Read A Red Death for Free Online Page A

down.
    “Then it’s either you or him, man,” I said. “You know I don’t look kindly on killin’ boys.”
    We settled it without bloodshed. Alfred got a good job with the Parks Department, paid Slydell, and got his mother on his health insurance.
    Mrs. Bontemps kind of took me on as her foster son after that.
    “You ever gonna get married, Easy?” she asked.
    “If I ever find somebody t’take me.”
    “Oh, you’d be a good catch, honey,” she said. “I know lotsa good women give they eyeteeth fo’you.”
    But all I was interested in was Alfred at that moment. He was a small boy, barely out of his teens, and skitterish, but he felt he owed me a debt of honor for standing up against Slydell. And I think he might have been happy to get back home to his mother too.
    “Could I talk with Alfred, ma’am?”
    “Sure, Easy, an’ maybe you could come over fo’ dinner sometimes.”
    “Love it,” I said.
    After a few moments Alfred came on the line.
    “Mr. Rawlins?”
    “Listen up, Alfred. I gotta move somebody t’day an’ I need a helper ain’t gonna go runnin’ his mouth after it.”
    “You got it, Mr., um, Easy. When you need the help?”
    “You know my house on 116th Street?”
    “Not really.”
    I gave him the address and told him to be there at about one-thirty.
    “But first go over to Mofass’s office an’ tell ’im that you gonna use his truck fo’ the move,” I said.

    A LL THE TIME I was on the phone the idea of the government taking my money and my freedom was gnawing at me. But I didn’t even let that become a thought. I was afraid of what might happen if I did.
    So instead I went to Targets Bar after my phone calls. It was still early in the day, but I needed some liquor and some peace.
    John McKenzie was the bartender at Targets. He was also the cook and the bouncer, and, though his name wasn’t on the deed, John was also the owner. He used to own a speakeasy down around Watts but the police finally closed that down. An honest police captain moved into the precinct, and because of the differences between honest cops and honest Negro entrepreneurs, he put all our best businessmen out of trade.
    John couldn’t get a liquor license because he had been a bootlegger in his youth, so he took an empty storefront and set out a plank of mahogany and eighteen round maple tables. Then he gave nine thousand dollars to Odell Jones, who in turn made a down payment to the bank. But it was John’s bar. He managed it, collected the money, and paid the mortgage. What Odell got was that he could come in there anytime he wanted and drink to his heart’s content.
    It was John who gave me the idea of how to buy my own buildings through a dummy corporation.
    Odell worked at the First African Baptist Day School, which was around the corner from his bar. He was the custodian there.
    Odell was at his special table the day I came from the IRS. He was eating his regular egg-and-bacon sandwich for lunch before going back to work. John was standing at the far end of the bar, leaning against it and staring off into the old days when he was an important man.
    “Easy.”
    “Mo’nin’, John.”
    We shook hands.
    John’s face looked like it was chiseled in ebony. He was tall and hard. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on John, but he was a big man, still and all. He was the kind of man who could run a bar or speakeasy, because violence came to him naturally, but he preferred to take it easy.
    He put a drink down in front of me and touched my big knuckle. When I looked up into his stark white-and-brown eyes he said, “Mouse been here t’day, Easy.”
    “Yeah?”
    “He askin’ fo’ EttaMae, an’ when that failed he asted ’bout you.”
    “Like what?”
    “Where you been, who you been wit’. Like that. He was wit’ Rita Cook. They was goin’ t’ her house fo’a afternoon nap.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I just thought you wanna know ’bout yo’ ole friend bein’ up here, Easy.”
    “Thanks, John,” I said,