A Red Death Read online

  “Say what?”

  He stroked the lower half of his face and regarded me. I noticed a small, L-shaped scab on the forefinger knuckle of his right hand.

  “I’m going to call you this afternoon at three sharp,” he said. “Three. And then I’m going to tell you when I can meet with you to go over your income statements. I want all your tax returns, and I want to see bank statements too. Now, it might not be regular office hours, because I’m doing a lot of work this month. There’s a lot of bigger fish than you trying to cheat Uncle Sam, and I’m going to catch them all.”

  If there was something wrong at home for Agent Lawrence, he was going to make sure that the whole world paid for it.

  “So it may not be until tomorrow evening that I can see you.” He stood up with that.

  “Tomorrow! I can’t have all that by tomorrow!”

  “I have an appointment at the federal courthouse in half an hour. So if you’ll excuse me.” He held his open hand toward the door.

  “Mr. Lawrence …”

  “I’ll call you at three. An army man will know how to be at that phone.”

  — 6 —

  THE FIRST THING I DID after leaving the tax man was to go to a phone. I called Mofass and told him to have somebody get the empty apartment at the Sixty-fourth Street building ready for two tenants. Then I called Alfred Bontemps at his mother’s house.

  She answered sweetly, “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Bontemps?”

  “Is that you, Easy Rawlins?”

  “Uh-huh, yeah. How you been, ma’am?”

  “Just fine,” she said. There was gratitude in her voice. “You know Alfred’s come back home ’cause of you.”

  “I know that. I went up there an’ got ’im. I could see how you missed him.”

  Mrs. Bontemps’ son, Alfred, stole three hundred dollars from Slydell, a neighborhood bookie, and then he ran out to Compton because he was afraid that Slydell wanted him dead—which he did. Alfred stole the money because his mother was sick and needed a doctor. Slydell hired me to find the boy and his money. I went straight to Mrs. Bontemps and told her that if she didn’t tell me about Alfred, Slydell would kill him.

  She gave me the address after I told her how Slydell had once torn off a man’s ear for stealing the hubcaps from his car.

  “But you workin’ fo’ that man,” she’d told me. Tears were in her eyes.

  “That’s just business though, ma’am. If I could get what Slydell wants I could maybe cut a deal with him.”

  She was so scared that she told me the address. Woman’s love has killed many a man that way.

  I found Alfred, threw him in the back of my Ford, and drove him to a hotel on Grand Street in L.A. Then I drove over to the bookie shop; that was the back room of a barbershop on Avalon.

  I gave Slydell the forty-two dollars Alfred had left and told him, “Alfred’s gonna give you fifteen dollars a month until that money is paid, Slydell.”

  “The hell he is!”

  I had no intention of letting that boy get killed after I’d found him, so I brought out my pistol and held it to the bookie’s silver-capped tooth.

  “I said I’d bring you yo’ money, man. You know Alfred cain’t pay you if he’s dead.”

  “I cain’t let that boy get away wit’ stealin’ from me. I got a reputation t’think of, Easy.”

  Slydell was only tough with a man who cowered at threats of violence. And he knew I wasn’t the kind of man who bowed down.

  “Then it’s either you or him, man,” I said. “You know I don’t look kindly on killin’ boys.”

  We settled it without bloodshed. Alfred got a good job with the Parks Department, paid Slydell, and got his mother on his health insurance.

  Mrs. Bontemps kind of took me on as her foster son after that.

  “You ever gonna get married, Easy?” she asked.

  “If I ever find somebody t’take me.”

  “Oh, you’d be a good catch, honey,” she said. “I know lotsa good women give they eyeteeth fo’you.”

  But all I was interested in was Alfred at that moment. He was a small boy, barely out of his teens, and skitterish, but he felt he owed me a debt of honor for standing up against Slydell. And I think he might have been happy to get back home to his mother too.

  “Could I talk with Alfred, ma’am?”

  “Sure, Easy, an’ maybe you could come over fo’ dinner sometimes.”

