A Red Death

31

Melvin Pride lived on Alaford Street. A quiet block of one-family homes behind a row of well-kept lawns and trimmed bushes. There was a smell of smoke in the air. I wondered at that, because it was unusual for anyone to be burning trash at that time of night.

I had to knock for a full minute before Melvin came to the door.

“What you want, Easy?” he asked through the screen, as hushed and stony as the grim reaper.

“I wanna talk to you about Reverend Towne and Tania Lee and the African Migration.”

“Who?”

“I saw you there tonight, Melvin. I know you were siphoning off money to them ’cause you were all officers. Thing is, I cain’t see why you would do it. I mean, Towne’s got religion and a social conscience. But you just care about the church, and Winona an’ Jackie be happy with a mirror. But even if I knew why they would do it I can’t figure why you’d wanna kill anybody.”

Melvin looked mean, but actually he was paralyzed. I pulled open the screen door and stepped past him into the house.

“You talkin’ crazy, Easy Rawlins.” Melvin moved to the side, and I took a step back from him. We were dancing like wary boxers in the first round of a title fight.

“That’s right. I’m talking murder, Melvin.”

“Murder who? I got someone t’say where I was fo’ when they was killed. The police already questioned me.”

“I bet that was Jackie, or one’a his girls.”

When I said “Jackie,” Melvin’s cheek jumped.

Then I said, “Come on, Melvin! You know all you people was stealin’ from the church.” It was just a guess but it was a good one. There weren’t many places where a man like Jackie Orr could lay his hands on a thousand dollars. “You was all takin’ money. Towne for the Migration, Winona and you for Towne, and Jackie… well, Jackie just caught on to a good thing.”

“You cain’t prove I killed nobody. And you cain’t prove I stole nuthin’.”

“You right ’bout the stealin’. I cain’t prove that, not wit’ you burnin’ the books out back I cain’t.”

Melvin gave me a twitchy smile.

“But it’s murder I can burn you on.”

“Hell no! I ain’t killed nobody! Never!”

“Maybe not, but all I gotta do is tell the cops an’ they will beat you till you confess. That’s how the game is played, Melvin.”

Melvin turned his head as if he wanted to look into the door behind him. That door probably led to a bedroom.

He licked his lips. “You think I killed Towne? That’s a laugh.”

“I ain’t laughin’, Melvin. What I wanna know is why. You workin’ with Wenzler or what?”

The look on Melvin’s face was either a perfect job of acting or he knew nothing.

“You the one most prob’ly killed Towne, Easy.” His tone was so certain that my sweat glands turned cold.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. We got the lowdown on you, Easy.”

“You said that before, Melvin. What does that mean?”

“It means that somebody blabbed on you, man. They told.”

“Who?”

“I ain’t sayin’. But it ain’t just one, and I ain’t the onliest one who knows, so you better not be thinkin’ nuthin’ like you gonna get at me. I know and Jackie does and the white man know too.”

There was a righteous tone to Melvin’s voice. He actually thought that I was the killer.

It took me a couple of days to decide on what happened next.

Melvin pushed me backward, yelling, “You got him but you hain’t gonna get me!” My foot turned on the carpet. Melvin stepped over me and connected with a solid right against my jaw. I was already falling and so I twisted over trying to roll out of the way. I hit a chair though and fell with my head toward the ground. Then there was a dull thud against my left thigh and I realized that Melvin had kicked me and probably meant to stomp me into the floor. I let myself roll sideways and stuck my legs between Melvin’s so that when he tried to kick me again he fell forward, and I slammed my fist into the side of his head.

That’s when we fell together, wrestling. Melvin was biting and growling like a dog. His attack was ferocious but it was unplanned. I kept giving him rabbit punches to the back of the neck. I did that until he removed his teeth from my left shoulder. Then I got to my feet holding Melvin by the shirt. I was terribly angry, because his attack scared me and because my mouth was in tremendous pain. I hit Melvin with everything I had. He went backward across the room and I expected him to go down into a cold heap, but instead he kept on going and ran from the room.

