The Further Tales of Tempest Landry Read Free Page A

convict who held the balance of this world and the next in the weak flesh of his hands.
    He wore an orange jumpsuit with little red crosses printed all over it. His hair was cut close to the scalp and there was a barely discernible bruise on the dark skin beneath his right eye.
    He picked up the receiver we needed to hear each other. I did the same.
    “Hey, Angel,” he said, a slight smile on his lips.
    At one time that smile was a grin and the man behind it fought bravely against a sentence that he felt was unjust. But prison had dampened Tempest’s spirit, paying for crimes he had not committed, wearing the body but not bearing the blame of the murdered Ezzard Walcott.
    “Tempest.”
    He stared into my eyes.
    “I thought you was done with me, man,” he said.
    “After our last visit I went home to kiss Branwyn and Tethamalanianti good-bye. I was sure that you would renounce the rule of heaven and banish or destroy me and my kind.”
    Tempest laughed.
    “Why you talk like that, man?” he asked.
    “Like what?”
    “Like you was writin’ the Bible with every word you say.”
    “I went to see Fredda Lane.”
    “You did? When?”
    “Yesterday. She’s living on the eighth floor of a building that has a broken elevator, with her sister and her sister’s three children. She was fired from her job as teacher’s assistant and—”
    “Angel,” Tempest said, interrupting me, “I don’t need to know every damn thing. I ain’t here to judge nobody. What did she say?”
    “She repented.”
    “Say what?”
    “When I told her that I was your friend she started crying…right there in the doorway. I could see that she was bereft so I helped her inside and got her seated on the sofa. There, with a baby lying next to us and two other children watching television in the corner, she confessed to the sin of trying to murder Ezzard Walcott.”
    “She told you about it herself?” Tempest asked.
    “Some mortals, I believe, recognize my nature and act accordingly.”
    “Like people on the top floor of a burnin’ buildin’ jumpin’ out the window when there’s nowhere else to go,” my charge said cynically. “What did she say she did to Ezzard?”
    “You don’t know?”
    “We ain’t never talked about it. I got other things on my mind when we get in the conjugal visit trailer and anyway she thinks I know because I was there—sorta.”
    “I suppose that makes sense,” I said. “It was a mistake.”
    “That’s what them cops shot me down in the first place said. I guess there’s just a whole lotta accidental homicide goin’ on.”
    His wry grin rankled me. “I think I like you more when you’re serious.”
    “Yeah, Angel, only I ain’t writin’ the Bible when I shower and shave in the mornin’. I’m just livin’ my life, locked up behind bars.”
    “Why didn’t you?” I asked then.
    “Didn’t I what?”
    “Renounce the rule of heaven.”
    “Is that what you want?”
    “No.”
    Tempest sat back in his chair and stared. He was at best an impatient man and we had only fifteen minutes for the visit, but he stared at me the way I used to gaze out from heaven’s gate—having all the time in the world.
    “Don’t you know that I would if I could, Angel?” he said at last. “Don’t you know that I want to turn my back on angels and devils, good and bad…black and white?”
    It was my turn to stare.
    “You don’t get it, do ya?” he asked. “You think that sin an’ evil an’ covetin’ comes easy to a poor black man. You think that given a chance, removed from church, that any man would do wrong.” He shook his head, disgusted with me. “What did Fredda tell you about killin’ Ezzard?”
    For a moment I was confused by the question.
    “What?”
    “Fredda. What did she say about killin’ Ezzard?”
    “That, that, that she had put a tranquilizer in his beer,” I said, slowly remembering the confession. “That she was going to wait till he fell asleep on the ferry and then call the