  “Love it,” I said.

  After a few moments Alfred came on the line.

  “Mr. Rawlins?”

  “Listen up, Alfred. I gotta move somebody t’day an’ I need a helper ain’t gonna go runnin’ his mouth after it.”

  “You got it, Mr., um, Easy. When you need the help?”

  “You know my house on 116th Street?”

  “Not really.”

  I gave him the address and told him to be there at about one-thirty.

  “But first go over to Mofass’s office an’ tell ’im that you gonna use his truck fo’ the move,” I said.

  ALL THE TIME I was on the phone the idea of the government taking my money and my freedom was gnawing at me. But I didn’t even let that become a thought. I was afraid of what might happen if I did.

  So instead I went to Targets Bar after my phone calls. It was still early in the day, but I needed some liquor and some peace.

  John McKenzie was the bartender at Targets. He was also the cook and the bouncer, and, though his name wasn’t on the deed, John was also the owner. He used to own a speakeasy down around Watts but the police finally closed that down. An honest police captain moved into the precinct, and because of the differences between honest cops and honest Negro entrepreneurs, he put all our best businessmen out of trade.

  John couldn’t get a liquor license because he had been a bootlegger in his youth, so he took an empty storefront and set out a plank of mahogany and eighteen round maple tables. Then he gave nine thousand dollars to Odell Jones, who in turn made a down payment to the bank. But it was John’s bar. He managed it, collected the money, and paid the mortgage. What Odell got was that he could come in there anytime he wanted and drink to his heart’s content.

  It was John who gave me the idea of how to buy my own buildings through a dummy corporation.

  Odell worked at the First African Baptist Day School, which was around the corner from his bar. He was the custodian there.

  Odell was at his special table the day I came from the IRS. He was eating his regular egg-and-bacon sandwich for lunch before going back to work. John was standing at the far end of the bar, leaning against it and staring off into the old days when he was an important man.

  “Easy.”

  “Mo’nin’, John.”

  We shook hands.

  John’s face looked like it was chiseled in ebony. He was tall and hard. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on John, but he was a big man, still and all. He was the kind of man who could run a bar or speakeasy, because violence came to him naturally, but he preferred to take it easy.

  He put a drink down in front of me and touched my big knuckle. When I looked up into his stark white-and-brown eyes he said, “Mouse been here t’day, Easy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He askin’ fo’ EttaMae, an’ when that failed he asted ’bout you.”

  “Like what?”

  “Where you been, who you been wit’. Like that. He was wit’ Rita Cook. They was goin’ t’ her house fo’a afternoon nap.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I just thought you wanna know ’bout yo’ ole friend bein’ up here, Easy.”

  “Thanks, John,” I said, and then, “By the way …”

  “Yeah?” He looked at me with the same dead-ahead look that he had for a customer ordering whiskey or an armed robber demanding what was in the till.

  “Some people been talkin’ ’bout them buildin’s I bought a while back.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You tell anybody ’bout them papers we did?”

  A
t first he moved his shoulders, as if he were going to turn away without a word. But then he straightened up and said, “Easy, if I wanted to get you I could put sumpin’ in yo’ drink. Or I could get one’a these niggahs in here t’cut yo’ th’oat. But now you know better than that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I know, John. But you know that I had t’ask.”

  We shook hands again, still friends, and I moved away from the bar.

  I said hello to Odell. We made plans to get together in the next couple of days. It felt like I was back in the war again. Back then I’d see somebody and make plans, just a few hours away, but I wondered if I’d be alive to make the date.

  “HI, EASY,” ETTA SAID in a cool voice when I got to the door. The potatoes were replanted and the flower beds were tended. My house smelled cleaner than it ever had, and I was sorry, so sorry that I wanted to cry.

  “Hi, Unca Easy,” LaMarque yelled. He was jumping up and down on my couch. Up and down, over and over, like a little madman, or a little boy.