At first I thought the fight was over. I had put all of my anger into that one blow and my violence was sated. But then, in the same moment, I remembered Melvin looking toward that door earlier.

By the time I burst through the doorway Melvin was turning from the night table next to his bed. There was a coal-colored pistol in his hand.

And for the second time that night I took flight; right into Melvin Pride.

The force of our bodies hitting the wall broke through the plaster. The sensation was the stutter effect of stepping on ice and then having that ice give way to free-fall. Melvin grunted, so did I. A timber sighed. Gravel slithered down my cheek and the pistol barked mutely, packed between the girth of our two bodies.

I felt the bite of the shot and automatically pushed away from Melvin to block up the hole in my chest.

I was covered with blood. I knew from my experiences in the war that I would soon lose consciousness. Melvin would murder me. Everything was over.

Then I heard Melvin slump down and I gave a wide grin in spite of the terrible pain in my jaw. It was Melvin who had taken the bullet; I had just felt the concussion of the shot.

Melvin’s face was contorted in pain. A dark patch was forming on his shirt.

He was sucking down air and groaning, but Melvin was still trying to lift the pistol to shoot me. I took the gun from his blood-streaked hand and threw it on the bed. The craggy man groaned in fear as I stood over him. My jaw hurt me so bad that I had no desire to quell his fear. I tore a pillowcase in half and shoved it under Melvin’s bloody shirt until it was directly over the wound.

“Hold this tight,” I said. I had to lift his other arm and show him what to do.

“Don’t kill me, man,” he whispered.

“Melvin, you gotta get a hold of yourself. If you don’t start thinkin’ straight you gonna go into shock an’ die.”

I held his hand down hard over the wound to cause a little pain for him to focus on and to show him what he should be doing. The pistol he had was a. 25-caliber so the wound wasn’t too bad.

“Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me,” Melvin chanted.

“I don’t want you dead, Melvin. I ain’t gonna kill you, even though I should after this shit.”

“Please,” Melvin said again.

I pocketed the pistol and went to the bathroom, where I washed the blood off my shoes and from the cuffs of my black pants. Then I took an overcoat from Melvin’s closet and used it to cover the rest of me.

In the backyard the incinerator was smoking away at various official papers from First African. Melvin had been trying to erase the accounting trail of the theft he and the others had perpetrated against the church. I hosed down what was left.

Back inside I found that Melvin had crawled into the kitchen. He was holding himself erect at the kitchen counter. I figured that he was trying to get a weapon, so I helped him to a chair. Then I went to the phone on the kitchen table and dialed Jackie Orr. He answered on the seventh ring.

“Hello.”

“Hey, Jackie, this is Easy. Easy Rawlins.”

“Yeah?” he said warily.

“Melvin’s been shot.” There was silence on the other end of the line. “I didn’t shoot him, man. It was an accident. Anyway, he’s got a bullet in his shoulder and he needs a doctor.”

“You ain’t gettin’ me over there with that lie, Easy. I ain’t no fool.”

“What I want with you, man?”

“You want my money.”

“You got a thousand dollars in yo’ bottom drawer, right? If I didn’t take that then I don’t need no money you got.”

“I just call the cops, man.”

“You do an’ I hope you ready fo’jail, Jackie, ’cause I got all the proof I need that you been takin’ money out the church. But here, talk to Melvin.”

I cradled the phone next to Melvin’s ear and left them to whisper their fears to each other.

On the drive back to my house I almost passed out from the pain in my mouth. At home I changed clothes, downed a few mouthfuls of brandy, and got back in my car.

Jackson was still spending my five dollars on whiskey at John’s bar.

“Ease!” he shouted as I was coming across the room. Odell looked up from his drink. I nodded at him and he made to leave.

So I turned toward Jackson.

