his bright-blue bottoms. Thick black hairs sprouted from 5
his jaw, and there were gray bags under his eyes.
6
“Morning, Mr. Bennet,” I said. “You ready to get outta 7
here?”
8
His eyes, I noticed, were black, not blue. The absence 9
of his contact lenses seemed to be saying something that I 10
wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
11
“I screamed for a whole day after you dropped that 12
door,” he said. “I kept it up like a chant. Must be pretty 13
soundproof. After that didn’t work I sharpened that can 14
opener you left on the floor outside the cage. Then I 15
made a slingshot out of the elastic in my other pair of 16
pants. I was going to wait until you walked in and then I 17
was going to shoot you dead.”
18
I felt a drop of sweat as it went down past my left ear.
19
“But then I had to wait too long for you to come back, 20
and the blood lust drained away.” He sat in his red chair.
21
“It’s dark in here, you know. Black, actually, and the air 22
gets thick when you don’t open the door.”
23
He passed the fingertips of both hands lightly over his 24
eyebrows, then looked up at me. “You made me think 25
about the things I came here to pay for. You made me 26
wonder about the life that I thought I could repent. Lit-S 27
R 28
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Walter Mosley
1
tle Malo from northern Uganda. A small chest of dia-2
monds in Rwanda. There were tens of thousands there.
3
But Malika, I think her name was Malika, was just one.
4
“You know, I’ve walked past death so many times that 5
you’d think I’d somehow end up dead like that, but I 6
haven’t. Maybe I went a little crazy. I know a man in Con-7
necticut who is willing to kill anyone anywhere in Africa 8
or South America. He says he won’t kill in this country or 9
Europe, but life down south is open season for him. I 10
know a man in the kidney business and another one who 11
deals only in hearts.”
12
“Is he black?” I asked.
13
“Who?”
14
“The assassin.”
15
“Yes. Yes, he is. But that doesn’t matter. He could be a 16
white man. The fact is that he has become an individual, 17
a man who takes actions solely from his own decision.
18
Just like me, he is what he makes of himself. Maybe one 19
day he’ll fall apart too, but that won’t matter either. You 20
can never take back your life.”
21
I didn’t believe Bennet. His sorrow and self-pity, I 22
thought, were a trick somehow. The only thing I couldn’t 23
figure was what he had to gain by fooling me now.
24
“Are you ready to go?” I asked.
25
“No.”
26
“What you mean, no? You want another four days in 27 S
the hole?”
28 R
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He clasped his hands in front of his face as if in prayer 1
and said, “I haven’t done anything else wrong.”
2
“What do you want from me, Mr. Bennet?”
3
“One time I walked into a room in Amsterdam wearing 4
a polo shirt and khaki pants and changed the future of a 5
nation” was his reply. “I once gave a nine-month-old in-6
fant as a present to a man’s dog. The man wanted to see if 7
the myth of wolves raising men could be true. I walked 8
through a city of the dead, in Rwanda, guarded by soldiers 9
who were paid in dollars. Everywhere men and women 10
had lain for so long that their bones had softened and they 11
had become deflated bags of maggots. I retrieved enough 12
money in diamonds to rebuild a nation, but instead I took 13
those jewels and put them in a titanium box in the Alps.
14
“I’m still a bookkeeper behind enemy lines. Do you 15
understand that, Mr. Dodd-Blakey?”
16
“No, I don’t.”
17
“What did you do while I was down here?”
18
“I learned to ride horses and I got drunk and I got laid.”
19
“Did you hear me screaming?”
20
“Sometimes. Not much though. You sounded like a 21
moose who got stuck in some briar about a mile or so 22
from here.”
23
“Did you worry that I might die?”
24
“Some.”
25
“Did you worry that I might kill you for treating me 26
like that?”
S 27
R 28
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1
“No,” I lied.
2
“Have you ever watched a child being murdered, Mr.
3
Blakey?”
4
I shook my head and squinted.
5
“I once made ten million dollars because I was willing 6
to deliver one million to a man hiding from the commu-7
nists in Nicaragua. That’s the American way.” He laughed.
8
“Why are you here, Mr. Knosos?”
9
“Last summer I had a deal fall through.”
10
I had gotten up to the gate and now I was shaking, too 11
afraid to go further.
12
“You know,” I said, “I don’t think I need to know this.”
13
“Let me stay a little bit longer, Charles,” Anniston Ben-14
net said. “You can take away the books and just feed me 15
bread and water if you want. You can keep the lights off 16
all the time, but please don’t ask me to leave here.”
17
“Are you crazy?”
18
“No. No, I’m not crazy at all. As a matter of fact I’m 19
very sane. That’s because I stopped for a minute and 20
looked around and saw what it was that I was doing. All 21
of a sudden I realized what was happening, what I had 22
done was so, so . . .”
23
“. . . evil,” I said, thinking that I was finishing his 24
thought. “You realized that you were evil?”
25
Bennet was rubbing his fingers along the rough surface 26
of his chin, considering my words.
27 S
“No, and yes. What had happened was evil. The child 28 R
torn apart and half devoured by a dog in the night.
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The Man in My Basement
Procuring a heart or a kidney for a man who I might need 1
as a business contact one day. The act is evil.” Bennet’s 2
face contorted to grapple with the concept he was ex-3
plaining. “Yes. And my actions were also evil, criminal.
4
But it was not me; it was the world around me. Not me 5
but the commerce and the language of our world.” He 6
scooted up to the edge of his plastic chair and held his 7
hands out separately, pinching the fingers together. “Death 8
and starvation are integral parts of our language system, 9
our form of communication. Do what I say or else. Do 10
your job or you’re fired. These words carry consequence. To 11
avoid pain we comply. Or we don’t and then we die. Our 12
logic is evil, so the smartest and the most successful are 13
devils. Like me. I am a good citizen and the worst demon.
14
I realized it when a deal fell through. I failed and I had a 15
dream and in the dream, I had done the right thing —