  “Mouse went to John McKenzie’s bar t’day. He was lookin’ fo’ you an’ askin’ ’bout me,” I told Etta.

  “He be here tomorrow then, an’ me an’ LaMarque be gone.”

  “How you know he ain’t on his way here right now?”

  “You say he was in John McKenzie’s bar just today?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So he had t’ be either wit’ a girl or after one.”

  I didn’t say anything to that, so Etta went on, “Raymond always gotta get his thing wet when he get to a new place. So he be here tomorrah, after he get that pussy.”

  I was ashamed to hear her talk like that and looked around to see where LaMarque was. But something about her bold talk excited me too. I didn’t like to feel anything about Mouse’s woman, but things were going so poorly in my life that I was feeling a little reckless.

  Luckily Alfred drove up then. He was a tiny young man, hardly larger than a punk kid, but he could work. We put Etta’s bags and a bed from my garage in the truck. I also gave her a chair and a table from my store of abandoned furniture.

  Etta softened a little before she left.

  “You gonna come an’ see us, Easy?” she asked. “You know LaMarque likes you.”

  “Just gotta get this tax man offa my butt an’ I be by, Etta. Two days, three at top.”

  “You tell Raymond that I don’t wanna see ’im. Tell ’im that I tole you not t’give’im my address.”

  “What if he pulls a gun on me? You want me to shoot ’im?”

  “If he pulls his gun, Easy, then we all be dead.”

  — 7 —

  AFTER EVERYONE WAS GONE I sat down by the phone. That was five minutes to three. If Lawrence had called me when he said he was I might have been okay. But the minutes stretched into half an hour and then to an hour. During that time I thought about all that I was going to lose; my property, my money, my freedom. And I thought about the way he called me son so easily. In those days many white people still took it for granted that a black man was little more than a child.

  It was well after four by the time Lawrence called.

  “Rawlins?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I want you to come to my office at six-thirty this evening. I’ve notified someone downstairs so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting in.”

  “Tonight? I cain’t have all that by then, man.”

  But I was wasting my words, because he had already hung up.

  I went to the garage and pulled out my box of papers. I had paid taxes on the money I paid myself through Mofass, but I didn’t pay taxes on the stolen money because it was still hot in 1948 and after that it was already undeclared. Most of the profit from the rent went into buying more real estate. It was just easier to let the money ride without telling the government about my income.

  Then I drove out to see Mofass. My choices were few and none of them sounded any too good.

  On the drive over I heard a voice in my head say, “Mothahfuckah ain’t got no right messin’ like that, man. No right at all.”

  But I ignored it. I grabbed the steering wheel a little tighter and concentrated on the road.

  “IT DON’T LOOK GOOD, Mr. Rawlins,” Mofass said behind his fat cigar.

  “What about that thing you said with backdatin’ them papers?” I asked. We were sitting in his office in a haze of tobacco smoke.

  “You said it yourself, they ain’t nobody got enough money for you to give it to.”

  “What about you?”

  Mofass eyed me suspiciously and pushed back in his swivel chair.

  He sat there, staring at me for a full minute before shaking his head and saying, “No.”

  “I need it, Mofass. If you don’t do this I’m goin’ to jail.”

  “I feel for ya but I gotta say no, Mr. Rawlins. It ain’t that I don’t care, but this is business. And when you in business there’s just some things that you cain’t do. Now look at it from my side. I work for you, I collect the rent and keep things smooth. Now all of a sudden you wanna sign ev’rything over t’ me. I own it,” he said, pointing all eight of his fingers at his chest. “But you get the money.”

  “John McKenzie do it with Odell Jones.”

  “From what you told me it sounds like Odell just likes his drink. I’m a businessman and you cain’t trust me.”

  “The hell I cain’t!”

  “You see”—Mofass opened his eyes and puffed out his cheeks, looking like a big brown carp—“you’d come after me if you thought I was messin’ wit’ yo’ money. Right now that’s okay ’cause we got a legal relationship. But I couldn’t be trusted if all that was yours suddenly became mines. What if all of a sudden I feel like I deserve more but you say no? In a court of law it would be mine.”