“I need you to come with me, Jackson,” I said as fast as I could. The pain was unbearable. John stared at me, but when I didn’t say anything he turned away.

“You know where I could get some painkillers?” I asked Jackson.

“Yeah.”

I handed him my keys when we got out to the car. “You drive,” I said. “I got a toothache.”

“What’s wrong, man?”

“Dude busted my tooth. He busted my fuckin’ mouth!”

“Who?”

“Some guy wanted to rob me outside of the African Migration. I fixed him. Oh shit, it hurts.”

“I got some pills at my place, man. Let’s go get ’em.”

“Oh,” I answered. I guess he knew that meant yes.

Jackson had morphine tablets. He said all I needed was one, but I took four against the bright red hurt in my mouth. I was doubled over in pain.

“How long ’fore it kicks in, Jackson?”

“If you ain’t et nuthin’, ’bout a hour.”

“An hour!”

“Yeah, man. But listen,” he said. He had a fifth of Jim Beam by the neck. “We sit here and drink an’ talk an’ fo’ long you will have fo’gotten you even had a tooth.”

So we passed the bottle back and forth. Because he was drinking, Jackson loosened up to the point where he’d tell me anything. He told stories that many a man would have killed him for. He told me about armed robberies and knifings and adulteries. He named names and gave proofs. Jackson wasn’t an evil man like Mouse, but he didn’t care what happened as long as he could tell the tale.

“Jackson,” I said after a while.

“Yeah, Ease?”

“What you think ’bout them Migration people?”

“They all right. You know it could get pretty lonely if you think ’bout how hard we got it ’round here. Some people just cain’t get it outta they head.”

“What?”

“All the stuff you cain’t do, all the stuff you cain’t have. An’ all the things you see happen an’ they ain’t a damn thing you could do.”

He passed the bottle to me.

“You ever feel like doin’ sumpin’?” I asked the little cowardly genius.

“Pussy ain’t too bad. Sometime I get drunk an’ take a shit on a white man’s doorstep. Big ole stinky crap!”

We laughed at that.

When everything was quiet again I asked, “What about these communists? What you think about them?”

“Well, Easy, that’s easy,” he said and laughed at how it sounded. “You know it’s always the same ole shit. You got yo’ people already got a hold on sumpin’, like money. An’ you got yo’ people ain’t got nuthin’ but they want sumpin’ in the worst way. So the banker and the corporation man gots it all, an’ the workin’ man ain’t got shit. Now the workin’ man have a union to say that it’s the worker makes stuff so he should be gettin’ the money. That’s like com’unism. But the rich man don’t like it so he gonna break the worker’s back.”

I was amazed at how simple Jackson made it sound.

“So,” I said. “We’re on the communist side.”

“Naw, Easy.”

“What you mean, no? I sure in hell ain’t no banker.”

“You ever hear ’bout the blacklist?” Jackson asked.

I had but I said, “Not really,” in order to hear what Jackson had to say.

“It’s a list that the rich people got. All kindsa names on it. White people names. They movie stars and writers and scientists on that list. An’ if they name on it they cain’t work.”

“Because they’re communist?”

Jackson nodded. “They even got the guy invented the atomic bomb on that paper, Easy. Big ole important man like that.”

“So? What you sayin’?”

“Yo’ name ain’t on that list, Easy. My name ain’t neither. You know why?”

I shook my head.

“They don’t need yo’ name to know you black, Easy. All they gotta do is look at you an’ they know that.”

“So what, Jackson?” I didn’t understand and I was so drunk and high that it made me almost in a rage.

“One day they gonna th’ow that list out, man. They gonna need some movie star or some new bomb an’ they gonna th’ow that list away. Mosta these guys gonna have work again,” he said, then he winked at me. “But you still gonna be a black niggah, Easy. An’ niggah ain’t got no union he could count on, an’ niggah ain’t got no politician gonna work fo’ him. All he got is a do’step t’shit in and a black hand t’wipe his black ass.”