A Red Death: Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story "Si (Easy Rawlins Mysteries) Read Free Page A

axed Clovis to leave. Clovis just smiled and put up her hands. But before she left she said, ‘I bet you Misty would be happy if you signed me back into the business. I bet you that she’d come hug and kiss you if you did the right thing.’”
    I could imagine the chill in that evil woman’s smile. Mouse had once asked me if I wanted Clovis dead. He didn’t like hurting women but he made allowances now and then. I told him no, but deep in my heart I knew that it would have been the safe move to make.
    “What you think about that, Easy?”
    “What do you mean what do I think? I don’t think any-thing.”
    “Come on, man. Clovis knew that Misty came down here. Somehow she fount out and grabbed her.”
    “You don’t know that, Jackson. It could have been just some innocent comment. That’s all.”
    Jackson Blue stood up from his seat with such force that the chair he was in flew five feet backward and crashed to the floor.
    “Fuck you, man!” he shouted. “You know better’n that shit!”
    I was amazed. I had never seen, nor ever expected to see, Jackson show anger or rage. He was a coward down into his bones and always fled from confrontation.
    “What’s wrong with you, Jackson?”
    “She’s up in that house with Mofass now. She cain’t eat or sleep or do her job. I axed her to come to you but she wouldn’t. She’s afraid that you might go against Clovis and gether friend killed. But you know tomorrow afternoon she’s gonna go down to Equity and sign half of the business over to Clovis. That’s what’s wrong.”
    It was wrong, there was no question about that. And there was no question about what I should do. JJ was a friend of mine. Equity Realty managed my three small apartment buildings in and around Watts. And Clovis was the closest thing I ever had to a true enemy.
    “How can she do that, Jackson? Mofass owns the business.”
    “She got the power of attorney ever since Mofass been sick. She the one wit’ the final say.”
    I looked over at my pegboard of keys. They reminded me of the homemade Christmas ornaments we had when I was a child.
    “You know I have to talk to her, Jackson.”
    “Yeah.”
    “She’s gonna be mad that you came to me.”
    “I know she will, brother. But what can I do? Clovis be like a cancer once she get in there.”
    I took a deep breath and wondered if a vengeful supreme deity actually existed. Or maybe it was Hindu karma that had caught me by the tail. Something was pulling me back into the street.
    I DROVE UP TO M OFASS’S HOME. It was at the end of an unpaved path two turns off of Laurel Canyon Road. From the driveway of their hidden home you could see the Los Angeles basin. Ragged brown smoke clung to the atmosphere like some kind of evil spirit dancing the dance of the damned.
    Jewelle opened the door. She wore a cranberry-colored dress with wide skirts and a tapered waist. The neckline was straight across and low cut. If it wasn’t for that frown she would have been captivating.
    When I met JJ she was still a child. She was hopeful, filled with life and energy that made you want to laugh and do things for her happiness. Now, though sad, she had the figure and presence to make a man want to change his life for her. That’s what Jackson Blue had done. He had gone against everything that came naturally to him in order to bring me to that door.
    “What you doin’ here, Easy Rawlins?”
    “You know why I’m here, girl. ’Cause you need help.”
    “I don’t need your kind of help,” she said.
    She swung the door in my face. It would have slammed if I hadn’t put my foot across the threshold.
    Jewelle possessed a powerful spirit. She had stood up to Clovis while still in her teens, saving Mofass from that evil woman’s clutches. She had borne the weight of her half-sister’s disappearance up until the moment that door would not close; then she fell up against me and cried. I walked her outside toward the sheer cliff that was the marker of their backyard.