Charcoal Joe (25 page)

In for a penny, in for a pound,
a woman that everyone knew as Aunt Louise used to say in the Fifth Ward of Houston, Texas. She lived in a recess between Foreman's Bar and Sailors Last Baptist Church. The only furniture she had was a chair and a high stool that she used as a table. Her protection from the hot sun and pouring rain was the overlapping eaves of Foreman's and Sailors. Aunt Louise gave advice for free but most of the poor people that came to her would leave some bread or beer. I used to spy on her conversations from the alleyway behind, trying to get the wisdom of both the questions asked and the advice given.

I thought about the penny and the pound as I wondered if someone had heard the shots fired.

I suppose I could have called an ambulance for Stapleton but I was pretty sure that he was dead; and, anyway, I didn't think of it.

The chloroform would have been used by the Cinch and his minion to keep Irena quiet.

I unlocked the back door, in case someone came and I had to run. Then I took the chloroform and white rag to dose the unconscious man on the front porch. After retrieving my shoes I went through the rooms on the first floor but found nothing.

Upstairs I searched what must have been Stapleton's room and another bedroom that hadn't been used. The third door revealed Irena, tied to a chair and unconscious.

I turned on the light. She was clad in a satin slip and reinforced bra. There were burns up and down her arms. I figured that her tormentors gagged her while applying the cigarette butts. They wanted the diamonds but only got my name.

She was moaning and moving her head until I let her breathe a little chloroform. Then I went through the back door, the gate into the park, and down a path I had already traveled to my car on a quiet block.

I drove back to the hideout, pulled up in the driveway, entered the house, untied the unconscious Irena, and carried her down to my car.

On the drive to Pomona I had to stop once to dose Irena again.

We got to her house at about three in the morning. I pulled up into the driveway, jimmied the back door with a crowbar from my trunk, and carried the narcotized Polish killer to her bed.

I had no proof that Irena had killed Tom Willow and I wasn't bothered if she got away with it.

It felt good putting her in her own bed. She'd wake up in the late morning with memories of being tied and tortured. It would feel like a miracle to find herself delivered from that hell, and I liked the thought that at least once in my life I was the author of such a feat.

I never found out how Irena ended up Stapleton's prisoner. She might have been trying to betray me, or maybe the Cinch was after her all along. Regardless, I was almost finished with the case. I went to Tommy's on Beverly and ate two chili dogs and a pint of cheese-and-chili fries. I washed these down with three pineapple sodas, then bought a cup of coffee that I nursed till sunrise.

I rang Jackson Blue's doorbell at 7:04. He answered already dressed and ready for the corporate world.

We drank coffee and he smoked at the kitchen table until eight.

“Daddy!” Feather yelled from the doorway.

My daughter ran to me and jumped into my lap. She hugged my neck and said all kinds of sweet loving things that a younger child might have voiced. She'd been afraid while in exile at the Blue residence.

After dropping Feather off at Ivy Prep, I went to my office to retrieve the diamonds.

“Easy,” Whisper said as I was looking at the brown paper parcel that Fearless had left me.

“Hey, Tinsford.”

“Did you hear about the Lily?”

I put what was known as the Feynman Bible under my arm.

“No.”

“There was a fire. It started on the fifth floor.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“One fatality. No one else injured.”

“Coroner's report?”

“The building was wood,” he said. “It burned to the ground. The unidentified body had been burned down to the bones and crushed by the weight of burning timbers. It was ruled a homicide but only because the fire was arson.”

“Were you planning to kill him?” I asked.

“No. But when I saw how high he was I figured I couldn't take the chance.”

“Okay,” I said, and we never discussed the subject again.

One of Niska Redman's pink slips on my desk said that Rufus Tyler called with an address on Don Carlos Drive in View Park and the initials
JP
.

I called Fearless but he didn't answer. Then I jumped in my car and made my way to an area that was sometimes called the Black Beverly Hills.

The three-story house was on a crest overlooking an undeveloped area that was large enough to be a city park. Two serious-looking black men in dark suits stood at the top of the driveway. They put up their hands and I stopped.

It was a warm day so my window was already rolled down.

“What's your business?” one of the guards asked. He had sideburns that detoured into a mustache on their way down.

“Easy Rawlins for Jasmine Palmas,” I said with a smile. “Joe sent me.”

“We expected you yesterday.” The guard had nothing against me personally; he just didn't like people.

I elected not to answer his criticism and so, after a stern look, he stood aside and I pulled up next to the house.

The second bodyguard walked me to the door and knocked for me. I suppose he wanted to make sure that I was Easy Rawlins and not the next candidate for the latest in a long string of beatings.

The door opened and there stood Fearless Jones, wearing a pretty nice off-white suit.

“Easy,” he said, smiling broadly.

“Fearless.”

“Is it okay, Mr. Jones?” the guard asked.

“Better'n that, Larry, better'n that.”

The doorway led into an expansive and very modern living room that had its own bar and an outer glass wall that looked down on Central Los Angeles. Jasmine was there sitting in a conch-shaped white leather chair, wearing a one-piece bodysuit comprised mostly of swirling shades of turquoise and pink. Seymour was on the other side of the glass wall, standing on a deck and looking down on L.A.

Jasmine rose out of the shell like Black Aphrodite.

“Easy.” She smiled graciously, walked up three stairs from her sunken part of the living room, and kissed my cheek. Then she gazed into my eyes.

