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to Mofass’s nose and mouth he sighed. He smiled at his child lover and then shook his head for us to go.
    I dragged JJ to the car.
    “We can’t leave him,” she said as we were driving away.
    “We have to call the police, JJ.”
    “No. He killed them.”
    “Tell me what happened.”
    “I called Clovis after you left. I told her that I decided against lettin’ her in the business. She said sumpin’ but I just hung up. Then, about two hours ago, they all came over with the contracts for me and Uncle Willy to sign. I told ’em no an’ Uncle Willy pretended that he was ’sleep.”
    “Then what.”
    “Fitts started twistin’ my arm like he used to when I was a kid. I guess I screamed and he slapped me. I fell down and heard this sound like a cap gun. I thought maybe it was my nose bone or sumpin’ but then Clovis made this squeakin’ sound. I looked up and seen her holdin’ her chest and then the crackin’ sound happened again and she fell back on the couch. Uncle Willy was standin’ at the do’ with his pistol inhis hand. Fitts and Clavell run at him but Uncle Willy cut ’em down. He used one hand to hold himself up on the wall and the other to shoot.”
    “We got to get outta here,” I said.
    “Not without him,” JJ said.
    “He got his oxygen mask,” I reasoned. “When the cops come they’ll call it self-defense. But if you’re here you might get in trouble.”
    I CALLED THE POLICE from a phone booth, telling them that I had heard shots from Mofass’s home. Then I took JJ down near Jackson Blue’s apartment on Ozone Street in Venice.
    I parked down the street and called him from a booth.
    “JJ’s in trouble,” I said to the sleepy con man. “If you got a woman in there with you send her away. Take JJ in and make her feel comfortable. If the police ask, you tell ’em she was with you for the night.”
    “Ain’t no woman up in here, Easy. Send her on.”
    I watched as JJ walked down the block to Jackson’s house and then I went home to bed—if not to sleep.
    T HE MORNING E XAMINER had the triple murder and suicide on the front page. The police, tipped off by an anonymous call, went to the secluded Laurel Canyon home where they found the four corpses. Mofass had given his life for Jewelle.
    She returned home that morning and told the police that she’d left early to see her boyfriend. She also informed them that Clovis had been pressing to get back into business with them. The contracts Clovis wanted them to sign seemed to prove the story.
    My name was not mentioned. And I have no idea where Misty and Crawford went. Jewelle stayed in her home. Jackson didn’t move in but they still see each other.
    I went back to work the next day wondering how long it would be before my past showed up and put me into an early grave.
R EAD S IX E ASY P IECES FOR THE CONCLUSION .

     
    A RED DEATH

CHAPTER
1
    I ALWAYS STARTED SWEEPING on the top floor of the Magnolia Street apartments. It was a three-story pink stucco building between Ninety-first Street and Ninety-first Place, just about a mile outside of Watts proper. Twelve units. All occupied for that month. I had just gathered the dirt into a neat pile when I heard Mofass drive up in his new ’53 Pontiac. I knew it was him because there was something wrong with the transmission, you could hear its high singing from a block away. I heard his door slam and his loud hello to Mrs. Trajillo, who always sat at her window on the first floor—best burglar alarm you could have.
    I knew that Mofass collected the late rent on the second Thursday of the month; that’s why I chose that particular Thursday to clean. I had money and the law on my mind, and Mofass was the only man I knew who might be able to set me straight.
    I wasn’t the only one to hear the Pontiac.
    The doorknob to Apartment J jiggled and the door came open showing Poinsettia Jackson’s sallow, sorry face.
    She was a tall young woman with yellowish eyes and thick, slack lips.
    “Hi,