Easy Rawlins 12: Little Green by Walter Mosley

Author:Walter Mosley [Mosley, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, General, Hard-Boiled, African American
ISBN: 0297870068
Google: xDm5pI-bBgwC
Amazon: B00AD6P43Y
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2013-05-14T04:00:00+00:00

29

There was sunlight blooming at the periphery of my closed eyes. It wasn’t shining directly into the shuttered living room but glowing out from the kitchen, from the unshaded window there.

I took in a deep breath that seemed to fill my entire body. Exhaling, I sat up. I was weak but no longer dizzy. Instead of dithering I got right up and opened the drapes.

The sun almost bowled me over. It was so bright that I had to get back to the couch. Sitting there, garnering my strength, breath was like a playful carp swimming in and out of my body, strengthening me with each visit, bringing the light in small parcels that my living carcass could absorb.

After a while, I have no idea how long, I got up and went down the short bedroom hallway.

First I looked in on Evander. He was half under the blankets, having thrown two of the three pillows on the floor. He had taken off the borrowed shirt in the night. Sleep had him in its dark fist like some kind of precious possession clutched to a dead pharaoh’s chest.

Taking a fresh pair of boxers from an underwear drawer that hadn’t been raided, I headed for the bathroom.

I took off my clothes while urinating, dropping everything on the floor. It didn’t matter; the suit was ruined.

There was a soap dish screwed into the sea green tile wall next to the bathtub shower. In it was a bright red bar of soap—one of the many little mementos left by Jeffrey the squatter. It smelled like cinnamon and had an oily feel, but I turned on the shower and used the soap: Waste not, want not.

When the water hit me I remembered Antigone standing outside the stall while I showered, a lifetime ago. Antigone, and the erection she summoned, reminded me of Bonnie. She had actually been in my house, kissed me to sleep as my mother used to do when I was too young to worry about losing love.

After the shower I went to the bedroom again. When I raised the window shade Evander groaned and winced behind closed eyes.

“Time to get up,” I said, taking a square-cut blue shirt and black slacks from my closet.

It came to me that Jeffrey must have been expecting my return. All of his clothes, and most of the rest of his belongings, were in a battered leather suitcase on the floor. He knew that somebody would come one day to kick him out, and he wanted to be ready to jump. He would have cleared that hurdle if it wasn’t for Mouse.

I dressed in the kitchen, something I’d never done before. While pulling up my pants I heard Evander’s heavy footfalls take him to the toilet. The door slammed but that didn’t bother me. Blood and money, torture and imprisonment stalked that boy—and he wasn’t half the way home yet.

When I heard the water of the bathtub shower being turned on I was reminded of something. I went to the small room that the side door opened on and looked in the hamper.

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