A Red Death

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 caught 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.”

C RAXTON 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.

T HE 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.