“Hey, John,” I said.
“Easy.”
“I hope you using enough nails on that sucker,” I said.
“I done had to buy so many nails that I do believe these here houses could be called armored homes.”
We both laughed and clasped hands.
I suppose I was sensitive around that time. John and I rarely shook hands. We were real friends with no need to express our peaceful intentions. But that day there was an obstacle, maybe more than one, between us. We held on to each other to make sure that we didn’t get separated.
“I heard that you were out by my house yesterday,” he said.
“I needed to get the truth from her, John. You know I couldn’t do that with you in the room.”
“That truth gonna help you find Brawly?” There was an angry edge in his tone.
“Findin’ him ain’t gonna be nearly as hard as savin’ him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Alva was right,” I said. “Brawly’s in sumpin’ bad.”
“It’s them First Men,” John said.
“Some of ’em,” I agreed. “But it’s more than that, too.”
“What more?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “But did you know that Henry Strong, one of the mentors to the First Men, used to come around here and see Brawly?”
“No.”
“Did you know that Aldridge Brown used to come around to see his son, too? They had lunch together more than once.”
“I don’t believe it. Brawly hated Aldridge.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Alva did,” John said. “He’s her son. She should know.”
“Your mother’s still alive, ain’t she?” I asked.
“You know she is.”
“You tell her everything you feel? You always tell her the truth? I mean, Brawly knows how his mother feels about Aldridge. Why would he tell her if they squared up and started talkin’ again?”
“Maybe that’s true,” he said. “But even if it is, how’d you find out?”
“I came out here one day when you were gone and talked to Chapman and Mercury. They told me because I asked.”
“And here they supposed to be my men.”
“They wouldn’ta said anything if I didn’t ask, John. And you know we go back. Me an’ Mouse pulled their fat outta the fire when they robbed those dockworkers.”
“Okay,” John said. “So Strong and Brawly’s father came out here. So what?”
“So what if Brawly killed Aldridge? Strong, too? I caught a glimpse of the man who shot him. It could’a been Brawly, I don’t know.”
“So? What you sayin’?”
“If Brawly killed them people, he’s way past a good talkin’-to and sowin’ his wild oats. What you want me to do if he’s a double murderer?”
John looked at me, taking long, slow breaths. I had counted six exhalations when he asked, “How was Strong killed?”
“Ambushed, chased down like a dog, and then shot in the back of his head.”
John did not like that.
“Could you just walk away?” he asked.
“I’m in it already, John. The police know I’m in it. They are, too.”
“I knew I shouldn’ta called you, Easy. I didn’t want to, but Alva needed to feel like she was doin’ somethin’. She had lost him for so many years and there she was, losin’ him again.” John bit his lip and shook his head slowly. “She asked me to bring you in, so what could I say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out, Easy. Find out what happened.”
“And if she lose the boy?”
“She still got me,” he said.
Mouse had been my closest friend since I was a child, but I never respected any man as much as I did John. He was taciturn with a mean temper, but in the end you could always count on him to do what was right.
“Mercury and Chapman out around here someplace?” I asked.
“Chapman is,” John said. “Mercury quit.”
The fever I’d been feeling for days broke at that moment. Half the puzzle fell into place and I wondered, as one always does in hindsight, why hadn’t I seen it before.
Chapman was applying a rough coat of plaster to a three-beamed wall when John and I walked in.
“John,” Chapman said. “Mr. Rawlins.”
He had a splotch of plaster on the side of his broad nose and plaster in his hair. Chapman had straightened hair that he combed down the back of his neck. With his light skin, heavy features, and straight hair, strangers often had trouble guessing his racial background.
John moved to stand against the wall on the other side of Chapman. He noticed that we had cut off his avenue of escape.
“I hear that Mercury quit,” I said.
“Yeah,” Chapman said. “Yeah, he sure did. Been threatenin’ to move down to Texas for so long that I guess he felt he had to do sumpin’ about it.”
“He left town?”
“That’s what he told me he was doin’.”
“But you his best friend,” John said. “Best friend should know for sure about his partner.”
“Have you called his house?” I added.
“He said he was goin’ to Texas, to look for work. Bought me a drink to say he was leavin’ the next day. Why I’ma call him if he supposed to be gone?”
“Supposed to be,” I said. “That mean you don’t believe him?”
“What is this? Some kinda police interrogation?”
“I was out at Mercury’s house the other day,” I said.
“So?”
“You know, that’s a nice house he got.”
“So?”
“Where do you live, Kenneth?” I asked the ex-burglar.
“Over on One-sixteen. The LaMarr Towers.”
“That’s projects,” I said in mock surprise.
“So what?”
“So how come you in the projects and Mercury got a house over in the nice part’a the slum?”
“He got some money from an uncle that died back in Arkansas.”
“Did you know his uncle?” John asked.
“Yeah. I went with him to the funeral.”
“Was he rich?” I asked.
“Rich enough to leave Mercury ten thousand dollars, I guess.”
“He bought the house for cash?” I asked.
“That’s what he said,” Chapman answered. I could see that an old suspicion was rekindled in his mind.
“I hear that they got extra police patrols because of thefts out around the sites,” I said.
“So what?”
“So maybe you two didn’t go as straight as you said you did.”
“You listen to me, Easy Rawlins,” Chapman lectured. “I put up my burglary tools right after you and Mr. Alexander got them men off’a us. I even took the five hundred you gave me and donated to my mother’s church. I already told you where Mercury said he got his money. That’s all I know.”
“When I was out to his place I asked him about you and Henry Strong and Aldridge Brown,” I said.
“Asked what?”
“Didn’t you use to hang out with Brawly and them?”
“We had drinks once or twice, but it was Mercury hung out with them. Why? What’d he say?”
“That you were thick as thieves with all three,” I said. “That they’d come and pick you up after work and you’d go off together.”
“That was him. Not me. No. I don’t like Aldridge, ’cause he’s a braggart. And Strong made you feel like he was keepin’ secrets. I don’t like a man like that. That’s why I never hung out with you, Easy.”
“How’s that?”
“Nobody ever know what you thinkin’,” Chapman said. “That day we went out to see them union men, we didn’t know that you was gonna bring Mouse along. And then when you made them pay us...I ain’t complainin’ about the help, but I knew right then you was too deep for me.”
“And you felt the same about Strong?” I asked.