His left eye was half open. The right one was closed. The shots were to his chest. Two wicked holes in his right breast.
“Lord, no,” was the only wasted breath that Etta had. “LaMarque! Call the emergency number. Tell’em a white man’s been shot here at the house.”
She bent down to Raymond and lifted his head. With her ear to his mouth she checked his breathing. Then she stared hard into his face as if she were willing her life into his.
She turned to me and said, “You better git, Easy.”
“Etta, let me explain.”
“Go on, Easy.”
It was a hard dismissal. I wanted her to forgive me, to tell me that it was okay. But she had turned her attentions to her man’s deep wounds.
“Daddy!” LaMarque screamed as he came running up to the scene.
When he yelled again Etta stood up and pointed her finger in his face. “Hush!” she commanded. He wilted and she asked, “Did you call emergency?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“They sendin’ a ambulance?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Good. Now run get me the first-aid box.”
LaMarque took off, avoiding looking at his father’s still body.
“Etta,” I said.
“Go on from me now, Easy,” she warned.
“Etta, let me take him to the hospital.”
“You done taken him enough now, Easy. Ain’t today bad enough wit’out you killin’ my husband too?”
“What do you mean?”
“Get away from me, Easy Rawlins. Get outta here.”
CHAPTER 41
I LEFT IN MOUSE’S CAR. I had to leave, to hide the weapons.
Along the streets the traffic was light, but there were lots of folks out in front of their houses and stores. People were talking to each other with rapt attention on every corner. I saw more than one woman crying. Children walked listlessly, on the whole, not playing or laughing out loud.
The world was in sorrow, it seemed. Was Mouse’s death so powerful? Did everybody feel it when a brave gangster died?
Maybe it was that I hadn’t looked around me lately. Maybe a deep sadness had entered my community but I had been too busy being a workingman; a company man.
ON THE CORNER OF Pico and Genesee there were three white men and one white woman standing at the bus stop, listening to a transistor radio that one of them held up.
I took the heroin from the glove compartment and went up to my house.
The front door to my house was open.
Inside, Feather was crying in Bonnie’s arms. Jesus stood next to them holding one of Feather’s favorite dolls.
“Easy.” Bonnie had looked up. There was no smile on her face for me.
“Daddy, Daddy,” Feather cried. She limped over to me and I lifted her into my arms.
“Jackson here?” I asked my son.
He shook his head to say no. His voice lost again. Lost again. Everything was lost.
“What’s wrong?” I asked out loud.
“Haven’t you heard?” Bonnie asked me.
I was as mute as my son.
“Kennedy. He’s been shot. He’s dead.”
“What?”
I staggered across the floor with Feather and slumped down on the couch. I buried my head in Feather’s chest too sad even to cry. Bonnie came to hold us and so did my son. My lungs were burning and my throat was sore from choked tears.
I lifted my head and noticed that there was blood on my little daughter’s dress.
“What’s this?” I said. “What’s wrong with you, baby?” My voice was high from the strain.
“It’s from your ear, Daddy,” she said. “Wha’ happened?”
As if on cue Pharaoh yelped down at our feet.
“Frenchie!” Feather cried. “Frenchie.” She pulled away from my arms and hugged the dog on the floor.
I was too sad to be angry at the damn dog. I sat there thinking that he must have jumped into the car while I was helping Mouse. He’d probably hidden under the seat where I had put the gun and knife.
Gun and knife.
“Bonnie?”
“Yes, Easy?”
“Can you drive?”
“Yes.”
I gave her the keys and Primo’s address. I told her about the gun and knife under the seat.
“Take the kids out to his house. He’ll know what to do.”
“What about you, Easy?”
“I’m tired,” I said. I still had unfinished business with Philly Stetz. I didn’t know if he had sent Beam to kill me or not. I didn’t know if he wanted the heroin or if he knew my address. I did know that I didn’t want my children in the crossfire and so I sent them to Primo.
“Daddy.” Feather had tears in her eyes. “Can’t you come with us?”
“Later, honey.”
“Can’t I keep Frenchie, though?”
Being so weak themselves I think that children understand weakness better than adults. I couldn’t say no to her then.
“Okay. Yeah, okay.”
AT THE DOOR Jesus was the last to leave.
“Did you take the money out of my closet, Dad?”
“No.”
“It’s gone.” He looked at me with his solemn eyes.
Jackson Blue.
I TURNED ON THE RADIO and the TV. Both of them droned on and on about the assassination. I didn’t understand a word of it but the sad sounds of grief resonated in my heart. My best friend was wounded somewhere, maybe he was dead. It was my fault and I couldn’t even go to him and tell him that I was sorry.
I don’t know how much later it was when the doorbell rang. I took the pistol from my pocket and went to the moth hole in the drapes next to the window. Then I went to the door and flung it open quickly. I jammed my cocked .38 into Rupert’s nose and said, “You get killed comin’ around here, fool.”
Rupert wasn’t a fool. He wasn’t afraid either.
“I got sixty-seven hundred thirty-five dollars in this here briefcase,” he said.
“You cain’t spend it where you goin’, brother.”
“It’s yours,” Rupert said. “Mr. Stetz sent it.”
