A Red Death

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 more 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?”

“I done it when I had to.”

“Yeah.” Craxton’s smile revealed crooked teeth that had wide spaces between them. But they looked strong, like brown-and-white tree stumps that you’d have to dynamite to remove. “I’ve been discussing your case with Mr. Lawrence here. I’ve been looking for somebody to help me with a mission, and you’re the best candidate I’ve seen.”

“What kind of a mission?”

Craxton smiled again. “Mr. Lawrence tells me that you overlooked paying some taxes for the past few years.”

“This man is suspected of tax evasion,” Lawrence interrupted. “That is what I said.”

“Mr. Rawlins here is a war hero,” Craxton answered. “He loves this country. He hates our enemies. A man like that doesn’t shirk his responsibility, Mr. Lawrence. I believe that he just made an error.”

Lawrence pulled out a white handkerchief and dabbed at his lips.

Craxton turned back to me, “I could fix it so that you just pay your back taxes, by installment if you don’t have the cash. All I need is a little help. No. No. Change that. All your country needs is a little help.”

That set Lawrence up straight.

He said, “I thought you just wanted to talk with him.”

Before he could say any more I jumped in. “Well, you know I’m always ready to be a good citizen, Mr. Craxton. That’s why I’m here this time of night. I want to show that I’m a good citizen.” I knew how to be good too; LaMarque didn’t have a thing on me.

“See, Mr. Lawrence, see? Mr. Rawlins is eager to help us out. No reason for you to pursue your current course. I tell you what. Mr. Rawlins and I will do some work together and then I’ll come back and have his paperwork transferred to Washington. That way you won’t have to worry about his settlement.”

Reginald Lawrence grabbed on to the arm of his chair a little tighter.

“This is not proper procedure, Agent Craxton,” the IRS man complained.

Craxton just smiled.

“I’ll have to speak with my supervisor,” Lawrence continued.

“You do what you think is appropriate, Mr. Lawrence.” Craxton never stopped smiling. “I appreciate that a man has to do his job, he has to do what he thinks is right. If everybody just does that this country will be fine and healthy.”

The blood rose to Lawrence’s face. My heart was going like a bird in flight.