“Who?”
“I can’t see where it helps either of us for me to tell you. Best t’keep that to myself.”
I WAS THINKING these things as I walked through the gate and up the path to my house. It wasn’t until I was almost to the door that I realized that the gate wasn’t double-latched, the way the postman usually left it.
Before I turned back to look an explosion went off in my head. I started a long fall through the twilight toward the cement stair of my front porch. But for some reason I didn’t hit the stair. The door flung open and I found myself facedown on the couch. I wanted to get up but the loud noise in my head made me dizzy.
Then he turned me over.
He was wearing a dark blue suit, so dark that you might have mistaken it for black. He wore a black shirt. His black shoe was on the cushion next to my head. There was a short-rimmed black Stetson on his head. His face was as black as the rest of him. The only color to Frank Green was his banana-colored tie, loosely knotted at his throat.
“Hi, Frank.” The words shot pain through my head.
Frank’s right fist made a snickering sound and a four-inch blade appeared, like a chrome-colored flame.
“Hear you been lookin’ fo’ me, Easy.”
I tried to sit up but he shoved my face back down onto the couch. “Hear you been lookin’ fo’ me,” he said again.
“That’s right, Frank. I need to talk to you. I gotta deal for you, make us both five hundred dollars.”
Frank’s black face cracked into a white grin. He put his knee against my chest and pressed the tip of his knife, just barely, into my throat. I could feel the flesh prick and the blood trickle.
“I’m’a have t’kill you, Easy.”
My first reaction was to look around to see if there was something that might save me but there was nothing except walls and furniture. Then I noticed something strange. The straight-back wood chair that I kept in the kitchen was pulled up to my sofa chair as if someone had used it for a footrest. I don’t know why I concentrated on that; for all I knew Frank had pulled it out while I was still out of it.
“Hear me out,” I said.
“What?”
“I might could make it seven-fifty.”
“How a mechanic gonna get that kinda money?”
“Man wanna talk to a girl you know. Rich man. He pay that much just to talk.”
“What girl?” Frank’s voice as almost a growl.
“White girl. Daphne Monet.”
“You a dead man, Easy,” Frank said.
“Frank, listen to me. You got me wrong, man.”
“You been nosin’ all ’round after me. I been hearin’ it. You even goin’ where I’m doin’ business and where I be drinkin’. I come back from my little business trip and now Daphne’s gone and you in every hole I shit in.” His hard yellow eyes were staring right into mine. “The cops lookin’ fo’ me too, Easy. Somebody kilt Coretta and I hear you was around ’fore she died.”
“Frank…”
He pressed the blade a little harder. “You dead, Easy,” he said and then he shifted the weight of his shoulder.
The voice said, “Don’t cry or beg, Easy. Don’t give this nigger the satisfaction.”
“Evenin’, Frank,” somebody said in a friendly tone. It wasn’t me. I could tell that it was real because Frank froze. He was still staring at me but his attention was at his back.
“Who’s that?” he croaked.
“Been a long time, Frank. Must be ten years.”
“That you, Mouse?”
“You got a good mem’ry, Frank. I always like a man got a good memory, cause nine times outta eleven he’s a smart man could ’preciate a tough problem. ’Cause you know I got a problem here, Frank.”
“What’s that?”
Right then the phone rang, and I’ll be damned if Mouse didn’t answer it!
“Yeah?” he said. “Yeah, yeah, Easy’s here but he kinda busy right now. Uh-huh, yeah, sure. Could he call you right back? No? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, try back in ’bout a hour, he be free by then.”
I heard him put the phone back on the hook. I couldn’t see past Frank Green’s chest.
“Where was I… oh yeah, I was gonna tell ya my problem.
You see, Frank, I got this here long-barreled forty-one-caliber pistol pointed at the back’a yo’ head. But I cain’t shoot it ’cause I’m afraid that if you fall you gonna cut my partner’s throat. Thas some problem, huh?”
Frank just stared at me.
“So what you think I should do, Frank? I know you just itchin’ t’cut on poor Easy but I don’t think you gonna live t’smile ’bout it, brother.”
“Ain’t none’a yo’ business, Mouse.”
“I tell you what, Frank. You put down that knife right there on the couch an’ I let you live. You don’t an’ you dead. I ain’t gonna count or no bullshit like that now. Just one minute and I’m’a shoot.”
Frank slowly took the knife from my throat and placed it on the couch, where it could be seen from behind.
“Okay now, stand away and sit over in this here chair.”
Frank did as he was told and there was Mouse, beautiful as he could be. His smile glittered. Some of the teeth were rimmed with gold and some were capped. One tooth had a gold rim with a blue jewel in it. He wore a plaid zoot suit with Broadway suspenders down the front of his shirt. He had spats on over his patent leather shoes and the biggest pistol I had ever seen held loosely in his left hand.
Frank was staring at that pistol, too.
Knifehand was a bad man but there wasn’t a man in his right mind who knew Mouse who didn’t give him respect.
“ ’S’appenin’, Easy?”
“Mouse,” I said. Blood covered the front of my shirt; my hands were shaking.
“Want me t’ kill ’im, Ease?”
“Hey!” Frank yelled. “We hadda deal!”
“Easy my oldest partner, man. I shoot yo’ ugly face off and ain’t nuthin’ you gonna say t’stop me.”
“We don’t need t’kill’im. All I need is a couple of answers.” I realized that I didn’t need Frank if I had Mouse on my side.
“Then get t’askin’, man,” Mouse grinned.
“Where’s Daphne Monet?” I asked Green. He just stared at me, his eyes sharp as his knife.
“You heard’im, Frank,” Mouse said. “Where is she?”
Frank’s eyes weren’t so sharp when he looked at Mouse but he stayed quiet anyway.
“This ain’t no game, Frank.” Mouse let the pistol hang down until the muzzle was pointing at the floor. He walked up to Frank; so close that Knifehand could have grabbed him. But Frank stayed still. He knew that Mouse was just playing with him.
“Tell us what we wanna know, Frankie, or I’m’a shoot ya.”
Frank’s jaw set and his left eye half closed. I could see that Daphne meant enough to him that he was ready to die to keep her safe.
Mouse raised the pistol so that it was pointing to the soft place under Frank’s jaw.
“Let ’im go,” I said.
“But you said you had a five-hundred-dollar deal.” Mouse was hungry to hurt Frank, I could hear it in his tone.
“Let ’im go, man. I don’t want him killed in my house.” I thought maybe Mouse would sympathize with keeping blood off the furniture.
“Gimme your keys then. I take him for a drive.” Mouse smiled an evil grin. “He’ll tell me what I wanna know.”
Without warning Mouse pistol-whipped Frank three times; every blow made a sickening thud. Frank fell to his knees with the dark blood coming down over his dark clothes.
When Frank fell to the floor I jumped between him and Mouse.
“Let ’im go!” I cried.
“Get outta my way, Easy!” There was bloodlust in Mouse’s voice.
I grabbed for his arm. “Let him be, Raymond!”