A Little Yellow Dog

40

“Easy,” Mouse said when we got out to his car, “what you plan to do with that dog?”

“Take him out to Primo. Primo could find some old lady like a dog like that.”

“Gimme the keys.”

“Naw, man,” I said. “Leave him in the trunk.”

“Gimme the keys.”

“What for?”

“Dog could suffocate in there, Easy. Don’t worry, I’ll watch him. You drive an’ I’ll hold the dog.”

Pharaoh was calm in Mouse’s lap. We went downtown to Phyllo Place off Alameda. We made good time because the traffic was unusually light.

The address Stetz had given me was on the side of an alley that fed out onto the street. There was an arrow that pointed back into the alley for the number we wanted.

I parked the car and looked.

“Don’t look good,” I said to Raymond.

“But it’s a business deal, right?” Mouse said, the soul of logic.

“Yeah, but it’s a little close back there.”

“They ain’t after you, Easy. They just want them tape recorders. You ain’t chargin’, so why they wanna hurt you?”

The world had surely changed if I was going to listen to Mouse about what was safe and what wasn’t. But he made sense. All I was doing was handing over a fortune to Stetz. And I was going to help Beam too. At least until I could tell Lieutenant Lewis about who had the aitch he was moving.

I took the turn into the alley and drove down the red brick path until I came to another turn that led to a large garage door.

Mouse and I got out of the car, leaving Pharaoh whining inside.

We were in a deep hole of gray cement walls. It was a bright day, but there wasn’t much sun that found its way to that gangster’s door. The walls went up about nine floors but there was only one slender slit of a window.

I was happy that I’d remembered to bring my pistol — just in case Mouse was wrong.

“Watch it, Easy!” my friend yelled.

I turned and saw two men and then Mouse rammed me with his shoulder. Two shots sounded and echoed in the chamber of walls. The side window of the car exploded. Mouse pulled a meat cleaver from his belt and sent it twirling at the man who had taken the shots. It was Joey Beam. He was taking aim at me when the spinning blade hacked into the side of his neck.

The next two shots caught Mouse. He grunted each time he was hit and sank to his knees.

Sallie Monroe was swinging to shoot me when I leapt up on top of the roof of Mouse’s car and landed on top of the fat gangster. He dropped his gun. I threw a left hook a little wide of his head.

Sallie jumped on me when I missed and bore me down to the ground with his weight. He was good with his girth. He’d let his stomach fall against my ribs and then, when I was stunned, he’d ball his fist and hit me in the head.

Sallie grabbed me around the throat and started to squeeze. Out of one side of my sight I saw Mouse trying to rise, but he failed. On the other side Joey Beam was doing his last dance lying flat on his back, yellow jacket sopping up his own blood.

Suddenly the little yellow dog came into view. He was snarling and snapping. I waited for his attack on Sallie to throw the big man off. I had remembered my pistol by then and only needed a little room to lay my hands on it. All I needed was Pharaoh’s distraction.

That’s when the yellow dog launched his attack on me.

I could hear the skin of my own ear ripping as Pharaoh lent his jaws to Sallie’s cause.

Hatred surged in my blood. I boxed Sallie’s right ear and then his left; I did it again and kneed him. Then I grabbed his neck like it was a fat eggplant and dug my fingers in and twisted with a frenzy that no sexual act has ever equaled in my life.

I watched Sallie’s eyes go from life to death. And then I was up trying to stomp the life out of Pharaoh. But the dog was too quick and made it under the car.

“Easy.” It was Mouse. He’d made it halfway to his feet and was leaning up against the wall. He had both hands over his chest. “Get the gun, man,” he rasped. “Get the knife.”

I got Sallie’s gun, which was lying at his side, and the meat cleaver that had come from my own kitchen drawer. I took them to the car and helped Mouse into the seat.

Once behind the wheel I was flying backwards.

“Take me home, Easy.”

“We better get you to a hospital, Ray.”

“Naw, man. I’m okay. We don’t wanna get tied up in no killin’s.” He was smiling. Smiling.

“How bad you hit?”

“Shoulder,” he whispered. “Just in the arm.”

“Man, I thought you said you were unarmed!” I shouted. I didn’t know why. I wanted to say that I was sorry, I guess.

“I just said that I didn’t have no gun, Easy. I got the knife at your house. You know a knife don’t hardly even count.” He laughed weakly and coughed hard.

I drove Surface streets down to Compton, mainly to keep away from red lights. I wanted to keep moving. With the window busted out I didn’t want people looking to see what we were up to.

When we were about half the way there I said, “Ray. Ray?” But he didn’t answer. I looked over and saw him slumped almost exactly the way Idabell had been.

I wanted to go to the hospital, and I didn’t want to. Raymond had told me that it was an arm shot. He wasn’t bleeding that badly that I could see.

Maybe he’d just passed out.

I drove on.

Etta was there when I drove up on the lawn. She’d heard the car coming and came out to the door. She saw something in the way that I was driving and started to run.

“LaMarque, stay in the house!” she shouted.

I was letting Raymond out onto the lawn by the time she reached us.

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.”