I noticed then that Rupert’s face had been battered, broken, and bruised. It was lopsided and swollen.
“Could I come in?” the big wrestler asked.
“No.” I stepped back and held the gun lower.
Rupert handed the briefcase to me but I shook my head and then gestured at the ground.
“Put it down,” I said. And, when he complied, “What’s it for?”
“It’s a’cause’a Mr. Beam.”
“What about him?”
“Mr. Stetz send Mr. Beam with this here money to give you. But then when he tried to kill you—”
“How do you know that?”
“I was in the warehouse. Mr. Beam didn’t know that. I was there for Mr. Stetz.” Rupert rubbed his hand over his ruined face and I knew that the beating he got was for working with Beam.
“You saw what happened?” I asked.
Rupert’s nod was cautious.
“An’ you didn’t do anything?”
“I was there to watch. That’s all. Mr. Stetz didn’t tell me to do nuthin’ else.”
Now I understood why Rupert showed no fear of me and my pistol: he was already filled to the brim with the fear of his boss.
I wanted to kill him. I really did. Behind me Walter Cronkite was almost ready to cry. Mouse was dying somewhere.
“Come on in,” I said to Rupert. “Come on.”
I turned off the TV. I would have poured a stiff drink if there was one in the house.
I waved at a seat with my gun. Rupert sat.
I laid the gun down next to me on the couch with my hand nearby.
“How’d you find my house, man?”
“Mr. Stetz made a call to the police. He axed a man down there t’get it. You know.” Rupert winked and cocked his head to the side.
It was that easy. One call and Stetz could
get information that I’d have to sweat blood for. I’d gone way over to the deep end of the pool.
But I didn’t care.
“You know why Sallie and Beam tried to kill me?” I asked, feeling the superiority of my close-at-hand gun.
“Not exactly,” the ex-wrestler said. He looked dumb and ugly but Rupert was not a stupid man. “Mr. Beam called me to come with him but I told him no.”
“What’d he say?”
“He said that he had the man that killed Roman and stole his drug. He said that he wanted me to throw in with ’im but I said that I worked for Mr. Stetz. He said that Mr. Stetz might not be on top forever but I told him that I had made up my mind and that was that.” Rupert’s resolve made him resemble a stone sculpture even more.
“But you worked for Beam before, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Him and Roman and Sallie all worked together, didn’t they?”
“Roman started comin’ ’round the Black Chantilly a couple’a year ago. He was lookin’ for a way in. He showed up with this girl, Grace Phillips, an’ then Sallie Monroe got in on it. Sallie and Roman went to Mr. Beam after Roman got this job at the schools through Grace’s boyfriend.”
“What did they want with Beam?”
“They wanted to have a meeting with Mr. Stetz, but Mr. Beam said that he could fence whatever they stole through some people he knew downtown. Then Mr. Beam asked me to go with’em so he’d have a finger in the soup.”
“And you went around stealin’ from school to school?”
Rupert actually smiled. “Yeah. We’d get us a truck from the Board of Education garage and go out ’bout once a month on the average. It wasn’t a lotta money, but it was somethin’. And then Roman hooked up this drug thing and the money got to be big.”
“Which one of you killed Holland Gasteau?” I already knew the answer but it didn’t hurt to ask.
“I don’t know who killed him, or Roman neither. Holland wasn’t in on the drugs. Sometimes we’d use his paper shack to hide what we took out the schools, but that was it.”
Rupert gave me a hard stare and I put my hand on my gun.
He said, “I wished I wasn’t never in it neither.”
“What were you doing at Bonnie Shay’s place?” I asked.
“Mr. Beam sent me. He said that he’d already killed somebody on that street and he didn’t want to be seen.”
“He tell you why he was after her?”
“Yeah. She stoled his drug. He wanted it back.”
“And were you going to kill her?”
I guess Rupert had told so much truth that he couldn’t switch over to lying too quickly; instead he just blinked and said, “She don’t have a thing to fear from me no more.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be sure to tell her that. So what’s that money all about?” Somewhere the only president I ever loved was lying dead. Somewhere my closest friend was dying because of me. I wanted to despair but as long as I could keep asking questions I could keep on going.
“It’s for you. Mr. Stetz told Mr. Beam to do right. He told him to make it up wit’ you. He said that he wanted to see Mr. Beam throw the drugs down the toilet. He was givin’ him a chance to do right. Mr. Beam was supposed to give you that money and then Mr. Stetz told me on the phone to bring it to you.”
“An’ how come the odd number?”
“I dunno, brother,” Rupert said. “That’s what he wanted me t’give you an’ that’s what I’m doin’.”
“What’s going to happen when they find those bodies in front of your boss’s warehouse?”
“They won’t find them.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“They’re right out there.”
We had left the door open. The briefcase that Rupert brought was sitting outside. Beyond that was a big ’57 Cadillac. I priced a car just like it when they were new; I remembered commenting on how roomy the trunk was.
“You can go on, Rupert,” I said.
He stood and looked down on me.
“Yeah?” I asked him.
“Mr. Stetz said to tell you that he respects a man that stands up.”
