A Red Death Read Free

no sentence till he come up with a nice round number—like five or ten.”
    “But you know, man, my name ain’t even on them deeds. I set up what they call a dummy corporation, John McKenzie helped me to do it. Them papers say that them buildin’s ’long to a Jason Weil.”
    Mofass curled his lip and said, “IRS smell a dummy corporation in a minute.”
    “Well then I just tell ’em I didn’t know. I didn’t.”
    “Com’on, man.” Mofass leaned back and waved his cigar at me. “They just tell ya that ignorance of the law ain’t no excuse, thas all. They don’t care. Say you go shoot some dude been with your girl, kill ’im. You gonna tell ’em you didn’t know ’bout that killin’ was wrong? Anyway, if you went to all that trouble t’hide yo’ money they could tell that you was tryin’ t’cheat ’em.”
    “It ain’t like I killed somebody. It ain’t right if they don’t even give me a chance t’pay.”
    “On’y right is what you get away wit’, Mr. Rawlins. And if they find out about some money, and they think you didn’t declare it …” Mofass shook his head slowly.
    The girl returned with two giant white plates. Each one had a fat, open-ended burrito and a pile of chili and yellow rice on it. The puffy burritos had stringy dark red meat coming out of the ends so that they looked like oozing dead grubs. The chili had yellowish-green avocado pieces floating in the grease, along with chunks of pork flesh.
    One hundred guitars played from the jukebox. I put my hand over my mouth to keep from gagging.
    “What can I do?” I asked. “You think I need a lawyer?”
    “Less people know ’bout it the better.” Mofass leaned forward, then whispered, “I don’t know how you got the money to pay for those buildin’s, Mr. Rawlins, and I don’t think nobody should know. What you gotta do is find some family, somebody close.”
    “What for?” I was also leaning across the table. The smell of the food made me sick.
    “This here letter,” Mofass said, tapping the envelope.
    “Don’t say, fo’a fact, that he got no proof. He just investigatin’, lookin’. You sign it over t’ some family, and backdate the papers, and then go to him, prove that it ain’t yours. Say that they was tryin’ t’hide what they had from the rest of the family.”
    “How I back—whatever?”
    “I know a notary public do it—for some bills.”
    “So what if I had a sister or somethin’? Ain’t the government gonna check her out? ’Cause you know ev’rybody I know is poor.”
    Mofass took a suck off his cigar with one hand and then shoveled in a mouthful of chili with the other.
    “Yeah,” he warbled. “You need somebody got sumpin’ already. Somebody the tax man gonna believe could buy it.”
    I was quiet for a while then. Every good thing I’d gotten was gone with just a letter. I had hoped that Mofass would tell me that it was alright, that I’d get a small fine and they’d let me slide. But I knew better.
    Five years before, a rich white man had somebody hire me to find a woman he knew. I found her, but she wasn’t exactly what she seemed to be, and a lot of people died. I had a friend, Mouse, help me out though, and we came away from it with ten thousand dollars apiece. The money was stolen, but nobody was looking for it and I had convinced myself that I was safe.
    I had forgotten that a poor man is never safe.
    When I first got the money I’d watched my friend Mouse murder a man. He shot him twice. It was a poor man who could almost taste that stolen loot. It got him killed and now it was going to put me in jail.
    “What you gonna do, Mr. Rawlins?” Mofass asked at last.
    “Die.”
    “What’s that you say?”
    “On’y thing I know, I’ma die.”
    “What about this here letter?”
    “What you think, Mofass? What should I do?”
    He sucked down some more smoke and mopped the rest of his chili with a tortilla.
    “I don’t know, Mr. Rawlins. These people here don’t have