  “We couldn’t go to no courts after we done faked the ownership papers, man.”

  “That’s just it, Mr. Rawlins. If I say yes to you right now, then the only court of appeal we got is each other. We ain’t blood. All we is is business partners. An’ I tell ya this.” He pointed his black stogie at me. “They ain’t no greater hate that a man could have than the hate of someone who cheated him at his own business.”

  Mofass sat back again, and I knew he had turned me down.

  “So that’s it, huh?” I said.

  “You ain’t even tried t’lie yet, Mr. Rawlins. Go in there wit’ yo’ papers and yo’ lie and see what you could get.”

  “He’s talkin’ court, Mofass.”

  “Sho he is. That’s what they do, try an’ scare ya. Go in there wit’ yo’ income papers an’ ast’im where he think you gonna come up wit’ the kinda cash it takes t’buy apartments. Act po’, thas what you do. Them white people love t’think that you ain’t shit.”

  “An’ if that don’t work,” a husky voice in my head said, “kill the mothahfuckah.”

  I tried to shake the gloom that that voice brought on me. I wanted to drive right out to the IRS, but instead I went home and dug my snub-nose out of the closet. I cleaned it and oiled it and loaded it with fresh cartridges. It scared me, because I would carry the .25 for a little insurance, but my .38 was a killing gun. I kept thinking about that clumsy white man, how he had a house and a family to go to. All he cared about was that some numbers made up zero on a piece of paper.

  “This man is the government,” I said in order to convince myself of the foolishness of going armed.

  “Man wanna take from you,” the voice replied, “he better be ready to back it up.”

  THE FRONT DOOR of the government building was locked and dark, but a small Negro man came to answer my knock. He was wearing gray gardening overalls and a plaid shirt. I wondered if he owned any property.

  “You Mr. Rawlins?” he asked me.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “You could just go on upstairs then.”

  I was in such a state that all I paid any attention to was the blood pounding in my head. Loud and insistent. And what it was insisting on was mo
re blood, tax man blood. I was going to tell him about the money I was paid and he was going to believe it or I was going to shoot him. If they wanted me in jail I was going to give them a good reason.

  Maybe I’d’ve shot him anyway.

  Maybe I would’ve shot the Negro in the overalls too, I don’t know. It’s just that sometimes I get carried away. When the pressure gets to me this voice comes out. It saved my life more than once during the war. But those were hard times where life-and-death decisions were simple.

  I might have gone lighter if Lawrence had treated me with the same kind of respect he showed others. But I am no white man’s son.

  On approaching the door I threw off the safety on my gun. I heard voices as I pushed the door open but I was still surprised to see someone sitting with him. My finger clutched the trigger. I remember worrying that I might shoot myself in the foot.

  “Here he is now,” Lawrence was saying. He was the only man I had ever seen who sat in a chair awkwardly. He was tilting to the side and holding on to the arm to keep from falling to the floor. The man sitting across from him stood up. He was shorter than either Lawrence or I, maybe five-ten, and wiry. He was a pale-skinned man with bushy brown hair and hairy knuckles. I noticed these latter because he walked right up to me and shook my hand. I had to release hold of the pistol in my pocket in order to shake his hand; that’s the only reason I didn’t shoot Reginald Lawrence.

  “Mr. Rawlins,” the wiry white man said. “I’ve heard a lot about you and I’m happy to make your acquaintance.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Craxton!” he shouted. “Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton!

  FBI.”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Agent Craxton has something to discuss with you, Mr. Rawlins,” Lawrence said.

  When I took my hand off the pistol my chance for murder was through. I said, “I got the papers you wanted right here.”

  “Forget that.” Craxton waved a dismissing hand at the shoe box under my arm. “I got something for you to do for your country. You like fighting for your country, don’t you, Ezekiel?”