. What’s goin’ on?”

  “They took me down to the federal detention center fo’a couple’a days there.”

  I opened my eyes as if I was surprised.

  “Yeah, they did,” he continued. “But I guess I gotta thank you fo’not pressin’ no charge at the IRS.”

  “Part’a the deal the FBI guy made. I don’t cause no trouble and they let me pay off my back taxes, on the quiet side.”

  “Well, I guess I should thank you anyway. That was a tight spot we was all in. You coulda taken it out on me.”

  “Should have too,” I said.

  Mofass glared.

  “Jesus,” I said. I fished a quarter out of my shirt pocket and flipped it to him. “Go get us some candy at that store we saw.”

  He gave me a mute grin and ran for the door.

  I waited for the sound of his steps down the stairs to fade before talking again.

  “That’s right, Mofass, I shoulda let Raymond waste your ass. I should have but I couldn’t, ’cause you my own personal hell. But it don’t matter. You see, I lost sumpin’ since that day we talked about that letter. I lost a lot. I got a good friend who hates me now ’cause he think I got his minister killed. An’ I cain’t go to him ’cause it was my fault, really. An’ I lost my woman because I wasn’t good enough. There’s a lotta people dead ’cause’a me. And I turnt Poinsettia out. You told me to do it, but it’s on my head, ’cause …”

  He interrupted me. “I don’t see what all this gotta do with me. If you want my keys to the places, I got ’em here.”

  “I made a good friend, Mofass, but yo’ friend cut ’im down. Didn’t even look in his face. Shot
him through the door.”

  “What you want from me, Mr. Rawlins?”

  “I ain’t got no friends, man. All I got is Jackson Blue, who’d give me up fo’a bottle’a wine, and Mouse; you know him. And a Mexican boy who cain’t speak English hardly an’ if he did he cain’t talk no ways.”

  Sweat had appeared on Mofass’s brow. I must’ve sounded pretty crazy.

  “I want you to keep on workin’ fo’ me, William. I want you to be my friend.”

  Mofass put the cigar between his fat lips and puffed smoke. I don’t think he knew how big his eyes were.

  “Sure,” he said. “You my best customer, Mr. Rawlins.”

  “Yeah, man. Yeah.”

  We sat there staring at each other until Jesus came back. He brought three tubes of chocolate disks, Flicks they were called. The three of us ate the chocolate in silence.

  Jesus was the only one smiling.

  «——THE END——»