I hoped that my nostrils weren't flaring.

“You called Seymour?” I asked.

“Yes. Then I invited him and Mr. Jones to come here to wait for you.”

She was holding my hands with both of hers.

“Do you want something to eat or drink?” she asked.

“I haven't been to bed in two days. Let's take care of business and then talk about hospitality.”

The garage for the ultramodern house on the hill was larger and cleaner than any carport I'd ever seen. The floor was white cement and the walls cured wood. With the exception of a few oil stains, it could have been a recreation room waiting for a carpet and a few chairs.

Jasmine and I were alone and the doors were all closed. I pulled out the sacks of money that Boughman had stolen, and then I handed her
The Feynman Lectures
.

“Is this why you wanted Willomena's address?” she demanded.

“Indirectly.”

“It was her?”

“Boughman was planning to run with the money. Stapleton wanted it too. Somehow Tom Willow got into it and she was just another fly in the honey.”

The expression on Jasmine's face made her a good match for Charcoal Joe's reputation.

“She's been kidnapped, tortured, and betrayed,” I said. “Believe me when I tell you that she's paid the piper already.”

I could see that I was, in her eyes, still within the aura of the saving of her son.

“If you say so, Mr. Rawlins. I'll let it be. Have you already taken your money?”

“I thought I'd let you do that.”

She counted out my fee and gave me a small satchel to carry it in.

When the transaction was done I was ready to go but she touched my chest, arresting me.

“About the first time we met,” she said.

“That was somethin' else.”

“I'm not a whore.”

“Neither me.”

This sense of equality made her smile.

“I heard that you and Rufus were leaving the country,” I said. “Now he tells me you plan to stay.”

“We realize that Seymour deserves to have a family he knows.”

This seemed a good note to end on, so I moved to leave.

“Joe will want to know who stole the money,” she said.

“It was the Cinch,” I said.

“Do you know where Joe can find him?”

“No. No I don't.”

“Mr. Rawlins,” Seymour called as I was opening the door to my car.

“Yeah, Seymour?”

He approached me wearing the clothes that Marybeth Reno bought for him.

“Where's your girlfriend?” I asked.

“At her job,” he said. “We're getting together later tonight. I, uh, I wanted to thank you and to apologize for acting like I knew so much or whatever. I mean…you saved my life out there. My mother told me.”

I made an assignation with Fearless and then drove down to the Torrance Arms, where I gave Gregory Chalmers three thousand dollars. He was surprised by the gesture. When he'd heard about the death of his former boss he'd suspected me, but there was nothing to connect me with the killing.

When he gave me a questioning stare I said, “I'm a man who believes in paying his debts.”

I picked up Feather and drove her home. There we took turns in the bathroom and then dressed up for dinner.

We met Fearless at 7:15 at the Brown Derby Restaurant on North Vine Street in Hollywood.

Feather loved Fearless even though she'd only met him twice before in her short life. We talked and ate steaks, told stories about the old days, and relaxed.

Just before Feather's strawberry shortcake dessert came I handed Fearless a small brown paper bag containing ten thousand of Charcoal Joe's dollars.

“You already paid me for my time, Easy,” he said. “And then there's that car.”

“Seymour wouldn't be in his house if it wasn't for me. I wouldn't be at this table if not for you.”

I didn't tell Feather about my plans to move us. I didn't tell her about her grandmother's neglect. Time enough for the barbs and arrows. For the next few weeks everything would be about her smile.

The following Monday I walked to work thinking about Bonnie. I was late that morning because Feather had lost a notebook and we had to search the entire house before admitting it was nowhere to be found.

I drove her to school and then came back home. The walk to work was a pleasure.

“Good morning, Mr. Rawlins,” Niska Redman said.

“How are you, Miss Redman?”

“Fine. He's waiting in your office.”

“Who is?”

“Mr. Alexander.” The timbre of her voice contained that riled-up tone that most women get around the lovable bad man.

He was sitting in my chair, smoking a cigarette. I took the visitor's seat and said, “I hope you don't have any more jobs for me, man. I don't think I could survive another.”

“No, baby, I sure don't. Here I find you work and you don't come to me when there's two million dollars to be had.”

“It turned out to be Joe's money, Ray. I'd do the same for you.”

“But he lied to us.”

“No. He wanted to get his son off the hook but there was money involved too.”

“That's okay, Easy. I don't mind. I just thought I'd drop by because Joe aksed me to tell you that a dude named Gregory Chalmers was killed at the Torrance Arms Hotel. They found him shot to death at the bottom of the fire escape out back. I guess someone promised to spring him and then they shot him instead. Joe says that that was for tryin' to steal mob money and that you don't have a thing to worry about.”

“Not a thing” was my rejoinder. “And even if I did worry, that wouldn't stop that hammer comin' down.”

Walter Mosley is the author of fifty books, most notably fourteen Easy Rawlins mysteries, the first of which,
Devil in a Blue Dress,
was made into an acclaimed film starring Denzel Washington.
Always Outnumbered,
adapted from his first Socrates Fortlow novel, was an HBO film starring Laurence Fishburne. Mosley is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, a Grammy Award, and PEN America's Lifetime Achievement Award. He has just been named the 2016 Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. A Los Angeles native and graduate of Goddard College, he holds an MFA from the City College of New York and now lives in Brooklyn.