I considered telling him to take the money back to his boss. But sixty-seven hundred and thirty-five dollars was exactly one year’s salary for my grade. Stetz was telling me that he knew my price and that he could afford it. That cash could help to pay for Feather’s college. And besides, I had earned it. Paid for it with the most precious things in my life.
“You tell him that I still got his recorders. I’ll bring ’em up to the Chantilly in a couple’a days.”
I watched Rupert drive away in his makeshift hearse, then I went to the toilet and flushed away the drug.
CHAPTER 42
MOUSE WAS AT TEMPLE HOSPITAL. He was in a coma and fading out. Etta wouldn’t come to the phone.
“Momma said that you should stay away from here, Uncle Easy,” LaMarque told me over the phone.
“How are you, LaMarque?” I asked him.
“Is my daddy gonna die?” he cried.
I WATCHED THE NEWS all evening. All about our president and his last days; his last moments. The whole world had turned on that tabletop with Idabell.
BONNIE CALLED and I told her that she could come back in the morning.
“The kids need to be with you, Easy,” she said. Her voice was so soft and caring. It had the promise of daylight and love; it was like the lie of peace and brotherhood that had hoodwinked so many of my kind.
SHE BROUGHT THEM home at just past midnight. She was driving my car, which Primo had fixed. Jesus went right up to his bed and Feather fell asleep on Bonnie’s lap. She wanted to see the TV.
“I wanna see if he’s still alive,” she kept saying.
Somehow she didn’t hear it when we told her that he’d stay dead.
“WHY’D YOU KILL Holland?” It was past three. Bonnie and I were lying together in the bed, fully dressed.
She sat up and asked, “What?”
I didn’t have the strength to sit; I couldn’t even repeat the question.
“What?” she asked again.
“It’s okay, Bonnie. Nobody else knows. And I don’t plan to tell anyone.”
“Tell them about what? What are you saying?”
“It was when I saw that lipstick kiss you left on the note for me,” I said. “That’s when I knew for sure.”
She shook her head, and I got up on one elbow to face her. I was tired.
“Holland had a big kiss, that same dark color, on his face.”
If I wasn’t sure before, I was then. Bonnie’s look of dismay gave her away.
“That’s not enough, I know, but I was already half sure when I saw that broken green glass in your trash. You might have had the same kinda glasses as your friends, but probably not. All I wanna know is if you kissed Holland before or after you shot’im.”
Bonnie put her hand over her mouth.
“He … “ she said.
“Holland?”
“Yes. Yes. He called me after he got home. When he found Ida gone he called me looking for her. I told him that she was gone; that she had left the state. I thought that that would send him off looking for her. But instead he said that he wanted me to come over to his house right then.”
“Why?” I felt sorry for her in spite of myself.
“He said that he had the forms I’d filled out the night I went back to the airport, the night I forgot those damned carpet balls. Roman kept the copies that the customs official gave me. He said that he had the balls too. They had official seals glued to them. He said that if I didn’t come over right then he’d give it all to the police.”
“And you went?”
“He was excited when I got there. He told me that he wanted sex and for that he’d give me back the things he had.”
“Did you do it?”
She didn’t want to nod. “I didn’t … he raped me. He took me to the bedroom and made me…. He had this big black knife.”
&n
bsp; I remembered the pillows piled high in the center of the bed, the blood on the sheets, and the cut that I thought was a pimple above her breast.
“It was over in just a minute. Holland was laughing kind of crazy. He was all sweaty and his eyes were shiny, like he had a fever. He put on his clothes and then when I asked him for the carpet balls he laughed and told me that I was going to work for him. He said that I owed him because of what Ida did.”
“And so you killed him?”
“He said that I was going to be his new wife now that Roman was dead and Ida was gone. He made me get dressed. He made me sit on his lap and kiss him. It was like you said. I got the gun from his drawer while he was in the bathroom. I shot him. I did.”
“He told you that Roman was dead?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And then you called Idabell at the school and told her, right?”
“I told her to come over but I didn’t say that Holly was dead. We packed her things. I took my carpet balls and she took the croquet set. I took the glass because I just didn’t know what to do with it.” She looked me in the eye as if to say that she couldn’t help it; that she’d had to kill him.
I was in no place to pass judgment.
I SLEPT ON THE SOFA that night. In the morning I drove her back home while the country mourned JFK.
I went to Arno T. Lewis from Bonnie’s house and told him that I couldn’t find Idabell. He told me that they’d identified Idabell’s corpse the night before.
I had found, I said, that Bill Bartlett was Holland’s partner in the little paper route business that worked out of the shack that held the stolen goods. A few days later there was an account in the paper of how Roman and Holland and Bartlett were in business stealing from the schools. Roman, who had obtained his job under an alias with forged references, had abused his power as a nighttime building consultant. In a falling-out among thieves, the article speculated, Bartlett had killed Roman and then Holland. Later on, after meeting with Bartlett at Whitehead’s restaurant, Idabell Turner was found dead.
Traces of heroin had been found and Bartlett was being sought for questioning. However, his house had been broken into and a goodly quantity of blood had been found. Foul play had not been ruled out in his case.
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