Before anything else could happen I felt Frank pushing me from behind. I was propelled onto Mouse and we fell to the floor. I hugged Mouse to break my fall but also to keep him from shooting Frank. By the time the wiry little man got out from under me Frank had bolted out the door.
“Dammit, Easy!” He turned with the pistol loosely aimed at me. “Don’t you never grab me when I got a gun in my hand! You crazy?”
Mouse ran to the window but Frank was gone.
I hung back for a moment while Mouse calmed down.
After a minute or two he turned away from the window and looked down at his jacket, “Look at the blood you got on my coat, Easy! Why you wanna go and do that?
“I need Frank Green alive. You kill him and one of my sources dries up.”
“What? What that got to do with this mess?” Mouse took off his jacket and draped it over his arm. “That the bathroom?” he asked, pointing to the door.
“Yeah,” I said.
He hung the pistol in his belt and carried the stained jacket to the toilet. I heard the water running.
When Mouse returned I was staring out the front window, through the slatted blinds.
“He ain’t gonna be back t’night, Easy. Tough man like Frank seen too much death to want it on him.”
“What you doin’ here, Mouse?”
“Din’t you call Etta?”
“Yeah?”
Mouse was looking at me, shaking his head and smiling.
“Easy, you changed.”
“How’s that?”
“You use’ t’be kinda scared of everything. Take them little nigger jobs like gardenin’ and cleanin’ up. Now you got this nice house and you fuckin’ some white man’s girl.”
“I ain’t touched her, man.”
“Not yet.”
“Not ever!”
“Com’on Easy, this is the Mouse you talkin’ to. A woman look twice at you an’ you cain’t say no. I should know.”
I had messed around with Etta behind Mouse’s back when they were just engaged. He found out about it but he didn’t care. Mouse never worried about what his women did. But if I’d touched his money he’d have killed me straightaway.
“So what you doin’ here?” I asked to change the subject.
“First thing I want to figure is how I can get that money you told Frank about.”
“No, Mouse. That has nuthin’ t’do with you.”
“You gotta man comin’ here wanna kill you, Easy. Yo’ eye look like hamburger. Man, I could see why you called me, you could use some help.”
“No, Raymond, I did call ya, but that was when I was low. I mean I’m glad you saved me, man, but your kinda help ain’t nuthin’ I could use.”
“Com’on Easy, you let me in on it an’ we both come outta this wit’ sumpin’.”
He had said almost exactly the same words to me eight years before. When everything was over I had two dead men on my soul.
“No, Raymond.”
Mouse stared at me for a minute. He had light gray eyes; eyes that seemed to see through everything.
“I said no, Mouse.”
“Tell me ’bout it, Easy.” He leaned back into his chair. “Ain’t no other way, brother.”
“What you mean?”
“Nigger cain’t pull his way out the swamp wit’out no help, Easy. You wanna hole on t’this house and git some money and have you some white girls callin’ on the phone? Alright. That’s alright. But, Easy, you gotta have somebody at yo’ back, man. That’s just a lie them white men give ’bout makin’ it on they own. They always got they backs covered.”
“All I want is my chance,” I said.
“Yeah, Easy. Yeah, that’s all.”
“But let me tell ya,” I said. “I’m scared t’get mixed up wit’ you, man.”
Mouse flashed his golden smile at me. “What?”
“You remember when we went to Pariah? To get yo wed-din’ money?”
“Yeah?”
“Daddy Reese an’ Clifton died, Ray. They died ’cause’a you.”
When Mouse stopped smiling the light in the room seemed to go dim. All of a sudden he was pure business; he’d just been playing with Frank Green.
“What you mean?”
“You kilt’em, man! You, an’ me too! Clifton came to me two nights fo’ he died. He wanted me t’tell’im what t’do. He tole me how you planned t’use him.” I felt the tears pressing my eyes but held them back. “But I didn’t say nuthin’. I just let that boy go. Now ev’rybody think he killed Reese but I know it was you. And that hurts me, man.”
Mouse rubbed his mouth, never even blinking.
“That been botherin’ you all this time?” He sounded surprised.
“Yeah.”
“That was a lotta years ago, Easy, an’ you wasn’t even there, really.”
“Guilt don’t tell time,” I said.
“Guilt?” He said the words as if it had no meaning. “You mean like what I did makes you feel bad?”
“That’s right.”
“I tell you what then,” he said, putting his hands up at his shoulders. “You let me work on this with you and I let you run the show.”
“Whas that mean?”
“I ain’t gonna do nuthin’ you don’t tell me t’do.”
“Everything I say?”
“Whatever you say, Easy. Maybe you gonna show me how a poor man can live wit’out blood.”
We didn’t touch the whiskey.
I told Mouse what I knew; it wasn’t much. I told him that DeWitt Albright was up to no good. I told him that I could get a thousand dollars for information about Daphne Monet because there was a price on her head.
When he asked me what she had done I looked him in the eye and said, “I don’t know.”
Mouse puffed on a cigarette while he listened to me.
“Frank come back here an’ you might not get out again,” he said when I stopped talking.
“We ain’t gonna be here neither, man. We both leave in the morning an’ follow this thing down.” I told him where he could find DeWitt Albright. I also told him how he could get in touch with Odell Jones and Joppy if he needed help. The plan was to put Mouse on Frank’s trail and I’d look into the places I had seen Daphne. We’d come up with the girl and improvise from there.
It felt good to be fighting back. Mouse was a good soldier, though I worried about him following orders. And if I had the whole thing scammed out right we’d both come out on top; I’d still be alive and have my house too.
Mouse fell asleep on my living room sofa. He was always a good sleeper. He once told me that they’d have to wake him for his execution because “the Mouse ain’t gonna miss his rest.”
Chapter 22
I didn’t tell Mouse everything.
I didn’t tell him about the money Daphne stole or the rich white man’s name: or that I knew his name. Mouse probably meant to keep his word to me; he could keep from killing if he tried. But if he got a whiff of that thirty thousand dollars I knew that nothing would hold him back. He would have killed me for that much money.
“All you have to do is worry about Frank,” I told him. “Just find out where he goes. If he leads you to the girl then we got it made. Understand me, Raymond, I just wanna find the girl, there ain’t no reason to hurt Frank.”
Mouse smiled at me. “Don’t worry, Ease. I was just mad when I seen’im over you like that. You know, it made me kinda wanna teach him a lesson.”
“You gotta watch him,” I said. “He know how to use that knife.”
“Shit!” Mouse spat. “I’as born wit’ a knife in my teefs.”
The police met us as we were leaving the house at eight in the morning.
“Shit.”
“Mr. Rawlins,” Miller said. “We came to ask you a few more questions.”
Mason was grinning.
“Guess I better be goin’, Easy,” Mouse said.